Christmas cactus?

Apparently this plant doesn't know what time of the year it is. This is the first blossom, of many, that has fully opened.

It gave me a good opportunity to practice some more macro shots with my camera. I love macro photography!

This plant was given by my kids school library staff last year for volunteering. Pretty simple job that gave my legs a good workout with all the squats putting the books back on the low shelves. :)

Natural Dyes

Just like last year, I'm using a natural dye process to color our eggs. I used this tutorial for the process.

The purple/blue eggs were made with red cabbage.

The reddish eggs were onion skins..both yellow and red gathered from the bottom of my onion drawer. Based on the tutorial, I expected I'd get a greenish yellow color.

I also threw a few scraps of muslin in the dye bath. The orange is really puzzling to me. One side is more orange than the other but the blue pieces are the same color on both sides. You can also see where I dripped a little blue dye on the orange. Opps!

Note to self and others: USE GLOVES!! My fingers are horribly stained.

Mother Nature is amazing!

I looked out the patio door this morning and saw this beautiful ripple pattern in the new snow. So I geared back up to traipse around the house to take photos before the kids go running through it.

Of course I had to play around with the photo too. What do you think?

Fashion plates

Well, not really but that was all my brilliant mind could come up with at the moment.
My upper back, neck and elbow are killing me from a spill I took a couple hours ago while shovelling. The snow has not quit and the plows have not come through so I'll be going back out again...bummer.

Calgon take me away... Hmmm, did I just date myself with that one.

She looked sad

In a slump...

AGH!!
I hate it when I get like this. I can't seem to get into making anything!!! Too much stress...which I thought was a good thing before...has turned into overload for me. Apparently there is a threshold for stress. When it gets too high, my muse take s a vacation.

So here's a gnome for your viewing pleasure.

Recycled pants computer bag

When my husband got his new mini computer for work he mentioned that he really needed something to protect it from scratches and such during transport.
I immediately thought of using a denim jeans leg. I quickly made one up but discovered the denim just wasn't thick enough.
Then I remembered these camo pants legs I had and the matching belt piece from yet another pair of pants. The original denim pants leg is the lining inside the camo. I also put some light weight foam at the bottom so the mini computer would have some cushion.

I really happy with the result and it cost me nothing but the electricity to run the sewing machine.

A few things...

I've been playing a bit...no real direction or purpose. Just having fun.

The first item is any ATC. I made this one day when I had inserted my foot way too far down my throat for my comfort.

The other items are in a board book. I think this board book is the closest thing to an art journal that I've made so far. Other than this book that I haven't been able to bring myself to actually journal in yet.

Pretty ribbons

I'm so happy with these glass jars I was able to find at the thrift store.

It got me to clean off my pile of random junk so I could display these jars full of wrapped ribbons.

I'm hoping these colorful additions will provide lots of inspiration.

Ribbon storage

I saw this post a while ago and knew I wanted to emulate it.
I finally made it to a dollar store to get some old fashion clothes pins.

The wrapping process has begun.

I think a trip to Goodwill is in order to find some pretty glass jars to store them in.

Numbers ATC

I joined a numbers themed ATC swap on ABC.

I used pages from a Mathmatic tables book...from back in the day that you didn't just push the button on the calculator....as the background.
I attached these pages to recycled cereal and pasta boxes for a more sturdy base.

The woman's image came from The Commons on Flickr. What a great resource for artists! Thanks to Penny for giving our group the heads up on this one!!

I love putting words into people mouths...especially when I can get a chuckle out of it!

OWOH winner is...

annmarie said...

Very nice gift. How creative. Thanks for participating. annmarie (email removed for her privacy)

January 28, 2009 7:26 PM

Annmarie I will be sending you an email requesting your contact info shortly.

Last Chance....OWOH

Here's your last chance to comment on my OWOH giveaway post. Comments posted after 11:59 Central Standard Time will not be accepted. I will use a random number generator tomorrow to pick the winner. If I have not heard back from the winner in 2 days or if contact info was not left...I will run the random number generator again.

Good Luck!!!

Time in a bottle

Just playing around with layering.