happy pumpkin day

my contribution to the inkspot calendar

april and february were the months i drew.....both were months i was secretly hoping for....

stephie's bracelet

all done as of 1:52 this morning.....steph is not expecting her bracelet or necklace (below) to be done until next week, as we are in the middle of redoing our kitchen and have to have it all done by saturday when our new appliances arrive! shhhhhhh! don't tell!

stephie's necklace.....

i finished it tonight(this morning) while she was sleeping as a surprise.....shhhhhhh...don't tell!

for stephie

this afternoon while trying to figure out what direction to go in my studio today, i began picking up the remains of my last project and putting away other odds and ends...i scooped up beads that steph picked out last week at michaels so i could make a bracelet and necklace for her. this is an honor. she is a simple girl, the stuff i make is not her thing to wear. she likes beads, just plain beads on a string. nothing fancy...just beads.......just simply strung. she buys simple plastic colorful pieces at walmart and target and a few shops in the mall...rarely does she give me the privilege. it is SO hard for me to just string beads, all in a simple row....i actually struggle at it. so last week steph hands me 3...yup just 1..2..3 strands of beads to make a necklace and braclet.... 3 little, tiny, wee strands. i use 10, 20, 30 for some pieces. but i was so excited that she asked me i hid my anxiety with a big smile and said no problem!
so, this is simple....for me.....i will find out after school today if it is simple for her too.....

wanda's 4x4

her theme is trees.....her big tree opens and has a spooky surprise!

christine h's 4x4

the theme she chose for her 4x4 was asian.....wow this was a toughie for me, i am not into asian sooooo i have nothing asian....yikes...i did not want to have to invest in stamps for this possible 1 time only asian thing...but my muse guided me toward a pile of ephemera i had not yet filed in my binder and tada! i found this vintage asian print! and thanks to my friend denise i had a piece of asian newspaper to add and the mini take out box is so fun....this is one of the new sizzix big die cuts....inside the take out box i shrunk fortunes from cookies we all about yacked over when we ate....they tasted like the plastic wrapper!

so, i am still not into asian, but I LOVE THIS! and i hope christine h loves it as much as i do!

4x4 for inkspot ab group

this 4x4 is for a local art group. we picked our own theme for our own books.... which i love. this 4x4 is for linda....she chose for her theme..... live things that fly......being in the halloween spirit this is what i chose to make for her. the broom is made from a twig from my yard and the sweepy part of the broom is made from gold wire. i loved it so much i made one for myself!

another weekend come and gone

wasn't i just journaling this? it seems like moments ago i was writing about the same thing about last weekend......the kids have started fall break....so the next week will be crazy.....crazy good, crazy fun....crazy crazy.....late nights star gazing, movie watching, ebay surfing for goodies, sleeping in late, no set schedule...... for a week it will be wonderful. so, friday evening jilly layed another egg. she was more bound and determined to keep an eye on this one since her first disappeared, but we managed to distract her and take baby number 2. she bounced back quicker this time and was back to her old self jabbering in our voices and making her kitty meows and chicken clucks and video game bombs away noises.

friday night, actually 1:30 saturday morning, i was working in my studio showing max the newest baubles i picked up for jewelry making and he picked one for himself to have me make a necklace....no picture yet since his sister has the camera with her on an outing, but i did manage to get ahold of the camera to snap a picture of my eyeball after an equipment malfunction sent a piece of metal flying at my eyeball at the speed of light.

my biggest fear is that the metal pin had lodged in my eyeball. but after i calmed myself down and blinked several times i realized there was no metal embedded in my eyeball, and it did not feel as though i had even ended up with a corneal abrasion. an hour later i found the 1/8th inch piece of metal floating in my lower lid. i wear safety glasses in my studio when cutting glass, metal....i did not have them on, obviously, when this occurred because i was not cutting anything. just an equipment malfunction. i now wear my safety glasses while working with what i thought was a harmless piece of equiment. my eye looked worse by saturday afternoon....grossed the kids out! how much fun is that! last night freaked the poor carhop out when we went to pick up dinner. too bad it wasn't closer to halloween!

now, you wanna talk the power of attraction......i was just talking with my mom a few hours earlier about how i am terrified of an eye injury and i always wear my safety glasses.......poof.....so from now on i keep my mouth shut!
so, max is pacing....standing over my shoulder asking if i am done yet, how 'bout now?, now?.....we are suppose to go to a recycle shop today to go treasure hunting for schtuff....his and my favorite thing to do...his siblings don't have the 'junking gene' and this will cause steph to go through a bottle of hand sanitizer by afternoons end, and sam to ask 5,326 times 'are you guys done yet?' he won't stay home because he is afraid he might just miss out on something good.

later another trip to the bead store to pick up additional supplies for a necklace that is underway and i can not wait to see the finished product....but that will have to sit while i complete a few other projects for others first.

so off we go.....check back in later!

for these gifts i am thankful

nearly 2 years ago as i was drinking in words and pictures from the blogs of other artists when i came across an entry on nina bagely's blog. i love her art..... i love her written entries. i am not much of a reader of most blogs, mostly a skimmer. some words caught my eye, she made reference to her notes from the universe and i followed her link to the sight....i joined up myself. what a way to start the day!...soon after that led me to the secret. my life was changed forever and in the most incredible ways there are no words for. i was healed to the very core of my soul. my ways of thinking i had always been told by my parents were wrong, weren't wrong! the majority of the life i have lived i felt as though i was a waste of space, i questioned my very existence. i felt this life was a punishment for some sin committed in another time and place. why else would i have lived through what i had as a child and teen? there surely really was not a God and if there was, what i had done to deserve the things that had happened to me. one day a complete stranger smiled at me in a way that just seemed different, even the stranger seemed different in a way i could not put my finger on, i could not explain how. from that moment on on knew there was a reason for my existence, and someday i would know what it was and fullfill it. i had been introduced to and given my first dose of faith.

even before the secret i realized that life would be so much more enjoyable if i threw out the anger and tried to find more joy, even if it meant turning over every stone on my path. some days it was more difficult than others, somedays what i found under the stone i had turned over was not what i wanted to find, but i kept turning them over. one of the ways many years ago that i learned to keep myself going and afloat was to take every bad situation and find at least one good thing. if we got a flat tire...thank you God that it happened yesterday and not today during the ice storm. our family car bit the dust, but thank you God the vehicle we bought 3 days ago as a second vehicle will take us where we need to go. the 'silver lining' is always there, sometimes you just have to look for it. i also for quite sometime have held a strong belief that things happen for a reason, there are no accidents, somewhere the very events of our life are being orchestrated behind the curtains.....i do not believe we are at the mercy of this force, but connected with it, in tune with it....working with it somehow.

so....this brings me to this afternoon. my youngest was home sick yesterday, and by all rights should have his butt home in bed today. he is coming down with the crud sam and i have had for the last 2 weeks, but he hates missing school, so, since we thought max would be staying home his daddy did not leave him lunch money for today. this morning as i was trying to pry my eyes open and function, i was up way to late last night (early this morning actually), max told me his lunch time and asked if i could bring him money. i ended up running down to the last second and was actually according to my cell phone only a minute late, but the school clocks said otherwise. so, poor max went through the lunchline expecting that i had already deposited money in his account, only to have his lunch taken away from him. it was just at that point i spotted him in the sea of other children and gave him his lunch money.....and not thinking gave him a hug and kiss....so not cool for a 6th grader.....so i watched as he went back through the lunch line and my heart sunk. as soon as i got back in the truck i began texting him what i planned to be a quick message telling him again i was sorry and before i knew it my text became i bit longer as i thought to ask if he was feeling ok and reminding him to call me later as planned earlier. i pressed send and sat there for a minute took a deep breath, started to pull out and decided to change the radio station, then started to pull off again and put my cell phone back in its case, then pulled off...driving slower since i was no longer in a hurry. driving slower to take a bit to breath in the fresh air. i turned up the radio and started back home. as i was approaching a major roadway a song came on that i am familiar with, couldn't tell you who sings it or the name....but the first words.......my life is brilliant......my love is pure..............and as i sang with the song i agreed....yes my life is. yes my love is. i then came to an intersection at the major roadway and came to a stop.....just then i looked over, across the intersection, and there was a Sysco truck. my daddy worked for this company as a truck driver in the beginning and in the warehouse until he passed away in november of 2004. i always take it as a message from my dad when i happen across one of these trucks out on the roads. today my mind has been battling over my thoughts for my mom. it is a complicated situation, one that sent me to a therapist years ago. he gave me an answer.....the same answer my moms therapist gave her about her mom years ago.........an answer that would have given me a clean break from the relationship and a guilt-free conscience for breaking it off. in my mind it was a relief, but my heart aches. i want to be able to be there for her, she just makes it so hard. today in the shower....which is why i ran late getting lunch money to my little guy, i thought again about the situation, and how i need to put things in the past, again, and help her even if i do not get the love and acceptance I craved as a child in return. but this time it does not have to hurt. i don't have to let her reaction hurt.

now....what just amazes me to no end is just how many things had to happen, how precisely every move that i made and that sysco driver made to bring us at the intersection at the exact same time.....God and the Universe truly move things into action and play.

first was finding my son in this sea of children. it was as if everything else was in black and white and only he was in color. i found him right as he was leaving the first line.

second, i believe in all my faith that my thoughts and feelings were acknowledged by the sight of that sysco truck. my dad sending the message he knows, or he understands, just letting me know he knows.

as i made the right hand turn and looked back at the truck in my rear view mirror i said thank you and realized i was crying.

i am so thankful. so blessed. i can not even begin to explain the gratitude for everything in my life. i am who i am because of the events in my life, and i am becoming who i am because i understand and know and have faith.

p.s. as a way to kind of balance out the 'science' of the secret, i also receive daily notes of inspiration from this guy and watch him on tv and the internet.....you know what .......they both say the same thing..........the very same thing....

monday....already come and just about gone

pics of some previous flea market finds.....pretty maids all in a row....one can never have enough frozen charlottes....doll arms......don't know what i am gonna do with them, but who could pass up vintage doll arms for 5 bucks! a fabric jounal i made sits atop the jar of dolly arms.....vintage photo albums, vintage medicine labels and jars and jars of vintage watch crystals on my glass cutting table.

pics i forgot i took friday night of the guys checking out cars at the chuck-a-burger car show. they cracked me up. every time i turned around the 3 of them were huddled like this checking out the interior, or the engine compartment or the underneath! then there is the 5 pound bed hog.

well if my wild weekend wasn't enough today was just another one of those days......almost comical.....one of the highlights.....i spent 25 minutes chasing and trying to catch one of our zebra finches that escaped from its cage when feeding them this afternoon........i knew i would eventually wear it out and be able to catch it, but it wore me out first....i had to keep chasing though, because moan-uh the cat was not going to give up chasing it either.
here i have sat at my computer this evening and in under an hour journaled our weekend. it seems almost as though friday were a month ago. time goes too fast sometimes.

i say we vote for 3 day weekends...what do ya think?

too much time working, not enough time for play.

sunday.......

wowies from my hubby as an 'i'm sorry for spending all day in bed watching movies i have seen at least 3, 264 times in my lifetime and wasting the day away and not getting a darn thing done on the things i have to do because my wife can't do them to do list'

i forgive him.......ahhhhh but i don't forget....he he he he he...i will pull this out of my hat along with a pouty face the next time i see that really neat stuff just gotta have puhlease puhlease at the next flea market!

where we went, where we did not make it to, and where i hope to make it to

saturday was suppose to start bright and early at 8:00am, well, that is bright and early on a saturday for us at least. max woke up in the middle of the night with what seemed to be the worst stomach ache ever. i stayed up with him for several hours, until he fell asleep and then crawled into bed, or what was left of it. bill did not work this weekend, and since he works third shift we rarely share a bed. it is an antique full size bed. it is meant for one person, under 6 feet tall to stretch out on. bill is just a hair over six feet tall, so he sleeps sideways....usually not a problem since he sleeps days and i sleep nights, he steals the pillows, the blankets, snores loudly, hogs the bed.....oh, and our daughters 5 pound chihuahua slept with us, she also sleeps sideways, steals the pillows, the blankets, snores loudly and hogs the bed, so to make a long story short, i did not get much sleep, but apparently just as i did get in a few minutes of deep sleep poor max woke up again, and well he ended up 'renting' dinner as we call it around here. he woke me up afterwards, said he felt much better and went back to bed. then poor sammy wakes up, still has a cough from the crud we both had and coughs and coughs and coughs. so needless to say instead of leaving the house no later than 10am as planned, it was 1:26 went we walked out the door. we slept until 10am! so off we go to the bead art and jewelry show so i can scope out what is out there, prices, displays....my plans are to possibly participate in this next year. afterwards bill and i were suppose to go see a comedian at the pageant. something we have never done before, a real date....we have not had one of those since the night i went into labor with max over 11 years ago! well, to make a long story short, max started feeling ick after an hour of being out and by the time we got home had a migraine and a 102 fever. so we spent the night snuggling.......sunday morning max woke up and there was not a sign he was sick the day before. i believe nothing happens by accident, there is a reason for us missing the show.....i wish i knew and i am glad i don't know.

so in october there is an ephemera show......the deets are below if you are local and would want to go!

friday night

friday bill, the boys, and i had a wonderful evening.......steph was out with friends at a homecoming football game......late, late in the evening when we returned home i came downstairs to my studio that i share with my big birds, 4 large parrots and a small one. 3 of the 4 have major issues. 2 of them severely abused by their previous owners, and one of them with a deformed foot. jilly, or jillybean (an african grey) as i call her suffered terrible abuse, and a man who had worked with parrots for over 20 years felt that she was not fixable and gave her to us free of charge. the day he introduced us he 'captured' her in what seemed to be a very cruel manor from her cage and put her on an exam table and left the room to give me a moment alone with her. she immediatly came over to me and snuggled up against me and gave me a kiss. after we brought her home i followed my gut intincts and not his advice on how to fix her and she is now my little buddy. she will never trust or care much for men, because her abuser was male. birds have very noticeable facial expressions and i have come to know pretty much what they are feeling and thinking by watching them. jilly loves to make tents out of news paper that we place at the bottom of her cage. she plays peek-a-boo and just like a kids just likes to 'play' in her tents. friday as i came down the steps jilly did not acknowledge me with her usual whistle and when i came around the corner i noticed she was not popping her head out of her tent to greet me either. when i saw she was not moving i quickly opened her cage and ripped the paper off of her thinking she was dead. she was not thank God, but she was in what appeared to be shock and i was so worried, wanting to scoop her up, but knowing i was asking for a nasty bite since she would try to defend herself till the bitter end. i bribed her with a cookie, the other birds hearing the word 'cookie' went berzerk so i gave them all cookies and hoped she would perk up seeing their reactions.....still nothing. i looked her over as best i could and could tell that she was not hurt, but she still seemed to look like she was in shock.....another of her favorite treats....ice. we have a fridge/freezer in the basement so i went to go get her some ice. in the few seconds i was gone to get her ice she layed an egg! it is too bad it is not fertile because she would make such a great mommy. she took such good care of that 'baby' for the day and a half i kept it in her cage. once i realized she was not eating i distracted her while bill took the egg out of her cage. she is still not back to herself yet, but in a few more days i hope the memory of her 'baby' will fade and she will become her old self again.

2:34 am and still awake......

i am like a babe with its days and nights bassackwards......i stayed up too late the other night, and after the kids were off to school i crawled back in bed and snoozed until hubby was home, planning after a few minutes of snuggling and catching up with each others 'days' that i would get up and going with my normal routine......and several hours later, i am a bit red in the face to admit, i arose and could have kicked myself for sleeping so late and swore off late nights....well, i could not sleep again due to the fact i was so well rested from my extended nap and so goes the circle.....round and round the cycle. so tonight....uh...um in the wee early morning hours here i am blogging! i am so excited though....after at least a year of not arting for the stupid reason in my head that since i enjoy it so and the bliss i feel when creating seemed wrong because of all of the ick stuff going on in our life i just quit. i felt guilty for creating art because it brings me such joy and i felt selfish for doing just that, i then became stressed from falling behind on projects, dodging life as it was being hurdled at me, my studio became a disaster. well, i am almost done putting my studio back together and i can see light, a huge monsterous light at the end of the tunnel! i am almost there! i have even created some art and some new pieces of jewelry!
well, i really need to go to bed, have to get the daughter up in less than 3 hours, at which point i will crawl into bed and catnap until an hour and a half goes by and then wake the boys......and hopefully stay up, wear myself out during the day and then go to sleep at a normal decent hour!
before i go, guess i should explain the pics.......the first, 2 baubles soon up for sale on my other sight.....2nd, just some pretties and goodies hanging around, and 3rd, 2 new goodies i bought at a little mom and pop antique shop....we went there hoping the one vendor still had his vintage halloween post cards....they were not in his case, but the owner said she thinks he still has them and to check back.....so it would be a sin to leave an antique shop empty handed so i brought home the little spice holder...i thought it was a little purse at first, and will probably turn it in to one, and the necklace that i will take apart and use in either anther piece of jewelry or a decorative pillow that i will put of for sale........off to bed i go.....i sure hope the vw beetle size zit on my face has decreased in size by morning......this thing is right in my line of vision on my cheek and i keep trying to swat at it or wipe it off! if it gets any bigger it will look like i have got to heads! gotta love it...i use zit cream, and oil of old lady to maintain my youthful appearance....but when going for the upkeep of a youthful appearance i did not want the zits of my youthfulness
back!

BEad gAsM

so i have never really shared much, if anything about my shopping trips, ohhhhh but today i must play show-n-tell! i went to the bead store to buy some faceted and teeney pieces of laboradite, i might have spelled that one wrong, but we will live for now, and some crimps. i bought them to go with the chunks 'o laboradite. i bought them to go with a gray cardigan and a dressy sweat shirty thingy. well laboradite looks gray, until you put it up to gray, they seem to take on a bit of a green hue, but i will find something for these beads to go with! water trapped in the beads while they were forming gives them shimmers and glimmers of color under the surface just like opals.
there is nothing like a bead gasm. everyone has their 'thing' that makes them feel like they have taken a bite out of heaven, this is my thing, well, there is a list of things, but this is at the top.....for now! so, now off to make one pretty for me, one for my daughter, and one to sell.....

it is amazing, i am sick as a dog still, but it is almost 1 am and i feel like i could art till dawn with all of my new goodies!

you will have to come back and see what these turn into!

a healthy handful of these

white pearls

peachy pinky whitish stick

pearls

mother of pearl....red adventurine

which is orange.....