Photo Inspired

Just before Christmas I stumbled across a site,http://www.dailyvisuals.blogspot.com/ Jane Dunnewold is the author. I won't try to speak for her but I was inspired. I love photography and I will try to photograph something at least 5 times a week. I have started to carry a digital camera in my pocket. It is great fun to look at things differently. I hunt for shapes, color, texture and light.

This is an easy one.

Reflections

At the bakery

How much flavor can you handle?

A little light on the subject

Merry Christmas to all

The holidays or holy days are upon us and it truly is a wonderful time. The tree is up and the lights are strung. Christmas cards have been addressed and mailed, menus have been prepared and the house feels of good cheer. Us older folk (speaking for myself) are doing quiet things like watching Christmas movies. Seventeen people will be here for Christmas dinner so the day will be filled with children playing, lots of food, presents and wrapping paper everywhere.

Art is on hold for a few days and then I will get busy again.

Here are a few close ups of our Christmas tree. I love the Victorian look of it. Merry Christmas to all!

December 2008

The blog is about ready for weekly use. Look backwards (old blogs) to see what I have added to my history. After today I will write forward.

Sweet Charity - We finished and distributed 737 quilts this year. They go to about thirty groups in New Mexico.

This is a work day making love quilts.

These are for the Blue Stars mothers.

My mixed media group did a tin exchange. We all took a altoid tin (compliments of Lynne) and decorated it for someone else in the group.

This is the one I made for Linda. I think of her as elegant and glitzy. The flowers are made from Crayola's paper clay.

This is the one made for me by Michele. I love it.

This mixed media group is full of wonderful women. Here is a picture of some of the group at our last meeting.

Buried Treasures- - -What I have been doing in 2008

Seth Apter of http://thealteredpage.blogspot.com/ has started a challenge to find buried treasures in our blogs. I think this is a great idea as it is so hard to look back through just found blogs. This one of my favorite posts that I have done.

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This year has been a breakthrough for me. I am trying new things and trying to release my inner muse (it thinks I have lost it).

I bought a new tiny camera that I can easily take with me wherever I go. The week I bought it I headed to Kauai and took over 1200 shots. I was in heaven!

I make a lot of what I call "stones". They are small things that I can build on. I normally have no idea of what I am going to do with them but I can't seem to stop once I begin.

Fabric beads (mostly polyester) rolled and heated with a heat gun.

Made with fabric and glue.

Pipe cleaners wrapped with fabric.

My second group exchange was a post card challenge. No theme to this one, but since I had just come back from Hawaii fish seemed logical.

All the cards are made from cotton scraps with just a few emblishments.

I participated in my first art exchange with my mixed media group. It was a "skinny book" and our theme was "woman".

I used paper towels and dyed them with old markers. Then I drew on them with india ink and added crystals.

I have a wonderful source for upholstery fabrics. I made a number of purses, designed one myself, sold a few, and taught a couple of classes.

I discovered felting machines. A friend came over for a play day and brought this wonderful machine that she had found at a quilt show in Chicago. She let me try it and I was hooked. I bought my own the same week. This is one of my favorite things to do. I haven't done much quilting since I bought it.

These are all 4" by 6".
I used silk on some and polyesters on others.

In our mixed media group we do some mini workshops. One day a member, Debbie, show us how to do a type of free form quilting. We worked up rectangles and then slice them up and put them back together.

I found some wonderful silk leaves and made some small art pieces.

Most of the leaves are silk but the backgrounds are a blend.