♥Blessings to Mothers Everywhere♥

“Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.” -Unknown

Mom turned backwards is still MOM…

Mom flipped upside down is WOW…

Without mothers, our society would be doomed …

OXO

be blessed …

my little 4.5 inch book was  finished in the span of a few months with no real plan or theme…

just a place to play…

back in 2010 I created a “soul” angel from a sweet Paper Whimsy girl’s head, butterfly wings, a Tiffany lamp from a catalog and a stamped heart that I colored…

a copy just happened to be handy on my work table and this time she is acting as the soul of the Bluebell Forest on my pages below (shame about the glare but I was having sunlight issues in my photo below)…

there was some green silk ribbon threaded on a needle all ready and waiting on my pin cushion so I decided to stitch on the torn page from an old dictionary and a closeup photo of Bluebells from our archive of hundreds taken over the years…

when I first ordered these handmade books from LaWendula I immediately stamped the seedhead on the left with one of my hand carved stamps …

the book then got set aside for awhile … 

a bit of found text helped complete the pages along with a scrap of map that I colored and a piece of painted metal zipper…

I shared my “Truth” pages above with you back in February adding some tabs to each spread as I went along this time…

same with my “Kindness” pages…

I am repeating the images here for my own convenience to have the finished book all in one place…

I think of my blog as a visual journal of sorts recording some of what I get into and even find it handy to refer to when I need a date or link or something…

I usually like to add the covers to my books at the end making it easier to work in the journals along the way…

one of my favorite sari patchwork purses was falling apart so I decided to carefully tease all of the patches away from their backing keeping them to use for future stitching projects…

the piece below was the perfect color and made a nice cover for my book…

the title of my little book (also found text) ended up on the back as I did not want to add anything else to the front…

 I hope to share one of my larger completed art journals very soon as I have been busy on the last couple of spreads…

more than one kind of Bluebell Tea …

we have a few patches of these delicately fragrant and pretty Spanish Bluebells in our garden…

shared from my mother’s garden many years ago which are all together different from the Virginia Bluebells I have shown you in the past…

a dream of mine is to visit an English Bluebell forest one day (when we visit the UK next month the Bluebells will already be finished for the season so I will look forward to other blooming delights)…

nature is a constant reminder of how quickly things change…

that is one reason I am so grateful to be able to snap photographs of nature’s parade of blooms…

there was some conversation last week on my Tea Tuesday post about cutting old quilts…

I really appreciated your forthcoming reactions as there are so many different ways to look at things…

what you couldn’t see in my photos was some of the wear and tear these well loved quilts have (just a small sampling of some rips and holes above) which down the road will make it a bit easier to use them for assorted art projects…

thank you as always for stopping by and making Tuesdays extra special oxo

Mandala Monday: moment to moment

“That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, 

is the first mark of existence.

It is the ordinary state of affairs.

Everything is in process. Everything—every tree, every blade of grass,

all the animals, insects, human beings, buildings, the animate and the inanimate—

is always changing, moment to moment.” ~Pema Chrodron

joining Dawn for her Mandala Monday…

Seize the day …

when I heard that Dawn’s Journal Journey’s May challenge was “Birds” I had a couple of images I knew I wanted to use (sorry I could not find who to give credit to for the images)…

the girl with the basket on her head is from a 3×5 skinny that I created on cereal box cardboard some time ago…

I increased the size which is unusual for me as I seem to most often reduce the size of images…

adding a little texture with some sari threads for the nest and a wooden inchie frame that I glued text onto sanding and inking the edges…

I began working in this 1958 encyclopedia back in 2009…

excitement is building for me as there are only two more sections to complete in my visual journal and I’ll be ready to put a cover on it and call it done…

 I am also sharing this with Susi’s Art Journal Journey “Challenge Yourself” for May as I did challenge myself in several ways (i.e. use of images and only using stamp inks along with limiting my color palette)…

♥Happy Weekend All♥

promise…

Susi’s Art Journal Journey May challenge theme is to “Challenge Yourself” (all are most welcome to join along each month)...

my challenge began with two painted and stenciled pages that I made just because I wanted to play with some replacement dabbers and my favorite distress stains (I missed the opportunity to snap a photo of my beginning pages as my camera always seems to be downstairs)…

 I also enjoyed stenciling with some extra thick gesso to give texture and interest to my book pages…

I had no specific plans for what else I would be doing to these plain painted pages until I uncovered a wonderful Paper Whimsy image sheet on my work table…

I started with the right hand page brushing several coats of soft gel medium onto the little girl distressing with a sanding block along the way…

repetition is something I enjoy while creating so I carried the strip of three images over to the left hand page and before I knew it they ended up being speak no evil…hear no evil and see no evil…

I altered a white paper doily rescued from a recent tea outing with a sweet friend of mine using colors that would blend in with my painted pages…

then I let words pop off the pages of some book text that was also handy and my pages began to really come together…

adding the lace at the bottom was a nice way to connect the pages and compliment the lace in the girl’s collar …

 tiny posies snipped from a vintage hat were the finishing touch to some of my favorite green leaf ribbon that you may have seen me use before…

I continue to be thrilled by the challenges of beginning with plain book pages …

letting the ideas come and flow as I go creating something I could have never planned beforehand …

thank you for visiting and letting me share my excitement with you which is exactly why I started blogging back in the fall of 2007 …

* Happy May *

Grandma’s Garden Tea …

“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” ~William Morris

…

thanks to a friend for including me on a recent shopping excursion to give some well loved quilts a good home (we cut them each in half)…

the Grandma’s Garden quilt pattern is a favorite of mine…

our garden continues to delight with its parade of blooms…

Mr Magpie surprised me with a handful of precious rocks the other day…

 as good as a dozen roses in my book…

here’s wishing you an especially lovely day…