Category Archives: ATC

Just in time

Standard

Whew! I harvested these yellow squash just a little while ago. We are having a much needed rainstorm go through right now. I have to watch the lightning, etc.

First big squash harvest!

And then here are some ATCs I have been working on:

This is Flower lady. I found some sweet Victorian graphics on the web and added some neat flower tissue paper designs as her clothes and earrings.

Flower lady


This is a card with a little door (click on it to see it closed and opened):
Knock, knock, who’s home?
Be sure to look at my Flickr photos for more ATCs and tons of other things. The link in my blog roll will take you to the tag page, a fun place to explore!
I still have to post my Photo Hunt and I think it’s a tough one this week.

A small request

Standard

Sometimes you read a passage and it touches you. You need others to read it as it needs their attention. Thus was the case with the bio of little Celeste, one of the featured kids on the Make A Child Smile (this link is always in my sidebar)  website for July. This dear child has a rare degenerative disease. She is in a wheelchair and her mom says she is the sweetest girl, especially to her little sister Amira. Amira climbs up on Celeste’s lap to be close to her. From Celeste’s mom- Despite her many limitations, Celeste lives life to its fullest. She has a wonderful sense of humor and has a smile like sunshine. She loves the simple things like sitting outside on a summer day and feeling the breeze in her hair. She loves to go for walks, listen to the birds outside, swing at the park. Celeste will be 8 on the 19th. If you want, I’m sure a card will be greatly received by her. Here’s an Art card I made for her and included with my own card:

Happy Birthday Celeste!

Her name means heavenly or something to that effect.

Also did one to remind me of the friendly catbirds. The background is paper that looks like it is embedded with grass plus a little yellow tissue paper. The bird picture is from an old magazine.

Catbird

And these are Stargazer lilies that I had planted in a pot last summer and nothing came up. I was surprised to see them appear in the spring and then bloom this week.

Stargazer lilies

I saw two ‘firsts’ of the summer- a Monarch butterfly and a hummingbird! It’s about time for the hummer. I have flowers that they love-salvia, nicotiana and the butterfly bush, which the hummer was checking out. The Monarch was just zipping around looking happy to spread it’s wings. A funny sight to me was seeing a bumblebee taking a nap on the middle part of one of the cosmos. I could really get a good look at his furry body, beady black eyes and cool little antenna.

It’s going to be a hot one again this week. Take it easy.

Out my window

Standard

We had a wild thunderstorm pass through right after I caught this groundhog munching on the fallen apples from our tree out back. I took this through the dining room window with the zoom lens. I won’t eat apples off the ground because of all the critters that roam by. Isn’t he funny?

Hungry groundhog

Apparently it rained right over our house and not a mile down the road where Sean was at the video store. He said about two drops came down! As long as I don’t have to drag around the watering can tonight!

And here is one of the friendly catbirds that kept me company and poo all over my outdoor chairs! I just found an illustration of one in my ATC stuff, so I think a card in honor of them is appropriate.

Catbird
And finally, just my one pal and I are doing an ATC exchange on tribe.net this month as our other two pals are busy. I thought of the theme this month-‘Patriotic’ or red, white and blue. This is what I made for her…
Gret’s card

As warm as the 4th of July

Standard

Bri and I worked outside today and Sean worked in Big Lots. He was scheduled for 3 days in a row and the boss even tried to snag him for tomorrow, but he put his foot down. He has a new Dell laptop to play with and hasn’t had that much time to look at it (no internet yet).

Bri planted tomatoes and green peppers while I planted zinnias, cosmos, daisies, Mexican sunflowers and an assortment of seeds that came in a package between paper (you just lay them on the soil and throw a 1/2″ of dirt over them). They were poppies, zinnias and a few others. By the time I was done, I had two very rosy cheeks and was dripping in perspiration. I cooled off and mulched Sean’s garden so he could just enjoy it and not worry about doing it. Bri cut the entire lawn too.

My gladiolus (planted a few weeks ago) are coming up! Yes! And I see astilbe poking it’s finger-like leaves up near my Sweet William flowers.

I had a ‘Perkins’ dinner tonight-eggs with chives and a little cheddar cheese on top, bacon, fries, biscuits and grapes.

Before I went outside today I worked on 4 Art trading cards. (so G if you are reading my blog stop here). Our pal chose the project-pick an artist, do cards like their artwork. I picked one of my favorites-Vincent Van Gogh and his Starry Night painting for all four cards. They were fun to do! For my cross stitch readers-I used some gold cording from my stash for the sky swirls. Two have star shaped brackets. I did use one element from the original painting in each design-a star or the village (for instance). Some of you may recognize the Don McLean lyrics from his song based on this painting. I was sad to read that Vincent had painted this when he was in an insane asylum. 

Famous Artist ATCs

The original Starry Night
We are having rainstorms tonight. We need the rain, but I know that some of my plants were really getting hammered. I am also hoping that I patted the ground down well after I planted the above mentioned seeds.

Time flies

Standard

In 4 months Sean will be headed up to University Park. It doesn’t seem possible! The two of us were sitting next to people we know from church (by chance) at a restaurant on Friday called ‘Cheeburger, cheeburger’. They have two sons, one of whom graduated with Sean and their other son was about to graduate from high school. We were talking about empty nests. The younger son then ate the 16 oz burger and made us laugh a bit and forget that childhood truly does fly by.

I didn’t do much yesterday and today I am home from church with the sniffles. I am pretty much finished the following ATCs one of which is my grandmom Ruth (see her marriage license below) and me at about the age of 1. That is my Uncle Don’s house without all the trees way back in 1960-61. I didn’t care to go there as my aunt would stick me in a playpen for hours on end (so I’ve been told). I don’t look too happy here, do I? This was at a time when my mom was expecting my brother Don, and me being the baby already here, well I guess she needed a babysitter once in a while.

Time Flies
The clock face came off of a CD of images I purchased at eBay. The ‘fly’ in green came from an online image generator where you type in the word and you get an image like this back. The bird is from an old book and is a Cape May warbler. I added zinnias (also from an old book) to the one of my grandmom and me as they were her favorite flower and I still grow them. They are easy to grow and I recommend them!

Speaking of Uncle Don, he had good blood work and will probably be headed back home after 3 months in the nursing home.

VA tech continued

Standard

Sean’s psychology teacher was called down to VA tech yesterday as not only is he a grief counselor, but he is an EMT! I asked what kind of man he is and Sean replied that he is kinda like my brother Ken, a joker. I’m sure he helped.

Just heard that a bunch of New Jersey people were hurt-one young man who graduated the year before my nephew David (same high school) was probably a grad student down there.

I can’t understand why the English teacher didn’t red flag some of the papers the shooter turned in which mentioned killing several times (i.e.-I can kill him!).

College students are banding together offering support to VA Tech students. Sean has been meeting lots of VA tech students through Facebook and plans to wear maroon (and orange I think) on Friday-the school’s colors.

Sean dropped me off at my mom’s today as he only had a 2:30 class. His university in only about 4 miles from where my mom lives. I did a little vacuuming and dusting while there. We later went to my brother’s house so I could give Tori her birthday gifts which she liked (mostly clothes from The Gap and some earrings). We ate at a brick oven joint and then begged Sean to take us to the big JoAnn’s store. I did some serious damage there by adding to my art supplies. They always have good sales. I love the DCWV paper packs and got awesome designs-like 75 pages for $2.99-the right size for my cards. I may go food shopping tomorrow or I may play with my new ‘toys’.

4″ of rain Sunday

Standard

That nor’easter sure did blow in and is hanging around. That’s a lot of rain for a single day in these parts. Mom’s yard was like a swimming pool (so she told me) as my brother was preparing it for grass-the seed is surely gone now!

I made a nice roast beef dinner with mashed potatoes and cheddar cheese biscuits, which was very good and perfect for the cool, rainy weather. Brian peeled the potatoes and mashed them to perfection. I didn’t use the ricer as the russets had weird looking skin and I didn’t want to cook that.

I haven’t been up to par, I had indigestion Saturday, ate the Chinese food (uh oh), but slept ok. I had a sore stomach all day until I wised up and took a Tylenol. It felt better within a half hour. I tried mint tea, Gas-X and assorted tummy remedies when I probably had a muscle pull! My mom had had a wicked tummy thing on Easter and I am knocking wood that I avoided that one.

So here is what I made today. I am using old flower, bird and kid’s books (shown mostly in the first example). I hate to cut them up, but I feel I am giving them new life through art. The second card has a definition for ‘dreaming’. I was using the water sphere from the flower show and rubberstamped a face on it, but the embossing power was put on thick and melted too much, hence an entire new idea crept up in my brain. The children were part of a CD collection I found on eBay.

Why do stars shine?

Dreamer child
These were photographed on a trio of cute wicker chests my mom gave me for Easter that I am using to store a lot of my art supplies in.

And last, but not least…my latest cross stitched piece, a The Prairie Schooler church for Su’s neighborhood (see link in sidebar).
Su’s NRR church

Photo Hunt-Hobby & Art card JAM 1

Standard

I’m a little early…

PSHunt
Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

Before I show you my awesome Art Cards, I guess I should have said my anniversary is tomorrow. I was just referring to ‘the day before’ my wedding 23 yrs ago which was also Friday the 13th.

These are my four cards that I sent out to three of my friends who participated in the JAM who each added one or two elements as they received them.

Water colored cards
And here’s what I received back yesterday. Aren’t my pals from California talented. Take bows gang! BTW, I’ve got panty hose, lace, a feather and beads on these! The final products

Happy birthday sweet niece

Standard

My sweetie girl Tori is 8 yrs old today. She is a gem to me. We share a comment bond-only girls in a brood of boys. We also share a similar middle name-I’m Carol and she’s Caroline. I hope she has a fun day. Auntie Di (also your godmother) loves ya lots!

Tori ATC

Dianne at 6

Here I am at 6. You won’t be seeing the 8 yr old Dianne with the bad perm. Can you tell Tor and I are related?