Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a

Merry Christmas

and a

Happy New Year!

getting there

I had to give Phil (my garden flamingo) a scarf. He looks so cold out there.

But we stayed in by the toasty warm fire.

I managed to get my cookies baked and I am almost finished with my gifts. Can't show anything until after Christmas.

The weekend has flown by. Just checking in here, must go back to work now.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

looking a lot like Christmas

The snow is here and it's really coming down! So today I will be doing some cookie art. Baking Christmas cookies and watching the snow. Then it's off to the studio to sew and glue and stamp and all that good stuff. And hopefully get my list finished or at least put a big dent in it. Time is running out....................help!

Mona...is that you?

On my recent trip back to Maryland I went to my favorite art store in West Annapolis. It's called Art Things and their logo is Mona Lisa. They have a complete wall of "Mona art."So I thought I would share that with you today.

This is one of my favorites. Apologies to Mona.

I am awaiting the snow that is coming our way today. It will be landing on top of the layer of ice that is already on the ground and everything else. We may get up to 8 inches...who knows. Anyway, I am one of the lucky ones with power and cable, oh, and internet. So I am ready. I have chocolate and art supplies and a long list of holiday projects to keep me going.......

angel art

Today I made this cinnamon stick angel doll. It's a pattern I made up a few years back. Her wings are made from some very old copper. I gave her to someone who has been without electric from the storm.

A close up view.

I had to show off this giant stained glass crab that is on display at BWI airport. It's amazing!

frozen

I arrived in Maryland and it was snowing. Really pretty.

I came back home to Oklahoma (barely) and we had this ice storm. That is all ice on the ground. Not so pretty. We just got our TV, phone and INTERNET back today...YaY! We were lucky to only lose power for 8 hours. A lot of people are still without electric.

I made this quilt for my great niece/God-daughter for her 13th Birthday. The jeans were mostly hers and her Mom saved them from when she first started to wear jeans as a baby. On the flip side is cotton squares....hand picked from my stash. It was a huge hit at her party. The girls snuggled under the quilt and watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. For party favors we took jean pockets (cut from pants) and filled them with goodies.

leaving again.....

Yep, I on my way back to Maryland for a very special Birthday.

I forgot to mention in my last post....the 5 things post, that along with the crabs (and every Marylander knows you must have something sweet after eating crabs) that I am also a chocaholic! The three up there are my current favorites.
How could I have forgotten CHOCOLATE!!

I am passing the 5 Things List on to Blue Jude at Blue Jude Musings.

I was tagged!

I have been tagged by Danita. She says I have to tell five things about myself. Quirky or otherwise. So here goes. 1.I have been collecting teddy bears for 50 years. This is Dee, my first Stieff. My collection is mostly Stieff and handmade bears. I have a signed bear photo from Tweed Roosevelt, Teddy's great or great-great? grandson.

My new car

2. I am a hot rodder and used to drag race (legally) at the strip. When I became pregnant with my daughter, I had to give it up. I named her after a carburetor (Holly). She is grown now and married to a drag racer and does some racing herself at the same track where I used to race.

3. I am a kidney transplant patient. My DH saved my life when he gave me one of his kidney's. He was a 100% match. The odd's of that are one in a million! So I have won my lottery. You could say we were a match made in heaven.

4. I hate the fact that I am messy. This is my work table in it's usual state. It takes forever to clear it off and no time at all to get back to this. It's just who I am, like it or not. I think artists would rather be creating than cleaning anyway.............

5. My favorite food to eat is steamed Maryland blue crabs.


Now I have to tag someone new. I will get back to that on my next post.

remembering.....

When I was back home at Thanksgiving, I played the Barbie game with my great niece. I had this game as a child and just seeing this game again brought back so many memories. It was kinda weird.I remember getting my first Barbie doll, which WAS the first Barbie. At first I was so disappointed because they were sold out and my Mom got me the Babs doll instead. She was a cheap imitation at only $1.00 whereas the real Barbie sold at $3.00. Then I got the real deal and I still have her, along with the fuzzy head Ken and red bubble head Barbie.
My DH is always hounding me because I never throw anything away and we have moved numerous times and everything still goes with us.

YAY! I got an award!

THANKS TASCHA!
I received a You Make Me Smile award from Tascha! It's my first award on blogger and I love it! It makes me feel good that I can bring smiles to others. My goal everyday is to make my DH laugh and I am usually successful.
Now I am passing it on to two others that make me smile and that is Sharon at all NorahS art and Danita at Danita Art.
I would send it on to Suzi Blu because she not only makes me smile but downright cracks me up!

But Tascha sent her the award already.
Check out these blogs and you can smile too!

pink balls

With all the crazYness going on and all the things I need to get done, I woke up and said "I need to make pink balls for my tree." So I did. I decided to have a pink tree this year. Well, not the actual tree but all of the decorations. It is looking good so far.....

merry

I painted this on Sunday and had my Christmas postage stamps made from it. Zazzle was having a sale and it ended on Sunday so I had to work fast. I wanted to make my Christmas cards with her but I don't know if I will have the time.
I just realized that I will be leaving again next Wednesday and I have to get a special quilt done before then. I thought I had more time. (wishful thinking)
If I am lucky I will have it near completetion tomorrow and can show and tell.

cityscape 07

I made a couple of these college paintings back in the 70's and found out that my nephew, Marc still has them and they are hanging in his home. He said he would like to have an updated one (now that he is married and has a family) so I made this for him. I thought I had some photo's of the process along the way but now I can't seem to find them. Anyway, I used to just make them on old boards and now I buy the white shelves that they sell at Home Depot and Lowes. I first paint the board, then section it into squares and paint them different (building) colors.

Then the fun begins (actually the fun begins when you start collecting the stuff to put on them.)You need a list from the person, of family and friends names and interests. Then you create a store or company for that person. For dimension and texture I use smaller boards for buildings and in the picture below you can see I used a ruler for a building. For a really cool texture I like to get the textured paint chips from the store and run it thru the sticker maker. Then I use whatever! The flag waving below is an old 4 cent stamp. Another stamp is used for an Organ Donation billboard.
I use old tickets, metal pieces, postage stamps, ect. Once you get started your mind just takes over. I even have a mini work of art (on my shop) by Tascha, a wonderful, new favorite artist of mine. Thanks Tascha!

A new technique I used this time was to put clear embossing powder on for windows. I used an eraser in a square shape as my stamp. Back in the 70's, I had to search magazines to find names and such, but today you can just create them with the computer.

So that's it. An old art brought back. One down and four to go, and it's easier to do them all at once.

This is the finished city. Click on for a larger view.

back again

We are back from the East Coast where the leaves were just incredible! Had a great time visiting with the family. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving as well.
Back to the studio tomorrow and I will show the cityscape.

Oh, and don't mind the Thanksgiving pizza below, it's just a little something my nephew, Marc and I cooked up.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone a great Turkey Day!

See you in about a week.

Be Thankful - Be Artful

suze :)

paper quilt journal

OK, Sorry I couldn't finish this yesterday but I didn't finish the journal until today. And Blogger tends to be funny about letting me print more than 3 pictures at a time. I believe I had two more steps to go. After putting the photo's on the pages made from paper towels, let them dry and stitch around the pictures. I use the sewing machine.(it does not hurt the machine) Then put holes on the ends and put the pages in the order you want them to be in.

You can also texturize your page edges with those scissor's that make fancy edges. I just cut some of my papers differently. I also left the threads loose on the ends ( I noticed that Traci Bautista did this) it makes it interesting.

I have a box of pipe cleaners that are wrapped with yarns (things I do while watching (listening) to TV). I used these to hold the pages together. ( you can also use those clip rings from the stationary store)

Then the FUN part! Get out your boxes of ribbons and yarns and just go crazy cutting them up!

I then wrap them with the pipe cleaners so that the twisted part is in the back and then just smoosh them down and voila! It's done.

So, the pages are on the top, and I have pictures on both sides. And then the finished journal.

paper towel art

Step 1- Paint your paper towels. I use acrylic paints and water them down pretty good. I even use my paint water when it's a pretty color.
Step 2- Dry the towels. I use my handy photo holder thingie.
Step 3- Once dry, iron the towels.
Step 4- Use stamps on the towels if desired. I like to use the foam stamps on these.
Step 5- Cut towels to the size you want. I cut mine in an 8 inch square.
Step 6- Coat with decoupage medium. I prefer Aleen's.
Step 7- Once dry, coat the other side of towel. Or not, you can sew two pages together, back to back. It all depends on how thick you want it to be. I have done both.(no preference)
While my page was wet I adhered a photo. I printed my photo's on a medium weight paper.

Cut to size.

Dried and ironed.

I made my journal pages with pictures I took of my many favorite quilts at the Houston show.

Tomorrow I will show you the last couple steps and the journal all put together.

Update on the new cityscape painting/college. It's done! And I decided to hold off showing it until the lucky recipient (that would be you, Marc!) gets to see it first.

More tomorrow.

suze :)

Thanks!

A HUGE thank you to all the Veteran's on Veteran's Day, including my DH. Hope it was a great day for everyone.

Finally!

YAY! They finally arrived. My inchies, hey they are sideways, sorry. But anyway here they are.
Monday, Marc's artwork project should be finished and ready to show and tell.
Happy weekend!

inchies

These are the inchies I recieved in return for my trades.

The inchie board.

INCHIES? Are a new art form. They are one inch sized pieces of art made to trade or form larger pieces of art from them. They are mostly stitched with fabric and embellished with whatever you want.I wanted to also post the 10 inchies I took to Houston to trade but Blogger doesn't want me to download them at his time. So I will put them on tomorrow.....Blogger permitting.

Thes inchies are plus sized. They are one and a half inches. I even recieved one from France.

goodies

I didn't forget to mention Tracy Bautista in my last blog....I ran out of space. She taught us how to paint on paper towels and then turn them into journal pages. My wheels started turning and I am printing pictures of my favorite quilts from the show and putting them in a journal like this.

Here are some of the goodies I brought home with me. One whole suitcase was full of my purchases. I put my clothes in a duffel bag. See where my priorities are?

patterns and fabrics and paints..oh my! and rubber stamps and metal.......

a little more Houston

Lesley Riley taught us how to make real and faux rust. I am working on both.

elinor peace bailey had a doll show and sang to us. She's a hoot!

Elenor Burns showed off her new vine designs.

I chatted with Alex Anderson. She and Ricky Timms are having a new quilting show together. It will be on line instead of TV.

I'm Back!

My trip to the Houston Quilt Festival was a blast!!

I am all inspired and ready to start creating some new art!

This is the view from my room on the 9th floor. We were surrounded by hospitals and medical centers.
It's getting late and I have to get up early tomorrow. Just checking in and will fill in with details tomorrow.

suze:)

Happy Halloween

Hope you don't get tricked tonight.....and...I'm outta here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Houston bound!

I am packed and ready to leave tomorrow for the big quilt festival! So I thought I had better take this time to say goodbye and see you next week.
The photo above is a thingie to put photographs on but I use it to hang my tags, ect. to dry. It works great.

Harley's new toy?

Harley had a great time yesterday, playing with this mouse. They played for hours. Don't worry, I think the mouse got away.

I got my new copy of Cloth,Paper,Scissors and have been buried in it ever since. I am trying one of the rust recipe's and have 12 more hours to go for the results.

This morning I emptied out the Cheerio's box and started cutting it up and making wings and crowns(while eating breakfast:) DH says" you go to bed creating and it's the first thing you do this morning?" Yep! That's me.

is summer over?

My poor sunflower says yes. We had a heavy frost this morning and it pretty much zapped out most of the morning glories. I took a bunch of the vines and made a wreath with them. Had to recycle! The days are still pretty warm but the nights and mornings are COLD! I'm not complaining...it's time.
I am busy getting ready for my trip to the Houston Quilt show next week. I am sooo excited! More than 2,000 quilts, around 400 classes and 1,100 vendors! I just can not imagine. It's going to be like dying and going to fabric heaven.
Have a great weekend.

new art

I made a little mixed media, primative folk art painting last night. Her name is Princess Bella.