Home at Last!

I went to California for Christmas and just got home two days ago. What a trip! First, we got to drive in a huge rainstorm so my husband and I took separate vehicles so gifts wouldn't get wet. I hate having to follow someone especially over 300+ miles. At least we didn't run into rain on that first leg of the trip but only from Fallbrook to Simi Valley. I finally gave up following and telephoned (yes, I know it's not legal but I kept it short) my husband to say I'd just get there when I got there!

Then preparations in hurry-up-mode for a couple of days. I made caramel corn (not usually a Christmas treat but my husband wanted it) and my daughter made some chex mix (again, not a usual Christmas treat but her daughter got confused about when we have that treat). I made brown sugar fudge and sponge candy (a crispy, foamy brittle broken in pieces and dipped in chocolate - google it as it's easy and sooo yummy). I made date balls, stuffed dates and divinity too. I didn't find time to make fattigman, a Norwegian cookie my grandmother used to make, nor did I make Biscochitas, an aniseed sugar cookie my sister started making 50 years ago for our family. Ah well, we had enough as my daughter had already made snowballs (sandies or Mexican wedding cake cookies), pfefferneuse, chocolate fudge with and without walnuts, and mints. A turkey was cooked for my daughter's brother-in-law's birthday on the 23rd, cheese, sausages and crackers were cut up and put out for Christmas Eve and my husband's spaghetti sauce made for Christmas dinner (it's red, isn't it?). We didn't make the gingerbread houses till New Year's Eve! I tried to get the girls to make journal pages and they did but after filling the first quadrant they pretty much quit on me. I finished mine just before heading home.

Next I went down to my sister in Fallbrook again where I got together with my son and some other sisters. We went out to Anthony's Seafood Grotto by Grossmont Center (a shopping mall) and that's where I picked up some food poisoning. I was sick for several days with effects lasting a good week. Won't be eating there again but we had noticed their quality had gone downhill before we got sick! Still I found time to start an acrylic painting for my bathroom but haven't finished it yet. It's my first real acrylic painting and probably looks it but I still like it so far.

I was getting ready to come home to get ready for another watercolor class with Laure Ferlita when my daughter called and asked if I could come back up and babysit the dogs so they could go to San Diego for a nephew's birthday party. So back up I went for a few more days. Then I finally headed home. I decided to go east on Hwy. 58 rather than the 210 Interstate to hwy 15 and ran into a 2 hour stoppage due to an accident and roadwork. After that though, I had smooth sailing.

The journal pages posted here were done on my trip. Not too much to show but Christmas is a busy time even without drawing and painting. I've started my new class centered on Valentine's Day with Laure Ferlita. Hope to share what I do in this class soon.

By the way, have you ever wanted to go on a trip to Ireland? I'll be leaving January 31st with Laure on another Imaginary Trip. Want to join me? If not Ireland perhaps you'd like New Orleans another new trip she's worked to provide us with which leaves February 22nd. Just click here and here to find out more!

Hmmmm.....

I was just wondering how everyone is doing? Are you having fun getting ready for Christmas? Is it more stressful this year than last? More joyful? I really hope you are all having more fun and if you aren't I hope you can find a space to stop, take a deep breath and relax for a few minutes.

I finally finished my Christmas cards and am getting them mailed out. Here's what I came up with this year. I stopped making originals for each person - that was taking the fun out of it as time would fly by and then I'd feel stressed and rushed.

Now who has baked anything for Christmas? I've made some brown sugar fudge that I started making after my mother-in-law died. My husband missed the candy and his mom so I tried making it. After three failures (in one day), I said a prayer and it must have been heard as the fudge has come out fine now for the last 25+ Christmases! So, please, let me know what you are cooking up. Let's have some fun!

Want to Sketch?

Have you wanted to sketch but didn't know what to draw? Didn't think you were good enough of a drawer? There is a new challenge starting up in January where some artists got together and will be posting an idea to sketch each month. They will have pointers for us, share what they draw and even have some give-aways. Sound interesting? Check it out by clicking on the Sketchbook Challenge button on the right or going to it righ here. I am going to follow along; hope to see you doing it also.

My Hat

My Hat
Originally uploaded by TimareeC

I'm taking another class with Laure Ferlita and the subject right now is hats. That reminded me of how my granddaughter enjoyed warming up by wearing my hat when they were here at Thanksgiving so I made a journal page out of it. It's a very fuzzy, shiny hat.

Free Calendar!

Robin Kohli (E-junkie) and Adi C (Fish & Web) have developed an art calendar with owl pictures submitted by many different people. You get to pick the pics you want and for which month. Then you can download and save it for printing. Check it out by clicking here or on the owl to the right on the sidebar. Just a little something for fun!

O Christmas Tree!

I bought this tiny tree the other day as I rather missed not having a tree and my husband seemed to be missing one too. It stands only 12" tall with the pot so it's tiny. I strung some beads to wrap it with and added some sequins as ornaments. I liked it and decided to sketch it so I'd keep the memory! Hope you are having fun getting ready for Christmas too.

Thanksgiving is Gone Already!

Thanksgiving arrived and now it's gone! Wow. The time sure flies. I cooked and cooked, did dishes and played many games of Trivial Pursuit.

My daughter and her family came in on Monday night. We went to town the next day for a buffet lunch but other than that, I cooked! Before anyone arrived I had made:

• banana bread, both plain and with walnuts
• 4 batches of caramel corn, one with peanuts (should have done two with peanuts)
• 3 batches of my version of chex mix
• chili and beans
• pot roast
• shortbread cookies

The next day our son came in and from there on I cooked:

• tacos, both meat and lentil versions, and tostadas
• sausage, bacon and eggs, both fried and scrambled
• turkey with stuffing, relish tray, mashed potatoes, corn and gravy
• an acorn squash stuffed with apple, pear, pecans, dried cranberries, cinnamon and real maple syrup for my vegan son
• 3 pumpkin pies, one apple pie and one blackberry-raspberry pie
• batch after batch of popcorn
• Thai fresh green curried butternut squash
• french toast and sausage
• salad bar with too many items to mention
• southern style sweet potatoes

It was a food filled time but we managed to play a couple of games of Around-the-World on the drawn-in-the-dirt basketball court in the cold wind and multiple games of Trivial Pursuit. The old team (my husband and I) won at least half!

My grandkids fed the goats and dogs, took out the trash, set the table and decorated it for Thanksgiving dinner, ate plenty of junk food but didn't ask for soda till the day before they left. They played the old Atari computer games and the new games on their i-pods, colored pictures and played paper dolls. The two youngest peeled potatoes, sweet potatoes and cucumbers plus chopped whatever needed chopping.

In spite of the help, I am taking a day to rest now that everyone has gone home! I painted some of the decorations the kids made and that made up my journal entry for the holiday. I should have left more room for writing!

Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful too.

Tea Anyone?

Yesterday Laure Ferlita posted a painting of a tea bag on her blog. Some of the commenters including myself wondered if we could do a painting like that. Laure came back telling us to try it so I did. This is my result. This is the sort of thing you can do after taking a class of hers (warning: the classes are like potato chips, you can't stop at one!). We don't just learn to copy her lesson; we learn how to put what she teaches to paint anything. I know it's just a little teabag and a used one at that but it makes me so happy to be able to take up that challenge and come up with a reasonable painting of it! Thank you so much Laure!

Mail Day!

Aren't I the lucky one? Helena of Creating a Likeness blog from England sent me these things for my birthday which is coming up very soon. She makes some very nice cards which she sells but I didn't have to buy mine! The booklet is so cute too. I have to show it to my granddaughters as I bet they'd love to try to make one like it. I don't have butterflies as pretty as these but they'll make do.

I am lucky to have Helena as a blog friend. There have been a couple of times in the past couple of years when I thought of giving up blogging when I was in a blue funk and then out of the blue, she'd send me an email asking how I was. That got me going again. She sent these photo corners because she remembered me making some once for a project because I didn't have any from the store. Thank you for the birthday gift Helena and for "being there" when I needed it.

Friendship Journal

I took part in a travelling friendship journal for a yahoo group I am in Blissfully Art Journaling. These are the three spreads I made for it. One was to be about me and the other two something about friendship.

The picture I painted was with gouache. The paint lifts very easily when it gets wet so I was going to spray it with fixative. I tried the fixative first on a different gouache page and it worked fine except the spray wouldn't quit spraying until the can was empty. So for this tea time painting I was goint to use some UV acrylic finishing spray from Krylon that I had. Hmmm, three big blobs hit my page before I could stop them. This time I got no spray; the stuff just bubbled out of the can till it was empty. I don't know if my cans were too old, too cold (the house was between 66 and 68 degrees) or what but I even went and found my spray bottle of hairspray I've had for a few years but couldn't get it to do anything but shoot a heave stream rather than a fine mist. So, the page is going to go as is, with three horrid blobs on it. Thank goodness they didn't blur the paint under them.

Do any of you ever seal a gouache or watercolor page in your journal? I have only done it as a trial effort and on a painted cover to a journal. I figure they don't usually get wet but when the journal is going to someone I don't know, I just wanted to be safe.

Back to Beadin'

I was going through all my old bead magazines trying to thin out all my "stuff". I came across many patterns I still want to try so I saved those and chose one to do after reading a post about making time on Kathy's blog Catching Happiness. I let time slip away without anything to show for it much too often. I will give this necklace to my daughter at some point. She has a birthday coming up and then there is always Christmas or just as a "here, this is for you" gift. It was a fun project and I think I will make a few more.

I am working on other things now to. Every so often I guess I just need a swift kick in the rear to get moving!

Autumn Fun!

Once again, a class of Laure Ferlita's is finished. These are the pages I painted for my journal. Don't you want to try this? A new Fall class started just today. You could join in right now and not miss anything! There are other classes listed on her site too. Check them out. You won't be sorry.

Love Those Grandkids!

My husband took us back to California just a few weeks after we'd come back from there. He wanted to fix up some of the family computers. While there I got my 13 year-old granddaughter signed up for Laure Ferlita's Autumn Class which just started (there is still room. Go here ). I helped her sign up in blogger and showed her what she'd need to participate fully. She wanted to try out the new watercolors I'd gotten her which would be used in the class so she and one of the other granddaughters sat down to paint. They didn't know what to paint though! So I put down my coffee mug and had them choose between it and a pink goblet that was already on the table. One chose the mug and the other the goblet. Then I showed them how to paint them and they did a great job. You can see for yourself they did a great job. Now let me tell you, these girls are 11 and 13 and this was their first try at using watercolors in a real way. If they can do it, so can you! So scoot on over and join in on one of Laure's classes. You won't regret it.

Wow, Another Page!

I got a new bird yesterday. Actually I got him a little over a week ago but when he didn't eat for 4 days and was sitting on the bottom of the cage, not even on his feet, I took him back. I was so happy to hear they'd take him straight to the vet. We hear such awful stories about the treatment of animals in stores and mills. When I called back later the manager told me the vet thought he'd make it and it was mites that were the problem. She said she'd put my name on him when she got him back so I could rebuy him. Then she took ALL the canaries for treatment. This was at PetCo so they really do take care of the animals.

Because I missed him after I took him back to the store I made a Zentangle with him. Now that I've got him back I made a journal page that I had pre-prepped with paint, about him. The zentangle is there rather than his picture. Now that I think about it, I should have had both picture and zentangle. Oh well, I guess I'll have to do another page sometime.

By the way, he is doing great now. He's hopping all over the place, eating the veggies I put in the cage and his seeds. He's even done some chirping. Cross your fingers he stays this way!

Helena ( Creating a Likeness )offered to make me some photo corners and I thank you for the offer Helena. As you can see, I made a couple for this picture and they are much larger than the punch cuts out. I appreciate your offer so much though.

Doves

I've made a new collage page for my journal. I found the feather yesterday. I hesitated in reaching for it in the midst of a few bushes since I've seen two rattlesnakes this year in my garden areas so far but I didn't see any so got it and put it in my journal.

I sure wish I'd known about this kind of journaling back when my kids were little. Back then they had baby books but that meant answering the questions in it and adding pics and that didn't work for me. I didn't like the questions and couldn't afford the pics - that was before digital cameras which I consider to be one of the top inventions of our time. So, many memories are lost from that time but I hope not to lose all of my present days.