2 arts

The first art I managed to make in my new studio was a couple pages done to Roc's march prompt of "what do you love the sound of?"

My first thought was 'words.' But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I love the idea of words, not necessarily the sound of them. Coming out of certain people's mouths, words are a horrible screeching noise that hurts my ears and gives me a headache. But I made a page before I thought all that.
Various papers glued to watercolor paper, then scraped over with acrylic paint using an old credit card. Or a new credit card, if you're on the austerity program like us. It's an ok page, but by the time I was done, I had thought all those negative thoughts about words and needed to do another one more true to what I love the sound of.

Falling water. Not the house built by Frank Lloyd Wright, but simply the sound of falling water, like a fountain in a courtyard or a trickling stream. I smeared gesso thru a curlyque stencil, let it dry, then dribbled several shades of blue and green Distress Stains all over, helping it out with some spritzes of water here and there. When it was dry, I wrote the words, trying to get a bit more interest into my lettering than I usually come up with. Need to go back and look thru the lettering classes I've paid for and pay attention this time.

I'm pleased with this page. Love the colors and shapes of the dribbles. Looks like rain down a window.

17 years

Last Sunday Steve and I passed a milestone. We've been married 17 years. Neither of us has done hardly anything for 17 years worth, mostly particularly stay married, so it was with some satisfaction that we ventured forth that morning to acquire a microwave cart. Our m/w is large and takes up too much room on the counter, so we moved the kitchen table over and made a space that we thought would work.

Four stores later, we still hadn't even come across a microwave cart, never mind bought one, but we had managed to purchase a pricey Dyson vacuum, some banister brackets, drawer handles for the router table Steve built 10 years ago and never put handles on, and a couple venti Starbucks.

pricey Dyson vacuum lurking at the door to my pantry

While wandering around Home Despot, we took a look at the DIY kitchen cabinets and ended up buying one that we brought home, put casters and a top on, then rolled into the kitchen and wa-la - a microwave cart. Works great and now the entire end of the counter is free for my baking station. Yay.

I went grocery shopping later and bought myself some flowers - the oddest color carnations I've ever seen. Man has done so much mutation and grafting and genetic modification of nature that I have no idea if this is something that occurs naturally or was achieved in the laboratory. Whatever the origin, I love the colors. Greeny/mauvey.

The Cadillac dealer across the street from the store went out of business a couple years ago and since then, I have helped myself to their abundant roses since otherwise they bud, bloom and die with no appreciation whatsoever, which just seems wrong. So there's a big pot of roses on my counter right now also. 

 And that's how my 17 year wedding anniversary went...

garden time

We're not going to get to the raised bed this summer, I don't think. We wanna put some fruit trees in and I think you're supposed to plant those in the fall. But I hit up Wally World and OSH for some plants and dirt on Monday and got a bunch of things planted.

We had so many empty 5gal paint cans that I decided to use those instead of buying more big plastic pots that only last a year or two. Last year my tomatoes sucked, but I'm going to be better about feeding, etc and have hopes for a bumper crop. Also, seems like I'm getting these planted late but oh well. I'm just one woman, after all.

Maggie and one of the free tubs I got at the rental place one day. Saw them sitting in a pile and asked if that was the trash pile. The guy said yeah so I started digging. I think wished he had said no after I threw several things in the back of the truck lol. This one has Armenian cukes and some flowers.

Three paint buckets of tomatoes - 2 Sweet 100 and one... something I don't recall at the moment. 

A pot of flowers and a stack of rocks.

A flower from the previous pot pic.

The garden ornament (aka broken umbrella stand) from the rental place trash pile, a couple pots of flowers and a few stacks of rocks, all adorning the raised bed wall.

Long shot of the patio as of Monday evening. Since then I planted the other tub with a couple pepper plants and some flowers), one more bucket of tomatoes, and a standing planter that I positioned right behind the bird bath. And added a bird feeder from The Walmarts. I really enjoy watching the birds. We have a pair of mourning doves who live in the yard behind us (I think) but often dine in my yard or settle into the dirt to take a sun bath.

free vintage images

Haven't done one of these in a while and since I'm home for a few hours before going back to work for the evening, AND since I got a wireless doohickie for my new computer and hence am back online... I figured I'd celebrate by sharing a few more of the cabinet cards I've gathered here and there.

This is a mixed bag - one baby, one mother and baby, and one pair of sisters with haircuts like my mom had when she was 3 or 4, so the girls might be from the mid twenties. Use them however you like, except please do not sell them.

If you make anything using them, I'd love to see it.

This would be lovely on a Mother's Day card.

Those bags under the older sister's eyes look just like mine. Maybe we're related.
But she has much better hair than I do. Love her baggy stockings.

This baby make me smile -
his toes pointed completely out to the side
 (makes my knees hurt just looking at him),
his dimpled little hands,
and his barely there smile, like he's about to laugh.

no internet, dyed eggs, llama toenails

How's that for a mixed bag?  We moved a couple weeks ago and I have internet only on my wireless laptop. But all my fun photo software is on my pc, so I've been transferring things back and forth on an external hard drive. Tedious all by itself, but when you add in the slow wireless connection, it's killing me. That's why no blog posts lately. But right now I'm at work with a few spare minutes, so I wanted to get something up so that all 9 of my precious followers don't give up in disgust at my lack of content.

I read about various ways to dye eggs and ended up trying the silk tie method. Only had one tie handy but it came out very cool and definitely need to try this again, and actually remember to add the vinegar to the water lol.

 On Easter Sunday afternoon, I went out to the home of the mother of a guy I work with who has llamas. The mother has llamas, just to clarify that last sentence. Two of them needed their toenails trimmed and they thought I might be helpful since I'm used to working around horses. Since llama feet and horse feet are completely different, I'm not sure what the logic was, but it turned out I was quite helpful. Don't have enough time to elaborate so here's some pics for now. Longer post next week when I have time to breathe again.

What a face, huh?
They were very curious so I have about 20 shots like this.

Junk food llamas. Me feeding Wheat Thins to the llamas.
They mostly didn't care for the apples I brought since they're used to Wheat Thins.

Toenail trimming with pruning shears.

Wa-la! Finished llama with trimmed toenails and hacked off coat.
I'm sure she was glad to be done with us.

Mary Green's April challenge

It's the first week of the month again and that means Mary's challenge. Must use at least something of all three images.

I'm hooked on Photoshop lately so mine is digital again. I used the paper as the background, with a grungy paper overlay and darkened it up a bit.

Extracted the girl and flipped her horizontally. Cut a crown from the flowers and stuck it on her poor unsuspecting little head. Added the word 'pensive' after looking at her for a bit.  Added the graffiti at bottom, the tape and circles, and the splatter at top from some Tangie Baxter kits. If you're into digital, go visit her but take your PayPal password with you. Tons of goodies.

Thanks, Mary, for another fun one. I liked these images better than last month's, but no matter what, it's always fun to do something with them.