Author: Amanda

Amanda Milke is a mixed media artist who draws her inspiration from her life and faith. She has developed a distinct style of abstract perspective that creates strong bold compositions using a variety of materials along with bright colors and rich textures. She has exhibited her work around Alberta and has sold her paintings to collectors around the world. She is the President for the Society of Fort Saskatchewan Artists and teaches Art classes out of her home art studio.

Fell off the bandwidth wagon again

by Amanda, posted in Uncategorized

As usual I’ve fallen off the bandwidth wagon in terms of posting regularly, what can I say, I’m better at creating than blogging.
But here’s an abbreviated version of what I’ve been up to.
When last we left our band of artistic adventurers…
I was nominated by my amazing customers for awards in Best Home Based business, Best customer service & Best Small business of 2015 at the Chamber of Commerce business Gala Awards.image

imageimageSo that was all pretty exciting.
Since then I have been feeling the love and support of lots of customer orders keeping me busy creating tons of hand stamped Jewelry which you can see by visiting my Facebook page https://m.facebook.com/AMilkeCustomArtJewelry/

I’ve also started work on a new painted enamel guitar so here’s a peak at thatimageimage

And of course I’ve been busy getting ready for the Christmas markets in For

 

 

t Saskatchewanimage

imageSo ya busy AND I’ve already started working on projects for the New Year like teaching some Art & Jewelry classes through the City

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And I’ve also been approached to design the Awards Jewelry for the upcoming International Women’s Day Gala 🙂

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It’s good that I’m busy now because the other thing booked for the new year is sadly surgery, because of what I do, working with my hands all the time I have severe carpal tunnel that requires surgery, so sometime in Feb/March I’m getting my right hand done haha so expect even less posting during that time! 😉
So there, we’re all caught up!

Well back to work ❤

Cheers,

Amanda

Stampede

by Amanda, posted in 2015, 2015 Jewelry Creations, Art Jewelry, canada, commission, Creative Kick Starts, Etsy Shop, For Sale, Fort Saskatchewan, Hand Stamped Designs, Home Studio, In Progress creations, My Creations

Well that was unexpected!

A few weeks ago I got a custom order request to make some hand stamped guitar pick fish hooks as a Father’s Day Gift. I had been meaning to get into the Hand Stamping Scene for awhile and this gave me the opportunity/excuse to do so.
So I ordered in my supplies and did up her order.

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Then I posted the leftovers up for sale thinking I might hook 😉 a few buyers for the rest of them. They sold within seconds.
At the same time I had ordered in 10- 1.5″ round blanks to make up some keychains and did one up Friday for Hubby as part of his Father’s Day Gift from the girls.

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And again, thought it was cute and posted the other 9 up for sale for other last minute Father’s Day Gift givers…within the first 10 minutes I had 30+ orders that kept growing and growing and growing! By the time Hubby got off work I was sitting around 70 custom orders to make for Saturday night and only **9** blanks!
Off we went to Edmonton hunting for more supplies..after several stops we FINALLY found a local supplier. This meant all my maybes turned to Yes’ and also meant I was non-stop stamping all weekend!
Since Saturday, I’m now sitting at 100+ completed orders with more coming in daily…who would have thought!

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So if I go off grid again, that’s probably why hah!

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(These are just a few of the designs..)

Next week I have the Canada Day Market on Wednesday & the Farmers Market on Thursday so it’s going to be another busy week…so back to stamping up orders 😉

Cheers!
Amanda

Shiny & New

by Amanda, posted in 2015 Jewelry Creations, art discussions, commission, creative, events, female artist, For Sale, Fort Saskatchewan, Guitar, Home Studio, In Progress creations, Inspiration, Jewelry, Musical Instruments, My Creations

OK so I came down sick with a cold and haven’t had a chance to start on the guitar asides from prime it. I’ve been passing out pretty hard after the kids are in bed the last few nights so haven’t gotten anything done really asides from basic survival lol.

BUT a new order of supplies arrived today…

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I’ve been wanting to dabble in hand stamping for awhile now but just haven’t gotten around to it until now, when I was asked to do a custom order as a Father’s Day Gift. So much fun 🙂 I’ll post pics of the completed project later.

This week however, I have to finish that order, go to the Farmers Market Thursday and I have the Downtown Sale on Saturday so I’m thinking the guitar will have to wait til next week sadly…but I do have yet another project stewing in my brain that involves a pair of wooden clogs 😉 but I’ll save that for another post.

For now I’ll say goodnight & Cheers!
Amanda

On a different Note…

by Amanda, posted in 2015 Artwork, Abstract, Art, Art Exhibit, Artist, canada, Color of Music, Creative Kick Starts, Fort Saskatchewan, Guitar, Home Studio, In Progress creations, Inspiration, Musical Instruments, My Creations, paint, Recycled Art

I’m taking a slight break from Canvas Paintings & Jewelry to start work on a new entry into my Color of Music series.

I’ve had it in the back of my head that I’d love to do a gallery exhibit of a bunch of my painted instruments but so far every one I’ve done has sold not that I’m complaining ;), but it does makes it a tad difficult to put on an exhibit without any pieces in my possession lol.

So today I dug through my stash of goodies that I have squirreled away in my studio and picked out another guitar to start working on tonight. I had a few electrics, another child’s acoustic and this big acoustic that I thought would be a nice change since my last piece was an electric and the one before a child acoustic.
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As you can tell, my dog likes to sleep in my studio 🙂 and couldn’t be bothered to move heh.

I have a general idea of what I want to do with this piece but I won’t tell at the moment until I start and sort things out 🙂 but stay tuned and I’ll post as I work on it over the next few days.