25 Years Ago...

This one was born...

my how time flies!

Sad Day for our Family

(andrew, nicole and nathan circa 1989)
Found out this morning that my 25 yr old cousin was found dead in his bed.
I can't begin to imagine what my aunt went through finding him-and all the events
following that discovery. I'm glad we have lots of family in St Louis to be there for
the family-i'll be heading north for a funeral next week.
We miss you already Andrew-RIP
How do you say goodbye to one so young? what do you say to family that sounds adequate?
words can't convey what you feel for the loss of one so young. Death is a part of life, but it seems so much harder to understand when someone leaves us this early-didn't get to fulfill a lifetime.
nathan and andrew 1989

Aug 8th

My mother in law turned 89 this wk-we all met up at Razoo's on sunday for dinner~
randy, marian, mary, randy & gary
randy, randy, marian, gary and me~

Road Trip

OK, so we only went to Weatherford to eat pizza, but it was a bit of a drive. They have good pizza, reminds me of Italian Inn that finally closed in the 90's due to the crime in the area.
We also ended up here. We went to Gibsons alot when i was growing up. (at least when we lived in Texas) got many a school supply and stationery pad there. The last time I was in one was when we lived in Alice. in Jr High. remember looking at the stationery so i could write friends back in Hurst-and at the crafty stuff. Brought back alot of memories!

And here's Gary-checking out the toys-

Art Day

Monday i watched this little one~and she wanted to do "arts and crafts" so we did. I got out the paper, ink pads, rubber stamps, scissors, glue stick and paints. Guess what the favorite was?
She made 2 books, 1 realllly big book for her mom. A BIG card for Nathan and just played.
We made handprints in paint-even footprints-(mom doesn't know about those yet) but it washes off so it's ok~ :)
i think i finally have everything put away again-waiting for next time...

Homemade Goodness...

Saw this on Alisa Burk's blog and since i had just made up a batch of choc. chip cookie dough
the night before, thought-why not? so i had a homemade ice cream sandwich-yum!

Collage Playground book Giveaway

Go to this link to see the info for the giveaway of this book: Collage Playground

F+W Media has gifted the Marketplace with a copy of Collage Playground for someone to win. the above link will tell you what you need to do to enter! good luck!

Chaos and the Cattle Barn...

How can these two have anything in common? Moreso than you think. I've been *trying* to go through my art room and purge. I've got the giveaway pile, the trash and the sell piles. It's verrrry slow going. Sometimes i walk in and turn around and leave. Other times i get inspired to start a project or work on an ongoing one. Needless to say-it's a slow process. I want to narrow down some of my art stash, but it's hard to do when you are into mixed media.
THIS is what my room looks like right now-
There are piles of stuff EVERYWHERE in the room-stuff in boxes...need more bookshelves now that dresser is out. haven't found any so may just build what i want. Spent hours in here last night going through things and rearranging others. The naked eye can't tell, but i can!
Today i needed a break so decided to head to the Cattle Barn Flea Market in ft worth. I thought it *might* be a bit cooler today w/the clouds (no air, just fans all over) it IS a cattle barn after all.
It was cooler, but humidity set in-i didn't go there to look pretty or impress, so that was fine and since i was dripping wet by the time i left, a good philosophy.
I dug. I dug through boxes, bins and shelves. 2 1/2 hrs later and $20. poorer, here is what i came home with-can you see today's theme? Like i need to add anything else to "the room?"
no, but hey, i have plans for this stuff....

And finally-Happy Birthday to Nala! She turned 7 on fri so got to celebrate with a few treats from Three Dog Bakery-of course, she was a good girl and shared with Jack and Riley!

KC Willis~

If you're one of the few who hasn't been to collage camp~ now is your chance to-for a discount.
Check out this post on her blog to get the details. I joined last spring- and it was wellllll worth the price-and for a short time, you can join for $54~KC does beautiful work-you can see it on her website if you haven't-taking her online class will show you how she gets her "look."

So Far This Week

Fireworks and concert sun night in Hurst. Saw Emerald City again-really like them. Mom, Dad, Gary, Myself, Nathan, Ashley and Jade were all there. Brought our picnic dinner-drinks, snacks etc... enjoyed the evening.Here is some stuff i've come across while mowing this summer-the first is a skunk skeleton-i still need to really look at it, but waited a month to pick it up after first finding it. The second is my frog skeleton and bird wing-obviously the bird lost whatever fight it was in.

The following is some of my current art-they'll be on Etsy soon. Last is a picture of the yardstick i made to display stuff on-saw this on another blog from "where bloggers create" and had to copy the idea. Old yardstick and tiny cuphooks-screw them in then use for display. Great idea!

Catching Up-Again

Been putting off posting due to 'where bloggers create' but it's time to get back to it~
Here is something i picked up last wkend.
This is my metal folding measuring stick. First time i had seen one made of metal (and wouldn't you know, i saw a 2nd one this wk-n0t as good a price though) love the font of these numbers. here it is unfolded~i'll be making another shape from this to hang on display.
This is just a pile of some of the rusty stuff i've found this week. I also have a frog skeleton and a skunk skeleton-haven't taken photo's of those yet but will soon~don't know yet how i'll use them, but i have something in mind :)

Catching up and PSA

I didn't want to post this past wk so you won't have to scroll to see my space, but it's time to get back to blogging :)
First a PSA (public service announcement) i like to say on this day every year now~
DO NOT STICK NAILS OR PINS IN YOUR MOUTH WHILE HANGING PICTURES OR
SEWING! if you wonder why? read this to see just what can happen. to see the actual nail
click here. It is now nicely framed and hangs in the dining room as a reminder. :)
will add some pictures later of stuff from the past wk~

Where Bloggers Create

Disclaimer: my room doesn't "quite" look like this now-it's in the middle of being boxed up/reorganized and purged :)








As usual, late to the party~should have done this last night, but had another commitment...
Once upon a time, we moved into the home where we currently reside. It had 3 bedrooms and a game room. This meant that i would get the smallest bedroom for my artroom! yea. I couldn't wait-no more dining table for me. I got 2 cabinets from a building surplus store for the base of my table. that way i could house more stuff. One side was a 3-drawer cabinet and the other was one drawer and one door-small shelf inside to house some larger things. We came across and HEAVY piece of wood in a warehouse that my husband had access to-they used to build lockers for golf locker rooms and this was a piece they left. i cut it down to 6ft long by 3 ft wide. yes it would take up alot of room but that meant a friend could work on one side, me on the other if needed. and i could store stuff on top too at each end.
The game room was used as the computer/tv room. My son and his friends hung out there in HS. Many a night 1/2 the soccer team spent the night on that floor-i mention this because it's a good sized room-that came w/built in desk/shelves and wet bar. We had a tv, couch, desk and comp table in there. (and extra room)
Fast forward a few yrs when i my art room table was "full" and i moved projects out to the dining room, kitchen and living room. My husband looked around and said, "i think you need to move your artroom to the game room." I looked at him innocently and said "you think so?" (couldn't have planned that if i TRIED) but not that others can't learn from it :)
It was a task to pack up and just move down the hall-but oh so worth it. Now i had a sink in the room and didn't have to go into the bathroom for cups of water. and more space. One wall was taken up with the bar/desk but that was ok-it was mine.
Walk in and this is what you see-although i have removed the dresser now-it took up too much room for too little storage.

i found this red couch at an estate sale. couldn't pass it up as it a)was brand new practically and b)was a sleeper (for guests) Originally was going to go in the living room, but found something else since i couldn't find a piece at that time to go with it. That's ok, works in the art room.
I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. the room is currently undergoing another change-trying to purge and re-organize to fit more what art i'm doing now.
Alot of my "pretties" are put away for the time being. These containers were made for me by a friend-put to good use.



vintage stamps found at an estate sale for $8! Love old books to use for the words or just nostalgia


my printers tray of "bling" (a portion of it anyway!) and my lights! i have lights hanging all over the room-mostly halloween but it makes it magical at night~
and for all those who hear comments from people-or your spouse- that don't "get it" when it comes to our stash/hoarding tendancies: I have a friend who was robbed some yrs ago. The only room in the house they didn't touch was her artroom-robbers figured there was nothing in there. (guess where I hide things now) this was fact as the muddy footprints throughout the house stopped at the art room door!

More Alice Pictures

More pages from the Alice in Wonderland swap. This is an 8 X 10 size page. Found a B & W picture online and printed, colored it and added it to scrapbook paper. I embellished it a bit and it's ready to be added to the book it will go in.


This is a smaller book. Again, found online picture to print and color. This one is adhered to a background that i painted. I color copied the colored piece, then glued that to the paper. Cut out the original and glue dotted it on for dimention.