Apologies to my yard

My yard is a mess.  I did some "spring cleaning" yard work, earlier this week. It doesn't get any easier if you leave it for an extra 7 months.  I didn't have the desire to get out & work my landscape this summer.  It could have been the weird weather we had, which was wetter and cooler than normal.  It could have been the amount of time I spent on the computer, or the fact that we headed to the coast almost every vacation opportunity that we had.  We were very busy people this summer.
Excuses aside, the yard is still a mess.  Let me officially apologize to all my lovely plants, I'm sorry to have negelected you!  Having said that, there are a few bright spots to mention.

My "Limelight" hydrangea.  The flower start out pale cream with pale green.  This year they added this nice pink tinge.

One of my favorite roses, "Electron".  The picture doesn't do the neon pink justice.

A plant find at the Peoria Nursery sale, Thumbergia variety.  AKA: Glory flower.  I will look for this again next year.  It climbs nicely up my arbor, flowers easily and doesn't need full sun. This plant was potted late and didn't have the full summer to do it's thing.

A red geranium my neighbor gave us for watching their dog.  This was from Walmart and is a prolific, continuosly flowering plant.  Would do this one again too.

My "Jack Frost" Brunneria seeded itself into a nearby pot.  The parent plant is in the background. A snapdragon also started itself here.  The hosta was the orginal occupant of the pot.

The bright pink flowers are petunias that volunteered themselves from last years planting.  The lavendar in the middle was planted during my "spring clean up".  It was a clearance plant I found in Florence.

A colorful flower head from my Endless Summer hydrangea growing on the deck in Florence.  I loved all the pretty colors throughout this flower head.

This is a "must have" clematis that is growing on the deck of the condo next to ours in Florence.  I don't know what it is, but I'm glad it's growing my direction and I might have to find a place for one at my house.

My winter project is to find a place to put one of these trees, "Forest Pansy" Redbud.  It is a small tree with big interest.  It flowers with pretty pink flower in the spring. The leaves are green at times and red at other times. The leaf shape as well and tree form are eye catching.  This will find a place in my yard.

So many colors on one tree!

Fantasy Time....

Fantasy Football that is!  This is my second year with a team (team name: Code 3 Fall) and I can say that I love having a fantasy football team. Sundays haven't been the same since I joined the league at work. 
It's hard not to like being league Champion, which I somehow managed last year.  Randy helped me draft my team and gave input as I navigated my first year.  I knew coming into this season that things would be different with a whole new team and a bigger league, so my expectations aren't as high.  Randy helped me pick my team again and I felt pretty good about my players.
Then I had a huge curve thrown at me.  I was suppose to have 2 starting QB's, not one.  With 14 teams in our league there was no way to pick up a starting QB after the draft.  My season is in jeopardy and we've only just begun. 
I've got a 4 week fix with Dennis Dixon filling in for the suspended Ben Rothlisberger, then I'm going to have to scramble to find a QB to get me some points.  For now I'll continue to root for the former Duck as he learns his way through the starting QB job.  Fingers crossed.  Hopefully he doesn't remember any of the "Duck Rants" I had against him.
Yesterday week 1 closed with 2 MNF games, and I ended the week as a surprise winner.  I won my head to head match easily, and   currently I have the highest point total in league with 250 points.  Maybe I do still have a chance to finish near the top of league.  What a great game!!!  Go Peyton!

Summer Fun 2010

Wow, what a great summer I've had.  I've played golf in at Sandpines twice; have taken two golf lessons; have remembered what fun it is to play with thread and fabric; Bought a new sewing machine; Had craft day with the girls in Eugene and Jeri from Maui; Have spent time with my Dad and brother Jason; Spent many nice days in Florence with Randy; have played in pools and lakes with the local family, the east coast Motes and the Portland Motes; went "camping" and had the "Great Motorhome Disaster" on the way home; have been to karate Spirit Camp, traveling with a great bunch of "girls" to Donnelly Idaho; Saw Johnny Limbo and the Lugnuts, Huey Lewis and the News, and Sawyer Brown in concert. The Rods and Rhoddies Festival, an America concert, "Suessical the Musical", and a trip to Sisters, are still to come.  The house has been fixed up this summer as well with a new paint job, front door, garage door and light fixtures.  Earlier in the year we replaced all the windows too. Whew! That explains why the yard is a mess and there is no garden to speak of.  That explains why I just spent the WHOLE day cleaning out my room because it turned into a "dump and run" station.  Overall, I wouldn't change a thing.

Sawyer Brown in concert.  Great seats, what a show he puts on!

Grammy and Devan at Foster Lake base camp.

The Siuslaw River bridge closing after the barge passed by.

Santiam River from Yukwah campground

Relaxed now.  Camping is good.  Driving is bad.

How "she" packs for vacation.

Spirt Camp in Donnelly Idaho.

Devan with Brianna and Annie. Dustin and Derek too.  Pool fun at the Harrisons

Wild Olive: printable thread bobbins...

On Facebook I'd say "Like". 

Use the link to zip over to Wild Olives blog and access the PDF pattern for these cuties!


Wild Olive: printable thread bobbins...: As promised, here they are! These Wound-Up Thread Bobbins are all set for you to print out on card stock and wind up your own embroidery floss on. The PDF has 20 bobbins, each with a different color floss on it...but of course, you can use them for all your lovely colors!

Download, print, and smile as you stitch!

Artful Needs

"Creating" takes the "grumpys" away.  Not doing it for perfection, it may not turn out "right".  I'm just playing with art, for me. Maybe for you.  Sometimes it's designing with plants. Sometimes watercolor, colored pencils, acrylics, fabric, yarn, paper, thread.  I love it all. Don't forget to take time to "play". I must take time to play!

music video for Tanya Davis' song 'Art' by Andrea Dorfman

One Stitch Leads to Another...

In July me and 6-7 other girls spent an afternoon at my friend Susie's house in Eugene.  We gathered to enjoy lunch on the garden patio and craft afterwards with her sister Jeri, who is an artist visiting from Maui.  The theme of the afternoon was "leaves", we were to make/decorate something with leaves and Jeri would help us work out a design.  I really had no idea what kind of project I was going to do, but brought DMC floss, yarn and fabric as instructed.  Susie and Jeri had recently visited the Sisters Quilt Show and were full of ideas, as well as fabric.
Projects started that day: In short, inspired by fabric and birds, I made 4 quilted coasters and started on a little birdie pillow.  Jeri taught me a couple different embroidery stitches and I was off to decorate my birdie pillow.  I ran out of time at Susie's and have toted my birdie around with me, decorating him as I go.  Here's where I'm at so far:

I loved playing with the DMC thread and I have lots of colors from previous cross stitch projects.  I was looking forward to learning more stitches on another project soon.

The next project appeared on our camping trip a week later.  While setting up camp I found that a mouse had eaten a hole in the back cushion of my favorite camp chair.  Since I had packed the craft tote, I had everything I needed to make the perfect patch for my chair.

Here's my chair with piece of fabric inside the hole and some thread holding the edges of the chair fabric together:

Here's the fabric patch I cut and then embroidered to cover the hole. This is some of the leftover fabric from my little birdie project.  I've started playing with different stitches across the batik design:

And finally, the patch in place.  I added a little zing using metallic silver thread in random loops:

I like my mouse chair even better now that it's personalized.


One final crafty update....yesterday I had a day off work after working a 48 hour shift.  When I work two shifts I like to relax and do something fun on my one day off,  this day while cleaning my work space I came across the material to make boxing glove inserts (to keep your gloves from stinking), and decided to take the project on.

I made a pattern from an example that Irene gave me, decorated the gloves with stitched writing, and sewed them together.  There are inserts inside the outer black covers, that are filled with absorbent material and lavender buds.  The inserts are the same pink and green fabric that is used to finish the edges of the covers where the access hole is.  I forgot to stick the blue nylon strap into the sleeve before stitching it up, and it doesn't look good now.  I'm going to cover it with something to clean up the look. This was the perfect project and just what I needed yesterday.

Wishes

The other day I wished that I had predator to eat all the slugs and, most especially, snails in the yard .  I was thinking a turtle would be nice.  Instead, my cat Lucy decided to be a great hunter and take on the slugs.  Last night, a rainy night, she came inside with a weird "smile".  It looked like she had some photoshop work done to her mouth. On closer inspection it was slug slime and dirt!  YUCCCK!  Slug slime doesn't come off anything easily, so she sported her "grin" until morning. 
I'm also going to have to explain to her that she needs to dispose of her victims outside.  The big juicy slug she caught had crawled across the laudry room rug, leaving a glistening trail, and was headed up the wall.  Sigh, I can see why she picked him, he was a big one. LUCY No!!!!

Art Night

A few years ago I was lucky to have met a very nice and talented interior designer, Sue Lyn, while taking a drawing class at the local Community College.   Sue Lyn graciously allowed our class to use her beautiful backyard retreat as our class room for that summer. Perhaps this summer I'll do a post about her yard alone, it is delightful. Sue Lyn and I became instant friends and continue to meet as our schedules allow, to have "Art Nights".  We schedule these nights to ensure we have some fun, creative time to practice our craft, as well as a little red vino.  We met last night for the first time in quiet a while and it was great to catch up with her.  I packed in a hurry for our get together and didn't bring a lot of supplies or paper, this actually worked out well.  I am currently on an Imaginary Trip to Paris, so I grabbed my travel art kit and a packet of prepped watercolor papers, knowing that I wouldn't need any more than that to be able to create.  I was surprised to find that all of the watercolor papers had previous works started on them, most random washes and splashes of color from a class long ago.  I had no sketch pad or blank paper.  I was in the mood to color anyway, so I picked out an ugly painting I did in an en plein air class of an old tree.  I've always disliked this image but thought I could play with it and see if I could make it better.  I was sure there was no way to make something nice of this scene.  The tree was a very dark blue/purple and the 3 layers of land around it were very bright green and yellow/green.  One other time I had tried to make something of it by adding lines with a gold marker, without much success. Looking at the color wheel, I couldn't see a way to make this work.  I had no other choice, so I started to work.  I liked a bird and branch clock that Sue Lyn had on the desk in front of me so I  incorporated that into the picture.  Over the course of 3 hours the painting and the colors changed. I can't believe it's the same piece I started with and wish I had taken a before picture. The scanned image doesn't show the yellow glow well.

I'm not sure that it's done  But I'm amazed at where its at now, I don't know that I'll do anything more on it for a while.

Imaginary Trip To Paris

I've been in Paris since April 20th, 2010.  I'm here with 3 other gals and an art instructor. We are wandering the city, occasionally stopping to paint the sights.  Really, a very economical way to travel, especially since we will be here until May 28th.

The time has already gone by so fast, so here's a quick recap of our work to date.
April 21st we started off with a breakfast of freshly baked croissants and cafe lattes.  Mmmmm, homemade pastries.

April 24th, we wandered into this back alley and were captivated by the light on the buildings and this charming planter of flowers.

Last week, we traveled to Versaille and spent the day wandering the large grounds.  I found this statue tucked in the corner of living hedge.

On Friday, while crossing the Seine River, we spotted these faces built into the detail on the bridge arch.  Very cool.

Well, gotta go.  I'll keep you posted as to our the rest of our travels.  Until then, adios amigo!  ( another bonus of imaginary travel, you can speak whatever language you want!)

Canary Islands -- Virtual Paintout

Tonight I'm posting my first VP (Virtual Paintout) painting "on location", with a lot of help from Google Earth.  Every month a new location is posted at Virtualpaintout.blogspot.com and everyone is given the whole month to travel there by Google Earth, make a painting and submit it to the blog.  Last month, I stalked in the background as others painted Stavager Norway.  This month, I couldn't help but participate and tour the Canary Islands of Spain. This Google Earth thing could be very dangerous, as I'm ready to take a real trip there now!
Here's my look at the Carnary Islands:

Location: 20 Av del Emigrante/Calle de la Isla del Hierro,
Guia de Isora, CN, Espana.

Sharpie and watercolor crayons on watercolor paper.
6.5 x 8

Digital Scrapbooking Update

As I said in an earlier post, I have been using CTMH's new digital scrapbooking program, Studio J (tm) for the last month.  Today I completed my 10th layout and I'm still head over heels for this program.  Never have I put my pictures into a layout and journaled my thoughts and memories so easily.  Really, there's no mess to get out or put away, and you can work on it as you have time. All you need is your computer with access to an internet connection and your photos -- there's no program to buy either. 


If you want to review all my gushing comments about Studio J (tm), view my post from earlier this month.  If you want to see what all my excitement is about, you can do that below!


I'm including pictures of 4 of the 2 page layouts I completed this month, so that you can get an idea of what you can create. 


Want to try it for yourself? Playing with is free. Studio J reportedly will be available for customer use in mid April! My website is where you will design and purchase your Studio J (tm) layouts.




All you have to do is go to my CTMH website, http://www.fse.myctmh.com/ and watch for the Studio J (tm) info to appear. 

All layouts above created with Studio J (tm), available soon at http://www.fse.ctmh.com/

Eagle's Nest

On Thursday the 18th, Randy and I traveled to Waldport to check out a possible vacation rental.  The coast was fabulous!  Sunny, with a little wind, but how can you complain about that in March.  Here's a couple pictures to whet your appetite!

These windows look west and north.  You get to see the ocean, Alsea Bay and the town of Waldport.  What a great view!!!

This is looking west , toward the bay inlet and the ocean.

This picture is from the deck, looking out over the town of Waldport and the Alsea bay.  This is going to be a great place to storm watch from! 
A link to the rental calendar will hopefully be available in June.  Stay tuned!

My Art Gallery

I have been motivated by some of my favorite local artists, to start posting my art on my blog.  This is the first post in this category, we'll see how this space evolves over time.  Thanks for looking!

I drew this in July or August of 2007, of a hosta in my backyard.  I was taking a Travel Journaling class from Lauren Ohlgren at Linn Benton Community College.  In the class we practiced drawing blind and semi-blind contour drawings, to get our images on paper.  This was a drawing I did for homework, and later added my journaling.  It's amazing the connection you develop to an image after you've drawn it yourself.  And both techniques work really well to help you put what you are seeing on paper.  I highly recommend Laurens class to anyone, especially if you thing you can't draw.

Studio J!

Ok, I've found the new best way to scrapbook! Coming this spring Close To My Heart will unveil our new Studio (digital) scrapbooking site called "Studio J "TM , named after our founder Jeanette Lynton. As a Consultant I have been been able to play with it this month and I have to say it's fantastic! It solves so many issues that kept me from doing the real thing, tell me if you don't think these features are cool....

• The basic layout is already made, just choose how many photos you want on a page and go to it.


• Upload your pictures from your computer right onto the 2 page layout. The size is RIGHT and fits the space the first time! Or in the second or third places you try it. Want to try your photos in sepia or B&W, just click it!


• To mat your photos or not? Click it. What color mat, how wide a mat? Click it, un-click it if you change your mind.


• You can make a layout, and make additions and subtractions without wasting supplies. You can try it, you can try it there, you can put it back where you had it the first time!


• You are never out of supplies!!! Your virtual kit supplies are coordinated and you can use as many or as few items to embellish your pages as you want.


• The "Title Tool", need I saw more?! You have as many letters as you want, you can make the size as big or as small as needed. Your spacing is always consistent.


• Speaking of words....journaling has never been easier! Plenty of font choices, coordinating font colors, and the words will shrink to fit your space if you chose!!!!


• Yeah but does it look like a real page? Yes, all the MyStickies TM, brads, ribbons, etc, appear dimensional!


• You can distress your paper too: Sand it, ink it, tear it.

I could go on, but you get the idea. After completing a layout, send it to your cart, go over it one last time and approve it. Pay for the two page layout, $12.95, and it will be shipped to you. Mine arrived in 3 days, well packaged and gorgeous! I can't wait for this program to be available. Stay tuned and more details will follow. If you are interested, let me know (email please) so I send you the link when it's available.

If you've wanted to scrapbook, but haven't felt you could, well you can now. It's really that easy, Studio J makes it easy.

Anatomy of an Avalanche | Mount Hood Meadows Ski Resort

Anatomy of an Avalanche Mount Hood Meadows Ski Resort

I loved to ski in this area of Mt Hood Meadows and I found this blog post very interesting. Mother Nature is a force beyond our control.

Merry Christmas

We are truly thankful for the wonderful friends and family we have been blessed with. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and can't wait to see what 2010 brings.

Fog and cold in the valley? Go to the coast. These pictures are from Seal Rock, on December 24th, 2009. No fog and 50 degrees (when blocked from the east wind).

Open for Online Business

I used to teach paper crafting classes as an Independent Close to My Heart Consultant, but stopped when I needed to focus on promoting at my other job. Although I stopped teaching and passed my customers on to other Consultants, I remained with the company as a "hobbyist". I really miss being an active Consultant with CTMH and have decided to re-open my business online. I plan to start posting info here and slowly progress to occasional workshops. If you are a previous customer of mine and haven't seen a catalog in a while, you are in for a treat! CTMH just keeps getting better and better. You gotta see what you've been missing. Contact me for the latest catalog and keep checking back to see what's new.

To start things off, a stamp special that we don't see very often, buy 2 get 1 free! This offer is good through November 30th, 2009.



Continuing on the creative side....If you are an artist or a crafter I'm sure you are like me, always looking for a way to organize your creative space. I found a blog, and magazine, called "Where Women Create" that features women doing their creative thing in their "spaces". Take a look and see what you think, and perhaps gleam an idea or two: WWC