Reflections on 2009

The past couple of days I have been reflecting on 2009. I think I accomplished some great things. Just a few of those things were:

-Got juried into an art show again (each time is always exciting)

-taught my first workshop

-sold some art (thats always fun)

-licensed some artwork to a major retailer twice!

-learned how to do assemblage, something I have wanted to learn for years.

None of the above things were really very well planned (other than the workshop, of course) but I hope to set some goals for 2010 and stick to them.

Have a great 2010 everyone!

Spill It

I feel like I really needed a creative jumpstart so I signed up for an online workshop through Carmen Torbus. Its been nice revisiting some techniques I have not done for a while and most of all, its been fun getting messy! the paint is so thick on my hands! I have wanted to get my canvases out again-its been way too long! This is my first lesson doing the workshop and so far its great, looking forward to playing more.

Back in the saddle again..........I hope!

Its strange not doing any art for a couple of weeks.......and I have missed my journaling.

This is the perfect day for it too. Our dogs got in our chicken coop this morning and sadly we lost a few of them. My son did not hook our electric fence back up last night and left the gate open enough for the dogs to get in and they broke into the coop. I am sad as I just loved having the fresh eggs-nothing like fresh eggs! We still have one chicken left but that won't give us that many eggs :( Gotta wait till it gets warmer so we can get some more chickens. ugh! Makes me sick!

Used on this page:

Acrylics, masking tape, collage, charcoal, watercolors and sakura glaze pens

Crazy Holiday Season!

Sorry I have disappeared! This has got to have been the busiest holiday season ever! Between doing around 40 domino ornaments and getting ready for Christmas and having the kids home from school its been insane-I really have not had anything to post here. Now that Christmas is over I will be back to my regular activity I am sure.

I just had to share this though! The Pinata pictured here was made by my husband's uncle. Each year they have a "Pinata Party" right after Christmas. This is a tradition that has gone on for many years. This year's pinata just blew me away-its my absolute favorite. I hated seeing them beating on this work of art that took hours and hours! I would have brought it home!

Ah well, at least I got a picture of it! Just had to share its awesomeness :)

I hope everyone has had Happy/Merry Holiday Season!

Looking forward to getting back to doing some art!

Sumo got a new sweater

Secret Santa Gift-wow!!

I recieved my Secret Santa gift

today, from one of my yahoogroups!

Lots of really cute stamped cards and envelopes, and hand painted ornament, a composition book and some fibers and This!I was wondering why the package was so heavy!The picture does this no justice -it is soooooooooo cute!I wish my daughter was here when I opened it-she is going to ask me probably 100 questions about it when she gets home from school today! What a fun package!

wedding card

Had to have a wedding card to go with the wedding gift so made a quick one today, using leftover papers from making the album I finished last week! Stamp is from IBFS

Its been a horrendous week and a half, thats for sure!

Everyone (except me-knock on wood!) in my house has been sick-last week it started with my husband-they almost admitted him to the hospital (never ever seen him so sick, ever!). A few days later-my daughter-she could not hold down anything for almost 2 days-had to take her to the ER-turns out she had the same thing my husband had, Gastroenteritis. Then a couple days ago the school called and yes, it was my son. sigh. Needless to say I was pretty freaked out-we have never had that much illness in this house in that short of time, and I was extremely tired from taking care of everyone! And all of this before christmas when of course I have a zillion things to get done. So now I am playing catch up!

Wedding Gift

A friend's daughter is getting married next week and I wanted to make them something for their wedding gift. So I decided to make them a 5x7 album to hold misc. wedding photos-and I used their wedding colors of white black and red. LOVE this color combo, so fun to work with!

I had the idea to bind some love and marriage quotes in with it-they are random throughout the book. At first I was going to do each page this way but then I thought just throughout would be fine. I did something different with this one-rather than using the O-wires for the Bind it All , I bound this with ribbon. It just seemed to fit perfectly with this book. This will hold around 26-28 4x6 photos. Its fairly thick so I thought a closure would be nice and added to the whole look of the album itself. I was undecided on the cover-the original plans I had just were not working out, so my dear friend Katie suggested a frame with a place for their picture or something. Ta-da!! there are pictures on their announcements so I used one of them-and it came out perfect! :)