Paint Party Friday Week 11!

Who was this girl? I have forgotten.

Yahoo! It's Paint Party Friday! I've got a WIP (work in progress) today. This is me as a young bride (back in 1994!). It is a small portion of a Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbooks journal page. This is my entry for the month of May in Lori's book. I got her book in the mail earlier this week and it is so colorful and pretty and revealing! hee hee...

Join in the fun, all you need to do is create something, post about it and link up on the PPF blog. Then you go and visit the other artists posts. It's very inspiring and will get your creative juices flowing!

Thanks to everyone visiting from PPF! :)
Have a great weekend my friends!

I'm a busy bee!

I have been MIA for a while now. I'm sorry I haven't really given any kind of explanation. I show up for Paint Party Friday and that's nearly it.

Life has been a whirlwind. A gardening whirlwind! I've been trying to sell my heirloom tomato plants and get my veggie garden planted along with picking out gorgeous new plants for my flower gardens. I always go overboard on the flowers. It's my weakness and I can hardly say no. So I thought I'd share some of my garden with you.

part of my veggie garden - just starting out

other part of veggie garden - corn and beans just peeking their heads out of the soil to the left

Now these pics aren't from the new flowers I've bought, I'll post pictures for those as soon as I finish planting. I take my time, carefully deciding where each little beauty will take its place in my beloved gardens. I set the plant in pot in gardens and step back to see if I like the color and texture combinations. It takes me forever, but I so enjoy it.

The Swing Garden

The above picture is my Swing Garden. I love the roses on here. My favorite being the climber on the left. It was a start from my mother. The only one I've been able to keep alive of all the rose starts she gave me. She could put a stick in the ground and I swear it would grow. She always called this Seven Sisters.

Siberian Iris

just a pretty red rose - I don't recall the name

a vigorous phox - I keep spreading it around cause it just keeps spreading!

peony

I have big plans for the Farmer's Markets around here but I am dreadfully behind on everything. I want to get back to painting my painted pots that I like to do and wanted to sell them with herbs and plants in them this year.

Oh, I wanted to show you also my finished graduation card that I made. Some may know it didn't quite get the warm reception from the recipient that I hoped for, but hey she's 18 and it didn't have any cash in it... haha   But it does make me feel good that as soon as I listed it on my Etsy shop, it sold! woohoo!

I have a mystery plant that I would love for anyone to help me identify. I went to pick them out and thought better of it. It just looks like it should be a flower. But I have no idea what it would be. I don't have anything that looks like this that I have found. It may be a bunch of weeds, who knows.

? Do you know what this is?

 Thanks for taking the garden walk with me :)  Oh, also my son had his last day of Pre-School! More pics are on my Facebook.

Asher and his little crush ~ her name is Piper... how cute are they?!

Speaking of Facebook, I finally made myself a page for my heirloom tomato plants. If you want, look me up... it's called Jaime's Heirloom Tomato Plants. Till next time...

Paint Party Friday Week 10 whew! barely made it!

Whew! I barely made Paint Party Friday. I just got done with this digital painting I made for a greeting card for my best friend's little girl. Well, she's not so little anymore. She is graduating from high school! jeesh time flies. I remember when she was born. Anyway, this painting is loosely based on her. I created this with Corel Painter and my VisTablet and pressure sensitive pen. Lots of fun.

Come on over to Paint Party Friday and see what all the creative artists are up to and join in the fun!

See all the PPF goers soon! :)

Goodbye Buster Brown :(

I've had an awful day today. I said to goodbye to a new furry family member. I didn't even get a chance to introduce everyone to Buster Brown, a stray kitty that found me. Now it's a memorial for the sweet boy that could've been. I took these pictures when I found him the first day with my phone, just down the road from our house a little ways. I saw him lying in the gravel and I stopped and rolled my window down and talked to him. He talked back and then came out from under the brush, not scared of the van running with me saying "kitty kitty kitty".

Today, sadly, I took him to the vet because the last few days he has looked not well at all. He's not been eating for a few days and the last time I saw him drink was Monday. When I found him he looked as though a dog or something had got a hold of his tail. It was missing fur and had bite marks. He was not holding it up, but it did move. I washed it with peroxide and sprayed it with Bactine. I figured it would heal on its own in time.

He ate hardy for a few days and drank a lot. Then he dissappeared for a couple days. When he returned, he didn't look as spry. He slept most of the time and I thought maybe his tail was infected. So I gave him some antibiotics I had and hoped he would bounce back. This morning was the 4th dose of the antibiotics and he looked as worse as ever. I noticed his mouth and tongue were yellow and he was dehydrated. He smelled strange, sickly. I stewed and worried for a while as to what to do. I called people I thought could give me answers and finally took him into the vet. Money is a little tight and I was holding off on this. I finally decided I could not take it anymore and would just put in on the credit card.

When it was our turn, the vet was shocked at how weak he was. Buster was in liver failure. It might've been kidney failure, I honestly can't remember in between sobs. He told me there was a 90% chance this cat would die in a couple days. He said that if it were his cat, he'd put Buster down. With a heavy heart, I decided Buster shouldn't suffer any longer. It broke my heart to say yes, and as the vet walked out of the room to get the papers ready for me to sign, Buster got up off the table and walked over to me and touched his head to my chest. I was blubbering by now and the vet couldn't understand me as I asked him was he sure this was the right thing to do. I can't help but feel Buster was getting up to get close to me as to say don't do it. My friend comforted me later and said maybe that was Buster's way of thanking me. I still don't know and it's eating at me. I've done nothing but cry all day. I've got Asher upset because he sees me crying and I didn't lie to him when he asked why the pet carrier was in the van. It's just been a rotten day. I know I could've let nature take its course, but I just couldn't bare to watch him slowly die.

Even though I knew Buster Brown only a very short time, I can't help but feel so devastated.  I just can't stand it that I couldn't do anything to save this kitty. The vet said his tail was not the reason why he was so sick. He thought maybe feline leukemia or feline aids possibly. That's why it's so important to get our pets the shots they should have. I know most of you are like me and think of our pets as family.  So today I am mourning my Buster Brown. Sweet kitty, good bye.

 

Paint Party Friday Week 9

Yippee, it's Paint Party Friday! If you want to join in the fun and share your creative endeavors then hop on over to PPF and add your post to the list. It's super easy, all you do is add your name and your blog post address.

This acrylic painting called "Poppies for Kelly" started out as a greeting card and I thought as I was painting it that this was too much work for it to just get tossed in the trash or stored in a memory box so I cut up the card and framed it. It was my gift to my best friend Kelly who just got to graduate from college and attend commencement, an undertaking that took her 20 years. I'm so proud of her.

My husband had made a few of these frames for me to sell my artwork in about a year ago and it just fit perfectly. I probably didn't paint it on the best paper, but like I said it started out to be a card. I actually used greeting card computer paper.

I'm off to check out all the great artwork from PPF!
See ya soon, have a great weekend & Happy Friday the 13th!

Self Portrait spread

I finally finished my self portrait page and mailed it yesterday. It was supposed to be mailed the last of April (sorry Brandy!) but better late than never, right?

Over all, I like the look and the colors turned out pretty good. My portrait though really doesn't look too terribly much like me. If I were more brave I'd post the picture I painted this from. I improvised and took my creative license to the max on this... haha. Plus, as I've said I really am just learning to paint so I make it up as I go along. Like I've told a few already, my face isn't a very good Caucasian skin color. I ended up looking more like a pink pig. Now I have rosacea, but even my face isn't this pink ;)

I was going to use this for Paint Party Friday, but I'll either use a quick acrylic painting I made for my girlfriend who just graduated and got her certificate for a new career (hopefully) or I'll be getting busy tomorrow night. My money is on the acrylic. Tomorrow is a busy day.

I finally got my tomatoes planted YAY! and zuchinni, cantaloupe, watermelon and corn. Still need to get out the beans, yellow squash, peppers and jalapeno's. Pumpkins in a month or so. I am loving the warm temps that we have been having. I'm a warm weather girl.

Check out my little man fishing on Monday, how cute is that? Look at that cast... haha!

Also, it seems I have yet another member of the fur family to introduce. I'll post more about him with a picture in a later post. I will tell you he is of the feline persuasion and I've already named him. His name is Buster Brown.

Paint Party Friday Week 8

Good grief time flies! Another week has gone by and it's Paint Party Friday again! I'm sharing another page from my Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbooks project. I've been mentioning it for a long time now, but if you've missed it you can catch up on what it is here. We have already mailed off our sketchbooks to our selected sistah and the fun has started!

This is my sign in page and I struggled for a while as to what to put on this page. I was seeing great ideas from all my Creative Sistahs and didn't want to flake out. So, I thought long about what this project is and it came to me that our sketchbooks are like a bunch of gypsies, or travelers as I've read they prefer to be called. (But I have to say I think gypsy has such a romantic notion, especially to North America and it is not seen as a put down.) Anyway, they are like gypsies in that they are traveling the lands and seas! to bring inspiration and creative fellowship to each of the Creative Sistahs. I keep referring to Creative Sistahs and that is just something I call all of us. There are 13 that have joined this 13 month project. It is closed to new sistahs right now, but if you are interested in doing something like this we will probably be doing another project or if you don't want to wait start your own!

So here it is, my Vardo or gypsy wagon sign in page. It is a combination of some pictures I've found on the net and my imagination. I blurred out my exact address to ward off potential kooks. I liked the idea of peering past a gate to the Vardo to give it a little mystery. Yesterday I gave a first look at my self portrait, see it here.

Please take time to visit the talented artists at Paint Party Friday and here's your invitation to join us!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

 

 

gift from Kim, one of my Creative Sistah's

Woo hoo! It's Cinco de Mayo! Pass a magarita over this way =) There are celebrations here and there in all our delicious Mexican restaurants, which we frequent often :p

Look at what my Creative Sistah Kim, none other than the Queen of ARt, sent me for my birthday! I love the rocks she painted and she'd been hanging on to that sweet and beautiful card for something special and I am honored that she sent it to me, I feel so loved :) Thanks Kim.

My little guy is doing well after his surgery from Monday. Today he woke up crying and hurting, but he is better now. It just takes about 20 minutes for the medicine to kick in. He went to bed with his head hurting (of course I gave him meds) and woke up that way, but I think it's just all catching up with him. Overall, it's been much easier than I expected. I am hoping he'll be okay to go to school on Monday. The dreaded "Day Three" which I was warned about has came and went and he seemed to be alright. I'm so relieved. He sleeps much better now and it is so wonderful to go in his room and listen to him sleeping soundly and breathing regularly. He's drooling like mad, but at least he's breathing! The surgeon told us his adnoids were completely blocking his airway so that's why he's been breathing through his mouth. His hearing is amazingly better too! I'm glad this is over.

I have been trying like crazy to find the time to finish my sketchbook for the Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbooks and I'm about finished. My book goes to Brandy and I've told her it'll be late. I think I'll be late for my own funeral, which might freak a few people out. So here's a little sneak peek at my self portrait.

So last night when I quit working on this at 1:30 am I was thinking this wasn't too bad. But this morning as I look at it, I'm less satisfied. It is still a work in progress but I don't think it looks like me very much. I'm not exactly a portrait artist.

Enjoy your day my friends!