The summer night is like a perfection of thought. Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)

Sunday, a summer day. I can hear a lawn mower in the distance. No kids playing yet, but I am sure they will be out later, screeching and calling to each other. The robins have found another home to lay their second brood and sometime tonight the town will shoot of the fireworks that were canceled by rain last night.
I have been busy the last few weeks. I painted Meghan's room while she was away in Florida. She had a great time with friends and came home to an orange room that had been planned for 2 years. I only had a gallon of paint, my mum and dad had bought it when they came to visit in 2007 to thank her for letting them stay in her room. It was only enough for 3 walls so instead of trying to match the color I did one wall in a blue/purple color. It was difficult to move around the room with her furniture in the middle of the room, the mattress and box spring leaning against a wall that I wasn't painting. I managed though and she was surprised when she got home, I think that the Jonas brothers poster was the thing she enjoyed most though. I had put it in a poster frame and it is up on her wall, so she can change the poster when she gets tired of them (hopefully soon). One of the things I am most excited about is taking off her closet door, which gives her a lot more room. Now just to find a beaded curtain to cover up the mess inside. I saw a wonderful glow in the dark one that I want to get.

Unfortunately I have been plagued by back and neck pain for a few weeks now and it is hard for me to do much of anything. Sitting in the computer chair is only comfortable if I lean back, which doesn't help with my typing and sitting in the recliner is OK, except for getting in and out. Turning over in bed is almost impossible and sitting on the hard kitchen chairs is not too comfy either. I have managed to get a few things done, but mostly I have been reading and feeling lazy, not wanting to bend over for anything I don't have to.

I sorted my photos. I know I have more somewhere but the ones I had in plastic containers here in the living room I went through and sorted into categories. I tried to go by the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid) and it seemed to work, just picking a few titles to start, family, friends, places, and of course the three kids. Troy and I had one category together as there are a lot of photos with both of us in. It actually went pretty fast. Then I started sub-categories. Troy's family, Laura's family, Parents etc. I am not done with that part yet, but I am really glad to have the photos in some sort of order, now to find the rest that are hiding in the house in a dark corner somewhere. I think the hardest thing is going to be purging the pictures, letting go of something that I once thought important enough to take a picture of.


What started me off sorting the pictures was a list of things I want to scrap into albums. I found a starter on Plinky. "What values do you want to instill in your kids?". That got me to thinking and then I thought about others that I want to do. I would like to make a green book. Green in my favorite color and it would be easy to pull the things I have that are green together into an album. Also, suggested in an online magazine, Scrapbook & Cards today,I saw an article that suggested using facebook as a journal, expecialy those 25 random fact notes that I have participated in. Another great blog is Creativity Prompt that has lots of ideas for blogging and scrapbooking and jornaling, I don't think I will ever get through them all. There are so many resources on line that it is easy to get distracted from actually doing to just browsing. I really want to set a goal of 'doing' so I can get some real things done.

I will say that contrary to my quote for the title of my post I am not a fan of summer. Hot, sticky and buggy: my least favorite things. Spring and fall are much more my style. The mornings with the frost on the grass. The rustle of leaves sounding like the sea or the seemingly dead trees showing new buds ready to burst with bright green. I do enjoy the longer days and the summer fruits and vegetables though.



So off I go to do. Well maybe after a nap.

Skipping around

As you have noticed by now I have a tendency to skip from one project to the next a lot. Yesterday was sewing day. I got the machine out. I had ironed the fabrics the day before. I started to sew and, again, my concentration went from one thing to another and I didn't get much of anything accomplished. First I made a pin cushion as I have misplaced the ones I have and I needed a place to stick pins. I also made a hammock for the rats. I did make a muslin pattern for a doll torso. I then unpicked it and drafted the pattern on paper. Hopefully this will work for me to make a doll body without too much trouble. I had the idea of making awesome outfits rich in embroidery and rich fabrics. AHHH time! time is my enemy too. Sitting and trying to do one thing is almost impossible for me, I think what I need to do is stay focused and put any ideas that come to me on paper for another day, when the first project is finished. While dinner was cooking I was planning on using those minutes to finish some sewing, but alas, my focus shifted and I actually got my son to help me put the trim back around our sliding door and hang the curtain rod I have bought. I had one of the two panels I had bought and we put that up for now, even though they are ugly. (cheap) I will probably get a king size sheet to put up instead, but it is up and we finally have some privacy from the road behind our house.
I have some more of my art projects to share with you today. Things I have done in the last year or so that I have actually finished.

This is a tote bag I made for an online game I play. We all get a gift ready and then we are given a secret number for our gift. We pick in an order. Number one goes first and picks a number not knowing what the gift is, then number two picks to either steal number ones gift or pick a new number. As the order of picking gets longer, the steals get longer and it is a mess! But it is lots of fun, and I have made lifelong friends playing. Right now I am in my 8th game. It is not really about the gifts but the friends we make along the way. We share hopes and dreams, our days; good and bad and we support each other in ways that only friends can.



These are a couple of ACEO's that I have made. I used watercolor on these two and I am not up to speed on watercolor so an experiment really. I have swapped a few of these and I like to make them because they are quick and I don't feel I have to be perfect with them.

While I was looking for pictures I found this. My Mum and Dad came to see me from England and one day I drove them out to a park near our house. There is a pond when you walk in, before you go deep into the woods and trails and I took this picture for them. I thought it was so good I have it framed too. I think for me, it is more a memory of a moment in time, than the actual composition that I love about it. We had a great day and visit that day. Early spring and the shoots were bright green.

This is a sketch I did recently while I was watching TV.
I was searching on the web for altered art dolls and found some fabulous instructions for making sculpted faces. This is my effort in that area, a mix of all the techniques that I found. Just the head, and the others I made into magnets for the fridge. I love this one and wanted to keep it to myself. It is still sitting around waiting to be made into something, a pin, a magnet or something.

Which led to this, I was playing around trying to make an art doll, and I came up with this shape and put a face on her. Then I went to town decorating her with embroidery and beads. I want to change the shape of the dolls and that is what led me to making a pattern for a torso yesterday.
So there you have it, a peek at what I have been doing and hopefully where I am heading. Things pile up and sometimes I look back and get a better idea.
Today I have an appointment and I will take my moleskine to doodle in while I am waiting. Maybe I will get the plans down for some more projects or even to finish some that I already have.
If only I could concentrate on just one thing, I might get a lot accomplished.