* JoY *

thanks to my special Queen Bee friends (QB5) I made my first prayer flags back in August for a swap that not everyone has completed yet (good things are worth waiting for)…

 sitting out on our back porch stitching away on pieces of cotton that I monoprinted using a gelatin plate (must admit I didn’t want to cover up much of my printed fabric on the first ones I made)…

off one end of the porch are prayer flags my son gave me last year for my birthday from the Tibetan Prayer Flag company…

if you would like to purchase prayers flags I cannot recommend this company highly enough…

the new flags already a year old now strung with the previous flags to help keep the prayers going…

 here is a lovely flag from my friend Linda in Texas

and another beauty from Margaret in Switzerland…

Carole in New Zealand sent me this special Indian mirror fabric banner that she made which was a little tricky to photograph as it is hanging over our kitchen window…

and another talented and generous artist Linda Kunsman of heARTfully inspired surprised me with this beautiful and uplifting flag a while ago…

left to right: Margaret W, Linda R , mine,  Linda K and mine

there are two very special prayer flag projects going on presently by Jane DeFazio here and Leighanna Light who has a Facebook group that will be sending prayer flags to the Sandy Hook Elementary School families early in January 2013…

*footnote to clarify that Jane DeFazio’s prayer flags are not meant to be mailed…rather anyone can make a prayer flag or flags full of intention and prayers and fly them at home…you can share photos and such by going to Jane’s link above…

Also the deadline for mailing your flags to Leighanna Light is before 3 January 2013 as that is when she will be putting the flags in the mail to Newtown, CT … hope I haven’t confused anyone…

guess I got excited…

if you are not on Facebook and need her mailing address just ask me and I will send it to you*

with no small children in the house and very little Christmas madness going on here I have been stitching into the wee hours to add my prayers to those of so many others…

with several more in progress…

and some already at their destinations…

I wanted to share a sweet song called “JOY”  with you that I stumbled upon never having heard of the artist Tracey Thorn before here…

be sure to answer when JOY knocks at your door dear ones…

Nathalie’s “Collections” Zine…

the hardest part about playing in Nathalie’s “Collections” Zine was narrowing it down to “what”…

I amaze myself sometimes in what I actually do end up gathering with everything from security envelopes to rocks and so much more…

my pages pretty much speak for themselves (the piece of heart ribbon was something I found on the street)…

waiting for one more zine and I’ll be finished with my part of this Queen Bee swap…

Margaret’s Zine

earlier this year the QB5 swap group I’m part of started a zine round robin…

more info on what we are up to along with photos of the beginning of my Medieval Thymes Zine can be found here…

*Patty’s Medieval Thymes pages above*

back in April I worked on Linda’s Grandma’s Photos Zine which was lots of fun…

then it was time to play in Margaret’s cool themed zine…

*cover above made by Margaret*

there was so much I could have said about my Love/hate relationship with bras that I found myself stalled for a good long while…

I gave up on the idea of using fire in my pages and finally got busy

Madonna had come to mind originally so I went with an iconic image of her from 1990…

Margaret included some great magazine snippets and other bits which is where I got the words “It’s more serious than they’ll admit”…

 the card in the glassine envelope was inspired by something I learned to make back in the early 80′s…

you can find out more about that here

hopefully you’ll be amused and not shocked…

I wanted to link a video showing how it was done but could only seem to find a couple with music I really did not care for…

I enjoyed collaging scraps of paper with gesso and paint around the Bingo sheet that Margaret had added to the right page, using bits of yellow lace and a new black bra strap…

two more zines left for me to work on in this Queen Bee swap rotation…

we are moving slowly on this project with no set deadlines…

‘Grandma’s Photos’ Zine

Linda’s zine was already wonderful when it arrived here in Virginia…

it’s first stop was to Margaret in Switzerland…

I had such a lot of fun with it…

thanks to my friend Judy Post for sharing a 1930′s School Memory book with me a while back…

the bits I used for the left hand side are original pieces from that memory book…

Linda had already worked on the right hand page above…(vintage metal Kodak film clip, rubons, old negatives and photos, muslin bag, torn card from the mail that day)

I could have kept on going with this theme…

turns out I have quite a collection of faux relatives as I seem to be very drawn to old photos…

the thin piece of 8mm film strip I used above is a precious ingredient from Nathalie’s Rubyfloy shop…

even the greeting card above had photos on it…the zine is already on its way to Carole in New Zealand…

I used the quote below on one of my pages and realized that it helps explain my long time fascination with photography…

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” ~Dorthea Lange

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

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

just a peek …

here is a sneak peek at a little something I made out of wool using some of the fabrics I dyed recently…

with BIG thanks to Fran and Leiann in our local altered arts group for bringing in their die cutting machines and some of their fab die collection to share with the group…

almost makes me think I NEED one of those machines but I am trying to resist temptation…

wish now that I had cut out more pieces…

when all of the ornaments reach the Queen Bees I can show you more…

before November leaves us…I also wanted to share this month’s quote from my “Angel Spirits” The Art of Sulamith Wulfing 2011 Calendar:

“The world and its peoples are blessed with infinite diversity, infinite manifestations of wisdom and spirit.  Open to my teachings, expand your vision and your comprehension of the sacred.  When you keep an open heart and mind, there is no limit to your understanding.” ~Angel of Understanding, November 2011

~* Happy Weekend All *~