July 4th and other stuff

little patriotic cutie

I had a great 4th. Oldest DD brought the grandbaby (she’s just about 2 ½ now) up and we all went to the hometown parade, fairgrounds and that night the fireworks display. So glad it was a mild day, unlike last year—hot! We actually live in the country but 10 mins. either way are small towns that have festivities going on. The grand D played on those air blown jumping things until she was covered in sweat! She had a great time. When it was time, we went just outside the fairgrounds to watch the parade, we usually are farther up on the route and there are usually a ton of people, but not where we were. It came really close to us at the edge of the lawn. Grand D wasn’t too sure about being so close to noisy fire trucks and extremely large horses, but she did really well. Afterwards we found a place on the grass, spread our quilt and waited for the fireworks. When they started granddaughter was scared. She covered her eyes and kept saying she wanted to go home. Mommy and I tried to reassure her and get her to look, and finally I said we should cover her ears. Mom did and grand D slowly peeked thru her fingers to watch, but she kept her hand up to her face pretty much the whole time. Towards the end she started falling asleep! She actually fell asleep for awhile all the time the loud Booms! were going off! Who can figure out kids? Lol.











I finally broke down and bought some glass glitter. I’m not one to use much glitter, but I’ve been making some things that just seem to say “glitter me”. I bought a pound of clear to be able to sell a little in my etsy shop.

I also found a couple more clear glass containers to store arty supplies on my shelf. I got the pretty little lead crystal dish for $2 and the large canning jar for a buck more. The canning jar has some French words around the top which I think is so cool! I needed a large jar to keep the little bits of trim I have so I can see what’s there. I’m always forgetting I have some stashed here and there.


This little metal pan I found all rusty and I had the green spray paint so I now have a little tray to store all the little things that seem to accumulate on my desk. Now they won’t be knocked to the floor and lost in the corners. See I’m trying to stay organized.

A Little Vacation at Home

artI guess it was last week, I was alone for 4…whole… glorious… days! Everyone had gone to different places, the kids, the H, and I was enjoying every minute of it. It was quiet and relaxed, just me and the dogs. I also realized that during that time, I found I was really creative. I had lots of ideas and actually created quite a few works of art, which is unusual for me to create so many at one time. So what’s up with that? I should pack up and leave? (had that thought many times, lol) live in a cave? But seriously, what does that say about our creative selves? I guess for me I need quiet, some people can work with music or background noise, apparently not me. I also realized that I had long periods of uninterrupted time (except for the occasional doggy potty breaks, where I rounded up all 5 and let them out at one time). I could follow through on an idea, not be interrupted and loose my train of thought. I’m lucky in that my kids are teens and I don’t have little ones demanding even more of my attention. I don’t know how you do it - those of you with little ones - I see the art created by you and am amazed.

My creative space is nothing fancy, just an alcove on one side of the kitchen. I recently redid it, painted, added shelves, combined and conquered the clutter and organized the plastic drawers. Stayed nice and neat for about a day! I find that I work better in clutter, then when I can’t stand it, I clean, but only if absolutely necessary!

Well, off to finish some art, here’s some that I created during my little 4 day vacation.

Fall According to the Dogs

According to my calendar, fall is officially here in the Sierra foothills--I finally had to put on socks to warm my feet in bed. A light quilt is still all I need for now, but when its time to bring out the heavy winter quilt, I get the signal from the dogs. The colder it gets, the closer they push, pinning me in one position so that I can’t turn over without causing a major shuffle of 10, sometimes 14 legs (and my two arms). So with the signal of winter according to the dogs and the “laying on” of the heavy quilt, they share more of “their” bed with me.



Well my lone maple tree is turning the most beautiful colors and will soon start dropping its leaves in earnest and for a short time the ground underneath will be covered in a sea of gold. Until then, every time I crest our road, I’m greeted with its glowing colors over the roof of our house. The oaks are also slowly dropping their leaves and every once in a while I hear a reminder of “fall”-- when an acorn goes ping on my car parked underneath.



I cut the last bunch of my roses and brought them inside for a last blast of summer. I’m going to cut some hips on another rose bush to add to a project I’m working on. I’ve been in an artistic slump. Just been trying (and not very successfully) to finish a few things that have been hanging around. I did do a few Halloween tags that sold on my etsy, and a few other misc. Halloween related stuff. I think it’s too late to list them, so I’ll just hold them for next year, makes me that much farther ahead, right?

Ok, Enough of the Kids, Already!

To continue the “maternal” theme of late, I just finished this piece, called appropriately "maternal love". Its one of the largest so far at 8 x 10 inches. My camera broke recently so I'm forced to scan everything, so can't show how nice this looks hanging by the ribbon. Its listed in my etsy store, check it out.


I guess I’m pretty lucky; I’ve got some great kids. They are healthy, well adjusted, compassionate, and generally well-behaved (maybe that’s because of the daily cattle-prod, whether they need it or not!) Just kidding of course. For the most part I don’t have to do much in the way of discipline (to my two youngest still at home). My middle child, just turned 16 and she’s awesome in school and I don’t even have to nag her about it, go figure? Just have to rein in her mouth sometimes when it goes a little too far. I’m sure no one knows how that is with a teen, right?

My oldest daughter lives with her boyfriend and my 18 mo. old granddaughter. We had some tough times during her 16-18 years, but thankfully no drug/alcohol problems. I think our main problem is that we’re just too much alike (both like the last word) and we bumped heads a lot over her schooling and some boyfriends. But you can’t believe how gratifying it was to hear this the other day, and I quote “Mom, I can’t believe how well you raised me and how lucky I was to live with such a normal family”. We had been talking about how some kids just don’t have a chance, because parents let them run wild, no rules, do drugs in front of their kids, etc. So this mom felt pretty good after that conversation. (picture strutting chicken with chest puffed out ;-) I couldn’t be more proud of this beautiful, mature, baby of mine (at almost 23 yrs old!)

And then there’s my son…my last baby and my baby boy. It’s so true what people say about the bond between a mother and her son and its probably doubly so, when he’s the only boy and baby in the family. He just turned 13. We have a great relationship, we talk a lot and he knows he can come to me with anything (the girls know this too). Then there’s the other side of this pre-teen boy coin that shows its ugly head. He just seems to do those typical “boy things” that cause him to get into trouble, with a typical response of “I don’t know” when standing in front of me. I’m even smiling as I type because I’ve told this kid, over and over, “don’t even think that I won’t find out!” I think I’ve got him believing that I do have some kind of sixth sense (got to keep him on his toes ya know). It’s never been anything bad…who drank the ?, when I said not to, how did such and such get broken, etc., you get the idea. I probably get more of those sharp pains above the eye, that you have to put your index and middle fingers on and press hard, than I should, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I love my kids.

Ok, I promise no more about my kids, maybe.

Creative Weekend

So now that you know a little about me from my previous posts…I have to say I'm now obsessed with creating. Every spare second is spent at my desk trying to create. I’ve had some dry spells when nothing is there in my mind and other times I just can’t create something fast enough. I think my art has “grown” since starting my first atc’s last year at this time. I have more confidence in my ability to create collages. I can kind of “feel” what works and what doesn’t with my atc’s. But now I want to create bigger pieces and experiment with painting.

I don’t want to have one “style” of art that I just make over and over, I want to experiment with all kinds of art mediums. There are so many artists out there that I admire and they make it look so effortless. But although I’ve painted years ago it was always closely following a photograph. I want to create freely, “from the heart” as many say, or from the mind, is what comes to mind, lol. I’m not an overly demonstrative person, and I tend to keep my most personal feelings inside. But I want to be passionate in my creating; I want to be able to paint with a flourish (and have it actually look like something). I hope that time will come. It’s even hard for me to blog about my feelings, but it’s also easy in a way, i.e. hiding behind a computer. I don’t get much support of my art from my family; they are pretty flippant (except for my dad and step-mom they are supportive) about the whole thing. My family is of the mind “get a real job” and make some real money. They’re probably right, but for the time being I want to take this road and see where it leads me. I know I won’t ever be famous, but something inside me has changed since I found art. I’m happier in a sense (but maybe that’s just the meds talking, lol). I’m not like jumping for joy kind of happy, but just content with myself right now. I’m not thinking the “dark thoughts” like I was this time last year. I’m excited to get up in the morning or the evening, depending on my sleep pattern at the time. I do my best work when I’m up at night, its quiet, and no disturbances.

I don’t have the money to take classes or go to those awesome ‘fests, so I’m surfing the ‘net and self-teaching by trial and error (there’s a heck of a lot of “error” too.) I’m so thankful for those artists who take the time to post tutorials and how-to’s. Below is a piece I did this weekend (this was a good creative weekend for me). Although the style is not something I would think of doing on my own, it was fun and the inspiration was from a lady whose art I really like, Debra of mtjoyschool. I'll be keeping this one for myself. The A3 is a little hidden meaning, all three of my kids' names begin with "A". Pretty clever eh? Well ttfn off to drive my rounds to pick up my two kids from school.