Swarovski here, Swarovski there!

After much struggle, and much ripping out and redoing, this piece had come to the point in the photo above. I hung it on Matilda, my dressmaker's form, and looked at it for days and days and days. I then decided that the clean edge was just too clean and needed .... something. So I added this edging.

Neither the edging nor the lacey necklace have been tied off and knotted yet. I know better than that! Eventually I will have to call it done, because it is headed for a competition in March.

Art on the Cheap

When it's time to take down the Christmas decorations, the house always seems so blah and bland to me, especially with our long wet, gray winters here in the Pacific Northwest. So, I borrowed a theme from my Chinese hubby. When Christmas comes down, Chinese New Year decorations go up. Lots of red, black and gold come out. Years ago I bought a First Day of Issue stamp for Chinese New Year that was beautifully mounted and displayed, and it really needed some mates. Time for 'Design on a Dime'!

I quickly made the above two pictures to go with my other one. I already had the Chinese New Year stamps in the left pic. So I dug through my stash of art paper and found what I wanted to mount the stamps onto. A little bit of glue, some sparkle dots in the corner, and an inexpensive frame I already had (I buy frames on sale and just save them), and voila! Pic number one is done.

For the second pic, I dug through my really special papers from a bff who shares my 'paper passion' and I found the beautiful flying cranes on a gold background.  A little bit more paper for mounting, some red strips to frame the cranes, and sparkle dots in the corner, and pic number 2 is ready to pop into a frame.

And there you have it, easy art from my stash and no extra money spent!

Artist Trading Cards

For quite a while I was very active in an Artist Trading Card group, or ATCs as we called them. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this fun crafting adventuure, here is how it works. Person number 1 makes three identical backgrounds 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches in size, and puts a return address label on the back near the top. They then send these three cards to Person number 2, who does something identical to all three cards and then puts her return address label on the back. She then sends the three identical cards on to the third and final person. Person number 3 finishes the set of cards and puts her return address label on the back. She keeps one for herself and sends Person number 1 a copy and Person number 2 a copy.

It is always quite interesting to receive the completed cards (or homers as we call them)in the mail, because you just never know what another crafter will do to the set.

Take the above card for example. I received this set as Person number 3. The first person made the background and put on the eye. Person number 2 put on the puffy J. Then I had to figure out what the heck to do as Person number 3! So I put on the heart, the letter U, and did the writing after the J. Do you get it?

My Pie Theory of People

I think people are like pies. Are you conjuring up images of luscious cherry pie in your mind? Really?

Well, that's not exactly what I had in mind! I was thinking of a pie that looks more like this:

And this really does explain an awful lot about the many differences between folks. Because you just can't have more than 100%. That's all there is and there is no more. Just 100% to go all the way around into the many facets of who we are as individuals.

So it just stands to reason that if a person is really good at one thing, that takes up a lot of their 100%, which leaves less for everything else. Make any sense to you? It does to me.

Take engineers for example. These guys are blessed with brains and book learning. They eat calculus as an appetizer. And they design and build amazing things, from tiny little devices that hold and play an amazing amount of music to buildings and bridges and roads. They also tend (note I said tend) to be dull as dishwater socially. But all those social grace percentages got shifted over to their thinking and learning percentages.

Take artists as another example. We are blessed with creativity. But that high percentage of artistic abilities that we have leaves us a wee bit short in other areas. Know what I mean?

But hey, the world needs both engineers and artisits. And all sorts of other types as well. We just all have different strengths and weaknesses, and that's OK. In fact, as someone once said, "It's a good thing!"

Oh Blessed Summer!

At long, long last, summer has finally come to the Pacific Northwest.  While the rest of the country has been baking and sweltering under a rather destructive heatwave, we have been ridiculously cool, cloudy and wet.  But now, now we have summer.  We will actually be in the 80s for several days in a row, and that hasn't happened since last year!  We normally would have even had some 90 degree days by now, but I don't need it that hot. 

A juvenile Anna's comes in to eat the
early Lucifer Crocosmia blooms.

This is the kind of weather that makes you remember exactly why it is you live here and put with all of the rain!  Because right now, the weather is perfect; the sky is blue, blue, blue; the grass and shrubs and plants are green as can be; flowers are blooming everywhere and little hummers are regular visitors in my gardens.



This flower garden is off the back patio. 
I can see it from the kitchen window too.
It has taken several years to get it to look this way.

This hardy geranium grows like a weed!
It even grows right up into the hibiscus.



Lady Euphoria, my fairy maiden.
She peeks out from behind plants
and now has Scottish Bluebells growing
beside her.

Lucifer Crocosmia in my patio garden

A Lucifer Crocosmia bud has just popped out of the leaves.

A more mature flower bracht with one bud about to open at the base.

An immature female Anna's hummer guards her supply of Crocosmia, which is in my patio garden, just outside of the kitchen window.

A Gutsy Easy Pasta Maindish Salad for Summer #2

OK folks, my motto for hot weather is 'summer is for salads'.  And I don't mean tossed green salads either!  I mean a salad that eats like a meal.

Once again, I started with one of those Betty Crocker Suddenly Salad mixes; this time I used Bacon and Ranch.  I also cooked the pasta just 10 minutes instead of the 12 minutes they suggest.  Al dente pasta is much healthier, and mushy pasta in a salad just doesn't appeal to me in any kind of appetizing way!

Now comes the good part, all the added stuff:  chopped bell peppers, grated carrots, chopped black olives, grated Tillamook cheddar (I live near Tillamook), chunked up chicken breast and some extra bacon. 

For the chicken, I like to use the frozen Foster Farms Chicken Breast Grilled Strips. You can thaw just what you need in the microwave, and if you have a Costco nearby, they sell large packages much cheaper than the small packages that grocery stores sell. In fact, I use this chicken in a lot of different dishes. It's really good quality and so convenient to use.  For the bacon, I also take the easy route and use the already cooked real bacon bits.  In the summer I hate to heat up the kitchen any more than I have to.

I made the dressing in the box according to the directions, but then I added some extra ranch dressing (I use lite, but not fat-free), and a little milk to make it creamier.  Just wing it here!

So there you have it.  QED!  :)