Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Mr. Bunny is with me in my room today. My two girls are past the Easter Bunny age but I guess I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this guy. My talented sister made him and I have loved him every since. I hope some day to have grandbabies and then Mr. Bunny will have little ones again. The Easter season for me comes with wonderful traditions and my emotions are like the spring season full of warm feeling of renewal and hopefulness. With hope comes thankfulness and my Top 5

1. A wonderful Easter Triduum, Alleluia
2. Seeing old friends at Easter mass and realizing our children have grown into wonderful young adults
3. Finding little things to surprise the girls with
4. Sun peeking through the clouds
5. I know I am trying to be good but MALT BALLS AND CHOCOLATE!

Wishing everyone a wonder Easter and Happy Spring!

Inspiration Avenue Angel

It has been awhile but I was able to have some creative fun this week. This week's theme at Inspiration Avenue is Angels. I really wanted to participate as I feel that I have been blessed by my guardian angel and really had some ideas of what she would look like. I started with a angel stamp. Then I began embellishing her. I covered the image with all kinds of paper scraps, shells, and beads. Her arm sleeve is music paper as I LOVE music, I love to sing (not very good) so my guardian angel knows when I am loosing my way she wraps her arms around me and reminds me that through music I find great joy. Then her wings are made with broken shells as she knows that the ocean gives me much peace. She has a brown brad in her hair as one of my favorite embellishments and ribbon in her hands to help keep me wrapped in my faith. Her gown is hand-made papers with a beaded edge.  When I finished her, I added the boarder design. The final touch was adding the Madonna charm that I received as a gift from Lisa from Priti Studio when I was drawn as the Month winner at IA. I have wanted to add it to one of my pieces and this was the one for me.

This little piece is very special. I really enjoyed putting it together for the symbolisms and creative feel. I love that I now have a piece to remind myself that there is much love all around.

Palm Sunday

Wishing all a wonderful Palm Sunday. Starting today begins a special time of my faith for me. It is a time to remember what sacrifice and love is. I have been lost at times in my life and what I have learned from that is through FORGIVENESS and love everything works out. My faith this week gives me the opportunity to think about this and reminds me to practice it more! With love comes gratitude and my top 5 this week are:

1. A wonderful sister who supports me and is there to listen to my dreams (no matter how far fetched)!
2. Patience, even though I am a little short of it sometimes
3. Simple little things made from scraps (Small birthday card and matching envelope)
4. Sunshine
5. Refreshed direction and hope for the future

Fun Saturday

It was a beautiful spring day here and I wanted to be out in it. My sister appeased me and let me drag her to a new craft and flea market that just started today. It is in the parking lot of Cal Expo. This is the area that California State Fair is held every year. This fair/flea market is to be all summer and fall. It was a fun little show. One of the booths had some great deals on little trinkets and my favorite item is this old door knob that she altered into a photo or card holder. Could not resist this. I have a few other items to share later. Going to these events gives we the selling bug, someday I am going to try. But for now, just checking out the vendors and shopping. Fun day.

The life and choices

I have been MIA for quite awhile. I have been really out of sorts and missed my blog hopping but I just had made so much stress and commitments in my life that I let myself go. SO HERE I AM TODAY..

Making some good choices.. 

First I have joined WW (again) and in the first meeting, my new leader really sent home something that I am choosing to live by. "It is the choices that we have made to get to where we are today; therefore, we can choose every day to go where we want next." I take that to mean that I have a fresh start everyday!

Secondly, since I decided to make some new choices when it comes to my physical self, I want to choose again to work on my creative self.  A lesson I have to keep learning. But I am very excited to keep trying and I know it will become a habit one day!

To more creative, less inches around my middle and lots of fun along the way! I am glad to be back in blog land. Blessing to all for a wonderful weekend.

Sunday times

It has been a day to get things done. I felt like one of these fish just swimming with the pack not a lot of room to do anything else. ... However, I am truly thankful for what I have done today.

My top 5 list

1. Husband who was able to fix the old car but again
2. Looking through blogs
3. Cooking a simple Sunday diner
4. Trying new things
5. Taking one day at a time

Blessing to all for a good week.

Inspiration_Avenue_Celestial

My favorite artist is Van Gogh. And then this week's challenge at IA was Celestial. So here is my ode to Van Gogh's Starry Night. I put my favorite elements from the painting into this collage. I always dream what it would be like in that little town with the church on the hill. Of course in the Van Gogh, the details of the darkness to the side of the town has a spooky feeling to it. So really wanted to add that detail to the collage. And then the details in the sky on Van Gogh painting is amazing.  I don't even come close but I had fun creating the stars with cardboard and gesso.

Another page

Another page from the travel journal. I knew I wanted to put 4 photos on the pages. So that took up most of the room. However, I tried to be creative with the letters in the header. Wanted them to look like the coral that we saw in the ocean when we went snorkeling and in the aquarium.

I had played with some of my sister's ink spray on one of the pages so I started turning the colors into the coral. Then I could not help but try to add some fish. And even a couple of starfish.

My prize

I have been very fortunate lately. I was picked to receive the December monthly challenge gift from Inspiration Avenue. It was a beautiful painting of a little Christmas tree with an e.e. cummings poem. The Artist is Lisa from at Priti Studio. I love the painting and the beautiful frame it has is like icing on the cake. What a wonderful gift to receive!

Pay it Forward item

Back in January I ran across a fun project called "Pay it Forward". So I joined in. The project was to provide a little art project to whoever commented that they would like to join on my post. I finished it and sent it to my one person that joined, Erin at Altered By The Sea. The piece was my first time to use gesso. I added it to the frame, covered some old pages to create the snow covered mountains, and sprinkled on the sky. The piece had to include a little scrap panda of course! This was fun, I would like to find more share projects.