Winter wonderland...

Boy did we get some snow for the holiday! I had taken the week off for Christmas and was glad I was home to enjoy all the snow. We had a little more that a foot at our place in some areas. We can get a few inches but this year a record was set for the amount of snow that fell in December... I think it was 20" since 1929 or something like that. We had our snowmobile out, our friends brought theirs over and the kids actually rode over to her boyfriends parents house on the sled which is about 4 miles away. Here are some pictures....

My daughter and her friend Eric riding the sled in our pasture before we got the big dump of snow.... they had so much fun!

This is my pony Nat and horse Tex

There were a herd of deer running through our neighbors property...

Believe it or not under all that snow is our swimming pool...

just think in about two and a half months it will be time for spring...

Me in front of my swimming pool... my husband gave me tripod for my camera...

self portrait... when you are always taking pictures you are never in them

Now my vacation is over (back to work today) and I am feeling better (sick my whole vacation with a cold) I am going to read my new books True Vision and Kaleidoscope and get busy doing more artful things maybe start on some Christmas presents for next year...

Bits and Pieces

Today we celebrated my youngest daughters birthday, she has officially left the teens and now is in the twenties.... The Birthday Girl...

It starting snowing last night and this is what my front yard looked like this morning... to snow this morning....

It is so fun when it snows.....

For the last thing.... I had mentioned a quilt that I had made in a round robin group that was inspired by Katie Pasquini Masopust from her book Ghost Layers. I design this based on a photograph of a rose. I love roses and I would like to attempt this again....

A new collage page...

I just finished a new collage page for the Flickr group I am in... "looking through the window".... as I see it... the many facets of life and being a person but yet having to meet the needs of various people in your family...

I went to the book store this weekend and bought a few new magazines. I got the new Quilting Arts, Cloth.Paper.Scissors and Artful Blogging. Quilting Arts has a great article on Katie Pasquini Masopust. I would love to take a class from her someday. I have a quilt that I did with a round robin group a few years ago that was based on one of her books. I am going to have to take a picture of the quilt and upload it. I am very happy as to how it turned out.

Well, I think I will call it a night... need to upload my collage to the Flickr group.

Can't believe it's December

Wow, can't believe it is December already.... I have a daughter who's birthday is coming up soon on the 16th and then it is Christmas.... Had a few extra days off of work from the Thanksgiving holiday. Very hard to go back to work. Cleaned up my "sewing" room as much as one can when you have a tendency to do a lot of different things. I was able to finally vacuum the floor.. Joined a group for collage. Posted my first one on Flickr (collage play with crowabout ) It's interesting how you can take elements and come up with something and how those same elements are put to getter so different from everyone else.

All of a sudden, I am ready for bed. It is 11:25 pm and I have been up since 5:30am.... plus I ran 2 miles tonight... no wonder I am tired........night

Trying to accomplish something....

I have been trying to work on something creative all week and work just burned me out... I hate it when I come home from work so drained and tired and fall asleep on the couch. My 25Th wedding anniversary is this week on 11/26/08. I am working on a digital "scrapbooking" page that I am going to frame for my husband. Unbelievable that is has been 25 years..... It took me a while to get our wedding pictures I used in photoshop to adjust right. I am just learning and the original pictures are on the purple side.... I have been on the computer all day doing this and working from home. My computer is so slow... I have to read something in between saving my files and uploading pictures. The elements and papers I have used are from scrapbook graphics. I also made a couple of my own elements too.

I am re-reading Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts.... I am actually keeping a journal where I write down my thoughts. I have already been doing an art journal where I have been drawing and doodling in. I am going to try and work with the clay next.

Well, it's a cold one here in Idaho where I live. I have to take a friend to the airport early tomorrow. I hope the roads are not icy, I think we are having an inversion where we will not see the sun for days or weeks until the rain and or snow comes through...... I am taking some time off of work so that I can maybe work on some projects... the end of the month is soon trying to do art everyday...

working on my whisper's journal....

As tired as I might be, I went down stairs to work on the first to pages of my journal. I learned it is not good to mix oil pastels and shiva paintstiks... one drys and the other doesn't... but all in all I made it work for me... I have been trying hard to do art every day this month.

My first attempt at painting....

I have never really painted a "picture" before... I really got into it. Along with painting, I am also trying to improve with drawing. This is a picture of my horse Tex out in my pasture. I can see where I need to learn some blending techniques and other things but, I am happy with the way it turned out.

This past week was difficult in many ways and it is nice to find a release. My job is always stressful, it never seems to end and then my girls are moving and what a work out that is! I went and purchased more art supplies this weekend with a friend. I picked up some Shiva Artist Paintstiks and started a picture in my "Whispers" journal. It should be dry tomorrow to add some details, it is another picture of my horse.

I am hoping to find time to finish my picture in my journal tomorrow. I may have to get more boxes from my daughters apartment and move the to the new place after work. After all the stuff we moved today, I am going to be so sore.....

Digital Creation

Well, I have been trying to be creative everyday and create some kind of piece of "art" .... I was up so early on Monday to be at work by 5am and then work till 5pm I seem to be still catching up on sleep... I started making a digital scrapbooking page yesterday and finished tonight. I had taken some pictures of railroad ties other various textures in nature and created my background for the page. I am just learning to use Coral paint shop pro.... I really like using it. The hardware elements were purchase off the web site scrapgirls.com. It is a picture of one of my grandfathers... us kids used to go to my grandparents in Redwood City, CA quite a bit when we were young... my grandfather worked for Levi Strauss and took the train to the City... we would wait for him on the front porch steps to walk home from the train station....

Finished quilting a top!

Finished quilting one of my round robin quilt tops. I only have 50 more tops to complete. I think I really do have that many. Tried to take good photos, hard to dark and rainy outside all day making it dark in the house.....

My Art Journal

I have finished making my "Whispers" journal.... I had never used my oil pastels before, I do not think I did to bad.... I have collected a lot of supplies along the way but, I am missing one a brayer. I am going to have to go shopping. I am hopefully going to finish quilting a quilt that I have been working on and will post a picture soon. Trying to get back into the grove of quilting... just have the borders to finish and binding.

I have been working on trying to do something creative everyday.... I have been following http://www.creativeeveryday.com/creativeeveryday/art-every-day-month.html and actually requested to sign up.... I created a digital scrapbook page of my girls tonight. Sometime earlier this year, I created my own paper (sorta of speak) out of of paper towels and dying them. I was inspired by the book Collage Unleashed... I scanned in the image of my paper and then used it for the background on my digital scrapbook page. I also used elements from Retro Garden.... I am hoping to do some more work on the pages that I am creating for a journal. I have almost read the entire book of Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts and have started making the beginnings of a whisper journal...... well long day.... need to rest up for work tomorrow.......

It is a start...

I have been reading a book on being creative.... it is Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts. I need to discover my creativity again. You get so busy with family, work etc... that you sometimes forget to enjoy things that you loved to do.... I love to sew, been doing so since i was five... I love to draw, learning to do collage, take pictures, quilting... want to learn to paint. I have a room of my own that is cramed full of stuff! It drives my husband crazy but my labs love to come down and sleep on the floor while I am in there.... I also love to ride my horse... there is noting like riding in the foothills and seeing the valley I live in below and not worring about a thing....