Tea Party gifts

One of my favorite traditions is our annual birthday tea party.  It is a chance for my mom and sister and my two nieces and I to get together to celebrate our birthdays.  I try to make a special gift each year to add to the festivities. Of course the packages need to be extra pretty!

This year I went with the tea theme and each of them received their own tea cup and saucer, tea strainer, tea cookies and a package of Ernest Hemingway tea.  I made the boxes specially for each one based on their favorite colors.

The boxes were made out of poster board and then painted.  Once they were dry I decoupaged pretty Paris print napkins to the lids. (I found the napkins at Tuesday Morning) unfortunately the one close to my house closed this week, now I'll have to go into town to visit the one there.  The tops are tied off with a matching bow of tulle and a coordinating silk hydrangea. 

They were a big hit with the girls and several of the patrons at the tea house stopped to ask about them as well.

Happy Birthday Mom and girls! Love you all bunches!

Talk to you soon.

Friday Flip

Welcome to Friday Flip where I am flipping through my art journals and sharing my artful journey.  These pages are more doodling and practicing watercolor washes. Still looking for that perfect black permanent ink pen that won't smear when I use a water medium over it.  This one is a Sharpie fine point, it does pretty good unless I'm trying to write over acrylic paint or too many layers of gesso. I'm also trying out different white ink pens.  There are several comparisons on the internet but, so far, my results have been intermittent.

Some quick little thumbnail sketches of faces.  Need to practice that a lot more!

Have a great day, I'll talk to you again soon.

Such a Deere

My cousin is having a baby.  She loves John Deere stuff and since she is having a boy, that was the theme for the baby shower.  I love a theme!

I found some cute JD onesies and a tractor rattle for the shower but couldn't find any bags or boxes that I liked.  So, of course I had to make them.  The boxes are made of John Deere green poster board and I found the chevron burlap ribbon at the Hobby Lobby.  I printed a logo onto sticker paper for the top of the box.

The second box contained travel size essentials. 

I found this cute tractor for the Cricut on the My World classmate cartridge and the tag is from the CTMH essentials cartridge.  It worked together perfectly!  The green clothes pin was left over from another project and just seemed to fit right in.

Congratulations "K" can't wait to meet your new little deere!

Talk to you again soon.

Friday Flip

Welcome to the first Friday Flip post.  At least two Fridays a month I will post pictures and descriptions of some of my journal pages.  A couple of years ago I started adding more doodling and mark making in my journals and low and behold there is a name for that kind of activity... art journaling!  These are works in progress and if you keep an art journal you know they are never quite finished.  I have kept journals for a long time, mostly for writing down my thoughts and making lists of everything under the sun so the "art" part of it is a scary step for me.  Come along with me and hopefully see some improvement along the way!

I started off by making a journal using two pretty file folders.  I glued them together to make them a little sturdier then I grabbed some random bits of watercolor and mixed media papers and spiral bound them together using my Zutter bind-it-all.  I have a little watercolor kit that I used to play around on the page and I am always in search of a great permanent ink black pen.  Just like a magpie I collect little bits of things that catch my eye and they wind up taped or glued to the page as well.

Talk to you again soon.

Volunteer gifts

I could not run the library as well as I do without the help and support of my volunteers.  This year the end of the year came so fast I was caught without any great ideas for end of year gifts.  Well, I just so happen to keep a Pintrest board with gift ideas posted so I found something that I thought I could modify to work for me.  So this year my volunteers received these.

Includes a cool water bottle, bubble wand, jummi bears, magazine and beach towel

Thank you ladies for a great year! You are soooo appreciated, I'm going to miss you in the fall.

Talk to you again soon!

A different focus

 

A selection of some of my current journals

For a number of years I was joyfully involved in rubber stamping as an independent demonstrator and personal stamper. It was a way for me to be creative and share my positive wishes with my friends and loved ones through cards and handmade gifts. Over the past couple of years my focus has shifted.  I still love sharing my art and positive wishes with everyone but, I started to feel a little restricted using other peoples designs and artwork. I really wanted to branch out and begin using my own ideas from my own hand. I am not trained to be an artist, I am a work in progress. So, with a little trial and a lot of error I started doodling and trying this and that and keeping art journals to try my ideas in. I looked all around the internet and saw so much lovely work and at first and still, I have trouble identifying my own style but each new attempt brings me closer. 

There are several artists that I have drawn a lot of inspiration from.  Jane Davenport, Jane Lafazio, Alisa Burke, Claudia Nice, and Joann Sharpe to name just a few.  

So I am going to start a new little adventure called Friday Flips, a chance to flip through my art journal to share my baby steps toward...who knows what?!

small journal page, playing with paints and pitt pens and white gel pen.

Talk to you again soon.

Catching up

Wow, the first six months of the year have already flown by.  I know I've been absent from this little space in blogland but, I have been busy and I've had lots of creative opportunities.

Here are a few of the highlights:

I've been published! Not once, not twice, but three times!!! I know I was really surprised too!

The publication of Cloth Paper Scissors chose my work for their publication.  Look at the sidebar to see the issues.

A piece of jewelry from found objects and resin.

 A mixed media stitched piece.

And finally, a hand carved stamp that I forgot to take a picture of before I mailed it off, but fortunately they were kind enough to put it on the front cover for me!!! I know, how cool is that!  Mine is the simple one, my symbol for a good idea.

Whew! deep breath, I still get heart palpitations thinking about it. 

I am so grateful for their consideration and acceptance of my work.  More to come so I'll talk to you again soon.