Studio Day Push

Today is my day off and I'll be pushing paper through my printer and my cutter running two different computers to get the rest of the envelopes and the interiors of the cards printed. Once everything is printed, then I'm into the decorative part - stamping, embossing, ribbons and, of course, Swarovski crystals - just because. All goes well, my out-country cards should be in the mail no later than Monday, my in-country no later than next Wednesday. Yesterday was a dismal sales day (the roads are just trash - icy, bumpy, real crap) and my Assistant Manager was a sweetheart. I spent most of the day in the back room printing from my cutter. It was so necessary and so appreciated. Now if we had just brought in more money....

DH is already fighting ice dams on the roof. He pulls the snow off with the snow rake, but the architecture of the house just lends itself to hot spots and ice dams equals roof problems and serious leaks. It can destroy the house, so we keep a very close eye on it. Nothing easy about home ownership at all, except having a nice, large space to keep all of my books and my art supplies - LOL.

Sarah Miller did an outstanding job on her portrait

tattoo. The child's flannel shirt was so beautifully

detailed, the mother was in tears because it was so

well done.

Next Tuesday will be the final 2-hour live broadcast of Ink Masters. I'm not going to tell you who the final four artists are, you can do your own spoiler for that. What I am very pleased about, though, is that two women are in the final. Sarah and Tatu Baby are both incredible artists and have been producing quality work week after week. In all of the previous seasons of the show they've had female artists, but they have never gotten anywhere close to the finals. Now 50% of the artists going into the final show are female. I'm absolutely delighted!