Annette from Just Annette tagged me to post the 5th picture from my 5th folder. Well the 5th folder was video clips as was the 4th. So this is the 5th picture from the 6th folder. I hope that's alright.
This is Miss Daisy Mae after a hard day of playing. Notice how stylish she is with her pink camaflouge.

New Quote:

Each new season grows from the leftovers from the past. That is the essence of change, and change is the basic law.

Just a little ATC I've been playing around with. It is mounted on white cardstock, but that didn't show up. Thinking of love and happiness reminds me of a quote by Abraham Lincoln which goes like this, "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Somedays I would disagree but some days not. Previously I talked about having a life worth living you have to take care of it. Our choices help us to be happy. Our forgiveness or learning to be more gentle with ourselves certainly contribute to our happiness. I challenge you to do one truly spiritually lifting activity and then post about it. When you've done that come back and let me know. Some us may need an idea or two.

Update:
So early I was talking about choices and challenged people to do something spiritually uplifting. Now I realize chances of someone coming back to link to this post are pretty slim, that's okay. Oh, I think that was a ploy for pity (smiling). Anyway, today when I went to work, I thought about that. In the morning group I conduct, we've been talking about emotion regulation. We talked about short term gains versus long term gains. What's my challenge got to do with this? Hold on be patient. I wanted the women to think what were the reinforcers that contributed to their less than stellar behaviors. In the second half of the group we talked about recognition and how could we recognize this. Also how could we talk to ourselves different. Now are you still listening? This is where the challenge part comes in. I pulled out a set of gel pens (84 of them) and while they experimented with color, I talked about color in connection with our moods. We discussed how the use of color could be a good skill with emotion regulation.

I mentioned how they could purposely choose clothes or home decor that might influence their emotions. You could see for some of the women, lights went on!

For some, they just enjoyed playing with colors. It was nice to see the smiles. One woman even drew a picture for her granddaughter. It really picked my spirit up watching them make a connection with something so simple.

These are the selections at my Etsy Shop. They have been repriced incase you've already stopped over. I didn't know much about how to price. I asked a few people, but they weren't really helpful. I guess I wanted someone to say price them for this much. Anyway, I greatly reduced them from the original price. I think it's probably much more in line with what it should be.
Old Lady's Lace

Rising Sun

Lloyd's Mom Feared He'd Be Class Clown

Geraldine Always Wanted to Play in the School Band

Psalm 29

I must say it is a learning process. There is so much variety out there. Hope you're enjoying the OWOH event. I don't think I'm going to get around to everyone so I'm glad the links stay up so I can continue to visit. That's really the best part after all.

Hubby's Hobbie

So this is one of my husband's hobbies. He likes to find, cut and polish agagtes.
Sometimes I see what he can see in them and sometimes not.

Just like he can sometimes see in my art what I do, and sometimes not.

The neat thing is, he'll make me hearts and stars. He's given me a few pieces I believe would be good for the body of a doll pendent or ornament. Someday he may do something more than make me things with them. He gets as excited over agates as I do over a good piece of bling!

Anyway, it's always fun to see if we can find a picture or pretty pattern. Someday I'll take a pic of one I won't let him cut. To me it looks like a snow tiger of sorts.

I just love sparkles! I get to see them first thing in the morning since I have to keep my dresser and my clothes in the closet of my craft room. Sigh, it's hard to call it a studio when you have dirty socks laying on the floor, if you know what I mean.
My poor little button jars. They are getting so empty! They are begging to be fed. I've been a bad mom!. Looks like grocery shopping is in order (smiling broadly).

Since I am a participant, I didn't make any grand announcement, but I did finally get my Etsy shop open. I hope you stop by to see my shop. Don't forget to sign up on the last post to enter in my drawing. It must be that post only! Good luck.

One World - One Heart

Well people, I wanted to let you know about One World - One Heart. It's just one of the biggest blog events this side of Mars!! Since Lisa said it so eloquently, here is her explanation of it all. It was an event created to bring bloggers the world wide to get together so that we might get to know others. It is a fantastic event. The original idea behind this giveaway event was to bring bloggers together from around the world who may never ordinarily meet. It closes the gap of the blog community and enables us to interact, discover new and wonderful people, and in the process possibly win a prize or many prizes along the way. 2007 had roughly 85-90 participants and many connections were made because of it......friendships that are still going strong.We had a strong showing the first year for sure, and then in 2008 we had just about tripled that number.This is more than wanting to win something.......that is only the means.......in the end it's about finding kindred spirits. Someone who may be fairly new to blogging, not sure how to navigate, find others and have others find them....Some are long time bloggers and in some cases well known in the art community. Whatever the case it brings all of them together. This is an INTERNATIONAL event that has and had participants from the US, Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Malaysia, Brazil, The Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, England,Wales, Slovenia and more. It transcends geographical location, socio economics, political affiliation, religious beliefs......it's a coming together like the giant community we are on this planet. If only it took a simple giveaway to create PEACE everywhere, in the mean time here we give from our hearts. We are not solving the worlds problems nor are we curing anything nor are we changing the world. We are merely generating a closer community between humans through blogging.

This is the second year that I've participated. To win, people need to leave a comment on THIS post only for a chance to win. My drawing is open to EVERYONE. I will be on February 12th and will let you know who the winner(s) are. If you click the logo, you'll be taken to the site where you can find out more about this event. There is also a fantastic listing of all those participating. If I could take vacation time so I could go see everyone, I would. Last year, I was on overload trying to visit everyone. It was a blast. You must really do this. My favorite list grows every year after this event.

So here are what I'm giving away. The first winner will recieve this print of an original colored pencil drawing. It's title Summer Night and is 8 1/2' x 11". By the way, the drawing is open to everyone, please though leave me a way to contact you if you should win.

The second item is this set of tags. They have been stamped and embossed with the word always.

Good luck and have fun visiting!!!!!!!!

Update: I didn't expect so many to stop by! There are so many sites to visit. Since I've had such a good response I decided to add one more item to my giveaway. I will add one item from my Etsy Store, your choice.

This evening I spent time looking at eggs on the internet. I really need to get a book. They are fascinating. I knew there were many kinds, but really there is such a huge variation. My little studies don't do some justice like the emmu egg as I didn't have the right colored pencils. It was fun though. Please go visit Rebecca Sower's site. She has a beautiful art piece of hearts and a couple quotes I think you'll appreciate.

Remember this?
It was turned into this. It didn't really turn out how I imagined it would, but it was a good learning experience.

I don't think I should have done the last wash over the whole thing personally but I'm not sure. I don't normally add a final wash like this so it might just be my perception needs to be adjusted.

Today, I couldn't resist sketching in church. Usually, I just doodle. My husband wanted to know why I draw the back of heads. To me, it's like why not. I told him to get better at drawing from different angles.
I've been working on some valentine ATC's. I know Patti plans on having a swap. I might see if there would be anyone else who wants to swap. I've made the same design nine times over. I have a bit more to finish up. I'll post them later. I'm still working on getting something set up with Etsy. I didn't realize everything that would go into it, unless I'm making it harder than it needs to be. So hopefully soon. Have a great Sunday. I think I need to go wash the muck off the car now that it's been thoroughly coated.

Living

If you want to live a life worth living, you have to take care of it.

This is something I tell my clients at work. This caught my eye this morning. I thought how appropriate for the new year. How do I need to take care of my life? One thing I have done, is went to the dentist. That's a very scary thing for me. How else do I need to take care of me? I guess it's time to set some goals for this coming year. Have you thought about this? I'm always curious about other's goals. Some people are good at laying goals out in very practical ways.I would love to see how people do this. I know some people are brave enough to post goals. Let me know if you're one of those brave souls. I'd love to see and I'll bet others would find it encouraging as well.

I'm just in the valentine mood I guess. The stamp I used comes from Stampin' Up, though I believe it's retired. It's called Friendship. I love this woman.
Believe it or not we still have lots of snow, though it is finally starting to melt. Neighborhood roads are abit dangerous though. We have about an inch of ice in front of our house. If it wasn't for the ruts it would make a good skating pond. Well maybe too good because it is very slick.

I've opened an Etsy account which is the first step. Now I need to set up shop. I'm telling you so I have to follow through. A lady at church has been aking me about it and I feel guilty because I haven't yet taken that next step of actually setting up the account. Part of my concern is keeping it stocked. Having an outside job makes it difficult to find time. So that is a concern for me. Anyway, I'm going to start working on setting it up and I'll let you know when it's ready.

Quote: You can never cross the ocean unless you have courage to leave the shore. Christopher Columbus.

I guess it's time I left the shore! Wish me luck.

Tags for Valentines

Here are two new designs for tags. I was thinking of Valentines already!


These little love birds are from a reproduction vintage gift wrap. They are larger than normal so you could add a little poem or love note to your sweety!

I love these little tags. They have a stamped image and word in a monochromatic theme. The tag is outlined in a metallic copper pen. They would be the perfect touch to a package or make a sweet remembrance and could be used as a bookmark.

I like this quote I found. "If we all did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves." This is by Thomas Edison.

Well I received an award from Annette at Just Annette. She's such a sweetheart and one of the most honest people I know when it comes to her sharing on her blog. Annette says how it is. It was very nice of her to share this with me. You'll have to go see what she shared and you'll know what I mean.

So 10 honest things? Really, 10, how about nine or five or even one? Ten, well okay.

1. It scares me to share anything about myself. Strange coming from someone who's posting on the internet right.
2. I always think there isn't anything interesting about me.
3. Saying I like a good cup of coffee is an understatement.
4. I haven't really kept a New Year's Resolution yet! Hence the I shall lose weight, every year!
5. I wasn't a wild child, even when I was trying to be!!
6. Grace is not my middle name for a good reason.
7. I like to stay in my pajamas until noon!
8. I wish I could have my daughter and her family move back to Montana. I miss her so much!
9. When ever I do something, cooking or hobby, you can probably look at my hands or shirt and know what it is I'm doing.
10. I think a spinning bottle has better direction than I do. I get easily lost in new surroundings.

Here's how this works:

you write a post bragging about it, you include the name of the person who gave it to you, a link back to the person who awarded it to you, so everyone knows he or she is real, chose a min. of 7 blogs you like the content or design, or blogger's who have no idea who you are because you don't have 7 friends, show who they are on your post and leave a comment informing them that they are prized with "Honest weblog", and list 10 honest things about your self.

I'm always scared to ask people to participate though I love to pass along awards. Guess that would be number 11. I usually ask whoever reads this to participate and leave a comment that they are. There are so many people out there that do such a good job and deserve an award just for the effort they make in keeping a blog. So don't be shy, take this award and post it. Then let us know so we can find you.

As you may have noticed, things look abit different. In the process of changing some things, I lost a bunch of other things! It might take me awhile to rebuild. I wanted to try something different. I kept going back and forth as whether to delete this blog and start another, or not. The decision was not to at this point. Too many people have this blog's address for one thing. Besides, I figure I can delete different posts or ? Well maybe. So I hope you don't mind while I fiddle with this. One of the things I did do is figure out how to add a third column which is something I've been wanting for a long time. That caused me to lose everything else. Looks like I'll be rebuilding my links and all. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, if not sooner, I'll have it back in shape. Wish me luck. In the meantime,

Here's to new beginnings in a New Year. May it be filled with blessings or as my fingers try to type blissings.

Update:
Well, I've managed to recover quite abit already. I know I don't have it all but I'm not sure what I'm missing.