The Name

The name, funny isn't it what a name does for you or to you.  I remember there is a song by Johnny Cash about  "A Boy Named Sue", don't you know that young man named Sue had to be tough?   It is interesting to where we get names from , be it from a book of names, named after a relative or named after a famous person or place.   I know everyone has a good story of where their name came from. 

Now our Libby is the rescue dog we have and love her and she is indeed part of the family.   A very very tendered hearted young lady.   You may wonder how we named her?  When we got her  from the pound they had named her Sally, nothing against the name Sally but she didn't look like one to me.  The vet said you might as well rename her because there is no telling what her name was.   I ran a little contest on FB for someone to come up with a name.    My friend Carolyn came up with Libby, we liberated her from the pound.  I do believe she was meant for us, they had had her from June and it was a November that we discovered this beautiful and loving animal.   We have had her I think 2 years now.   So that is how she got her name.   See ? An interesting little story about Libby.

Here is Libby a great and happy fur baby.  Now we have another fur baby Jewel and will talk about her soon.  She and Libby bonded and hunt rabbits and gophers in the yard and always up to something.   We were blessed to have found this baby.

I know that I was named after one of the Dionne Quints that were born on May 28, 1934 in Canada.  Their names were Yvonne, Ceile, Emilie, Marie and Annette.  So hence I was Annette . I bet you were wondering that.  Right? Now my middle name is Juanita and didn't know what it stood for.  Then one day Hubby and I were watching Romancing the Stone and the writers name on the movie was Joan Wilder.  Then they said Juanita when the introduced Joan Wilder to some people on the movie,  so I guess my middle name was after my mother.  

I am taking a class called Life Book on Willowing with Tammy and several wonderful artists.  Week 21 is with Rhomany in mixed media lettering.  Well of course I watched the video and kind of went off on my own direction.  Sort of the lesson but not?  I bet some of you do that also, putting your own spin on it.  

Here is my version of Rhomany's lesson, I had to girlie it up some.  I was going to make it red or magenta but it just formed it's own self this color.   I had this pretty paper in the background FOREVER and never wanted to use it becasue it was so pretty.  I know that is like a silly goose but I have lots of treasures like that.   I don't know if I am saving for a rainy day or what but I did grit my teeth and thought I will use this paper.  In the little box on the bottom right we are suppose to write about ourselves with 10 words that we thought of about ourselves. Good or bad just words.   I could think of words about hubby, the grands and the furbabies but didn't think that would count.  Soooooo I decorated it and just left it blank.  All these little areas you see are cut out.  A true test of patience.  I have one of the cheapie exacto knives that are given out free, the kind that you break off the blade when dull, it worked good.  

Oh don't forget to go to May 12th and sign up for my give a way.  The dead line is coming up.  Just some FYI for you. 

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.  xoxoox

If I don't post until after Memorial Day have a good weekend.

On a Roll with Japanese Stab Bound

Do you ever just get on a roll and want to just create and play with one thing?  Like an almost obsession?   Be it cooking, sewing, cleaning house or even yard work? It seems like I have on making these journals.  First it was the Coptic binding one, need to make some more of them , then the paper sack journals and now the Japanese Stab Bound ones.  I know my art room is saying "what about the painting? "  My room should be happy I am in here- listening to my play list tunes, the TV is on watching Criminal Minds and NCIS and I am happy as a lark just creating up a storm.  Sometimes our fur babies are even in here with me doing what they do best   SLEEP.  I bought another cabinet to hold goodies and Eldon painted it red for me.  He is a lot better at spray paint than I am, I get in a hurry if you can imagine that.  So see?  The room should be happy.   

The instructions on the JSB books says to use paper to hold it together but I did follow directions on the first one.  BUT  the second one I thought why not canvas ?  It would be sturdy and certainly accept any media I wanted to put on it.  I just happen to have a tad of canvas so canvas it was.   I used the scallop chipboard I so proudly bought, drew the edges off and cut them and glued it all together.   I used some tag board paper, which I find takes our gob and goo painting and gluing wonderfully and some watercolor paper also. 

The newly finished outside.  It sports some lace and of course some bling.   I think you can see the binding on the journal, I used some seam binding and used some to thread in the lace as well as some velveteen ribbon I had.  The lace medallion thingie is something I picked up at the DAV for I think 50 cents.  I first did it without the bling  and after taking it's picture thought nope gotta have bling.  Even if it is not rhinestones bling it is. 

The inside covers I did like and used the green pen to make the edges pretty.  Now my paper shifted some but will get that mastered.  Haven't figured out why they shifted but I will. I don't know what I am going to do with these but they are fun to make. On ward and upward on the JSB journals.    

  Thanks for stopping by to see what is going on in my world today.      Oh be sure and stop by the May 12 entry for my give away. 

xoxoxoxo See you next time.

Stab Bound?

There is an old saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.  Well bow wow y'all.  This old dog is still learning.  No not to roll over or beg  but more of the mixed media tricks.  Of course nearly every day we learn something or say why did I do that again?   Knowing that the last time whatever you did wasted time or messed up. 

Japanese Stab Binding a journal.  I have seen this and even in the Professional Photographer Magazines some are offering this as a "special" way to bind their books.  Well people on you tube there it is.  Milliande Art Community for Women has a group called Hinges.  This was the prompt to do one of these journals.

I was at Michaels the other day and found these chipboard thingies and with scallops on them I think like 5 or 6 to a package,  they were calling to me---Annette we need to be rescued out of this bin.  So I swept them up and they became a journal book.  Well two of them did. 

Here is the front finished.   Of course I had to add a few pretties to it.  The doily we got at the DAV, my goodness they have treasures there.  AND I have finally gotten the gentleman who works there to lighten up and joke a little.  It was a job but after several visits  there he is a cut up guy in my book. 

The back of the book and you can see the Japanese binding a little better, I got kind of carried away with the extra goodies on the end and front of it.  Of course added lace to the edge to show off the scallops. 

The inside cover pages, some very textured paper I had to cover the inside of the book and for a fly leaf or whatever they call them and I also did this on the back also.  I just love the texture on these pages with the little leaves and flowers in them.  

These little books are getting habit forming, I have enough crochet items to cover a bunch of them, think I am letting loose and getting after the creating of journals.  They are fun to make and decorate.


Please don't forget to sign in on my May 12th entry for a chance to win one of my paintings of flowers. 

Thanks for stopping by today and seeing what is going on in my world today. 

xoxoxoxoxo

1st Ever Give A Way

Alright, I have put my thinking cap on and thought cards or something like that for my first give a way.  Celebrating my 10,000 plus views on my blog.   Now 6 of you have already commented on my last post so I will be sure and put your names in the hat. 

Please remember the rules, don't you hate rules?   Please leave a comment here or on the post to Braleigh and you must be a follower.  That is it pretty simple.  Then on the stoke of midnight on the 31st of May I will have some winners.  (Well maybe just the next morning, depends if I am up or not at midnight.  : )  )  Now if you prefer a certain image please tell me in your comment , in not it will all be random.  

I actually won a give a way and was so excited so I thought that was fun and I needed an excuse to give y'all one.  These are some digital paintings I did.  Loved doing them and certainly don't look like the original photos I used.   Now what is digital painting you ask, just in case you haven't gotten to explore it ?  A computer program, a stylus, an Wacom pad and your fingers and brain get to play together .   Mine are not the automated paintings but stroke by stroke one each lovingly put on the canvas.  Oh I admit sometimes not lovingly  but still the same the strokes are on there.   I can thank Karen Bonaker and Marilyn Sholin for the teaching of their techniques in Painter.   I did also take a little started class with Jim Cunningham  and some DVD off of Jeremy Sutton, so I should be good to go in the educational part of it.    When I first started without help, I opened the program and thought where do I start ?  So I just grabbed a pastel in Painter and went to town.  That is the medium of my choice when I use to paint a million years ago.   I used all knowledge I knew from being an artist of traditional medium.   Karen and Marilyn taught me the program.  Now sorry Photoshop,  but Painter is running you a close race in being a giant of a program.    That is a tad of the history of what I did with these fun paintings. 

The 6 images to be used for the drawing.  Good luck to you all.  

There you go, thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.  xoxoxo

BRALEIGH and 10,000 PLUS VIEW GIVEAWAY

I don't know if you remember or not but I said if I could reach one person and influence them in anyway I would feel like my blog was a success.  To me anyway.   Well hang onto your hats my friends you will love this story of this sweet nine year old.  Yep I said nine year old who happens to be the granddaughter of my dear friend of 26 or so years. 

Braleigh has been looking at my blog with her grandmother and commented to her  about some of the art I have been creating.  We exchanged emails and discussed how I created some of them.  This sweet little young lady gathered things up around her grandmother's house and created these on her own.   I cannot wait to see where her art career will go as she gets older.  Now I have a tough job here keeping up and hoping influencing her for a while here.

A box came in the mail wishing me a happy birthday and I opened it to find these beautiful little surprises and one even had my initial on it.  

The bottle  that a nine year old created this all by her self.  I am so proud of you Braleigh. 
Tissue, buttons, charms and all were added by this young artist.  

What young sweet colors on the pillow here and with my initial on it.  Did you notice the bling also?  This sweet pillow will be proudly displayed in my art room so I can enjoy it everyday. 

Braleigh, you keep creating my dear from your heart and you will keep being a wonderful artist.   xoxoxo

Now I have to say that I have reached over 10,000 views now, now I don't know how many time Braleigh has peeked but but not the 10,000 times.  I want to have some sort of a give away to celebrate the views and all my followers.  I had not one idea that I would ever have this many views when I started the blog.  Give me the weekend to figure out what things, yes things, I will give a way.   To be eligible you must comment here and be a follower.    I have made it easy so you don't have to verify the comment anymore and have added an email thingy.  So off I go thinking what would y'all like?   I don't care if it is out of the country or not.  It will be some art for sure and whatever else I can think of and the deadline, oh I hate those things but the  deadline will be May 31, 2012.  How does that sound?  As soon as I figure out the prizes I will post another blog but all that have added their names here will be included.  Promise !!!!   

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.  xoxoxo

May, Hail and Bling

Can you believe it?  May is here, I mean here with the nice toasty temps and all.  We should get the May flowers that April showers bring so that will be so pretty this year.  A drought last year but we did have some rain in April, probably not enough to break the drought but rain is rain and we will take it anytime.  Well, most anytime.  Nope anytime will work around here.

This time of year in West Texas rain clouds do bring hard rain.  Now what is hard rain do you ask?  HAIL !!!   Not the little pea size that just knocks off a few leaves--we are talking golf ball to softball size.  We had a hum dinger of a storm the 29th of April, just before Hubs birthday.  In our part of town we got the HAIL !!!!    We drove around the area the next day, farming we call it and any car that was left out had no windshields or back windows and really looked pitiful.   Lots of windows got broken and we even found parts of some one's skylight in our yard.  

We were watching the baseball game and saw some clouds and thought whoa Nellie, we better check the weather.  About that time  we turned to the station on the TV or Tellie they were saying there was a tornado on the ground about 1585 and Slide Road, now people that was us.  So we got the fur babies together and down the stairs we went.  Well the short legged baby took one step at a time and the bigger fur baby stuck to the steps and would not move one inch.   Hubs just ooched her along and going back up the stairs was just as eventful.   We didn't find much damage in the rest of the world though, power line poles snapped here and there and one roof caved in but lots and lots of hail damage.  It certainly could have been worse let me tell you.   Us?  We are fine, need another new roof and gutters now.  You know I wonder if God is telling us something?   We have lived in this house a little over three years now, and this will be the second roof we have to replace and we have been hit by lightening once.  Don't know if we just aren't listening to his signs here. 

I went out in the yard Monday and took these pics of the front yard or a piece of it.  The dark thingies you see are hail holes,  I have never seen the likes of this in grass.  Now when we farmed and got a hail you could see dings like this but it was in soft dirt.   Bet if you click on the pic they will be bigger, not the holes the pic.   : )

A close up of said holes.  Didn't know which ones to show you there were plenty to chose from though.

One more batch of hole pics, you know once you have seen a hail hole you have basically seen the things.  Yes it was very loud even in the basement. 


So on a lighter, blingie and nonsense note here is some bracelets I have made.  The Gilded Stash Society and their beads are just so pretty.   The first one was a little kit and the others were part of the monthly package. 

Now mind you I am not a jewelry maker, no no no, but these were fun to make.  I think if I sold them I would have to ask a gazillion dollars for as long as it took me.   I love blingie things but don't like to pay the prices so this fits the bill on both.  You know Texans like bling.

This cutie has buttons and I glued buttons on top them.   Sorry to get you excited there but I didn't think of this my self. 

Now this bottom bracelet was suppose to have lots more buttons on it but I didn't want to feel like the button lady so I changed the design of it. 

So there you go.   Thanks so much for stopping by  Annette's world and seeing what I am up to.  xoxoxoxo