Category Archives: art

May26

Memorial Day

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We had our first barbecue of the season today. First Bri and I had to run down to the store to get the charcoal and meat! Before we went, I had cooked Red Bliss potatoes and some eggs for salad and deviled eggs. Getting everything cooked wasn’t that bad. I even made some ‘ham dogs’ burger meat in the shape of hot dogs as I had bought 12 hot dog rolls. I even cut up fruit for a salad and added a bit of honey to it to give it a little sweetness. Oh, we had corn on the cob too.

Bri planted tomatoes and peppers yesterday and mulched them today. I have to plant the other side with the zucchini and green beans. I am trying a Martha Stewart support approach for the tomatoes-you make a support out of bamboo or sticks in the shape of a tepee and have twine for the tomatoes. Hope it works! We have the tomatoes planted in circles. (Update-just purchased trellis clips, twine and 24-5′ bamboo stakes from 2 different internet stores! Sure beats running around from store to store with the price of gas).

I did make some ATCs, one for Emily’s food challenge (over at Floss Box) and will have to take pictures tomorrow and post them. I did do a little looking for solar lights that change color and found some in the shape of mushrooms, so I ordered them (from Amazon and a lady who bought them liked them a bunch!)

What fun!

Have a pleasant Tuesday!

May20

What to do when it feels like March

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That’s right folks! It crept up to about 60 today and rained until 4 pm. I had started a few ATCs yesterday and did a few more tonight (see Flickr). Sean started a writing course tonight down at the annex campus at PSU.

Here’s what I did :


I printed out some images on vellum paper and made this card for a friend. She gave me the neat backing paper with the ‘language of flowers’. I liked the way it turned out. The vellum makes the paper curl up though.

Over at ‘Facebook’, there is an application called ‘Sketch Me’, so I did it with a newer photo of me kneeling with my flowers. This is my new calling card!
Hope to get outside tomorrow. I walked around tonight and things look ok, but I need to do so much more weeding, planting and mulching. Hope my tummy is better too. I had to take some prescription medicine today, which is my last resort.

May14

Art by lantern light

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A few of these I did on Monday with the use of a lantern (we have a mini Coleman that is a flashlight/lantern combo). It wasn’t really dark, but enough that I needed some light. My eyes aren’t that young anymore. : (

First two by lantern, finished Tuesday night:

Paradise-made with gardening catalog for the background, bluebird from old bird handbook and stickers

Want to Play?- tore up a few different colors of green handmade paper found at Dollar Tree and used Mod Podge to apply. Real looking flowers are from the gardening catalog. The rest are stickers.

This one was made before the power outage:

Blooms-background is my photo from Longwood Gardens, ‘Blooms’ is from the brochure from LG, and moth is freebie from Dover Publications. One side is a sticker and the other is paper.

And this one made Tuesday night as I got a big order of papers from Creative Papers online and wanted to dig in to my new stash:

Cardinal Song-flocked paper, Dover freebie gramophone, sheet music and awesome Marjolein Bastin bird stickers (gotta love stickers!). I colored the gramophone.

Apr29

A bit of a chill in the air

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So long to the balmy 70s! It is suppose to dip in the 30s tonight! I covered up most of my plants with an old shower curtain and brought in the tomatoes and coleus.

I haven’t been sleeping well, lots of bathroom trips. I used the heating pad and Bri got me some cranberry juice. I don’t have pain, so I’m thinking I may have injured myself outside lifting something, using the hoe or leaning over too much. I am seeing the word ‘prolapse’ a little too often when looking on boards. The old adage ‘it’s always something’ seems to apply to me all the time. I had a little afternoon snooze with the cat today. I hardly ever do that. Hopefully I will work that problem out, but I will say I was grumpy for a few days. I did start a gift to get me out of my cross stitch pit, but I cut the fabric just big enough’. Don’t cut fabric when you are tired.

I just proof read about 6-7 pages of Sean’s research paper on climate. It took me 2 hours today and 2 hours for the first 7-8 pages. He will be home next Wednesday and needs to get a job or his internship settled. He was turned down for the Delaware one as the lady thought a reference from high school wasn’t appropriate for a college student. I did question Sean about that too. Listen to your mama!

I see that Emily from The Floss Box received the postcard that I made for her (sent to Sweden), so I’ll share it here (as she did on her blog-thanks!):

and here’s an old one I found of Longwood Gardens from the internet

These appear to be the Italian Water Gardens that I didn’t photograph the other day.

Hoping for a warmer and heat pad-less day tomorrow!

Apr28

More like a typical spring day

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It’s in the 50s and rainy, more like it for spring! I did enjoy the nice weather though, but was way overheated from it one too many times. We need the rain. And I didn’t go with my mom when she got her cat scan. It was her idea. It’s a 23 mile one way trip and we are suppose to get heavy rain about now, just when I’d be driving home. She lives 3-4 miles from the hospital. She called a little past 2:30 and said she was in and out of the hospital in 30 minutes. She was told by a gentleman going in the hospital that one of her tires was half flat, so she attended to that afterwards. I told her I felt terribly guilty from not going, but she said it was too long a trip for the time she was in there.

Anyway, I am really tired, but enjoyed making some ATCs. I will give the ‘Eternal’ one to mom as she added the decorator chalk to the lady’s gown.

These are from my ‘Planetary’ series

I saw this idea in a magazine, but the child was sitting on the Earth.

Apr8

Head spinning

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I’m so excited about crafting things, that I want to do about 10 projects at once! My partner is putting together the most adorable fairy kits for you to assemble. I’m making art pieces out of Altoids tins and will probably make other things from them. I have 3 almost finished (thanks for prompting this post Sharon!) It’s the ‘finishing touches’ part that is holding me up. I have a few other tins bookmarked on flickr to help me out. People have such great ideas! I will say I painted the tins and they resemble the photo below featuring Cate Blanchett.

Have a few appointments set up this week and one more next week. I hope that is it for a while! Still waiting on the blood work results-a week now. No news is good news, correct? I have to be more optimistic now! ; )

Off to wrap some birthday gifts.

I took some photos and thought I’d share:

I keep my Art Trading cards in a notebook and use baseball card plastic pages.

I just got this Mona Lisa rubber stamp and whipped this ATC up right away! I also was in QVC outlet store and they had this big pack of letters on different backgrounds that you just punch out. I think there were 10K of them!

Here’s a kit I had started and pulled out last night. I am so sorry I didn’t change out the fabric.

I finished the first African violet ‘Nancy Reagan’-only 6 more to do. I am all purpled out and put this aside for a few days.

Mar31

Last day of March already!

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We had such a busy month, it just seemed to go quickly. Having Sean home in the middle helped with the winter drudgery feeling. I just got a phone call and the lady said my eye appt was moved to the 9th as the machine is down. Maybe Bri can go with me since it’s late in the afternoon.

Today I have to return a movie, maybe rent another and buy some cards, one of which is an anniversary card for us! It will be 24 yrs for us this year! *Bowing* With Sean not home a lot now, it’s rather like the old days of keeping each other company. I find cooking for two a drag. Sean use to eat most of my leftovers, his dad doesn’t.

Here’s progress on The African Violet sampler plus a ‘happy’ real one close up. I think I’ll finish this one violet and then pick up a different project.
African Violet sampler-violet #1

A cheerful real violet
A few ATCs I made recently:
Made from mostly recycled things-part of a postage stamp package, a stamped image that wasn’t perfect….the glare is a hummingbird sticker

Pollination

This one is called ‘Dress rehearsal’. I love finding these old images:
Dress Rehearsal
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Tip of the day-eat rice cakes! They fill you up and help like fiber does! Enough said. : )