shabby journal

i've been working on a shabby journal.   mary ann moss offers a great class on making these.  this is a photo of my front cover.  the cloth tape measure was a great find in my mother in law's sewing goodies when we were cleaning out her house.  the heart is from an old quit i had cut up and there is hand tatted lace from my mom's collection that i used on top of the heart as well.  i have a few pieces of material on there from my friend, susie, who lives in england, and i used pieces of my old blue jeans, too.  i am working on the inside signatures but with all the sewing it is taking long to complete.   i love the whole concept of this journal as it encourages me to use up my scraps.

meet my grandson

here is my first grandchild.  benjamin todd nicholas was born, wednesday, april 28th at 7:14am.  he weighed 7 lbs. 3 oz and was 20-1/2 inches long.  he has his daddy's chin.  both mom and baby are doing well and resting.  babies are just such little miracles. i am surely blessed.

creative team member

a really wonderful friend, marsha jorgensen, aka tumble fish studio, is part of a new site called deviant scrap.  you can visit the site at:  http://www.deviantscrap.com/ .  marsha is offering lots of collage sheets for sale there.  if you've not had the opportunity of visiting her blog ( http://www.tumblefishstudio.blogspot.com/ )  then you are missing some really incredible artwork.

marsha has asked me to be part of her creative design team for this site.  i was really touched and humbled by her graciousness to include me in such an amazing endeavor.  here is a piece i created for her to sample her collage sheets.  all the background paper and paper images are from marsha's sheets.

the family

my youngest son, mike, got married on friday, march 5th.  can you believe i forgot my camera?  well i can hardly believe it either so now i am waiting for people to send me some of their photographs from the wedding. my nephew sent me this one this afternoon.  starting on the left, my husband, todd, my son, mike, me and my other son, josh.  it was a beautiful day outside.  my oldest son, josh, drove an hour to attend the ceremony but he couldn't go out to eat with us as he had to drive all the way back to go to work.  we were just happy he could be there to see his brother get married.  they are great friends.  i really do have a wonderful family and for that i feel very blessed.

holy cow - it's a surprise

it is hard to believe that i'm turning 50 today and i've never had a surprise birthday party.  my friends couldn't believe it either so they decided to make sure i could mark that off my bucket list.  my friend, jenn, organized a little get together with the stampin up girls and was the hostess.  here i am as everyone yelled "SURPRISE".  for  a handful of girls it sure was a loud surprise!  i just giggled and giggled. 

so keeping in true fashion the girls bought me a neon pink boa to wear to my party.  and here i am, none to shameless to wear it either!

there were lots of helium balloons to mark this festive occasion, too.  i loved this holy cow balloon despite the most unfavorable grip.  of course that made me chuckle even more.  the girls made me grope that poor cow for a million photos.

 my friend, laura, was in charge of getting my cake for the party.  she did an amazing job with that task.  it was marble with buttercream icing. oh my gosh it was so scrumptious!    for those of you who like to tell me i'm full of hot air..well i guess you can see that i just might be! i blew my candles out so my wish should come true.  the hostess, jenn, said in the south the person who cuts the cake leaves the knife in the cake and the person's whose birthday is next gets to pull the knife out so i actually got to have two birthday wishes! lucky me!!!! 

here is one of the many amazing gifts i got.  isn't that shirt adorable?  thanks eri!  i appreciate it.   so a big double thanks to jenn, laura, cheryl, eri and amie for having a wonderful surprise party for me this past weekend. 

today is actually my real birthday and my family is coming momentarily.  we're having pizza and salad and more cake!  now how lucky can a girl be!

being inspired

i was recently inspired by watching teesha moore's utube videos on making a journal.  i've done 8 x 10 journal pages before and feel like they are a little too big for me, so using her directions for her 8 x 10 journal book i made one half that size. this is my front cover.  that's my face when i was little, well, minus the big eye on the left.  the scary part is i actually had shoes very similar to that except mine were tan and blue with big reddish brown soles.  i am looking forward to completing this journal.

being a grammy

sometimes i share personal information on my blog rather than my art, altho this particular post is art in its purest form - the making of a baby.   what a miracle babies are to us.  so without further adieu i would like you to meet my first grandson, benjamin todd nicholas.  these are two three dimensional photos from the recent ultrasound done to check on the baby's condition.  he weighs a little less than 2 pounds now.  his due date is april 29th and i can't wait to meet him. 

deli paper

my friend, marilyn, aka rockgran, has an amazing tutorial on her blog http://wwwmarilyninmyroom.blogspot.com/  that you just need to check out if you already haven't done so.  she uses deli paper to paint on and uses it in her collage work.  well i was really awed by it.  she was gracious enough to send me a few sheets til i can locate it on my own. when it showed up in my mailbox today i just had to try it out.  here are 2 samples i've done so far.  i still want to do some rubberstamping on it as all i've done so far is some foreign text.  i really love the feel of it and i know i will be making a lot more of it. thanks marilyn!

creating journal pages

 my friend, deb is hosting a nature journal swap and there are lots of great artists in it. i finished up a journal page for my art friend, melinda, who is also playing in it, and  this is the one side of it, those muddy feet crack me up.  in the upper corner, in case you can't read it, it says,  i love a glorious nature walk.  in a perfect world, and if i were on the ball like my friends marsha and terri, to name a few, i'd know all the collage sheet creators to tell you where those muddy feet came from, but sadly i am not that organized to know.  sorry about that.  i do know that the little ball border comes from my friend cassandra. she has a shop at etsy and you can find her tag on the right side of my blog. i hope you all have time to enjoy a glorious walk in nature today.

the holiday season

happy new year to everyone!  it's been quite a long time since i've posted to my blog. this holiday season had me spending a great deal of time away from art unfortunately.  i suppose it is good to take breaks periodically. it may rejuvenate the creative juices.  i was blessed to have a good family to spend time with for thanksgiving, christmas and new years. i had my family here today. we customarily eat at lunch time for our holidays.  i normally have christmas for my family but my sister in law asked to have christmas and, of course, i said yes, which left me hosting new years in her place.  i made ham with apricot glaze, macaroni and cheese, stewed tomatoes, coleslaw, applesauce and home made rolls.  for dessert we had brownies with vanilla ice cream drizzled with hot fudge sauce topped with whipped cream.  i never made a large ham before but it turned out well inspite of my  lack of experience.  i hope that everyone has ushered in the new year in style and i look forward to my creative journey with each one of you.