Let us Remember

those brave soldiers, past and present, who sacrifice so much so that we may be free. Happy Memorial Day!

Inspiration Challenge

I'm down to the wire again! I'm participating in an online "inspiration challenge" mingle which is due the end of the month. Well, technically I guess I have one more day...

The original inspiration piece was this darling ruffled flower pillow. I love the color combination and the flower.

Here is the project I made for my partner. It's a small chipboard hanging painted "Tiffany blue" and covered with two coordinating cream, brown and blue patterned papers. I used my new EK Success border punch on the center border and stamped some flourishes. The C monogram is pearl art metal embossed with the Cuttlebug and mounted on chipboard. The flower was made with several layers of sewing pattern tissue folded in a strip and then cut along the folded edge with my new Martha Stewart fringing scissors. The strip was then coiled into a flower shape and glued to the monogram.

Gotta get this in the mail!

Craft room and storage

I'm always looking for new functional and pretty ways to store my stash of supplies. Here are a few I've gleaned from different sites - I have mentioned the source if I know it.

Here's a cute and easy ribbon storage idea from Amber at Givers Log using an assortment of candlesticks.

Check out this wonderful embellishment storage - I believe it is 6' tall by 4' wide!

Love this idea for storing lever punches using a curtain rod. Wish I had more wall space!

Jars of goodies stored in an old wooden soda crate (scrumdilydilly.blogspot.com).

Check out this beautiful old library card file. Susan at westcoastcrafty.wordpress.com stores her jewelry findings in this!

Another great ribbon storage solution using wire baskets hung on the wall. (Pretty too.)

A very functional way to store buttons and tiny embellishments using the inexpensive plastic "floss containers." I like how the boxes are labeled!

And one of my favorites for storing craft paint bottles (momto2GRITs at 2Ps) using two wire racks held together with ribbon and hung on the wall:

Hope this gives you some clever ideas for storage.

Art-O-Mat

What is an Art-O-Mat? It's an old vending machine refurbished to dispense small works of art by various artists! There are many locations throughout the country where these can be found, but I just discovered that one location is just a few miles from where I live and is actually in the town where I previously lived, Keller, TX! (So, any locals reading my blog, check it out!)

You can find out more about this clever idea at www.artomat.org. As for the Keller location, it is called Art251 (www.art251.com) and is in the Keller Town Center (251 Town Center Place). As I understand it, there is a size limitation (it's in a vending machine-duh) and most are priced at about $5. What a great way to support artists and receive a tiny work of art in return. I can't wait to see this firsthand!

Sharing

Here are some random vintage ephemera images for your use. You can click on each image to enlarge, then save to your computer. If you use these in your artwork, I would love to see what you do with them! Emjoy.

A few more wedding pics if you can stand it

my four girls - all grown up

Birds Galore

More bird news - there are now five new eggs in the nest on our front door! And there is a huge mess of sticks and twigs on the front porch - there's more nest building going on in the upper rafters of the porch. I had no idea a nest was used more than once - wonder if it's the same mama bird? I'd really like to get rid of the whole arrangement and yucky, dirty nest, but I'd feel really guilty...so, I'm resigned to another round of babies hatching.

Other news - we've received the professional photographer's photos of the wedding - all 900 of them! How will we ever choose?

Challenge

It's been a busy week and I decided today to take some time for myself and participate in an art challenge that my friend, Vicki Chrisman, posted here. The challenge was to create something "out of the box" from our usual art work and to post on our blogs by today.

So, here is mine. I've been wanting to start an art journal forever and have actually painted some pages in this old sketch book from my daughter's college days. But I had never finished a page, so I decided to make one for this challenge.


I scribbled watercolor crayons (love those things!) in three different colors on the page and then liberally added water with a water pen and brushed the pigment to blend. I liked how the really wet paints dripped and blended. Then I inked one of the new large Prima foam stamps and stamped over the dried page. I cut the words from an old Daisy D's ad. It's very simple, but I like how it turned out. And it was fun to just create for the sake of creating for a change! Once Vicki posts the links to everyone who participated, I will share them here.

A New Tool

It's been quite awhile since I've been to the local craft stores, but I had some time this afternoon and a coupon that was burning a hole in my pocket (you know what that's like, right? I'm surely not the only one who does this...) so I stopped at Michael's. I almost didn't find anything to spend my coupon on...until I spied these:

I had seen them online before, but never in the stores. Aren't they cool? They are "fringe scissors - for making fringe borders, confetti and shredding paper." Now, I don't think I will be shredding our household documents, but they will be really cute on cards or whenever I want to make grass. Here's a closeup - I apologize that it's somewhat out of focus, but the blades are not - you really are seeing five parallel blades!

This is how they cut - isn't that neat? A new tool to add to the mix.

Happy Mother's Day

Hope all you mothers out there have a wonderful day. Relax and let everyone treat you! Here's a sweet image for you to use - isn't that baby's expression just priceless?

Birds - Chapter 3

Remember that nest on my front door and the four little birdies that hatched before we left for Mexico? When we returned, the nest was empty - I had mixed emotions as I wanted to see the little ones learn to fly but at the same time, I'm anxious to clean up the mess.

When I opened the door this morning to let the dog out, was it my imagination or did another bird fly into my house? I thought I heard a loud chirp but since all the windows were open, I figured it was outside. This evening after work, I was relaxing on the sofa when I heard the now familiar sound of bird-flying-in-house! What is this, a bird hotel? Has the word gotten out that this is the place to be? All my life I've never had a bird come inside and now there's been two in as many weeks.

Here it is perched on my upstairs loft railing. I wonder if it was thinking "ha, ha, you can't get me up here." I was too tired to chase her/him, so I opened the door to the garage and ignored it. Eventually it flew out and I quickly closed the door to the house and opened the garage door. When I looked to make sure it had left, I found it walking around on the grass very close to the garage - do you suppose it's one of the youngsters?

Oh well, I've really had quite enough of birds this spring. Next year you will NOT find an arrangement on my door!

Wedding

This was the ceremony site, just feet from the water's edge. Check out the wind and the whitecaps in the distance.

The groom awaits...

Little 3-year-old Max was mostly interested in playing in the wonderful white sand.

This is my son, Will, and the youngest daughter, Sara. Check out the palm trees blowing!

Oldest daughter, Kim

Matron of honor, Dana - she just got married in September. I'm hoping there will now be a lull for awhile...

Bill and Kelly - he was a very proud Daddy. We all went barefoot!

The Mexican minister spoke very good English and the ceremony was very nice. Josh's boss, Keith, brought his ukelele and played their favorite songs, though with the wind, it was hard to hear.

First (married) kiss:

Time to celebrate!

We feel very fortunate to have a wonderful new son-in-law and that our family and friends could all be together for this joyous occasion!

Back to reality

We're back from our daughter's wedding in Puerto Morelos, Mexico - at least my body is back, but the rest of me is still there on vacation! There were 32 of us - family and close friends - staying at a lovely all-inclusive resort. Unlimited food and drinks and lots of entertainment and places to relax. The only downside was the extreme wind - they said it was unusual even for there - which blew the entire time we were there. The forecast was for rain on Saturday, the day of the wedding, but we lucked out and had gorgeous blue skies.

This is Kelly and I the first day - my hair never did keep any body or curl so I just gave up. The resort was so huge it was easy to get lost.

We spent our days either poolside

or on the beach - can you see the palapa blowing?

The wedding was on Saturday, May 1st. I must say that a destination wedding is definitely a great way to go. After an hour meeting and tour of the facilities on our first day, the resort wedding planner took care of all the details and we did very little else except worry about the weather!

This is the organdy flower I made for Kelly's hair. It's just several layers of roughly-cut organdy circles with pearls and crystals in the center. After cutting the circles, I passed the edges through the flame of a lighted candle - they melted and curled very nicely and, when layered, look very lifelike.

Here's the bride just before dressing for the big event. Yours truly had the honor (?) of hand-carrying the gown to Mexico.

My other three daughters were bridesmaids and are lacing her up (the back of her gown was laced like a corset - very pretty but a pain to lace!)

I will post the wedding pictures tomorrow.