I'm Gifted!

Ha! You were thinking maybe I got some special
letter from Mensa or something huh? No way!




Instead I got lucky when I visited Riley Coyote Creations and saw a drawing being offered. I signed up and didn't win. That's right, I didn't have my name picked by Riley (that's the weimeraner). But, there were only two of us who signed up for the drawing so Deirdre sent me
one of her domino pendants also.

Isn't it pretty? I can't believe the glass-like finish she got on her piece. It's cute that she uses a decorated card (and clever too, I might add) for her pendant holder.

Anyhow, I want to say thank you very much. It's wonderful.

Inchy

This week's theme at Inchybyinch is birds. I have
actually used a stamp on my inchy this week! Isn't this little bird a happy one. Singing his heart out because:

Isn't life glorious! Isn't it grand!

Here--take it--hold it tight in your hand;

Squeeze every drop of it into your soul,

Drink of the joy of it, sun-sweet and whole!

Laugh with the love of it, burst into song!

Scatter its richness as you stride along!

Isn't life splendid--and isn't it great

We can always start living--its never too late!

Isn't Life Glorious by Helen Lowrie Marshall

I got this book years ago (like back in 1969) and have loved this poem from it forever.

This little bird reminded me of the poem so I thought I'd share it with you. Hope you like it to.

I stamped the bird with Distress ink in a purple color. Then I used chalk ink in little cat's eye pads to color in the grass and sky. Added some watercolor pencil to his beak and mouth and added some music notes with Pitt pen. I confess, I have no idea what notes I used so don't try to see if they are part of a song. I don't even know if I made them right! This was a fun inchy to make.

February BJP

This is my February BJP page. Done. Finito. Yay! For this month on my colorwheel theme red-purple was the color to use. Not too bad for a Valentine's month. I had this blue heart bead given to me by Ewian when I won a give-away on her blog for St. Lucia Day. That is the only gifted bead on this page but it is a large one, the dominant bead and theme for the month. I added a peyote ruffle around it to make it fit in and also to stand out more. The background is a rather knotty mess of beading - at least that's what I was attempting because as much as we love to fall in love, to hang in there with one person requires a lot of give and take and some messy times. There's always a few bumps in the road too as you can see by the bumpy beads in the background.

And now on the March. If I'm not too careful, I might actually catch up! Well, sometime anyhow.

New Socks - Kind of!

I have sort of finished a pair of socks. I have made
two of them but they ended up a little off with one being about a half an inch longer in the leg length than the other and that doesn't sit well with me. Unlike the last time (out of many, many pairs this has happened only the last two times I've knit socks), this time I am not unravelling one of them. I have enough yarn to make a third and we'll see which it matches. THEN I will unravel one of them.

This yarn was called You Ugly and was what Perfect Day Yarns thought was a bad die job. I've written about that before when I started these socks and you can see that post here. I don't think the yarn turned out ugly knitted up
into socks with a lace pattern. The pattern broke up the stripiness that occurred on the sole of the sock. I don't mind it there but I like how the bits of broken up color add sparkle to the sock which makes up for the lack of the lace stitch showing up clearly.

I like them and will finish the third shortly. I have learned to knit while we watch the morning news. I actually get something done besided chewing off my fingernails now.

Finchy?

F is the theme of this week's inchy. And the question was posed as to how many things with F we could get on an inchy. Well, here is what I came up with. I decided a grid was called for and did my best to make some tiny objects that would fit. My paper for this one must have been very porous - the sharpie pen I used for the four made the blobs at the beginning of a line on it's own so I added a few more to make it a design. I just love the chalk ink pads for edging my inchies.

The Lone Beader took me up on the offer to make some inchies. She's even put hers up for sale. You'll find her inchies here and here. Take a look- you won't want to miss them. Thanks for giving these a try Lone Beader. I'm still trying to figure out how to snatch those bee ones up before someone else does!

If YOU want to join in making some inchies JUST DO IT! Make them out of anything. Just make them one inch and if you use the F theme, drop by Inchybyinch and let us know where you've posted them.

Journal Page

I just joined a Yahoo group called Blissfully_Art_Journaling · CREATIVE ART JOURNALING FOR THE SOUL. They seem to be a very friendly group and I know some of the people there already through online classes and other groups. (Even the online world is getting smaller - lol)!
Everyday we are given a quote and a prompt to help us with ideas for our journaling. That's one big reason I joined as it's sometimes hard to think of what you want to put on a journal page.

The prompt for today was to think about whether you've buried your dreams. The quote was "A sobering thought; what if, right at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?" by Jane Wagner. My first thought as an answer to that was "and even more sobering is if I'm not and I don't!

I am also doing a mini retreat type of thing at a blog called The Alternate Path. Cassie the blog owner is helping people think about how to balance their lives to live more fully. Try it out - it's a short read for each of 12 days and it may give you something to think about.

Anyhow, because of the new group's prompt plus thinking about my path versus the "Alternate Path", I made a page in my journal. It took on a life of it's own so doesn't really match either the group or the blog but this is what they made me think of:

I used Photoshop Elements to bring in my own photos of where I live and to turn them into a journal spread in my moleskine journal. I printed it out and glued it into my journal. And like so many things I do - I glued it in upside down!! As Cassie says in her blog, be ready to forgive yourself often. I told her I know how to do this very well as I have to do it a lot!

Then I added the remainder of the path with colored pencils and added some writing in case the pictures didn't quite tell the story clearly enough!

I will probably post a journal page now and then. If I start doing too many compared to my other posts I'll probably start a new blog for it.

Newest Inchy

My newest inchy is for the theme "faces". I really
need to work these under my magnifying lamp sometimes. I might have seen the sand paper scratching to far into the face. Ah, well. Life goes on! Kids are so full of life we'd do well to have some around or go to a place where you can see them play and wonder. Then we can reabsorb some of that energy that we lose as we get older.

Please try an inchy or two yourself. You can join in at Inchybyinch for one inchy or lots of them. They are a tiny bit of fun between bigger projects.

Seen on Another Blog

I saw this link on another blog and liked it. It's a good reminder of the important things in life. I thought you all might like it too: http://lshs64.com/enjoytheride.html .

The picture has nothing to do with the link. I just thought you might enjoy what I saw way out in our rural area the other day.