Catching up...

I've managed to have a nice weekend with a little creative time and a little to do list time.  Saturday I spent some time with one of my best friends, Rebecca, hanging at Michael's for a crop.  I started a diptych collage but only got as far as some preliminary layers of paint so no pictures yet.  I seem to be in a girly phase with pinks.  Rebecca did a couple of lovely layouts that I'm sure she'll be posting soon.

Yesterday I installed a new light over my craft table (old gold chandalier v new brushed nickle).  The shades are more beige than the white in the picture.  Did laundry and vacuumed.  Still need to mop but it can wait a bit longer.  Don't want to get too crazy with the to do list stuff.

I have another collage I created towards the end of the year that I will post about soon but here is a card I made for my sister's birthday that started last May.  One of the workshops I took at Inspired last year was with Margie Romney-Aslett where we refolded a manila folder into an accordion type thing.  We only got a little way done with it because she concentrated more on some techniques like the rosettes.  As I was working on it in class I decided I would make it for my sister.  Didn't have her future birthday in mind but by the time I actually finished it that's what happened.  I made a couple of tag notes to go in it where I wrote her some personal messages.  There was one bird in the original design but I decided to add some more and a couple of butterflies scattered in.  My sister is one of those special people who is just a love bug and who has been going through a lot of personal painful stuff.  For me the birds and the butterfly are a symbol of good changes to come for her where she morphs into a new her with wings to fly and become who she wants to be.  Love you bunches and bunches Sher-bear.

We have a winner!

Well, after a mad dash trying to visit all 871 blogs, I only made it through about 500 of them.  Fortunately the list will remain and I can finish at a more leisurely pace.  I had to tell myself last night at 11 pm that even if I could get to all of them it wouldn't alter my life in anyway so they would just have to wait for another day.  It doesn't help when you try to go look at all the Etsy or Artfire shops and Flickr.

I'm estatic that I had 196 people who wanted my collage and I have a bunch of lovely new followers.  It's probably going to take me a month to be sure I have visited everyone who left a comment and/or followed but I'll get to you.  I think I must have added at least 100 blogs to follow myself.  Lordy!  There were so many beautiful items created and lovely people to meet.

So to the really important information.  I ran the random number generator and Lucky 7 won.  Sarah is a dancer and choreographer, lives in the UK and she makes beautiful cards.  Check her out.

One World One Heart 2011

It's that time again for the yearly One World One Heart giveaway.  This is so much fun and there are already over 800 entries.  I have no idea how I'm going to be able to visit all of the blogs but I'm going to give it a whirl.  It is so much fun to meet new people in blogland and discover new artists.  This is the fifth year of the event and my third time to participate.  I'm sad to say this is the final one that Lisa Swifka is doing although I imagine it is a lot of work to do this every year.  The rules are posted here and the blog roll is here. On the morning of February 17th I will 'draw' a name and announce the winner here on my blog.

So for those of you who are new to my blog let me introduce myself.  I live outside of Atlanta, Georgia, theoretically in suburbia although there are cows down the street.  When I first moved into my house in 1998 I could hear roosters down the way and the stars in the sky were so vivid.  Now we have shopping centers and a lot of what I call light pollution.  Still a little bit in the country and the North Georgia mountains are within sight.  I work 40 miles away in almost downtown Atlanta in a law firm as manager in the IT department.

I'm a bit of a workaholic so I don't have a lot of free time but I love being creative and exploring new techniques.  I actually started out scrapbooking which morphed into card making which has morphed into mixed media collaging.  I also want to play with making jewelry so that is next on the list.  I also love photography but have been woefully neglecting it.

So for my give away is a recent collage I did on 12x12 watercolor paper.  I used paper, fabric, antique wall paper, paint, postage stamps, a Donna Downey tree stamp and buttons.  All you have to do to enter is leave a comment saying hello.  I look forward to "meeting" you.

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing everyone a blessed and joyous Christmas.


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Snow!!

I'm having a lovely day making Christmas cards and watching it snow outside. It's probably just a dusting but pretty anyway.









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So slow...

Well, even with Rebecca and Mom's help we only got the molding completed in one room but we did get all my cabinets moved back in. Forgot to take a picture of that. It does take longer when you are unpacking new tools and trying to figure out how to use them without harming yourself or your helpers. There were a couple pieces I had to do over three times to get it right. Did get one wall in the foyer done. It's a good thing I've given myself months to get all this done. Just have to get the molding done in time for Thanksgiving but I am hoping to get the stairs done for Christmas.

Caught Rebecca taking pictures of me taking pictures so this is a little blurry.






One of my new toys. Does a great job on the miter cuts.



























The quarter round was the hardest with figuring out the right angle to cut for the corners. I have templates now to keep it straight. I tell you there's nothing like clean pristine baseboards. If only they would stay that way.

Can't help but show these. Little Pixie washed old man Scooter and went to sleep hugging him.







And here is Tigger hanging off the couch just so he can be close to Puppy.







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Floor saga update...

Weekend before this past one I took a break for a sisters camping trip. My sister Sherri and I loaded up the Jeep and headed up to the North Georgia forest service roads after work. Didn't make it in time to work in day light so put the tent up with light from lanterns. It was just a bit cold that night too so slept with many layers. Our camp stove was being difficult so cooked all our meals over the flame with a nifty grill table gadget. All in all it was a beautiful weekend with a touch of color on the trees. Even did a little off roading on some rugged trails and visited a lovely waterfall.















This past weekend was a long one for me since I needed to use up some vacation time. Most of it was dedicated to painting some trim and installing the flooring. Made great headway with the help of my awesome friend Rebecca and my awesome Mom.






I was hoping to get the basemold installed and furniture put back in but lost a day over drama from escaped kitties. My little furry children are indoor kitties because of neighbor dogs, busy road, and sundry wild animals who will eat them. A door blew open and two of them escaped causing two nights of worry, a few tears here and there, and chasing down leads from caring neighbors. Finally got them back and we are all calmed down now.

I have to say I'm really happy with how the floor is turning out and I love the color. I'm hoping to get the stairs done by Thanksgiving and then the view from the front door will be taken care of. I have a feeling that with the holidays and getting Christmas cards made that the kitchen and family room won't happen until January and my bedroom in February. We shall see.

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Finally making headway

The first Saturday of this month I finally got to hang with the girls and have some creative time. We called it a scrap shower since we combined Scrapbooking (and other creative endeavors) and a baby shower for one of the girls. My friend Rebecca made the cutest cupcakes with paper butterflies on top.  Should have grabbed a picture but you can visit Rebecca's blog to see.

I worked on making some artwork for Mom. You know how moms can be. They think everything you do is great and mine wants to put everything on the walls. I made this and had words on it but didn't like the way they looked so peeled the pieces of paper back off. I really like the little rectangles of previous layer exposed that happened as a result.  The tree stamp is a nice big one from Donna Downey and this is a 12x12 piece of watercolor paper.  I had fun using a mixture of paper, fabric, wallpaper, postage stamps, buttons and paint.

On another note, I finally made some headway on the wood floor. Started out Satuday figuring outy first few rows and cuts and found out that the table saw I borrowed didn't have a neccessary piece to keep the boards straight for longer cross cuts so off to Lowes to get something else (after researching and ordering on the Internet of course). Ended up with this awesome one that can do rip cuts and cross cuts. It's called a hardwood floor saw and is somewhat convertible. I'll have to take a picture of it. Rebecca came over Sunday and was an immense help in keeping me on track with my cuts and with all the glueing we had to do. It's only a small start but I am on my way.











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Scintilating Saga

Hope I spelled that right. Foyer is finally scraped as good as it's going to get. After talking to a couple of the guys at work they pointed out that just replacing the shoe mold might not be enough to cover the expansion gap needed so off came the base molding too.




While I was working I decided to watch some Dr. Oz. It got me thinking about what do I truly do for myself that falls under the good for me category. Good for my body or my soul type of good. Today it was Dr. Oz and contemplating how to get back on track with weight loss. Three years ago I had gastric bypass and lost 100 pounds over about 18 months and then maintained for another six. Then I received a promotion at work which involves longer hours lots of stress and less me time and I've gained back about a size and a half. So I'm thinking something needs to change.  Not my job because I like it and I need to make a living.

I'd like to challenge myself to do one thing each day that is to my benefit be it health, creativity, or spiritual. Of course I'm already afraid of failure but I should give it a whirl any way.

What do you do for yourself? How often do you manage to focus on your own growth?

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Too exciting...

or not. Spent the weekend scraping up wood glue in the foyer and I'm not even half done. I set out for Lowes after a stint of it Saturday morning because I remembered someone had at least a biodegradable adhesive remover. It wasn't Lowes and I just didn't feel like multiple hardware stores. So now I have to decide if I'm going to try some this week or not and just how clean does the concrete need to be. I'm also tempted to remove the base moulding because I like the look of that on top of the wood rather than just using shoe moulding over the gap between the wood and the base moulding. We shall see.

Here is the work so far although it doesn't look like much. Mom's helping with the clean up.









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