San Francisco Road Trip

Last weekend, we went to the Bay Area to visit my grandma for her birthday, and we decided to head up to San Francisco, too.

I kept seeing these strange SNAIL garage sale signs all over town, and was very amused by them!



I had no idea what it was but I was fascinated. Finally my grandma informed me that it was the name of a neighborhood group and SNAIL was an acronym. I still thought it was funny, especially since I have a thing for snails.

I felt the need to post this picture of a pretty lily, too.



Note to self: do not take your sister's boyfriend's huge, four-door, lifted Silverado to the tiny, winding streets of San Francisco! Everywhere we went, our large, lumbering beast of a truck was a spectacle to be seen. I felt I should be waving out the window like I was on a float in a parade.



J.D.'s amazing parking job. He's used to parking a tiny truck.





Yeah, we couldn't fit the truck into the parking garages!!



House on a hill:



Yep, this was a tour of people on Segways! It made me laugh, so I kept taking pictures of them!



We always end up going to Chinatown, where they have some great pet stores. (At least for me, because they cater to goldfish owners there). I ended up coming away with a couple snails, including this beautiful nerite, and a new baby calico fantail goldfish.




On the way back, we saw a sign advertising a two for one wine sale at Casa de Fruta on Highway 152. Well, being the group of wine lovers that we are, we couldn't pass up a chance to go wine tasting! We ended up coming home with two bottles of Pacheco Pass Appellation Black Muscat Blush. If anyone is traveling that way, I'd really, really recommend wine tasting there! It was free, low-key and fun, and not too crowded when we were there on a Sunday evening.

Today's Projects and Adventures

As most of you know, my favorite sculpting medium is polymer clay. (Someday that will change when I get a kiln and can play with regular clay too!)

I have been concentrating on getting existing pieces sold before making new ones, which is one of my challenges. But I had a custom order to make a goldfish sculpture as a memorial to a friend who recently lost a goldfish. His name was Gabriel and he was a beautiful calico fantail. This is the progression of creating him with polymer clay.

Here's how he started out!




Here he is just before I put him in the oven. The white clay is actually translucent, so it looks much brighter and more opaque before it's cooked.



After being cooked! Unfortunately, in trying to make the fins more thin and delicate, I broke the dorsal fin.






I also made a smaller calico goldfish, too.



So that's been my day. While dinner is cooking, I need to start on my other custom order, a koi watercolor! Signing off for now.

~Jenny