I AM PUBLISHED!

I still get all jiggly inside and want to whoop and yell whenever I think about it!
I AM PUBLISHED!!!
(I only just learned today- this afternoon, in fact.)
It's a wish come true (time to wish a new one!) For some of you, the following images will look familiar. For you new readers, here are my original posts about creating them. Click here, here and here.

Pages 180 and 181.

My art is on the right hand page.

I am really glad that they chose to publish ALL three pieces I sent them.

And they spelled my name correctly!
I AM
PUBLISHED!!!


On to the next.

Special Delivery Office Surplus

When I first opened the box, that arrived via UPS, I wanted to jump in and roll in them.

I know, "OW!", but that's how exciting it was for me to get all of these lovely wooden handled stamps! I wanted to run them through my fingers and laugh, "mwooohahahaha!".

They are just SO cool!

There were also a bunch of contemporary plastic handled date stamps like librarians used to use. I am offering both kinds of stamps for sale in my etsy and the date stamps come with a few library pocket cards (naturally!)

If you do art journaling, you gotta have one of these babies!

Open Your Door

In June, I'll be hitting the books.

I can't wait! It will be my first on-line workshop ever and first workshop of any kind EVER.

I hope you might join me! There is still time to sign up.

Promises to be a unique experience.

For one thing, the teacher speaks Kiwi. :)

For another, she wants everyone to feel involved (there will be no lurkers in the back of the classroom!)

Go here and look for the sign up in Carole's side bar.

The course starts June 14th.

Hope to see you there!

My Muse is a 5 Year Old

Kids make the best art. They really do. Their design sense is perfect because it isn't shaped by convention. And that is why I am recently so inspired by my daughter Rebecca's drawings.

She im mediately recognized this ATC as a portrait of herself, but vehemently pointed out that there was no "K" in her name! And no "Y" for that matter either! Then rattled off "R-e-b-e-C-C-a" with fierce precision, because obviously I had forgotten how to spell.

So my muse is a critic.

No matter.

I am still The Mom.

On a side note: I got a phone call from Carole yesterday and we chatted for over an hour like she lived down the street instead of half way around the world! She validated my child-like drawing idea so next you will be seeing "Rebecky" translated into stitchery for our next QB5 swap.

This ATC was an inspired warm up.

Thanks Carole!

(((hugs)))

I See Possibilties

Call me "Trash Whisperer".
I hear empty (or nearly empty, or sometimes they are even yet unopened!) packaging murmur to me.
"Use me."
"Yessss, use me."
"I can be be something else."
"Something so much more exciting!"
"Then you can blog about it, yessss, blog about it..."

And so this is why I walk around distracted all day and get little done.
My husband fears that I am getting senile on him, when in fact it is creativity on overdrive.

Bet you didn't know you could make "parties" from "pasteries".

Scary, isn't it?

There's a Dressed Up DOG in My Bookcase!

Do you have this problem? Your house is a flea market without price tags and yet you venture out weekely,even daily, looking for that elusive something you won't know to buy until you see it? Or am I alone in this?

Surely not!

The other day I was absent mindedly going through the bookcase in our dining room, one I haven't really looked at since we moved into this house (3 years ago) and found, "Teddy the Terrier". If someone had asked me, "do you have any children's books featuring photographs of dressed up dogs?" I would have flat out said, "no!"

And yet, here it was.

Teddy is adorable! Every page is suitable for framing and the story is a page turner too. Adventure, romance and a cute terrier. What more can you ask for? And yet I haven't the foggiest idea how I came to own him. It's bugging me.

He is going up for sale in my etsy, along with a bunch of other books, I very clearly remember the places and occasions that I bought them on.

So I am trying something new, although it will be really hard for me. I'm going to try "shopping" in my own house and rediscover forgotten treasures. I wish I could have you all over to help. I might get through it faster. So I can leave the house to shop once again...

OMG, did I just talk about cleaning without calling it what it really is? Am I in denial?

Someone help me.

Work in Play-gress

This rough hewn box holds a strange mystique. Like an ancient shrine made to hold a religious relic, that was never completed. Cast aside because it wasn't "going right". I happily acquired it in a box lot at an auction.

Now I take it off the shelf occasionally and "try" different ornaments on it. Yesterday I got closer to having something I liked. Nothing is tacked down as yet. Have to reinforce crumbling paper and make decisions like "tacks?" or "glue?". Maybe I think too long before acting, but with something this unique, I don't want to rush it.

The inside is still a blank book waiting to be written.

A Birthday Coming Up

If you know Linda, like I know Linda, then you must know that her birthday is coming up May 19 and that she loves anything designed with birds, and colored that particular

shabby blue-green.

Also she loves *glitter*.

There is still plenty of time to mail her a card.

Or a box.

Mine contains a very lumpy card.

And a few other things.

:)

heeheehee

I love surprises!

Antique Botanist's Notebook or Biology Pad

"Study nature, not books." - Louis Aggasy

My mother acquired this amazing biology/ botany notebook from a college friend who was going to throw it out. I have taught her that stuff like this is gold so naturally, she offered to take it off her friend's hands. My mother at 70-something is still a student of the sciences herself, so I'm sure she was a little curious about the book anyway.

About 100 years ago, a young lady named Margaret L. Brown, pressed leaves and flowers and assembled them on about 69 pages of lined paper in a 2 ring binder, for a college class (I am guessing). She added observations and researched notes in neatly written fountain pen (or possibly dip pen?)



Some of the plant matter has crumbled or come loose from its tape, but an amazing amount is still intact. The pages facing opposite the plants have ghostly brown impressions of the plants on them.

An altered collage artist's dream find!



But I am not keeping the book. Nope. It is enough for me to say I have held it and turned the pages at one time. I am giving this incredible book up for sale in my etsy shop.