Countdown to Christmas Blog Along

Well, December first is almost here! Tomorrow everyone who participated in A Swap for All Seasons Christmas Matchbox Swap will begin opening all those little boxes. My matchboxes arrived about a week ago...I can't wait for the fun to begin! Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the first box and stop in at A Swap for All Seasons to find links to everyone in the blog-along.

Beauty Reborn

Lat year I decorated some empty tin cans, filled them with stones and a large paper white bulb and gave them to friends at Christmas. This one was leftover so I kept this one for myself. After it bloomed I kept it on the kitchen counter behind the sink with some potted plants. Basically, I ignored the little spent bulb all year content to enjoy looking at the pretty bird now and then. Last week when I was giving the kitchen counters a pre-Thanksgiving wipe down I was going to throw out the old bulb and plant a new one when lo and behold I noticed a tiny bright green shoot peeking out from the old brown stem. My little bulb was coming back! I couldn't believe it...I hadn't added water to it in a year and here it was struggling to grow! I added some water to the bottom of the can and just look at it...it shot up this much in less than a week!

"It is not more surprising to be born once twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection." Voltaire

Happy Thanksgiving

Lenna's Creative Swaps

Lenna Andrews is a wonderfully creative mixed media artist who I've had to pleasure to "meet" in Mary Green's online classes. The other day I visited her blog to see some for the work she's been doing for Mary latest class Collage Basics with Vintage Paper. While I was there I was intrigued to see that Lenna hosts a creative swaps blog and that the latest swap was mail art! I love arting up my mail so I just had to join in. We were to create and send 3 artful envelopes to Lenna and we'll receive 3 in return...actually 4 since Lenna will package the 3 envelopes in one she creates herself. As they arrive Lenna's been posting the envelopes on the swap blog. Be sure to take a look at the beautiful mail art that's been coming in at the Creative Swaps Blog. Here are the 4 envelopes I made for the swap. I Created the envelopes from pages of an old ledger I bought recently at a garage sale. And, I'm sure you'll recognize some of Mary's lovely French Dictionary pages in the background. The adorable children were all courtesy of Lisa's Altered Art.

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Rosanna and the Elephants

Mary's having another monthly challenge on her Green Paper blog. This month she's given us another lovely sheet of images to use to create whatever we like. The challenge is to use at least part of each of the three images. I've created a small collage on the cover of an old book. Mary's starting a new e-course this week called Collage Basics with Vintage Paper and if it's anything like her previous classes you won't want to miss it!

Journalfest

Journalfest is like Artfest but the focus is on journaling...making journals, sharing journals or just finding out what journaling is all about. It's put on by Teesha Moore and held at Fort Worden near Port Townsend. A few weeks ago I realized I was going to have a day off during Journalfest so I wrote Teesha and asked her if I could come for just the day. She graciously said yes! I chose a class by Katherine England who turned out to be a delightful teacher. The class was called Oz in a Box. I think that's one of the reasons I chose the class...I love the old Oz books. The other was that I would get to actually make my own journal and learn Coptic binding...something I've been wanting to try for awhile now. The class was wonderful...Katherine was a warm and generous teacher and I'm just thrilled with how my journal turned out. Because the journals are expected to get a lot of use (note to self...use your journal!) the spine is bound with leather...so you can't SEE the Coptic binding. But, it's under there...and I hope to make another journal soon and leave the binding uncovered. Katherine gave us each a cigar box to house our journals and I can happily report it's been out of the box several times already. I find that I really like the size...it's small...about 5" x 7"... but substantial.

Art Smile