More Spectacular Fall Foilage

Okay, okay.....I know I just blogged about this yesterday - but the rain from hurricane "Kyle" had a transforming effect - overnight! Compare the picture below to the one of the same scenery from the previous post - the change is soooo dramatic in one day!

Besides, the winters are sooooo long and grey - I can't get enough of this beautiful foilage.

Here are the colors of my favorite rainbow pad - ♥

It's Officially Autumn in Vermont

The colors this year are spectacular and inspiring - it has been a few years since they've been so vibrant - the reds are incredible - next weekend is the official "peak" color of the season - I wish I had a rainbow pad that did justice to these hues.....these photos were taken early this morning from my back porch - I was afraid I would miss something if I waited.....very inspiring - if I could just find the time to mess with my stamps ♥

Featuring Susan Fordyce!

I am so excited to post these two amazing works of art from Susan Fordyce, an accomplished artist and friend from Indiana - her compositions are unique and visually captivating - she takes detail in mixed media to another level of perfection..... I love them they are so intricate ♥

From Susan "...these photos were taken just as a record of work and the sea-image one was done after I framed it so was done at an angle. It is much lighter in color. The pearls sewn on it are real pearls and tiny bits of green glass that I glued on are about 200 years old...I love this piece...the other one just was tooooooo fun for me to do....they frame out at about 16 x 20."

Thanks so much for sharing these Susan ♥

Anitra's “APACHE SUNFLOWER”

My grandmother, "Nanny", passed away this week at the age of 90. I was unable to attend the funeral, but many serendipitous things happened. The amaryllis I always gave to Nan every year for Christmas I couldn't send this year since she was in the nursing home - I kept it, but it never bloomed.....until this week. ♥

The day I received the news of her passing, my talented new friend Anitra (from Anitra's Cute Art World) sent me an email with this gorgeous work of art attached. It couldn't have come at a better time - she used the sunflower from the slide show - I think it is stupendous. Thank you Anitra, you are an angel. Here part of the sunny email she sent to me:

"I am part Cherokee. My newest design “Apache Sunflower” is one of my first designs for my new Series Native Americans. I am excited to finally start using my long held and loved images from my dear friend Karen from Luna Girl Images! She has many beautiful images that she has composed into CD’s for sale on E-bay & Etsy. I have also another friend to thank and that is Lori Turner from Luluna Stamps for sharing her sunflower image with me! I feel very happy inside after a feeling as if I would never get the time to do another design my heart is full of joy!" Anitra from http://cuteartworld.blogspot.com/

Her blog is visually amazing - there are links there to her store on Etsy, as well as her eBay listings and more....♥

Messing About

Well - I took out the vinyl tablecloth left over from Brownie craft time and decided to make a mess. I looked through my supply laden office and came across an over-abundance of "chipboard" (purchased at a rubber stamp convention over 2 years ago and still in the original bag). Thinking of a shadow box idea I used a ruler as a guide to cut the bottom of the box - 1" by 3" and to cut the clear acetate cover (slightly smaller). After stamping, watercoloring and cutting the Acey Deucy image to size, I constructed the sides and top. Dropped in a few pearls and beads and other fun things - decided I needed to adhere the dragonfly in a strategic place - then learned the hard way to mask off the acetate - especially before using wall spackle....yes girls, spackle.....to seal the "box" and smush in some tiny beads. After the spackle got a little drier, I used acrylic metallic paint in copper, silver, black and a tiny bit of gold and covered all sides. After the spackle and paint were dry, I carefully removed the piece of correction tape from the acetate. I'm not sure whether to use it as a magnet or put a pin back on it - but it was fun to make.........no - I didn't measure anything except to use the ruler as an eyeball guide.

Anitra's Cute Art World ~ "Mr. Otis Toad"

All I can say about the talented and generous artist Anitra Williams is W♥W and W♥W. My little man (he's 5) named the toad in my slide show "Otis" - as he names every toad he befriends. Anitra has taken Otis into another world - we are so thrilled - please check out her blogspot - http://cuteartworld.blogspot.com/ - and read the poem she wrote to accompany this collage.........and prepare to be transported into Anitra's fantastical art world.

Summer blooms - an accidental gardener

After the snowiest winter on record and the 3rd rainiest summer ever in Vermont - I am truly grateful for the spirit lifting hues of my no-maintenance perennial garden....in fact, I am an "accidental gardener". I have no talent for it, no knack - I'm a dreaded "black thumb". Almost all the flower beds were lovingly planted many years ago by another woman who lived in this farmhouse. I had nothing to do with this bounty, I haven't touched them for fear I'd pull a weed that was something unrecoverable.

I wanted to share some of the recent photos I took (check out the slide show)- however, I think the blue hydrangea would be beautiful to use as a collage background....hint hint.....just my little tribute to a short, wet, but exquisitely colorful summer...

Abracadada Rubber Stamp Museum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppkdGs1M8Co

This YouTube link is worth clicking on! A guided tour of the Abracadada Rubber Stamp Museum from it's curator, William "Picasso" Gaglione. Founder of the original Stamp Francisco and now Stampland with his lovely wife, Darlene Domel, Picasso is extremely active in correspondence art.

My daughter and I were lucky enough to catch up with Picasso and Darlene in New York City this past June for a special exhibition, "Mapping Correspondence" at the Center for the Book Arts. http://www.centerforbookarts.org (look in the exhibit archives for Spring 2008 and check out the Flikr photos)

If you are interested in the history of rubber stamps, or just rubber stamps in general, check out this vintage video of the Abracadada Rubber Stamp Museum.

Diva Darlene Duster DVD update!

from the insert, "Dusting can be fun?? Tapes can create? Stamp along with the Queen of Quick and Easy as she shows you step by step how to create using Color Duster brushes and Eclipse masking tape. In just a few easy steps you can become a duster expert, a tape transformer. Watch and see how you can add new dimension to ATCs, greeting cards, scrapbooks, altered books, journals and gifts. It is easy effective and entertaining."

As promised - Darlene Domel - the darling of the dusters - has sent me an exclusive preview (dvd insert) of her upcoming "Color Conversations with Darlene Domel" instructional DVD. If you have taken her classes or seen her live demonstrations in the Stampland booth- she makes sophisticated stamping fast, fun and fabulous. As soon as the dvd's and price information becomes available - I will let everyone in on all the details.

.......Congratulations to Stampland, Picasso and Darlene!

vintage imagery

Real women mow the lawn..... Wear men's hats.....
Make fishing fashionable...

While looking glamorous no matter what......

Vermont is the perfect playground for scavenger hunters, pack rats, antique lovers, and ephemera addicts - a never ending supply of cool old stuff in shops, yard sales and attics. A few favorite finds from my ephemeramania..... I'm always on the hunt for old books with etchings and beautiful illustrations, antique postcards and old magazines and sheet music.

Freebies - please share your work if you choose to copy and use them - I'd love to see anything you might do - I have more time to scavenge lately than to stamp - and keep finding new things as I catch up on cleaning before the snow flies.......enjoy♥

mqhdiva - I found the original piano book for "Hair" and the beloved "Chicago Gold" - I know you could knock off the entire book. ♥

For Olivia......

Invisibility...

My dearest and oldest childhood girlfriend - mqhdiva - sent me this on Mother's Day..

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?" Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The Invisible Mom.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Can you wipe me? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?" I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?" I'm a car to order "Right around 5:30, please." I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just got back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a hair clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this." It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: "To Carol, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, life changing truths after which I could pattern my daily work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything. A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it." And the workman replied, "Because God sees."

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction.But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great building. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished. to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son/daughter to tell the friends they are bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want them to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to their friends, to add, "You're gonna love it there."

As mothers, sisters, daughters, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women......

Imagination.......

Imagination is a funny thing....sometimes it can lead to inspiration and other times to frustration - trying to create what you see in your mind's eye. I'm imagining that the snow in Vermont will melt soon and that the sunshine will spark my creativity and renew my spirit.....




dreaming of spring........

Duster art.....

Duster Brush Diva Darlene

Dabbling in dusters.....if you haven't seen the deliriously delicious Diva of the Dusters, Darlene Domel of Stampland, you need to seek her out at a convention near you (schedule will be posted soon). Her definitive demonstrations are delightfully divine! Rumor has it that a dvd of Darlene's Duster technique will be available soon......I'll keep you posted.