Happy New Year

The table is set. The roast and the veggie quiche are in the oven.




It's time to welcome our guests and make some noise!







Best wishes to you and yours.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chartreuse

I was inspired by Daisy Yellow to make a Chartreuse Journal page. As you can see lots of other colours snuck in but it was still a really fun exercise. I cut up my son's expired health card to use on the page which got me thinking about health.

Holiday Decorating

All this talk of getting ready for Christmas makes me realize it's time to start getting out all my white, blue and silver nicknacks. I put out vases of sparkly ornaments, blue and white quilts, tarnished silver trays and jugs, and sometimes even string some lights.

This morning I saw a lovely pinwheel on a blog I was visiting and started to wonder about a Star of David pinwheel. I didn't find a pattern I liked but I did find this beautiful ornament on Etsy. Being kind of crafty I figured I could probably make one myself (sorry bottlejunk).

After a very brief search I came across this excellent tutorial which I only now realize is on How About Orange?, one of my very favourite sites.

It will be no surprise to anyone familiar with my work that I cut some corners. I didn't print the template and I didn't use a craft knife. I figured out that Jessica's pattern transferred perfectly to my little sheets of blue and white origami paper. Using needle nosed scissor I was able to cut three sheets at a time, more or less freehand.  I recommend using glue dots instead of double sided tape if you have them at hand. I put the glue dots on four flaps before constructing each point and my snowflake went together very quickly.

It's the only decoration I have up so far and it's looking very lonely. Time to get busy making more ornaments I guess.

I'd love to know if you decorate for a winter holiday other than Christmas.

Playing Favorites

What are the songs that make you sing?





This month's GPP Street Team Art Journal challenge was to talk about the music on your play list, the songs that get you singing along in the car or the studio.

My answers are all buried in the journalling, along with more personal reflections on memory and what Playing Favorites means to me. Some of the many things I have trouble remembering are boxed to make them stand out. Musical notation including a staff, notes, rests and clefs are scrawled over the top of the journalling in a rainbow of colours.

Some of the music that came to mind was the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Whitney Houston, and just about every Musical and Opera ever written. I'm just as likely to sing and hum along to symphonies and concertos as I am to the Messiah, Stevie Wonder and Bohemian Rhapsody.

Next month I have to challenge myself to work with ephemera and to change my colour palette.