PAINT, PAINT, PAINT

The holidays are rapidly forthcoming. I took time out to get the house clean, the presents wrapped, and am now awaiting my holiday company arrival.  My cousin is bringing my mother for the holidays. She will stay with us until after Christmas. We are looking forward to her visit. Us girls always have fun doing more shopping and all of the wonderful meals that will be produced. I have a comfortable chair all ready for my mother in my painting studio. We can visit while I paint or she can read her book while I'm painting. She used to be a talented ceramic painter and teacher. However, her hands won't allow her to paint any more without a tremendous amount of pain. I have some of her pieces displayed.  I guess I get my love of painting from her.

How deep is deep? How shallow is shallow?

I am trying to get ready for the holidays and for holiday company. I love having company for the holidays. However, I'm not having enough time to paint. I've got a new shipment of art canvases and am ready to fill them. I also want to start my art classes for children too. So much to do, too little time to do it in. And some time or some where I need to have an art show and get rid of some of these painted canvases.
I wonder if Santa will think I've been naughty or nice this year? I'll keep you posted when the big day arrives.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Americans everywhere. My kitchen will be smelling good when my mother gets here. She is a wonderful cook. My daughter inherited her cooking skills too. They both are great cooks. Me, well I cook and I love to eat my cooking but eating someone elses cooking is so much better.

Posting of a few paintings

WINNER OF APRON

Guess what Apronunlimited? Since you were the only one who became a follower of mine, you won the Thanksgiving Apron. I am so honored to have you as a follower. I will be sending you your Thanksgiving Apron you won this week. Enjoy.
 I see you are published for two aprons, you designed, in the annual Apron-ology Magazine this past February 2010.  And now you have been told they are doing a feature of you showing your Mother and Daughter aprons you designed. This issue will be out on the stands February 2011. I will be looking for the magazine as soon as it pops out in the stores. Congratulations. It's wonderful to see another designer get recognition. Come see me again.

NOVEMBER IS HERE

I love this time of the year. All of the fall holidays bring back memories of when I was a young child. The smell of my mother baking would drift through the house for weeks as we anticipated the big feast. She was a baking fiend. We would have cakes, cookies, and of course just before the big feast of Thanksgiving, the pies would line the cabinet. We never thought about calories. Then as soon as Thanksgiving was over she started the frenzy of baking again. I have been able to collect most of her recipes. The wonderful news for my family is my mother is coming to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with us this year and I want to bake some of her recipes when she gets here. What fun we will have. My daughter has the holiday meals at her home but we can load the car up and bring our favorite dishes, ready to eat, with us. I treasure every holiday I get to spend with my mother as she was 85 this year. My granddaughter loves having time with her too. I lost my father 6 years ago so each day I spend with my mother is precious. I look forward to having her here at my home so we can talk about the previous holidays. It will be a fun time for my daughter's family too. I wish each and everyone a wonderful fun time during the holidays also.
Happy Holidays Everyone.

THANKSGIVING APRON

All followers, jump on the band wagon. I'm giving away this Thanksgiving Apron for my contest this month. Anyone who writes a comment on my blog and follows me will automatically go into a random drawing the first week of November, 2010. This apron is my design. I drew the designs, cut out the material, and sewed the appliques on the apron. This will make a great attraction at your Thanksgiving Dinner or give it as a hostess gift if you are attending dinner at someone else's home.  Click on the "Pumpkin Pie Oh My" Apron to get a good look. Thanks for coming aboard.

LOOK WHAT I DID THIS PAST WEEK

l

Look what I did this past week. I'm used my artistic talents and designed some  new appliques for shirts and aprons. I've been appliquing clothes for over 20 years and women across the nation own my appliqued clothes. I have these items pictured listed on Etsy. Several of these adorable shirts are for curveous sizes through 3X. My aprons will fit all sizes. Each tie measures 36" so almost any size can fit my aprons. I draw, design, and sew all of my appliques onto the garments, most all enhanced with Swarvoski Rhinestones. I also have shirts I enhanced with unusual trim listed too. Go to my etsy to see the descriptions of each item listed. 

WATCH FOR MY CONTEST FORTH COMING. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BECOME A FOLLOWER OF MY BLOGSPOT. A RANDOM WINNER WILL WIN A FUN PRIZE . I WILL TRY AND GET A PICTURE OF THE PRIZE POSTED IN THE NEXT DAY OR TWO. 

I

There's A Change In The Wind

Fall is my favorite time of the year. A couple of days ago the wind here in the Hill Country changed. We will still have some hot weather during the day but at night it will start cooling down. And before we know it, October will be here.  I was looking through one of my cookbooks this morning and found a new recipe to try. I baked a new pumpkin muffin, Tested it out on some friends and they all seem to like this one. So maybe it will be a keeper for a morning with coffee treat on a cool morning. yummmm.
 I keep passing the boxes of Halloween decorations in the garage and want to tear them open so I can refresh my memory of years past. I love to decorate my yard with scarecrows, spiders, and witches. I already visalize the children running and laughing to where I'm sitting among the pumpkins. I love to dress up for the special event. This year I'm the Lollypop Witch. I will have lollypops glued on to my dress and hat. And I have gift bags filled with rubber spiders, bats, and skeletons and 5 lollypops all tied up with black and orange and puple curly tie ribbon. Yes, I have the bags already packed and ready to deliver. I did them last week.  I also have color books and story books for my trick or treaters. We usually get around 200 kids. Each year the number is growing.  My son in law also decorates his yard. We have the best decorated houses on the block. People drive by just to see our decorations. We live 4 houses apart. However, he does out do me. He has a large blown up black hurst with 4 horses. Inside the carriage hurst is a headless skeleton all lite up. Its like 20 feet long. Its fantastic. Now this year I have to think up something to out do him. Hmmmm, what am I going to do? Anyone have any ideas? Drop me a comment.
Then after Halloween, we have the antiscipation of Christmas coming. A wonderful time of the year. And again there will be lots of decorations outside and inside. Once again, we try to outdo each other in the yard. My daughter and I love to cook. We already have the cookbooks out trying to decide what new desert we will put out on the tables this year.
I will take some pictures and put them on here for you to see.
Bring on the cool weather. I'm ready.

Dancing with a Paint Brush In My Hand~Time to Get Busy

I have created for as long as I can remember. Whether it was drawing, crafting, and then in the 70's when I was living in Norway, I found an art teacher. My life took on a new meaning. While others were going to womens group meetings or playing cards, I was painting. When we were packing up to come back to America my Nowegian neighbor came to visit. She saw the stacks and stacks of painted canvases leaning against the wall. She looked them over and asked if she could invite her friends and relatives to come and see them. Would I be willing to sell any of them. I was delighted to say the least. My first one woman show. And I sold all.  This encouraged me to keep on painting. We moved to Corpus Christi and I found a wonderful teacher who taught the Old Masters Technique. A year later, I entered my first judged showing and won a blue ribbon for first place. A couple of months later I won a red ribbon at another show and a few months later I won a Best of Show.
Three years later my husband died and I stopped painting. I took up designing ceramic jewelry and sold my pieces at Dallas Apparel Market.  I had fun but this wasn't what I wanted. I wasn't happy in mass production of my designs.
I moved to Tennessee and my daughter and I opened a retail shop for approximately five years.  Just before we moved back to Texas we started making handcrafted soap and sold it as fund raisers for schools, churches, and organizations. It was fun for awhile but I still didn't seem to have the spark I was looking for. We gave up that business last year.  My daughter started designing aprons and was featured in the Apronology magazine for two of her aprons this past spring.
Well I'm back into my canvas painting. Oils, acylics, and watercolors. I love the rich vibrant colors. I have been inspired by looking at all of the work of my blog friends. It is so wonderful to see all of the talent we have on here. I will look forward to hearing from some of you and hope you will follow me too. I am still following and meeting new friends each week. Look for my paintings soon. I am going to put them on Etsy and hope to sell them. I am like most artist, I need to replace my supplies. Have a blessed day.

DANG, I HOPE I'M NOT A HOARDER

After watching the popular movie Hoarder, it scares me to think a person can get into that kind of trouble. However, as much as I like to shop, I do like a clean house and can only have stuff sitting around for so long.  I'm trying to downsize boxes and boxes of treasures?  Well, I call them treasures.  I have antiques from Grandmothers and my mother. I have antiques I bought overseas many years ago. I moved into a smaller home and need to downsize big time. I have opened up trunks and boxes and found things I forgot I even had. Yes, it's time to downsize. I do believe I'm going to have to have a garage sale as it will take me years to get rid of these things on line. Keep me posted and I will tell you when and where. I will have to wait until this heat lets up some. It was like a furnance out in my garage today. Yes, I do believe summer has found us in the Hill Country in Texas.

Summer Time And The Heat Is Coming

Living in Texas is wonderful. If you have never visited here or lived here you should consider it. You never know what the weather is going to do. We have had a very cool July when compared with the previous years. And who knows what August will bring. The weather man says it is going to be very hot now. However, I've heard the weather man say we are going to have a sunny day and it starts pouring rain an hour later. So what ever the weather forth coming at least its been a nice summer, so far. I hope you are having great weather in your area too.  At least I will be inside taking pictures and listing the many boxes of items I need to put on ebay and etsy.  I have many treasures to list so I decided to just take a box at a time. Wahoo.

Another Challenge Lurks Around The Corner

I'm the proud owner of a new HP computer and printer as you found out a couple of days ago by a previous blog. Here I think I'm all set to list my treasures on Ebay and Etsy, but guess what? Neither one of the two cameras are working properly. So, I have decided to ditch both of them and go buy another camera. I am determined to start selling boxes full of antiques, books, and treasures. And I'm excited on my decision. As my mentor Tony Robbins says, go forth with determination and all will come together.
May all of your troubles be less, your blessing be more and nothing but happiness come through your door.

Boxes and Boxes of Vintage Treasures

Okay, it's time for digging and I do mean some mean, gut renching, down right digging. I have boxes all over my garage, still packed, with no place to put the treasures. Today I decided it's time to load Etsy and Ebay.
In the first box, I found 2 Halloween die cut deco art embossed on heavy cardboard, by H E Luhr, from the 40' and 50's. After researching I found some very interesting information on the die cuts. I knew they were old as I've had them for years. 
In the same box I also found some old books and a Vintage Tupperware set. Its a salad dressing server with 3 bowls/lids with the holder. I think I used it for condiments a long time ago. Gosh that thing has to be 30 or 40 years old. Its in mint condition. It's been packed away for a long time.
I have vintage items from overseas, from my mother, and grandmother. I also have antiques and more vintage treasures I purchased through the years when I had my antique and crafts shop. However, realization has set in, I bought a much smaller house than I'm used to and have to depart with a lot of things before they ruin.
Give me a few weeks and I will have my sites loaded. I will let everyone know when I get some of the things on line. It will take me months to get all of these treasures unpacked. I do have my work cut out for me. But I love it.

SWEET COMES IN A SPECIAL WRAPPING

I'm the luckiest person on blogspot. My darling daughter gave up her off day to come and unload my old computer. Then she patiently uploaded my new computer. I'm slightly antique and when it comes to the computer a little ignorant but have promised myself to communicate more with my brain in learning the computer sites. 
 Thank you so much my darling daughter for all of your help today and also for all of the lessons in computer skills.