Newest Totem and sign

I finished the 2nd totem for this year and hope to work on the 3rd today. Sometimes finding the right fitting & matching pieces takes a bit. I have assorted color groupings put together all over. LOL! Also did the for sale sign to go with these totems. The weather is supposed to finally be nice and be done with this rainy cold snowy stuff by Saturday so maybe people will come past and see my sign. Every year people stop and ask about selling but I never have. It always seems that they want you to give your pieces away.....yet they'll go to one of our many festivals and craft / art shows and pay way more there. I don't get it. It's fine tho, what doesn't sell gets to go in my flowers! So I did a cobalt blue and now a Aqua color so today will be crystal and red, I think. Also going to do some short pieces for bird bathes or drinking water. Sometimes you have pieces of gathered glass that you think you'll never be able to use and then all of a sudden while you're playing and stacking various pieces a "DUH" moment comes on you! Hence the birdbath/water keepers. I bet they'd be good for mealy worms/grubs for the bluebirds, too!!

Speaking of which, yesterday I finally had a pair of bluebirds here checking out a home for nesting. It's on the opposite side of the yard from the house they chose last year. It's a Prim house.  Every year I have the same wren....Mr. Buddy Wren....come and usually nest at least 2 times. Last year he tried for 3 but just couldn't get a 3rd GF in time. He's such a slut! Anyway, he tried to give the bluebirds a hard time last year but now they're here and he's not. It's worrying me. Sure hope nothing happened to him. I loved watching him and he sings so pretty. Maybe I need to finish the birdhouse I was painting and give him a new home to build in. Some of the others are getting kind of shabby now. I never saw a oriole this year either.
And....were having puppies again! Just pretend puppies thankfully! I have a tiny Teacup poodle....Ebony (Star's Ebony Jill) and never had her spayed. I should have but wanted to breed her and then found out we couldn't, did have an app't made for spaying and a knee fix but that day the vet she was seeing was not nice and hurt her with a shot ( I believe he nicked a bone, she still has a lump after several years!). So I brought her home and cancelled the surgery. So it never got done. The bad thing is that she has always had FAKE Pregnancies! Every year she goes into heat and then a while later she starts licking herself to bring in milk and then at the proper time she has babies! Yes, ALL of her toys instantly become her new babies. For 13 years the first toy she ever had becomes her 1st baby! It's a terribly dirty squeaky yellow cowboy! It's so old I can't get it clean anymore and it's getting brittle but you don't dare take that toy away at any time. She makes nests under the beds, behind the couch and up on my bed. You don't dare move them unless she wants help. She gathers them together in a circle, climbs in and feeds them! If she's really proud of a particular baby she will come show it you! Then you have tell her how good she did and what a pretty baby before she'll go decide what nest it goes into. Just having the babies and then feeding and moving them goes on for over a month! I'll try to see if I still have pictures of Ebony and her babies. So now at night I not only get to sleep with Ebony, there has to be a mound of  'puppies' to feed and you best not kick one off the bed during the night!!

For sale sign. I can never paint my lettering straight or the same size! But I like this sign anyway.

2nd totem in aqua colors.

Cobalt totem (and please ignore the shabby house!!)

As always, click for a bigger pic.

                                                             

Catching Up & stuff

I've been on reading blogs every day but still I'm behind. Didn't have a whole lot to say here either. Spring arrives and it's a tug of war between inside duties and outside work and or sitting on the deck watching the birds and enjoying the sun!
Our Spring here came way too early....the flowers are coming up too soon! Now everything is growing, the weeds and leaves haven't been tended to and I have too much to do. Of course, as usual we'll be going down into the 20 degree range this week end and they're calling for 2 to 3 inches of SNOW! I can't cover the whole yard so it's not going to be good for the flowers. Gardening here in the Northwoods is a definite trick! It's had me in tears more than once thanks to late freezes (until the 2nd week of June) and critters and deer making snacks of my plants! I have learned they're only plants and things could be worse!

I haven't done too much art wise. I did do some Found Words pages but haven't tried to scan them yet. And then, finally I just got started on making Totems! I have the first one done and I'll show it. It'll be put outside for sale but not until after the week end and the weather clears. Tomorrow I'll start another one. So this isn't a great picture but you can see it ok, I guess. Please ignore the messy house showing! Other than that, I haven't worked on Sharon's faces class anymore but yet I have faces drawn on every scrap of paper around the house!!! I'm still uncluttering a bit, too. Although, I went for lunch and to the $ store again today so came home with MORE glass! I needed certain colors!

Besides gathering the glass and roaming outside, I've been visiting the DR. I have meds now to combat the wonderful latex allergy and other allergies that keep showing up. Just had to take my wedding ring off as it's eating my finger! Poor finger was all blistered and raw where the band was. Jewelry does that to me now and then. Also got started on a anti-depression/anxiety med and I think it's just starting to help a bit. On the next visit we'll double the dose and see if it helps a lot more. Then also got help for sleeping! Must be a sign of old age because now every morning I have a handful of darn pills to take. Also had to start a physical to appease the insurance so had blood draws and a mammo and soon a darn colonoscopy, too. Then, after all that I started back on a diet. That's a whole post by it's self! This a must diet and will take a while!

So that's what I've been up to!

Pretty Gifties

I know I haven't been on again in a while. I was here, just didn't have a lot to post, I guess.
But today I do have some pictures of some very nifty gifts that were given to me by my step Son who came to visit for a week end! I have to tell you that he always brings me the most wonderful gifts....he totally 'gets' me! He's also a wonderful step Son and not just because he gets me and brings me such wonderful things. He's just also fun to be with and his visits are always pleasant and interesting.
 This visit he brought me a most wonderful big wall calendar....ZOZO the Magic Queen! If you haven't seen this artist or her works just Google it! Then there's gorgeous ceramic sphere on a iron rod for the garden, a box of  different blank ATC cards, a big bottle of glitter glaze and it was all packed into a very shiny pretty satin tote bag that he made! Yup, I was in heaven!! So here's some pics to show of the calendar and some of the page art, the sphere and a not so good shot of the tote, but at least it shows the pretty colors of the satin.

The calendar!

ZOZO Queen Art

another page

and one more!

ceramic garden sphere!

Luscious tote bag!

More Mail Art

I finished another card and envelope today. Isn't it funny how some days you can sit down and everything just comes together; you're in a fine mood and you're off in La La land, humming away and the art is just almost making it's self?
Then other days, sometimes in the very same day, you walk away, come back, start something new and BAM! the magic is gone. So it went with this next card. I just had a horrid time trying to bring it together; finally got the card done and it's ok but I'm not excited over it like I was over yesterday's. This isn't balanced right and what I had in my head didn't quite make it on the paper. Then I went on to the envelope and oh boy, made a disastrous mistake but I guess I managed to fix it. I thought, I would've sworn, that I had sealed the little corner face. So I grabbed the gel when putting it all together and as soon as I made a swipe across the face.....it pulled and smeared the paint...hair, eye, skin; everything smeared! I won't say the naughty words that took over the humming sounds! I don't know why I do such things more often than not!
I want to be one of you who can (seemly) just sit down and dash off a pretty little piece of art sometimes!
But anyway, it's fixed as much as it can be and I did remember again to scan before the address went on. So that was good.

This the front of the card

 This is the envelope front.

 I didn't do art on the back of this one or the one yesterday, either.

Both faces were on tracing paper lining my art tables. They were both just practice, sort of doodling things but I decided I liked them and so saved them to use. Flowers and butterflies are napkins and then the usual caran d'ache for the faces, colored pencil and stamps.

New collage mail art

I just finished this card and envelope for my middle brother. I guess it's safe to show it on here because I don't see that he comes to visit very often. This card is late....nothing new for me....his b'day is today and I'm just now sending the card today! Better late than never! I kinda like this one. This is only the 2nd card I've ever done. I do wish I could learn not to smudge or get marks in the wrong places.
I really like the envelope. This time as I was out of time, I just did art on the front of the envelope but used it as the back so I didn't have to incorporate the address and postage. The other side is just plain with address this time.
And now I'm working on one for my middle sister who also has a b'day this week!
So no more writing, gotta get back to the art room.

This is the front of the card. it's collage using paper background prints and of the phrenology heads. The words are from a Dove's promise chocolate and then touched up with gold ink, markers and buttons. It's on a deckle card.

This is the mail art on the envelope to match the card. I do like this one a lot!!

It's just typical collage, all prints and cut-outs with a touch of stamping and water soluble pencils.

More Garden Art

I was over looking at Emelie's blog and her newest lovely picture http://emeliesartandsuch.blogspot.com/ when she made mention of a weather vane and it reminded me that I still had a few more pictures I could show for now. These are just some pictures of more garden art features.

This is the gate into the front yard and the taller gate is to the back door and yard.

It was due for a over-haul last year and it didn't get done....maybe this Summer I can re-paint and tidy it up again. What I really need is a new gate and fence! I wouldn't need the taller gate/fence to the back but because we have a tiny doggy, it keeps her from running out into the driveway.

Not the best picture, I had better ones, but lost all the pictures in a computer incident because someone (who me?) didn't back everything up correctly. Anyway, the wind was whipping around as I tried to get this picture of my little Caged fairy who flutters around in her cage hanging off the arbor.

And this is just a little gnome watching over the flower bed. He's a content little guy. The old window was retrieved from a friend and it marks the end of a pathway and the 'window' into the flowers.

Yard stuff

I'm always waiting for Spring and then when it arrives I'm impatient for the flowers and greenery to appear. Once it does appear, I start to lament that it'll be short lived and darn Winter will come too fast! I want to place a huge bubble over the yard to preserve and keep the prettiness and warmth all year long!!
Here's some pictures from last year showing what I'm longing for:

This is another totem....I covered a bowling ball with mirror tiles and it's sitting on a glass punch bowl with crystal dangles. I sprayed the inside of the bowl with stained glass paint for color.

This was a old pump from my family's Hunting camp in the U. P. of Michigan. My dad was going to throw it away!! I think not!! I left the paint on it just as it was at camp for years and years.