4 Dogs and a Bird

Patterned Flowers

Colorful flowers on a cold day.

Not ANOTHER Polar Vortex!!

Oh Noooooo!!!

My Daily Journal

In November 2011, I started painting a daily journal. 

I used a blank book

and each week I layout the days of that week.

I try to paint every day. 

Sometimes the entries are quick and simple.

And sometimes the entries are not so simple. 

Sometimes they capture what's happening in my world.

And sometimes they're just for fun.

Sometimes I paint a theme.

And sometimes I paint a scene.

Sometimes they're sad. 

And sometimes they're happy.

When I flip back in the book, I remember the small forgettable moments. 

Paint your life one day at a time.

 It's a way to make sure that you do something creative every day no matter how small.

More Bags

More bags with torn off labels. 

Instead of recycling them, I went into my stash of stickers, printed papers, cut outs and even paint chips and got creative. 

I cut the paint chips, layered them and added flowers that were created using a punch.

3 lovely bags ready to give away saved from the recycling bin!

Warm and Colorful on a Cold and Dreary Day

Reuse Those Bags

I don't know about you but I have lots of bags that are perfectly good EXCEPT they have a sticky sticker attached or they have a store name printed on them or they're missing the handles. OK so that makes them not perfectly good - but they COULD be perfectly good with a little creativity. So in the spirit of DIY, I decided to reuse and recycle my bag collection with a few embellishments. Here's the result for the first bag.

Plain white bag with a label ripped off. Looks bad.

I used a sharpie to draw spirals all over the bag while I was chatting on the phone. I had these small paintings of birds on swirls that I cut out and mounted on colored paper.

I attached the bird art with pop dots (foam sticky dots that raise the art off the surface a little) and loaded the bag with colored tissue and ribbon. This is the front.

This is the back. Bag number one saved from the recycling bin.

After the Polar Vortex

The morning after the polar vortex, I drove Aaron to school - still freezing cold...

late afternoon...

sunset...

staying warm.

More Patterns

More Patterned Flowers

Patterned Flowers

Snowy Day

Snow, snow and more snow. Next - cold, bitter cold and more bitter cold. 

Hello winter!

Warm Winter Hats

2 friends with warm winter hats. 

Let it Snow

Happy New Year a day late. 

Wishing you peace, time, creativity, love and contentment in 2014. 

My family had its share of struggles in 2013 (unemployment, cancer scare, broken thumb) so we're happy to see 2013 end and a fresh start begin.

Hooray for a new year!

It's been snowing here for 3 days. White fluffy flakes - beautiful to look at but not fun to drive in.

My mother was a talented artist so I wanted to start my first post in 2014 sharing one of her lovely oil paintings of a snowy scene. Seems appropriate with our 12 inches of snow with more to come!