I have been tagged!

I was surprise to see that two wonderful ladies tagged me, Lora Hart and Sandra (Marbella Designs.) I will do my best to answer the questions .
What is your current obsession ?
Making jewelry and finding the right firing for my pieces in copprclay!!!!
What is your weirdest obsession ?
Washing my hands A LOT! I can not have my hands dirty, can you imagine when I work with metal clay?? At the beginning I was not enjoying to work with the clay, I had to wash my hands a lot, now I am getting use to have my fingers with clay ;-} but when I cook....That is another story. Wash , wash, wash my hands!
What would you eat for your last meal ?
Hmmmmm that is difficult to choose. I will ask for my grandma's bean and rice soup, it is simple but so good!!!!! I will also ask for my grandma's Rice lasagna, this is heaven!!!!! For dessert, a Tres Leches cake made by my GRANDMA! I love my grandma's food and her a lot!
What are you wearing Today?
I have black sandals with a red dress that has little black leaves. Big gold arracadas (earrings) and a necklace I made with my bronzclay mask and turquoise.
What is the last thing you bought ?
I got a pair of earrings from a great German jeweler Agnes Seabass that I met three days ago and a dress in a smaller size! I am losing weight! ;-}
What are you listening right now ?
MANA, a Mexican rock band, and LOS NOCHEROS, a folklore group from Argentina.
What is your favorite ice cream flavor ?
Strawberry with real strawberries mixed in it! Yum!!! I also like water made Lime.
What do you think of the person who tagged you ?
Lora Hart and Sandra from Marbella designs have great personalities, even though I do not know them in person, I can really know they are great ladies. I love their work and respect them a lot.
If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be ?
Can I have one in Argentina, one in Mexico and one in Santa Fe?????? LOL
Difficult to choose, but anywhere If I am with my kids and husband will be great!
If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go ?
Argentina, I will go to Buenos Aires to see my husband's family, I'll love to see my father and mother in law when they meet my daughter Veronica for the first time and Christian who they last saw when he was 3 years old, he is 11 now.
What is your favorite color ?
Red, Mexican blue ;-} and orange. I like all the colors but if they are bright better.
What language would you like to learn ?
I will like to go back to French, I had French as my minor in UTEP but I did not put it on practice and I think I lost it!!!!! I like Italian too.
What is your favorite piece of clothing in your wardrobe ?
A red dress with little black leaves, LOL. I have it on as much as I can. In Mexico we have a saying when you have your "YAQUI" piece of clothing , this red dress is my "YAQUI" piece.
YAQUI is really meaning YA QUITATELO!!!!! It is like TAKEIT...TAKE IT OUT ALL READY!
What is your favorite TV show ?
Right now......So you think you can dance.
I love Food Network.

If you have $100 now, what would you spend it on ?
I will donate $50 to KIVA and $50 to March of dimes. March of dimes is very close to us because we have a preemie baby, our daughter Veronica was born three months early with only 1 Lb 11 oz.
Favorite artist ?
I love Frida Kahlo's journey in life and her personality and really love Diego Rivera's work.
I like BOTERO too. I love Gaudi's work.
What is your favorite season and why ?
Spring! I enjoy looking at all the colors and flowers. This is something I miss from living in New Jersey, spring is wonderful over there!
Describe your personal style ?
Bright, definitely BRIGHT.
What are you going to do after this ?
Put my kids to bed.
What is your favorite movie ?
"Love actually", "Chicago" and "P.S. I love you"(although I like the book better.)
What is your favorite fruit ?
Strawberry, Watermelon, Cherries, Papaya and Guayabas.
I love fruit in general!
What inspires you ?
My kids, my culture, my family.
What music do you like this week ?
Mana! (Mexican rock band.)
What is your dream job ?
Having a family was always what I wanted ;-} and now that I have it and I am very happy, I am taking my time to do what is making me feel very good also; making jewelry!!
What is stopping you ?
ME!!! I have to be more confidence and I am in my way. My husband is a great support.
If you can change something in the world to make it a better place, what would that be ?
TOLERANCE!!!!! Our world will be such a better place if we all can be more open and friendly to everybody.
If you can change anything about you, what would it be and why?
Being such a perfectionist!!! Because I always want to do everything perfect sometimes I do not do anything at all. Now I am more relax about it and do not put so much preasure in myself.

THE RULES:
1- Respond and rework; answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with one of your invention, add one more question of your own.
2- Tag eight other people.

If they interested in participating I am tagging:
Vickie Hallmark
Montserrat Lacomba
Emma Baird
Aja Vaz
Juanita Bitonti
Angela Gerhard
Angela Crispin
Catherine Witherell

PMC Guild Annual #3

PMC Guild Annual #3

I am very happy to be selected again this year for the wonderful book PMC Guild Annual #3.

This book is the PMC guild's annual juried publication that is distributed to all the guild members every year.

For this publication 4 jurors selected 109 images among 456 images they received .

The images came from eight countries and 25 states in the US.

I am honored to be in a book with such great artists and to share the back cover of the book with some of them ;-}.

The gorgeous whistle ring in the cover of the book is from a very talented artist,

Donna Penoyer.

Congratulations to all the great artists that will have their work in this years book!!!

Lorena

More copprclay playing time!

I have been playing more with copprclay lately and I still have some problems with the firing to be the perfect one for my kind of pieces.

My work is bigger and thicker and sometimes I end up firing the pieces twice just to be sure they are sinter correctly.

I still have one mask that I have fired two times and the piece looks the same, the clay is dry but it is not sinter at all, I will keep on trying with this piece because I am very persistent and I love the face!

Although the face lost some flowers on the first firing and the eyebrows on the second firing, I will make it work!!! ;-}

On my first group of pieces I fired was a milagro heart I designed but it was not sinter and it broke. I kept the piece to see if I could fix it.

I had to make some changes to the piece and I like the way it looked at the end.

I had been thinking in making a cuff for a long time and one good friend artist Vickie Hallmark,

http://www.vickiehallmark.com/ ,showed me her amazing cuff and it really inspired me to try to make one.

The cuff fired perfectly but I had the bad idea to try to close it a little more and although I know that I needed to anneal the cuff before , I did it without doing it and I broke my cuff.

This mistake gave me the idea of making earrings with the same design, my friends in Facebook told me they like them as earrings too.

I end up making a new cuff, this time bigger and wider and the piece fired very good and I did not touch it after that ;-}.

Better to be safe than sorry again!

Bronzclay Mask

Coconut Masks in Mexico have been one of my favorite folk art pieces to collect. They are so unique and full of life and color.

I made my mask with bronzclay and the design developed at the moment I was working with it.

I always let my feelings take over and guide me through my piece.

I am happy with my mask and I will be making one in COPPRclay soon.

"Tree of Life Mask"

Bronzclay

COPPRclay

I did it!!!

I fired my pieces again and this time I got very good results.

Now, I am ready for bigger pieces.

COPPRClay

There is a new metal clay on the market named COPPRclay.

http://www.copprclay.com/

This metal clay is available exclusively through riogrande.com and copprclay dealers.

I started to play with it in April and I really love the texture of the clay.

I am a very enthusiastic promoter of metal clays and this new clay is going to open up more opportunities for creating bigger pieces.

After my wonderful experience in making a pot with bronzclay I wanted to create a pot with copprclay too.

My work is always full of details and tridimensional and I wanted to do pieces like that on my first try with COPPRclay.

This was my "Pineapple Pot".

Two more of my pieces, a "Tree of Life" and " Milagro Heart".

I fired the pieces at 1650 F and hold for 2 hours using coal-based carbon.

Sadly for me, my pieces did not sinter!!!

Talking with more artist about my experience and with Bill Struve (the inventor of COPPRclay), I found that I need it to fired my pieces at 1700F and hold for 3 hours and to only use coconut shell-based carbon.

This is not over !!!!! I will try again soon!!!!!!

Christian's end of school ceremony.

Our son graduated Elementary School and received the "Presidents Award for Educational Excellence".

We are very proud of him and his hard work.