Peaceful...

I hope everyone has a peaceful and wonderful new year filled with new adventures.

Practicing...

So I joined a group called Shutter Sisters to help improve my photography and through that found Grey Street Girl. I find her photography inspiring and she was kind enough to reply to an email I sent her. She spends time every day at it even with a full time job. I'm not sure I can give it that much time especially since I have my fingers in so many things but it's a good goal to work towards. Today I put an aging apple out for the birds and said to myself like I do many times "You should take a picture of that." Well, today I did. These are a couple of the shots that I kind of like. Still needs work in the composition, focus and exposure.

I survived...

Well, the week of Christmas was very busy. Cooking, cleaning, painting (pictures not walls), shopping, and other ings. I had hoped to spend some time blogging and catching up on my blog reading but alas it was not to be. There were fifteen of us for dinner Christmas Eve which is when we do the family get together. That way everyone has their own Christmas mornings together. Mom and I cooked most of the day making a Northern traditional meal with the beef roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, yorkshire pudding and green beans. This year I added Chocolate Truffle Creme Brulee which I got from a little creme brulee cook book. It has a little rum in it and is to die for (if you love dark chocolate like me). My brother in law even liked it and he usually doesn't eat dessert.

Everyone is feeling at least a little financial crunch this year so we drew names and I got my niece. She saw one of the paintings I did from Paulette Insall's Organic Backgrounds class and wanted one. I only had the week of Christmas to work on it and fortunately was able to finish it in a day and a half. Below are the pictures of the progression. I did brighter colors for this one and made it 16x20. I wish I had done two of them because I really like the vibrancy of it. I'm very partial to trees but at some point here I'm going to have to figure out how to do some other type of focal point or maybe no focal point at all.

It also just so happens that my niece drew my name. I have an Amazon wish list with at least twenty art type books that I want so she gave me a gift card to Barnes & Noble. I headed over there yesterday and picked up one that I don't think was on my list but I absolutely love it. It's Collage Journeys by Jane Davies. It goes through various techniques and has about seventeen projects to do. I can hardly wait to start playing.

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas full of love and laughter.

December Views 7

December Views 6

Lordy, I'm behind as usual. I did get almost all of the Christmas cards in the mail today so that is checked off my list. Now on to making goodies for the crew at work and making Christmas presents for family. I'll post the cards in a couple days after they've had time to get to their destinations.

Above are pictures of puppy from last year. He was such a good sport about wearing this elf hat Mom put on him. It was just too funny.

December Views 5

Well, I finally finished putting the Christmas cards together last night. There is green glitter everywhere. Still have to address all of them but Mom may help with that. I promis a picture soon.

Can you tell I'm wishing for some snow? Here is a night picture of a light dusting we had a couple years ago. I like it because of the light reflecting off the flakes.

December Views 4...

London architecture.

December Views 3

I am so behind on blogging and I didn't take any pictures over the weekend. Pout. I am still working on the Christmas cards but getting close to done. Mainly at the stage of putting all the pieces together. As soon as I have a finished one I'll post it.

This is a picture of a cool couch at the High Museum here in Atlanta. I love the circles and the play of shadows.

December Views 2...

This is what 65 hand glittered snowflakes look like. These are going on the Christmas cards for this year. Hmm, I should come up with an ornament to make from these too. More later.

December Views

I'm entering a new challenge called December Views. The challenge is to post photos daily from our lives. The two pictures above are not from my everyday life but from a vacation Mom and I took to Great Britain. This is the Great Orm in the north part of Wales. We had so much fun exploring it and feeling like we were on the top of the world. This is also the site of a small quarry and visitors use the rocks for pictures or messages near it.

Happy Thanksgiving...

Did you know that even sitting on a soft couch can make your bottom sore if you stay there long enough? I wanted to start working on Christmas cards today, and yes they should already be done, but it has become a pajama-do-nothing day. I am trying to at least catch up on my blog reading. I decided I should at least stir myself enough to do a post and to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

This week was all about getting the house presentable and cooking pumpkin bread, made from fresh ginger ginger butter, pumpkin soup, turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry chutney, pumpkin pie, whew! (I secretly want to do a whole pumpkin festival theme) I had a wonderful day yesterday with friends and family. I hope everyone had at least as much fun yesterday if not more with their family and friends.

Hugs and kisses!

Lost momentum...

Well, I didn't make it with daily entries. Kind of lost momentum there. Doesn't look good for the rest of the month with all the preparations for Thanksgiving but I'll keep trying. Here is a picture of fern growing in a stone wall from my trip to England.

Another post...

Well, last night I completely forgot to blog so you get two today. The previous post was another petting zoo animal. This is a collage of some texture type pictures I took at Stone Mountain. I really love old things. They have so much character.

What?

Doesn't everyone sit in the feed bin?

A cup of coffee...

The IMT challenge this week is to do something that relates to coffee. I love coffee. I even grind my own beans and yes those are real beans in the corners. Fortunately, I haven't gone as far as to roast my own beans. There are personal roasters you can get if you feel the need. I woke up yesterday with visions in my head for this challenge and this did not come out anything like that. I started with the idea of collaged tissue paper and collaged text for the coffee cup. Once that was done it just seemed flat even though it had texture. Decided to grab some cheese cloth and modge podged that on. Have to say it was a little odd looking. Kind of like used gauze. Yuck! So I gessoed it, stamped on the swirl and then to use up the rest of the brown added swirls to the border. Still looked a little plain. Mom suggested the coffee beans and there we have it. Still not happy with it but I've played with some new techniques.

Another Purchase...

Well, Karen at Blue Bee Designs made another mixed media piece that I couldn't live without. I'm so excited that it arrived today. I just love it. Karen also wraps things so pretty. I can't wait to figure out something to do with the musical fabric strip and she included a sheet of music. Too much fun.

Mom got free tickets to see the opera Cinderella so we did that tonight. It was fun to watch although I have to say the I'm not the biggest fan of the operatic singing style. I know there are some that I've enjoyed the style of more like Rigolleto and Die Fledermaus. Well, anyway we did enjoy it. It was interesting to people watch too. People were dressed all the way from jeans to black tie and evening dresses. I was really surprised by all the fur coats. I thought that was no longer pc and this is the south. Hardly gets cold enough.

Otherwise, today I did actually work on one of my projects and even took a little time to work on the Ispire Me Thursday challenge. It isn't done yet. I had this grand idea but I didn't fine it pleasing once done so now I'm fiddling with it. Do or die I'm posting it tomorrow and hoping for the best.

Well, off to bed. Sweet dreams.

Here piggy, piggy...

Well, this was Friday's post but looks like I just saved it and forgot to publish it.

More Stone Mountain animal pics. Usually I see pigs hanging out in a mud pit but these two are kept nice and tidy. I'm not a pig person but these two are kind of endearing. In an odd sort of way..

The blessed weekend is here. Deep sigh of relief. Changes are afoot at work. Our IS Director has moved on to greener pastures and I will miss her. She started out as the trainer at the firm and gradually moved her way up. In the process we became good friends. Fortunately, she is still nearby. Just won't get to check in on her as often. As my friends and family will attest, I'm very bad at phone calls and emailing. I always think of it when it's too early in the morning or I'm not at the computer. Hopefully they still know I love them.

Well, even though it's Friday night I suppose I should mosey off to bed so I don't wallow in bed too long tomorrow morning. Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.

Fabulous Quilts...

Dana at Old Red Barn Co is giving away some quilts. Go to her site for your chance to win. The one above is the one I want. I just absolutely love the colors in it.

Day 11...

So tonight all I've accomplished is cleaning out some old emails. I almost forgot to post too. Back in September I attended the annual company picnic at Stone Mountain Park. In the park are some transplanted historical buildings and a petting zoo. For the next few posts you will be looking at some farm animals until I manage to create something. This guy just made me laugh. He was busy chewing on some hay and had the funniest expression.

The last of summer's blooms...

One last garden picture. The final fading of the Hydrangeas.

A pleasant surprise...

I saw this little picture on Karen's Etsy site and just couldn't resist these cheerful little guys. They just make me smile. Sorry for the bad picture. I didn't manage to get one during the day with good lighting.

Well, in addition to that she sent me a little packet of fun things to use for collaging and whatever. I'm so excited by all the neat things she sent. I can't wait to use them.

Mixed Media Painting...

So over the weekend, in between other things going on, I wanted to try my hand at the Mixed Media challenge of Autumn colors. I pulled out Creative Embellishments by Sherrill Kahn. I started with an inspiration piece to try to do something different for me and mine came out completely different. I really would like to take some art classes. I haven't decided if I like this or not but I at least spent some time creating and trying some different techniques. I used a little trowel for putting the paint on for the background page and used some cardboard for texture. I wanted to use a real leaf but wasn't sure how to preserve it so altered a silk leaf to be a little more realistic. This week's topic for Inspire Me Thursday is open so going to post this for that challenge too.