Happy Memorial Day

To all of our veterans and active military, I salute you and thank you for your service.

Memory Boxes For May

I finished three memory boxes this week, to be mailed to a hospital in Virginia.

Click -->Memory Box Program, to read more about this program.

Every Day Is Mother's Day

I hope everyone enjoyed their Mother's Day today. Whether you are Mom, Grandmother or Foster Mom, this day is just an extra special reminder that everyday you are special in our lives.

I want to thank my Mother for being both Mother and Father to my brother, sister and myself growing up. For instilling in the three of us not just the basic life skills, but lifestyle skills. You brought your love of music and art and the written word into our lives as children. Your advice to not focus on a career, because we would have many jobs in our lives,but to focus on allowing our creativity to grow over the years instead - whether it was music, art, writing ... whatever touched our SOULS...that it would be that which would sustain us throughout our lives. Thank you Mom.

Playing With Watercolors and Paper

I've been having such a good time playing with paper, but feel as if I am neglecting the other love of my creative life - painting. Creating with paper has actually re-inspired me with my painting, and more and more I see how I can combine the two mediums.

On the the Decorative Artists in Canada (DAIC)painting list, they have a wonderful thing called DTCs which is basically a 4x6 trading card for the DAIC members. I have grown to love this exchange, as it allows me to combine paper and painting. The 4x6 cards give me more room than the ATCs and less surface space of the traditional cardstock. My most recent DTC for spring, I decided to use a daffodil line drawing of Richard Bonds and paint using watercolors on canvas.I cut a piece of canvas and glued it onto the 4x6 DTC tempate and applied the line drawing. Then, I took Grumbacher watercolors and applied color.

I let it dry, then applied color to the background and then added some doodles around the boarder, using a black Micron fine point marker....and added a bit details to the flower.

I am very happy with the results, and I have decided that instead of loading up on stamps, I will begin using what I already have over on my paint table ... an abundance of line drawings and patterns from wonderful decorative artists.

I truly believe that the two, paper crafting and decorative art, can co-exist in a truly dynamic creative way.

Celebrate Spring ATCs

I still don't know sometimes if I have the hang of ATCs. I have seen beautiful ATCs made with stamps and bits and pieces of paper and ribbon ... beautiful images that make me oooh and ahhhh.

Then it's my turn.

Maybe I need a theme? ... I don't know, but when left to my own devices with blank ATCs - the doodler in me is strong. I like to put swirls and dots and hearts and simple flowers on paper ... all over the place. My mother tells a story about sitting in her kitchen, thinking about me after I had just left for college ... and she looked at the wall by the phone ... and on a small piece of paper hung one of my doodles that she'd found. "Back then", when I was in my teens, there were no cell phones and cordless phones were too much money! The kitchen phone with the 100 foot twisted cord was all there was!...and I can't htink of how many days I'd sat in the kitchen on that phone, yakking and doodling.

So in the spirit of a doodler, my latest ATCs which are to be Celebrate Spring!, were born. Materials used were 2 pieces of blank watercolor paper, a pencil, pearlescent chalks for the background, a black sharpie, H20 Twinkling pots to add the bursts of color, and a bottle of Sticklies for that textured glitter in the hearts.

Mellow Yellow Card

Well, on the Art For The Creative Mind list, our swap for cards was Mellow Yellow. I am not a "pastel person", so the thought of thinking in terms of YELLOW were not easy,LOL.

I don't know how other folks lay out their cards, but I start with the cover, and then for me, it determines the rest.


I don't lay out my colors or anything beforehand, because I don't really know what I am going to do...I like to let the designs of the papers guide me. It took a while to decide what to do to the inside, but I kinda like the idea of giving a little something extra and making things "useful"... so I added some cute tags ready for the recipient to play with.