Eight weeks and we will be perfected.

I am kind of excited because I am starting a Bible Study today - "The Fine Art of Creating a Home" - doesn't that sound majorly important? I mean, it's elevated to the level of art - bypassing craft and job and drudgery straight to the top - we are artists. I think I will summarize on the blog as I learn. We are figuratively building a house from the ground up. Both the spiritual and the physical.

1st week we look at choosing the site, house plans and making the choices that will affect our house every day until we sell it or pass it on to our kids. Paralleling this to our spiritual life, this is where we choose to fall in love with God all over again. Not only know Him from the Word, but experience Him as we live all day long. I stumbled over Psalm 40 - has that always been there?!?! WOW! Then the physical will focus on ways we set the tone in the home. Atmosphere and attitude. I was inspired by Alexandra Stoddard's old book Living a Beautiful Life (go here for website) - where she makes life fun! She focuses on rituals and making daily jobs enjoyable. Here's my favorite take-away:

Slow

down.

Calm

down.

Don't

worry.

Don't

hurry.

Ahh--h-h-h

You know I am the picture of calm when my kids presented me with this plate (for my vintage if-i'm-not-eating-out-I-may-as-well-pretend-I-am resturant ware collection):

I may have a lot to learn. . .

It's all on account of the quilt

Admittedly I have been delinquent in my blog postings. I can't seem to

finish the quilt and therefore am ashamed to post. Well, now it's been so

long who cares? I WILL finish the quilt - I was determined to in the 12

hour car trip to New Mexico and then again in the 400 hour trip to

Virginia (I rounded up on that one - it SEEMS like that long), but I was

in reading mode and the creating hit the wayside. Don't think for one

minute that I didn't pack everything to work on though - yes siree I did take

up all that space!

Oh, well. I will post my new fav books so that you will have some reward

for coming to my blog. . .

The Glass Castle, a delightful memoir that will make

you feel better about any parenting mistakes you

might have made.

Waiting for Snow in Havana tells the story of Cuba

from the viewpoint of child growing up there during

Castro's rise to power. Wow! The language is a little

rougher than I like, but the real life story will amaze you!

Best-for-last scenario. This book takes a look at the Parable of the Two Sons and explains why God himself is prodigal. Really made me think. . .
Prodigal God by Timothy Keller.

Now to finish my collage adventure. Amy - daughter #1 - finished hers and here are photos of her masterpiece as well as my second one. OoI in hers - the little bouquet of bead flowers in the sweet girl's hands. I hope you can see them, look closely!

My word was serenity - nothing says serenity like blue and white!

Link to book of inspiriation: Vintage Collage Works Artful Ideas with Antique Ephemera

I hope all these are inspiring to those of you who missed our Thursday night group, because I am thinking our July class will be "catch up." Bring projects (pincushions, aprons, whatever. . .) that you have not been able to complete or that you didn't get to attend and you will have a night to work surrounded by friends and I think we should include a little food as well. Oh, and surrounded by love above all else.

Up next . . . a most excellent baby quilt.

Breathtaking collages - I marvel at each one!

I don't need to say much - these pictures speak volumes! My favorite project so far, you can see how inspired we all were. With a huge counter-ful of treasures, a coffee table full of bonus and enough glue and paint to keep us going, I am amazed at the finished products. Why is it so relaxing to cut, combine and glue? Some did not finish yet, will post those and mine in the next couple of weeks (I will be off to PA for marketing school this week- can I make it fun?), but here are most of the masterpieces from Thursday night's class (Object of Interest pointed out on each one - denoted by "OoI":

Tess used the vintage wallpaper she plans on using in her house as the background. Those huge blue flowers on the milk chocolate background from the '40's! She added the "M" for Murphy, vintage jewelry pieces and a verses her grandmother had written on cards and saved. OoI, the little drops of bling she worked into the background
.

Rachel and Jarrod with Brooklyn - this photo surrounded with Rachel's grandmother's (or maybe great-aunts) vintage buttons. OoI: The button with two birds under an umbrella - where do they come up with these things?

Lindy (my workout master) created a pretty romantic montage of her and Zach, her firefighting husband. OoI, the french sentiments were taken from a card accompanying flowers that he sent her-I can't remember what it means, but you can never go wrong with a little french!

Eloise will use this in her class as she teaches about Van Gogh - the words you can barely see, the OoI: "What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" V van G said it!


Katie, my sweet daughter via Andy - Perfection in black and white shell/ocean motif with matching hymns. Vintage anchor buttons in a truly sea-ish green bring in the color. And the final pop of just right green ribbon. OoI here has to be the vintage transparent seashell button!

My own little Jill created this collection of all things fab. Beginning with her original drawing on the right and making a pretty delicious background wash, I love the combo of goodies! OoI has to be the boy running away at the bottom right. So clever!

Dee collages photos of her and sisters. I love the lettering, wonder at the Mona Lisa and OoI is the crown on Dee's head. She has earned it!

The sisters of creativity - Angie goes with a peacock tail floating crown motif. OoI : The pansy vintage jewelry in the upper right - perfection!

Angie's sis Casey - takes a vintage family color chart (raise your hand if you have a family color chart handed down for generations). The small print are the (OoI alert) "rules" of using color. Of course I can't remember what they were, but man they were strict. I do remember laughing heartily as we read them.

Here is my sample collage.

I put this collage together to go in my breakfast area. I have a collection of A Child's Garden of Verses, so I thought it would be fun to do a collage around one of cutest poems from this collection. I am sure I will keep messing with it because I can't leave well enough alone - I love the red and used tissue paper and pages from a vintage book for the background. I have some pages you can use and a few nifty illustrations as well.

The really cool thing - I ordered a box of vintage wallpaper scraps, and waited with great fear and trembling in case they didn't get here in time (no comments about my last minute tendencies). THEY CAME!

Look at the bounty! I spent last night sorting through and I must say they will be amazing for backgrounds for us. (Ordered from lynetteaprilarts at esty, click for link) I am inspired. And if my muscles weren't so sore (see Lindy Houston for some serious pain-inducing workout opportunities) I would be doing a little artsy dance. This week, the glue/paint/scraps will fly!!!

A little more ephemera because, why not?!?! BTW, click on "A Bit of Pink Heaven" under my favorite blogs for yet another really cool collage idea.

Just DAYS away!

Art friends - are you getting ready for our best night ever? Please be thinking of your word and color scheme. Have a general thought for the feeling of your collage. Sleek and bright, old fashioned and vintage, child-like, elegant - think freely!

These are some photos of ephemera Nanelle and Rachel are kind enough to share with us. You may like something you see and grab it (are you kidding - dancing fairies and the song to go with them!?!) Thursday night OR it may make you think of ephemera you have on hand. Things like old postcards, pages of falling apart old books, illustrations from cards or books, stamps, leaves, feathers . . . whatever you can affix to a canvas. Think of what you would like for a background - solid color, page of an old book, old postcard.

I am posting photos of some vintage buttons too- you may bring stuff to share, or you may just know you want to use it and that is OK too. Be lavish! Look at the pictures and let your imagination go crazy. Oh, you already are crazy. . .oh well, enjoy! Tomorrow - I will post the collage I created Sunday as an example! Be still my beating heart!

A quick reminder for my Les Arte des Amis girls!

THIS THURSDAY! June 18 is our next art group meeting and I am so excited about it, I blogged a few days ago - and in my frenzy, lost all my thoughts and momentum and oh well. Now I try again.
This month we will be creating COLLAGES.
So that we aren't all deer-in-the-headlights frozen, I want you to think long and hard about your inspiration. Here is what I am going to do to help you. . .
Go to these links and see how wild one can get with this method:

The creative group in this link posts a different collage project a week. They call them "catalysts" and several artists answer a question with a collage. I am linking to one of 63 (question o' the week: "What makes you, you"). Browse around on several and you will be inspired.

Go to flickr.com and search for "mixed media collage" - oh man, talk about ideas!! (or just click since I linked to the search).

AND TO HELP YOU IN YOUR MENTAL PREPARATION,
You are not allowed in the door next week without the following:
A word to illustrate.
For example - what word do you love the sound of (breezy, ethereal, oxymoron, flutter)? What is a word that describes you (clever, ditsy, happy, whimsical)? What is your favorite color (magenta, crimson, poppy, butternut)? State a mood(grouchy, smoochy, giddy, sleepy, gladsome). What about a flower (iris, poppy, bleeding heart, bird o' paradise). What word inspires you today (joyful, butterflies, nature, family) ?
More to come along with some photos of examples.

Still celebrating my B'day

I had to share the latest birthday gift from my Longview friend Marcia. These cracked me up and I found them oddly inspirational. These two were wrapped around chocolate bars. The second one is my new life motto.

These were wrapped around bath salts. Laugh and learn.

The cute little critters.

Here are the cute little critters I promised three days ago. Disclaimer here - I gave the CUTEST ones to my angel nieces. These are the "experimental" ones. You can sit and watch the Stanley Cup Finals or war movies or action flicks as you whip these babies out. Your husband appreciates that you are there with him bonding and what not, while simultaneously creating little masterpeices. The more you are with me on this creative journey, the more you will realize my talent is mostly enthusiasm and connection. I stumble on the great idea, book or teacher, get so darned excited and bring everyone down with me. I am sometimes mortified at the things I produce, but notice others catch the excitement and produce fabulous things. If I can inspire you to create - I am a happy camper. I can't tell you how much the nieces toted these critters around and played with them. AMAZING BOOK ALERT: At the bottom of the pictures is the book that inspired these cuties. You have to get this book - all you need is felt, filling and floss. Well, you need other things but they didn't start with "f" and I am a bit of a poet.

Meet Darcy, college grads and Starla!

Well, I thought I would be so faithful. I thought I would get on a roll

and blab at least once a week. How embarrassing. It was only a week

in dog time (gratuitous photo insertion of the best dog ever-Darcy the idiot).

I did get to see my girls graduate from college.

What - already? Both finished May 9th which entailed a

trip to Virginia (Liberty University) and included a bonus

trip to Kingsport, TN for a Mother's Day visit with my

mom (and it got me out of the way while poor Jeff packed

up the girl's apartment - yuck). I am so proud of them -they

worked hard, graduated with honors made amazing memories.

Here are the graduates with Amy's boyfriend

thrown in for good measure. The added bonus of my

nieces and nephew. But now back to reality.

Dear, dear artists who gathered Thursday to make aprons. I worried how it would go - I knew it was a big project for one

night. But I had a blast!! Many got close to being done and I

have every confidence they will get to finish them before the

next meeting. Of course my star pupil, Starla finished hers

Thursday, so I had to take a photo of her in it. Look at how happy she looks

I have a picture of me in mine just for

inspiration as well. This is made from a

vintage tablecloth!

Don't ask about the extra photos.

I can't figure out how to delete them once

I have uploaded. Living and learning.

If you look back in three days, I promise to

have an updated post. It will even

be better than this one. It will be coherent.

Pictures of little felt critters that children LOVE!