Cool Quote and Photo I Came Across

http://lornastearoomdelights.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/happy-new-year-quotes-cards-71.jpg

Liked this.

Thought it was appropriate for this time of year.

Made any resolutions yet?

My vacation week has been low key. Not really couch potato mode, but at times, close to it.
I am LOVING it.
I needed some time with no expectations from myself
and the personal decision that it is OK to waste as much time as I want.
At one point I thought I would really like to go away over the holidays- or at least go away after Christmas-since I had a big chunk of time off-
but now that I'm in the zone-
not at all bummed out to be hanging home.
Besides having a great shopping day in the snow Thursday,
going out to lunch with the hubby and my daughter yesterday,
hanging in the studio a bit yesterday-as well as couch potato-ing it.
Finally watched The Lone Ranger Friday night and although not a 10, it was a better movie than I expected.
And last night, Maine beat Princeton in the Florida Classic tournament so tonight we have the championship game to watch.
That's about it here.
My house is still a MESS.
The studio is still a shambles.
But its not going any where.

Maybe today I'll be a little ambitious.
But then again-with ice and snow coming this afternoon-
maybe not.
Read some more of my fun book

watch the rest of season 3 of Games of Thrones,
perhaps.

Happy Sunday everyone.
Stop by again soon.

Mr. Handsome

Mr. Handsome poised for a modeling session the other afternoon.

"Oh what's that moving over there?" The something catching his eye outside look.

The pretending not to care look.

Looks say more than words. Here he is putting on his go away face.

The getting sleepy cat look.With a little bit of aggravation because I am still there clicking away.

The please leave me alone I am getting annoyed look. The not so happy but more ready to fall back to sleep look.

I figured he sat through several clicks of my camera shutter so I gave him his wish, I left him alone.

Modeling session over.

SO

I went and checked out my new book that arrived in the mail.

I am looking for some secrets about travel sketchbooks.

Not that I have mastered travel sketchbooks. 

It is one of those things I think about doing and would like to do and one of these days will do.

Just doesn't seem to be a lot of sitting time when I travel.

At least not out and about to sketch.

But I aspire to travel sketching and know that one of these days I will do some type of sketching on my journeys.

For now I will admire other people's work, read what they have to say, and do my own travel journals.

Mine is all ready for next week.

I know I showed you a while back but here's a few more views.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting.

Holiday Week Chatter

I love this holiday week. It is a short working week, a good holiday since there is lots of yummy food, good shopping deals and usually low stress good family time. I say usually since we are going to my family on Thursday for the holiday and you just never know with my family, but I am just not thinking about that.  Sometimes if you think you too much you get stressed and make it all worse.

But I really like Thanksgiving.

And it will be good to see my family.

(Though I am secretly jealous of people who get a love key holiday without all the family hub-bub).

And I only have to work 2 days this week, and I have some fun things planned for the long holiday weekend.

More about that later.

Yesterday I went to visit some friend's of my husband's family who were visiting from San Francisco. Katie and Bob are charming lovely people and I'm glad I got to go visit them while they are here in the east. We stayed for dinner and sat on the couches and watched the guys put down my mother-in-laws new floor.

Hey I am reading a new book too-

Just started it but Julia Child is such a fascinating woman. I've read a few books about her in the past, and I have loved them all. What a great life she had.

Will let you know more about this book when I get further into the book.

So last thing for today is this fun card I made.  I started with this new Darcy's embossing folder I just bought a couple of weeks ago. I inked the folder and then embossed on white paper to get this cool blue sky background between the trees. I mounted this on white cardstock and outlined with a blacked Sharpie.

Then I added the moose and cardinal (silly bird). I put a Santa hat on the moos with some silver glitter. These are stamps from when Kim Hughes designed for Cornish Heritage Farms. Not sure she has re-released these images from her own company Paper Smooches.

The words are from a Technique Tuesday release.

The set it is from is called the Magic of Christmas by Allie Edwards.

So tonight I have a late night at school since National Honor Society (which I am one of the advisers) is putting on our annual Battle of Classes fundraiser. Will be tired tomorrow, but it is for a good cause and I am happy to get it coordinated and (hopefully) pulled off successfully.

Hope you have a great Monday!

Stop back soon.

Another Beautiful Day

Here's a snippet of the painting I have started. Not much to see so far.

I am using acrylic paints on canvas.

I am also a not very experienced painter.

Not much of a post today- we're off to watch some planes at the Pease Air Show in Portsmouth, NH from my husband's boat. Bringing a book with me to read since I remember last year it can be quite awhile between fly bys. That's all you get to see from the boat since we're not actually going to the airport to see the actual show.

Also this year I am bringing my bathing suit since I didn't last year and when you are anchored in a bay a nice little dip on a hot sunny day in July feels great.

Should be be fun-get to spend the day with my family and my daughter's boyfriend is joining us. That is the best part.

Here's my next book too-got a lot of reading done yesterday while working at the boat ramp:

Thanks for visiting and

Happy Day to you!

Making Chili

A good bowl of chili is always a great dinner on a raw winter's night, and last night that's just what I did when I came home from work. A way to celebrate the end of the semester at school...a nice big pot of Chili.

I love this book, chili recipes from all 50 states...have been trying chili from various states, but so far the favorite in my house is Massachusetts Chili-could it be since Dave and I were both born there? LOL.  But there's some others I have yet to try...last night I did the old standby though-only this time I did it on the stove rather than the crock pot.



My goal is to get through all 50 Chilis...someday.

So today's piece of art us this close up of a card I made on Sunday using this cool Earth Art clear stamp. I stamped the moose and white and colored him in using my Copics and then I cut him out. Before I attached him I rubbed the whole image with some Mango ink to darken it. On green cardstock I stamped some pine trees (Hero Arts) in 2 shades of dark green ink. I die cut the circle (Sizzix) on some lightly polka dotted paper and attached it and then glued down some brown velvet ribbon. Finally I put some pop-dot glue/foam stickies so Mr. Moose would stand up off the card. The saying is from Cats Life Press rubber stamps.

Yesterday

Yesterday was dark with light snow most of the day...we didn't get a lot of snow but a couple of inches. The kind of day you want to lounge and watch the flakes come down...but not me! I had a very successful day all around. Slept in. Started a new book-just taking a break from Darwin which I haven't quite finished yet. Organzied my scarves in the new holder I got at IKEA the other day and organized all my ribbons on a couple of the same holders I hung behind the door in the studio. Now my ribbons are easy to get to instead of being stuffed in a drawer where you can't find what you want and if you do find what you want, most likely it is all tangled. Will get a photo for you one of these days.

Then I also got the studio more or less picked up and I vaccuumed and I FINISHED the holiday journal!!!

Yahoo!!!!

I really needed to get done with anything to do with Christmas. Got all that put away. Am happy with my journal but just didn't want to even do any more with it so I had to finish up the page or 2 I had left.

And I couldn't stand the studio mess...not that it is perfect, but all the things laying around on the floor were really driving me crazy. So much I didn't even want to go in there and work.

But now, it is better.

And if those accomplishments weren't enough for 1 snowy Saturday,

at 4 we had Maine vs BC on NESN-fantastic college hockey especially since MAINE WON!!!!! 7-4. It was a good game. BC is a tough team too, and I guess Maine also won last night so that moved Maine into 3rd in Hockey East. So exciting!!!!!!!!!

 I'm writing this Saturday night and we're watching UNH vs Merrimac hockey on tv now. What a day. I'll give it an A++++.



Here's my latest read...really enjoy this author's murder mysteries set in Quebec.

Inspector Gamanche is her lead detective...he sounds like a hottie to me.

Today's card is made on some pink reptile skin looking cardstock. I did a small masterboard using the Casablanca stamps by Oxford Impressions. I also stamped the hearts-Stampington stamps and colored them red and then added some Crackle glaze to them. I then used my inchie punch and punched out the images and attached them. I added the 7Gypsies tape, a little Making Memories sticker and then a few Viva Paint pen bronze colored dots. I've done a bunch of inchie cards in the last few months...I guess you kind of go through phases with what you make and what you like to make. And no, it is just my cropping that cuts off the bottom edge of the card so there is a little pink edge of cardstock there too.

Thanks for visiting!

Holiday Journal Peeks

As I write this my holiday journal is not quite finished-and I want it to be...but it is Sunday night and I just came down from the studio as I  was getting frustrated with my results. What happens is I then get hyper-focus on those not so fantastic pages...and that's bad. This is when you need a little space between you and the project. So I came back downstairs and decided to write today's post. 

Here's some pages that are done that I photographed the other morning when I had a delay. Since I was using my happy light...there's a bit of a glare on some photos. Nothing better than natural light but in Northern New England in winter, you don't always get a lot of that.

This page uses some paper, some Smash tape, a die cut heart and some stickers / ephemera from October Afternoon's Christmas set.

Love this page. I used the new lens I got for Christmas to get this snap of a holiday tag. I love this paper from October Afternoon. I used some aluminum tape and stamped the tire tracks (it might be Gel-a-tins but I don't think so). Trying to think of the names of some of these old stamp companies you never see any more.

Anyhow...the out of this world saying is from Cornigh Heritage Farm and the santa claus is coming to town is an old Limited Edition stamp. The december in the tag is from a recent Studio AE/Technique Tuesday stamp and the number stickers are also from October Afternoon.

Fun page here. I used Martha Stewart Paper, 3 Technique Tuesday images, a piece of Smash Book tape, a Cavalinni santa sticker, some ribbon and a white button.

Another page I'm really happy with. I used October Afternoon paper, the photo which I garnished with some diecuts (Marianne Crafts) and then hung some pre-made glitter paper ornaments-that I embellished with some Stickles. The little red glitter tree at the bottom is also from the same collection as the ornaments, the Santa sticker is October Afternoon and the stamped words is 7Gypsies.

Finally, this journaling page. The chevron paper is October Afternoon-Love it! The fringe is stamped with a Flourishes' Stamp. The celebrate is from a Studio AE/Technique Tuesday stamp set. The N in the circle is from an Autumn Leaves alphabet set and the skaters are a sticker from October Afternoon. I die cut the 2 scalloped circles (Sizzix) and journaled in the words.

Did I show you this knitting book I bought from Amazon and that I am going to read?

I've been knitting Fair Isle hats lately and am ready to move on to some heritage mittens. This book has lots of patterns from old time Maine and Atlantic Canada. There's next of my list of new things to experiment with and learn. Love ethnic of heritage knitting.

Well, I am off today for the Martin Luther King holiday. Maybe I'll get back into the studio and finish this journal today.

Have an artful day and thanks for visiting.

Tuesday Chatter

The week is in full swing and rolling. Yesterday after work a friend asked if I wanted to go see a late afternoon showing of Twilight, and I decided to. The movie was good, not great, I think they could have made the whole story into 1 movie not 2, but I really enjoyed going out and doing something different. Tonight we have Batle of the Classes at school, which is a National Honor Society function I am running, and then tomorrow we are into a half day of classes and I am meeting Katie after that to do some shopping. That is if it is NOT snowing. They're saying we could a good dumping. (Will this be big storm #2 for the year- already?)

Ye Gads!

So since I said the "S" word... I will think warm and beautiful weather and show you a few more journal pages from last summer. Maybe that will keep the snow as rain instead so I can do a little weekend shopping on Wednesday.

Really like this page. I started with orange paper and then added a blue plaid strip. Then the photo and a strip of watercolor paper that was sprayed with a few watery colors of Tattered Angels. There's an orange brad, some orange clip thingy-ma-gingies, a saying from Stamper's Anonymous/Dylusions stamps (those saying sets are the BEST) and a die cut sand dollar that was mounted on more white paper and then trimmed.

So this page is very simple...I am such a simple gal. I left the water color paper white and added some various strips of 7Gyspies paper tape. I added the photo, 2 more die cut sand dollars and finally an anchor which I cut from some printed paper.

And this page is still on white water color paper with photo framed in a light grey paper-not that you can tell here. I wrote out the words in 2 shades of Copics and a black drawing pen. I doodled in the crabs- I love thes elittle guys- and colored them with Copics also. Finally, I die cut the arrow on some shiny green paper that matches the green Copic I used. It works for me as an interesting journal page and a way to include this kind of weird photo-but I will say I sat on the beach about an hour watching crabs sneak out, and as I soon as I moved to snap their photos, they scuttled quickly back into theese holes. I just had to include a photo.

And I am working on one of my fall goals....a book I loved when I read it (swallow hard) 25 years ago and have wanted to reread it...but I don't want to force myself to read it when I wasn't in the "mood" for it. But last night I started it, and the magic has hooked me already. I hope I will love this book as much now as I did...sometimes you love a book but when you reread it years later you are at such a different place in your life that it isn't the same, and that is a disappointment because you want it to be what you remember it as.

Thanks for stopping by.

Summer has Arrived

It's so warm today...feels like July. I went to the lake at my Mother-in-Laws and chilled out on the dock and WENT SWIMMING-first time this season. The water was cold but felt good. Finished my book so now I can start my latest Sookie book- Dead Reckoning.

So far its been a fun weekend.. Yesterday was cloudy and cool all day, but I did get my veggies planted and played around in the studio. Today the sun came back, with the massive droves of mosquitoes. Yuk. And last night we went to see the latest Pirates of Carribean (IV) which was enjoyable and we ran into some friends at the theatre and went out for a drink afterwards. Had some yummy tiramasu too.

They're saying this week coming up is going to be HOT-like 90. Went from cool rainy April weather to this summer heat.

But I'll take it.

Have a great Monday-Memorial Day holiday if you're from the US.

Tooth Ache

So it turned out to be an abcessed tooth-OUCH- and last night it was the worst...so now I'm on painkillers and antibiotics...today won't be much of a day probably...though at least less of my face hurts than yesterday and hopefully by lunch time the antibiotics will have kicked in more things will start to feel better...I HOPE!

So yesterday I ended up coming home after the endodontist rather than going to teacher workday...needed to get on my antibiotics ASAP, never mind some painkillers. It was gorgeous day too, no clouds in a clear blue sky, so I went and sat outside and puttered a bit...wasn't feeling great so I didn't do much, but took some photos of the last of the veggie garden. Took some great bird shots too but will save those for another day.

So since its garden wrap up photos, here's a great fall card I made awhile back...Impression Obsession stamp and the saying is Rubber Soul.

So today the sky is very blue but its windy and supposedly much cooler...Katie's due home...I'm hoping just to be feeling good enough to go into the studio and start my next book.

Have a great day!