:: my life ::

flame & pablo this morning

i'm working my way through my list and should have everything done by sunday, the excersise with love is prooving to be the hardest! but i must stick with it, and am 2lb away from loosing my first half stone.

what are stuck with this week?

Weekend

It has been a lovely lazy weekend.

Saturday I started working on thank you tags for my shop packaging which meant emptying out my collage box and finding lots of things I had forgotton about. Having been inspired by lobster and swan a few weeks ago, I decided to use here 'washing line' display technique to share some of the loveliness I found.

washing line #1

A little while ago I had a collage frenzie and make up lots of little pictures and ACEOs to add to my other shop. But I didn't ever get round to listing them. I think deep down I knew there were a few I wanted to keep for myself, so put them into a folder. The fist picture hanging on my line is a small collage using a piece of recycled cereal box, book and old atlas pages and lovely printed papers.

So after finding these pieces and I got to work on some tags and come up with a new design for the gift boxes I use to post out my designs. I wanted something simple yet special and am happy with this.

And yesterday was spent eating breakfast in bed, reading the paper and snuggling with Pablo. Just perfect.

Update

I am listing more new pieces for "Let Me Tell You A Story". Yesterday did not go as planned. My model couldn't make it, she has a sicky bug so I have another beautiful girlie who can help me tonight. But I decided to put the images I have up anyway. Then, all day and until about 1am I struggled to get anything listed on Etsy, and at that point gave up.

But today is a new day and I'm getting things up no problem now. Thank you to everyone who stopped by for a look at the new jewellery. If you haven't had a chance yet they are here.

I am going to start working on a painting commission this evening, a beautiful house built in 1850 I think. I am quite excited about it, from the photos it looks like soft blonde sandstone and it is being hugged by lushious trees. I let you have a look once I'm started.

Before

On the home front everything is good. Pablo is stripped and still thinks he's the man. He has been very wingey over the last couple of days and I can't work out why. We have played so many games, hidden treats and his normal big walks. We had my friends' dog to stay last weekend and Stu thinks he may be looking for company. He meets and plays with so many other other dogs everyday, but I suppose it's not the same as snuggling up at home.

After

I have been bitten by a nasty mosquito, I know, who'd have thought it in Paisley! But there seems to be a family of them living in our back garden. It is right on my ankle bone and is soooo itchy and swollen, yuk!

So my things to do today are:

List some more jewellery on Etsy

Tidy my desk

Take a note of my stats for the day

Make up some new earrings

Do a spot of online shopping (I have my eye on this top)

Show my little garden a bit of love. I have lettice to plant and some beans!

Do some sketches for the commission

What are your plans for today?

xoxox

Sleeping by the fan

Today is another glorious day and the little man is feeling the heat. But instead of moving from the baking sun he will lie there untill he has over heated! I got the fan out yesterday and he has taken to sitting by it now for all of 2 minutes then going right back into the sun!

I have a busy day ahead and a plan, which means there is no stopping me. I am hoping to have some new designs to share with you tomorrow and show off the best salad ever. I am now on day 2 of no bread, white pasta, or white rice. For the last few weeks have really been feeling the slump after lunch, like dizzy, faint and sick. So in an effort to stabalise my blood sugar levels I have cupboards full of rye bread, Quinoa, and veggies. One of the things I am finding hardest is breakfast, I don't like cereal and since I can remember I have had a sandwich with meat and salad for my breakfast. So the swap to the rye bread in the morning is strange, but braking the habit of a lifetime! MrS has been sent to work a sorry man, (poor guy!), he returned from the morning walk with Pablo with 4 Morton's rolls. Those of you who like in Scotland know these are the best rolls in the world, but they are white. I slipped into a rage, that I couldn't have one and I wouldn't be making him any breakfast with them. I feel guilty now and know this is just the withdrawl. How silly does this sound, addicted to bread!

What foods would you find it hard to live without?

x0x

Happy Friday

Pablo and I are at my Mum's house today. He is sitting gazing out of the patio doors into the rainy garden as I sit at the table sewing. I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Barney came to stay

Well Pablo has had a wonderful, action packed weekend!
Our friend let us have her beautiful boxer Barney for a visit and such fun was had by all.

This is them having a chill out after a morning of play.

I have had a great week too, getting lots done and working through the "Artist's Way" I can't believe it is week 4 already. This weeks chapter is "Recovering a sense of integrity" and there are some interesting tasks too. One of things we have to try this week is avoiding reading, to allow ourselves time and space to think for ourselves. This will be an interesting challange so I'm going to visit all your blogs this evening before I start my deprivation!

Here are some photos of my little sewing projects I have been working on at night (as promised!). They are ACEO sized (2.5 x 3.5"). More to come soon.

x

Seedlings # 1

I woke up this morning to the most exciting sight, little sprouts in my tomato micro planter! And not just one, but three! I planted five seeds last week and have been lightly watering them and keeping them warm. I love tomatoes but recently have found that all the ones we are getting from the supermarkets taste kind of chalky and tough. I tried keeping them in the fruit bowl at the window, but they seem to ripen really fast and then turn the next day. I had been talking to my bo about getting a little grow bag and a mini green house and trying to grow my own and the next day he returned from work with my very own bag. To be honest I didn't really think it would work so I am absolutely delighted with the little sprigs of hope on my window ledge!

Last night my bo had some friends round so I started a new little project inspired by my little cuz Hayley. She pops round once a week with her little boy for soup, a sandwich and a the little man plays with Pablo. They came by yesterday and got chatting about the lack of art work I have up in my bedroom. I was saying how I just haven't found what I want in the large space opposite the bed. She suggested painting a mural straight onto the wall of something relaxing. At first I kind of freaked at painting on the wall, but after some gentle persuasion I decided to give it a go. I used the work of Scottish artist John Lowrie Morrison as inspiration. I really enjoyed starting it last night and it was liberating to paint big and bold! I will do some detailing on it this afternoon, and I'll let you see it again when I am finished.

This is Pablo as I am writing, dozing on the sofa arm. Yesterday's play with the little man seems to have well and truly taken it out of him!

Its cold out side

Just been out for a brisk walk with Pablo and it is really chilli! I need need need to find my favourite hat. It is a real mystery, I wore it last on Friday afternoon and I am so sure I hung it up next to its other half ( a lovely tick, warm and funky scarf), but now it is nowhere to be found :( On the plus side, isn't Pablo looking fine after his strpping session? I think he looks like a diferent dog.



Now I feel I must explain my blogland abscense, and no I can't blame the lost hat. I have in fact been very busy. I have been making lots and lots of Christmas cards, which will be being delivered out to customers tomorrow and Thursday. After much deliberation and experimentation I found that birds are still my inspiration.

I have been making lots of new jewellery too, I love these necklaces and have made this one just for me! You can see the rest of my new creations in the shop.

I also went on a grand thrift shop last week and it was heaven. I got these two beautiful old frames which I have grand plans for. I bought a whole bunch of these old books and a set of leather bound Charles Dickens too. Time was not on my side, my bo, who had nipped away on his lunch break to help me carry things home, was putting me under pressure. So we are going back on Wednesday to collect a beautiful dark dresser, table and more frames! Maybe even a rustic old brass mirror which I love, but really have nowhere to put. But I don't think I'll let that stop me!

What have you bought yourself that you really didn't need but just had to have?

xoxox

A day in the life

Over the last week I have been sniffing and sneezing, so hard that I pulled something in my back! So in the midst of my resting I have been watching little Mr Pablo much more. My bo brought in a new toy, orginally named "Monkey" the other day. When you squeeze his nose he makes a monkeyish sound and Pablo loves him. He takes him to his sitting places, sleeps beside him and the other day he brought him through to have some dinner! The bottom pic is after a frantic play with Barney the boxer.

Ocotber is a busy birthday month in my family so I have been in my element making up cards. I have started a little set of sewn tea cups and I think I'll frame them and add them to my gallery. This card is kind of special so sit back and I'll tell you why. My aunt M had a beautiful friend called Mazie, who was born in 1905, and in 1998 my aunt gave me a magical chest filled with silks, satin, cotton, linen, tapes and thread which had all belonged to Mazie. Over the years I made lots of little projects from the fabric from the chest. For this little card I used some olive and gold thread, cloth and a piece of tape, and I'm sure my aunt will enjoy the fact that it came from Mazie's treasure box. There is something to enchanting about vintage finds, gifts from the past and things which have seen another life before they reach me.

What is yor favourite "thing" that has had a life before it reached you?

I'm Back

My extended holiday was brilliant and thank you so much for all your kind birthday wishes. I had a great few days eating, reading and walking, and I even got balloons and banners! I have lots of new flower photos but I am still working through them and will be creating from them this weekend. These are a beautiful bunch of Poenies I got and love them so much I decided to use them for my new banner!

On Tuesday I was over at my aunt's house and she showed me this amazing book, "The Young Ladies Journal" an illustrated and bound selections of magazines from 1864. She was given it by a friend who found it in a skip!!!! Who in their right mind would part with a book like this?

This page is a fold out for embroidery patterns. I took photos of 100's of the pages so I'll share them with you over my next few posts.

I can't resist sharing this photo of Pablo with you. I am becoming one of those people who I used to laugh at who took endless photos of their pets. Now I know why they do it. He is such an amazing little creature and I have become so soft.

Well as I have been away for so long I have a lot of catching up in all your blogs to do and need to go and have a good sleep for all the making I plan for this weekend. Happy weekend to you all :)

Chillin'

I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend. I have done a whole lot of lovely things;

1.brunch at Mums with Mum and L, Granny, Aunty, Uncle and Little cuz no 14

2.sat in my herb garden and read my book

3.caught up with some neighbours in their garden and ate bean salad

4.went on lovely trip to the park and Pablo made some new friends and I found the beautiful piece of bark pictured above.

5.was featured on FDL blog

6.sat some more in the sunshine reading

7.made tastey carrot onion and celery soup mmmmmm

8. tried to work out how del.icio.us works kind of!

So it's back to work tomorrow for me and I have some ideas I have been mulling over in my journal and I'm quite excited to make a start on.

10 things to do today - Day 3

This was my Carey family tree in 2006 drawn by my little cousin Della for my Granny's 70th Birthday. It has grown again since then but I found it again this morning and it makes me smile!

Things to do today

1. Try 3rd time to colour in Yibble doodles on laptop, if no luck then scan originals, colour with ink and rescan.

2. Make more spicey soup. (Olive oil, garlic, 1 heaped table spoon Gara Masala, 2 x onions, 4 grated carrots, 4 handfuls of red split lentils, 2 ham stock cubes, 2.5 pints boiled water)

3. Make more paper flowers * maybe into garland.

4. List 1 new item etsy, relist 2

5. Make more birdie cards, at least 2

6. Make 7 birthday cards (May is a busy month for me for cards.)

7. Find new tutorial to try

8. Do more Yibble doodles

9. Look at wordpress to see if that suits my needs better.

10. Reaserch dog training on internet, P's puppy classes don't start till end of may and he can already sit, stay, down and get treats out of bottle by pawing it down hard and spinning the bottle. He has a hungry mind and is learning fast so I need to learn more ways of keeping him occupied!

I found this wonderful and quite simple tutorial for paper flowers, Kusadama Flowers I had a great time yesterday evening sitting during the rather frighteny thunder storm making a little batch of these up. I used square pink postit notes and double sided tape instead of PVA glue, which meant iI could work faster. I am going to thread them together today and see how that turns out. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

I am still having no luck with photoshopping the Yibbles, I have tried saving as I go along but everytime I get to do about 10 minutes of colouring and then the laptop chucks it :( So I think I will just work on them the old fashioned way and see how I get on.

May you have a productive day, I'm off now to start on more soup :)

My weekend was a creative one, how can I stop Pablo chewing my shoe laces, how can I divert him from running off with my bath towel, and how can I encourage him to sit for treats! Appart from that I did take some time to sit in the garden and enjoy my lovely tulips which are in full bloom and read in the sunshine. I feel compelled to sit outside in the sunlight here, I think it is because in Scotland you just don't know what the weather will be like over the next few hours.

My little stint in the garden inspired me to make up some card gift packs, using one of the snowdrop photos from my Mums garden. I had run out of white card which I think frames the image well so I decided to cut to size some large linen card I found. They turned out well and the cream compliments the green of the stems I think.

I decided that I needed to give the shop some love too, I have been neglecting it a bit lately so I have been working on some new goodies and I will have all the photographs taken today and should be ready to list tonight. I am excited about these ones I have decided to use a different backgound for these ones, an old map! So in honour of some fresh designs I am going to have a little sale! I am going to get everything organised tonight and I'll do a post when the sale will comence.

Back on track

I have had a wonderful day, getting lots of things scored off my list, and you know how happy that always makes me :) I completed one of the commissions I am working on for 100 Thank you cards, and delivered them to the lovely customer this evening. For these cards I used creative hammer wardrobe folding card for a company in England where I get all my card making goodies from, called craftcreations.

I also made some thank you cards of my own on Pablo's behalf! One for my Mum, she gave us a gift of money for Pablo's arrival which I have used to book a place for him on a puppy class, how cute! Another for our friends who have given us their little pup's crate, one for the breeder who we got him from, 2 for friends who gave him little toys and one for bo's Mum who wnet with bo to collect him.

This card I made for my Granny's birthday, she is where I think my creative genes come from. She is a wonderful painter, and taught art for years. For this one I made I made a paper flower and used letter transfers.

And this is a little wedding card for a friend, I used Photoshop and my tablet and pen and did a cake doodle. I really like it, it's plain simple yet fun! I have been working on some designs to use in this style for the shop, but just don't seem to have the time at the moment.

I really enjoy making cards using different styles and techniques depending on the occassion and its the same when I receive them too. Plus it has been great getting the creative juices going again and doing something other than cleaning up and washing :) I found this quote;

"Dreams are postcards from our subconscious, inner self to outer self, right brain trying to cross that moat to the left. Too often they come back unread: "return to sender, addressee unknown." That's a shame because it's a whole other world out there--or in here depending on your point of view. "
Dennis Koenig and Jordan Budde, Northern Exposure, Roots, 1991

I have a vivid memory of a project we did at primary school all about writing and recieving letters, and we al got a ;ittle fold out book with stories and ideas for interesting ways to 'make' a letter. I loved the little book and kept ift for about 10 years then it disappeared :(

What is it about card/ letters that makes you smile?

My Life changed last Thursday

This little creature has changed our lives in ways I never imagined. He is such a delight and has really settled in as part of our little family. He is such good fun and I think he feels right at home with us and he is even answering to his name! But oh how exhausting these last few days have been and I am only now getting a chance to read through the 97 emails I have accumulated in the last 5 days! I have had another card commission to finish but just haven't been able to get to it between playing ball and making sure Pablo isn't eating anything he shouldn't be, my creative pursuits have taken second place!

I think tomorrow I will be able to share the chores with my bo and get some making done. I have some birthday cards, a wedding card and some greetings cards for my etsy shop I want to make tommorow too. Our new routine of getting up at 6 am will start to pay off very soon!

I also want to share with you a new etsy team I have joined, Fashion, Design and Lifestyle, started by missbubbles. The teams mission statement is - "Our goal is to unite similar minded enthusiastic artistic people, who are passionate about style, fashion, life and good taste in every step of their daily lives. We are together in order to develop our skills, share experience and achieve highest individual potential by networking, working on various projects together. " missbubbles has started the teams blog which is definately worth a look, with a very ineteresting post about colour trends for spring/summer 2008 written by Margarida.

Well I'm off now to read all your blogs and catch up with what you have all been up to and I shall return tomorrow afreshed and hopefully with lots of papery goodies to show you!

Refreshed

"Mother Nature- print by annejulie

I am returning from a couple of rough weeks, my last post was the beginning of bugs galore! So I have been resting up and recovering and in the last couple of days trying to catch up on all the things I haven't been able to get one. So today I am starting afresh.

Bow- Original Signed Fine Art Photograph- Alicia Bock

I have run through and cleared a fairly extensive list of immediate things to do, what a great feeling, and now I can get onto the other stuff.

(Sorry about ropey pic, taken on phone last week)
But now on to my exciting news, the iminent arrival of Pablo. We are going to collect him tomorrow night and we are so excited! The preparations and plans and schemes are all coming to fruition. The flat has been cleaned, tidied and gutted, the vet has him on its system, and we have 2 little bowls sitting on the kitchen floor waiting to be filled with puppy treats. We have been trying to find a good breeder for what feels like an age, but the time obviously just wasn't right. So our little family will be 3 from tomorrow!

Being under the weather has given me much needed time to read, doodle, and think and I feel so much better for doing so. I believe that sometimes we get sick for a reason, to stop us in our tracks and take time to look inside and I have had a fare bit of time for that over the last couple of weeks. I have been reading "The Highly Sensitive Person" by Elaine N Aron and it is an enlightening read.I have a large list of creative projects I am wanting to start and finish; crafts, writing, knitting and collage. I feel quite refreshed and prepared for a new begining, maybe I was shedding a skin! I'm off now to check through all your blogs and catch up with all your latest advenutes :)