May Day … May Day

here’s wishing you a Happy Tea on Tuesday this first day of May…

inspired by Mother Nature and Dawn of Girl Unwinding with her beautiful Mandala Monday’s…

I picked some greenery and blooms (clematis, evening primrose, buttercups and dandelions) with my cup of Earl Grey as a centerpiece to celebrate May Day…

our garden has been atwitter with activity and birdsong…

Jenny and Harvey Wren are feeding little ones in a nest cleverly tucked away in a large flower pot (you can click the pic above to see what the wrens are having for tea)…

we have young Mourning Doves too that are so peaceful…

they freeze like little statues thinking we can not see them…

it is a delight to see the bees buzzing and hear the birds singing on this beautiful day further from winter heading closer to summer here in the Northern Hemisphere…

something odd has been going on in our garden too…

Robins behaving badly …

VERY badly

(do not feel sorry for this Robin the other leg is tucked out of sight)…

they have been relentlessly launching themselves into the glass of our back porch door

and having a poop-o-rama while they are at it…

(untouched photo with a Pixlr frame taken with Mr Magpie’s big camera lens looking over a bridge into a creek)

leaving us shaking our heads wondering when this madness will end...

shame as I always looked forward to the arrival of the Robins in Spring…

“Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.” ~William Hazlitt

before you go…

there are two wonderful giveaways that you will not want to miss

here and here … blogland is such a generous place

Alicia’s Tallest Handmade Book in the World Project

today I am sharing something I made month’s ago…

what with one thing and another going on here I have not made much art recently…

as some of you surely know already the talented, imaginative and inspiring Alicia has a really exciting and wonderful project going on…

the  pages I created ended up with lots of layers because they kept changing over the months while sitting on my art table…

photographing the gold and blue tissue was a little tricky…

it all began with the Gustav Klimt tissue on the inside…

do they REALLY expect anyone to blow their nose on Der Kuss…

the open pages measure 8 x 6″ (20.32 x 15.24 cm)…

  I decided to tear a peek a boo hole in the front and add the green netting…

I thought the quote speaks beautifully to how Alicia carries herself and works to turn her dreams into reality…

“Life is full of beauty.  Notice it.   Notice the bumble bee the small child and the smiling faces.  Smell the rain and feel the wind.  Live your life to the fullest potential and fight for your dreams.” ~Ashley Smith

as the April deadline to submit pages for Alicia’s book approaches I am hoping to put some final touches on my second submission for the book and get it in the mail very soon … you still have time to play along for a very good cause!

many thanks for all of your recent good wishes…

reading each comment is a gift that I appreciate so very much! OXO

footnote: thanks to Elizabeth of Altered Book Lover for getting me to dig deeper over at Alicia’s bbb…here is an update with her 27 April deadline information…not too late to join in!

Medieval Thymes

back from our wonderful trip to Puerto Rico…

it will take some time to sift through the oodles of photos we took…

I will have some beautiful stone angels to share with you on Sunday from the Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in Old San Juan…

today I wanted to share a project that went in the mail just before we left on our trip…

the Queen Bee five are having a zine swap…

“zine” comes from the word maga’zine’ and is pronounced the same way…

you can find out a little more about zines here if you like…

each of us chose our own theme and created the shell of our zine…

I was inspired by some Lebkuchen packaging  that fit nicely with my medieval theme…

I chose torn canvas for my pages after seeing Susan Godby’s beautiful canvas book for a local round robin…

I found out that paint and water shrunk the canvas pages a bit giving them some character…

burned velvet for the cover of my almost postcard sized pages

with an image stamped into a leather looking foam sheet and my book has already arrived in New Zealand…

it will be fun to see everyone’s creativity as our zines make their way around the world…

I am also looking forward to catching up with each of you dear ones

Heart Journal 2012 … a new challenge blog

there is a brilliant new monthly challenge with some fabulous inspiration from the talented Thealie and Lilibule that you will not want to miss here…

*footnote: as the Heart Journal Challenge is a French blog you can click on the Google Translation feature at the top of their blog*

I have always had a fondness for hearts so this challenge really speaks to me…

the January challenge calls for using some masking tape and wire in your heart…

I chose wire mesh …

it’s been some time now since I’ve participated in a challenge…

I started by tearing pieces of masking tape and sticking them onto the heart…

with lots of layers of paint…

copper mesh tears like fabric and when heated with a heat tool it gets a nice patina to it…

the tag is cut from a piece of cardstock that I played with some time ago using a doily and thick gesso and more sloshes of paint as my friend Margaret likes to say…

I may want to do more finishing on the backs of my hearts…but for now I am happy to have made something…

to find out the particulars of the January challenge you can visit here…

“In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.” ~Antonio Porchia

where did the time go…

the last two months of 2011 really slipped away from me…

as I am now finally feeling much much better I didn’t want to miss the chance to share a lovely Queen Bee 5 holiday swap with you…

here are the special handmade creations that I received from around the globe…

Linda’s bee skep shaker…

Margaret’s altered matchbox…

Nathalie’s china doll leg pin cushion…

and Carole’s  snowman…

each one a real delight…

below are the wool and lavender hanging sachets I made…

luckily I got these finished and in the mail early …

each white wool bird ‘feather’ was cut out and stitched on one by one…

I enjoy making the wire and bead bird nests so much that I am always happy when I think of a new way to use them…

one of the things I did get to do this holiday season was bleach and dye bottle brush trees …

so while I had my jar of dye handy I threw in some silk ribbon and odds and ends of white linen and doilies…

thanks to generous Leiann Quesnel and Fran Podlesney in our local altered arts group for sharing their die cut machines and to Susan Godby and all the gals for their inspiration and support…

I baked my first batch of cookies yesterday…

in a ‘normal’ Christmas season I would have baked many different kinds…

sometimes things don’t turn out quite like we plan…

“Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” ~Lao Tzu

National Honey Month

September is National Honey Month…

ambrosia…

nectar of the Gods…

honey existed before man as evidenced by fossils from 150 million years ago …

honey collection can be traced back thousands of years as depicted in ancient cave paintings …

did you know it is used for wound healing…

  it is a natural energy booster…

 a skin moisturizer…

a natural cough suppressant and that is just the beginning of what there is to know about honey…

I like adding it to herbal teas…

today I am sipping a delicious and delicate herb tea that I brought back from the beautiful Einseideln Monastery outside of Zurich Switzerland…

it is called Münsterschwarzach Klostertee St. Benedikt Sieben-Zeiten-Tee (St Benedict Seven Times Tea)…

the organic ingredients are sage, ginger, lemon balm, spearmint, valerian, rose petals and primrose flowers…

“sage stimulates and will preserve your health…Ginger warms the body and increases the vital energy center… Spearmint aids digestion… Valerian brings calmness and promotes concentration… Rose opens the heart… Primrose is new beginning and light… Melissa awakens the spirit and brings hope and joy…”

I even got a second cup out of the same teabag ahhhhh…

be sure and visit Kimmie over at her Art in Red Wagons for more tea stops…

I also invite you to come see the new offerings on my Magpie’s Nest Too giveaway blog 

Citra Solv Transfers on Tissue Paper…

here are some laser images that I used to transfer onto plain white tissue paper with thanks once again to The Graphics Fairy …

since trying Citra Solv transfers on fabric yesterday I knew I wanted to give the tissue paper technique a whirl too…

I photographed my tissue transfers on top of old atlas pages so you could see the sheerness you get even before gluing anything down…

the bees nest melted into the heavy blue painted card stock seamlessly…

I was excited to glue my transfers onto book pages and really like the way the text shows through…

I used Golden’s Matte Medium…

but any good glue stick would work…

I put the glue on the paper not the tissue…

much easier that way…

the Matte Medium does leave the papers with a fine finish and feel…

in reading more of the Citra Solv artist’s site I found out that when ironed the FABRIC transfers can be washed and bleached with no damage or fading whatsoever…

perfect if you were going to transfer onto a white t shirt I guess…

it bears saying again…

playing with Citra Solv is best done with lots of fresh air and latex gloves are a good idea too…

* * * * *

WordPress slipped a little surprise near the top of my sidebar…

not sure why I even noticed…

maybe I was searching for something…

here is what it says:

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

I wish they would just make a blogroll that updates like most of you have on your blogs already…

I always have to check people’s blog lists to find out who has updated their blogs…

that really is the only thing I can see that WordPress could improve on..!