I’m Thankful 4

Happy Thanksgiving All!!

It always happens when it rains

It always happens when it rains.  When it’s wet, dreary, foggy and cold outdoors is when I start my pacing around the house feeling restless and confined.  Even though our winter just started, I am already staring out the window longing for spring and summer. 

You’d think, by the way I’m whining, that I’d never spent time in a location that had real winters. I have. In fact, I spent 33 years in New Mexico and in winter the temperatures can drop down into the minus area of the thermometer and stay that way for days on end.  However, even when it’s biting cold outside, the sun still shines. Some days, it even snows with the sun shining. How cool is that?

In California, the temperature doesn’t drop quite so dramatically. In fact, it rarely drops below freezing temp (I do love that). But when it gets rainy, cloudy and dreary, it can last for days and even weeks.  It can be depressingly melancholy (is that redundant?)  I don’t know how people live in Oregon and Washington or in the Great Lakes area.

Have I ever mentioned that we lived in Illinois near the Great Lakes for 15 months? Well, I’ll leave the story of why we were in that hell hole for another time but Oh.My.God, talk about the extreme weather.  Hot with stifling humidity in the summer or months of freezing temps and 10” of snow in winter.  There was barely any middle ground.  I’ve never been so happy to leave a place. No offense to anyone living in the Great Lakes area. I honestly envy your fortitude. I could never make that place home, I’m too much of a wuss.

It was one of these recent rainy Cali days that I created this journal page. It includes a picture I took last summer of the sunflowers grown in my area. I needed some color to cheer me up and this page did the trick.

 

I miss Spring, I miss the promise of long hot summer days.

What season makes you come alive?

What are your Do’s and Don’ts?

This weeks Wanna Play? theme is My Dos and Don’ts.  As usual I didn’t take the theme too seriously.

 

What are yours?

Big News and Small Projects

Do you see this beautiful girl?  This is my daughter Alma, “my girl”, my baby. 

This beautiful girl is now 21 and has decided to make me a grandma!!  That stinker!! I am so excited for her and her husband because I know she is going to be a great mom, they are going to be great parents. They are both so excited about the new baby. Even the horrible morning sickness can’t temper her excitement. The baby is due around the first of July.   I’m thrilled and at the same time I’m a little sad because she lives in NM and I live in California.  Can you imagine how much traveling I’m going to be doing after that little bundle is born? 

Every year I make the gift tags for our Christmas gift exchange.  It’s something I love to do because it makes gift giving extra special. Here are the ones I made this week:

And a couple of close ups:

I use shipping tags in large and small sizes. The backgrounds are colored with stamps pads. Images come from a variety of sources such as catalogs. I use scrapbook paper to add interest. Also used are white pens for snow and silver and gold pens for outlining the images or the card itself. The snowflakes came in a roll of ribbon from Target that I cut the snowflakes from. They look very 3-d. 

I created the base of our family Christmas card as well. But I will embellish each one individually in order to personalize them and make each one unique. More on that next week.

Wanna Play? Happiness is….

This weeks theme is “Happiness is…”   What brings you happiness?  Or better yet, what might give you happiness if you had it? 

The last item on my list says “Home renovation projects finished”. We finished building our his and hers closets a few weeks ago. Ok, we still have a few finish details left to do.. but it’s mostly finished. Boy am I thrilled to have a closet again. It’s been a while. I’ll post photos later this week.

In the meantime, what brings you happiness?

OMG, I think my ears are bleeding.

Who would have thought that a quiet little bedroom community like ours would harbor a teenage boy who could make your ears bleed?  Oh, I’m sure this teenage wonder is a fine young man who has never been in trouble with the law…that we know of. And I’m sure he gets good grades, drives safely, doesn’t do drugs, and he probably doesn’t give his parents any sass.

Although if he did sass his parents they probably can’t hear it anyway. I’m sure they must be deaf by now. 

Who am I rambling on about? The neighborhood drummer boy.  He beats his drums with the volume turned up as high as it will go. (Do drums even have a volume knob?  They must.)  It wouldn’t be so bad if the overly enthusiastic drummer boy could actually keep the beat. He can’t and that’s the problem.   His “music” is all over the place. It’s so bad it reminds me of bad, very bad impromptu jazz. Frankly, I’m surprised no one has told him that he has no talent for the drums.

Nor does the poor boy have a talent for singing. I’d actually feel bad for him if I wasn’t busy cringing while he is screeching into the microphone.

I really wouldn’t mind any of it if he didn’t amp up the volume so high our windows rattle. Or in summer, if he didn’t start playing THE minute we walk outdoors to spend some time in our pool.  It’s driving us F’n nuts. (for My girl: F’n = Fudge and.)

But just when I think of marching myself over to their house to demand he shut it down, I stop myself.  I can’t bring myself stomp on his enthusiasm. He practices so much I don’t have the heart to tell him that even after all that work, he still sucks.  I’ll let someone else throw tomatoes at him until he gets it right. I know someday he will.

Or I’ll be deaf and won’t care. 

Here is my latest page, dedicated to drummer boy.

 

Wanna Play? Romance

Very simple theme this week: Romance.  What comes to mind when you think of Romance? Interpretation is up to you.  Any size is allowed.

Come on, show me what you’ve got.

New Work Using Stencil and Spray Paint

This is acrylic painting on a birch wood substrate. The base layers were texture medium and covered with gesso.  The underlying acrylic paint colors were added using a brush. Used were the colors: yellow, green, blue, purple, magenta and orange.  You can really see the texture in the close ups.

The black paint was all added using spray paint and stencils. The focal image, the bird, is a stencil as is the radiating sun-like image in orange. Both were added using spray paint in aerosol cans 

The balance of the black was added using 3 different lace pieces.  Here is what the whole thing looks like.