Thriving Art

Hello everyone! Time for my  T-day, with Elizabeth and T-gang  again.  Boy this past week just wooooooshed by like lightening striking!! But the sun is shinning and the temperatures are in the 60s........might just be a false spring.......but I'll take it! This past weekend was the Shafter Colour Festival and I have participated in the art gallery/show for the past three years. They always have the prettiest programs.  This was my acrylic exhibit The third side was for my Alcohol Ink pictures.  Below are random pictures I as I walked around during the "meet and greet the artists" They had a local winery there for wine tasting, very nice people and their wine was very good.  My friend, Judy, stopped so we could pose for the camera (I'm on the left.....and my glass was behind her back...LOL!) Last Monday was a no school day and Megan and Hannah came for some grandma time. They started with art journaling in their Bibles....

 It has really been cold and raining here, all the mountains around us all covered with snow, some places are quite low. If our temps drop about 10' it will snow here in the valley.  I haven't heard the weather report, but I sincerely doubt if the main freeways are open.........this is California and about 99% of the people DON'T know how to drive in the snow.......so they just close the roads....LOL!!! I have been playing along with the Art Journal Journey challenge : yellow brought to us by RIKE at  Rike's Art .  I just haven't taken the time to scan and get them posted, so today you get a twofer!! Still trying to use up that stash of Graphic 45..........I never dreamed it was such a large pile!!  These papers are from The Secret Garden collection.  I do like yellow and powder blue together.  "The Secret Garden" was a favorite book when I was a young, young, girl!  I even bought the movie at one time. This page was  demons...

Great balls of fire!! It's Tuesday again and time to link up with  The T-Gang and Elizabeth our hostess Since last week I was SOOO late and unprepared, I've tried to do a little better this week......I mean last week I posted on Wednesday and this week it's on Tuesday. LOL! I have shown photos of this winery many times, because we are wine club members.  It was time for us to go over and pick up our spring wines.  We don't have it shipped because we enjoy what they call a "Pick up Party"  The winery is closed to the public and only wine club members are allowed in.  On these events they have a chief come and prepare food for a light lunch to pare with the wines.  This time he had prepared a loaded baked potato soup and  a lamb stew.  I'm not a big potato soup person, so I chose the lamb stew, and was not disappointed. I forgot to take the photo before I started.  It had rained all the way over to the winery, and the sun came out ...

I lost all track of time this week and woke up this morning and realized it was Wednesday already, and I hadn't joined the  T-Gang at Elizabeth's Blog . So, I don't have photos prepared for this post. Even now, this is a rushed post :( as I need to get ready to go have lunch with some friends.  Hopefully I remember to take some photos before we get lost in making up for the couple weeks we haven't seen each other. The weather is nasty today, and I just haven't been able to get my mind on going out the door LOL! Just yesterday it was almost spring like, the day before was freezing cold and now it's blowing and raining.........who said you couldn't get more than one season in a week??? We live in a valley and all the mountains have been covered with quite a bit of snow.  Which is great, we need that moisture to carry us through the hot summer months. So, now it is time for me to go get ready to join my friends here and at the  T-Party  ........

Wow! If you ever wanted a chance to go to a Scrapbook Expo.......FREE here's your CHANCE to. GIVEAWAY: Win FREE Admission to a 2019 Scrapbook Expo Show! Hello Ai Fans! Today, you are seeing a special blog post for our 2019 Stamp & Scrapbook Expo ticket giveaway! We LOVE seeing Ai fans at stamp shows! In 2019, we are attending 17 Scrapbook Expo shows around the country, and we want you to come and say hello at your local show! To kick off our travel season, we are giving away SIX free admission tickets to any  Stamp & Scrapbook Expo ! 

Happy Wednesday!  We are halfway through the week and all is good here. The rain has stopped, there is frost on the ground this morning and snow on the mountain tops......it's going to be a GREAT day! The Card Concept  has a new challenge just starting.........you guessed it "Love is in the air." I have just started making a few valentines, mostly for my grandkids, and of course one for the Hubby. I chose to do a clean and somewhat layered card......using their card styles.  All die cuts, starting with the heart I won from  Darnell  some time ago. (smile) I had to make sure NOT to cut the card all the way through ( those little pieces are a bugger to put back in) They are reinforced on the back so there would be no possibility of them falling out.  Sentiment are from dies I've had for years and I just added a little sparkle with rhinestones on the y-o-u. Are you making any Valentines? If so, then you should be linking them up with  The...

It has been raining, off and on here for the past 4 days, and I think it is making DH and I a little stir-crazy.  He doesn't work when the weather is like this, so we've been practicing (or I have) for when he retires and we are together 24/7 ALL the time. LOL! Saturday he suggested we just go for a drive up to Lake Isabella and see if there was any snow there.  The lake is only 50 miles from the valley, but the winding road makes the trip almost an hour long. No snow there, but the lake is starting to show signs of filling up again.  The past couple of years of drought  has all but emptied it.........so that is a good sign. We chose to drive over one of the summits and down the other side, but got stopped at the top with a Road Closed sign.  There was evidence of the last snow fall still on the ground.  It was starting to rain and the wind was coming up.......they were expecting 5-10 inches of snow that night.........time to get off the mountain...

It's a howling wind and a spitin rain outside right now. I pray that anybody with a pet, has them inside where it is dry and warm, and that you are snuggling on the sofa with them.......safe and warm too. Happy Little Stampers  has a challenge going at the moment. To join the challenge I created this card, with slashing rain in the background (blue watercolor). I had the die cut square just laying around from some past project, that wasn't needed, so I found my favorite doggy stamp.  I have had him for more than 20 years, been ripped off the wood mount so I have no idea who made him........it might be from d.o.t.s. but don't quote me. (smile). His little heart is also water colored, and I took a gold gel pen around the edge of the die cut, then actually trimmed it back to the gold.  The sentiment is a TH Small Talk. (The black frame is just some paper i put behind the card so it would scan better.) Hope you weekend is full of creativity and that...

http://alteredbooklover.blogspot.com/ A journal page from March 2014, for a second look on the second day of the month. I still love that saying!

Well, we've landed on the first day of February and the horizon of the weekend. A new challenge, for this month, at  Art Journal Journey  it is the color Yellow , which was chosen by our hostess   Rike  from  rike's art  .  Yellow is a wonderful, cheery color, but not many people use it as a base color.  It usually takes "supporting actor" instead of  "actor of the year", so this, IMHO, is going to be a great challenge. I started with a couple swipes of yellow paint, then being determined to use this stash of Graph 45, I started pulling things already cut, adding a little Washie tape here and there. As you can see, even Graphic 45 uses yellow tones as highlight colors. Want to see more ways to use yellow?   Hop on over to  Art Journal Journey