Mosaic Progress

While Bea was working on her art journal yesterday, I was making progress on my mosaic!

Do you remember when I was in New Zealand and fell in love mosaics at The Giant’s House?

I had visions of making my backyard a smaller version! Silly me!

When I got home I started checking into lessons, but was unable to find any locally. I was sad about it, but I was determined to find something, somewhere.

Finally, one of my art girls (probably tired of hearing me whine about it! Heeheehee!) decided we were going to give it a try on our own! She’s adventurous like that.

So, we looked around on the internet for ideas and materials and went for it. Well, guess what? We did it!

Here is the result of my first 3 hours…

As you can see, my fantasy about turning my backyard into a smaller version of The Giant’s House evaporated. At that rate, I’d be 150 before I had much to show my labor!

The good news is, with practice I got faster.

 

 

Yesterday was probably my most productive day, and here’s what I have to show for it.

 

I’m still not reviving my fantasy about filling the backyard, but I am hopeful I may eventually do a garden pot or two!

The best news is I am having a flat out blast and can hardly wait to work on it some more!

Nurturing the Next Generation of Artists

My granddaughter Bea is a budding artist. You remember back in May when we got her a treasure chest full of art supplies for her birthday? She loved it, and is enjoying experimenting with them, but we never seem to have much time.

So, it was time for my art group, and I thought she might like to come and play with us.

She packed up all her supplies in case the art ladies wanted to see them, and we set off.

She tends to be a little shy, so I wasn’t sure how much interaction there would be with Miss Janet and Miss Verna, but she did very well! They were lovely to her and showed her what they were working on, and asked her opinion. She felt very much at ease and like part of the group.

She started out working on her button project, but Miss Janet was working on her art journal, so she decided to work on hers, too.

She’s a mixed media kinda girl – notice the paint, stamps, ribbon, and washi tape?

It was just the cutest thing!

We had a great time, and she is excited to go again! I love nurturing her interest in art, and I loved that my art pals were so supportive! Thanks, guys. You made her day!

I Needed a Play Date!

Well, I had my first play date in a very long time, and it was wonderful.

My friend Lindsay advertised that she was doing a Vintage Trailer and Craft show.

 

It sounded like fun, so I asked one of my art group buddies if she wanted to go along, and we made a date!

Cute show! I didn’t realize that it was not only a vintage craft show, but a trailer show, as well. In addition to shopping, we were able to go in and look at the interiors of the darling little trailers.

I had seen photos of Lindsay’s trailer, but I hadn’t seen it in person.

I just loved the awning she made for it!

One precious lady served iced cold lemonade – what a treat on a hot day!

The inside of her trailer was just amazing!

 

 

I was particularly drawn to the red one. Duh!

There’s my playmate in the left of the photo!

 

Fun, fun, stuff!

 

I keep trying to feel guilty that I spent a whole day playing instead of actually accomplishing something, but I don’t. In fact, I can hardly wait to do it again!

July is the New January

Well, actually, the way I heard it was that June is the new January, but upon reflection, it makes more sense for it to be July, because that is the mid-point. And a mid-year reset might be just what the doctor ordered.

I haven’t been doing terribly well with my “One Little Word” word for the year – ignite. That’s not completely true, I guess. I have had periodic bursts of energy, sometimes even fireworks worthy ignition, and truth be told, I’ve finished more projects thus far this year than some years all together. BUT, my ignition has not been in getting already started projects finished, as was the intention. Rather, I’ve started AND finished NEW projects. I have to admit, it beats the heck out of starting then ending up with even more on the unfinished pile, but still.

So. I need to get back to the drawing board. But first, maybe I need to figure out what happened. I was so excited about the prospect of getting a whole bunch of existing projects completed.

Did I ever start an actual list of them? I can’t remember, but if I did, I can’t put my hands on it. Big surprise. I just went over to the archives, and if I ever did a list, I didn’t do a post about it (and in my case, if it isn’t on the blog, it didn’t happen) by the end of March. Good grief. I need this reset even worse than I thought I did!

Just a few of the projects just begging to get finished:

My Happiness Journal

Hand Paint Ornaments from our Last 4 Vacations

Repaint a Number of Faded Garden Decor Pieces

Turn Two of These Frames into “Alaska” Frames

 

Repaint and Totally Re-work These Little Ladies

 

Re-wrap This Rope Basket With Current House Color Fabrics

Is your head spinning yet? Mine is, and these projects are barely scraping the surface of all I have to do. In the next week, I REALLY need to get serious about an actual list to work from, then figure out a realistic idea of how many I can get done by the end of the year, and plug them into a project calendar.

Stay tuned…I may actually follow through on a mid-year re-set!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating

I turned 63 yesterday. I’m comforting myself with the thought that 60 is the new 40, but really?

Yeah, I probably feel a lot younger at 63 than my mom did at the same age, but 20 years younger? I don’t know. I remember a time when 30 seemed ANCIENT, so is forty even all that much better?

Regardless, it is what it is, and I AM 63. Officially.

I think one reason we keep celebrating our birthdays into our “golden years” is once you get past the kid stage, you need a little fun to make the larger numbers easier to handle.

So, yesterday we celebrated my birthday. And it actually WAS my birthday. That is almost unheard of in my family. Our schedules are so complicated, that we almost always have to find a different date than the actual one. Of course, it helped that it was Father’s Day, as well. Chances are if my birthday had fallen on a different day, we STILL would have celebrated it on Sunday, but that’s okay. The celebration is the important part, not the date. And really, I don’t mind sharing the limelight at all!

What a great celebration it was!

Mr. Tattered started things off with his world famous margaritas.

Alex face-timed us from Kuwait, so we all got to wish him a Happy Father’s Day. Lexi just held the phone like a phone, forgetting she could see Daddy if she held it away from her!

The kids entertained us with their trampoline antics – better than any show you’d pay money for!

Andra put together a great Nacho bar for dinner, including homemade guacamole…yum, yum!

Meegan made the heart-shaped cake (delish!) and decorated it beautifully, with fresh flowers! The kiddles helped me blow out the candles.

 

 

Finally we (the Dads and I) opened our gifts – lots of homemade love, there!

By the time we decided to try to get a few photos of me with the grandkids, Lexi was tired, cranky and just not going’ for it, so we did the best we could! Out of about 20 photos, they just went downhill from here!

 

We tried! Yeah, things get a little crazy, but we love it!

As far as celebrating birthdays go, as long as I get to do it with this crew, the quickly escalating numbers are worth it.

 

 

 

63 Random Things I Love at 63

If you’ve been with me since the beginning, you’ll probably remember that I do this “Random Things” list every year on my birthday. I update it each year (and add a new thing!) and it’s kind of fun to see what has changed from year to year. There were quite a few changes this year.

1. Red shoes (still my favorites, and I think they always will be!)

2. Maui Sunsets

3. Gardening, flowers, bushes, moss (one of my stranger loves…)

4. My Faith

5. Gypsy jewelry

6. Country Music (Back before everything became auto-matic!)

7. Cowgirl boots

8. The Movie “Frozen” (I’m a little obsessed with “Let It Go!”)

9. Flouncy skirts

10. Baagan Peanut Butter Cup frozen drinks (sooooooo good!)

11. Hearts – man made and found in nature!

12. Chickens/roosters

13. Country Christmas ornaments

14. Grandchildren (I have 4 now! Hannah, Bea, Josh, and Lexi)

15. Skinny jeans

16. Desserts – Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake, Jamoca Almond Fudge Ice Cream, No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies, Lemon Cookie Ice Cream

17. Bobby’s margaritas, coffee

18. Ernesto’s enchilada suissas (truth be told, these have been replaced by my own version!)

19. The UK, especially Scotland ( and London! LOVE London!)

20. Facebook

21. My fly tribe

22. Gelli Plate Prints

23. Photography

24. My authors – Robert K. Tannenbaum, James Patterson, Greg Isles, Ridley Pearson, Patricia Cromwell, Nora Roberts, Sidney Sheldon

25. Traveling with my man (especially cruising! Who knew?)

26. Rusty stuff (almost anything!)

27. Picture frames

28. All things Apple – McIntosh pro lap top, iphone

29. Scrapbooking/scrapbooking supplies, tools, embellishments

30. Good vegetarian restaurants – The Gate and Mildred’s (London) Millennium in the East Bay

31. Humpback whales – particularly when they’re bubble feeding!

32. If I HAVE to exercise, a versa climber

33. Table place settings – dishes, flatware, placemats, napkins, napkin rings

34. Living in Folsom

35. Mani/pedis w/ parafin dipped feet

36. Stampington Magazines (OBSESSED!)

37. My shows – Downton Abbey, Law and Order, Nashville, The Good Wife, Suits, Castle, Scandal, Blacklist, Major Crimes, Criminal Minds, Mr. Selfridge, Bluebloods, Major Crimes, Stalker, The Profit, Covert Affairs, Grays (even after Derrick died!) American Odyssey, and of course my soaps (I tried to give them up, but I can’t.)

38. Memories of My Favorite Things

39. My blog/blog books

40. Cheesecake Factory Avocado egg rolls

41. Toe rings (added a new one this year!)

42. The new electric car

43. Yoga

44. Betsey Johnson clothes/jewelry

45. “F” monograms (working on a new one!)

46. Kitchen serving pieces

47. iphoto

48. Garden Decorations

49. Plantation Shutters

50. My family

51. Rubber stamps, stencils

52. Antique bottles

53. Angels

54. Yellowstone

55. Animals (all!)

56. Shabby country decorating

57. My “pillow!”

58. President Obama

59. Trying new recipes, especially vegan ones!

60. Being a “kept” woman

61. Mixed Media Art, Art Journaling, and Mosaics

62. Bora Bora

63. My new Selphy CP910 photo printer

It’s Selphy Time!

No, not selfie, as in a photo taken of oneself, but Selphy, as in Canon Selphy CP910, a little portable photo printing machine.

I bought it a few weeks ago (maybe longer – I lose track of time!) and have had learning to use it on my never-ending list of things to do ever since.

I don’t know why it made it to the top today, but it did.

I’m mildly scared of setting up technology on my own, but I put my big girl panties on and gave it a shot. And was rewarded with actual photos that I printed out by myself!

It prints out both 4×6 and 2×3 photos.

I normally have my 4×6 photos printed at Costco, and they are only 10 cents each. These will be about double that. BUT, I can print them when I want them, so if I have a sudden hankerin’ to do a layout that I haven’t yet ordered the photos for, I can.

However, that wasn’t the selling point. It also prints out the 2×3 size photos, and you can do 4 different photos per sheet for the same 20 cents, vs. 4 of the same photo at Costco for much more.

I haven’t used a lot of 2×3 photos in scrapbooking for that reason. I just buy the 4×6 and crop them. But lots of the photos can’t be cropped without losing critical parts of the photo. And I really don’t NEED full 4×6 photos of a lot of the crazy things I photograph, 2×3 will work fine. In fact, better than fine. It will reduce the number of layouts I need to do. I take SOOOO many photos of the same subject. This will allow me to use a focal 4×6 with a bunch of supporting 2x3s.

I’d like to say it was an original idea, but I’d seen a travel book done by the owner of a local stamping store, and she used all 2×3 photos. It was so cool, and the smaller photos were all that was needed. In fact, her photos were from her trip to Italy, which will be my next project, and MANY of the photos were similar to ones I took, so I got a really good idea of what they would look like in the smaller size.

So, getting back to the set up. It did take a little brain power. I’m a “show me” kinda girl, so I looked for a youtube video, but couldn’t find one that started at the beginning, which left me with either the manual, or locating the cd player and I was too lazy to look for it, so I went with the manual.

I found the phone app I needed (canon iEPP) then got pic stitch for doing collages, and got busy.

The 4×6 was a pice of cake. One try, perfection.

 

I was very happy with both how easy it was, and the color. So far, so good!

Then I got into pic stitch to set up a collage of 4 2×3 photos. It wasn’t terribly user friendly and I had to muddle through. I probably could have found a video for it, but I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, not learn the whole app, so I winged it, knowing it might be a little bit more frustrating. But, that’s how I roll…if all else fails, follow the directions.

I had 3 loser efforts…

 

before figuring out that I had to tell the app I wanted the photos to be miniatures of the 4×6, not just a 2×3 section of the 4×6. AND, I had to rotate the photos coming out of the phone. But I thought 3 goofs wasn’t too bad. Finally on #4, I got it. Almost.

 

 

I’m pretty sure you can print borderless, but I’ll figure that out next time. For now I have almost 2×3 photos that will fit on a one page layout instead of two.

Just in case you’re wondering why I took these particular pictures – I wanted to show how Lexi reacts to the word no, and how excited Josh was to start his summer workbook (NOT!) Gaga was not their favorite person that day! But all is forgiven, I think!

So. I’m in selphy business, and very happy about it!

Plus I got something crossed off my to do list! Woohoo!

Musings on my Staycation!

I know most people think of a staycation as a time to explore their own community, rather than going to another town to vacation.

The staycation calling to me was to do something completely different than I usually do – spend 3 whole days doing whatever I wanted to do, no preconceived plans or goals, just going with whatever it was I was interested in at the moment.

Crazy, huh?

I could have shopped myself silly, or vegged out in front of the tv. But, no. I cleaned house, worked on my mosaic, did laundry, cleaned out drawers, sorted scrapbook supplies, put the new cushions on the patio chairs. For hours and hours and hours I did nothing but what I WANTED to do…Heeheehee! It was heavenly. And I believe, for a very short period of time, I achieved the balance that seems to be so elusive in my life!

Today was day 3, and most of it was spent tying up loose strings, putting the finishing touches on projects started yesterday.

But I did play, too. My mosaic is coming along nicely. I’m loving the different elements I’ve been using – especially the beads I added today. This may turn out to be quite addictive. And therapeutic. There is a certain pleasure derived from smashing ceramic material and chopping it into little pieces, then arranging it into patterns – sorta.

I went ahead and cleaned up all the tile materials (that was sad…) It’ll be awhile before I have time to get back to it, and when I do it will be nice to start with a clean workspace. I sure do make a mess!

I also spent a little bit of time laying out the ribbons and photos for the girl’s swim team frames. I’ll wait for mama’s approval before gluing them down.

And I even put together a pan of enchiladas so Mr. Tattered won’t starve, and finally made the decision to banish they gray in my hair!

So, for all intents and purposes my little staycation is over. I have a few more hours tomorrow before I have a bit of kid duties then head to the airport to pick up my man.

I missed him, and I wouldn’t like being alone all the time, but it was nice to have a few days worth of free time to get myself kinda jump-started. I feel so accomplished!  And I loved learning that I am NOT a total slug, that when faced with time to do whatever I wanted to do, I chose a mix of things that all fed my soul in one way or another.

A Little Manic Here!

Day 2 of my 3 day staycation would best be described as manic!

I have been busy all day, flitting from one project to another and it’s been a blast!

Normally I would give myself a task and keep on it until I was done, then move on to another one. Today I just did what I felt like doing, even though none of it resulted in a finished project. Instead, I made progress on a bunch of different things – some creative, some nesting, and even some cleaning. It was a balanced, productive day.

I added some tile to my mosaic:

put the new cushions on the patio chairs,

hung some stuff that had been sitting in a corner for ages,

put the towels and baskets on the new bathroom storage shelves,

put the new pretties on the bathroom counter,

put all my tiny stamps into one storage container,

 

And that doesn’t even count doing laundry, cleaning out the fridge, tossing a bunch of unwanted “products” out of bathroom drawers, and a bunch of other mundane tasks.

I have to laugh…this probably doesn’t seem like much of a vacation to most of you. But for me it’s heavenly, just to have the time to do it all without any distractions. And best yet, I’m doing it because I WANT to, not because I have to! I was fully prepared to be a total bum for 3 days if that’s what I felt like doing. But I’m so glad productivity won out.

 

3 Day Stay-ca-tion

Well, I am on day one of a 3 day “stay-ca-tion,” a mini vacation where I get to stay home all by myself with no adult supervision! I haven’t had one of those for a VERY long time, and I hardly know what to do with myself!

I dropped Mr. Tattered off at the airport this morning, then I was on my own.

When the girls were little and we went out wandering, they would ask where we were going, and I’d say “wherever the wind takes us.” That was me today, going where the wind took me.

My first stop was to a stamp store I just love and don’t get to very often. Yes, I was fully prepared to break my self-imposed stamp acquisition moratorium. But guess what? I didn’t. I looked, but I didn’t find anything I wanted badly enough. Whew!

I tried and tried to think of somewhere else I wanted to go, something else I wanted to acquire, but I couldn’t come up with anything, so I headed home. And then it hit me…what I wanted to do was to go home and create!

So I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my mosaic. Remember the one I started almost 2 weeks ago, and haven’t touched since? I really, really, like doing mosaics, but jeez they are slow going! I spent 6 hours getting from here:

to here:

 

I thought my first day was slow because I didn’t know how to cut the tiles, and was slow at glueing, but I felt much faster today. It still took forever, thus validating my thought that my garden is NOT going to be full of mosaics!

But, it was a fun use of my first day. Now I’m going to do some actual work around here. Hadn’t planned on that, but since the urge has struck, I’m going with it!