Little Shops.....

I got the idea for these little shops and houses one day while wandering though the gardening section at Lowe's. As I was walking about dazed confused by all of the flower and plants I almost ran into a pile of what looked like concrete loaves of bread. Well, the concrete loaves of bread turned out to be retaining wall stones. It was like an "Ah-hah" moment when I saw them. I immediately bought one, tore home (no I did not exceed the speed limit!) and started to paint. I painted on them with acrylic paint and sealed them with clear acrylic spray. I've found the cheaper the spray, the better....get the 98 cent stuff from Wal-Mart. I painted a few for my mom and friends last year and they held up very well over the summer and look just like they were painted yesterday! The little house with the candles in the windows is made out of a red paver brick that I had cut into a point at the store to make a house shape. It survived a Pennsylvania winter outside in the elements and the paint is still perfect, which is no easy feat! I place these little houses throughout my flower beds.

Who are these babies?????

Who are are these babies? Well, the little girl is me at about 10 months old and the little boy is my husband, Gary at a year old. Isn't he a cute baby?!?!?!? Oh my goodness, those dimples! If this was a color photo you would see his beautiful green eyes. I made these 5 by 7 collages for our moms for Mother's Day. I have to be honest, I'm a mama's girl and Gary is a mama's boy! When I gave my mom the collage, she was so enthralled with it.......she just kept looking at it with such a loving smile on her face! And, Gary said his mom got a little misty eyed! Ah, aren't mom's great?!?! Both my husband and myself are very fortunate to have wonderful mothers who were always there for us, sacrificed for us, encouraged us and most importantly gave us unconditional love!

Tootie circa 1967

Gary circa 1959

How Green Is Thy Valley?

Inspirational Green Crocs!

Still on my colour journey, I've chosen green to focus on today. Again, I was inspired by a pair of my Crocs. I never was much of a"green" person until I met my wonderful husband. Green is his favorite color and I've grown to embrace it in all of it's hues! I took a personal day and had the day off from work. Did a little shopping in the AM and then spent the glorious sunny and 78 degree afternoon on my back porch cutting, pasting and creating ATCs. I didn't even fire up the iPod but rather enjoyed the song of the birds around me and every now and then the song of the neighbor's lawn mower! Creating is such great therapy!!! Keeps you grounded and living in the moment which is something I'm consciously trying to do. So back to "green".......what thoughts does that word evoke for you? For me it's: fresh, summer, cool, lush..... sounds like I'm describing a salad or a patch of grass! I tried to get further inspiration by walking around the yard and taking snaps of plants. I hope you enjoy my collection of "green".......

sweet potato vine.....isn't it a great color?back porch studio

Here is the end result.............Two Peas In A Pod ATC......

Nothing Rhymes With Orange!

Who out there owns an orange outfit?

I'm still on my color journey, becoming inspired by everyday objects of great color around me. Today's inspiration comes from my new Crocs! A deep blazing orange that makes you smile when you look at them. I never really thought about orange as one of my favorite colors but as of late, I'm makin' friends with the orange! Did you know that there are no words in the English language that rhyme with orange.....go ahead try it.....impossible!....just like it's impossible to lick your elbow! (how many of you just tried to lick your elbow?....go ahead admit it, you know you tried it!) Anywho, getting back to the color orange, my challenge to you is to create something orange this week and please show me! Come on! You know you want to create something orange, just like you want to try to lick your elbow now!

The Inspirational Crocs

Orange can be liberating...........it makes me feel like a kid again.....these are my prirate shoes!


Don't you just love the orange spats he's wearing?!?!?!

Love In Shades of White.....

I have been thinking about color a lot lately. You say, "well duh, you are an artist why wouldn't you think about about color?" Anyone who creates art certainly thinks about color......which colors to use, how to mix them, which colors compliment each other, etc. But, I'm thinking about people and color. When I meet someone and get to know them, I assign a color to them, either consciously or unconsciously. When I think back I've done it for most of my adult life. With some people I get a very strong feeling instantly about their color, others it takes a few days or weeks. Some people are one color to me, others are two colors and it's rare for me to assign 3 colors to a person. For example, my husband is a deep forest green, my friend Danielle is orange, my little great niece is lavender, my friend Gloria is white, my brother Jimmy is navy blue, my dad is cornflower blue, my friend Lori is black & white. I'm not sure how these colors relate to the person's personality but I'm sure there is somebody somewhere that could psycho-analyze it and come up with a theory!

I know, by now you are thinking this is either "C-R-A-Z-Y" and I'm losing my marbles or as an artist you can "relate" to what I'm saying. I do this with vintage pictures too since they are in black and white it's easy to assign a color to the person after I study their face, their posture, who they are with in the picture and then a color pops into my head. When I saw the little girl with the doll in this collage, I thought of the various shades of white and a very pale pink.

I entitled this collage, "Love in Shades of White", it reminds me of one of my favorite perfumes by a very old perfume company called Creed. The perfume is called "Love in White". We could talk about how pictures evoke scents, but that's another subject for another day and another blog entry! My question to you is "if you had to assign a color to yourself, what would it be?"

Something Special

About the collage: Vintage photo of a little French boy, layers of paper, stamp of the Eiffel Tower on decorative paper, paisley stamp in various sizes which were stamped on gessoed on a page of book text and were then hand colored and then glued overlapping each other.

I came across a stamp last week that said, "you're special". This little stamp put my noggin' in motion and I began to search through my vintage pictures to match the right picture with the saying. I'm not sure I got the right picture to go with the "you're special" stamp....what do you think? I've named him Pierre because he is a little French boy! I'm sure he was special to someone in his life! I'm very fortunate, I have many special people in my life.....my wonderful husband Gary, my family and great friends. How about you? Who are the special people in your life?

Beach Boys

These little dudes are the original "Beach Boys"! How about these little guys, aren't they cute? I just love their expressions. Kind of makes you wonder what they were thinking.....where were they going......who bought those little sailor outfits for them? Maybe a favorite rich aunt bought them the outfits! The collage was created on heavy duty cardstock with layers of decorative papers. I painted on the white bubbles with Lumiere paint. The fish were cut out with the small Sissix fish die.

The frame started out as just a regular dollar store frame, based with blue acrylic paint and then distressed with sandpaper. I took little flat backed clear marbles, stamped the letters on decorative paper, cut them out and then glued them to the backs of the marbles to create the word "beach". Shells were then glued on tiny clear glass beads were glued on close to them.

Silly Girls

Silly Girls!

When I saw this photo of these little girls making the silly faces, my first thought was that I had to create a collage with it. The second thought that came to mind was that these silly young girls remind me of the silly old girls I eat lunch with everyday! I just met this group of girls in September at my new job and they are hilarious. Contray to what a lot of people think, we do not sit for 30 minutes and eat and talk about other people! We sit and talk and laugh and laugh and laugh! We laugh with each other. We even laugh at each other. We act like a bunch of 10 year olds. We talk about how many marshmallow peeps we could cram on our mouth.....we talk about the best kind of potato chips ever.........we talk about clothes.........we talk about what we are going to do over summer vacation.....sometimes we bring up our favorite Hallmark video-card called Sarcastic Wednesday and then we really laugh, even though we've seen it 10 times! Sometimes we laugh until tears spill over out cheeks and we lose our breath. How wonderful is that? How many people get to say that they get to be ten years old again for 30 minutes every day and act like a bunch of silly girls? Not many is my guess!

The Schroom Pixie

I love schrooms of all types (here's a yummy stuffed portabella mushroom recipe). I was inspired by a new paint I found called Lumiere. This paint is good for a variety of mediums including fabric, wood and paper. It's wonderful....covers nicely and comes in the best metalic colors. I used Halo Pink on this collage. This collage took me about 2 hours to complete and I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I just kept layering papers, cutouts and stamps. My husband came home with a bag of Tootsie Rolls right when I was completing it and on a whim I made the pixie have a Tootsie Roll hat! Seems inspiration hit best when my mouth is full of chocolate goodness!

Just a few more..........

Just a few more minutes! That's what I'm always saying to my husband or thinking to myself when I'm in my studio, but this week I was so busy and so tired that I didn't get a chance to spend even a few minutes creating anything new. Bummer! I was really anxious to get to work last night and made the following..........

The Queen of Paris! She was inspired by the Eiffel Tower stamp I bought last weekend.

"Happy!" Some people are just naturally happy!

Nanny's Peanut Butter Egg Recipe

My mom makes the most wickedly awesome chocolate covered peanut butter Easter eggs you have ever put in your mouth. They are soooooooth and creamy inside. The best way to eat one is straight out of the fridge! I'm sharing the recipe for them with you because something this good needs to be shared! Enjoy!!!!!

Nanny's Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Eggs
Melt 1lb 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 peanutbutter 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 (eat all of this size of egg and YOU WILL BE SICK!). 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. Store in a zip-lock bag and keep in the fridge.

Thinking of Summer.......living in Spring or Winter?

Remember how good warm sand feels between your toes? Well the calendar says "Spring" and Easter is tomorrow........but we have 2 inches of snow here in PA and it's 26 degrees! Even though the weather is not optimal for an egg hunt, I'm still thinking positive that the weather can only get warmer....right? Actually my mind is on summer with less than 2 months of school to go, it will be here before you know it. I love the water and will be spending a lot of time out on my pontoon boat this summer. Whew-whooooo! Here are some "beachy - water" inspired collages. I'm thinkng about either framing them or sandwiching them between two pieces of glass and soldering around the edges like I did with the "Beach Girls" collage.
This collage was inspired by a new friend that I met only a meer 8 months ago but feel that I've known for a long time....we are "like minded" people!
Don't you just love the look on his face? He's the little Captain!
The Beach Girls loved the water and loved getting together to drink wine and be silly! Isn't that what friends are for?

Bunny Humor...........

Just a little chocolate bunny humor.......

Easter Cards

I created these 2 Easter cards tonight for 2 dear friends. They are strong, intelligent, smart, humorous women.......you know, the kind you are proud to call "friends".

Tea Cup!

Isn't this just the greatest little antique tea cup and saucer? I love the spring colors, especially the lavender color. It was made in England and is bone China. I got it a few weeks ago at a wonderful little antique shop called Time and Again on Route 19.

Seven LIttle Rabbits

The other day I found this book in a box of old books that was going to be thrown out. I flipped through it and really liked the illustrations which prompted me to look at the illustrator and I was happy to find out it was Barbara Cooney. She wrote and also illustrated one of my favorite children's books, "Miss Rumphius". The true story of a lady in Maine who spent her whole life casting lupine seeds about and making the world a more beautiful place, which we all could use! It's a beautiful story and one that I never get tired of reading to the children.

Anyway..........getting back to the book, "Seven Little Rabbits".........the illustrations are so sweet of the tiny rabbits all dressed up and walking down the road, I knew I just had to use them in my pendants. Below are some of the mini collages made with the illustrations. They have not been soldered around the edges yet.

Sweet Little Easter Bunnies for Sale!

These sweet little Easter bunnies are for sale over at the Doodadz store! :-)