the rarely-blooming gardenia... blooms

I planted this thing a bit over 4 years ago when we moved in here. It had a bloom on it when I bought it, and bloomed again (1 flower's worth) in 2008, but has never flowered since. I'm sure it's missing some key ingredient in the soil but I'm a tough love gardener and have only watered it and maybe given it a shot or two of Miracl-Gro. I think I googled gardenias once, but then my hard boiled egg timer went off and that was the end of that.

But this morning, walking back inside from waving DH off to work, I saw it.

A bloom.

A big beautiful gardenia.

icad 6/23 - 6/27

My cards for the last few days. A misc lot - some drawing, some collage, some lettering. A bit more inspired this week.

NOT a self portrait, just what came out of my pen when I tried to draw a face

for the Monday challenge

little books - post 4 - Julie

My third little book is from Julie, a member of our little mail art group, so it was great getting one from her. Plus, this book is very cool. It's made from one sheet of paper, folded and cut to make a small 4 page book. This is a technique that Lenna pointed out to us when we signed up. I made a few like this but ended up not using them for the swap. For this one, Julie used images and text from an old Danish gardening book and I love the old muted colors and the vintage images. Plus, I love to garden.
I think this one is going in my kitchen some place so I can see it every day. I just bought a new little shelf thing at a yard sale this morning that might be perfect. Julie also decorated the envelope and printed out a note about the book. Enjoy.

little books - post 3 - Sarah

Sarah's book is stitched and beaded and amazing. She went around the entire outer edge of the cover and stitched on approximately 500 beads, by my reckoning. Yikes! I can hardly see to thread beading needles anymore so getting this was a real treat. The covers are soft and bendy but nicely padded, not sure what's inside them. The inside is 3 signatures of what feels like card stock, in white, perfect for a small sketch book. Here are the photos.

little book swap - post 2 - Laura

I received this little book from Laura Hummel. It's FABulous. The papers are wildly varied in size, type, color, style, texture. It's a total sensory treat to look thru, which I've done about ten times since I've gotten it.  Laura is extremely creative and this book will inspire me for some time to come with its diversity. Here are images of the entire wonderful thing.

little book swap - post 1

Lenna of Creative Swaps had a Little Book Swap recently and mine arrived on Thursday - very quick since they were posted from Florida on the 22nd. She made a great slide show of them here.

I sent 3 books, plus one for Lenna. The ones for the swap had covers made from crazy quilt blocks that I pieced but never finished. They were made from batik fabrics and I loved them. I was very happy to be able to re-purpose them for this swap. The inside pages were a variety of pictures from art books, misc papers,

 This is the one I made Lenna. It's pretty small, maybe 2.5" x 3.5", and has pages from old books and hand made papers, very monochromatic. I liked it and plan to make one for myself one of these days.


Next pic is my covers. Two of them had a bit of seam stitching.

3rd photo - The insides of the pink one. Each had pictures and papers chosen to complement the cover color.

4th - The back and front of the green one. I used Tim Holtz tissue tape to bind the books. 

5th - inside view of all three.

I sooo can't figure out how to load photos in effing blogger so that I can type next to each one without the spacing getting all goofy. Is there another free blog place that handles images better??

Next up, the books I received in the swap.

embarrassing hobby

This cartoon came along in my little desk calendar of New Yorker cartoons and just cracked me up.
Seemed so apropos of my 'art.'

In case you can't quite read it, it says, "I'm serious - you could really pursue this as an embarrassing hobby."

icad 6/18 - 6/21 & 6/22

Still doing Daisy Yellow's icad challenge. I apparently took 6/21 off since there's no card for that day. (?)

I loaded and reloaded this photo after turning it every which way in Flickr and it insists on being sideways, so I'm waving the white flag and leaving it. It must be a sign from the universe or something.

I was extremely low on inspiration and just used my errand list from the day. Not even any markers. Oy...

2nd one was torn from a Starbucks brochure on how the world would be a better place if we all started the day with the caffeinated beverage of our choice. I find that difficult to argue with...

3rd one was another low day in the inspiration dept. Lines, words, a goofy face peeking over the wall, and some squiggles which seem to express my colossal lack of direction in life.

4th one is blue tornadoes, I guess. Looks like I had a grim week in the icad area, huh? Must be working on them too late into the evening. Maybe they should be a lunchtime activity.

the freaking weather and a napping dog

Here's our forecast for the next week.

Tonight

N/A | 66°

Clear

Tue

104° | 64°

Hot

Wed

102° | 63°

Hot

Thu

94° | 58°

Sunny

Fri

90° | 57°

Sunny

Sat

95° | 57°

Sunny

Sun

93° | 58°

Sunny

I love how it says Hot for the two days that are over 100, but just Sunny for the days in the 90s. And the blazing orange icon. They want you to understand that they mean it when they say it's gonna be hot. Not just warm, like 95.
No, it's going to be HOT!

Here's what the dog does on a hot, lazy afternoon. Just ignore DH's hairy legs. He was asleep, too, in the recliner, with the TV droning away. Maggie hates having the camera pointed at her, and is trying hard to pretend I'm not there.