Enjoy

I'm a day early- but better than a day late.

I'm off from work today and we have a big snowstorm coming in! Not as big as you folks out in Buffalo, NY had recently, but still, 10-12 inches. And yesterday it was 60 degrees!

Not a snow day for me but a scheduled day off for the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Winter is here!

Sad face for me!

Today I am going to spend some art time and bake a couple of pies to take to my brother's for the big feast tomorrow.

Its a low key day before the travel day tomorrow and then some shopping on Black Friday- not at some crazy hour though. My hubby discovered it a few years back when he needed to go to Home Depot for something.  Now he's hooked and I just tag along.

Ha-ha!

But before I forget the meaning of tomorrow, I like this quote by the Dalai Lama.

Isn't that what Thanksgiving should be? Every day?

Enough said.

And for those of you not in the US, have a great day!

A New Culinary Adventure and a Christmas Card

So I went to Costco the other day and found this cookbook that looked interesting.

I am not too familiar with a lot of Lebanese and Middle eastern foods. I love falafel and hummus and I've had Lebanese food a bit (one of my childhood friends was part Lebanese), but a lot of these recipes look and sound so delicious. My plan is to start doing a bit of experimenting with some of them once we get past Thanksgiving.

I'll let you know how that goes once I start.

Also thought I'd show you this Christmas card I made awhile back.

I embossed the Christmas tree.  I think this is a fun rubber stamp from Hero Arts. The squirrels are die cuts, and I first stamped  the pink card base in black with an older Hero Arts snowflake background stamp. I wanted to just break up the solid pink of that card stock.

So I only have to work 2 days this week. Tomorrow I am off (BIG SMILE) and will also be off right through the end of the weekend. This is one of the reason's I love Thanksgiving!

I plan on doing a few little things but mostly I plan on being low key and lazy! Reading my book, making some art, watching season 2 of Last Tango in Halifax, sleeping in. I hope I can do all of those things!

If you are here in the US or celebrate Thanksgiving, what are you going to be up to?

A Beautiful Morning

Yesterday morning it warmed up a bit and felt more like late fall rather than winter (which its been feeling like a lot lately). The hubby, the dog and I went for a nice little morning stroll.

I love Sunday morning walks. There is a lot less traffic and life is moving at a slightly more leisurely pace.

It is really feeling like Thanksgiving here in New Hampshire. 

I love Thanksgiving. Other than cooking (and I don't have to do more than bake pies this year), it is  a pretty low key holiday for me. Plus I get to spend time with my family (OK, that may not always perfect), and the hubby and I get a long weekend! 

So looking forward to the long weekend and the short-2 day- work week.

And this past weekend was a lot of fun too! Hope you had a great weekend too.

Water Stories

Friday I took some of my students on a field trip to the Boston Museum of Science.

Was surprised to find an art exhibit about water by artist  Anne Neely.

The blue on this piece caught my eye. 

I particularly liked this painting.I still haven't decided whether the background in a dry western scene or maybe lots of adobe homes.  I like the dotty texture along the bottom too.

More great colors.  And I really like the arty realism of this painting below. Definitely all about an aquifer. But in an artistic not diagram kind of way.

I enjoyed the little exhibit. Actually, I enjoyed the whole day. The kids were good and we had some fun. Even if I did doze off for 5 minutes during the IMAX movie. Oh my. It was a good film but there were schools of fish swimming left and swimming right and swimming left again and it was so mesmerizing.
Hope you're all having a great weekend and enjoy the rest!

An Elf and Golden Deer

Yahoo! It is Friday. I've had a crazy busy week and am really ready for the weekend!

I showed you this page awhile back.  I did a bunch of stenciling and spray painting and then didn't know how to finish off the page.

This past weekend I did some magazine cutting and some die cutting and finished it off in a rather silly way.

Been trying to push the envelope a bit lately. Try new things. Do something I wouldn't usually do. 

I think page is a good example of that for me. 

But I must admit it is really fun to push that envelope. Trying new color combinations. New layerings of stencils. Saying what the heck and just trying it. 

I also like the double take view on this page. By flipping the stencil  and having slightly different base painting I got 2 different views. 

Something good to know about this stencil...and true for other stencils that are similar.

And pulling out a very old stamp from Postmodern Design was fun. If you've been stamping awhile, remember all the great quotes you used to be able to buy? Wordsworth? Postmodern Design? Even Penny Black used to have all those big and awesome quotes. I love quote stamps, but now a days you just can't find them the same way. There's a lot of great card quote stamps, but not so many big quotes-just plain quotes, There's still some, Oh well, trends came and go and  probably better for me because it takes away the temptation to buy them.

Ha-ha!

So any plans for the weekend? I'm going to hockey game tomorrow night and hopefully having some relaxing down time the rest of the weekend. Ready to play and sleep in and just not have to function on a schedule.  Between my busy week and the colder and even a bit snowy weather this past week, my brain is telling me its time to hibernate, but I am not ready (or able) to do that yet.

 Glad you stopped by and wishing you a great weekend!

I'm not laughing

I am going to complain. This week has been so crazy I haven't made it into the studio at all.

Sad sad face for me.

I am hoping maybe this evening. But I do have an appointment after school. And it is dark and very cold and to get motivated in the evening has been too too tough for me. Zoning out in front the TV is so much more appealing! Recharge before it is 4:45 AM and I am getting started all over again.

Too many weeks like this right now and I am starting to go nuts.

Too many things to deal with, not enough time to unwind by playing, not enough time to do what I need to do to keep me from being cranky and complaining.

I'm burnt out.

UGH!!!!!!

It will pass, I know.

Thanks for listening.

Here's a card I made last Sunday.

Nothing too crazy or wildly unique but it had fun making it and I like the result. 

Have a nice day!

Happy Holidays

Here's a couple of cards I recently made. Cards are not really my forte, but even more so my photographing of them leaves a lot to be desired.

One of these days I learn a few tricks to make my photos better.

And maybe one day I'll start to like my cards a little bit better.

Funny, this bottom card looks really good in real life and the top card doesn't look as good. But in photographs, I think the top card looks better than this one below.

They talk on Project Runway about dresses being editorial, and I guess that is true about cards too.

Both of these cards use some embossing folders, some die cuts and a little bit of stamping.

I made a bunch of cards the other day...making cards is fun because each card is like a mini-canvas.

Whether they photograph well or not!

Long day for me today. I have an event at school tonight-am tired of these frequent long days!
I'm looking for the magic spell that would make a lot more art time in my life. If you know one, please send it my way.
Ha-ha-ha!
Thanks for visiting,

Background

Sunday was a really low key day at my house. I took a nap, made meatballs and had several hours of fun play time.  One of the pieces I made was this background. Reminds me of wrapping paper.

Ha-ha.

I used red paint, a Gelli printed deli wrap sheet, a holly die cut remainder as a stencil, green and red paints with that, and finally a good old Uni-ball black pen!

I think I want to add something to it-like a some magazine cut out.

When I find the right image.

Crazy busy week this week. I have something going on every single day after work. Don't know if I'll get back to it this  background this week or not...but when its done, I'll show you the finished product.

Enjoy your day!

Snow Scene

Been having a little fun making some holiday cards. Must say the Christmas spirit has hit me early this year! I also only have limited play time lately so making cards is a 

fun ways to do a bunch of different things in the time I have.

(Although I must admit, yesterday I had hours of studio play time. It was fantastic!)

This card is quite complex for me. A die cut tree that is decorated, a stamped bear and  some birch trees (Lawn Fawn) along with a little banner from October Afternoon are things I used to make this card. And I love using Martha Stewart's sparkle paste. Looks pretty snow like to me!

And I just discovered Zig's Wink of Stella pens. The silver is my favorite. I used it to outline the background shape. I also used some blue iridescent blue ink to stamp some snowflakes on the background. 

Boy did the past weekend fly by, but it was a low key and fun one for me. I really needed that, and only one more week to get through before we hit Thanksgiving week! Can't wait for the long holiday weekend...I do love how Thanksgiving is a fairly low key holiday.

So woke up to a little light snow this morning...come on Mother Nature, it is NOT even Thanksgiving yet!

That's all today for me. Have a great day!

A Travel List-for the Fun of It

Where you go depends on where you've been. I've seen  people on  travel blogs do up a list of where they've been.
This is a for me post. If you don't like to read other people's list, this is not a post for you!

Where they want to go next!

Thought I'd do my own list. Where I have been.

For the fun of it.

Childhood- with 2 very unadvenurous parents
we never went anywhere!

NYC, Lake George and Adirondacks, NY

drove through Vermont-though we never did anything but go to Santa's Land

summer vacations in New Hampshire & Maine (wild adventures at my aunt and uncle's ocean side cabin with the 2 seater outhouse),
also a big school trip to Acadia National Park
going to the beaches in Rhode Island as a teenager
Nana taking me to Washington DC, riding the bus through Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware

Grew up in Massachusetts

visited the Cape with the girls and Martha's Vineyard

taking visiting relatives to Western Mass.

going to Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

College and my twenties-
young, broke, starting out
hanging out with friends and having a blast

college and then living for a three more years in Maine,

A trip to visit my friend who was in college in Knoxville, Tennessee
Going back to Washington DC twice
Driving through Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland (we stayed in Maryland one of those DC trips)

Also took train though Ohio and then 

visited Indiana, Illinois
St. Louis
and stayed with my aunt

Hanging out with my friend Lorrie in Rhode Island
having drinks in Newport while the America's Cup Race was going on

St Thomas and St. John Virgin Islands, US-my honeymoon

Nana and I went to Sweden (Stockholm, Ornskaldvik, Upsalla) for 3 weeks and stayed with extended family

Copenhagen, Denmark

College spring break road trip to Florida (Daytona, Orlando)

stopped in Georgia (Savannah), DC and Philadelphia on the way home

also drove through Virginia and North and South Carolina

the honey and I took a vacation to San Francisco, Yosemite-California and

Lake Tahoe and into Nevada
took a school vacation road trip with a teacher friend to Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania

Live in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire
took the ferry and went to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket
did some more New Hampshire traveling
also did a lot of traveling around Maine while going to college there

Thirties-new home owner, husband out of work, a baby, responsibility

NYC with my friends for a girls weekend

Washington DC (x2) with the hubby and daughter staying in

northern Virginia

New York-Niagara Falls and Ontario, Canada around the falls

Binghamton, NY when Dave had a job interview there

Cape Cod, Masachusetts-out to the tip of the cape with our bikes

several Maine adventures like camping in Acadia and white water rafting

Drove through Vermont and visited the Burlington area (x2) on our summer vacation/Dave's work trips

Lived in New Hampshire and did some traveling around the state

a weekend on some friend's sailboat in Mystic, Connecticut
Family Disney vacation to Florida

Forties-time to start going -my daughter's older, money is a little better, decided if I didn't make the time and effort to go, I would never go 

 winter family vacation in the San Diego, CA area with a walk into Tijuana, Mexico,
NYC with my family
and NYC with my friend for a girl's weekend

summer family vacation to Quebec City, Quebec, Canada with  a few little side adventures

National Parks and our first cowboy western adventure to Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, Colorado

First European trip to Rome, Florence, Naples, Italy &

Vatican City

Another family vacation to Florida-Orlando

Adult party food weekend to New Orleans, Louisiana

Science teacher convention in Dallas, Texas, and

Philadelphia, PA  and

Atlanta, Georgia.
Family weekend adventure to Philadelphia and New Jerrsey

more Maine trips

Live in New Hampshire

Family trip to Las Vegas, Nevada and then off to

Utah (Zion and Bryce)

Northern Arizona (Grand Canyon, Lake Meade) to do National Parks

London (x2) for family vacations

a Paris family vacation

Dublin, eastern Ireland & 

Northern Ireland family vacation

The I wam turning 50 and Katie is going graduate vacation to Barcelona,

Southern France

Northeast Coastal Spain

a teacher convention in Chicago and adding in in a a couple day girls trip before that begins

another National park adventure to Northerrn California (San Francisco to Oregon) &

Oregon
visiting my friend in Raleigh, North Carolina

Fifties to now (since I'm still in my fifties)-realizing I need to go!:

a cultural immersion program 10 days in Costa Rica (Osa Peninsula, San Jose)

Dave and I travel to Glacier National Park and Idaho, Montana, Washington State and then
off to the Canadian Rockies in

Alberta and British Columbia, Canada

Dave and I spend a winter week in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona

We also spent a winter week in Death Valley, CA and then into 

Las Vegas, NV

a week with my friend Vicky and her husband in Taos, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, New Mexico (x2)

another family National Park trip to Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah
and another family vacation to coastal Pacific Northwest-Washington and Oregon

more Maine adventures
 New Hampshire (live) and travel and also lots of boating adventures too,
explore more of Massachuetts,
 Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut

a week at the outer banks of North Carolina and then a few other little side trips

There's still so many places I want to go!

I want to start doing some more international adventures too.

I look at this list and think I've hardly gone anywhere compared to some people.

Makes me wish I had more time and more cash so I could just GO!

What a great way to approach life.

(and add a little love in their too)

The Joy of Cutting

Oh yes, the simple pleasure of cutting apart a magazine. If you're having a rough day and you can find a couple of minutes of free time,wow! Cut your little heart away. Then use some Glue and Seal and make a page from those cuttings-wow again-the best way to relax! 

Found these lovely ladies as tags in a FLOW magazine. 

And look what I found outside of my window today.

Winter is arriving  guess.

I hope you get to have your own cutting (or painting, drawing, sewing, knitting, cooking, traveling, reading, sleeping...) day today.

Linking this to Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Every Day.

Ciao!

Blasts fro the Past

I've been sad these past few days about my mom. She's been very forgetful lately but only recently has it gotten really bad. I think its really dawned on me that this might be the first step in the end. I know that's the wrong word choice, but I am starting to lose my mom and I don't know what other word to use right now. As much as we fought, and we did fight a lot, (we're so different) she's still my mom.

I also heard that my sister-in-law, my brother's wife, who has breast cancer, is starting to slide also.

The tough part with her is that she's angry about it all. Understandable, she's only 51, but  she's rather abrasive and pushy and she and I are very different. She's trying to keep herself feeling useful by handling things with my mom, but too much so. I need to step in because my mother is MY mother and I have to live with her final time for rest of MY life.

Oh my.

How can I say everything I need to say in so few words?

I can't.

OK, enough said for me today. 

It feels good to write this but its also bringing me down too far.
Can't have that, when she's still there with me.

So on to things that make me smile.

And hopefully you too.

Some favorite holiday art from the past.

Its fun to look back and get some inspiration. Not that I want to repeat any piece, but I see some things I did that makes me really like these pieces, and I have lots of ideas rolling around in my brain of ways to use those genera ideas to make some more new art.

Thanks for stopping by.

My Day Off

Yesterday was Veteran's Day or Armistice Day. I was home on school holiday, and a gorgeous late fall day it was.

Besides doing some raking and taking a leisurely walk, I started watching this series I've read so much about on various blogs.

I'm enjoying this series so far and can't wait to watch some more episodes.

It was the perfect way to lounge after all that raking.

It was a pretty leisurely day, exactly what I wanted it to be.

I even managed an hour of art.

Yahoo!

Hope your day was as good as mine was!

Holiday Season

OK, Halloween is over and Thanksgiving is only a couple of weeks away. Its that time of year when Christmas and other holiday projects start showing up. On Sunday I packed up all the Halloween arty things and put them away and then took out the Christmas arty things...I have way too many Christmas stamps! Kind of ridiculous since they only get used for a short period of time but I've been buying holiday images for over 15 years so I have a nice collection that I love. I hate to part with any of them. 

And most importantly 

they're so much fun to use!

So you can see I made a couple of Christmas cards, and I will admit I put on some holiday tunes while I was working. A little Bing Crosby and  some Ella Fitzgerald and I was rolling. 

Joy to the World and White Christmas and some other oldies.

Fa-la-la-la-la!

No school today for Veteran's Day.
LOVE it!
This week is very vacation like for me. I must admit I  really need that right now. As I've mentioned, between a tough school schedule, the new dog, my mom and now my daughter's car issue...its so busy that it has been overwhelming at times.
Tomorrow and Thursday I am working but I am having some gum surgery later in the day on Thursday and I decided I really needed a me  day on Friday. So I am taking it off. Sending the dog to doggie day care and just having an art day for myself.
Having a great day to look forward to makes my insides soar and become very light and smiley.
Mental health is as important as physical health-
as you all know
and so I am realigning my 2 sides before something bad happens to either one of them.
OK, enough said.
Enjoy.