a new family member

My sleeve kitty from Toni

Look who came to live with us. Back on the 9th of April, Toni from Simple Sparrow set out to conduct her own version of a random act of kindness. She made these cute kitties, there was 4 in all, and she decided to give the girl kitties away. All I had to do was leave a comment on her blog and the next night she pulled two comments out of a hat (I think it was a hat) and those were the lucky recipients. Can you believe I won? I can't, I never win ANYTHING! Well she arrived just a few short days later and we all really like our new kitty. He name is Francesca. Thank you Toni for your kindness and your talent. MEOW!!!

this is why...

I wanted to move my studio around in the first place. So my sweet daughter and I could work TOGETHER.
The room is still not organized, hence no other pics besides this one. It is serving the purpose that I wanted and that is all that matters. Except on Thursday she told me "You never do crafts anymore, you just email, email, email" Pretty insightful for a five year old and you know what she is right. Except for the fact that not only am I emailing, I am reading blogs, looking for inspiration, meeting new friends, doing trades and swaps. However i am not crafting with my daughter and THAT needs to change.

back in business

birthday presents from my sistah

Hooray!!! My uploading problem is fixed. I now have a ridiculous amount of photos to show you. Above is the fabulous present I got from my sis for my b-day. A stuffed owl (pearl), An AMAZING piece of art she made. If you want to see a better pic go here. A photo album full of fun stuff - stationery (vintage and new) , ribbon, papers and vintage ephemera. She also gave me vintage wallpaper and a matchbox filled with the tiniest pinecone I have ever seen. Of course there was more stuff but this is what I decided to photograph.

Thanks sis!

My birthday

Today was my birthday. I feel very loved. This made me smile. Thanks to everyone that send wonderful gifts and warm wishes. Being inspired by a post that the talented and kind-hearted Blair wrote on her 40th birthday, I decided to tell you 36 things about myself. Then I thought I could never come up with that many things and not bore you all to tears. Or maybe I am afraid of putting too much out there. So here I go...36 things you may or may not want to know about me.

1. 36 seems really old to me, much older than 35 weird huh?
2. I love ice cream
3. Ever since I had my tonsils out last year, food taste different and my sense of smell is gone
4. I love the fact that i graduated from college
5. I wish I had majored in art
6. My favorite tv show is 24
7. I don't like to be cold.
8. I look better as a blonde
9. I have always printed because I don't like my handwriting.
10. I wish I had my children at a younger age
11. I eat cereal almost every morning for breakfast
12. I am afraid of most small living creatures (lizards, mice,bunnies, hamsters)
13. I wish I saw my mom and sister more often
14. I love the color robin's egg blue
15. Going to the movies was never important to me until I had kids and never seem to get to go
16. Reading US Weekly is a guilty pleasure I indulge in once in a while
17. I just recently felt comfortable calling myself an artist
18. I spend too much time on the computer
19. Real birds gross me out, but I love bird symbolism
20. I don't mind being alone
21. My hubby and I don't get to hang out enough
22. I am a perfectionist
23. I get teased because I often match my shoes to my outfit (hey i grew up in the 80's)
24. I hate cilantro
25. Cooking is not one of my favorite things to do (at all)
26. This is much harder than I thought
27. The only thing I ever wanted to be was a mom.
28. I have trouble relaxing when we go on vacation
29. I have never made anything from "scratch"
31. I need to exercise more
32. Having paint all over my hands makes me happy
33. I hate the whole process of "getting ready" in the morning
34. I adore shopping, for everything except underwear
35. My favorite food is sushi
36. My kids mean EVERYTHING to me

if you are still with me, thanks for indulging me. it is almost officially not my birthday anymore.
good night

isn't it pretty?

home sweet home necklace by yankee girl design

Isn't this just the sweetest necklace you have ever seen? I have been dreaming of finding something like this for so long. I bought the blue one about a month ago at Yankee Girl Design. Lindsey (the artist) is an absolute doll. She sent me this pic to post. Thanks Lindsey!

I'm still having computer problems. Definitely don't want to talk about that. I'm a little grumpy about the whole thing.

What else...Ellia is hosting Sweet Pea Swap #2 vintage love. It's all about the vintage baby! I can't wait. Her last swap was GREAT. Sign up!

Still wanting to show you my goodies. Hoping to fix the problem soon.

technical difficulties

We are not very happy about this...

My computer is acting up again. Hence the no posting for days on end. I am able to access my email and my blog however I am unable to unload any of my new pics to my computer. And really what fun is a blog post without pictures. I have so much to show you...birthday presents, a few new purchases (i have a tendency to buy my own birthday presents), a new family member and a pic of why I moved my studio. But alas, I have a computer that basically shuts down when I click on HP director. Argh!!!!! The frustration level is rising as the days go by.

So bear with me folks.

not a very good idea

spanish word atc 2004

So I've been thinking for a while that I wanted to change my studio around. I wanted to have more "working space" and a place for an inspiration wall. So Sunday afternoon I decide to get the ball rolling. I figure I have two days to get it all back in order, plus my husband was home to help me move furniture and help with the kids. So... it's Tuesday afternoon and I am still not done putting everything away. I have no idea how I had all this stuff organized before I moved it around . This just reinforces the use what you have mantra to me. I have SO much stuff! Well I just wanted to peep out from under all this stuff and say hello. I will try to get back to regular posting this week. I got a really cool birthday present from my sis that I want to show off, did i say that? I mean show you!

i've been tagged

I've been tagged by ms. ellia at greenbeanbaby brought to you by the number 5

1. Five minutes to yourself: how would you spend them, ideally? Since we are talking ideally, my mailman would have already come, I'd go check the mail and in my mailbox would be all the swap packages I am missing. Reality-I'd probably check my email

2. Five bucks to spend right now: how would you spend it? I'd go get a chocolate chip shake from Baskin Robbins

3. Five items in your house you could part with, right now, that you hadn't thought of already? My Martha Stewart magazine collection. I love them all but I can never get the projects as perfect as martha

4. Five items you absolutely, positively could never part with in your house? My art journals, all our pictures and albums, my hard drive, my somerset studio magazine collection. (way more than 5 items)

5. Five words you love? my daughter's name, my son's name, my husband's nickname, super cool and nest.

Thanks for the fun ellia. I now tag my only two blogger friends (besides ellia) Amy and K.

easter break?

my tiny bunny four years ago

I guess I took a mini blog vacation. Didn't really mean to, just kinda happened.

Five things I did while I was "away"

1. Got to visit with my mom and my sis.

2. Got to go to a friend's art show opening in Santa Barbara (thanks mom for watching the kids)

3. Went shopping at Anthropologie

4. Won a sleeve kitty from Simple Sparrow ( hooray)

5. Learned that more than 5 people read my blog

brown is the new black

object de sepia 5 x7 collage on canvas copyright 2005

I think people either love brown or hate it. I have grown to love brown over the years. Brown once had a bad reputation because it used to hang out with orange and avocado green in the 1970's. Today brown rolls with with pink, blue and green. Much better. Viva le brown!

i *heart* green

red vs. green 5x7 collage on canvas copyright 2004

I love green. My wardrobe is filled with this color. It has so many shades. It is the color of life. Like blue it is a color that is a main staple in my artwork. This is an earlier piece that I am almost embarrased to post. However it shows my progress and evolution as an artist.

I got great new today! Somerset is considering another one of my pieces for publication. I don't want to go into too much detail because I don't want to jinx it but yay, my heart is singing with joy.

Oh yeah, and rain rain go away!!!!

blue

collage 12 x 9 copyright 2005

Blue was easy. Most of the artwork I create has some sort of blue in it somewhere. Blue reminds me of sunny days with crystal blue skies or glilmering water in Maui. What does blue remind you of?

Yellow

I found out about week of colors from my sis's blog and she found it here. Look here for more amazing yellow pictures. I don't use a whole lot of yellow but I did notice today it's on a ton of food packaging. Wonder what the psychology is behind that one?

use what you have: day one

This

and

This

are why I really need to try to do this. I have soooo much stuff! I could do art for the rest of my life and not run out of supplies. In these pictures you are seeing are only about 1/5 of my studio, think about how much more *stuff* I have. It is in full production mode and is just too messy to be photographed. This is going to be a real challenge for me but I really want to try. I'll keep ya posted!