A Stamping Saturday!

Went to an awesome stamping convention in Akron, Ohio today with my friends Donna and Tracey. I bought a lot of stamps, glitter and shimmer spray, mounting foam. I can't wait to play with my goodies. I'll take pics of my goodies and post them tomorrow.
Just look at how happy Donna is! She was the one who got me started into this stamping world when we went to the convention last year! Thanks Donna adding to my art addiction! LOL

Tracey is happy to have found gears! Just look at that cute little smile! She is a wonderful mixed media artist. I keep telling her she needs a blog of her own.

How about this little robot? I bought this stamp b/c he's just too cool. I like the little rolled up message coming out of his belly.

Loved this sample! A paper flower in a tiny test tube for a vase. Great idea, eh?

I really like this sample. It's a small canvas about 3 inches by 3 inches, painted black, embellished with paper with a little metal handle on top.

It's nice to have friends that share the same interest as you. I'm off to cut up my unmounted stamps and get them mounted! Hope you all had a great Saturday!

Beagle and Bee

Is this the cutest beagle you've ever seen? Her name is Sadie and she is up for adoption at an animal shelter. Just look at the crooked smile and sorrowful eyes, she just melts your heart!

Sadie

A new collage pendant.........."The Queen Bee".......

Wildly Entertaining!

This group is known as the Voca People.
Kind of strange but I find it very entertaining....do you?

Seamore and Stella Return!

This morning I woke up to find Seamore and Stella in my garden boxes. Stella was in the garlic, Seamore was in the other box and they were talking to each other. Every year for about 6 years now, Seamore and Stella (wild Mallard ducks) come to visit for about a week each spring. They are so tame I can usually coax them to me within about 3 feet, with some bread and quacking sounds. One year I didn't have any bread so I soaked potato chips in water and they really liked them!

Orange, how about you?

Lately (within the past few years) I've been drawn more and more to the color orange. It's not a color that somebody would say was their "favorite" but as an accent color I think it adds a certain zing! Inspired by the orange (by the way, no other word in the English language rhymes with "orange"), I created these poker chip pendants. I put copper wire bales on a few of them.

The Magician

Benevolent maker of magic with china blue eyes, his showmanship will amaze you!

Lucky Numbers?
There are times when I'm compelled to place numbers here and there in a collage I'm creating. I don't know why I have to do it but the number pops into my head and I HAVE to then put it in the artwork! Strange because I'm a word person rather than a number person.

The Seeker
Sometimes I make up little stories about my artwork, for example, this one: She's the funky Queen Librarian who is always "seeking" the answer from a dusty tome plucked from a shelf as she flies from ladder to ladder in the stacks! Her name is Hildergarten Flugerburger.

Thanks friends for all of the wonderful comments about the blue and chocolate brown altered coasters in the last post! They were fun to make! Your comments are always appreciated and mean a lot to me.

Orange you glad you stopped by? I sure am glad you did!

Blue and Chocolate Brown Collaged Coasters....

Warmer weather is coming (I hope) and that means more cold drinks and that means nasty water rings they leave on tables so it's time to think about coasters. I'm in a coaster swap with several other artists from around the country and these are the coaster I came up with. The theme I picked to go with was "Luna in Blue and Chocolate Brown". They will be sealed and most likely backed with cork when my swap partner gets them.




May favorite one is the next to the last one. Which one is your favorite?

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from Melissa & Gary! Hope all my friends out there in blogland had a joyous Easter! We had a very nice one with family and lots of yummy food.

Beeswax collages, peanut butter eggs and spring!

Happy Saturday everyone! I bet you are getting ready for Easter tomorrow! Lots of things to do! It's a windy but bright and sunny day here in Pennsylvania today. The grass is getting greener, the birds are singing, the sky is oh so blue....just a beautiful day. I'm cooking Easter dinner tomorrow but I went to the grocery store early yesterday morning to get everything so today I can play! Gary and I will go to his mom and dads for lunch to have Easter pizza, it's an Italian tradition. No it's not like the regular pizza you're thinking of.....it has a top and bottom crust that is a cross between pie crust and pizza crust and the filling is a mixture of eggs, romano cheese and pieces of ham which has been baked. It is sooooooooo delicious and I look forward to it every year!!!!!

I've been so inspired by spring this year, (probably because it was such a hard winter) that I created these beeswax collages which I just listed on Ebay.

The Lavendar Spring Fairy Collage

Blessed in a Nest Collage

Rabbit & Moon Collage

Nanny's Peanut Butter Eggs

Lastly, I'm going to leave you with the recipe for my mom's peanut Butter eggs. They are soooo good and I post it every year. Very easy to make and even easier to eat! Enjoy!

Nanny's Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Egg Recipe

Melt 2 sticks of margarine in the microwave and let cool. In a large bowl add 2 cups of smooth peanut butter, and 1 lb. of powdered sugar and begin to beat with an electric mixer. Slowly add melted margarine (you might not need all of it so don't get wild and crazy and just dump it!), into the peanut butter and powdered sugar mixture. Mix until it holds together when you form an egg shape. Now's the time to use some problem solving skills......if it's too crumbly, then add more margarine; if it is too sticky then add more powdered sugar. Cover a cookie sheet with waxed paper, form into egg shapes......your choice...tiny (bite sized), medium (just enough) or the super honkin' egg size as big as your face (warning: eat all of this size of egg and YOU WILL HAVE A TUMMY ACHE!). Place on waxed paper and put in fridge for about an hour. Melt a chunk of chocolate in the microwave and dunk the egg into it. Spoon additional melted chocolate on top of it and place back on waxed paper and place back into the fridge to chill. These are rustic looking eggs, not perfect looking but delicious! Mom gets her chunks of chocolate at Giant Eagle in the produce section of the store. It's about $4.50 a lb and you'll need about 2.5 lbs of it to cover 20, 4 inch eggs. Store in a zip-lock bag and keep in the fridge.

Happy Saturday!

Ahhh Saturday, don't you just love it! It's pretty windy and cold here but the sun came out and the sky is clearing so all is right with the world! I spent a good portion of the day at the Time and Again Shop Spring Open House and it was a smashing success! My friend Tracey came over from Akron and we had a great time. She's a very talented altered art artist and you can see Tracey's works on Flickr. I got to meet a super fiber artist at the open house whose works you can view in a few posts before this one and her name is Chris. I'm fascinated by the detail and devotion she has to her craft.

Below you'll find a few new works (poker chip pendants, bird pendants and beeswax collages) just completed this week in the studio but rather than just show you the pictures I've decided to turn them into illustrations for a little story about life.........

Life is not always a day at the beach.......

or a bowl full of cherries...........

and somedays if seems like everybody wants you to fetch something for them......

And I know there are days when you feel like you don't want to leave your warm, safe nest.....



However, life is a long race and in the end, it's only you that you are racing against, so be original and........

Shoot for the moon because you just might land on it or at least fall among the stars!

That being said, continue to do these things for a happy life........... LOVE......

Be FREE.........

And sock away a NEST EGG for the future!

THE END

And the winner is.........

Happy April 1st! I used a random generator with all of the names today for the drawing and the winner of the Bunny Rabbit collage is......... (insert drum roll here)......
Lisa from http://kssnnikkel.blogspot.com/!
Lisa please email me your address and I'll get it out to you.
Thanks to all who became followers of this blog in order to be entered!