Satuday 4/30/11

Goodbye April!

Yesterday I watched the Royal Wedding.  Aww!  The Prince was handsome, the bride beautiful, the weather accommodating - a brilliant, brilliant day. The Brits certainly know how to put on a great pageant don't they?

Spring has finally sprung here.  The trees have gone from bud to little green puffs of leaves.  Our new tulips are out and lovely.  Derek does do a wonderful job gardening. 

The seeds Vicki and Isabel have been growing are all dying.  They planted too early for this area and the seedlings have become leggy and weak. Derer did the same thing with the basil.  He is busy replanting a bunch of seeds so we will see what happens.  The final frost date is May 31st in this area.  We will keep our fingers crossed.

This is my interptation of The Wish.  I am not too happy with it but this is one of those suggested titles that leaves me wondering if I have any artistic talent at all!

Matchboxes

I received these in the mail from Palma in Italy.  This is my share of the matchbox swap we had in March.  They are really nice - but -unfortunately the envelope became slashed in the mail and I seem to have lost the cover to the full moon box.  Such a pity that someone's hard work didn't make it.  There is another matchbox swap coming up for May bird shrines.  I really don't know what I am going to do for that.  I will have to "wing" it! Grin!

Trishia has been saying some very nice things about my Petite Oiseau post card.  This was for the April in Paris swap.  Not the one I oopsed by making an alien invasion however.  For some unknown reason I don't seem to have a copy of it.. You can see it on the French Kissed Postcards site on the sideband.

Easter Sunday

A beautiful, warm and sunny Easter Sunday.  Unpredicted by the weather gurus which makes it even better.  The clouds are going either North or South of us and Derek is making the most of it, planting Isabel's seedlings which have been growing so fast they are getting leggy.  Tomato plants going in too.  Last year we didn't plant any veggies, now the circle bed has been cleaned out and good earth added we will see how well we do.  Personally I have a feeling that the local animals will feast.  I haven't seen the deer this spring but a nice fresh herb and veggie garden may call them out of the woods.

Here is my first journal page swap - April - subject " A child-like dream"  This is the third attempt at the page and I am quite pleased with it. It's not perfect but I could do 4 more and still not "quite" achieve what I would like it to be.  Practice practice!

Goodies

In the mail today I received this lovely recycled card from Deedee, my lace, my swap goodies from French Kissed and a package of tags I had ordered from Amazon.  Wow!  Christmas all over again.

I love the simplicity of the Earth Day card.  It's made from bits of magazines and boxes, painted and stamped and the flower is cut out of an advert for something and attached to the card afterwards.  We could do something like this with the kids.  I wonder if it would be an idea for Mandi's Daisy troupe?

I also finished my three "Cat" ATC's.  Here they are.  I am pleased with the little sewn tabby cat.  It was my first attempt at sewing a card and came out quite well.  The kitty with the butterfly is hiding behind my first attempt at that zentagle pattern.  I have forgotten the name of it.  And the kittys eating fish are collaged onto a photo I took at Newport of the ocean.  I will mail them off tomorrow.

Spring signs

A bunch of daffs blooming in our yard is maybe a little mundane, but, it's a sure sign that Spring is on the way to our neck of the woods and we have been waiting for a taste of warm weather for a long time! Winter has dragged on and on this year.

I have a smile on my face and a bounce in my step in recognition of the coming annual feast of Spring flowers, leaves and smells.  Derek is working on the boat, Summer is round the corner. In 150 days my little sister will be here and Spring and Summer will be over. Our Spring is so short I pledge to enjoy every glorious day!

Talking of Spring, today I received a package of Easter Bunnies in the Mail.  We had a Bunny swap and here are the bunnies I received from Dawna, Kate and Dove. Aren't they cute?

End of the weekend.

Mandi and the kids have returned home to Connecticut.  Dominic and Isabel talked Mom into a Beta fish each, Ruby and David, who they are now home with us and settled in.  We all talked to my sister, Sally-Anne, I had wishes and cake and "happy birthday" sung to me at least 7 times.  It was fun, I am exhausted. In the middle of everything I received two ATC's for the "Spring" swap. Aren't they pretty?

I am in my jammies, ready for bed with a good hot cup of tea to sip while I watch "Upstairs Downstairs"

Family

A bright day and Mandi is coming in from Conneticut with the children.  A birthday celebration for me and a wedding anniversary celebration for us. Good times!

Wait till they meet our new family member,

    Senor Chewi Chawbacka Chihuahua

(and I hope I spelt that right!)  He is 9 months old and has spent most of his life in a cage in someone's basement.  His nails are an inch long!  Jay "rescued" him last week and what a poor little puppy he was.  It took the combined efforts of daughter Vicki, her sister in law Samantha, and yours truly plus a  pork chop to coax him out of his cage.  It took over an hour, the poor baby was terrified.

Today he is running around happy as can be.  He is the sweetest little dog.  Barks only when strangers come in or he sees the local cat, Miles, or a squirrel, or Derek who he challenges every time he sees him. Only growls when you try and take his bed.  He nipped at 4 year old Isabel for teasing him once and they both learned a lesson.  Still a little unsure about toilet training but learning fast what a garden is and what his should leave there.

I must admit I was very dubious when Jay said he was getting Chewi.  I didn't think he would adapt after being in a cage all that time.  Apparently purchased as a Christmas present for two teenagers who weren't interested and just left him caged.  Cruel. Anyway here he is - and we all have a severe case of Puppy Love.

For my beautiful Neice,

DRUMROLL----------------!

WONDERFUL NEWS!!!!!  LISA'S BREAST CANCER IS IN REMISSION!

                      TOO-LOO-RA-LOO AND HIP HOORAY!

She is still under the gun for the lung cancer, but now we know she is on a winning streak.  Of course we are all over the moon for her.

French Kissed April Event

This is a photo of my "Alien" card for the French Kissed Postcards challenge.  I had a lot of fun creating it, however, unfortunately, it was supposed to be "April in Paris" themed.  OOPS!  I have just emailed Trishia with heartfelt apologies.  I only realized I had messed up when I saw the beautiful creations from other people.

Oh well, one tries hard but sometimes the "muse" just takes over and you can't get away from it.  This is all caused by Trishia's free card of the week, "Jiggy Men".  I just fell in love with it and took off playing with it.  Hopefully Trishia will forgive me and let me continue participating in her contests.

Day one

This little blog is my adventure into the blog world. I have done a bit of practicing and decided that this is it. My final attempt!  Now or never, a forever blog.

Why blog? 

I want to keep a of record showing how my art work is changing as I become more and more involved in the art world.  I am doing a lot of "swaps" with other artists at the moment so everything I do goes out the door.  At the same time this will become a sort of diary of my life, what is happening as I go along my merry way.

So let's start with my 66th birthday.  Derek and I celebrated  the 44 years of our marraige by going to Newport and having lunch at the Black Pearl.  We do this almost every year and I really don't enjoy the 3 hours spent in the car to get there and back anymore.  I am inclined to pout because this is not the way I want to spend my birthday - but - well, I never could resist Derek when he gets that "hurt" look because I won't do something his way.

So here he is at the Black Pearl - we took some really AWEFUL photo's there.  Ended up talking to the couple at the next table who were from Belgium.  Nice Folk.

After lunch we went for a drive on the ocean front.  I got some great "sea" scenes with rolling waves and wet rocks.  Hope this will help me with my painting as I am not very good at ocean scenes and I do so many of them!  LOL