Painted wooden puzzles

Man what a busy last few days and not very productive but spending time with family and a day doing groceries and running around town (to browse the shops) has put me a bit behind and time is now ticking, am I complaining? no time with family is very important to me and well worth every minute especially with my SIL.
I spent yesterday with my SIL Penny, she is a watercolour artist and a very good drawer. Check out her website to view her work, I am sure Penny won't mind me giving her a bit of a plug here http://www.winteringreen.com/.  Penny wanted to buy a laptop so we spent the morning chatting, did lunch, then went to the last computer store she hadn't been in yet. She saved a bunch of money on taxes because the computer store is on the Mohawk Reservation south of my house, a few miles away. Today I did the grocery thing, what a waste of money...all down the toilet as far as I am concerned. If you really think about it..and I do occasionally, money well wasted???? Hmmmm I could find lots to do with that money...
On to a lighter subject...here are my puzzles I told you about. These are wooden kids puzzles, nicely laid inside a little wooden frame. I was going to take the puzzles out and then paint something on the back panel and then paint the frame part but I had a brainfart and decided to try one puzzle and see how it goes.
Well here they are, I did 2 puzzles on the Peace on Earth and 1 puzzle and one without the puzzle pieces (because I think I used the pieces on altered art or something) for Oh Holy Night,  but it looked ok as well.
These are both Kim Klassen DeSigns and I loved how they turned out. When I showed them to Penny she suggested they would look nice in a picture frame holder so I wanted to see how they would look and I think I will leave them as is and not bother drilling holes in them to hang with homespun. What do you all think?
I ventured to the dollarstore today and found some more, these are pre printed for kids to basically fill in their own colours, me being the person that I am had to venture out and do my own thing. I think a few with just snowman scenes on them would be cute too.
Well I must get cracking, the end of October will come soon enough and more paint to fly, wood to cut out and things to package up.
Thank you for looking.

Mum N Me

It has a been a busy weekend so I have been a bit blog tardy.

Friday was spent with my Mum in a nice quaint town of Port Hope. We usually meet there because it is halfway between her home and mine. We had a wonderful lunch together then browsed the streets , admiring the shops, noticing some of our favourites now occupied by other shop owners, and generally just chatting along the way and having a great time. Of course there is lots of unending spoiling going on as well.  I love my Mum very much, we have a rather long story to tell but not today, after a separation of 37 years were were reunited and it has been the best event of my life.

So this post is for my Mum, I love you and cherish every moment together.  xoxoxoxoxo

Inchie Challenge Entry

Over at Inchy by Inch they are having a leaf challenge so I just made these to submit to the blog.

I used a Hero Art branch stamp in Vintage Photo distress ink on cream coloured cardstock, then I applied pastels in green, orange and a tiny bit of red along the edges of the paper then smudged with my fingers to blend the colours. I ran each inchie along the ink pad in the same coloured ink and then applied the leaf brads. That's it, easy peasy.

Prim Towel Holder

Here is a towel holder I bought for next to nothing, it was bare wood, stained lightly. I painted it all black , took the insert out and painted this house with trees. It also has a nice little shelf on top so you could easily add a few more prim goodies to it.  I like finding  items and giving them a facelift. Do I do this at home?well not really but I should. If only I had a bigger house and more rooms. Oh well one day I will.

Thanks for looking. More to come another day.

Phew.....am I a ditz or what

I just tried to upload a new background and just about lost everything. As you can see everything is now on the left that was on the right. I have a logo behind the current one at the top left behind Shabby blogs. Oh my I need help but no more fidgeting tonight. I just about lost all my blog lists, links, followers, all 15 of you.
Argh....I did read instructions but somehow I still managed to screw things up so I think I will leave things as is till another time. I found a great crow background but I feel like crowing now....
Good night all.

The Paints a-fly'n

As promised in yesterdays post I have some items I have painted from last week to show you. Below is another painting on paper and thought this was a cute snowman who looks like he is singing his heart out. The background is music from a hymnal that I applied to the wood, sealed it on well then painted my design.

Below is a couple of candle mats or just holiday mats for a table or hutch. The mats are cut from scrap vinyl flooring and painted on the back. These are really good sellers for me, I didn't do any last year so thought I would re-introduce them again this year. The snowmen are actually stencils but Laurie Speltz, for some reason something that should have been quick using stencils too me almost 2 hours to do one, once I got the gist of colours and placement the 2nd one didn't take me nearly as long thank goodness or I wouln't bother selling them. You never make back your time when you sell.

And here is another little tea pot, barely 1 cup size but it was so cute I bought it for less than a dollar and the gingers fit nicely on here. Can you tell I like these Katrina Roncin gingers??? I added the little tea lite, seems to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

And here are more candle mates. The top one is actually a pattern my good friend Cathy gave me when I visited her in Pennsylvania this spring. Cathy is an amazing painter and spins circles around you like no tomorrow. This is one of Cathy's own patterns and I have adapted it slightly for this mat, which is the size of a dinner plate. Cathy would be so proud of me doing much more wet on wet blending than I have done in the past and what a time saver. You can see my trees very well but very out of practise with the deerfoot brush I manages to get my trees done and not to shabby if I may say so.

Today I painted a paper towel holder, again another bargain find. It was stained wood and had this back panel with a piece of wall paper on it. Kind of needed some TLC so tomorrow after I put it back together I will show you the transformation it got.

Well thank you for looking and visiting.

A beautiful fall day

Today we took it easy and decided it was a good day to ride the ole Harley and see the fall colours. It was quite brisk and going 100 km/hr (60 mi/hr) it was quite chilly but the sun on our faces it was beautiful. We headed north to a town that sees lots of bikes, Stirling, which is a vast farmland area, rolling hills and some twisty roads. The leaves were not that colourful yet to our disappointment but there were some areas that were starting to show signs of red and orangey yellows. We continued on to Campebellford, a quaint little town with seems like a lot of traffic for a town it's size and then we just drove wherever the roads took us and of course John's vast knowledge of a truck driver's roadmap. Me if I were driving I could get lost in a paperbag so I have no sense of direction at the best of times, I would probably end up at the other side of Ontario. LOL
I have been busy painting items this past week for my upcoming show in November so I will be posting some pics tomorrow.
This was a good day and a restful day, I hope you had a good one as well.
God bless you all.

Meet Tom Ato

I know what you are all thining, boy she has wayyyy too much time on her hands. Well this poor fella Tom Ato first appeared in the garden, he wasn't looking very well, sort of on the greenish yellowish side, you know that look when someone has too much to drink. Well after a few days he started looking and feeling better, he started turning a sort of yellow with a hint of pinkish red, and now a true sun ripened red, apparently his normal colour. So now here is Tom Ato, quite a visitor to my blog of late, you never know where he might land, perhaps on the dinner plate. Oooops did I say that out loud?

Now on the creative side of things, here is a matchbox inchie swap I just finished up and will be out the door in another day or so. You can't see the box very well here but the paper around it is actually painted paper towel, much like the mermaids in my post below, then I added this nice scroll border with glitter on it and the inchie is actually a piece of what looks like wicker, wall paper and the butterfly attached. This is for JoAnne over at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/addictedtoinchies/ . I don't think JoAnne visits my blog but if she does, it is on its way before the end of the week. I have also crammed in some inchie inspiration for her to create some of her own. We all need more stuff to create with, don't we?? I know I do.

Here are some cat inchies I finished up the other night. The top middle is Rosie's eye. She has the prettiest face, well I think she does. This swap is also an Addicted to Inchie swap, we make 10 inchies and then everyone who joins makes 10 then our swap hostess, Becky, throws them in a bowl, picks a name then starts selecting 10 inchies, all different members in most cases and we get 10 back. I love cats so this was a great theme.

And also the theme I picked for this month because I won last months Addicted to Inchies swap, By the Sea, I picked fall. I got these nice leaf shape brads at one of our local dollar stores, I took cream coloured cardstock, and along just the edges I layed some pastel colours, orange, reds, greens and then smudged them with my fingers blending the colours. The one of the far left looks more pink here but it is a more red colour, this one I also put an eyelet and threaded some glittery fiber. I wonder who will win this month? I get to choose so we will have to wait and see.

Last but not least, I finished this small tea pot this morning. It is for my fall craft show I do every year in Stirling. I have been buying my tea pots at thrifty kind of stores, you can get some good buys. I put a little flicker battery operated tea lite at the top which will be included. I have to make a tag to tie to the handle that reads " Come sit with me and drink Ginger tea".

This is a Katrina Roncin design, I loved her gingers. Too bad she doesn't publish or design anymore. Such a talented painter.

Well more painting to do. I am on a real tight schedule now.

Tom Ato and I would like to say thanks for visiting my blog today.

Another Inkurable Stampers Entry

I made this ATC some time ago and got traded but I found another one that was in my stash. We all have stashes and you never know what you will find and when. The new challenge over at Inkurable Stampers is by the sea. I thought I would enter this card and see if I have a chance at winning something.
Most of the ATC is painted free hand, even the sailboat I came up with without even a line drawing to go by. I was a bit out of my comfort zone but how hard is it to draw a couple of triangles? LOL The young girl is stamped and painted with acrylic paints. Who may it be on the sailboat? is it someone she loves that has left? someone coming to greet her?

" The answer my friend is blowing in the wind".

Paint'n Paper

It's been a while since I blogged but JB has been on holidays all week and tomorrow then back to work. You know what it is like when someone else is around and you just don't get things done quite the same. Also I had surgery to contend with although as you saw from a couple previous posts that never stopped me. Today I finally got some pictures taken of things I am working on.
Most recently I did the 2 mermaid ATC's. The backgrounds were created with bubbles and food colouring. My friend Jan did this background for our background swap over at ATC for beginners and if you take a look on her blog you can find out how simple and fun it can be. Although my first attemp using the food colouring was a bit more muddy than I wanted but I liked the colour so I used it anyways. I also experimented using different coloured cardstock and also changed my layers of bubble colours to make interesting background effects. I also used some sequin waste my friend Jeanie recently sent me, you have to go look at both of these girls blogs. Their artwork is simply amazing and Jeanie recently got into watercolours. For a beginner I must say, she has talent!!!
One of these ATC's will be traded for one I wanted on Jan's blog. Thank you girls for your continuing inspiration and all my other paper crafty friends.



For the mermaid tails I used painted paper towels and then stamped on them and used Stickles for some added glitz.


And these ornies are new. The stockings I just whipped up last night before I headed off to bed, no hangers yet but I will get to that today. This stocking is a Kim Klassen design from the Q&E magazine from a few years ago. Again I used text for my background, sealed it on the wood, let dry then painted away. I really like how the shading on the edges although you can't see much of it here makes it look very antiquish (is that a word?).

I love painting candy canes, I can't eat them but I love painting them, this one looks like you could lift it off the page and eat it.

And finally, I picked up the week my hand was all bandaged up, a few old torn up books and a recipe book. I love the old books for their discoloured and yellowed pages. This I antiqued myself it is a gingerbread recipe then I used a Katrina Roncin design to paint the gingers on here. I will drill some holes and add some homespun so it can be hung in a kitchen. This is a 5x7 canvas and took no time to paint.

Well that is it for now. I am continuing with other projects. This morning I had to clean house while JB went to our property back north to collect more wood for us to burn this winter. I seem to get more cleaning and multi tasking done and I can whip through with no questions being asked. Oh well, life isn't all about housework I say. Take time to enjoy each other and help, more hands make light work.

Till next time...have a great day.

Labour Day greetings

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend. Us, well, we were busy with a big pile of wood. JB and I split wood. I was the lever girl, I managed the lever while JB put the wood on and did all the lifting and stacking. It's nice to be lever girl, you must be very safety conscience tho. Don't want to move that blade while hands are busy manipulating that wood a certain way.
No one was injured or died during this episode. LOL
In the evenings I was kept busy preparing some backgrounds I am doing for a background swap in our http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATCforbeginners/ group. This involves making a background and then explaining the procedure to make it. We will all get a neat little book when finished by our swap hostess, Jen at jenxo.blogspot.com, we have a good group of 17 signed up for backgrounds. This is always a great way to share ideas and techniques and oh how I love techniques.
We had some more goodies from the garden, tomatoes are really coming on now, we have had a feed of red potatoes and soon the squash will be ready. As far as we can tell we also have pumpkins that we did not plant and last count we have around 17. So looks like someone will be trying to make pie or carving or something. We don't really do Hallowe'en here, living in the country over the years as the kids get older they either don't go out or go into town to the malls or more populated areas. I just don't do the weenie, but somehow I am made to buy the candy, and since I can't eat it guess who does? and it isn't Rosie the cat. =^..^=
In my next posts I will have some pics to share. This is just a rambling again of a busy weekend and tomorrow we will be gathering more wood that a kind neighbour said we could have since she is getting a pellet stove. So while we have the splitter we will use it while we can. More hands make light work so help each other and get that job done sooner than later.
Till next time, adios amgios.

A little bit of folkart

Hello everyone.
Well my hand is coming along fine, still bandaged but with a lot less than what was on there. Can't believe it was a week ago today. I am able to move my finger much better now and it doesn't lock when I try to bend it. Although it still swells and get stiff that will be like that for sometime. If you never thought you have seen enough purple shades you should see my hand. For one small finger somehow I have a bruised palm, little finger and middle finger. Must be all that tugging he did to release that tendon.
Anyways before surgery I had basecoated some things and got the real messy work, like spraying and doing backgrounds. Below is a pic of some canvases that you can hang around the house or on a knob of a cupboard over the holidays. A 6 pack muffin tin baking pan, I did one with ginger faces also, it will have homespun attached to hang it on a kitchen or wall somewhere.

Here are 2 painted ornies I did from the Quick and Easy painting magazine Ornament issue for 2009. The wood I cut out then attached a book page and painted these cute snowmen and a tree. As you can see this is hot off the press so I didn't add the hanger yet.

And this is a Kim Klassen design, that is how I got the idea to paint these on book pages. I used another template from the Q&E mag and cut the ornie shape out, applied a book page then painted, then added a lacy scrapbook border at top, painted the sides and back with Folkart Inca Gold and then put a screw eye in at the top and tied a piece of organza gold ribbon. I really like this idea of painting on book pages. I am on a roll now. Seems it was taking me forever to decide to do this fall show, I was ready to pack it in but Christmas time is always nice to have a few extra dollars. I also have a house I painted on a bookpage too but somehow I didn't resize it to upload. Oh well you get the gist.

Hope you are all well and not too busy with return of school and such. Hard to believe it is September. Where did August go???

Have a super day.