More Pictures of Close-Up Flowers

The internet is teeming with pictures of close up flowers, but, because I'm afflicted with a serious case of the spring fever, I felt that I needed to add mine to the pile.  

Plus, I have a million things to do this morning and don't feel like making the tough editing decisions, so there are a TON of 'em.  If you've had your fill, I totally understand, have a good weekend.

If you have time for a little more pretty in your day, please enjoy.

I love flowering trees, and the ones in my yard are all blooming right. this. minute!

PRETTY! PRETTY! PRETTY!

These are all from the pear trees in the back yard.  They are just starting to blossom.

Then, there are the trees in the front yard.  I have no idea what kind they are but they are FAB-U-LOUS!



Confession:  that tree really belongs to the neighbor, but it hangs over into our yard.  So, I can claim it. :-)

Now, my favorite:

No idea what kind it is, but it's lovely.  I love the color of the flowers on that one!  Soooo lucky to have all three tree colors representin' with the white, the pink and the purpley-pink.  Holla!!!  LOVE IT!!!

Every year I say I want pictures, and this year I finally did it.  Yea, me!  They only last for about 2 weeks, so you have to notice and appreciate 'em quick. 



And the sedum is starting to poke its lovely leaves out, too. 

I LOVE SPRING!!!

Chicken Little gets home for spring break today.  YEA!!  So, I don't know how much you'll be seeing of me around these parts this week.  (If I don't see you until next week, remind me that I have a story to tell ya about last night. )

Have a great weekend!

Linking up to the Spring themed challenge at The Three Muses. 

Catchin' Flies

WARNING:  I know that God does not like ugly, but I'm fixin' to pay a visit to Ugly-town, or at least I'm going to be standing at the border, waving in.

Besides being the same person, all of these pictures have something any common. Do you notice it, too? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

I love Talbot's new direction  - their clothes are awesome!  And I love Julianne Moore, but....

....SERIOUSLY?!? 

CLOSE YOUR MOUTH, JULIANNE!!!!!!!!!!

This collection is gorgeous, but I can't hardly look at it because Talbot's has not only made this smart and talented woman look like Lindsay Lohan in a some of these pictures, but she has her mouth open in Every. Single. Shot!

Close your mouth girl, you look like you're catchin' flies!

I Want...

I want a SINGLE-PURPOSE room where I can craft.

That has a yummy light fixture like this!

(Source:  I have no idea where this is from.  I had it in an "inspiration" file. 

 If anyone else knows, tell me and I'll be happy to give credit.)

And a shelf like that.

And more shelves that go all the way around the room to NEATLY hold all my supplies but I can still see everything.

And an extra long, CLEAN workspace.

Or maybe two:  one for sewing and another one for painting and gluing and writing and...

And when I'm done working in there, I want a herd (pride? pack? swarm? flock?)  of fairies to come in and clean it all up and put everything back where it goes.

It's good to dream...

Team Sports

I've never been one for participating in team sports.  Not much for participating in sports in general, but if I'm going to do something, I prefer the individual practice (shocker, huh?). 

Well, in January, I joined a team. I don't even remember where I read about it, but someone mentioned it on their blog and it just sounded like such a good thing.  Individual effort, but with the support of a team...

I've joined the Siesta Sisters Memory Verse Team.  Beth at Living Proof Ministries is the team leader(?).  This is not the first year, but it is the first year that I have participated. 

On the 1st and the 15th of each month, the whole team (over 5,000 on March 1st) converges on Beth's blog and enters the bible verse that we will be memorizing for the next couple of weeks.  Then we spend the next two weeks trying to commit it to memory.  That's it.  Apparently there is a conference at the end of the year where many of the team gets together, but that's not the point. 

I don't know many  any bible verses, so I just thought this would be a good exercise.  Not only would I learn a few, but just the effort of choosing which ones I want to focus on would force me to read and know more of the bible.  It's also one of the things I'm doing to work on my word for this year. 

This is a completely non-denominational exercise - anyone can participate and you can select verses from any part of the bible.  You can choose any verse you want - I'm sure there is some duplication, but mostly everybody selects something different.

The recommendation is that you get a spiral-bound set of index cards that you can carry around with you.  Whenever you have a free minute, you can pull it out and work on your memorization.  Also, if you go to the conference at the end of the year, these cards are your admission ticket.  These are my last four verses.  (You don't have to decorate them, but I like thinking about it while I paint a page.) 

What have I learned so far: 

  1.  I'm much more successful when I choose a shorter verse, and 

  2.  For me this isn't about the memorization, it's about contemplating the message and all the blessings that I have received. 

So, does this really qualify as a team sport? I don't know, but I think we're all rooting for each other to win.  :)

She Art

I'm participating in an online workshop called The She Art Workshop, taught by Christy Tomlinson.  You can check out Christy's blog here.  From there you can find out more about the workshop.  It's too late to sign up now, but I think she said she will be offering it again soon.

Christy is teaching us how to make these cute girl canvases.  The class started on Monday, but I had a friend who had a birthday early this week, and I couldn't wait until Monday to start my project.  So, started this weekend and here's what I made just using the work Christy has posted on her blog as inspiration. 

It's an 8x10 canvas that I collaged a bunch of different papers onto, then I painted on it, rubber stamped on it, and added the girl.  Finally, I did some shading, outlining and detail work with both water based (so it would blend) and permanent (so it would not) markers.

The last thing I did was add the words and the 3d embellishments. It's a little bright, but I like it! I think I need to put away the glossy mod podge and stick with the matte for awhile.

I made this for a friend at work.  She has relocated to Texas and is really missing her family and friends at home. That's where the phrase comes from.  I didn't know what words I was going to put on it, and I was thinking about it before I went to sleep one night.  I woke up in the morning with the perfect phrase in my head.  Don't you love it when that happens?!

I collaged maps on in various places, and you can see them peeking out here and there (mostly at her collar).  I just tried to stick with that theme for most of the other stuff.  I really like the sun - I collaged a compass thingy onto a sunflower, then I used Christmas paper and cut out a round snowflake shape, turned it over and painted the back orange, and then collaged the rays on top of that. 

I also wanted the edge to be 'finished' so my friend didn't feel like she had to frame it.  I just took a bunch of the random scraps that were laying around and created this funky scalloped edge - probably my most favorite thing!

I was so afraid and nervous to give this to my friend.  You never know about someone's taste and style.  And, you know - it's really hard to be objective about something you have made.  I was just hoping she liked it and didn't think I was weird.  I think it was a success - she told me today that she keeps looking at it and saying she 'wants to be that girl.'  Isn't that the nicest thing?!   I told her I thought she already was.

So, now that I've watched all the first week videos for the workshop, I've learned so much more.  I'm eager to get started on another girl so I can practice what I've learned.

I am LOVING the idea of the online workshop!  I can participate when it's convenient for me, and I can watch the videos as many times as I want until I figure stuff out.  VERY COOL - VERY FUN!

Have you ever participated in an online class?  Was it good?  Got any recommendations??

Linking up here and here and here and here and here.

Looks Gross, Tastes Great

WARNING!  There's all kinds of bad about this post.  The pictures are bad because it was late and the light in my kitchen totally sucks.  The end product looks gross.  Get through all that, and you will enter the ultimate kind of bad:  gooey, chocolatey, banana-y deliciousness!

I posted my banana bread recipe back in July.  I only make it when we have bananas that have seen better days.  So, last night, standing there looking at 5 overly ripe bananas, I had two choices: bake 'em up or trash 'em.  

I wasn't in the mood to bake or to eat banana bread, but I hate to throw out food, so I baked. Once the bread came out of the oven, my whole house smelled YUMMY, and I figured I might as well do a little quality control...

Then, I had the most glorious (and sinfully bad) idea - EVER...

I like the end pieces of the bread, so that's why these look a little dark.

We barely had enough nutella to cover one slice, but I scraped and scraped the jar to eek out enough to put a thin layer on both slices.

I know, I know, it looks gross.  But if you look closely, you'll see that the bread was still warm and the nutella is starting to melt into it a little.  OMG!!!  I'm tellin' ya - if we hadn't run out of nutella, I may have eaten the entire loaf - by. my. self! 

Confession:  I had my shoes on and the keys in my hand to go to the grocery for more nutella, but then sanity crept back in.  I put the rest in the freezer for Chicken Little since she'll be home next weekend for spring break (YEA!). 

Get past the looks of it and give it a try.  I promise you that it is a little slice of heaven  (ha! ha! ha! - get it, I'm so punny!)

Daily Art Journal

I ran across this blog a couple of weeks and ago and have been obsessing a bit with the idea of starting an Art Journal.  You can read all about Julie's Daily Art Journal challenge here.  Since I've decided to start doing something creative on a more regular basis, what could be more regular than every day?  So, I linked up earlier today to participate in the challenge this month.

I can give this a try for one month, right?  Just 10 minutes a day - no big deal.  This is part of my healing plan for this year - the mind and mostly the spirit part.  

I had this journal - it's just a blank, hardback sketchbook.  I mod podged tissue paper all over the cover and then added the chip board thingys (forgive me, I don't know all the lingo).

I have to admit that I am loving all the tools of the trade, but I must.stop.shopping!  Just to name a few:  crop-o-dile (the big one - LOVE), debossing tools (LOVE!), Mod Podge for days (LOVE it so much I might marry it!), Exactos, bone folders (LOVE!), pens, papers, stencils (OMG, the stencils!), paints, stamps, etc, etc, etc.  There are so many super-cool toys to buy that I could get lost in all the stuff and never get around to making anything!

Here's the inside cover.  I lost my mind here.  I couldn't decide what I wanted to do, so I did EVERYTHING!  Then I just needed a little empty space and stuck that ugly note on it.  Oh well - I'm not judging - at least I started.

I think I need to work on my relationship with the matte version of mod podge.  The shiny is starting to get on my nerves a bit.

This is the first page.  I don't know why I felt the need to put this in there.  It's not like this book will EVER leave my play room, much less my house, so there's not really any danger of it being lost, or if it is, of anyone other than me finding it.  I was influenced by some of the other journals I'd been looking at online.  Several seemed to have a contact page, and it didn't require much effort, so there it is.  :-)

Today is Day 1, and what did I do today in my journal?  Nuthin'.  As soon as I committed and joined in the challenge, all of my ideas on things to journal about seemed to dry right up.  Why does that happen? 

Instead of journaling, I posted pictures of the cover and wrote a blog about it.  It's taken me at least 10 minutes.  That counts.  (This game is supposed to be about fun, and I get to make up the rules.  So, if I say it counts, and we start celebrating.)   Happy dance!  Feel free to join in - no rhythm necessary.

Assuming my brain starts working again in the next few days, I'm sure you'll be seeing more posts about this in the future. :-)