Post surgical update

Hi everyone,
well things went well as well as a finger op goes. Seems my left ring finger had a bit more damage than other fingers, Dr. seemed to be fiddling more with it than the others. 2 weeks and the stitches come out. I took the tensor bandage off, it was wrapped too tight and caused some redness and itching that was driving me crazy, so Dr. JB and myself took it off and Dr. JB taped me up here and there. Now I can acutally type with my fingers a bit more exposed.
I just wanted to thank my friends who commented and those that called me, you know who you are, to check up on me.
I have been trying not to be too hyper but when you are used to doing something all the time, now you have to adapt or do things differently till the bandages and stitches come out , it's hard to sit still. I seem to pace a lot, I might wear a groove in the floor here. LOL
I have taken next to no medication as I hardly feel anything, perhaps the pain I was feeling before was far worse than the actual release of the tendon.
Well that is enough typing for now.
Take care all and again, thank you for your thoughts, prayers and friendship.

Countdown is on

Hi friends, well today was spent running around, getting groceries, posting mail, doing some things around the house prior to tomorrow's surgery.
I am having for the 7th time, surgery for trigger finger. I am beginning to be a pro at this. Trying to be more prepared than past times, making sure all things are caught up.
JB has tomorrow off so he can drive me to the hospital, run some errands then come back and pick me up.
Think I will do a bit of self medicating before I go, once the freezing comes out it won't be too bad, usually more stiff and swollen than anything but always good to have some meds in you to keep on top of things.
So for now I am probably not going to be able to type very much or for very long. Did you know that you do the most of your typing with your left hand???
Well take care everyone, I hope to be back at it soon but til then, God bless you all for visiting my sight and leaving lovely comments.

My inchie matchboxes

Well two more things completed on my list before surgery. I had a lot of fun completing this for a swap over on Inchie onexone board. We had to alter a matchbox any theme we wanted to pick then decorate 4 inchies to match the theme then stuff some goodied inside for our trade partner. As you can see I did 2 matchboxes, I signed up for 2 partners so I will receive 2 from 2 different partners as well.

The theme of my first box here is The book of Birds, I painted the matchbox and used glue and another colour of paint on top of the glue and it crackles to make it look old. For the binding of the book I used some music from an old hymnal, as we know birds love to sing especially at the crack of dawn. I made 4 other inchie sized birds then added my extra bits and pieces. I can't believe how much one can pack into a little matchbox. These matchboxes held 40 wooden matches so they are not big boxes. I say this was a lot of fun and we will be doing one of these swaps over at Addicted to inchies in the next month or two.

This second inchie matchbox is themed Young at Heart, I painted and stamped on paper towel then when completely dry cut and glued to the surface of the box. All the inchies I made are young children copyright images that I have used. Filled the box with stuff again and will be heading to my swap partner before the end of the week.
Thank you for dropping by and if you ever have the inkling to swap a matchbox with me just give me a shout.
Have a super day :)

A Special Happy Birthday

to Thom, a very special person in my life. As you can see I still have the card but it will be in the post soon. A bit late making this card and sending but sometimes making a card for someone takes great thought, I like to try to make one that is personal and appealing to the right individual. So this is hot off the press! last night. the inside has a smaller piece of paper with a birthday greeting and a smaller bird perched on top of the paper.

So Happy Birthday Thom , have a super day.

A busy week

Boy am I beat, oh I inserted the wrong pic, LOL.
This has been some hectic week getting ready before my hand surgery I was able to pickle more beets, get some swaps done that I was committed to, my yearly eye check up, hair coloured finally, painting for my show and all the other stuff we need to do on a daily basis.

This is Rosie who decided this week that she would have a nap after a bath at the far end of the dining room table. She came to visit me at the other end and usually looks to see if her favourite mop brush is around and then decided it wasn't so I will go have a nap. What can one say when your cat rules your house? We rarely eat at the table and I can tell you Rosie has been here more than once, not to mention the kitchen window above the sink....oh yeah we know about that too Rosie. =^..^= Anyways as you can see by the size of her she is well fed and well looked after, we adopted her after she was rescued and was a poor messed up 7 month old cat but we have had her almost 7 years now so she has come a long way.

And here is a very small harvest I picked just before supper this evening. Beets to eat, tomatoes are just coming on. Remember one of my first posts I showed you those yellow pears, well they don't get much bigger than the pic I showed you but man they are wonderful in flavour.
So as you can see and read I have been busy.

I also had a pic of some painted items to show you but I didn't like the end result of the picture quality so I will have to do a retake. I have to work on my photography skills. They are a bit to be desired at the best of times. Oh well I thought you just had to look and click....shouldn't the camera do the rest? focus itself, correct background stuff and all that? surely they have a camera for idiots like me?

Well stay tuned for more artsy fartsy stuff, I hope tomorrow I can take a better pic of painted items and my finished matchbox inchie swaps.

Winner of my Giveaway

is Kathy K. Wooo hooo.
Kathy I have your addy so I will pop this in the mail to you.
You had 2 people come to my site and mentioned your name so you are the winner.
I didn't really have many interested parties for my first giveaway, but hey, you have to start somewhere right?
Congratulations Kathy.

Too sticky to paint

I don't have any pictures today, just some ramblings on what I have been up to.
The garden is keeping us busy, I have put down 7 jars of beets and still more coming. My tomatoes are just starting to turn a yellowy colour, once they come in we are going to have tons, and I mean tons. Beans have been really yummy, we had a discussion the other night as to why someone whom we won't name, I call him JB, said I had more beans on my plate than he did, but, hey, I love them, I want them and too bad so sad. We have been eating the beet tops almost every other night so now and again I need my beans. I didn't know there was dibs on them.
Today was too hot and sticky to paint, I really need to get in gear but now summer decided to arrive and man the humidity is very high. So today I wanted to get my inchies done for a swap I am in by the end of the month, a few more to be completed then Time and My Country will be complete. Pictures to follow.
I am having some sugery on my left ring finger the end of August , I can still do some things. I have had this procedure many times now, I think I have only 3 fingers left after this one. I have had trigger fingers for years and when they come on they come, the triggering really hurts and especially when you want to straighten it, that is owie, so I will be glad to get that over with then I can move on and not worry about if I am going to bend it and it lock. Oh well could be worse.
The whole procedure takes about 15 minutes, on and off the table in no time. Some freezing, a little conversation with the doc as he is doing it then a few stitches, some bandage and off I go. Last time I cam home and actually started to paint something, and it was my right thumb I just had operated on. Amazing how we can adapt if we put our minds to it. I have adapted all my life to things and it just comes as second nature to me. I guess a gift I was blessed with.

I had a couple of my paint friends call me this week, Becky and Kathy. Always nice to hear their familiar voices, we have nice chats and keep up to date on each other. Again a true blessing is having wonderful and thoughtful friends. What would I do without them???and my Mum, she is such a wonderful woman. Mumsy was shopping today and found something for me, she had a lady try on a jacket for her as we conversed over it on the phone. Mumsy loves to spoil me, I am spoiled too much tho. I am so grateful we were reunited, you have no idea. That was a definite gift from God. He did answer my prayers, and, I said a lot of them.

Well here's hoping that the weekend is going to be nice. I get my hair coloured tomorrow. Got it cut a week and half ago and found out if I get a colour then I can have a cut included so since I was going to have her colour it, we did it backwards, I got the cut first and tomorrow I am going dark brown. I can't wait to get rid of my gray. Too much makes Lesley grumpy.
So have a good one my dear blogger friends.
Happy creating and enjoy one another.
xo

A little GIVEAWAY with a twist

Today I would like to offer a little Giveaway, but, in order for you to win this, this is what I would like you to do for me. Since I am new to the Blogworld I would like to have more people come and explore my blog..so, for every person, friend that you send to my blog and leaves a comment which states who sent them , then you will win this inchie book. This inchie book was made totally by me. I have and probably will add a few more pages to it so you can add some inchies of your own. I have used scrap paper, painted and stamped on paper towel, painted, used rubons etc, Shrinky Dink plastic, you get the idea. (The inchie book measuer 2 1/2 inches x 5 1/2 inches).

Please leave comments in this post only. I will be closing this Giveaway as of Sunday Aug. 16/09.Winner will be announced on Monday and postal arrangements made through email.

Fun Foam and ATC's

Well this was a rather relaxing weekend for both of us, gardening and cleaning up around the yard etc. In the evenings I took to my Bernie Berlin book and looked over her tut on the use of fun foam on ATC's. So here are 3 cards that I did.
I first got a font off a program from my computer and just wanted the outline, then I placed the fun foam in my printer and printed off the letters. Then I cut the letters our with some small scissors, man fun foam is like trying to slice butter in this humidity, very easy and soft, oh I just used a tan coloured piece of fun foam because I was going to be painting it anyways.
I then took some old paper from a printed magazine and used gel medium to adhere it to my base card. I then glued the letters on the paper and gessoed over the whole thing. I let this dry overnight. I didn't want to rush the drying process by using the heat gun. I had a few other things on the go and it is well worth the time to wait for it to dry. then I chose a colour scheme for each card and painted the backgrounds. The only thing I did different for the love card was I did not use a printed page on the base card, I just gessoed on the cardboard first. I got pics and used rub on Dragon flies for the " fly" card.
After the paint dried I was just going to leave the letters plain but then I was given a Post Card stamp from a good friend and stamped on the cards and making sure I got it on the letters. OOOO loverly I say.
These will be going up for trade. I haven't decided if I am keeping the Love one or not. I truly love that card. My friend Jen got me hooked on using Purple, orange and pink. Love the dramatic results.
My next post is going to be a Giveaway but you might have to work for it.
Stay tuned.

A little folk art

If you read my intro I am a folk art/decorative painter and this time of year I get busy, well, try to anyways. I am lucky enough to be able to submit some of my items in a fall show and I make a little Christmas money. Here is a flour sifter I bought at a place and I have painted a Terrye French design on it. The pic below this one will show a rotated version of it. I still have to wrap some homespun ribbon around the handle part, the little knob I cleaned up and then left green as it looks so well with the colour scheme.

And a little aluminum pot I painted black and the top I was shown how to do checkerboard from my good friend Cathy over at http://tolentreasures.blogspot.com/ with some stars. The little signs are based on a Sue Allemand design and I made them just small enough to hang on a wall or hang off a little knob or doorhandle.

I have painted on so many surfaces over the years, soap, glass, canvas, mostly wood, tea pots, etc. Recycling is a great way to make something old look new again. So look around and that old coffee pot, don't throw it away, keep it or ask someone like me to paint it. You never know what it will end up looking like.

Have a wondeful day.

Playing with Tin Foil

Well I decided to try something a bit different and not sure of what I was going to get but I bought Bernie Berlin's ATC Workshop book. One of her tutorials called for using Metal repair tape and seeing that I didn't get the right tape and wasn't going to go back to spend more money on tape I decided to try this with tin foil. Here are just a couple of cards I made. I ended up making 7 all together but one is off to the UK as a surprise trade for my friend Jan. I hope she likes it.
Anyways I took a piece of tin foil slightly larger than my base card for the ATC, cut the corner much like I did when I did the plant poke tutorial, then I used 2 way tape all around the back of the card making sure the foil was secure. I coverd the back so this wouldn't show.
I took a flourish stamp and inked it up in black ink (does not have to be StazOn) and stamped on the foil. Then I took my stylus or you can used a ball point pen and just like you are tracing, trace all the lines in your stamped design. Make sure you don't press too hard and end up tearing the foil but you can just press into it and because you have put the foil on a piece of cardstock it helps to anchor the foil and not be so likely to rip when tracing.
Next get out your paint. I first used black as you will see in the Art of Passion card, then I moved on to other colours for experimentation. I like the dark colours the best. The paint gets into the grooves of your foil and settle there. I brushed paint all over the card then while still wet I took a kleenex and then started wiping making sure to lift some of the paint but not all of it. You can also used a pouncing motion up and down to remove paint which actually looks a bit better.
Then allow it to completely dry. Then start embellishing. I found using black and white images very striking and you can chalk the images so a particular colour stands out.
As you can see I have added ribbon and bits and a few words to mine. They are now up for trade over at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATCforbeginners/.

Here is A Night on the Town, the girls undergarment is in purple...


and this beauty is ready for Passion. She is chalked in red, most striking against the black and foil background.

And these 2 little gems are for my Christmas in July swap over at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATCforbeginners/, the swap theme was to use bling which you really can't see. The Santa background is a brick stamp embossed over newsprint, then I rubbed pastels to colour them, then here and there I added Stickles for my bling. The ornament in Santa's hand is a stamped round circle and using Shrinky dink plastic I shrunk it for a nice ATC size for Santa. The frosty friends has bling too, the snow on the bottom is handmade paper that rips wonderfully then I scrunched it up, used gel medium to glue it down. Let dry then used Stickles on it. Oh so much fun we had making these.

Thanks for looking.