My Dolly

I made this spread for Barb for my "Colour Me Silly" RR tip in.Aren't dollies fun?

On that note -- to reward myself for a job well done with my report cards (error free, commented my principal!) I bought myself a Raggedy Old Annie from Nicole Ellison. Here she is! And she even smells nice!

Why

Lots of people ask me why I stopped making art full time and became a teacher. This is why:It's summer vacation now, I'm going to miss all of my kindies so much! But I can make art full time for 2 months! Well, make art and plan for the next school year.....

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I made this spread for Cat. It's a weeee bit late (okay, very late -- due in May, I think.....)
I don't usually work in yellow -- I'm trying to stretch myself. Cat's theme was "Romantic Literature" I find the Pre-Raphaelites most romantic.
This image and the accompanying part of a poem is called "Sea-Spell" The poem is considered one of Rossetti's "lesser" works.

Hens and Chicks

I planted a Hen and Chick Sedum in a planter in my back yard -- and two days later it flowered. So Pretty! The plant is quite large -- about 8" across. I don't normally have yellow in my garden -- but I think that I can have an exception in this case......

FabricGirlz! I'm baaaaaack!

This is the page that I did for Belinda's Hidden Treasure book. I had so much fun. I did it in the style that she started for her book -- using lots of Kaffe Fassett fabrics -- and embroidery quilting and beads.
This is the front -- with the little door open and closed.Then the back -- and in the pocket is a hidden treasure!Okay, I'll show you it -- it's a pin!The great thing about fabric pages is that I can do them on the go -- in a car, on the subway, watching tv, talking on the phone. I can't do that with paper! I have some paper pages to finish on the weekend. Report cards are finished, edited and signed! I can happily putter in my nice, cool basement. Yay! I'm finally catching up! Yay!

Show Me Wednesdays! Show your newest collection!

Hmmm, my newest collection. Well, it's hard to admit to a newest collection -- because I just moved and I was supposed to be paring down. The family (aka: the movers) would not be at all amused if I had a newest collection. but shhhhhh, I'll show you my newest collection of rubber. Here are the Catherine Moore stamps that I ordered a year ago that just came in :) . And an adorable birdcage from Just Johanna (see what Ludgera did with it on a bird ATC here -- you need to click on the image to make it larger!). And this M that I've wanted forever -- and the price finally came down. And this double stamp of chandeliers. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I KNOW it will make some great wrapping paper. And will look nice on a t shirt.I do have a spectacular collection of green and turquoise fiesta ware -- but I can't show you that. It's in storage. I think that it's even in another city..... someday I'll have everything here, in one place...... I collect old green, turquoise and pink dishes too -- not only fiesta...I want to start a collection of pink and green depression glass....

But my biggest (and heaviest!) collection is books. I've started to use the library for fiction books. But mixed media books and magazines are an obsession for me. I read and re-read them. Over and over and over. Oscar Wilde said "If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all". I have always read my books over and over. Ray has only read one book over again -- The Lord of the Rings. And he reads A LOT.

Art is on the Horizon!

New things are coming. Not only have I been dealing with "The Money Pit", I have been super sick! I'm still sick (I'm at home today, and have had a bit of puttering time, but mostly lying in bed and looking at magazines, which make me impatient to create! But hauling my art boxes from the garage to the basement isn't on the agenda today --- I'm too weak! Only two weeks left of school though -- then I'll be the art maniac! (or maybe should I be painting the house, as planned?)(nah, I have the rest of my life to paint the house, but some VERY PATIENT people are waiting for art from me).

Anyway, I'll leave you with some stuff from my classroom. I teach kindergarten full time, and the kids are amazing! Keep in mind that they are 4-6 years old! We recently finished a unit on oceans/water. Here is some of what we did:

Here is what the classroom looks like:A close up of the bulletin board:
(jellyfish, crabs and starfish)A close up of a handprint crab -- aren't they adorable?Here are some of the of the "Swimmy" scenes (Swimmy is a book by Leo Lionni -- a little black fish loses his family (a big fish eats them!) and swims through the ocean, looking at all of the cool things, then he finds a school of fish in hiding, and makes a plan with them to work together to scare the big fish away. If we all work together, we make great things happen. We made a cool big fish out of little fish, but I took it down before I photographed it. Anyway, we drew pictures with oil pastel, and then did washes of blue and green for the ocean, and then stuck Swimmy on top.

We're now in the middle of an insect unit. I'll share some of that another day!

Show Me Wednesdays!

This week's Show Me theme is "sewing machines" . This is my very trusty Bernina -- my mom gave it to me in around 1983 as a graduation present (high school). (thank you mom -- it has been my favourite gift EVER) It has sewn everything from prom dresses, to repairing diapers and everything in between. It has had one tune up ever (I burnt out the foot pedal -- and took it in to get a new one and thought I'd tune it up while I was there) and that was last year. To see everyone elses machines go to the Show me Wednesday blog (see link button to the right).

I'm also showing my beautiful old treadle Singer base. My mom just gave it to me last week! Growing up, it had an aquarium on it in our tv room. then, when the fish died, it came up to the kitchen, and our microwave was on it for years. The marble top has been on it as long as I remember. I don't think that it ever had the original machine on it. Did it mom? Was it grandma's? I can't remember. I've thought about putting my Bernina on it, but I like the 60's table that it is on (and yes, there is another machine in that sewing machine table)(I have 3 working machines) I LOVE the drawers in that table. All of my bobbins and most used thread is right there, at my fingertips. If I used the Singer stand, it wouldn't be.....
We were also supposed to show our messy studios. I don't know how mine got this messy this fast, because I haven't actually created anything yet. (for any newbies to my blog, I just moved) but I'm getting ready to make a fabric spread in Belinda's book.

Painting

I am the puppet master. HAHAHAHAHA. LOL. Anyway, here are some before and after shots so far. The purple room is our bedroom. Most of the room was purple. The trim was yellow. How very Easter! the yellow trim is still there (it will be white soon, I promise....)Now here is the after:
The ceilings are VERY high, so we will definitely put a big piece of art above the bed. I'm thinking that I'll do a giant mixed media collage on canvas -- maybe 4'x4'. What do you think? The trim and doors aren't painted yet, so I'm not giving you a window shot yet. And the curtain that I'm making might be going to a magazine before I hang it. so it might not go up for many months....

Here's the good news -- the terrible stench in the basement is gone!! The plumbers were here yesterday. Our laundry room had a drain that went straight to the sewer. We had the smells of all the sewage of the neighbourhood coming up in our basement (it made the GAS guys gag). So they installed a drain trap (a little U in the pipe) and presto, no smell. YIPPEE! And can you believe that the previous owners lived with that for more than 20 years? Yucky. My studio is in the basement. I'm so glad that I can work in it now! The other terrible smell is almost gone too (something is dead between the walls). It has finally run it's course, we think. So our house smells almost normal :) The Gas guys were here too. Our gas has been shut off for over a week (no heat, no hot water, no stove). We are having new pipes put in (the old ones had a leak, and it is easier to just put in new ones than to tear apart the whole house trying to find the leak)(our house is so old that it has original gas fittings in the ceilings for gas lights). They promise that we will have hot water for Saturday. This is good because the community centre is getting tired of seeing us in the showers.... The fence guys have promised to do the fence next week so I can finally plant my poor plants. They aren't faring so well....

Re: the pupper master comment. I actually haven't done much to make the house pretty. It's been all Ray and Lauren. But they think that I've done something too. Umm.... I'm the foreman? I pick the colours and make sure that all of the workers are working and don't take too many breaks. And of course I have to read magazines. I have to keep up on what it current in home decor....... And I AM working on report cards right now. Really. I'm not wasting away the hours updating my blog. Really, I'm not. Thank goodness my family doesn't read this.