Simple Still Life...Try Two

This small pastel started as just a doodle to see what would happen using dark brown pastel paper. One thing led to another and "3 things different" and "2 things alike" popped up... grin I'm calling it "Nuts!" While I still haven't decided whether to officially join the challenge, I sure enjoyed doing this and I find that the challenge is a great way for ideas to come about and creates a desire to practice with composition...

** Sigh !! **

Well, we got the call yesterday afternoon that we've been been waiting for... Our son called from the airport and he is on his way back for his 3rd tour in Iraq. He is a Marine Staff Sergeant and while we are sighing about his return (again) over there, he seems to feel that all the effort is worth it. He will be returning to Al Asad and says he's not sure, but current plans are for their return to the states around March of next year.

When I asked if there was anything at all that was needed, he stated that he had everything (and then some) that he needed. He said it would be around 30 degrees when they get there, but they have all the warm clothes, scarves etc that will be needed. Sooo... I have decided to send stationary and stamps...grin He says he's not sure that would work as far as getting him to write home... but that we could give it a try..grin He chuckled... I heard a deep voice yelling in the background...he said bye...

Tomomi's Apricot Jam

When the kids all came home for Christmas, John's wife Tomomi brought me some of her homemade apricot jam. It was just too pretty to open and eat..grin .. so I put it on the shelf in my kitchen island so I could look at it whenever I walked by. Last night when John called he asked me if I had tasted it yet... (for the second time!) Once again I had to say no, so while he was on the phone, I did finally and begrudgingly open it, taste it and boy! was it wonderful! As luck would have it, I had made a huge pan of boiled cabbage with small sausages in it and some cornbread muffins... sooo Like I told John, it looks like I will have to find something else to look pretty on the shelf since this will be gone in a couple of days!

Fabric Postcard Inspiration

I took some pics of the new buttercup shoots emerging under the oak tree the other day... then promply got carried away cropping parts of the pictures and seeing what patterns would emerge. Then I used the effects filters to get the negative effect. I like this one. Today I will see if I can come up with something to do another fabric postcard using this as inspiration... hmmm...perhaps a little tea dying, a little acrylic, a few petals from a silk mum...maybe a few small dark buttons and long pieces of heavy yarn... hmmm

la vie en rose

During my daily roam amongst my favorite blogs, I popped over to la vie en rose. Go have a look at the latest poem she has up... you'll be happy you did!

Aunt Edna's Page

Aunt Edna sent me one of her poems when she sent me the song by Uncle Bobby. I think it is lovely. It says all the wonderful things that I have always admired about their relationship. Here it is:

Friendship

Friendship is a lovely word,
On this we all agree.
But the word is not as lovely
As what you mean to me.

You gave my life new meaning
And made the gray skies blue,
And Christ who is our helper
Has made our lives anew.
We learned the Truth together
And gave our lives to God.

The way has not been easy
But together we have trod.
You bring out all my good thoughts
And the rest we both destroy,
You also helped me train aright
Our little girl and boy.

The kind of friend a wife needs
Through the years . . . is hard to be,
But thank you, Dear, for being
That kind of friend to me.

To my husband, Bobby J. Ingram -Edna L. Ingram

First Page of Handmade Book

I finally took a few minutes and tried to put a pastel sketch of Squirt (the cockatiel..grin) and the song Uncle Bobby wrote on the first pages of my handmade book. Poor Squirt kinda looks like he's a little upset with whoever was drawing his portrait!...grin I may do a little bit to finish it up later, but all in all, I thought it came out better than I expected..

The plan was to hand write the song on the facing page, but when I started calculating how much space my handwriting takes up.... it came up to at least 2 pages..grin So this is Plan B.

If you click on the pic (as with all the pics on this blog) a much bigger picture will come up.

Round Robin Letter

Every now and then I begin to miss "the old times". Like real letter writing and waiting breathlessly for "that special letter" to arrive in the mailbox. Last night, Hubby and I were sitting in my work room and the idea hit for a "Round Robin Letter". Someone would write a letter and mail to another person... that person adds a few paragraphs or something else (poem, poetry, picture..whatever) and send to another person... that person adds his/her note and mails to another person... with the letter finally returning to the original person. This can continue indefinitely with the first person removing pages that have made the complete Round Robin so the mail costs do not become exhorbitant as it gains pages and turns into a book!...grin.

So I popped off an email note to Edna, Betty and Rosalie to see if they would like to participate and .... I wrote the first note this morning to be placed in the mail this afternoon!

I am sooo excited about it. Can hardly wait for it to return!

(Update:.... The letter is in the mail!! Yahoooo!)

Rain at Last!

When we went to bed last night, Hubby told me that if rain woke him up during the night, he would wake me...grin He did! Glorious rain at last. The birds are in heaven. And to make the day that much better, my brother was passing through town this morning and gave us a call. We met him at a restaurant in town and had lunch. All around a lovely day! (This pic was taken just outside the back door at the edge of the flower bed... love that lone oak leaf...)

First Fabric Postcard

Yesterday afternoon I was looking around my very cluttered workroom and rummaging among the smaller pieces of fabric that was left after making the upholstered cornices and decided to stick some of it together and see if I could do a simple postcard. It wasn't difficult, but I still find that I just can't seem to leave an allowance around the edges...working all the way to the edge just seems to be a compulsion...(freudian perhaps...grin) As a result, when finishing the edges I managed to split a couple of the beads on the side and had to repair the string of beads with fabric glue. This one cannot be actually mailed without an envelope due to the depth of the large flowers, but I can see from this one how useful they would be as a journal project to keep track of ideas and to try new things without committing large amounts of time or materials.