2 weeks vacation

Just a quick note to say that I will be gone for a couple of weeks. I may get a chance to post something while I am gone but if not just know that I am off having fun visiting family and attending an art retreat. When I get back I will update with pictures and stories. I will also be giving details about the art journal challenge. I hope someone will join me. All you need is a journal and pens and anything else you may want to use to enhance your theme.
Blessing to you all, TTFN

Sunny weather here I come :)

Dandelion Psychology

Am I the only one who likes Dandelions? The yellow is so pretty and bright and cheery. And if we didn't have dandelions how would we know if we like butter? If you don't know what I am talking about then you missed a critical part of childhood where you hold the Dandelion under your chin and if your chin shines yellow you like butter. I don' t know where this practice came from but every child I ever knew knew how to do this. And since this is the only flower my kids were allowed to pick, Dandelions come with such love attached to them. Beyond that, there is so much hope involved in blowing a white Dandelion and watching each individual pedal float away almost like it is carrying your dreams to some magical place where they can come true. I think there must be some kind of Dandelion psychology that children understand and adults just grow up and forget. Kind of like Peter Pan. How can people dislike these little ambassadors of love, joy and hope?

Old photos and doilies

Here is the picture of my mom. I knew after I talked about her yesterday that some of you would be interested in seeing a picture. So now you can see how I come by the cheeks legitimately. I wish I knew how old she was but both my parents have passed on and so I have no way of knowing. I think she is lovely though whatever her age. I think I might even have her gown tucked away in my cedar chest. Do young girls have cedar chests anymore? I think they lost their purpose with my generation. All I do is store old stuff that I hardly ever look at. Being sentimental at heart, I couldn't get rid of it if I tried but it seems sad to never use any of it or have it on display somewhere. My grandmother crocheted beautiful tablecloths and doilies and my kids are very practical people and wouldn't know what to do with a doily or care to figure it out. What to do, what to do? Oh well, nothing I need to decide on today. Today, I have to figure out how to pack all the art supplies piled on my table so that they get to the East coast in one piece.

Cheeks

I have been getting together all my art supplies and pictures for Art & Soul www.artandsoulretreat.com and I had to laugh. Cheeks run in the family. Here is a picture of my dad as a wee boy. Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks? My mom had them too and so you can guess who followed in their footsteps. I just fell in love with this photo with his little beanie hat and bible in hand. My grandson who has been visiting is well endowed also in the cheek department and I can't get enough kisses in to satisfy. I bet my grandma felt the same about my dad at this age. So cute!

Brr- it's cold outside

The excitement is building. I have just about finished off the last minute purchasing of supplies for my trip to Virginia and Art & Soul. I did break down and buy a pair of shorts. Apparently, it has been 85 degrees where I am going. This is hard to imagine since we had snow yesterday. I thought snow in March was weird but April 19th was just too much. The poor spring flowers that popped through the ground weeks ago are now struggling to survive. I hope this is the last of the snow till next winter because once I get a taste of warm sunny days I am not going to want to come home to cold wintry weather. Brr!

27th Wedding Anniversary

Today I am thankful for my husband. It is our 27th wedding anniversary. We were talking last night about how much we have changed over the years and how strange it seems to think that we have been married over 1/2 our lifetime. We have grown up together really and I can't imagine him not being there through all the tough times and all the good. He is a sensitive, careing, loving and thoughtful guy. Thank you Lord for this gift. What did I know about picking a husband, I was teenager. Now 27 years later I realize the magnitude of that decision and am thankful God was looking out for me.

Time to create

Today I am thankful for time in my art room to create. There is just something about being out there and being quiet and not thinking about anything except what I am working on. A peace just flows through me. Time just slips away and I would just keep going if no one stopped me. Here is the picture I worked on today. Her name is Dotty. I had a little bit of trouble with her but just couldn't throw her in the garbage so I changed a few things and I think she is my favorite so far. I hope you got to do something you enjoyed today and it brought you peace.

Love & Singing

"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17, NIV).

Don't you just love that verse? I was just thinking this week about singing praises to the Lord and here His Word tells me that He is singing them back to me. I remember when my kids were young and they had a hard time going to sleep, I would sing to them and rub their heads and backs so gently. It was a peaceful act of love that helped them to quiet their restless minds and bodies so that they could go to sleep. Now when I am anxious about stuff, I can remember that God is there to quiet me with His love and is rejoicing over me with singing. That is what I am thankful for today.

Fixed

Phew, I was able to get the blog back to normal. I really liked it with three columns too. I will do some more research before I go changing anything again. That was scary.

This is a test, this is a test. I am panicing right now because I just change the code in my blog so that I could have 3 columns and all my blogs disappeared. YIKES!!!!! Ok, don't panic, someone must know how to fix this. Keep cool. Ok, I am going to go back and try again. Hang in there with me. :(

Sing a new Song

We had a couple of days of sunny weather and it just put me in the best mood. I love to sing and there is nothing better than having a cool breeze blowing through the house on a warm day, the radio on and singing praise songs. I wish today was sunny but I am thankful for the couple of days we did get. It gives me something to look forward to when all the rain gets done falling on this very green countryside. :)

Craft Room in progress

I worked on getting my paper all organized and stamps on the shelf today. I had so much paper it almost didn't fit. I think I had better get busy using up all that paper. Now, I can sit in my chair and reach everything I need. I am also setting up a gift wrapping center and sewing center and across the room a desk to do my digital and Women's ministry work. I won't want to leave when it is all done. There is still so much to do but as I finish each area I will have to show you how it is going.

Digital organizing

I just got my new digital scrap book magazine in the mail and boy am I excited! http://www.digitalscrapbooking.com/ It gave me two very valuable tips that I want to tell you about. First, I can't believe that I didn't think of this myself but it is amazing. When I started to download tons of papers and embellishments I came to a place where I had to decide how I was going to organize all of it. I did the best I could do but still I have to sort through tons of files to find an element that I want to add to my page. I use Photoshop Elements to design and organize my photos but what I hadn't figured out until today is that you can pull all the papers and embellishments into the photo organizer and tag it. Then, when you want to find something all you have to do is click a button to see what you are looking for. I tried it out and shazam, there right before my eyes were all the orange papers. I tried it again and there were all my flowers. YEAH!!!! Can you tell how excited I am. The bad part is that now I have to go through my hundreds of files and tag everything. Oh well, I can take the time while I am watching TV to organize. I really am getting into this organizing thing. Whoo hoo! I got so excited I forgot what the other thing is I was going to tell you :0 Oh yeah, I learned how to make word books digitally. I made one for my Art & Soul trip. You have to see a picture to understand. It is really cool. I only made the template digitally but you can do it all on the computer if you want.You can see the picture above. I am going to try and finish up my craft orgainzation and will show you how that is going too. Check back tomorrow for the update.

Art Journal Challenge

I have been inspired lately by art challenges. I have seen ones that challenge you to make art everyday, or journal everyday or to make art journal pages everyday. As challenging as that seems I am intrigued enough to try it. I am going to be going to the Art & Soul retreat www.artandsoulretreat.com in a little over 2 weeks. I am so excited about what I will be learning from professional artists. I am taking a couple of journaling classes and so I am going to challenge myself when I get back to take the 21 day challenge of art journaling from May 11-31st. Anyone else up for the challenge? All you do is pick a theme for your journal, create a page and write on it everyday for 21 days. Simple enough? I think not, but definately fun. I am saying this now so that you have time to think about it and get some supplies if you want to join me. I will be saying more about it later. I'm so excited about this. I really want to start now but with both my boys birthdays, my anniversary and my daughter and grand baby visiting along with leaving on vacation, I think I had better wait. Did I mention how busy I am right now, WOW!

Encouraging Words

I have been thinking about the journal prompt on encouraging words. I have been so blessed this week with friends and family who have said so many nice things to me. Words encouraging me in my art, words encouraging me to pursue my dreams, words thanking me for being such a supportive mother-in-law and words of gratitude that I am in their life. I don't know if it is because I have been paying closer attention this week or if I was just blessed but I felt like words of encouragement were poured out on me. I like the pay-it-forward idea and so I want to say thank you to all of you who come here to this little blog and for those who leave comments. I am grateful for you and think of you often. You took a moment out of your life and used your words to make a difference in my life. Thank you :)

Organizing

I don't have a picture today but I will soon. I have been spending some very needed time organizing my craft room. It started out as my office then turned into a storage room and when it got to the point that I couldn't even walk through the room without taking out insurance I decided it was time to organize. This is no easy task. I have the ability to collect a lot of stuff, the Goodwill can attest to this as I have made many trips lately to donate. Anyway, my niece who is an organizational wizard told me what to get and then came out to help me get started. Today, I saw some hope on the horizon. When I am all finished I may take a picture so you can see but that depends on how good it comes out. I just need a space right now to have all my art stuff in one place. I found watercolor pencils and crayons that I didn't even know I had. I don't even remember buying them. That is pretty bad. Now that I am getting everything in sight and within arms reach it is going to be a snap to do my art. I just can't wait! My week is so busy so I don't know when I will be able to get out there again. Maybe Sunday afternoon.