Hello again...

Gosh it's been a long time. Work has been in high gear and cutting into my weekend time greatly. I have been managing to create some things but having trouble sitting down and posting them. Eventually I'm going to get better (faster) at editing my pictures and grouping them.

My friend Rebecca and I had wanted to do something last year for our mutual friend Lisa who had her third daughter. We hadn't given her anything hand made for her first two daughters and didn't want to leave them out so I did one photo album and Rebecca did two. We finally gave them to Lisa in April. I beat Rebecca in getting mine posted. When are you posting yours, Rebecca? Huh, huh? Not a challenge or anything since you are much better at posting on your blog. ;-)

Today I finally started my online painting class with Paulette Insall and am enjoying it a lot. Silly me thought I could get two lessons done today but when you start late and have to wait for paint to dry things go awry. Well, it's past my bedtime but hopefully I will get more things posted this week so I can get caught up.

Oh, and one of my friends, Stephanie, has started a new blog about her walk with God that is wonderful. Visit it when you get a chance.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful and blessed Memorial Day.

Hi, I'm still here, sort of...

Well, mom and I didn't make it to the Dogwood festival. It was a dark rainy day and we decided on indoor retail therapy instead. It was a nice relaxing day. Work is backing off a little bit. I still have much more than I can get done but I've decided that if I'm going to have to give up any of my personal time then it will be for something I am more interested in and will benefit my career more. I won't bore you with details but it's web development related and something I really want to become proficient at.

The last week or so I've been a bad girl buying clothes. We have a local Lane Bryant that is moving and they are selling off all the inventory at a deep discount so they don't have to move it. I just couldn't pass up shirts at $2 or pants at $9. Some things were a little more but I really racked up without having to take out a small loan. I've even bought some things at smaller sizes to cover me for a little while. It's so nice to have new things. I'm a clothes junkie. If I were rich I'd buy new stuff every month.

I haven't been doing much in the way of art or scrapbooking lately. I did get together with some of the girls a couple weeks ago but only managed to make a couple cards for the day. I wasn't satisfied with them but it was really nice to hang with the girls. I will probably work again this weekend but maybe I can squeeze in some crafting time. We shall see.

Today I decided to live on the edge and sign up for an online art class by Paulette Insall. I looked at her Flicker site with artwork from a previous class and was hooked. I really, really, really want to be able to create those wonderful backgrounds. I'm really excited about taking this class and so hope I will be able to create something beautiful. If I'm not embarrased by it I will post the works in progress. Class starts on May 19th.

I'm at work so no pictures to post and I guess it's time to stop my lunch break and get back to work. Hope all is well with everyone.

Utterly Useless...

Well, I've been trying all weekend to do something creative but have only succeeded at being a useless bump on a log.

Friday Mom and I were going to go to the Dogwood Festival. We almost never miss it. This year it was banished from Piedmont Park and was being held in the Lenox Mall parking lot. Sounds very picturesque doesn't it. I heard they shipped in some dogwoods for it. Well, it was rainy all day Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday so we skipped it. We ran errands instead.

Saturday I attempted to make a birthday card and I am not happy with it. I decided to quit while ahead and have spent the rest of the weekend surfing the net. Although Sunday I tried editing some pictures to do something interesting with them. I've been trying to catch up with all the interesting stuff on Pioneer Woman but failed at that too.

I've been working too much and I think that it has sapped all the creativity out of me. I'm hoping it isn't a permanent condition. I think I'm also overwhelmed with all the things I should be doing between work and home, non creative things, that I'm just not getting any of them down. Hopefully I just needed some downtime and this will all pass. Ok, enough whining.

And since I can't stand to post without a picture say hellow to this guy from last summer. I did apply the hard light blending tool to take out some of the grey. I still want to play with some other techniques like borders.

Working...

So one of my friends pointed out that I haven't posted in a while. The problem is that I haven't been doing much other than work for a while now. I'm really missing playing with my supplies and creating things (whine). Say hello to George here who sits perched on my desk at work to keep me company. Unfortunately this is a picture from my phone so it's not very good.

Snow...

Well, this morning much to my surprise was a little bit of snow flurries. Nothing that was going to stick but it was nice to look at. I didn't manage to post my snow pictures from January so here they are.

Work has been terribly hectic and I haven't been able to play with the latest Inspire Me Thursday challenge. May be late again if I can manage to do it this weekend. If I remember correctly it's doing something with paint drips. I'm so looking forward to that.

Had fun last Saturday at Scrap Chic with the girls. The ladies who own the store are a hoot and we had a great time. I started a card series to either sell or give away but not finished yet so you'll have to wait for the pics. That and I haven't taken any pictures yet. ;-)

Later dudettes!

Journal Book...

I had a wonderful time cropping with the girls last Saturday at Archiver's. I didn't actually do anything scrapbook related. I started out not quite sure what I would be doing but just grabbed a bunch of stuff. I ended up working on covering composition books. This is the one I actually finished. I started another one but there is more that I want to do with it. It's a little hard to read but the stamped phrase is "happiness walks on busy feet." It's from a set of phrases stamps by Autumn Leaves and the paper is one of the new ones by K & Company. There were two new lines that I just had to have. It's not like I don't have tons of other paper I could have used. Oh, well. All a part of my various addictions. Even though I usually don't get a lot done during our get togethers I just really enjoy spending time visiting with friends and being creative. I actually get double time this month since we are going to Scrap Chic next saturday to support Rebecca as one of the new design team members. Of course we will have fun as usual and get to meet some new people.

Sunday I attempted to do some catch up for work and of all things got side tracked with a program that is having trouble accessing it's database. So all I did was spin my wheels and will be further behind as I get it fixed. Aargh! Finally gave up since I will need some files restored from backup and ran errands with my Mom. We then had a lovely dinner at a new seafood restaurant out here in the boonies. It is actually good. Hopefully it will stay that way.

Faces...

I am so late with this one. Last week's challenge on Inspire Me Thursday was faces. When we went to the stamp show a couple weeks ago one of the demonstrations used artist's pencils to color more intricate stamps so I of course had to get some. One evening I had a little time to check into IMT's current challenge and thought it wasn't something I would try. Later I thought about it and played with drawing on a scap and decided in the spirit of doing things out of my comfort zone that I would give it a whirl. I pulled out my new artist's journal and started sketching in pencil and then decided to break in my new pencils and my new blending pencil. I think I made a mistake by not covering the paper with gesso first because there wasn't a whole lot of blending going on. Her cheeks even came out a little shiny. After doing this I think it would be fun to learn how to get more facial expression. So I present my first ever full blown face. sure beats stick figures. ;-)

A day outside...

I had such plans for things to accomplish this weekend. As usual only a little was accomplished. Saturday was supposed to be a day of making birthday cards and Valentine cards. Well, the birthday card is almost done. Spent more time tidying up and was moving a little slowly. Also, my friend Renee called and talked me into spending some time Sunday tromping through the woods enjoying the great outdoors. I decided it would be good for me to get out and get some exercise and said I would. So today Renee arrived at my house at 10 am and we had great plans to go trek to a water fall off the logging roads north of my neck of the woods. We arrive at the dirt logging roads and head in what I think is the right direction. I didn't have my really good map from the National Forestry. It's been a little while and we landed on a section that was like driving on a very rocky dry river bed. It was quite exciting. The pictures above are from a creek we stopped to enjoy before the wild ride. I wish I had gotten a picture of just how bad the road was but I was so intent on making it down it in one piece that I forgot. Since none of the roads seemed to have their markings anymore we never made it to the hiking trail but I did manage to get us back to a main road after hours of wandering around. One funny thing that happened was we happened upon a gaggle of chickens in the middle of the road. For those that don't know it, I drive a yellow Jeep Wrangler. Well, it seemed like they thought I was mommy or something. They milled around the Jeep and when the moved away from the front I creeped forward until they were all behind me. I was moving forward but slowly and when I looked in the rear view mirror they were all joyfully following me. It was almost the funniest dadgum thing I've ever seen. If the top had been down I would've gotten Renee to get a picture of it. I moved along faster and they finally gave up. I didn't get my exercise in but I did have a beautiful day in the great outdoors driving around the north Georgia foothills. Still have those darn valentine cards I'd like to make. It could still happen. Oh, and the last picture above was my first attempt at a slower shutter speed to try to get that misty water feel. Looks like I needed to set it for longer but it was still an interesting affect.

I hope everyone has a beautiful week!

Glass

This weeks Inspire Me Thursday's theme is glass. This is a photograph of the door on a tomb at historical Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta. It looks like a grill on a door that you are looking through at other monuments in the background but it is actually filled with glass that is reflecting the monuments behind me. I don't know what it is but I love the reflection of things in glass or on a body of water.

Now mirrors are another thing. There's a whole love hate relationship going. You have to have them to make sure you've gotten your clothes on right before heading out the door and that something has gone horribly wrong with your hair but boy do I hate looking in them. Well, maybe hate is too strong of a word. All they do is reflect back what is really there but how is it when we look at them we can't quite interpret the image correctly. There are the days when you think you look better than you actually do and then the days when you think you look worse than you do. And then there are the ones in the dressing rooms that I swear really do make your butt look bigger.

Well, onto more pleasant things. Today I met up with my friends Rebecca and Misti to go to a stamp show we've never gone to before. It was a small show but it sure was overwhelming. I wanted several things from every booth. There were so many beautiful art stamps that I've never seen before and glitter every where. I thought the glitter was going to do in Rebecca. We both love it but she is the glitter queen. I managed to only buy about 8 unmounted stamps but went a little crazy at the booth that had quite a selection of Ten Seconds tools for metal embossing. I am now well on my way to be able to dabble in that medium. I played with it a little here and there but now am well armed with the dvd on techniqes so look out world.

Just looked at my clock and it is 1:40 am and that is just crazy. I suppose I really should go to bed now so off I go. Sweet dreams!

Out of my comfort zone...

This weeks challenge on Inspire Me Thursday was to do something out of your comfort zone. A couple of months ago I bought one of those artist journal books because I saw some examples of them on a couple of blogs and thought it was really cool. They were being used to try out new ideas and that seemed like an excellent idea. I decided today was the day to break it out and try something new.

In the first picture I painted a page with acrylics by layering three colors and streaking it so it would look sort of like weathered wood. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going with it. I dug through various supplies and really wanted to do something with leaves. I finally settled with one of my leave stamps and used that. I also had some left over strips of metal from another project (still to be completed) that I had colored with alcohol inks. I find that I'm not happy with it but I kept telling myself that this is a book to explore with. I don't think that the leaves make enough impact.

The second piece started out because I had paint leftover and hated to waste it. I had seen some work done by Christine Adolph, including one of those sketch books, and decided to try my hand at something similar. Mine pales in comparison but at least I started. I'm not happy with this one either. I had such grand ideas in my head but haven't figured out how to get out onto paper.

I am so glad, though, that I have at least made a start. I want to continue to try some of the techniques I've seen that I really like and then finally develop my own style. This stepping out of my comfort zone is really hard. It's funny too because even with artists I am really inspired by I don't like everything they do. Maybe if I give myself more freedom I will like what I produce more. I will definitely keep exploring and working on it.

During this process of thinking about comfort zones I thought of a few people in my life that I am inspired and proud of the ways they have stepped out of their comfort zones. My sister, Sherri, has started going back to school after raising four kids. I so admire her get up and go do it attitude. A friend and scrapbooking buddy, Misti, has been joining groups of mothers she doesn't know for fellowship for herself and her son Jonathan. I really admire her for doing that and I understand completely how hard it is to socialize with new people. Eventually they become friends but you have to get over that hump. My sister-in-law, Wendy, has stepped out on a limb and went through a program to start her own Virtual Assistant business. I just think that is really cool.

Well, I probably could ramble on more but I just looked at the clock and it is so past my bedtime. 5 am is going to come way too soon so I am going to sign out now. Good night and sweet dreams.