Golden Haze:
Back to Manitou for a couple of days. We have a long holiday weekend and are going to Saskatoon from Manitou on Wednesday.

These are just some images, background pages, from my retreat. I'm planning to do a little book.



I got a binding machine the last time I was in Saskatoon so want to make my own books.

Slowly, slowly things are starting to get back to place in the house. One of these days I will find room in my house and room in my heart for doing art again. I've also found some cool links. hopefully I can share them sometime soon.

Angels be with you through your summer.

another busy day:







These are not new. I can't remember exactly when I did them. I just thought they were something different to show that I've worked on in the past couple of weeks. They are backgrounds for journal pages in case you didn't realize. The two with blue I actually used watered down ink. I had tried with undiluted blue and they got way too dark. I love playing. Unfortunately I often don't know how to repeat the steps to get EXACTLY same effect. LOL

I did some rearranging in my studio today again. I love to do still life photos. I'll share them in a couple of days. I've also done more experimenting with transfers. One of these years I might get lucky and actually get some kind of results. I was going to check at "The Good Neighbour Store" for a little crock pot for wax BUT the thrift type store wasn't open WAAAHHH :( tomorrow :D

Sometimes we stare so long at our balloon in the sky we forget that our ice cream is melting on our plate.
Author Unknown
But Greatly Appreciated!

From Inspiration Peak

Angels be with you.

An unusual, rainy day: The rain is not so unusual but the reason today was particularly unusual was that our hyper kitty, Blue, was being rambunctious last night by my computer and I wasn't paying close enough attention. Suddenly everything went flying and I was no longer able to get online. WAH! Typically dear Greg would be able to sort things out in his IT centered brain. WAH! He was away overnight for work. WAH! He didn't get back to this house until 5:20 p.m. And so I felt lost. Now I'm back at it with my plans to be posting and commenting more regularly.
We'll see. I just remembered I'd been waiting to bookmark an etsy shop of someone with around 2000 hearts. I hope I can find her again.
I didn't do much art today though you might think it would be a perfect opportunity. Instead I have something like six pairs of my daughter's pants to shorten - three of which are jeans. She is quite petite. Even the pants I buy that are called petite need shortening. I also had a few moments of crying in my soup but I reassured myself and my family it was allowed because of everything that has and has not been happening recently. I'm better now. YAY me.
This Neil Diamond song seemed to be coming to mind today :


Some pictures of other things I've been creating in the past weeks. I'll tell you more as the time allows and I get something completed. Though you may have to wait until my etsy shop opens.

Decisions, choices; holding on, letting go. Apparently I have a difficulty with holding on to things (in my mind and body), not being able to let go. Now I have time and the opportunity to let go of some commitments for a time. I have time to be playful and creative. But this problem of letting go - I'm wanting to get past it but I'm having difficulty. And so I feel uncertain - if my art is any good. If it is worthwhile to try to keep creating. If I could ever really sell any of my art. Sigh. I must reassure myself that this all takes time. I have not given up on myself. I am able to appreciate some of what I create, most of what I create. I need to get outdoors more. I need to try to take more time to read - that simplistic Nora Roberts novel (ummm, please don't tell her I said so). I am reading her though I typically appreciate more deep thinking. I need to keep reminding myself gently that other people's health problems are not for me to be worried about. I can pray for these same people. I can ask for forgiveness, from God, for judging steps taken by others in dealing with their health. I can try to get past being so critical of others, mostly in my own mind. I can try to laugh more, play more. Enough. I'll get past it. Maybe one of these days I'll take time to write about it. In the meantime I will try to allow myself to play, experiment. I choose also to try to not agonize if some pieces do not turn out that great. Must keep reminding myself I am human and will just keep trying.
This ATC I will consider to be another learning piece. The stamp seems too intricate for the elaborate background. I accidentally put the first brad too close to the letters. Oh well. I'll keep in mind the thought and keep the ATC handy so I don't forget some of these things.
I'm more pleased with this background (8 1/2 x 11) I'm working with for another piece. But sometimes I feel like leaving it as a background because I love it so. I don't want to cover it all up. Tomorrow - I'll hopefully have it complete. I can always make more backgrounds.

Angels be with you.

Simple creativity, fun creativity: Last night I did a couple of these backgrounds using a technique I learned from Helene. I got a little heavy handed with the paint and salt but had fun anyway.





I then printed a couple of images on this one for the start of a collage. I'm not certain what I'll do with it next. I need time to think about it.





On Saturday I dyed a paper and some shipping tags with left over blue dye from Easter which is made with purple cabbage. I love the colour of that dye. I'm hoping to determine if I can use the same dye on fabric. The turmeric also makes a beautiful yellow.

For the next week I anticipate very little time for play and blogging. I have many meetings. Tonight is dress rehearsal for the 40th anniversary concerts of St. Pete's chorus. We have our away concert on Friday night and our "at home "concert on Sunday afternoon. We also do a couple of songs at another concert on Saturday night. Our local concert is actually at Muenster Church, what used to be called St. Peter's cathedral. There has been restoration done to the beautiful paintings of Berthold Imhoff.

The initial director for the chorus has returned to the area and still sings with us. We will be singing some of the favourites from over the years. Chorus of the Hebrew slaves - from Nabucco is one of my favourites that I'm very happy we are performing. We sing it in English and don't sound quite as good as this group of which I've found the audio.

As I'll be so busy and unavailable over the next few days I'll leave you
with this thought, done on the blue dyed paper.

Beginnings of inchies, barely - just backgrounds:
Extremely busy day today with meeting, driving. Crafting for the day only a bit of writing whilst sitting at meeting. The two blue pages were done at previous meetings. I glued them to card stock. The butterflies are tissue paper glued to larger piece of water colour. Thursday and Friday should bring more crafting time. Tomorrow I'll post the winners of the give away, probably in afternoon as morning and evening are busy.

HAPPY SPRING