Aloha!

Greetings from the Aloha State!  We are spending our family Holiday Vacation, complete with my son-in-law, Clark.  I do resist calling him Sparky mostly!  It is hard not to relax while you are on the beach.  This the view from the deck!  However, silly me, I thought I just needed some forced down time.  As a result, I didn't bring anything to work on artwise!  How frustrating.  I don't think my granddaughter wants me cutting up her coloring books and stealing puzzle pieces.  And I have no independent transportation, so no sneaking trip to a craft/art store.  However, I don't really know where one is, as we are on the North Shore of Oahu, lots of surfers, otherwise. . .  And it is such a beautiful setting to free my muse!  If only I had brought some watercolor oil pastels, a black marker, and some water pens and a glue stick.  I could have gone to town.  Let this be a lesson, art is part of living and and food for the soul, not something one needs to relax from!!!  I am getting some reading in, tho.  

A new little book I have recently become acquainted with is "The Book of Qualities" by J. Ruth Gender.  It is really wonderful and so insightful.  In addition, her illustrations are fabulous!  Here is a passage that speaks to me.

"Patience

Patience wears my grandmother's filigree earrings.  She bakes marvelous dark bread.  She has beautiful hands.  She carries great sacks of peace and purses filled with small treasures.  You don't notice Patience right away in a crowd, but suddenly you see her all at once, and then she is so beautiful you wonder why you never saw her before."

Tinker Bell in search of CHOCOLATE!!!

Tinker Bell goes inside, outside, everywhere in search for CHOCOLATE!!! It's magic, you walk up to stranger's doors and they just hand you candy! This is really a miracle! Can we do this every day?

But Mama, I don't want the big one!

This one is just right! Just my size! The big ones are okay for sitting but not for me to take home.

My Beautiful Girls at the Pumpkin Patch

Aren't they just the most beautiful girls? I am so blessed and proud! And my son-in-law makes a great photographer!

October 2008 Calendar Journal Pages

More calendar pages from the Calendar Girlz 2008 RR. These are the ones for October in Vale's journal style calendar. I realize, now that I have looked at them, I forgot to photograph a couple pages, Dang! One of them I liked a lot.

This is one of my favorites, however I realized, after putting great big black letters "my journal", that it was Vale's calendar and not my journal!!! I did love the colors, tho!

This is one of my favorites, too, it really makes me feel like winter. I robbed the title from a country western singer's song title, but I don't remember who's song it is. I spent lots of time building up layers of white handmade papers, but white on white isn't too effective when you glue them on top of each other. So, I added some old lace, couldn't lose the texture in that.

I do love birds, so glad Vale had a bird theme calendar to work in. I used some of the Tim Holtz masks and I think one is from someone else, I think the artist that started making the masks to begin with. I used the distress inks to rub over the masks. I would like to practice with them some more. I really like them to add background interest. My calligraphy is still not up to what I'd like it to be, but then I don't practice, practice like Lisa Engelbrecht taught us in class. I sit in court sometimes, when I am tired of listening to everyone else ramble on and on and practice my calligraphy. My assistant has yet to ask me why my notes from court are so full of doodling and random words. She's too polite!

Here are the rest of the journal pages for September. I see I forgot to journal on a few! Journaling is not my forte, but I am working on it.

September 2008 Calender Girlz journal pages

Here are the journal pages I did in the calendar I did for September 2008. Unfortunately, I forgot to write down who's journal it was. The Halloween pages has a pocket for the little witch card to fit into.