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With a house full of family and friends, our urn runneth over ;)
Nothing like art done by children; all this art by my 5 year old neices Cate and Molly. Here's Molly's portrait of Aunt Pam:
Hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving weekend! As always, I am thankful you stop by and visit here. I'll be back next week. xo
striped plastic serving tray $ 3.99
cheese board and dome $12.99
large vanilla candles 2 @ 3.99 $ 7.98
small vanilla candle $ 1.99
dishtowels 12@ .49 $ 5.88
{will be used as napkins}
love for textiles book $ 9.99
{great inspiration}
drinking glasses 4 @ .59 $2.36
reindeer gift set 2 @ 1.99 $ 3.98
{will bw our place setting name tags}
Not sure if I really needed the cheese board and cloche...without that I'd be under $37.00 which sounds a lot better. Hmmm....I'll have to think about that one.
And my favorite find? Can't decide between the Love for Textiles book and the red reindeer tags, love them both that much.
In case you want more info on any of the above items, just click on the price and you'll find the link. Sorry, I couldn't find the Klamby Cheese Dome ( item 70153126) anywhere on the site.
Have you ordered a copy ? If so, it should be arriving in your mailbox any moment! I am eagerly awaiting my issue's arrival. I've always loved Matthew Mead's style, and this is 100% his baby. There are guest blogger sumbissions (including gift tags by yours truly, although I haven't seen what was used- you never know when sending off if it "fits" with the content) and other artist contributions as well, but all through his eyes and lens, and graphic design talent. Can't ever get enough holiday inspiration and yummy photos, can we? Be sure you stop by the Holiday blog as well, they are doing lots of give-aways!
I've started a new painting again. I can't work on just one, so while I continue on the last one I showed you, I'll show you this one too. It's 13" x 34", a fun size to play on. Here it is in full:
I feel so influenced by my friend, the super talented and oh so fun Syd McCutcheon. I'm jealous of anyone that is taking this class she's teaching, it's going to be great fun. Often, when I'm working on a painting, she'll give me great input and nudge me a little further. She also sends me great painting links like this one of Jesse Reno. I just love how they tap into their playful sides, just like Jennifer Mercede does, love her too. We'll see where this one ends up, I'm going to go back to the big giant one so I can give you an update on it's progress (or lack thereof) soon. {The big one is the one behind this pink one here:}
felt+circles+garland=happiness
Such simple things can make me so happy. Having an idea of something I want to make, then spending the time creating it, playing with the materials...works every time. I feel like a child again inside, no craft idea too silly or small to pursue. It seems it's taken me years and years to get back to a child's opinion of what is "worthy" of making...answer? anything your little heart desires. No reasons needed, no explanations, and no need for anyone else to desire to make the same thing or not. Just plain fun, connecting with my own heart for creating.
A good friend and I were having a conversation about artistic independence lately, and how we want to nourish that more. To me, it includes creating what I want for all the right reasons, authentic, filled with heart and soul and passion. It doesn't need to be understood or explained to anyone else. I guess I'm talking about permission, giving yourself the permission to play however your heart yearns to. So consider this permission if it's been an issue of yours too over the years. Permission granted!
{Some of these projects shown above are part of my project over at Amy Powers' Inspired Ideas Christmas 2010.The top garland was inspired by this Flickr favorite, and Heather Bailey has lovely felt for sale if you share my love of crafting with felt. Lastly, my love affair with felt last year can be seen here. }
I washed it and it fared quite well. Now I need to hand stitch, hand stitch, and hand stitch some more. I've decided that I won't be using batting and a backing piece. With all the different layers of fabrics and stitches, it's becoming a very heavy blanket, and I don't mind the mess I'm making on the back at all. Next time I'm taking photos of it, I'll take one of the back to show you what I mean.
Thanksgiving isn't looking like a likely finish, unless I bring it to every one of my kids sports events from now until then, and frankly, sometimes I get tired of explaining what weird thing I'm up to now. It's too big to not stand out and garner attention. It'd be a great project for a flight overseas (say Rome, for example :) if it weren't so b.i.g and awkward. Maybe I'll never be finished with it. It could be the "remember that crazy blanket mom worked on for a hundred years?!?!" object my kids reminisce about together. Hope it's not followed by, "I don't want it, you take it!" hahaha.
The crazy talented Rebecca Ringquist did a nice post and included a photo of my quilt project that includes her original sampler. Here's another photo of it above. My "bcsjq" was completely inspired by the discovery of her embroidery work and art quilts at the same time I started stitching on her sampler. I look forward to working on her new samplers...yum. Who knows what they'll end up attached to...
Here's the second journal I made for our trip to Rome. I actually started this long ago when I was going to be teaching in Italy, and when I re-discovered it I decided it'd be perfect for this trip, thus the two journals. This one is made from an old book that I gutted, but left the spine on. It's 7"x8". {The journal in the last post is 6x10"} I sewed in 3 signatures the same way as the first journal. The signatures are made of watercolor paper and a few other vintages papers and envelopes like this:
Below you see a partial page from an old photo album. I'll just slip the photos inside the glassine pocket. And the envelope is double wide so it will be able to hold big pieces of paper.
This is one of my favorite pages made from one of those photo album pages of long ago. You know the ones where you peeled back the plastic cover, stuck your photo down and put the cover back down? I think it's going to be great for putting new photos on top of, and maybe keep one as a journaling square...or do little illustrations in each space...hmmm...you can see why I love it so; it gets my wheels spinning.
I glued an envelope to the inside back cover for treasures found on the journey like this:
Like I said in the last post, I'm hoping they both will be full of tales and treasures from the journey when we get back. Yesterday I was googling flea markets...hahaha!
We're heading to Rome over the holidays, (!!!!) and as soon as the flights were booked, {that was a huge pain in the behind- my son asked one night, "what are freakin' flyer miles anyway?" after hearing endless discussions about how we could use them. hahaha!} I couldn't wait to make a travel journal. Well, actually, I made two. I'll show you the other one soon; it's a totally different style than this one shown. This one is made from decoupaged chipboard for covers and bound together using Teesha Moore's method. The three signatures are made Mary Ann Moss' style, straight from her Remains of the Day class. Such a good class. Anyway, I am always inspired when I see Mary Ann's travel journals. I love how she uses some new scrapbook paper as well as old, and has no 'theme' for her book. So that's what I did here. We'll see which type of journal I use more on the trip. Of course, I'm hoping I'll take to both journals and that they are filled in when I get back.
See the "proceed" index card above? I was sitting at the kitchen table gluing away and quizing my son on his spelling words at the same time. I couldn't resist slapping it down. And look at this little cutie below, I think she came from a Land of Nod catalog. Apparently, no paper is safe around me.
The other journal up next...
Above is a peek at one of the projects I worked on for Amy Powers' holiday magazine. I can not believe how much work Amy did, and how many wonderful contributors she gathered for her beautiful online publication. And all for free! So generous of her, as I know she has at least 100 hours of work in creating it. I know she does it with a joyous heart, and we are so lucky she does! If you've never met Amy, I hope you get to someday, she's a sweetheart through and through. Congratulations Amy! Your second issue of Inspired Ideas is beautiful. Go see what I mean here: Amy Powers' Inspired Ideas Christmas 2010. I hope you enjoy paging through as much as I do!
Carol Parks was the most vivacious, fun loving, generous, and loving person. She was passionate about art and artists, her family, living life to the fullest, she was so interested in others, I could go on and on. She will be sorely missed. This picture of her pretty much sums up her spirit: joyous. Much love to her girls, I hope you know how much your mama was adored!
Download the Sew Sweet Embroidery PDF file here. For personal use only. Please do not use this artwork for any commercial purposes.
