Our family Christmas picture

While the grandkids are home, we got a professional picture taken for the holidays.
Grandma, grandpa, mom(Kari),Nicole,Katlin, and Kane. What a fine looking bunch of people, if I do say so myself!!

More Christmas Art

Here I've decorated a white gift bag with gold embossed cardstock and embossed ornaments. In the end I added a gold embossed strip across the bottom, but didn't photograph it. It looks even better with the bottom piece as it ties it all together. Unfortuneately I sent it off before I took a pic!

This is a Nutcracker themed notebook for the Monthly Lottery in AAWA. It can be used as a holiday planner for wish lists, card lists, or to jot holiday recipes, notes, poems, etc.

Christmas happenings

These are the stockings received in a Christmas stocking swap from AAWA, my online art group. There are 26 of them and I've strung them together and hung them on my banister. Nice decorating touch! Thanks to all for the great designs.

Time for Christmas!

I've made a couple of Christmas corsages as part of a mingle in my AAWA art group.
It kind of got me going with some Christmas art and will hopefully put me in the mood for the holidays....

Halloween Campout!

We had our annual Halloween campout this past weekend complete with costume contest and Jack-0-lantern carving contest! It was windy and chilly but all the better to make Witche's Stew! Everyone adds some meat and a veggie of their choice and throw it all in a big black kettle (a.k.a. cauldron) over a big fire........yummm. These are some of our friends in their costumes. Can you guess what we were?

Altered Cabinet Cards

In the Halloween mood

I've been in the Halloween mood and decided to make a couple of cards for the occasion. It's kind of fun to do something out of the ordinary because I don't usually do cards for this holiday. Enjoy.

Fall Decorating

This is my favorite time of year and I just did some decorating outside along our carport. My husband built this flower box and I have elephant hostas growing in it during the summer, but now I've added some fall colored mums and pumpkins. There are also some red salvias showing beyond the hostas also.

Cake baking day at my house...

Cake decorating is the other art form that I have practiced for 30 years. I have come out of cake decorating retirement to make my neighbor's daughter's wedding cake after much pleading and begging from them! So today I am baking wedding cake for 225 guests. Luckily it is a cool breezy fall day so baking is not heating up the kitchen too much. I do declare though this is my last wedding cake as it is a lot of work and I'm getting too old for this stress!!

I've posted several pics of the cakes I've done in the past.

Evening out

A friend of mine called last night and coaxed me into going out to a card making class at a SU demonstrator's house. It was kind of fun to make 10 quick cards for a change. Had a good time catching up with some friends and getting some refreshing new ideas. I am also posting the Wild West Wand I mentioned yesterday from Joan W. , in my AAWA group. Awesome isn't it?

It's been a productive day...

I finished a 3D shadow box for an inspiration mingle featuring a dalmation dog. It amazes me that I can sit around and rack my brain for an idea on something and all of a sudden the light bulb goes on and it all comes together!

I also received the Wild West wand in the mail today from Joan (AAWA). It is very awesome and I'm so happy to have been a recipient of her "extras." Another box came with a bunch of wine corks in it from Gloria H., another AAWA member, so now I can get started on my wine cork wreath as I have enough now. I'm very grateful for the generosity of some of these women.

I went scrounging today....

at my local junk/antique store and found some old silver spoons. I'd like to try my hand at a spoon book that I saw in a recent Cloth/Paper/Scissors magazine. I also found some old lightswitch plate covers that I may alter. Then went to the dollar store and found some manilla folders for a cool project one of the gals in my AAWA online group showed us. However, my next project will probably be to make my wine cork wreath that I have been saving corks for. I have 173 corks and only need 27 more and then I will begin. Also went to a wine tasting last night and got to take home several bottles (empty!) with the coolest labels. It was a Rollicking Red Horse Play wine with the coolest horses heads on the labels. I just had to have them! Take a look...

Some of creative endeavors....

These are some of the row houses I've made recently....

First things first

I've posted a couple of pics of my stamp collection and how I have them stored.
This is in my basement where my "studio" is. Actually my worktable is our antique
pool table that is covered over with a huge sheet of plywood and table covering.
It works quite well and is a very large surface, which is normally covered in my
art clutter! No one has played pool on it for years now, but I don't want to get rid of it because
where would I art then? I will try to get some pics of my artwork up here shortly. Have a busy day planned visiting my mother and baseball game with visitors coming to town.

I can't believe I"m doing this!

Here I was telling myself I wasn't gonna start a blog, BUT curiosity got the best of me!
We'll see what I can do with this now that I've started it. LOL...Feel free to tell me what you think and I am looking forward to joining the world of blogging!