So I'm so excited!! It's finished, it's finished, it's finished!! Me exicted you say? No way, I'm cool, I tell you cool. It's finished, it's finished, it's finished!!! Hubby and son are tired of me saying, "Come here, look at this!" "Yes, it's cute. Now can I go back to the game!" I'll bet if I added a golf ball or a baseball or a fish or a deer, it would get attention then. That's okay my pretty, I like you anyway! Now, I just have to get it on a stretch frame, finish the edges and it will be a complete package. Okay so it still needs to be completed a tiny bit, but really it's done.

Don't forget to stop at the Cookie Sheet and see what Donna has going on! She has a drawing for a set of the cutest prints of shoes. You need to sign up by June 30th!

I thought I'd show you some pretty pictures before I scare you with a picture hubby thought he'd sneak in. I really need to mark this iris. I plan on digging up this bed and getting rid of most of the irises as they've gotten to packed in. I want to keep this one, the white ones, and a rust colored one. I have purple ones in another bed.
Heres our rock bed with a hen and chick. We have some under a cedar tree that are absolutely huge.

This is another part of the bed after hubby watered. I love the variety of color. Ever since I was little, I can remember dragging home rocks. Mom and Dad would have to put a limit on me.

Okay, scary picture! Hard at work on figuring out my painting. I never seem to take a good pic. I think some little pixie hangs around and messes with the camera. They are very mischievious you know. So far I haven't been able to capture her. Do you suppose a roll of film in a jar would tempt her? I think I just got an idea!

So here is a peak at what I'm work on. As you can see, I don't have it all blocked in. What you do see is layers of basing coats. I'm really slow!! So far I'm happy with how it's coming out. I'm trying to keep the focus in the center but still have the whole thing work. I haven't yet begun to add texture, or the dreaded shadows. I need to tone down the background too. I think maybe more of a wine tone splotched in there. Is that a painting term ? No, oh well.

I hope you'll leave comments on the painting. I'm curious to see what people think so far. I also hope when I get it done, you'll come back to see the finished painting.

Father's Day ATC

This postcard and ATC is from Patti at Treasure Barn. She hosted our latest ATC swap and chose the theme of Father's Day. She was so generous! Since we had an uneven amount of participants, she sent one to each of us and paired the rest of us up. Now how sweet is that!
I love the ATC with the little bee! She has a good eye for detail. Thanks Patti!! It's just wonderful.

This is my tin bird. She came to life in on of the myriad of staff meetings I'm required to attend.

I was tagged by Patti at Treasure Barn to list 7 random things about me. She also tagged some of the same people I would have tagged. I don't mind telling people things about me, but I have such a hard time thinking of others to pass tags on to. I'm always so worried about whether or not they like to do these things. I get worried if I don't pass it on or if I do pass it on.

1. I was one to throw chain letters away, waiting for the wrath that was to befall from being the one to break the chain!
2. I've been a waitress, a maid, a drafter, and a licensed addiction counselor. Does that count as three or one?
3. I drive to work a certain way just so I can see bunnies!
4. I have two beautiful grown children and two absolutely gorgeous granddaughters!
5. Next month I celebrate my 30th wedding anniversary.
6. Green is my favorite color and then pink.
7. Amazing Grace is my absolute favorite song!!

Since Patti tagged people I would have tagged anyway, I'll resist double tagging them.

Just in case Dad, you happen to peak at my little blog, Happy Father's Day! I love you lots.

Short and Stout Two

Same teapot, different color scheme. What do you think?

Sherry from My Mother's Daughter has graciously given me this award. She is so very sweet. I have loved getting to know her. This award is suppose to be passed on to 5 people, however there are so many people I would love to pass it on to, I don't know where to start. Instead I would just like to say everyone deserves this award whether they believe it or not. There is so much creativity out there. Just keeping a blog is a creative effort. Sometimes how you live your day or the next minute can be a creative effort. I love so many of the artists I have met whether they are well established of fledgling (I think I spelled that wrong). So instead of awarding this to 5 people, I believe the whole community deserves this!

Short and Stout

This bit is from a new project I'm working on.

Donna at The Cookie Sheet is having a drawing for some of her prints. You really must check it out! She's a terrific artist and her drawings are so adorable. These little red shoes are one of the prints.

So hurry over!

Come On In!

My friend Patti tagged me with "What would it be like to visit Your House?" So here goes. I do believe you have met our welcoming committee, but I thought I'd bring them back for an encore! We live across the street from a city park. We get to watch soccer and football practice each spring and fall. One year we watched an Easter Egg Hunt. There's a wading pool and puppies catching frisbes. It's great fun.

Well this is the view from the front door. Now mind you, we live in a rather small house so things are quite cozy. I do believe there is a western song about that and if I remember Crosby, Stills, and Nash did a song about our house is a very cozy little house. There's hubby watch sports. The buffet doesn't show up real well, but it's red! That little space is suppose to hold the table as evidenced by the chandelier with no table. However, when the table hangs out there, it's sort of hard to get around. The tall thin black thing of to the side is an anorexic heron. It's made from springs, rod iron, and other scrap metal. Someday, I'll get a side shot. He's suppose to hang out in the great outdoors. He hasn't been too cooperative!
If you look of to the side, there is the Sunday crew hanging out. I don't really think they're watching tv too closely. If I try to change the channel though, they claim they're just resting their eyes. I don't know, what do you think?

Coming around the corner is my table. Above it we have hanging a candlelier minus the candles.

Oops, caught Jess cooking. Smile! Actually that's brunch on it's way. Can it be called brunch if it's after 1pm? Some of the plates above came from a thrift shop. They're hand painted and from England. The Campbells plates are from Wally World. I love the hand painted ones. Someday, I'll get a close up.

Thought I'd show you a close up of what I did with some broken Martha Stewart plates. That took more time then I'd like to admit and a few less than stellar word choices. I still have a bit left but there's plenty of time.

This little girl is hoping Jess hurries up with the pancakes! What she doesn't know is she's not getting any. Don't tell her though, okay.

That's the quick tour. Of course next time you come it may change. There isn't anything safe from rearranging. Promise I leave lights on though so you can find your way around.

Well, I think I might tag Sherry from My Mother's Daughter and Donna from The Cookie Sheet. I think both of these ladies would be fun to visit. I hope they might have time for us to drop over.

I've been working on a piece of art work for my granddaughter who will be turning 6 later this month! We had hoped she would have been born on grandpa's birthday but that was not to be. Anyway, I had originally intended to put her cute little face on the dragon fly but changed my mind. I instead used a face cab from Linsart. It works perfectly. Hopefully she'll still love it as she gets older. I'm thinking eventually it could be used as a cover for a scrapbook or ? if it should fall out of favor.
Here is a set of canisters that has been sitting in the kitchen until recently. I fell in love with it the first time I saw it at a thrift shop. I loved the shape and that is was space saving. Well it began to peel inside so I could no longer use it with food. But I was not ready to discard it either!

So it has been transformed with new paint and it sits in my artroom where I can still enjoy the shape! Now it holds rocks and broken pieces of jewelry and whatever else I deem worthy. The color is ballet pink. Knowing me, I'll probably tweak it's appearance some more but for now it's just fine until I can figure out exactly what it is I want to do.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

This is my DH or Dennis for short. Speaking of short, he is not. Well maybe? We are both 5'4". Is that considered short? Anyway, I'm getting of track. The point of the short comment is to put the height of those irises into perspective. They are the tallest ones I have. It won't be long before they're done, sigh!

By the way, Dennis is having a birthday tomorrow! He was born in 1953. I'll let you do the math. That way he can't accuse me of telling his age. Oh, I just realized, he was 25 when we were married. The reason I can remember is that at the end of next month, we'll be having an anniversary. I'm thinking of doing something special for that. I'm not sure what as it is a special anniversary so it should be something special.

These lovely ladies reside on the curb. They've gotten so packed together, I can't even pull the weeds out anymore. Once they finish blooming, I think we all know what I'll be doing! I better get an extra big bottle of Aleeve don't you think :D

Last but not least my garden area. I know it doesn't look like much but hopefully next month we'll have all kinds of things popping up. I've planted carrots, peas, tomatoes, peppers, zuchinni, and few other things. I can hear you. You're saying tomatoes, peppers? I don't see anything! Well their at the very back. I'm afraid the rain has rather beat them done and they look rather pathetic. I didn't want to embarrass them by showing them in such a state. I plan to give them some TLC. Hopefully, I'll be able to show them off later. I'm not sure how well the garden will do. It's been awhile since we had one and there is alot of clay in this soil.

Well we'll be having dinner tomorrow night at Dennis' parents house for his 55th birthday. There I did it, I said it. Of course he robbed the cradle, well I can pretend can't I? Anyway, we plan to BBQ unless it rains which is exactly what it's doing right now.

One last thing, I'm working on a painting for my granddaugther, Morgan, I can't wait to show it off before I send it to her. So I hope you'll check back and leave a comment. It's a bit different than anything I've done before.

Porch critters enjoying the wild yellow rose. It smells lightly sweet. It takes me back to growing up on the prairies. In the late summer and fall, I use to collect rose hips for the fun of it. Sadly, these don't have rose hips.

Happy Sunday!