A Winter Poem

Well, my snow day plan did not work last night!!!!! I'm not sure what I did wrong! We're getting hit with the white stuff tonight though!

Here is a beautiful little poem about at the joys of winter in Pennsylvania:

Winter in PA

It's winter in Pennsylvania
And the gentle breezes blow,
70 miles per hour at 25 below!
Oh, how I love Pennsylvania
When the snow's up to your butt;
You take a breath of winter air
And your nose is frozen shut.
Yes, the weather here is wonderful,I guess I'll hang around.
I could never leave Pennsylvania ,
'Cause I'm frozen to the ground.

Snow Day?????

The red flannel jammies are securely on my body backwards.......I just flushed 3 ice cubes down the toilet and now I'm off to eat a cup of frozen blue berries.......with all this preparation, I think I'm guaranteed a snow day tomorrow!!!!!

Lavender Memories

I created this pendant from a tiny silver spoon which I cut, filed the edges, flipped over into a bale, collaged the inside and then sealed it with resin.

I originally had two lavender glass flower charms on each side of the spoon but they kept falling in front of the spoon and obscuring the collage, so I took them off and drilled a hole in the bottom of the spoon (love my drill press). I like this set up much better. I'm going to have a class on how to make these coming up soon in March or April. I just have get more spoons for the class!

Nothing Good Happens After 8 PM....

When I was in high school, I had a curfew of midnight because my mom and dad said "nothing good happens after midnight", well this can also be true in crafting.......I say "nothing good happens with my crafting after 8:00 PM"!!!!

My friend Kris and I were discussing this premise yesterday at her bead shop. She showed me a few pieces of jewelry that she worked on the other night, the first 3 were fabulous but the 4th piece did not look the same as the others. She said she was tired but wanted to get the 4th one done and it was after 8:00 PM, and as a result of it being late and her being tired, the 4th was not the same as the 1st. I too had this happen to me the other night. It was after 8:00 PM and I had just spent about an hour wire wrapping a pendant and wrapping beads into it when I stole a fleeting glance at the clock and noticed that it was coming up on 8:00 PM. Knowing that I was about to lose focus at any moment, I rushed through wrapping the bale........I cut the wire.....the clock struck 8:00 PM.......I dropped the pliers.......the wire bent the wrong way......I swore......I muscled the wire into a loop.....I swore again.....oh no, it was now 8:04............

This is the pathetic result of crafting after 8:00 PM............a craptastic wrapped bale!

On a positive note, the big thaw has started here in Western Pennsylvania. Thanks goodness! It was 43 degrees today! I'm hoping for more warm weather this week.
We had a tremendous amount of ice built up in the gutter out front and it's slowly melting.

This is the first times I've seen the rocks around the side of the house in months!

My wonderful husband even washed my car for me. Thanks honey!

Just look at my pots sitting there with their snowy hats on......they're just waiting to be planted this spring. I've been buying seeds and planning what to put in my pots and beds. I'm also excited to start to think about planting the garden boxes too.
Hey I hope you all had a great weekend and you accomplished everything you needed to do before 8 PM!

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

Drum roll please! Using the random.org number generator I picked the winners this morning.
The winner of the Pinkology Fairy is Sassypackrat. The winner of the wool felted rings is Leslie from My Life and Times.blogspot.com

Congrats ladies and when I get your address, I'll send your goodies right out!
Thanks to everybody who entered and who also became followers!
Smiles-
Melissa

Think Pink and Think Spring

Hey! There's only 2 days left to sail from blog to blog to enter into the giveaways for the One World One Heart Magic carpet ride so if you want to enter into my drawing scroll down to the January 24th post and leave a comment.

PINK! I'm trying to fight the winter blues by thinking pink! This is a new batch of pendants I made and you can find them over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry. You can also find these pendants at the Let It Bead Bead Shop in Greenville, Pa.

I'm so ready for spring! How about you?!?!?!

Shades of Blue............

A small collaged pendant........

A tiny felt charm.........
A steampunk inspired pendant........

Remember, we don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.

So, whenever you get the opportunity.....PLAY!

Inspiration in the cold, snowy grip........

So my gooooooooooooood friend Tracey (Glitterbug Studios) called me tonight and said "make a new blog post, I'm getting sick of looking at the current one!" So to appease my sista, here it is!

The past week I've been feeling the effects of this craptastic weather. You know how the winter starts to wear on your nerves toward the middle of February (thank goodness it's a short month!)?????

So you must find some thing, even if it is a tiny thing, to bring you joy and inspire you each day. So I went looking for tiny bits of inspiration and here's what I've come up with so far......

COLOR inspires me. I bought this 6 X 6 little brick of glittery paper in glitteriffic colors. The colors make my brain smile.

Silvery seed beads, vintage photos and antique demitasse silver spoons inspire me.

Cool blue seed beads with a mat finish remind me of the water in summer and that makes me happy. By the way, I got these at Let It Bead in Greenville, Pa. (this place inspires me too).

Organization both inspires and makes me happy...........

If you follow my blog you know that I draw inspiration from nature in both my art and my life (I took this picture this past Sunday when I went snowshoeing with Buddy the Wonder Dog, see my snowshoe tracks.....they're pretty erratic....no I was not drinking!).

Louis Prima's music inspires me. When I'm feeling blue, I just crank up Louis and Keely (she was his 4th wife) and I can't help but start feeling upbeat. If you are a real swingin' cool cat, you'll dig their music daddo!(how about that cool jazzy-lounge talk, eh?)

This is one of my favorite Louis Prima CDs. It's the Capital Records Collectors Series and has 23 swinging songs on it. Now that's a bargain!!!!!!

Warm feet make me very happy. These Wigwam Ski socks keep your tootsies very warm and dry.

Ok, I'll continue to search bits of inspiration and happiness in this cold snowy grip that old man winter has on me but I want to hear what inspires you during these February days so leave me a comment.

Whoot-Whoot-Whoot!!!!! This just in.............SNOWDAYS MAKE ME CRAZY HAPPY and INSPIRE ME TO DO THE DANCE OF JOY WITH MY JAMMIES ON BACKWARDS!!!!!!!

24 degrees and ice cream.....

So yesterday afternoon my husband said to me, "I'm hungry for chocolate ice cream" so we hopped into the very cold car and headed out into the 24 degree weather to get ice cream. We are insane, I know. The day was so bright and the sky so blue, a perfect winter day with the sun hinting of warmer days to come. Now if only that groundhog would fully cooperate and NOT see his shadow, things will be great!

We stopped at the lake and I jumped out of the car, took a quick brisk walk and got a showt of a few crazy ice fishermen! Brrrrrrr, I've been ice fishing before and I'll tell you that it's a lot warmer when you are sitting inside of one of those little blue huts rather than a bucket on the ice in the wind.

I adore this little school house. I think it would make a great studio.

We saw a flock of wild turkeys directly across the road from the school house. Gary took a pretty good shot out of the car window!

Lastly we swung around to the docks where we keep our pontoon during the spring and summer......ahhhhh wishful thinking.......only 3 more months! The tall moorings look like sentinels in the icy waters.
By the way, the ice cream was delish!

This is my new batch of birdie collage pendants. You can find them at the Honey Girl Studio Jewelry Shop.

I created this necklace last night using one of the collage pendants as a focal pendant. It has been created with bronze/blue glass beads, blue mat seed beads, eggshell seed beads, mountain jasper beads and fabric beads with book text on them (I made these and will be posting a tutorial soon on how to make them).

I got all of these luscious beads from Let It Bead in Greenville, Pa. (141 Main Street Greenville, PA 16125-2276(724) 588-1258). It's a wonderful little bead shop with a super friendly owner named Kris and her two darling wiener dogs. You can buy already made beautiful earrings and necklaces or you can pick out beads and make your own right there. Kris is more than willing to show you how to connect the findings and help you with your beading.

Whew! That was a long post sisters! Don't forget to slide on down to the previous post to sign up for the One World One Heart giveaway.

One World One Heart Giveaway

Well it's here! The One World One Heart Magic Carpet Ride!!!! This is a wonderful opportunity to meet inspiring, talented artists from all around the world by checking out their blogs and feasting your eyes on their giveaways with a chance to win one of their goodies. You can click on the Magic Ticket picture above which will take you to a listing of blogs participating in this event. You may want to pace yourself because last year there were 911 participants representing 28 countries. This event starts on January 24 and I will be randomly drawing 2 different winners on February 15th. To win one of the goodies below please leave a comment. If you don't have a blog, please leave your email address in the comment so I would have a way to reach you if you're a winner.

That being said, welcome to my blog! Have a look around. I'm a self taught mixed media artist and I dabble in just about everything from collage to fiber arts to jewelry making to painting to sculpture. My motto is "life is short so mix media it up!"

This is a hand dyed and hand felted wool ring embellished with tiny pink seed beads and a rhinestone button on top to add a little bling-a-licious-ness (yes, it's a word.....well, it is now because I just typed it!) The ring is adjustable to fit any size.

My second giveaway is "The Spring Pinkology Fairy". She measures 9 inches tall and has fully articulated arms and legs. Created from chipboard, cardstock, booktext, decorative papers, she's a sturdy gal! Her face is hand painted with beautiful green eyes and a tiny cleft in her chin.

Hey good luck! Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you'll visit again real soon! If you're mixed media artist or collage artist pop into my "Absolutely Free Collage Sheets" group over at Flickr for free collage sheets posted by generous artists.

Valentine's Day Postcards......

Happy Monday friends! How about these lucious colors I got this weekend? You'll see in a later post what I'm doing with the matchbox. I was inspired by the paint colors when I found fabic in the same colors. Imade these beads out of it last night and today. It takes forever to make these babies! More on what I'm making out of them later.

Sooooooo, Valentine's Day is coming in less than a month. I love Valentine's Day. My husband and I got engaged on it. He stuck the ring in a piece of ice cream cake!

I made this mixed media heart magnet for my mum to stick on her fridge. I know, I'm 43 and still making things for my mum to hang on the fridge.....some things never change I guesss.

In getting into the spirit of Valentine's Day I just put these little gems in the Very Vintage Valentines Shop. You get six (2 of each design) postcards printed from my original collages.

I think this little guy is my favorite. He just looks like his name should be "Shirley"...... or "Cupcake".

I'm hoping these two fellows will be popping in with some yummy Philadelphia dark chocolate French mint meltaways!

Love................. is the answer......and the key.

Cheers to Tuesday........4 more days until the weekend! Stop back before the end of the week, I'll have my giveaway posted for the Magic Carpet World Blog giveaway (see badge on the right).