This makes me happy

These little jade plants make me happy. I just love the little chicken terra cotta pot, it was my mom's. 


Here's a quick little doodle I did today while working on a project in the works.

Just wanted to share. I hope you are having a great weekend.

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...

Keeping busy with craft show stocking stuffers

Future magnets

I've been busy getting some last minute projects done for the craft show this Saturday. I haven't had much luck lately at the shows, so I'm trying to get together some inexpensive items for stocking stuffers in hopes of generating a little more interest. I'm kinda disgusted with the whole arts and crafts show scene as of late so I hope this one will be better and not a waste of time.

So above here I've got some of my previous designs with GeeJayCreations and I've shrunk them down and tweaked a little here and there and cut out some of the poetry and in some cases added very simple words, such as Love and Look to God. I've laminated the front and will plunk a magnet on the back and was thinking $2 each. Any thoughts on the price?

Below here is my mini pot project I've told you about. They are different than my painted pots that I've done in the past because I'm decoupaging these. I may be sand blasting them and redoing them if the beginning ones are as good as they get. As I was telling Stephanie of Dragonfly Design Studios, these are not turning out quite like I imagined them in my head. Usually most things don't turn out like I envisioned it, but these are kinda... *eek* I'll ask your opinion. Decoupage may not be my forte. I got the idea from my new friend Frenchy of Le Chateau des fleurs by Frenchy. She had a beautiful one and I had visions of sugar plums in my head... well you get the idea. I'm not exactly getting sugar plums.


Of course, I'm getting my fantastic graphics from Karen at the Graphics Fairy, and they don't disappoint. 

So I got this box of mini terra cotta pots from my local yahoo group, cheapcycle. If you haven't checked to see if you've got one in your area, you are missing out! These are great. I think it was inspired by freecycle.

Got em for a song

So they needed a little scrubbing and voila! I've got instant toothpick holders or Q-tips holders, candle votives.. you name it. Anyone have any other ideas of what to put in them for selling purposes?

I've painted some here, rustically and I really like the way they turned out. Not all perfect looking, but I like it that way.

Cute little Thanksgiving paper to add for a toothpick holder

It will go, like so. See the blue underpainting? I like the rustic/aged look

A horrible mistake below here. I tried painting on the small picture to add color. yuck.

Yikes!

The colors are not showing up very well, but it was not what I had in mind.

The next picture is one I did about midnight and I was thinking it would look cute to have a "burnished" look behind the rooster and chickens. Well, as I look at it, it's more like what was I thinking? But I kinda like the patchwork patches along the rim. Any ideas on salvaging this one?

Very country, but that is what a lot of craft goers buy around here. I kinda like it, but I like roosters and chicks.

This last one might be the best one so far. I have kinda gotten into the French look lately, especially with my curtains coming in soon (I can't wait!!!). So I think it's simple, but the black and bits of gold shining through make it rustic but elegant. Anyway, I like it.

Would look cute in a Paris themed bathroom?

One problem I've ran into is I didn't take into account the curvature of the pot. So now I have this smiley face syndrome going on and the bigger the label, the bigger the problem. It's not too bad on these small labels. Does anyone know how to remedy this? I know I could just play around with it to guess the right distortion, but if someone knows the easy and fast way to do it, I'm all ears.

I was thinking of asking $5 each for these. Any thoughts? Also, if you're a seasoned decoupager or just have some better ideas than I've done here, please tell me. I'm all for ideas but I'm running out of time for my show so I just haven't had time to research it and look for more ideas. Please, share your thoughts! :)

Also, thank you all so much for your concern for my son, Asher. I've had wonderful messages and comments from you all... my friends. They mean the world to me and bring me much comfort. I've really been missing my mom lately (like there are days I don't miss her, jeesh!). I guess I've been looking for comfort and her words to let me know everything is going to be fine and it will all work out, just like I know she would tell me. All of you have in some way have filled her shoes with your encouragement and I cherish my friendships I've made on here. Thank you all, you have no idea how touched I am that you all care.

News from Eye Doctor Specialist

Close up of Asher's chalazion including spaghetti sauce on nose 

Hi everyone and happy Monday. I have news about Asher's eye. While it's still scary, I'm not as scared since we now know what it is and what there is to do about it. Plus it didn't hurt that the doctor saw that I was concerned right away about it being a tumor and he assured me it was not.


Asher's eye appointment took forever we got there at 8:50 and didn't leave until 11:00. Asher was exceptionally good and was very proud of him.

It turns out that it's not a stye, it's a chalazion. This is from a website I found:  A common eye disorder, a chalazion is a granulomatous inflammation of a meibomian gland in the upper or lower eyelid. This disorder is characterized by localized swelling and usually develops slowly over several weeks.

The doctor recommended we have it removed and he is scheduled for surgery for next Monday morning at 7am. He said it is routine and not that out of the ordinary but usually if you get one, then you are susceptible to having them. He told us one little boy has had 8 of them (surgeries) in the last 5 years. Ugh, I hope that is not Asher. I've been Googling chalazion and have found a site which pushes prevention in the way of hot compresses everyday along with baby shampoo washing of the eye. So we may just have to be diligent in preventing another one from occurring. Not so easy with a 4 year old. 

But the doctor told us this was not from dirt in the eye or any foreign object. It basically is the oil glands inside the eye on the eyelid getting clogged just like a pimple. He compared it to some people have really bad acne and some don't. I guess it's just your chemical makeup.

THank you all for your support for this, I really appreciate it. I'm not quite the basket case I was all weekend. I surprisingly slept very well last night. I think all your prayers and positive thinking and a little mercy from God had everything to do with it! By the way, I have a wild kitten climbing my leg as I type this! OUCH! :)

To see what's been going on, click here and here and here in that order.

On a happy and sweet note, here are some pics of the cuties.

Thunder

Asher and Thunder cuddling

If they're not sleeping they're fighting (playing)!

As you can see, I've got my hands full with these two kittens! They vanished last night for about an hour and I couldn't find them anywhere, I finally heard some papers moving and they were sleeping in my desk drawer! They find the strangest places to get into!

In order to keep my mind off Asher's eye and to continue getting ready for the craft show this weekend, I started painting some more pots. This time I have painted some very small pots that would make cute containers for toothpicks or Q-tips or a candle. I am doing a little decoupage, so I'll post pics of that next post. It's a little bit different for me, so we'll see how they do.

A Study In Red... a treasury

Take a look... one of my painted terra cotta pots made it into a lovely treasury by stampgirl45.

Thank you Theresa! What a beautiful treasury, I'm proud to be a part of it.

Whatcha Workin' on Wednesday?

Today, I got my pots out that I had started last summer. I was in the process of priming these smaller pots last June when I got the call from my mom telling me she had cancer. They've been sitting in my studio ever since. Actually, the one I had half primed when I took her call is still there on the shelf, a reminder of that fateful day that changed my life so drastically. I'm certain that she would want me to continue to create and I wish she could see these and help me in the next direction that they are to take.

I'm adding more layers of the sunflower one because I screwed up and painted the whole pot ultramarine blue and should've masked out the flower first. So more and more yellow layers I have added and hardly made a difference. ahhh... live and learn... my motto.

I really like the direction the red one is taking. It's hard to see by this picture, but I have a little purple at the bottom that turns into red and then splashes of yellow at the top. It looks prettier in real life. The pot in the front is actually more teal than it's showing here. I didn't mess with the picture, I just uploaded it the way it was.

I'm not sure what I'm going to add to the pots, but I feel they are not finished. I hope to have these finished by the weekend because I am going to the Farmer's Market this Saturday and hope I can sell them. I thought about adding an herb in it... Mom's favorite one that I have an abundance of... Sweet Annie.

What are you're thoughts on price for these little one of a kind pots? I was thinking $10 each. 2 of them have saucers, which I may tack on $2 for them.

So... whatcha workin' on?

Freaky Friday

I've been a busy bee today. Got another pot painted and sealed ready for tomorrows Farmers Market. Still no veggies to sell though. I delivered a Photomontage last night for a wedding gift. Also, I made a new scratch pad with my drawing of "Midnight Sun" on it. Got lots of ideas and not enough time to produce them! If only I didn't have to sleep.

Poppies Terra Cotta Pot coming along

I think I'm about finished with this pot, I just need to give a coat of sealant. Here are a few pics of it. Any comments?

Father's Day 2009

Well today started out great, because Asher let us sleep in until 11:00! But, then my mol called 20 min. later and said she was in the driveway... so much for a great day.

Got some really cute pics of Daryl and Asher. would it kill him to pick up the camera and get a picture of me with Asher once in a while? Guess so. Well, so his Father's Day was a lot better than my Mother's Day. Went to Hacienda (Mexican Restaurant) and then to a cute little park in Boonville, IN to let Asher play in the water area. When we were done playing, it was 6:20 and the thermometer read 108 degrees outside! of course that was from a black car parked on pavement but still! whew! and humid on top of that!

Also, here's some of the progress I've made on my latest effort of painting terra cotta pots. This one is going to be poppies and I think I may make the next one black eyed susies.