I'm Still Around

I have been on kind of a hiatus from writing this summer, but I'm in the process of re-vamping my blog, hopefully making it better, plus sharing more pictures, art, and tidbits. Please do visit again.

Until then I'll share one of my quirky journal sketches titled, for now, "Red Birds", which started off as a page with a lot of shapes doodled onto it, then an image drawn out. I've left the pencil lines in the background on purpose. More about that later. Sorry about the not too good photo. Happy creating! :)

Iris...Is it Real....Or Not?

This one is real (see the rose from a couple of days ago). Mama found it growing volunteer in the end of the garden last week. Don't you just love the color? It's the large variety. Notice the fancy vase?

She has several flowers blooming right now. Her lilac bush is really pretty this year, and her little bunch of red tulips too. Her pink peony is loaded with buds, but her white one only has a few.

Irises are pretty, as are all flowers, but the white peony is my favorite. I absolutely love the white peony scent. The other colors don't smell the same, although they are just as beautiful. When my maternal grandparents were living they always gave me their first peony bloom every spring. If I didn't stop by, Papa would bring it to me. Now Mama does, and one of her first daffodils.

I have a white peony bush, but it doesn't do much. My fault. It hasn't been worked or taken care of for a few years. I'm surprised it's still living. It had a couple of buds this year, but the frost killed them. I'll just help Mama enjoy hers. :)

Most of my flowers have gone to flower heaven, as I have accumulated a few cats and they think I pot and plant flowers for them to dig in, lay on, or swing in. I even tried putting a long planter of cacti on the outside kitchen window sill over the sink. I got up one morning to find a cat laying on the cactus. He thought I'd fixed him a bed, I reckon. I just gave up trying. I miss the flowers (good therapy), but I like the cats too (also good therapy). I guess sometimes you have to sacrifice one thing in order to have another. Anyone know how to keep cats out of where you don't want them?

I don't know how I got from irises to peonies to cats, so I'll quit while I'm ahead...or behind...or whatever. :) Have a great week!

Inchies Swap Returns

I received my inchies from the first swap I ever participated in the other day and thought I'd share them with you. It was in the Mojo Art Group, and there wound up being only three of us playing, but that was okay. It was fun and a good experience. Each of us made twelve 1" x 1" square original works of art and sent to the hostess, Tammy, who divided them up and mailed us back twelve from the other players, thus I have twelve more tiny original works of art from friends to add to my collection.

Tammy also included a delicious bar of her favorite organic spice chocolate candy with the return. I had never eaten organic candy, so that was also a first experience. It was very tasty. I'm trying hard to save J (hubby) a piece of it. :)




Anyway, here is a photo of the inchies I received. Lori's are on the left and Tammy's are on the right. Click on pic to enlarge. Sorry, the photo doesn't do them justice (they have glittery accents), but aren't they gorgeous?

I selected twelve from the batch in the photo in the archives to swap. Just click on inchies in the labels list and it should take you there if you want to see them. Sorry I don't have a seperate photo of the twelve I swapped uploaded.

Thanks Tammy and Lori. I enjoyed swapping inchies with you. Maybe we can do it again sometime. :)

Rose...Is it real...or not?

Isn't this rose gorgeous? Our niece, Kristy, put it in my gift bag Christmas, and I just love it. She had even put rose scented oil on it to make it smell real. She is so talented and creative, and a sweetheart to boot.

Kristy, her mom, and a friend hand made over a hundred of these for Kristy's daughter's wedding last summer, which I didn't make it to. I saw the pictures when we got together for Christmas though, and it was a beautiful wedding. There were several arrangements made out of these roses, and they looked amazing.

Can you guess what they're made from?

I believe she said she saw Martha Stewart make them on her show and found the pattern and instructions online. After the petals were cut out, they were put together, hand colored, and scented to fool the eye and the nose.

The rose brought back memories of my Granny P teaching me to make paper flowers and leaves from crepe paper and colored tissues when I was little. I loved making them with her and taking them to put on graves at decoration time. Wonder if I can still make them. Good memories.

Have you guessed the material yet?

Hint: Most of us use one at least once a day, particularly in the mornings.

Okay, I'll tell you. :)

They are made from used coffee filters. Isn't that something?

Well, enough about the rose, but I just love it and I'm honored to be the recipient of one. I found a pretty little vase and though I moved it to make this picture, it's usual place is on the fireplace mantel with the family photos.

I had a rose bush this color once, and I couldn't wait for it to bloom every year. Now I have one that won't die on me. :)

Isn't the color beautiful? Bye for now.

Happy Holidays and Computer Freeze

Hi all!

I hope you are all having a safe and happy holiday season.

Hubby didn't get to be home this year for Christmas so Mom and I spent a quiet day together yesterday (we live next door to each other). We both got cards and phone calls from family members and friends, which we enjoyed very much. She cooked and I helped her eat it. :) I did fix a banana cream pie, but we got too full of cornbread dressing, dumplings, and mashed potatoes to eat it yesterday, so we'll have leftovers for a couple of days. Didn't bother with a turkey since it was just the two of us.

She gave me a gorgeous Aigner purse and I gave her a new toaster oven, things we had both said we'd like to have, plus we had a few stockling stuffers for each other. We will have Christmas again in 2-3 weeks, when hubby gets home, with his family and with Mom again. Believe it or not, I still have a few Christmas gifts to buy, hubby's included (no idea what to get him, but hopefully I'll come up with something).

One of my best friends came Christmas Eve evening and stayed a while with me and hubby got to call that night. I also got Christmas cards done and mailed at the last minute, however, I didn't get any hand made this year again. I still can't get my mind wrapped around the fact that it even is Christmas for some reason. Maybe I'm getting too old or scroogy or something. :) I'm just thankful for all my friends and family whether we're actually together physically or not.

I still am not writing or creating any art much right now. Maybe after the holidays I will get settled enough to pick up a pen and brush again. I have finished reading two good novels though, which I will post reviews about later. I have several more stacked up to read. Reading also inspires me to write, so not only am I reading a good story, I'm priming my writer's pump! :)

First I have to get my laptop pc fixed. The Windows XP operating system locked up on it just like it did my desk top pc last spring. It won't even open up. I wound up having to completely reinstall the operating system and all other programs on my desktop after hours on the phone with tech support trying everything, so I"m pretty sure I'll have to do the same on the laptop.

Fortunately I have all the photos and my writing saved to a disk, however I didn't think to save my email address book and favorites list, so they will have to be re-compiled, because I never put them back on the desk top when I got the laptop. So I'm in for some time and work to get it going again. Those of you that are in the habit of getting emails from me, if you don't get any for a while, it's because I lost your addy in the crash and I don't know it by heart, so I'll have to wait til you send me something to add it to my list. Next time I'll save them to a disk too, in case of another freeze up. Freeze ups are definately not fun, especially if you lose a lot of stuff because you haven't taken the time to back it up to disks or something. Hard lesson learned. :)

The locked up pc is another reason you haven't heard from me much on the blog, groups, or email. It's been locked up for a couple of weeks now. I'm on the desk top pc today, but it's a hassle to use and it's cold in the room where it is so I'm only checking email every few days and not online much. I'm grateful that I have it for a backup though. I'd be lost without a computer and my internet buddies. :)

Anyway, just wanted you to know that I'm still out here, it's a gorgeous, cold, sunny day here, and I'm loving sitting by my gas fireplace reading or dreaming while siipping on a cup of coffee.

I'm signing off for now. Mom brings my mail and visits a while every morning, and it's about time for her, so ya'll HAVE A WONDERFUL, SAFE, HAPPY, AND BLESSED NEW YEAR, and I'll be back soon with something more interesting, I hope. :)

Poetry @ Create A Connection

Hello, it's been a few days since I posted. Besides some medication changes, which I'm adjusting to, and life stuff, I apparently have writer's block too. Haven't been writing anything or doing anything creative for several days now. I did read a pretty good novel though, so that's a good thing. Maybe my muse will come back to me for Christmas. :)

Anyway, LaToya, the new resident poet on Saturdays at CAC, has asked us to post a poem (or poems) that describes the essence of who we are right now and inspires us to be the best we can be. I don't know that the following poem does what she asked, but it's always been a favorite of mine, has a good message, and is the only whole poem I still know by heart from my school days in the sixties, so I thought I'd share it with you now. When I find a poem that does describe the essence of me at this time in my life I'll post it too. OK? :)

THE COIN
by
Sara Teasdale

Into my heart's treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin

Oh better than the minting
Of a gold crowned king
Is the safe kept memory
Of a lovely thing

Inchies, Mickey & Minnie

I tried this yesterday and had a long post about what's been going on with me besides inchies, but as I was reading back over it my thumb accidentally hit the touch pad on my laptop and most of the post disappeared and I can't find it, so I'm going to go ahead and share my inchies with you today and when I can I'll try to re-post what I sent into oblivion. :)

This is my first batch of inchies made during Oct & Nov. I was going to try making some anyway, but Tammy over at the MojoArtGroup decided to hostess a 12 for 12 swap, and I decided to play. I started out to make enough for the swap, but got carried away and made a bunch. Some turned out better than others, but I had a lot of fun with all of them, plus it's good therapy. :)

I tried making pictures in all kinds of light, but couldn't get a good one, so wound up scanning them in. A lot of detail doesn't show up, such as most of the blue background ones have sparklies in the background, and some have glitter, the orange ones aren't that dark and have chinese characters in the backgrounds, etc. Some have a matte finish and some have a gel medium finish making them shiny, so that made it hard to get a good picture.

Rarely do I get excited over anything, but I'm a tad excited right now. I was checking out the post after I posted it and wishing the pictures were better, and I discovered that if you click on the picture it will enlarge and you can see a lot more of the details. I'm still a greenhorn at this blogging thing you know. :) Passing this on for friends/family that might not know you can do this either.

All kinds of things were used to make them. I made the backgrounds on watercolor paper using stamps, acrylics, watercolors, pastels, liqui-gem acrylic with sparklies, etc., then cut them into 1x1 inch squares after they were dry, which I then painted, collaged, stamped, added glitter to, etc. In other words, each square was an experiment. :)















I finally decided on 12 to swap and they are fixed up and ready to put in the mail (not telling which 12 yet though :)). This is my first swap and I'm a little nervous, but I'm sure it'll be okay. I look forward to receiving 12 back from the other participants. They are all wonderful artists and I hope they aren't disappointed in mine.

Each of these little squares is a seperate 1x1 inch picture. The clown faces and pears on some of them are miniaturized prints of some of my linoleum block prints. The hearts (except the white one) and feather ones are carved eraser stamps (the gold ink on red doesn't show up much in the picture). The one in the top right corner of the first picture with the pink pears was my very first attempt. It has sparklies in the background that don't show up. I tried to make each one different. Sorry the pictures aren't better. :(

Anyway, as I said it was fun and therapeutic and I'm going to be making more, but not for a while. Too much going on between now and Christmas, like Christmas cards to make and shopping, which I haven't started yet, and Thanksgiving before that, plus a zillion other things that I've avoided while playing. :o

Right now I have to get busy on a project a friend dropped off on me yesterday evening. It's a wooden cutout blank of Mickey and Minnie Mouse sitting together on the moon. She brought me a picture to go by and wants me to draw in all their features, limbs, clothes, etc. so she can paint them. I tried to tell her I couldn't draw it, but she said I could do anything and left it. She's one of my best friends since we were kids, and she told me if it took me a year it would be ok (she knows I work slow :)), but patience is not one of her strong points, and I know she will call in a day or two to see if I've started it yet. I tried scanning and enlarging the picture so I could trace it off, but 2x the size isn't quite big enough and 3x was way too big. So I now have out a piece of charcoal and am going to see if I can sketch it off onto the wood enough that she has lines to fill in between with paint. If that doesn't work, I'll think of something else. So here I go... :)

Take care of yourselves. OK? :)

PS: I'm having a heck of a time getting this to post with seperate paragraphs, and have tried several times to get it to change, so I'm going to post it, and if the last paragraphs all run together again, sorry, and I'll try again later to fix it. If they're seperated...great!