Work in progress, new earrings and postcards for Satori

Hi ladies,
Hope everyone is doing well and has a great day!
I don't have much to show you today, just a new painting I started yesterday and it's far away from being finished, but I like her very much already, so I thought I will share it with you. It's on a wood panel measuring 12"x 13" and the work I've done until now is only in pencil and PanPastels.

Details:

I also made some new earrings. The first pair is oxidized sterling silver wire, with Swarovski crystal, turquoise and lapis lazuli. For the other pair I've used sterling silver wire, malachite jade, golden honey jade, tiny sterling silver beads and aventurine briolettes. Sorry for the pictures, the light is awful, but here is very cloudy today.

This morning I went to visit Wyanne at http://wyartjewels.blogspot.com/ ( if don't know it already, she has a FABULOUS weekly giveaway, so go check her blog) and in this way I found out about Satori. She is a gorgeous, brave  little girl ho has Spinal Muscular Atrophy and very soon she will have a full spinal fusion, but better to let you read the letter I read on Wyanne's blog.

Hello!


For those of you who don't know me, my name is Melissa Lewis, Haut Totes on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/HautTotes, as well as Hauttotes on twitter http://twitter.com/HautTotes.


My 10 year old daughter Satori has Spinal Muscular Atrophy (type II) She uses a power wheelchair, can't walk, crawl, etc. Despite that she's a rock star!! She has a super sense of humor, gets straight A's even though she misses an average of 40 days of school a year! She's a great sister & daughter & a fantastic person all around.


Because she is so physically weak her body doesn't hold its self up well and she has developed severe scoliosis. The curve of her spine it is now starting to crush her lung, so on March 31 she will have full spinal fusion. They will open her back from the neck all the way down, insert 2 titanium rods, one on either side of her spine, wire the whole thing up and place donor bone in between all the vertebrae. Eventually it will all grow together "fusing" her spine into one long bone.


We are traveling to California to have this done, with an estimated stay in the hospital of 7-10 days. I am hoping to get people to send her postcards from all over. I think that the messages (and pictures) will be fun for her. I also plan to take an atlas and have her mark off states and countries (sneaking in a little geography).


We have great insurance, a FANTASTIC surgeon and a world renowned hospital!!


**Satori is not in need of anything more than some fun messages and exiting postmarks!**


I thought who better than my Etsy and Twitter friends to make that happen!


I am posting this now for those of you who live outside of the US. If you live within the states you should probably hold off sending your post cards for 2 weeks.

This is how the post card should be addressed

Satori Lewis
Surgery date 3-31-10
Davis 7 Pediatrics
UC Davis Children's Hospital
2315 Stockton Blvd.
Sacramento, CA 95817 USA

**Be sure to include the surgery date**


Thanks so much everyone!!!
Melissa

I sent today a card and a little something for Satori to cheer her up! I thought you might like to join us in sending lots of good, warm and cheerful thoughts to this sweet little girl and her family! Surgery updates you can find here http://postcardsforsatori.blogspot.com/.

Thank you for your visit, have a great weekend,
Lots of love, Sanda xx

Hi ladies,
Hope everyone is doing well and has a great day!
I don't have much to show you today, just a new painting I started yesterday and it's far away from being finished, but I like her very much already, so I thought I will share it with you. It's on a wood panel measuring 12"x 13" and the work I've done until now is only in pencil and PanPastels.

Details:

I also made some new earrings. The first pair is oxidized sterling silver wire, with Swarovski crystal, turquoise and lapis lazuli. For the other pair I've used sterling silver wire, malachite jade, golden honey jade, tiny sterling silver beads and aventurine briolettes. Sorry for the pictures, the light is awful, but here is very cloudy today.

This morning I went to visit Wyanne at http://wyartjewels.blogspot.com/ ( if don't know it already, she has a FABULOUS weekly giveaway, so go check her blog) and in this way I found out about Satori. She is a gorgeous, brave  little girl ho has Spinal Muscular Atrophy and very soon she will have a full spinal fusion, but better to let you read the letter I read on Wyanne's blog.

Hello!


For those of you who don't know me, my name is Melissa Lewis, Haut Totes on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/HautTotes, as well as Hauttotes on twitter http://twitter.com/HautTotes.


My 10 year old daughter Satori has Spinal Muscular Atrophy (type II) She uses a power wheelchair, can't walk, crawl, etc. Despite that she's a rock star!! She has a super sense of humor, gets straight A's even though she misses an average of 40 days of school a year! She's a great sister & daughter & a fantastic person all around.


Because she is so physically weak her body doesn't hold its self up well and she has developed severe scoliosis. The curve of her spine it is now starting to crush her lung, so on March 31 she will have full spinal fusion. They will open her back from the neck all the way down, insert 2 titanium rods, one on either side of her spine, wire the whole thing up and place donor bone in between all the vertebrae. Eventually it will all grow together "fusing" her spine into one long bone.


We are traveling to California to have this done, with an estimated stay in the hospital of 7-10 days. I am hoping to get people to send her postcards from all over. I think that the messages (and pictures) will be fun for her. I also plan to take an atlas and have her mark off states and countries (sneaking in a little geography).


We have great insurance, a FANTASTIC surgeon and a world renowned hospital!!


**Satori is not in need of anything more than some fun messages and exiting postmarks!**


I thought who better than my Etsy and Twitter friends to make that happen!


I am posting this now for those of you who live outside of the US. If you live within the states you should probably hold off sending your post cards for 2 weeks.

This is how the post card should be addressed

Satori Lewis
Surgery date 3-31-10
Davis 7 Pediatrics
UC Davis Children's Hospital
2315 Stockton Blvd.
Sacramento, CA 95817 USA

**Be sure to include the surgery date**


Thanks so much everyone!!!
Melissa

I sent today a card and a little something for Satori to cheer her up! I thought you might like to join us in sending lots of good, warm and cheerful thoughts to this sweet little girl and her family! Surgery updates you can find here http://postcardsforsatori.blogspot.com/.

Thank you for your visit, have a great weekend,
Lots of love, Sanda xx

New PanPastels mixed media and some good news

Hi everyone,
I know I didn't post for a while, but I was very, very busy lately.
First, I would like to share with you my new painting called "Always find hope". It's an 8"x 8"x 1,5" canvas and I used PanPastels ( definitely my favorite media lately), Folk Art and Golden acrylics, inks, watersoluble 8B sketching pencil, white gel pen, stencils and dark charcoal pencil.

You can see details here:

I am afraid I caught the 'silver making and beading' bug!!! LOLOL
I started working with Art Silver Clay and I am totally HOOKED!
I made this necklace and earrings as a gift for one of my niece's Confirmation. I have used Art Silver clay, an image of one of my paintings, resin, rose quartz, peridot chips, Swarovski crystals, lampwork beads, silver wires and silver chain. Hope you'll like them.

And now, I would like to share with you some good news! A while ago I received an email from Bernadette Ward ( she and her husband are the manufacturers of PanPastels Colors) asking me if I would like to share some of my PanPastels mixed media paintings on their Facebook page and on their website gallery. You can't imagine my surprise and delight! :)  So, you can follow me on Facebook too from now on!

Thanks for your visit and all your wonderful, supportive comments!

Have a lovely weekend,
Lots of love,
Sanda xx

Hi everyone,
I know I didn't post for a while, but I was very, very busy lately.
First, I would like to share with you my new painting called "Always find hope". It's an 8"x 8"x 1,5" canvas and I used PanPastels ( definitely my favorite media lately), Folk Art and Golden acrylics, inks, watersoluble 8B sketching pencil, white gel pen, stencils and dark charcoal pencil.

You can see details here:

I am afraid I caught the 'silver making and beading' bug!!! LOLOL
I started working with Art Silver Clay and I am totally HOOKED!
I made this necklace and earrings as a gift for one of my niece's Confirmation. I have used Art Silver clay, an image of one of my paintings, resin, rose quartz, peridot chips, Swarovski crystals, lampwork beads, silver wires and silver chain. Hope you'll like them.

And now, I would like to share with you some good news! A while ago I received an email from Bernadette Ward ( she and her husband are the manufacturers of PanPastels Colors) asking me if I would like to share some of my PanPastels mixed media paintings on their Facebook page and on their website gallery. You can't imagine my surprise and delight! :)  So, you can follow me on Facebook too from now on!

Thanks for your visit and all your wonderful, supportive comments!

Have a lovely weekend,
Lots of love,
Sanda xx

Another one

Hi everyone,
Just a quick post to share with you my new canvas I've just finished.
" The dreams weaver" is a little painting on a canvas board measuring 9"x6". The girl is worked again with PanPastels and acrylic paints for details. For the background I used old book pages, acrylics, napkins, collage papers, Luminarte watercolors, charcoal pencil and PanPastels.
You can click the image to enlarge it.

More details here:

Hope everyone is doing fine and has a great week!
Thanks for your visit and for all your wonderful and supportive comments!
Lots of love,
Sanda xx

Hi everyone,
Just a quick post to share with you my new canvas I've just finished.
" The dreams weaver" is a little painting on a canvas board measuring 9"x6". The girl is worked again with PanPastels and acrylic paints for details. For the background I used old book pages, acrylics, napkins, collage papers, Luminarte watercolors, charcoal pencil and PanPastels.
You can click the image to enlarge it.

More details here:

Hope everyone is doing fine and has a great week!
Thanks for your visit and for all your wonderful and supportive comments!
Lots of love,
Sanda xx