Weather

I've just added the weather pixie to my blog. Now you and I can see what the weather is like here where I live (like I can't look out the door- hah!). You can get one too by clicking on it.

New Blog Thingy

I came across this on another blog - Bluebird Hill . It looked interesting and I rather liked the results even if the actual colors wouldn't be my selection. Give it a try and let me know if the results fit you. I know I do like optimism and try for the others.

Your rainbow is shaded yellow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is says about you: You are a joyful person. You appreciate optimism. You're good at getting people to like you.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

Inchy Once More

I am back everyone - hopefully for good. I have done the inchy for the week for the group on the blog Inchy by Inch. The theme for this week was buttons. This is my humorous take on the subject. I fully intended to raid my button box but this is what turned up instead. Done with prismacolor colored pencils. Hope it made you smile!


For those who have left me messages wondering where I was, I truly feel blessed that you were interested enough to wonder about me. I just was so busy leading up to Christmas and then visited so long with family that I guess I was worn out. I wasn't feeling like art or blogging - just resting. Thankyou so much for your concern; it helped, really, to get me back into the loop again.

Now, that I am back to doing inchies, I hope to get caught up on my Bead Journal Pages also. I have actually been sewing down some beads in the last couple of days. Not only that but I ripped out some knitted socks, relaxed the yarn and rewound it ready to knit some socks that will match up in size this time. I am on the move!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year Everyone!!

I haven't been around much lately. Been sidetracked by any number of things but I am planning to get back to blogging, beading and drawing, making inchies and perhaps some painting this year. I have seen some new goals on some of the blogs I visit and hope you all attain what you'd like to try and learn and do this new year. Ready for a toast (it's pomegranate sparkling cider in case you were wondering)? To all the world: May peace win out when we are feeling at odds with one another, may generosity win out when we see those who have little, may joy reign in spite of a dismal economy and may everyone have a wonderful new year!!!!

I'm hoping to get by to see everyone's blogs very soon. I'm back online (my daughter's modem went out while I was visiting) and the holidays are almost over so it's time to get back to my usual routine. See you soon!

I participated in an inchy exchange over on the Inchybyinch blog for Christmas. Twelve of us signed up which turned out to be a good number. Don't these make up a wonderful little set? Click on the picture to make it bigger and you'll see the creativity involved and some humor too. I'm really happy about having joined in.

Snow!

Hey everyone! I know a lot of you live in snowy areas but look what we got here in sunny, northern Arizona! This is the first time in seven years that it snowed all day. We've only had a few other snow days and they ended and melted off by about 10a.m. but not today. It snowed all day and now that it's night time it's turned to rain. Our big dog Sarah had fun running in it during part of the day but doesn't want to go outside now that it's dark and rainy. Look at that palm tree - and I thought I'd even throw in a pic of me out in the snow. We were only in the mid 30's so it was cold but not freezing! Lol, I even got a pun in there.

Well we thoroughly enjoyed watching all that white come down. It is such a rare occasion for us I wanted to share it with all of you.

Christmas Cards

I've got my cards done and mailed. I took part in a card exchange this year and sent the original of this colored pencil drawn card to the person I was trading with (it was a group trade but each person was given one person in the group for which to make a card. That way we could go to their blog to see what they might like and make a card accordingly - a neat way to do a trade. No one knew who would be making theirs).

I liked the card so much that I decided to make prints of the kitty and glue them onto cards I made with Elements which I am learning how to use. Originally these were all going to be red cards with green envelopes but I goofed so many times on my layout of the words I ran out of red cardstock. So now I have red cards with green envelopes and green cards with red envelopes and the recipients won't know it was due to mistakes. The envelopes are handmade out of Dick Blick construction paper. It is actually a nice 80 pound weight craft paper and I don't think they call it construction paper anymore. The colors and feel of it are great. I recommend everyone try it for crafting. I think you'll like it.


Hope you are all busy getting ready for your holidays be they Christmas, Hannukah or Kwanzaa. It's good to celebrate something especially when times are not so good.

Thanksgiving

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone but I wanted to share with you a bit of mine. My granddaughters love to do some arts and crafts with me when they visit. Usually I'm too busy to join them but I almost always have something planned that they can do especially with their mom to help.

The girls drew and made some turkeys for decorations. I don't do well with decorating so I am always glad when they come up with some pictures or other decorations. The youngest (age 7) drew here family as turkeys and we taped it to the sliding doors in the dining room. I love her unique take on the turkey feathers. The next in line made this paper plate turkey and used a sprig off the Chinese elm for it's feathery tail.

My daughter found a square tablecloth at a Bed and Bath shop by her house that would actually fit my square table. I'd suggested that coloring some leaves in fabric crayons would make a great tablecloth so she also dug up her fabric crayons and brought them with her. The 3 girls drew most of the leaves (with cookie cutters my daughter also brought) but my grandson actually joined in and did one along with almost everyone else. I think only my husband and my daughter's didn't. We've even got Happy Thanksgiving on it

after first ironing one message backwards. You see, with these crayons you first color on paper and then turn them over to iron onto the tablecloth so printing is backwards unless you take that into account. My daughter spent a whole afternoon ironing the leaves on as we got them colored. Didn't it turn out great?

We had a great Thanksgiving even though it rained for more than one day. We go for months with no rain, my family shows up to visit and bam, rain! The older kids had fun playing out in it though and they haven't had a lot of rain in southern California where they live either. My daughter surprised me with a couple of pumpkin pies so I didn't have to bake them, just one apple pie but I waited till Friday to do that. We had the usual turkey and stuffing routine but I also made a mushroom pot pie for the two vegans (my son and his girlfriend) along with leaving the butter out

of the corn so they could feast too.

Then during the weekend my son and the older grandkids helped my husband move the goat shed, their rock pile for climbing on (very heavy - our son moved them with our daughters help) and put up some fencing for them. We moved the goats because their hay attracts the rabbits and the cars were by the goats and the rabbits then climbed into the car engine to eat the copper wires. Big job but it needed doing.

My daughter decided it was time for me to get started on painting my kitchen. I had the paint;

it was a matter of getting to it. She got up into the corner where I would have found it difficult to get into so she really helped a lot. Doesn't the yellow look so much better than that icky mobile home wallpaper stuff? Oh, yeah, that gray haired woman is me. Boy the time has flown. We were reminiscing about painting her bedroom when we moved to Minnesota during her senior year of high school. I was only four years older at that time than she is now!

Anyhow, that's how my Thanksgiving weekend went. I enjoyed it a lot. Hope yours was as good.

A New Inchy

This week's theme from Inchy by Inch is Trees. I can do trees. I didn't have a tree stamp and especially not one small enough to do an inchy but I did have a tiny 3-leaf sprig stamp so I stamped it all over the top of my inchy for the tree top. Then I took a fine tip pen and added a few more leaves and a trunk. Colored the whole picture with watercolor pencils and wet it down. I edged the square with a wet watercolor pencil and felt it was done.

Hope you enjoy this little tidbit and wish some more people would join in. You can draw, stamp, paint, quilt, embroider or bead an inchy. They cover all the art stuff you can think of so don't be shy - come on!

Challenge

Carol of Beads and Birds issued a challenge on her blog for visitors to give a glimpse of the world around where they live. Well, I live in the desert of Kingman, Arizona. I am in the north western part of the state and live on 40 acres in pretty much the middle of nowhere.

The bunny was caught early in the morning just after the sun came up about 2 weeks ago. They are so cute but they eat everything we don't want them to including the wires in our cars. (We are getting ready to put in a garage to keep them out).

The roadrunner jumped up onto the window
air conditioner I have during the summer. I guess he was wondering what was going on. I was sitting right there working on my computer so I grabbed the camera quickly to catch him.

The next picture is of our big dog Sarah who went for a walk with my goats, my son and girlfriend and I this past summer. She runs pretty free here and will cover at least 10 miles a day chasing rabbits all over the place but this day was so hot even she was stopping for a rest in the shade.

The next picture shows the road on one side of
our property. It gets so seldom used that in the
spring, flowers grow in the road just fine. This is
a shot of another walk with the goats. As you can
see, we are pretty isolated. (Now you know why I treasure the internet and my internet friends).


The next pic shows the moon just two days ago. The sun was coming up while the moon had yet to go down over the mountains. If I knew how to use the manual stuff on my camera I'm sure I could have got a better shot but this is close enough. Sometimes it's not so nice here but at others, there is a real sense of peace and time.

The last shot is of a cow that has free range here. When we first moved here 6 years ago we found we wanted a fence around the house as the cows walked right up to it and had a snack of some palm trees we were going to plant. We figured they'd want the goat's hay too so now they have been fenced out! It's fun to watch them when they are grazing nearby and the dogs (all four of them) love to bark their heads off at them.

Well, this should give you an idea of what I see on any given morning. We are retired so there is no commute to work but it would be on a fairly
empty road for 12 miles to the edge of town.


Enjoy your day wherever it starts.

Inchies

I got a little behind with my computer malfunctioning on me so I am posting last weeks inchy with this weeks.

Last week's theme was The 5th of November or Guy Fawkes Day. This is a holiday in the UK celebrating someone who tried to burn down the Parliament building. Fiona of Inchybyinch asked us to do a fireworks or glitter inchy to celebrate. Well, I have a little interference powder on the tea being poured from the cup. It doesn't show up really but that wasn't how I "celebrated" with her. I celebrated by a return to a protest in our country while it was still under King George and part of England. I am portraying the Boston Tea Party. A cup pouring out tea with a ship asea in the background is my take on joining in this week. This was done with Prismacolor pencils.

Hmmm, and now that it is done and posted, I see my horn is upside down! It was too tiny before and I didn't notice. Guess I'd better start using that magnifying glass. I am already using reading glasses!

This week's theme is music. Fiona is singing in a musical and decided to carry music over into our inchies. I used a stamped music background. My only musical instrument stamp was much too big so I put it in my new Elements and reduced it so it would fit and glued it on with some tiny script. I edged it with chalk ink and tada, one musical inchy!

Notecards

I recently saw a picture on a blog that I really liked. Well, there were a lot I really liked but there was one that said "gotta have it for my daughter" so I inquired about it and was able to purchase the painting as notecards. I was really lucky because Monette who sells these from her shop on Etsy called Shiny Designs also sent with the packet of bunny cards, a couple of her wonderful birds on notecards. Doesn't she do lovely work. With Christmas coming up you might think about stopping in for some reasonably priced gifts most people would love.

I just sent one of the cards off with a package to my son. I
needed to enclose a note and he likes art and nature so I am hoping he'll appreciate this card too.

I just love that little bunny. You really did a great job Monette.

Veteran's Day

I have seen a few blogs that have shared stories for Veteran's Day and thought I'd add a few of my own. Grace has an excellent story and some artifacts so I'd go over and check it out if I were you. Also check out pics and artifacts over at Margaret Ann's blog .

My family is mostly veteran's of one war or another or have served time in the military. My grandfather's were in WWI where one lost a lung due to mustard gas. The other served with Theodore Roosevelt and was in the Spanish American war riding up San Juan Hill with Teddy as cavalry soldiers back when the cavalry rode horses. They still have the cavalry soldiers, just not the horses.

My parents were both veterans of WWII. My mom was a truck driver for the marines and served at Miramar Air Base making roads. It was a man's job but the men were "over there" so the women filled in. Her biggest peeve over equality (which didn't exist) was when she waited for a train to come in to pick up marines and the Red Cross would not let her have a donut and coffee. It was only for the male soldiers!

My dad served in the army. He fought the Japanese over in all the islands of the Pacific with the most notable being Leyte in the Philippines. He had a tough time as he often had to skip gunfights for hand-to-hand combat. He said the Japanese would herd women and children in front of them for protection so the U.S. soldiers would wait for the women and children to pass and then fight with their bayonets. The (I think it was the 7th Infantry but I could be wrong) has a patch to this day that bears a bayonet on it in honor of their fighting. There was a time when he had to steal his own rations from the base camp as they didn't have the proper paper work for them (everyone with papers and most others kept getting killed off). He received a Purple Heart for a stab wound to the neck. He said the going mode of operandi was take no prisoners, and don't become one. Fighting to the death was the only kind he knew. At one time (my brother has the photo or I'd share it) the soldiers had to wear white patches on their backs. The reason was that anyone without white showing was a target for shooting and it eliminated anyone from turning around to retreat. My brother-in-law never believed dad's story saying the U.S. wouldn't shoot their own but then we found the picture and yep, they would. But to be fair, I think the fighting was so hellish, it was hard not to turn and run at times. When he came home, his sister said he showed up at the door looking like the people shown in the Aushwitz pictures. Dad was almost starved both by lack of rations and not being able to eat due to flies everywhere after a battle going from dead bodies to his food. He just could not eat it then. (Yes, war is hell! That's why I can't stomach the idea of a pre-emptive one).

Next generation - my brothers-in-law and my husband served during the Vietnam era. My husband (I didn't know him quite yet) helped load the big guns on the ship he was on and lost part of his hearing. One brother-in-law went up the rivers in a small boat as Senator Kerry did. One was in the marines and spent one tour on the ground over there. He was a truck driver (yep, like my mom) and said the vietnamese women would sometimes throw their babies under the tires in order to get money from the U.S. government. Before judging them, I would guess they didn't have food or money to care for the rest of their family so took this as hopefully, a last resort. One brother-in-law joined but wasn't called to serve in Vietnam but he served his 20 and finally retired. A cousin of mine was trained to de-arm bombs that didn't go off and just before we pulled out of the war, he ran out of his luck and is now buried in Fort Rosecrans Cemetery. Just after the war ended my sister followed my mom into the marines. My brother followed in my dad's footsteps and joined the army from which he is now retired.

I was set to join the army nursing corps but met my husband and that's the way that story ended. I mention this as you are probably wondering why I didn't serve!

Now, the latest generation is serving in Iraq. My nephew has had three tours in Iraq following one in Afghanistan. He's had three kids in between tours and is finally safe at home with them. He just got home and should be for a long time now as he will become an instructor at a Ranger school in Fort Benning Georgia. He received a bronze star in his second tour in Iraq and has lost some of his friends over there. My son also served in between the Gulf War and Iraq. He served 8 years in the navy in the nuclear power field aboard an aircraft carrier. I also had another nephew, the oldest of the bunch who served in the navy for 6 years aboard a non-nuclear sub.


I thank all who do their duty as veterans and unpopularly, I also salute those who resist war in a truly pacifist notion. Getting out of serving by going to college doesn't earn my respect. So many did this during Vietnam, especially the people with lots of money. No sir, I don't respect letting someone serve in your place because you have the money to avoid it (and that goes for President Bush who served where it was least likely to produce a trip to Vietnam). But real war protesters who are willing to leave their country or go to jail in protest I can understand because war is hell and should be avoided. Sometimes it can't and we have to do the best we can but choosing not to do all that was possible to win in Viet Nam and opting for a war we didn't have to have in Iraq are inexcusable reasons to have our soldiers killed and wounded.

Creativity

I saw this video as a link on another blog. I hope I can get it here. I really don't know how these things work so I just have to try it and see.



If this doesn't work then try this.

Good luck. If you can get to it it's funny and informative too.

ATC Swap

About a month ago Julie of Mixed Media blog asked me if I'd
like to trade ATC's. We settled on fabric as the basis. I made her the beaded moon ATC shown at right. The green fabric is hand dyed by Grace of Barnyard Chatter (I'd previously used some here.) I enjoyed making this for Julie but I think I got the best end of the stick! Look at what she sent me.

She sent me a note on handmade paper. That's always nice to feel and even to repurpose later.

Then she sent me a Celtic prayer. I really like those. Julie, my maiden name is O'Keefe and my grandfather was born in Ireland - came over to the U.S. as a baby.

Then she sent me a packet of buttons, beads and charms! I saw a couple of orange buttons in the packet that will find their way onto my November BJP page as orange is the color for this month.

And last but the best by far, much better than what I
sent her, is the ATC she sent. She titled it The Beach at St. Ives, Cornwall. Isn't it beautiful? Seashells and sea shards along with embroidery and beads, needle felting , or maybe it's what is called embellishing and rust-dyed fabric make up the surface. She used wire to wrap the shards to keep them on the surface. I just love this. I feel the ocean through this piece Julie. You really are an artist.

Well, Christmas may still be more than a month away but I felt like it showed up in my mailbox today! Thanks Julie.