Blogging A to Z: Zentangle

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

You have probably done a fair bit of doodling in your life, but have you ever seen Zentangle designs? Wow! They require way more patience than I usually exhibit, but I can completely enjoy looking at them.  Since I don't do them myself I don't have photos to share with you since I don't want to post other people's work without their consent.  However, if you do a Google search for Zentangle, you should prepare to get lost in the beauty for a long while.  All you need is a pen and some paper to create these fabulous drawings, so in fact anyone can do them.

Thank you for joining me this month on this A to Z blogging challenge.  It has been such great fun, and I hope you have been inspired or learned something you didn't know about in reading my posts.  Let's stay friends, shall we?

(Belated) Weekend in Review: The Beginning Stages

My weekend in review is a little late, but I hope you will find it worth the wait...

My heart is just exploding right now and I have to write my thoughts and feelings here even though this is a long post. They say people connect when they are vulnerable, so I'll just whip it out here, and you can decide if you still want to hang out with me or not. So, here goes.  Are you ready?

At the end of 2014 Ornery and I sat down and wrote out some goals for 2015. Celine Dion's song Another Year Has Gone By on Ornery's Christmas music track was an ear worm reminding him that time was passing and things were still the same as they were 5, 10, 15 years ago. He was really frustrated with his lack of retirement options, so he determined to change things in the coming year.  Our goals and plan of action were stringent, uncomfortable, and focused.  Uneducated, but very focused.  There were a few things we did know: 

• We didn't have much of a retirement fund and at the rate things were going he would have to work until he died--and if anything happened to him I would be up Poo Creek in a leaky boat without a paddle.
• Our single rental property wouldn't come close to funding our dreams, much less our basic living expenses if anything should happen to his job--especially not with the repair expenses being more than the income every month so far this year.
• We knew that the key would be to find something we could do together; a business that I could tend while he worked at his job until it would pay for him to be able to quit.
• We researched several options, but also determined to work on improving ourselves first so we would be able to handle success without self-destructing, or losing everything.  
• Not only would we need to research vehicles for passive income, we would need to take some significant action. 

So, since we knew that the greatest change in our outer circumstances would be affected by the beliefs of our hearts, we started there.  We started at the end of December reading Proverbs every day, along with Dr. Jim Richards' The Prayer Organizer and Connie Witter's Bible Study, Because of Jesus.  We set the alarm for 3:00 AM and started each day in the Word and in prayer.  While there were a few days we missed this, for the most part we have managed to complete four months of daily quiet time. (In almost 36 years of marriage we have not been able to maintain the practice for more than a month at a time, despite numerous attempts!) 

Dr. Richards always says that the more modalities you use the quicker you will see transformation, so we made some other changes, commitments and goals as well, but this was the first one to get implemented and the only one that hasn't altered since we began. Ornery determined to do the work required to get some online business activity going, and I committed to writing my memoirs.  We cut back on other outside commitments so we would not feel pressured by the additions to an already fairly full schedule.   

One of the things we felt would be beneficial was to start a DIY blog, and Ornery stepped way out of his comfort zone and did so. He took pictures of a couple of his projects and posted them, then work got extra busy and he began working more overtime. That was good for the checking account, but not really good enough for us to think it would help financially in the long run.  

Then things began to happen.  Thursday, March 5th it snowed here in our little corner of the world. Despite the fact that Ornery's job is a mere mile from the house, the steep driveway was slicker than a greased pig, and since he had plenty of vacation stored up he stayed home. To pass the time, I read aloud to him. All day.  Little did I know the journey that would begin on that day!  Here is an excerpt I wrote in a post on March 11, 2015:

Last Wednesday when we were snowed in, Ornery and I began reading aloud Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T Harv Eker. We spent several hours that day, and have continued to work our way through it a bit each day since then.  We should be done reading it for the first time by this weekend. We have also signed up and made hotel reservations to attend a Millionaire Mind Intensive seminar, and been faithfully following the advice in the book, in as much as we are able.

 It is time consuming and emotionally intensive to address long held beliefs and take the steps to alter those thought patterns.  However, it is another step in the progression of the goals we set at the beginning of the year, and we are both on-board with the plan.  It seems when we are both in agreement with anything, we make serious progress, so it is exciting to consider the future and what it may hold in store for us.

 Our ultimate goal at the beginning of the year was to replace Ornery's income at his job with self-employment and/or passive income within 5 years.  We thought to do it with real estate, but it requires much more investment capital than we have been able to secure, so we are taking some different paths.  So far we haven't made any money, but we have learned a LOT and I think we are moving in the right direction. Time will tell, but we aren't quite through with the first quarter of the year and we can already see that things are aligning to bring about the changes we seek. 

We have both continued to maintain a lot of the routine we set for ourselves in January. We know that success in the financial arena will require that we have good health and stamina, so part of our daily routine has been to spend time doing the sauna, exercising and eating for health.  We have gone a couple of weeks now without eating wheat, and Ornery says he has lost about 5 lbs. so far.  We are also still having a quiet time each morning, reading from the Proverbs, Psalms and two different Bible study books depending on the time we have.  We are fairly consistent (more so lately) in our nightly journaling exercise wherein we track the daily activities that will bring us closer to our goals. 

One of the quotes by Jim Rohn that has really helped us to focus is, "If it's easy to do it is also easy not to do." Doing those little "easy" things every day makes change and will create the lifestyle we seek. But it isn't possible to just do something once and establish a habit or change core beliefs--it is by repetition every day that will achieve success. Easy to do, but easy not to do. And life is so DAILY! 

This is the longest period of time we have been able to maintain our momentum, and that is really encouraging to us both. We have been able to remind each other of the potential benefits, and have had some really deep discussions and addressed some heretofore unknown issues in ourselves. I would say the last month has been one of the most rewarding times relationally we have ever had. And that is saying something because we have always had a very close relationship!

Once we had signed up for the program, we began getting emails for webinars and other things, so we started taking advantages of those programs.  We signed up for some group coaching, then after we saw another webinar we signed up for MORE group coaching.  We are listening to two coaching calls each week and doing the related actions. We added a reading session in the evenings to go along with those we were doing in the morning.  We read Harv's book through again in the mornings and read Dr. Richards' book, Wired for Success, Programmed for Failure in the evenings.  We read just one chapter a day, but it always sparked discussion and moved us closer to being prepared for the changes we would experience at the Millionaire Mind Intensive. 

So, here we are, almost two months after we picked up that first book.  We attended the Millionaire Mind Experience (formerly Intensive) this past weekend.  I can't even tell you the number of ways we had to get out of our comfort zones to attend, but one of Harv's principles is that your comfort zone = your wealth zone. If you have a small comfort zone, you won't make much money, but if you work to expand the number of situations in which you are comfortable, your entire world will expand. Ours ought to be explosive after all that, just sayin'.  

The personal victories this weekend were astounding for both of us.  Ornery eradicated his lifelong fear of failure, and I broke the mental and emotional chains of a lack of self worth. Both of us have been battling with these issues for years, and they have limited us for way longer than they should have. Despite having a number of tools at our disposal to conquer them completely, (Heart Physics, E.F.T, etc.) for whatever reason, we were still being held captive by our conditioned minds and hearts.   

Seeing my shy, wall-flower husband on the stage dancing and wearing a big smile several times throughout the weekend, watching victories all over the room together and supporting each other through some incredibly potent exercises designed to write new truths at a cellular level created an even deeper sense of intimacy and commitment to each other than ever.

The energy generated at the MME was intense, healing and long lasting. I am still fired up, and rarin' to go! Yesterday I was super-productive and maintained an upbeat attitude through some pretty frustrating circumstances. I had even more emotional healing yesterday as I was doing some reviewing of an old Darren Hardy program we did in 2010 when I had to answer the question of whether there was anyone in my life that I had not completely forgiven. I got quiet, took a deep breath, closed my eyes and asked my heart if there was anyone I had not yet fully forgiven and when the person came to mind, I took care of it. :)

One of the tools we are using for change (and have been since January) is a transformation journal we write in each night just before bed.  Various actions we are working to establish as habits are given a point value with the objective of making 100 points every day. There are enough activities on the list to make this possible even if you don't do every single thing, but when I had done the exercise in the past, after a few weeks my focus would wane and I would start accumulating fewer and fewer points each day--sometimes as few as 40 points--end then just quit altogether.  It is a rare day now when I don't have 125 to 140 points. I am more focused than ever, yet yesterday I spent thirty minutes just sitting outside listening to the birds sing and admiring my lovely flowers, so I am getting more done and still taking time to regenerate.

While we were at the MME seminar we signed up for several more training experiences. So many of the things we had been looking for as far as passive income were addressed at the MME and will be thoroughly covered at the other events.  I'm not going to lie--it was scary to hand over the credit card (which was finally almost at a zero balance again!) and commit to such a significant financial expenditure, but we knew we had to take action now.  The next couple of years will be a wild ride for us. Changes will happen rapid-fire, but the personal growth promised by these opportunities will be worth any sacrifices we may decide are necessary to get to our goal. 

When we left here last Thursday I had three objectives: 

1. Make friends with three or four like-minded people/couples we could connect with socially 
2. Re-set our Financial Blueprint so we would stop sabotaging our success
3. Get training to establish passive income

MME delivered on all its promises and I was able to meet all my objectives and more. We are both more excited about our future than we ever hoped to be.  We have more tools, new skills, amazing support and increasing energy; and with the blockages to success removed, the sky is the limit.  

Thank you for reading all this, and I want to say that if you are sharing any of the same frustrations that we have felt for many years--no end to the rat race, getting wealth is too hard, or whatever other lies you have told yourself-- I hope you will at least pick up The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind and read it through.  If it speaks to you, or if you click the link to the MME sign up page above and you resonate with the message in the promotional video, I hope you will take the first action of attending one of the three day seminars. It will be worth every moment of your time and every dime of the money it takes to get there.  And if you go, will you let me know?  I would love to cheer you on. It's been less than two months since we really started the program and the change has been incredible. I know we still have a long way to go, but for the first time ever, we believe we have found the help we need to make the journey.

Blogging A to Z: Yupo

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

One product that I have recently discovered in my foray into the art supply jungle is Yupo paper.  Yupo is an incredibly durable, waterproof synthetic paper that is 100% polypropylene, has a smooth finish and is awesome to use with alcohol inks and (I am told) watercolor. It comes in loose sheets or pads, and a variety of sizes.


So far I have used it for alcohol ink because the surface tension allows the ink to sit on top and do its thing with brilliance, but I intend to try it with watercolor as well.

Thank you for dropping by today!  I hope you learned something new or were inspired in some way. Tomorrow is the last A to Z post!  Wow, this month went by fast!  I am so happy to have made so many new friends.

Blogging A to Z: X's and O's

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

The letters X and O are often used to signify kisses and hugs.  But they are also very popular marks in mixed media art.

The green marks on the right side in the middle of the page are stylized X's and O's on a Crafter's Workshop stencil.

Circles are especially popular right now, but one of my favorite mixed media artists, Roben Marie Smith uses them both a lot in her work. One of my favorite art tutorial videos is the scalloped flap mail art and was my first introduction to adding x's to my work. Now they show up quite often. :)

Thank you for dropping by today.  I appreciate all your comments and follows.  We're almost to the end of the month, but I hope to enjoy your company beyond April!

Blogging A to Z: Washi Tape

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

I can't believe I had to wait all the way to the last week to talk about one of my favorite craft supplies: Washi Tape!!  Now to some this may seem like an overpriced roll of tape, but to me I see it as instant happiness added to just about any project, surface, letter or envelope.  I may have a few rolls of the stuff...

But I use it a lot! I love to make cards with it...

And I have been known to use it in my art, both alone;

 and as an accent;

 or main theme on Artist Trading Cards;

I have found it to be one of those addictive pleasures, but as I said, I use it a lot. Even if I just collected it, though, it would be a fun hobby! :)

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you were inspired!

Blogging A to Z: Variety

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

I often say I have crafter's ADD (attention deficit disorder) because I bounce around from one style, theme or medium to another, but variety is the spice of life, right?  I think so! That is the essence of art for me--to reach inside my soul and pull out some little nugget of creativity and explore it in some new way. That's why I hate to reproduce my work or I have always avoided it if I could, but lately I have been thinking about having some prints made, possibly some stationary or note cards using some of my favorite designs. At any rate, I am sure I will continue to switch things up a lot.  It's just the way I roll.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Blogging A to Z: U is for Unexpected

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

There are a few things I like to use in my art that are unexpected. Upcycling is sort of a buzzword in the art field, and many people like to bring new life to old objects.  Here is one project I did for my daughter using a favorite shirt she wore out and hated to part with.  Some of the fabric was still in good shape, and the colors fit her house, so I made a mixed media piece for her using the shirt as the background.

I would call it a collaboration with the fabric designer, whoever that might have been.  The design was pretty awesome to start with, so all I added to it were the flowers, but it is pretty rare other than in quilts, to see old clothing get new life in a frame!

I have used pockets from old worn out jeans to decorate the fronts of journals.

Underpaper, which is one term for the newsprint or file folders I put under my work while I am working, catches a lot of excess media and can turn into pretty awesome art by accident.  I have used this underpaper for art journal backgrounds and mail art. It's a nice way to use up the dabs of mixed color and excess ink that doesn't absorb into the original art. In fact, some of the underpaper pieces are my favorites!

Thank you for stopping by today!  I hope you learned something or were inspired.  Please let me know of your visit by leaving a comment.  I would love to hear from you!

Blogging A to Z: Texture, Trading Cards and Twinks

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

As mentioned in my E post, one of the elements of art is texture.  I love texture!!  I add it in a variety of ways: layers of paper or tape; textured papers such as hand-made or other textured scrapbook papers; mediums like super heavy gesso, modeling paste or glass bead gel; glue, glossy accents or texture spray such as "Goosebumps"; a variety of non-art related products such as drywall tape which comes in a variety of styles, corrugated paper, mesh bags, etc.; fabric such as burlap or other loose weave; fibers such as yarn, string, hemp, thread... You can imagine that just about anything can be used!

One of the first things that captured my interest in mixed media art was Trading Cards, commonly known as ATC's (Artist Trading Cards).  These are 2.5 x 3.5" little miniature works of art.  They can be made with any style or form, the only hard and fast rule is the size.  I have a nice collection that I keep in two large binders filled with sleeves like those used for sports card collections.

Twinkling H2O watercolors, (twinks) are little pots of watercolor infused with minerals to create a shimmer effect.  They were my first real art supply after I left the world of scrapbooking. They come in so many colors, and every single one makes me happy! :)

Thank you for coming by today!  I hope you learned something or were inspired.  I'd love to hear what you have to say in the comments!

Blogging A to Z: Stencils, Stamps and Shimmer

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

A few favorite things I use in my art show up in today's line-up: Stencils, Stamps and Shimmer.

I have talked about stencils here a bit, because I use them for modeling paste and glass bead gel a lot.  I also use them with spray inks, and have quite a large collection of these little plastic jewels.

Stamps are another popular tool with mixed media artists, and while I used to think a stamped image must be perfect, squared, and colored exactly, I have certainly changed my tune!  I no longer look for elaborate design stamps, but instead prefer stamps that either say something or give impressions rather than exact images. Here is an example of some I have been lusting for...Actually the site I had hoped to feature apparently sold out of the sets I had been eyeing, but they will probably come back again later.

I do have a smallish (comparatively speaking) collection of stamps.  My favorite are the clear stamps, but the images are (supposedly) better with red rubber stamps.  Those can be purchased mounted or unmounted.  I am a big fan of unmounted stamps because they take up less space.

My last S word for today is shimmer.  Oooh. I love shimmery goodness!  In fact I have a rather large array of products that provide shimmer and sparkle in my art.

Thank you for stopping by today!  I hope you enjoyed your visit!

Blogging A to Z: Rolos

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

I have mentioned these in at least one other post during this monthly blog hop, but Rolos deserve a full post all to themselves.  Rolos are Altered Rolodex Cards and are one of my favorite little art venues because they are easy to make and can be displayed on a Rolodex spinner on my table. I have only been making them for a few months, but I already have a nice collection.

These are standard 2-1/4" x 4" size, but there are other sizes as well.  Here are a few favorites from the ones I have made.

The back side is usually also lightly decorated, and I prefer to have the holes in the bottom on the front and the design so the holes are at the top on the back so when I flip through I don't have to turn the Rolodex around to read the back. They are pretty cute little bits of art, and I have enjoyed swapping them!

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you have been inspired or learned something new.

Weekend in Review: Planty-plant-plant

Ah, spring in Oklahoma. Rain, wind, rain, a bit of sunshine, more rain... the yard is rather swampish, and the weeds in the yard have reared their lovely heads en masse, a state certain to rankle our neighbors who all meticulously groom their lawns.  The rain gauge showed a whopping 2.5" of rainfall this week, so it's no wonder we sloshed through the muddy mess to finish planting our garden.

But plant it we did!  We have five tomato plants, two zucchini, six celery, a dozen or so pepper plants of various types, a bunch of lettuce and a rather impressive collection of herbs: sage, tarragon, rosemary, chives, cilantro, coriander, parsley, two types of thyme, lavender, Corsican basil, oregano, sweet marjoram and stevia.  We also put in a few flowers; some carnations, petunias, nasturtiums, zinnias, hollyhocks and Irish Poet flowers.

It appears that everything that was supposed to return  from last year is doing so, including one of the two hydrangeas I thought had both perished due to my excellent skills at neglecting things. The only plant I haven't seen yet is the stunning dahlia with pink and white striped flowers, but if that is all that doesn't come back (and I am not sure but what it is just too early for it yet) then I will be pleased and surprised!  This week the cannas began coming up, and many of the perennials have already started blooming.  The bees are hard at the task of pollinating, especially the perennial salvia. I am delighted! :)

Ornery's mom and I worked a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle on Saturday.  It took us 7 hours, but we had worked it before. She says she had never worked it before, but she says that about every puzzle and I don't think I have any that I haven't worked with her at least one time! I haven't really figured out how she gets any pieces together since she doesn't "get" the design in the picture, not even after I have explained to her what the images are. She handed me a pile of pieces that were forming a calendar grid and said she "hadn't figured out all these little flowers." There are letters and words, but she completely ignores them, or misreads them, or something. She doesn't use the same logic for shape that I use, and she doesn't distinguish color very well, so the division of labor is usually about 95% me, and 5% her.  But she seems to enjoy doing puzzles, and always says how grateful she is that I included her in my day.

We also listened to another coaching call, and even did some of the action points. This week's theme was health and wellness, and it is also our priority category for the 16 weeks. Ornery had great success getting into shape several years ago with the Power 90 workouts, so he has decided to start doing them again after several years of mostly sedentary lifestyle. Ugh.  I couldn't really even get through the stretches, and while he did parts of the whole session, I think he was sore today.  It will take some time working up to that again.

It was a nice weekend, though, in spite of Saturday's rain. Hopefully Ornery will be able to mow the weeds tonight before our next coaching call. It seems we missed the replay of last week's call until the weekend, then scheduled another for this morning, which we watched, and have another one from a different program tonight. It seems that saturation is the order of the day around here!

Blogging A to Z: Quinacridone

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

1. Quinacridone is an organic molecule utilized in the formation of organic pigments. It is an organic compound with the molecular formula C₂₀H₁₂N₂O₂. Wikipedia

What? Say, WHAT? Well, besides being a word I always stumble over, quinacridone is one part of the name of some of my favorite colors.  Other than that, I couldn't tell you anything about why this does what it does. But it shore is purdy. :)

Thank you for dropping by today.  Hope you learned something new or were inspired in some way.  :)

Blogging A to Z: Paint, Pens and Pencils

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

Today's letter is P, and I have to say, it will be really difficult to top my last P entry in the A to Z challenge. If you want to see it, you can click here.  But, for today, since my theme is art and not poetry or punnery, I will stick with paint, pens and pencils. Because those are certainly artistic mediums!

Paint: I prefer acrylic. I use a variety of brands and styles, from cheap craft paints to luxurious Golden brand paints and a variety of others in-between.  I also enjoy using watercolors, but I will save those for a later post.


Pens: Paint pens, gel pens, fountain pens- they all have their own uses, and one can never really have too many, can they? (don't tell me if it's so.  I don't want to hear it.)


Pencils: Besides just the standard No. 2, there are Prismacolor (wax based and my daughter's personal favorite medium); Watercolor pencils including Aquarelle, Inktense, and Stabilo All; Charcoal and other graphite pencils; and my personal favorite, mechanical pencils.


Thank you for dropping by today.  I'm so happy you are here. It would be so nice if you left a comment to say hi!

Blogging A to Z: Neutral

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

Many people enjoy soft NEUTRAL colors, and that is really obvious if you look at Pinterest and focus on decorating ideas.  The current obsession with white walls, white furnishings, white accents holds absolutely no appeal to me.

BUT... they have their place in art, just like any other color.  White, brown and black are all amazing accents and when done well, a piece that uses only neutral colors can be very peaceful. It is not my preference, but then without the addition of black or white to colors there would be no variety either.

Here are a few Artist Trading Cards I have made using all or mostly neutral colors.

Thank you for dropping by today!  I hope you enjoyed your visit and I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Blogging A to Z: M for Mail Art

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

Oh, my.  I had so many choices for M--modern, mixed media, modeling paste... but I'll settle on one today that makes me oh, so happy; Mail Art.  The post office doesn't even have to have the correct address on my mail (although I'm sure it helps!) to deliver it to me.  My incoming and outgoing mail is almost all highly decorated--or at least sports a strip or two of washi tape...

I'll Share a few photos with you and leave it at that for today. They speak for themselves. :)

Recycled Chiptole take-out bag.  Yes, I mailed it with the handles still on it. :)

Black and white...

This postcard was made mostly from junk-mail pieces. 

Phone book map envelopes.

Another postcard from junk mail pieces. 

Altered file folder filled with goodies and enclosed in a clear bag for mailing.  

Thank you for dropping by today.  I'd love to read your comments if you care to leave any.

Blogging A to Z: L is for Layers

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

One thing I love about mixed media is the use of layers.  It's not about just drawing a picture or slapping down some paint.  It's about adding ephemera, stamped designs, paint, ink, and anything else that comes to mind or fingertip!  Layers can add texture or other dimension that you just can't get without them.

In one piece I might start out with some crumpled tissue paper glued down to a paper.  By the time the piece is finished you might not see any of the original paper, but because of its presence there is a rich texture that resonates throughout the piece.

Here is an example of texture made with layers.  This has modeling paste, paint, ink, watercolor, wire and tape. Of course not all the layers need to add texture.  Below is an example of layers of tape...

Layering is a great way to create, whether it is with different colors of paint, or a variety of media.

Thank you for stopping by to visit me today!  I hope you'll leave a comment to let me know you were here!