Quote

"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live." Flora Whittemore

The Red Door

Row House Skinnies Deux

The top set are the fronts. The bottom set are the backs.
Remembering directions is such a chore. I get lost about half way through because I start thinking of the possibilities. Well....the directions were to do both sides as if they were the fronts, so I made some more. I think these are the ones going in the mail for the swap. The others will turn into RAK's.

Row House Skinnies

These Row House Skinnies are for a swap. We are to make a skinny from 6" by 4" to 5" by 3" and our row house is to be the predominant thing on the skinny. Of course I signed up for this swap. I love making these houses. With my broken foot I am limited to what I have access to as far as art supplies and sewing, so these were fun to do while I elevated the old toes. The large crow on the top one is one of those sort of glittery, shiny, heavy sticker things you see at Halloween. My scanner had a hard time deciding what to do with him. In real life he looks black and when the light hits him glittery. The background stamps are some of the large Hero Arts background stamps.

Large Formica Tags #8 & #9

Two more of the large Formica tags done. These are Mr. and Mrs. Ghoul. He has pet bats and she prefers statuary. He fell for her when he saw her wings. These are going to a "perfect couple" I know.

Coca Cola Cake

Anyone who has read my blog knows I am Southern and like recipes that use soda. Yes, we call it soda down here. I grew up in Georgia so my love of Coca-Cola was naturally acquired. So I am giving you my delicious cake recipe. Treasure it....

2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup Crisco
1/2 cup butter
1 cup Coca-Cola

Sift together sugar, flour, and baking soda. Mix remaining ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Mix dry ingredients with the liquids. Then add:

2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup small marshmellows

Pour into a greased pan, I use a bundt pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Icing: Mix and bring to a boil:

3 Tablespoons cocoa
6 Tablespoons Coca-Cola
1 cup nuts/I use pecans
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 box confectioner's sugar

Mix and spread over hot cake.

Felt Needle Cases

These are little felt house needle holder books. I am in a private tip in exchange. Each month we have to make a page for someone in our group according to their book's theme. The month of September my partner's size and theme was 4" by 4" and Grandmother's Sewing Box. Also, she is not doing a book, but putting her pages in a container. I was rambling around the web and discovered this pattern and thought - aha! I will make her a needle book and attach it to her page with a fancy button. Doesn't every sewing box have a needle holder? I know when I was young, maybe ten, I made one for my mom - a book with a felt cat on it out of felt.

The book consists of a front, back, and a page or two in between. I put a few needles in the pages. The roof of the house is sewn together and the book opens from the bottom. I made two. One for my partner and one for me. I sent her the orange and purple one - the one I liked best. I hope she likes it.....

Antique Map Images

This is an 1814 map of North Carolina by Milke. My mother has an antique map for all the places we have lived. They are beautiful. I think that is how my love of maps started.

This is an 1884 map by CC Royce of the Cherokee lands. In North Carolina we have a large population of Cherokee Indians and a Cherokee reservation. The casino industry is doing well there I hear.

This Alaskan map is from 1897. Very little of Alaska had been explored at this time.

This map of Washington Territory is dated 1865. It was done by the Surveyor general for the Northern pacific Rail Road Route. It was to help with oil, gold, copper, and other types of mining.

This is a map of the Texas and Indian territories. It is dated 1879.

This map if Rhode Island is just beautiful. Dated 1823 it was done by Fielding Lucas. His maps are some of my favorites. The map below of the Indian Territories was done in 1889. It is a very precise and hard to read map.

This week I have some maps as my free images. I really love old maps. The colors and text are beautiful. The insets are always unique. The most startling thing I realized today in going through some of my map collection is how much we have taken over the land in the past two hundred years. How uncharted the world was just a brief time ago.
I hope some of these maps will find a way into your art work.

65 years - Happy Anniversary - Mom &Dad

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. 65 years. That is incredible. The most amazing part is that you have done it with such love and grace. When I think of all the things a marriage is suppose to be - love, respect, kindness, growth, support, communication, attraction....you have it all. Thank you for giving us your strength and values. I love you. Enjoy your special day!

The Ugly Duckling

In the area, in my neighborhood that is a preserved coastal swamp, we had only two baby cygnets. We have several lakes, the Intercoastal Waterway, etc.. in our neighborhood. We have several mating pairs of swans [that had many cygnets]. Each has an area or body of water they have staked out. This year we had several late nesting pairs. Each one of these only had one or two surviving cygnets. We have a lot of predators - foxes, turtles, coyotes that unfortunately take there toll. This is one of the two nearest my house.

Every morning Mom and Dad have their two cygnets sunning on the bank. Slowly, they are developing into the beautiful creatures they will become. The past two weeks their wings have started to finally grow. It won't be long before they are swans.

I think when I was a child I loved the story of the Ugly Duckling. I was so tall and thin I felt like an ugly duckling. I would always pray to stop growing. I finally did and now I love my height. I wouldn't change a thing. I think everyone has a period in their life that is like that. Maybe that is why I find these wonderful swans so interesting.

Fall has come to the South

I wanted to share these fall images with you from this morning. My son and I stopped here this morning on the way to run some errands and go out to breakfast. I finally felt like Fall had arrived. Aren't the mums huge? and the stems on the pumpkins this year are really long. I also found the white pumpkins interesting. Everything felt so clear and colorful.

Set of Witch ATC's

This is a set of witch ATC's for a swap that I am in for a yahoo group. These old cabinet cards really lend themselves to this kind of art work. Unfortunately, I am thinking the possibility that one of these women was probably teased or scorned for being odd is pretty great. I hope my fellow swappers like them.

Quote

Trust that little voice in your head that says "wouldn't it be interesting if..."; And then do it.
Duane Michals

Fabric Paper Book

This is a small book I made out of one of the sheets of fabric paper I have made. There is lot of talk on some of the art groups and yahoo art groups about fabric paper. I decided I had better make something with it or it would just be another one of those things that sits around.


I was reading about an updated way to use one sheet of something - in this case canvas - to make a book in Paper, Cloth, and Scissors magazine by Debbi Crane. I remember doing this with paper when I was in school. It occurred to me that this would be a great thing to try with the fabric paper.


I decided to just fold my fabric paper and make a book. After I made the one cut and made the book, I sewed the fabric paper with my sewing machine. I did this very randomly. I sewed the pages together last. I then added some more images and went to a box of trades an embellishments an added what I thought was appropriate. This was a fun little book to make. You can see the original fabric paper a few posts down.

I love your blog award!

Janie Mills honored me with this award this week. I am truly humbled by this. She is a wonderful painter and I hope you will all check out not only her blog but her web site. I love her barn and bicycle picture and her yellow house picture.
I take these awards pretty seriously. I don't know if my blog would be what it is if I didn't have so much encouragement from all of you out there. So, I have decided to give this award to all of you. You help me and inspire me. I will nominate seven blogs at some point this week, but truly, it is you, who read the blogs, that help make them what they are with your comments and encouragement. Thank you!

Large Formica Tag #7 - Trick or Treat

These little Zetti girls are so darling. They are taking a break from their witching lessons.

Large Formica Tag #6 - Hocus Pocus

These bat images were very appealing. Especially the woman. She looks as if she is off to the bat ball. I have a bat house and have always been fascinated by them. Can you imagine eating your weight in bugs?

Large Formica Tag # 5 - boo

Another large Formica tag. Stamped in black with a tree stamp. Then the image was applied, and altered with a Halloween feel. I love their owl.

Large Formica Tag #4 - Couple

Believe it or not I actually made it into the art room today. Yeah for me! I thought I should start small and build up to something larger and more time consuming. I am still trying to get these tags done. I am not sure if I will make my deadline, but I am trying. This scary couple says it all. No explanation needed.

Antique Color Wheel Images

Every artist who uses colors at some time or another has used a color wheel. It is one of the first things they make you make in any principles of art class. One of my sons is taking such a class and this week made a color wheel. That of course lead him to the internet to do some "research". He found some of these and I went further and found some more. All of these are copyright free and use them as you want. This is a web site that you can down load a bunch of different types of color wheel's to keep handy in your studio from Tigercolor. Enjoy!

This is Boutet's color wheel from 1708.This is Moses Harris's color wheel from 1766.This is Ignaz Schiffermuller's color wheel 1775.This is Goethe's color wheel from 1810.
This is Wilhelm von Bezold's ferbentafel from 1874.
This is the Colorist's from 1908.

Quote

"All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites."
Marc Chagall