Have been creating a little here and there

Think I have set an all time record for no blogging for me, anyway! It's been 2 months now! A friend mentioned a post I once did about trees and people on Facebook and it shamed me when I visited my own blog and saw how long it had been since I posted anything. I have been trying to get scans done of the mini-journal I mentioned in that last post, but it's been hard. My scanner is hooked up to my desktop and it is working vvvverrry slowly now. I think it either has a virus or spyware crap that I can't find or some settings are messed up that I'm not smart enough to figure out.

I was able to get some jewelry made this past week. Shown above are some asymmetrical earrings I made today. I wanted to use a jade floral charm I've had since I was young. I never wore it on a necklace anymore so I thought this would be a good way to wear it again. Below are 2 pics of  a necklace that started out with vintage blue glass beads from an old necklace that I cut up. Then they seemed to call for some more bright colors, so I mixed all colors of beads in with the blue. I like it although I'm not so sure about it still. I did get some funny looks when I wore it, so maybe I'm the only one that likes it.

The little journal is something I've worked on here and there with mostly little scraps from my art table. It was one of those sheets with punch out pages that you assemble together. I wanted to art it up so it was more my style. I made it so I could go back and journal in it. It ended up having some running elements throughout with an overall them of quirky!

Above the cover, closed.  Uses stamped and painted scraps of paper, flower brads, paper leaves, Stickles glitter here and there.

First page: watercolor painted and stamped vintage book pages, vintage text, Go embellishment

More stamped or painted paper scraps(color is off a bit in this scan, couldn't get it to fix) Used some gesso, markers, paint once elements glued down.  Plaid pocket has a marbled paper tag.

Still mostly scraps of paper with randomly chosen images, more stamped book pages

This is one of my favorites spreads in this little book.

More of the same. Some of the shaped paper trims I used in this journal were from some children's craft kit that had punch out shapes, strips in all kinds of colors.

I like this one, too, especially the left page. Used gesso to soften arond the edges and touches of paint, too.  Like the dreamy look it has. 

Yeah, weird, I know, lol!  Inspired by the stamp.  Again this one uses watercolor painted book pages.  I got some one day and just played around throwing colors on there in different ways.  I stamped on some of them.  Reminder to me: you need to take time to play like that again!

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Still playing around with craziness.  Some of these images like the dragon and the star were in a collage pack that a friend, Jane Widman, sent me in a swap one time.

Last page.  It is like a third page next to the spread shown above.  Actually the back cover of the book. This one didn't scan well either, maybe because of the plastic flower.  The colors look better than they show here and there is gold outlining making a tree that you can't really tell here.

Wish I could get back into some kind of artistic groove, but it just hasn't happened.  I keep feeling like I am in some kind of "waiting" mode, although I am not sure what I am waiting on.  Thought at first it was that I had to get adjusted to all the changes from my job and that may still be it, but fully expected to be over it by now.  There is still uncertainity about our farm and what we are going to do about that.  Perhaps it is having that in the back of my mind which keeps me like this.  My job does take much more time out of my life than I was used to since there are an additional 2 hours added to each day just commuting.  Also, there are no extra off days like I had at the hospital, either working 4 ten hour days per work week or a 7 on/ 7 off schedule.

I will just have to keep hoping and praying that I get my head all straightened out and that creativity will return as much as time allows.  We do take time to see Thomas and that is time I never regret.  Recently he turned 2 years old and we all celebrated that occasion with a trip to a petting farm near Tuscaloosa.  It was hot but we had a blast.  I'll close this long overdue post with few shots from that day.

In the meantime...

I know it has been a LONG TIME since I have posted. I am really working to get a post together about a little mini-journal I've been working on here and there. In the meantime, you should visit the jewelry workshop link(the new button on the side bar) and check out the amazing work by Deryn Mentock of Something Sublime Her work is amazing, often spiritual, and always beautiful!

She is also giving away 2 free workshop experiences. I would love to win one of these!

I am having so much trouble with blogger today that I want to scream!!! I can not see any of the stuff down the side of my blog that is supposed to be there, including the button that I mentioned above. When I go to "settings" everything shows up that is supposed to be there, but I can't see it once I go to my blog. I can't stay signed in and am having a LOT of trouble just posting or editing. I am trying to attach the button link here, but not having much luck with that.

Monthly blog?

Seems to be what I'm down to posting, if that. Good intentions, but you know how that road goes! In looking back at my last one, it is so sadly ironic that I mentioned, Sammy, my other granddoggy and needing to give equal time to him. We spent this past week in Waco, Texas visiting Chris, Holly, and, of course, Sammy. I am so sad to say that last Wednesday evening, Sammy was killed by a hit and run driver when they had let him out before bedtime. Ended up being good that we were there to help with some things. Above is a shot of Holly and Sammy that Chris was kind enough to send to me. He was the sweetest, most well-behaved dog! Also, one I took last year when we went to see them. It left an empty spot for them and I know they are missing him!

Other than this, we had a wonderful visit. Holly wanted us to make some jewelry together while I was out there. She had some ideas in mind and I had brought some jewelry magazines also for inspiration. I am still a novice at wire-wrapping but started out doing most of it. Holly quickly caught on and ended up doing one necklace entirely by herself. When sewing was required, that was my job. We didn't capture the best pictures of the necklaces, especially the one made of tie-dyed fabric strips, cording, and felt balls. All the others are combinations of various metal chains, beads, and jewelry findings. We flew so I couldn't bring all my junk jewelry, so Holly had to purchase the different components. I had brought my tools and some fabric notions.






Holly made this one with the white glass beads by herself.



For the necklace above, Holly already had a vintage pin from my stash that she wanted to use as a focal point. She cut up an old white tshirt to make the fabric flowers.



This was the first one we made.

Holly made me work for my keep while we visited! We rearranged some furniture, hung pictures, etc. This is her new guest room decor below. Also, we did some fun things. I got my first professional pedicure ever. Probably won't be my last. It was very enjoyable! I would show you the picture we sent to Emily of that, but it makes my toes look fat :)



We visited Holly's classroom to see how she had redone it for this year. She has worked really hard and was rewarded by being honored with "Teacher of the Year" from her school during her first full year of teaching. We are very proud of her.



On Friday evening we drove down to Austin to eat at the Melting Pot and got to see a little of the city before we ate. It was a contrast of beautiful old buildings and modern architecture.







This week away flew by as they always seem to do. We got back into Birmingham on Saturday. Emily and Thomas picked us up along with our 2 dogs. So there were the 3 grownups, Thomas and his carseat, our 2 dogs, and all our luggage along with what Emily had to bring for she and Thomas to visit for Easter. This was a very comical sight I'm sure. I'll make another post about Easter and Thomas, since this one is long enough already.

Post to show my grand dog, Coal

I follow several blogs, keeping up with them from Google Reader. One of my favorite artists, Colette Copeland, of A Bird in the Hand, posted some pictures today that led to my quickie post here. Her doggie friend looks just like my daughter's dog, Coal. I almost thought at first I was looking at pictures of him and my husband did think so when I showed him. Here are some shots of Coal. I have better ones somewhere, I know, but couldn't find them just now.

Aren't they beautiful dogs?!? I will have to do another post soon and show my other granddoggy, Sammy. Can't be partial! He belongs to my youngest daughter, Holly. Just wanted to get these up here so Colette could see the resemblance.

Be sure and check out Colette's blog while you are there. Her art and blog are among my favorites.

Good intentions, you know the story

Well, you make promises to try to do better about blogging and next thing you know, things go wrong. I won't even get any deeper into this since I shouldn't really talk about some of the things going on in such a forum, but suffice it to say that life can be very challenging sometimes. The trick is finding the place where you can be "in your head" to be able to continue on with your day to day life, which as they say does go on. I'm trying to focus on the good, hope for the best, but make some contingency plans all the same.

I did finally make a little bit of jewelry, very simple pieces, which are pictured here. Have some other jewelry ideas in my head waiting for time and energy to coincide. Maybe I should not make any plans, but just sneak up on some projects here and there, as I've still not gotten around to journaling, drawing, and painting like I had planned.




Both of these recent projects are actually remakes of old jewelry. The multi-strand necklace is just old chains of different colors reassembled. The earrings were gaudy eighties items that had this strange orange glitter rock-looking plastic centers. I removed this tackiness and punched some dictionary scrapbook paper to replace the centers, topping them with some glass marbles. One side reads "creator(God)" and the other "creation", a reminder to me of the glory of what I am to the One who is in charge.




Today one of my talented coworkers did a "lunch and craft" class where she showed us how to make this really cute card with a suit and tie on the front. It is harder for me to do this type of crafting, as I'm more of a "put it together as I go" kind of person instead of one who plans and executes. It was a bit of a challenge to me, but one I really enjoyed. Plus, the end product is so adorable!! If I got around to doing more cards it would certainly be a way to use up some of that collection of cute scrapbooking papers I've accumulated!



I was fortunate enough to escape down to Tuscaloosa to spend some time with Thomas, Emily, and Craig last weekend. It was so nice to laugh and play and amazing to see how much he changes. He already exhibits a great sense of humor and is such a little ham! Love this little fellow!

Promised snow pictures

These are the promised snow pics from my last post and were taken of the snow that we got around the 10th. Above is Max enjoying and posing in the snow behind the house. He loved it surprisingly and ran around having a good time.



On the other hand, we took Thomas out the morning after most of the snow fell and he was not too thrilled as you can see. Granted there was a very cold wind blowing that had some snow still in it. You can tell by looking at my face above that the wind was miserable. Grampy was even willing to go outside with the grandbaby, but we only stayed out a few minutes. We put Thomas down on the ground to see what he would do and he just held his little hand back up to Grampy, like "get me outta here"!



The shot below of our back deck steps illustrates how much we got. We think maybe 6 inches or so. This is a lot for our area. It hung around for a week in some places and that is also not very common in Alabama.



The pictures below were taken at the end of the week outside my workplace. You can see that there was still a good bit of snow left on the ground. Where they plowed the snow off the parking lot into huge mounds lasted on almost another week. I know this is laughable to those of you who live where it snows all winter, but this is remarkable to those of us in the Deep South.





We have had even more episodes of snow and ice since this, including an unpredicted one yesterday afternoon. It started about 2-3pm, catching people at work and school or trying to get home from those places. Ice and snow in various mixtures fell with freezing temperatures keeping it from melting on the roads. I work an hour from home and left there about 4:30, trying to get on the road before it got too bad. In an unusual twist, this system came up from the south, so that although nothing had happened where I worked, I was driving south into the icy conditions. By the time we got about 20 miles southward, conditions rapidly worsened and we ended up creeping along the interstate in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Thankfully, we only stood completely still a few times and were able to get home safely. What is normally an hour commute or less took 3 hours. Other coworkers who left later than us were not as "lucky". By the time they made it 3 miles from our exit, so many cars and trucks had stopped for one reason or another that traffic was not moving at all and those last 3 miles took them two and half hours, making their commute be about 5 hours!

There is even another winter weather event being talked about for next week. I do so hope that this doesn't come to pass. I love winter weather and if I worked at home or in a job where I didn't have to go in or stay due to bad road conditons, I would be happy about it.

So a post about the weather and grandbabies! Lol, I have done almost nothing artistic recently. There is jewelry stuff sitting on my table that has been here a month. Holly and I got it out to make her jewelry and I thought if I left it here, I would be more inclined to do something with it. In my defense, I was sick for a week or two, watched Thomas that next weekend, and have had to work late several times. Also, we had a really bad week last week with the chicken houses. My off days last week were spent working out there. This week I was at my Mom's on my Monday off helping her.

I am starting to feel some return of motivation though. Wanting to get back into my journals, try some new things in them. Lots of ideas bubbling in the leaky cauldron that is my brain. I must find a way to get my artistic self back into some kind of groove, even if it is just a snippet here and there!

No I'm not dead

you might think my poor neglected blog is! I won't go into a long string of excuses, just suffice it to say that life remains busy between work and just general busyness!

Well, of course a lot has happened since I last posted on NOVEMBER 8th!! There was Thanksgiving which we spent at Emily's where we had a wonderful meal. Work has been pretty busy for me and also during the time before the holidays our choir was practicing and getting ready to present a Living Christmas Tree musical. This was performed the second weekend in December, so it seemed to be here before we knew it after Thanksgiving. It was a very moving experience for both those who sang and those who listened. Being the procrastinator I am, Christmas was upon us before I knew it. I almost didn't put up or decorate a tree, but Kerry suggested us getting a real tree this time, so that did the trick to get me more into the Christmas spirit. It turned out really pretty, so I'm glad we went to the trouble.




I was working the week of Christmas including Christmas Eve(Saturday)so Christmas Day ended up being our Christmas Eve and the day after our Christmas. When your children grow up and get married, you do the best you can! Holly and Chris were able to come home for a Christmas visit, although Chris had to leave on Sunday to get back to his job. Holly is teaching now and was able to stay for a couple of weeks. I had taken off the week after Christmas, so I was fortunate enough to have that time to spend with Holly.

She wanted to make some jewelry while she was here, so in between visiting family and friends that she wanted to see while she was home, we spent a little time working on a couple of new jewelry pieces for her. She designed and did most of the work of putting the ideas together. I did the sewing for the red, black, and white necklace and attaching the fasteners to both. Thought she came up with some really great ideas and that they turned out really pretty! You can see them below.



For the necklace above, we followed the ideas from a couple of jewelry mags I had. We totally used scraps of fabric and beads I had on hand,including red and black velvet, white organza, black and white dotted fabric, various beads and buttons all sewn onto a white crocheted piece on top of black felt. The starting point was the houndstooth fabric-covered button and then Holly's imagination took off from there into the red/black/white theme.



The necklace above is turquoise, amber, and brown beads of various kinds. Wasn't a ble to capture a good shot, so imagine the colors being lots prettier than they show up here.




Also, Holly wanted to take home a jewelry piece I had made earlier but not totally finished. I put together a collage of fabrics and ribbons for the necklace part and here she is modelling the finished product.

On New Year's Eve eve, we travelled down to Tuscaloosa to see Emily, Craig, and Thomas. Holly and Emily wanted to spend a little more time together before Holly had to head back to Texas. This pic of Thomas below is of him playing outside that day while his Mom and his Aunt Holly had travelled to the urgent care center. Emily woke up sick New Year's Eve with flu-like symptoms. Craig's parents had also come and we had all planned to have a family New Year's Eve celebration which of course was cancelled. The Nolen's ended up taking Thomas home with them so Craig could look after Emily. Kerry, Holly, and myself left for home, too. Unfortunately, everyone who was there that day ended up being sick within the next few days excepting Thomas and some of us are still trying to fight it off!



Life was somewhat getting back to normal. Holly made it safely back to Texas and we all went back to work. My work was really hectic and busy after the holiday slowdown. This week has been been very surreal for us in Alabama. We've had a good bit of snowfall, at least 6 inches here, and it has brought us kind of to a stop. Schools have been called off and I've not been able to get to work the last couple of days. Hope to get in tomorrow. I'll try to post snow pictures soon. Wanted to take this opportunity to get a post done while I had some time at home.

Not so recent getaway art

Wow, I'm getting so bad about getting a post on here. I've been meaning to write and show what I did get done during our RV weekend getaway last month, but didn't mean to take this long about it. We just seem to be gone so much or what little time I am home, I'm too tired to take the extra time to get pictures taken and posted. So explanation over, I'll proceed!

I say we got away, but really it was mostly me and the doggies. Kerry stays very busy working 2 jobs, but he was kind enough to help me enjoy a long weekend by pulling the RV to a campground about a 30 minute drive from our house. He was able to spend a little time with me, too, but he is tied down more to the farm than we used to be because his Dad has never really done well since a knee replacement a couple of years ago. It seemed to do a number on him, so that he has not been able to make himself move around as much as he should, so therefore, he is getting less able to. There have been some recent medication changes that will hopefully help some with this.

We are in the farming business with Kerry's parents. Due to his Dad's health and other reasons we are trying to sell the farm and have someone interested. Not sure if that is going to work out, but are praying that it will. I really don't want to leave our house, but the farm is becoming such a burden that it would be for the best even though hard. Kerry and I have done much of the work on and in our home, with some help from his Dad and then most specially to me, my Dad who I lost a few years ago, did all of the cabinetry work for us. So for me, it's not just a house, but a special place that would be hard to leave.

Well, back to the escape from reality. I took a lot of art and jewelry-making supplies, but mostly ended up making or working with jewelry. I did work in a little mini journal, that I'll try to post about later. Forgot about that until just now and it's lacks a couple of pages being done, so I'll save that for when I can scan and save to my other computer because that will show up better. Spent time relaxing on Friday, worked on artsy stuff on Saturday and Monday(when we came home), and then on Sunday drove down to Northport, where Emily lives to attend the Kentuck Art Festival. Kerry went with us, which shows the power of the draw of a grandbaby. Thomas was going, so Grampy came, too! The weather was beautiful. We met up with some friends of Emily and had a wonderful afternoon seeing some amazing art. While we were walking around, Thomas decided that the pine bark path needed some cleaning up, see below.



Pictured next are some shots of the art on display. With a grandbaby in tow, I didn't have time to take as many shots as year before last when we attended the show or time to get the artists names to give to you. I think the number of artists might have been down a bit, but still great stuff. Wish I had a bigger pocketbook!







Now on to the jewelry shots and my apologies on these pics which are not so great! First I finally did some wire wraps so that I can wear the beautiful pendants that Holly gave me for Mother's Day. Love these!



I've been wanting to do some asymmetrical earrings ever since I saw the ones in the Charming Exchange book. These look so easy, but it took me awhile to get going on them. Not as flexible as I like to think I am, perhaps,making it harder to do something not so matchy-matchy! Happy with how they turned out. The starting point were some Frida charms bought on sale recently. Took the colors of the beads from them. The glare was bad on this shot!



And the glare was really bad on this one and the colors and beads didn't show up too well either, but I want to get this post done, so here it is. This was also inspired by a book project, think it was a recent issue of a jewelry magazine. You start with a felted half circle. I used a felted ball cut in half and then attached beads around the outside and some tiny silver and clear beads to the flower center. This had a jump ring attached to the back and I'd like to make a ribbon type necklace for it to hang from. Promise it looks prettier in person.



This last piece ended up being one of my favorites. It started with an overdyed quilted fabric that I was lucky enough to get in a studio cleanout lot purchased from Belinda Spiwak of Crazy Art Girl's Musings She is a talented and prolific artist often featured in current art magazines. I've been in a few Yahoo art groups with her and lucked up on some really cool goodies! I cut a rectangle of the quilted fabric, used embroidery floss to attach some netting to "finish" the edges, then attached a orphan vintage flower earring, a few beads here and there, and finally attached a fabric piece for a hanger and dangling from the bottom a favorite pendant saved since my teenage years. I also am thinking of making a collaged ribbon and fabric necklace to wear this on, similar to one like this that I made before.



Lots has been going on since I posted last, since it has been over a month. Maybe I'll get another post in with more news and pics soon. I'll try! To close, I'll show one more shot of Mr. Thomas. This was at Halloween, when he was Thomas the Turtle dressed in a cute costume made entirely by hand by his sweet Mom, Emily. He is being held my his Aunt Holly. Emily and Craig had to be in Texas for a wedding the weekend of Halloween, so his Aunty Yaya, as he calls her, was lucky to get to spend some time with them. Holly and Chris live in Waco, so they miss out on a lot.