New Vegan World

I have become pregnant for the third time and like the last two meat started to make me sick for a few months.  I also had THE worst sneeze attacks and this was in the fall in the midwest so what was triggering it and where is all this snot coming from?  Really it felt like buckets of it!  Gross yes but here is what I did.  I can't take meds for this and besides OTC does not work for long on me and I often have to switch to a different brand and many put me to sleep or dope me up even the NON drowsy ones.  Solution, I didn't go vegan yet, I first thought about Macrobiotics.

The book I got from the library I worked at was The Hip Chicks Guide to Macrobiotics, and it had a section about why MILK and any dairy is BAD for you.  It increseses MUCUS!  I am also allergic to milk slightly according to a scratch test I did when I was in sixth grade.  It also pinpoints a lot of my problems at school too.
When I got out the milk I felt great, but I realized I needed to find great recipies to keep this diet change permanent, if you feel deprived you will NOT stay on a healthy diet.  So I started looking at books like The Vegan Companion and others at my library.

I found a better way to make cream of mushroom soup without milk and thusly no longer getting stomache aches and running to the bathroom.  I am staying off meat permantly because I found out meat steals calcium from my bones to help digest the stuff,  I'm skinny and have been told I am a canadate for osteoporosis.  NOT GOOD!  NOW I get my calcium from Kale, broccoli and spinach plus fortified flaxmilk and other sources plus a calcium pill now and then.

I have MORE energy than I have had before and getting my husband on this diet too has helped him to lose weight and no longer needing his Byeta pen (type 2 diabetes)  I read that being on a vegan diet has reversed type two diabetes in people, but they have to stay on that diet and get rid of all processed foods.  We have done this and his blood sugar has been at a normal level, he did hit Pizza Hut one evening and it did spike but he didn't feel sick but he was starting to lose his cravings for those foods anyway.  I'm working on making vegan pizzas here.  I did a vegan burrito using a very good meat substitute which did NOT send me to the bathroom.  Made our own taco seasoning (no sodium and other crap that rips my gut out)  I had four of those things and it was awesome!  Love to eat without feeling sick, such a great thing you know?

I still do research online about health and I see that vegan is the most healthy diet.  I get protien from certain veggies and from millet, quinoa, and oatmeal, I like Scottish Oatmeal the best, I am also trying Buckwheat which keeps me full for my three hour work day at the library.  My favorite snacks are carrots (always have been so no change here)  and sugar snap peas, a new find that I love and satisfies sugar cravings.

I am no longer feeling wiped out from work (and I'm part time at the library) I have energy, not cranky, and I can tell when I need to eat a specific food to feel better, like eating a veggie in the morning as I am making my hot cereal.

I have been too tired to paint but recently since doing this diet I have more energy so I can get back to creating, I have been very busy researching health though that I lost my art focus there, but I think it's time to crank out some art.

DreamChaser from Zazzle.com

DreamChaser from Zazzle.com

I just got news that Zazzle is making puzzles, neat, I always wanted to see my works on puzzles. I have loved puzzles all my life. Now if I do one (usually a fantasy one) I glue it up and hang it somewhere. Many are framed. I can't work on puzzles much now, it hurts my eyes. It is unfortunate that the only image I had that was the correct size to make the puzzle is stuck at vertical when really it's horizontal. But I'm excited about this new addition to Zazzle and want to create images specifically for puzzles. I still have to try out my other paintings for puzzles.

There Be Dragons

Dragons are my favorite subject to paint or draw but I don't have a whole lot of them.

I take my time on my dragons and I have a hard time creating them.

This is from a sketch pad of practicing my dragons.  The lessons are from a book about dragonart

written by an artist known as neonDragon.  Very cool dragons, but got a strong Magna look to it.

But it did help me in figuring out the horns, the book showed how the skull  of a typical dragon looks like and how the horns set in.  That was one of my problems, making the horns realistic enough.  The next part was the wings and the limbs.  

Smokee the Dragon

This piece was done way before I even found that dragon art book.  The horns are a bit weak for me personally but many people I showed to on Kaboodle loved it and I decided to make it into a card

since I can't sell the original print, the edges of the Bristol drawing paper got really torn up but the picture itself stayed intact.  I also made a photo print and that came out well.  The above link takes you to the link for the card, I think it makes a great Gothic Birthday card.

This was originally a class assignment for drawing three at the community college I was going to.

The drawing teacher was a real cool guy but he said not to use the charcoal reversal drawing to do dragons.

He hated dragons, thought it was overdone.

Well I could not help but do a dragon in charcoal reversal, just my dragon was more subtle.

I got an A on it and he really REALLY liked how I did it.

I had one student how I got away with it.

I think I understood what he was tired of

which was the commercial designs of the dragons you see on posters and t shirts.

I grew up with my dad's Dragonriders of Pern books all around the house.

The dragons are a bit different from what is seen on t shirts, especially the newest book jacket artwork.

After working though that Dragon Art book I got a very good painting done of a dragon.

I don't see any Dragons

I really love how the wings turned out.  Some people had trouble seeing the dragon at first.  Yeah, the guy is a traveler and he was walking though a valley that is full of dragons.  He doesn't see any, because they are green and blend in with the hills.

There is a bit of a story to this work.  The guy is something of a hedge wizard, knows some small magics but can't always get the results he wanted, think of a more incompetent wizard like Schmendrick from the Last Unicorn.  He does more slight of hand.  The thing is though he has the potential for greater magic.

The dragon he stumbles on is a mage dragon, he can do magic.  

I don't remember too many stories of dragons with magic, maybe I'm not reading the right stuff.

Oh I remember Puff the magic Dragon, children's fantasy, and there is the PBS series Dragon Tales, but that's more recent.  I grew up watching the 80's Dragonslayer, the beast flew and had fire but no magic.

Pete's Dragon turned invisible.

A dragon series I read only one book of was of a race of dragon's that can turn into humans and stay in that disguise and live in the modern world.

Let's not forget Draco though, from Dragonheart, that is my inspiration for the above painting.

My husband has got a cool Magna show uh Lodos War or something like that.  Kind of like D&D with it's characters, got the hero, mage, a religious healer, a thief, a pretty and sassy elf girl and a gungh ho dwarf.  But it has a story line that is more complex and the character's are not flat..best piece of work I wish American's should take a lesson from.  Hate movies with weak story lines, Reign of Fire comes to mind.  Looked like a cool dragon movie but I fell asleep through it!

I want to see a dragon that is a more complex creature, not just a beast this fierce hunting intelligence.  Draco was a good start, but I want more, like a complex society of dragons.

OHHHH I forgot about this book series by Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton

uh the Elvenbane books, it has a society of  mage dragons.

Man where has my mind been!

Still, I haven't seen too much after that.

Or else I have been so busy raising my little 'dragonlings' that I have not kept up with the books coming out.

Example and Co-learning

One of the great benefits of Home Schooling is being flexible in how to approach the learning.  I love to read others way of learning and pick up on neat projects.  One of my favorites now is the lapbook, you can buy them as kits but we save money by making our own and we get all our learning materials from the library.  I had to get my daughter's attention to them.  Just talking about it was a start but she didn't go into doing it on her own.

She was sitting watching Avatar the last airbender (series) on our computer in our bedroom.  I brought in on the bed all our cooking books from the library and one of the file folders to use as a lap book and started making pockets.  She got interested in what I was doing and watched.  I made pockets for the lap books to put our recipe cards in, they were labeled snacks, meals, cookies and cakes.  I wrote in pencil but I had her trace it in ink.  Spelling and writing is her weak point and this helps her to focus.  And I started cutting out pictures from a catalog that had to do with cooking, she started pointing out other pictures she wanted for the lap book and I'd cut them out for her.  It sounds like I am doing a lot for a nine year old but really when she watches and observes for a while what someone else is doing then she will do it on her own.  Some people can just get the picture of what do do by spoken directions,  Ariel has to watch for awhile, I was the same way but I was a lot more shy about doing stuff on my own (except for art) I had to watch a great deal how someone does it and once I see how it is done then I can do it.

She is really into cooking now so that is our focus, that cooking lap book until she switches to a new topic which is why I love the lap book idea, you save it and can add more to the subject later on, like we are going to do one on pioneers and we read Sarah Plain and Tall, watched the movie, made corn fritters, she didn't like those very well  because she thought they would be like the ones she had at a Chinese restaurant.

On some of our recipe cards I wrote out some were so simple I didn't need to write how to make it, instead I drew a picture,  I had her color it but then she started doing her own pictures on the ones I had written directions on, she found space to scratch in a doodle.  She has always been a frustrated artist, I am an artist and she keeps comparing her work to mine, I kept telling her that I did not always paint like I do now and I had to show her works I kept when I was a teen and one collection I did when I was very young that I could never throw out.  She didn't start getting the idea till I showed her my very young works and compared it to the other works, and at that point I also told her don't compare yourself to someone else, compare your own works, see your own progression.  Be INSPIRED by others like for me it's Monet, Da Vinci and the modern day gifted artist Akiana  I paint the way I paint.  Each artist has their own way of painting.

We will probably do a lap book on artists as well.  I'm waiting for her cue, when she has the interest, I bring out the supplies for the lap books.  She has trouble organizing things on her own, at least when it comes to projects and writing, she can organize objects, but the organization of information and ideas are hard, especially for someone who's spelling is not there yet.  I am planning on spelling lapbooks starting with easy ones for her to work with our five year old who is picking up on short words and already knows her letters and sounds.  Having Ariel teach what she does know will help her in cementing her own knowledge and we can build on that.  I am surprised to find out she likes crosswords now.  She didn't before a few years ago, but now she does so that's another opportunity to work on writing words without being mundane repetition.
Constantly changing and growing, my mom called me up and said Ariel road her bike to the local grocery store to get chips, she's staying over at my parents and Ariel wanted her homemade guacamole but there were no chips, she said she would go to the store for them.  She did,  she got help across the busy main street, instructed what to do she was able to do it all by herself, first time she did that.  Yeah thinking about that scared me but she is nine and she does need to be given the chance to do that once in awhile.
It's a part of her learning too, doing things on her own.

Spooky Stories

Man, just got off netflix watching Animal Planet's Haunted, about animals reacting to haunted places.  A gal on Etsy is taking up people's haunted encounters on her blog.

I work at a library that is supposed to be haunted.  Last year our new director wanted to do an investigation because some strange things were going on, but it's only when there are few people around.

For starters this is in Independence Kansas, and there are a lot of haunted places in this town.  We have the William Inge home (he was a playwright) about a block and a half away from the library.  That place is really haunted but it seems to pick on some people while others are left alone.  It is a place where playwrights who come for the William Inge festival come to stay.  Some have seen the lady in the black dress, which is Inge's Mother, In the play The Dark at the top of the Stairs it strongly hints at something that went wrong in the family and people call it Inge's most autobiographical work.

The original building of the library was built by money from Andrew Carnagie, the man who was a steel magnant and wanted to build libraries.  We had a large new and more modern wing added and renovated sections of the old library.  Sections of this library are old and there is an old staircase that goes up to the third floor of the library that is the Children's section,  when it was renovated a wall was built up where it was a large opened doorway and two fire exits are up there but because of the changes no one goes up there.  I used to go up those stairs to put books up and hated it, the stairs are super creaky but something about those stairs gave me the willies.

We acquired a library cat one winter, she was wedged through the front doors somehow and was found in the entryway one morning.  I don't know, maybe someone read the book Dewey the library cat and got the idea of shoving her in.

This cat had reacted a couple of times to something that wasn't there, and it was when the library director was alone in the library.  She has also seen a man in a white suit walk towards the back steps on the second floor and we were just closed, she told someone a man was coming down those stairs, but he was never seen.
Once our library acquisitions officer thought she saw our director walking but realized she was NOT wearing the same outfit she just saw her in earlier.  This was on a Monday and we were closed but me her and the director were working there to catch up on inter library loans.

We did have the Joplin Paranormal Researchers come in one night and some of us (just us women workers actually) planned to stay up and watch horror movies at the directors house while we wait for the results,  we watched the Exorcist, the UNcut version.  She had more but that was the only thing we watched.

When we got the call it was pretty late, they told us it's the ghost of William Inge
NOW I was a bit skeptic on that.  Why is he here if it is him?  He committed suicide in his garage, running his car in CALIFORNIA.
We do have all his books and plays kept here.  He probably came to this library a lot, but the JPR people got a picture of an orb (the only one took after they asked permission to take a pic of him) at the hand railing at those back steps that go from the second floor to the ground floor. That was where the apperation was seen.  According to my husband, who has done work at the Inge festival in town,  Inge often wore a white suit.  He was also a man that didn't seek out people often.

This month they are giving a presentation about their research here about our library ghost.
The thing I want to know is did they do research about the area where the new library is built on, there was an old house there, I remember a NO SMOKING sign in the front door.  Usually means an older person on oxygen lives there.  It was torn down to make room for our big new addition.

The researches also said there was a residual haunted, probably of someone who used to work in the Children's section, again that would be something to read into.  This spirit did not talk to anybody or stop from walking according to the one gal that was following it.  It's basically a memory being played back over and over and not something to communicate with.

Our director is convinced it's a nice ghost because one day they lost this super tiny pin screw that goes into a glassed in message board in our entry way.  They tried looking for it every where in the entry way and just out of it within the library.  The next day the pin was right there in front of the doors in the library.  Our director found it.

There are a lot of spooky places in Independence, a local did a book on it and we have two copies at the library and it's called Ghosts of Southeast Kansas.

I used to work as a janitor for awhile and I didn't experience anything being there that early, though I still did not want to go up those old stairs.  When I went back to just being a page and started coming in on Monday when we were closed to work on library loans and put more books up that's when it felt more creepy.  I never saw anything though I swear I thought I heard something and it wasn't the cat and it wasn't the pidgeons that roost near the windows, it was like something was there but wasn't, those who are skeptics would say I was just spooked by my own imaginations, others who have experienced things know what I am talking about.  I drove by the Inge house and realized it wasn't that far of a walk from the library to there so I thought Inge might have come here a bit.

I love to watch shows about people who end up buying a home and it's haunted, I noticed some trends in these stories

1.  It's a great deal, great price,  find out WHY before buying if it has a history of a murder, hauntings, it was a freakin MORGUE please just PASS!

2. Owners want to sell right away at any price  again same thing as above, ask WHY if they decline or seem nervous just pass, it could be that the foundation is rotted but even if you are a professional house flipper you can't fix a haunted house.

3  If you have a young child 'chatting' to someone in the corner and you don't see anything and you have a child that does NOT normally do this, time to check the next house.

4  You might want to pass on anything that has weird stains that will NOT go away

5  If you happen to have an animal with you and they refuse to go in, listen to it, or if they do go in then start chasing something not there, get out.

6  if you happen to be blessed with that sensitivity that something is wrong or 'heavy' about the place, trust it, ditto with children or teens that sense something wrong.

7 oh yeah if you hear a rumor the place's basement was used for satanic rites, don't laugh it off, stay away from the place.

Soooo anyone with spooky encounters they have had or had someone else tell them?  Share them here.

A Gothic Halloween

Halloween Goth Ornament by Loopy Boopy

I LOVE Halloween, I live in Kansas and our small town has a Neewollah festival, it was created in the 20's to stop rambunctious youths from tearing up the town.

We get a small carnival in, bands play, we get a mixture of rock and Christian groups and country in to please everybody, and we have three different parades.

Last year I was in two of them, the Do Dah parade, where mostly adults are all dressed up scary, our library staff went on this one, we were all Zombies.

It was funny, I walked in all Zombie fied and some of the staff was thinking about not doing it because it was a long hard day, I was a page so my hours are short.

I was tired too but wanting to get all fixed up.

When they saw what I looked like they got enthuised about it so we went.

I just wished I had a severed arm with an overdue book in the hand.

Halloween Vampire Bat

I have collected some items in my Etsy favorites that are Halloween inspired.

Loopy Boopy above is one of my favorites.

The Goth dolls remind me of Tim Burton's work.

This bat boy is a cutie too.

Who said Halloween has to be all blood and gore and scary stuff.

Why not the cute items.

The other parade we have in our town is the Kiddie Parade

Which is of course parents and their kids go for this one.

My kids got to ride the AWANA hay cart though the town.

I don't know what I am going to do this year, don't know if the library director is planning anything.

We walked the last time, it would be nice if we had a car pulling a hay bed 

or something like that.

It was hard walking after being on your feet all day.

Big Juicy Tears of Blood

Ok so here's a little blood, but it's a cute one, only a little gory.

I get a kick out of Trick or Treating

Love the decorations and all

Have to pick up a book on Halloween crafts before they disappear from the library.

I love the book that tells how to used recycled items to make neat decorations.

Saves me some money on art supplies.

Halloween Full Moon

I love this photo, it reminds me of the Library's Ghost Stories in the Park.

They started this some time ago.

First it was the staff, me and two other ladies

reading off a script some creepy stories.

After that we were able to hire professional story tellers.

We have been able to get more outside people to perform at our library.

I still would have loved doing a performance again

or else just read from a creepy book

it's so much fun and my daughter loves how I read.

I often don't sound like I'm reading, I go at it so smoothly.

Halloween is ever sneaking closer.

My daughter wants to be a black cat

I am not sure what I want to be

and my husband put Trick r Treat on Netflix

a really well done multilayerd scary movie.

Sweet Spooky Dreams!

Teaching the Unfocused

I think we all know kids can be very unfocused, though some are more focused on others, often they are considered gifted because one of the hallmarks of gifted children is having intense focus.  My daughter is nine and very unfocused, she has many ideas banging around in her head and I am trying to help her to get that in line, I know how crazy it gets because I am a creative and when I am busy on ONE project I get ideas for TEN more, which is why I keep a small notebook nearby to keep things on track.

However, my daughter gets upset with me when I try to help her.  Mostly that's because she's so focused on her idea but doesn't SEE how to work it out and gets mad when I tell her she has to start with this, than that and basically go by steps.  It's like she wants thing suddenly NOW.  BELIEVE ME I know the feeling, been there done that.  My other problem is having so much to do that I can't get started and I sit around the apartment being bored, silly but it's like that and my daughter has the same problem.

She has this great idea of doing a book on the New Moon, ok so I show her the steps to writing such a thing, I show her mind mapping,  using a big circle to write the main topic then spidering out the other points.  She gets that fine, but then when I ask her about how many pages she will need she said 500!!!  WHAT?  I explained to her with her narrow subject she will NOT need 500 pages, got into a tiff on that but got her to agree to have 10 pages to start, if she needs more then she can have more but the first ten must be done first.

Well, last week we started on this, she got the cover done, but hasn't done anything else on it.  I worked on a homeschool structure I can follow.  Something easy to keep with, getting the main academic works done in the morning.  Mostly her Sylvan Reading comprehension book, A bit of math which she is very good at, and a good workbook that's handy Words Every 3rd grader needs to know, I do a grouping of it along with a lap book theme, it goes by subjects, we are going through the math words she needs to know then I will have her do the Language arts portion.  She only has focus enough to do two pages, but even then I have to sit next to her to walk her though it.  I don't have to do that much when she is on her math.

What is it about kids when they are HIGH in math but tend to be low in reading, I have done tutoring in Americorps and saw a boy like this.  I was low in math but exceptionally HIGH in reading.

Elsewhere I have read an interesting article on how those who are high in the aptitude for engineering are often bad spellers.

My daughter comes up with great ideas but seldom follows though with it unless she has someone to 'mind map' her through and keep her going.  I was more of once I knew what needed to be done, leave me alone and let me do it, I wasn't much of a team player either, but it seems that my daughter needs a 'team' to get her work going you know?  Crazy, so how to get it to work with her?

When we got done with our workbooks today (only three) I wanted her to have her reading time but she said she wanted a nap.  She had a nightmare last night and lost some sleep so I didn't contest it.  Mental work takes a lot out of us in different ways, she needed a break.
She did lay down but she eventually straightened up the bedroom, which was good.

The girl is constantly on the move and wants stimulation.  Her favorite show is Avatar the Last Airbender, a show I actually like but she could easily end up watching hours of it.

I am having Avatar and computer game time as her fun time when she gets her work done.
She says ok to that.  But today instead of computer or Airbender she wanted to go over to my parents house.
She likes to help straighten stuff up over there.  Fall is hitting us and they have a few big trees there, peacan trees and their driveway will be buried in the mass of leaves.  Her heaven, she loves raking.
Her favorite activities has always been active things, I'm the opposite, I have little energy, I'm skinny as hell but have little energy, I have a massive amount of airborne allergies, not to mention grass and other things that can make my skin break out.  I spent most of my time reading NOT running and playing, any time that I did I was exhausted. In a way my daughter reminds me of Marley, yeah that 'bad' dog from the book and movie, can't believe they are making another one of just the puppy years.  Getting her focused in the kitchen stirring or kneading bread dough keeps her from walking up the walls.

She has more physical energy than mental energy, now how to work with that?
I go to Sizzle Bop, a homeschooling mom with sizzlers, or what we call high energy kids (or ADD ADHD)
She has got awesome ideas, but does anyone else know of helps for this high energy kid and low energy mom?

The ART of the HORSE

Fire and Ice Horses

I love horses, this is one of my favorites from Etsy and there have been a steady influx of painted horses.

Red Devil Horse

I love the design of this piece.  This is a print of the original batik design.

I have never done batik but I love artists who know how to use this unique medium.

I like to stick with my regular oil paints.

Horse and Swirls

I like this one, painted on gessoed wood I love the shaded blue areas on the horse.

The swirls are neat as a background, it's different.

Epona by Akemanartist

Of course here is mine.  Epona is the Celtic goddess of horses, water and childbirth.

She is here featured with two white horses, I wanted to make the eyes of the horses more expressive like humans.  I want to do more horse paintings.  I have been working on realistically drawing horses but when I paint I seem to go into a more stylized mode.  I really love to express with the paint it just flows so my paintings have a flow.

Horses defiantly deserve to be revered in art. 

Homeschool Awaiting!

ooohh so soon my daughter who is nine will be coming home from the vacation RV trip with my parents.  We can start our homeschooling and I want to get on a creative start.  With my daughter a lot of the work has to be movement.  She gets bored and tired when sitting still too long and I have been trying to figure out how much seatwork (writing, math sheets) she can do before she's snoozing.  I have had the snoozing problem with school on occasion but it was partly the allergy medicines at the time (the 80's) I was stuck in special ed (Asperger's was not heard of then so I was thought of as a troubled or disturbed child)
I was just plain bored.  LOVED to read so much of what I learned I got from reading, not listening to teachers, hey I do respect the teachers I have had but honestly I cannot sit and pay attention long enough before daydreaming, sorry, even with more interesting speakers if it goes on longer than my limit I'm zoning!

Here is the ideas for my Homeschooling

1.  Supercharged Science  I cannot afford this great lady's curriculum but she has a newsletter and I constantly get free stuff and tips and very interesting science projects.   Ariel loves it and the free science project ideas are usually easy to do with things found around the house.

2.  Discovering Great Artists  This is a book I found for cheap on Half.com, a great resource for book lovers like me.  This has got a short bio of each artist then an artist activity to do the art like the artist and it ranges from super easy to a bit challenging and it's great for a wide age range and the page lets you know by stars how easy or hard it is.

3.  Spelling games   I have Boggle Jr to start out with, it's mostly for pre schoolers but she's weak in spelling and I am looking for more spelling ideas.

4.  Journaling,  Writing is hard for her, as well as spelling so we are going to work more on that through journaling at the end of her session, she writes using some of the words we worked on in spelling games.  I have to be really focused and limited on this till she can expand her spelling range then we can have more journaling ideas.

5.  Reading Streak  this idea is based on a book I read of a daughter and her relationship with her father, he read to her since she was young even when she could read by herself.  I let Ariel pick out the book and we read every night from that book.  We were reading Under a blood red sun, a book in sixth grade reading level about a boy who is Japanese, in Hawaii in 1941.  Very interesting talks with her about WWII and prejudice and fear.

6. AWANA and CARAVAN   Two Christian clubs she goes to.  AWANA has not started yet but the CARAVAN has, Caravan is like the girl and boy scouts, you earn badges though the year learning about God and Jesus, AWANA is like that but I pay dues to this one while Caravan is though our church and is free and they have pickups so I don't have to drive my kid there, but I MIGHT join to help out there.  I incorporate the AWANA into her homeschooling, it's a lot of reading and memorization for her, I have her copy verses for recital so she practices writing.

7.  Seatwork  this I want to keep minimal but that's the writing, math pages stuff to do but I am changing that a bit.  For the math she gets overwhelmed with a page full of problems so I am going to choose four problems from that page, have it written neatly in her math journal, then she can do the work.  I will use the page from the math workbook as a final test.  THEN she will do all the problems but she should be able to recognize them as ones she has done and be able to focus.
I will start her on cursive, slowly, using words she has trouble spelling.  Maybe she will get the hang of the fluidity of the writing and be able to write faster.  At my parents house she learns typing, they have a computer typing program.

I have other ideas that are not written in detail here, but I'll say one half is Home Ec, she loves cooking and recipies and the other is learning Etsy and how to be a crafter.

a Scarf for my husband

I have been wanting to make a scarf for my husband and finally I learned to do

the rib stitch so I can do it.  I will also be making him fingerless gloves that use the ribbing stitch.

The yarn is an eco yarn made from plastic bottles.

I was surprised that this was made from plastic bottles.

It's soft, what my husband wants, a scarf that is not scratchy.

He can't wait till I do the matching finger less gloves.

I have other items in the works for Halloween.  I have a neat candy jar

I really love how the lid came out!

I will list this on Etsy when I am finished with it.

It's almost done, just need to straighten out the paint on the bottom of the jar

and I think I want to add some more painted embellishments on the jar

little pumpkins or something like that, I haven't decided,

or maybe it's fine the way it is?

You tell me!

And I have my second Day of the Dead Bottle listed on Etsy

Find it here

That is my cat Boo.  As soon as I opened up the blinds for light she jumped up there.

I didn't want to mess with her so she got in the shot!

The Day of the Dead bottle is on Etsy now.

The paint is Gallery Glass and looks great near a light source.

You can put candle around it but not too close.

I don't know if the heat is good for the paints.

It looks pretty festive.

My youngest daughter started back at her special pre school and lately she has

been big on doing board games.

Getting kind of tired of it because it's routine now.

She starts with one then goes through the whole list.

Pretty Pretty Princess

ABC Dora game

Boggle Jr. (I stick with doing only five cards)

Candy Land

Dora Chutes and Ladders

She fights me on Monopoly Jr but she is just not ready for that one

My oldest plays the older Monopoly

Now when my oldest gets back from vacation with my parents we can have game night.

My Husband is eager to start a family devotions time.  Our pastor talked about a new Graphic Novel Bible

Being a comics fan my husband wants that.  Makes sense for such a visually stimulated family!

I also want to make Popsicle puppets of the Bible people so we can act out sections

like Jonah and the whale..it would help keep the attention I think.

Any way that is what is up for me now.

I have to get ready for my two hours of work at the library.

bye for now.

Day of the Dead artwork

The above photo effect was achieved by placing my finger over the flash but I was trying to cover the red out light too, didn't work too well but the photo looked cool for this post anyway.

This is how it really looks although I am not done with it yet.

This is what I am working on.  I noticed a lot of neat Sugar Skull artwork on Etsy.

I looked it up on Google to find out about it's history and really got interested in making my own.

This is my second skull done on a large wine bottle with Gallery Glass paints, it's not done yet, I'll be adding more skulls, working like this takes time.  I have to do one side of the bottle and let it dry overnight.

I took the picture indoors so when it's done I can get a better pic when dried and can take it outdoors.

Now here is the first one I did with glass paints

I'll have to get an upclose shot of this when it's daytime.

But you get the idea.

I have other fall items to work on.

Halloween is like my most favorite holiday but after reading about 

Dia De Los Muertos

and seeing all the neat Sugar Skull artwork on Etsy

I just had to find out more about the holiday

and of course make my own Sugar Skull artwork.

My background is a mix of Scots/Irish English and perhaps a bit of French

(most Americans do anyway) and German and a smidgen of Cherokee

I'm a Christian but one side of my family descended from a large Jewish family that over time married into different branches of Christianity 

So in other words I'm a MUTT!

I love cultures and I envy my cousins who have traveled to different places over the world

One of them married an artist from Africa.

I read a lot on different cultures.

I am autistic (Aspberger's type)

Meeting people is NOT easy for me, and I have allergies to a lot of things

so I travel in my head.

Well, now I"m in Mexico I guess with all the Day of the Dead stuff.

I have been familiar enough with the celebration, read an article on it in a kid's magazine

seen the Crow 2 with its references to that day.

Now I see it all over on Etsy, on earrings, paper mache, paintings, mosaics, 

so I am jumping on the bandwagon, for this Fall anyway and looking

to do my own interpretation of the art form.

Day of the Dead

Check out the link for more information on the Cultural History of Sugar Skulls

It's really cool!

It's still warm but Fall is comming

Children's Tube Scarf in blues, purples and whitish pinks

Some places may be getting cooler than others, I live in Kansas where the freakin weather can't make up it's mind.  But I have this lovely children's tube scarf available.  Nice and soft and done in merino wool. I bought the yarn from Wooly Rhinoceros and each yarn is different, hand dyed you don't get the same yarn twice.

This is so ultra soft superwash yarn and I loved knitting it, it is a thick and thin yarn and knitted it in stockinette 

stitch but in a way that the scarf rolls in itself, making an interesting tube.  It is a fun piece and my kids want one of their own, they have to wait on that, besides I have made them scarfs of their own why do they want more?? 

 Well, kids just love it when they have a mom that can do this sort of thing.  Ok I'm not chiding those mothers who may not have the creative bug (mine's an all out virus!) and I am not miss perfect Martha Stewart so relax on that one.  I love to knit and I was trying to teach my nine year old to knit, but she has little patience on the matter. She loves the kitchen though, I'm pretty good with the cookies and cakes and muffins, but I'm not all that thrilled about the kitchen to be honest.  My HUSBAND can COOK!  His favorite shows are Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Confidential  and I like Cake Boss, in fact my daughter wants me to make a red velvet cake with chocolate Ganache,  I had to look that one up in my Betty Crocker book and thank GOD it's THERE!!  

Fall is coming and to make it easier for me as I create holiday inventory I am looking for Crock Pot recipes.

Yes, I'm a lazy cooker, but because my husbands health is iffy during the winter months I want some things planned ahead that will be easy to do.

I homeschool, create paintings on every conceivable surface I work two hours at the library five days a week to have some extra money  and I need time to be creative or else my life would suck.  Really it would and my oldest understands, my four year old is starting to get it. 

My husband is learning to understand my frenzy, sometimes he just needs to look away.

Once I did a Thanksgiving dinner just for my family, not BIG family just me, hubby and kids.

I can't even remember what I MADE!

Well, my husband and I are learning to cook meals together.  When we leave the kids with grandparents

we try out a new recipe, one took us a few hours to do, Chicken curry and Aloo Gobi, ever since I saw Bend it Like Beckham I wanted to do Aloo Gobi.

Something warm to eat in the fall and winter months, mmm Indian spices make my tongue sing!!

Oh and neither one of us in Indian by the way, we just LOVE the food of other cultures.

German, West African, Cuban, Italian, whatever, we just find the recipes online.

Sorry for all the babble, I haven't been on here in a bit and I hope to change that, just had some hard times at home and now we are getting things back in line.

MMM can't wait for Halloween, my favorite month.  Here is my Painting for Halloween

POOKA AT NIGHT

A Irish legend of terror, the Pooka, or Puka, in some areas of Ireland it's a slimy horse from a bog, 

in others it's a troll.  Sometimes the Pooka is a horse with long ears like a rabbit.

Mine is slimy green rising out with it's legs in the middle of forming so they looks a little misshapen.

I have fall bottles and candle jars bouncing around in my head, I have to start working on my designs.

Soo much to do, so little time.

Etsian Artists: Wonderful Wednesdays

Etsian Artists: Wonderful Wednesdays: Check out all of the wonderful butterflies from the Etsian Artists Team...... Black Moth- Hand painted necklace Stand out in this uniq...

This link takes you to a wonderful short collection of Etsian Artists finds, and my Wonderland Bottle was featured here! I am happy to have gotten that piece chosen. I love the other items in the set. I need to clean out the other Olive Oil bottle to make another Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat which says We're all Mad here. I'm mad you're mad. Going to draw him all crazy like. I really love Tim Burton's version of the Cat. I really love to pick out great movies to watch for inspiration. My favorite has been The Neverending Story and was so happy to have found the soundtrack last year on Half.com.

Other movies are Mr. Magorioum's Magic Emporium. The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and some movies have such great soundtracks that I just have to have them. Used to listen to this cassette tape as a kid, it was a collection of John Williams music including ET music. The Secret of NIMH had a great soundtrack. I love a lot of the Disney stuff and I have a few of the recent stuff such as Mulan, Tarzan and the Lion King stuff. But still my favorite soundtrack is The neverending Story.

What movies or music do you listen to for inspiration? Please share!

The Fairy Tree

Find it Here

It has been a busy week for me and I wanted to find something to blog about so I picked out my Fairy Tree

You can't see fairies, at the time I did this painting I had trouble actually drawing fairies, I made this painting to show a bit of mystery.  Faint glows in a forest, things like Will o' wisps darting to and fro.

This is a painting of all the fairies hiding within a tree.

Part of the inspiration came from I think Fern Gully when the fairies hide in their one big tree.

This is similar, and the ghostly white?  That's something spooky coming up against the fairies.

I love fantasy and making up stories and designing the paintings that will best illustrate those ideas.

I am getting more inspired now by re-connection with God.

Which somehow got disconnected when I fought so hard to get my husband to come to church.

Well, my husband fought hard to bring me back from what I would call a spiritual crisis.

I have this great idea for a art bottle done in glass mosaics.  I have a friend that might loan me out some of the grouting he uses for his own works.  I just need enough to do the project.

I started back to working at the Library again, only at two hours a day so I can do my other jobs of Homeschooling and artwork and maintaining my Etsy shop.

But for the new art bottle I was thinking of a fire cross.

I have several pieces of fiery orange and yellow and bits of red glass left over from an old project.

The stained glass not hanging in the window is hard to see but that is the one with the reds and oranges I have.

There is also pieces left over from the project above that.

I have been keeping those pieces in case I might do something with them, and now I do have an idea!

I have other ideas like simulating Church windows, doing sea creatures like whales and dolphins,

and doing works with dragons, my favorite imaginary creatures.

Do I do any more stained glass work?

I have desires to do so but right now it's tough.  I need something to clean my soldering iron, I can't spell the name correctly but it's needed to clean the solder gunk from my iron.

I still have some great pieces of stained glass art, just not really great for selling on Etsy.

Being imperfect works done for a class they are pretty enough but not POLISHED enough as far as work goes, you can tell that when you put professional work up against mine.

Still, I am quite proud of my work because I DESIGNED the knotwork myself!

My teacher never had a beginner student do that in their first class for a final project.

I just got the idea after working with the easy pieces.

There were no patterns available to do the Celtic pieces I want soooo

I drew one up myself.  The one in the shadow is my first one.

The second one in the light was my next one with a change, I added a 'frame' of glass to 

give it more structure and while the pieces were cut wobbly

the 'frame' helped fix it all together better than the first one.

Stained glass is expensive as a hobby.  A LOT of work and skill and TIME goes into this!

I'm working on a Gallery Glass bottle art project now.  Just painting in the colors.

I was doing a simple Celtic Knotwork but the way it turned out

it looks like DNA strands LOL!

Got to get back to my work table, got lots of stuff to do.

   

A Little Irish Cream Please ART BOTTLES

I love the surface of these Irish Cream bottles because they have a wide flat surface,

makes it easier to create a scenery there like the Dragon and castle.

On the dragon and castle I experimented with blending in the paints.

Not too bad, I had drawn on the design after I had painted a white surface with enamel paints.

I used a marker that actually was permanent and didn't get blended with the paints

when I was painting.  Still, doesn't look bad. It's like an illustration.

I want to create a painting with a better perspective though.

I always want to improve and make my art better, but I still enjoy it as much as a child.

That's the key to creating, just enjoying it, take yourself too seriously and you can kill that desire.

But you HAVE to be serious enough to want to improve, to become better, work at the craft, that's my desire.  and to push my own boundaries.

I want to do more Celtic Knotworks like this one

It still is a little off balance, I just need more practice, each bottle will be better than the last.

Where do I get these bottles?

Well, my husband and I love a taste of the Irish Creme, being stronger than wine

I usually just make half a wine glass and put a couple of ice cubes in it (bring out the flavor)

and I sip it slowly.  Unfortunately my husband downs the stuff much more quickly.

Not good for someone who is diabetic and was told to limit the drinks.

He gets a bit depressed when he drinks too much, with all his medication

I'm not surprised but he's cooled it on it now.

But now we have ALL these bottles!

What to do?

PAINT THEM!

Another thing I want to do is mosaics!

I have scrap glass I kept from stained glass class work.

I don't like to waste anything if I can help it!

I have been inspired by Etsy artists who do awesome mosaics.

This one HERE is by Waschbear on ETSY!

I love it, done on stone.

I want to do some on my bottles.  I got great design ideas.

I don't have grouting now, have to wait till I can afford it.

It's not expensive just that I got bills to pay and I just have to wait on that now.

But I am practicing on ideas with the gallery glass paints on the bottles.

I would love to do a mosaic on a bottle in Celtic Knotwork.

HERE is another one she did.

I have an idea of my own to do dragons and fire, I have the scraps to do it with.

Plus I still have all those panes of glass from my stained glass class to do it with.

I am too busy right now with young children to do stained glass (lead concerns)

so that will have to wait till they are older.

Besides, my soldering iron needs to be cleaned badly!

And you have to devote longer hours to get going on a project sooo

I will use what I have to make a mosaic when I can get the grouting for it.

Improvement

Well I found out something today about Gallery Glass paints, it needs a varnish to toughen it up.
I woke up this morning deciding to look up Gallery Glass and read more about it since it bothers me that when I am finished the stuff is dry but so soft.  It needs a sealant, a varnish, and Gallery Glass has it's own but I found some to use that's for enamel paints and it seems to make it just fine.  I noticed it has harden the Gallery Glass so it's NOT so fragile which makes me happy.  I just varnished my Wonderland bottle, the Gallery Glass side and that did make a difference.  It doesn't stick to paper either, used to before and I end up peeling off the bit of paint with the paper.

I also used my paint to do some stamp art on my gift pockets

buy item here

I really liked how that turned out.  Fall is coming and I want to do something different.

I am making wrist warmers and I wanted to do some stamp art to decorate it.

I dunked the wrist warmers, which were cut up sock leftovers from VBS Sealy Socks

and I dyed them using Koolaid

Using warm water and koolaid and 1/4 cup of vinegar

I set the socks to soak in  a jar, sun heated for the whole day.

This is a fun project to do with the kids, especially older ones.

I like to set the socks out to dry, it's really HOT here

but when pressed for time after rinsing

heat dry socks in a dryer by themselves OR

use a Hairdryer if you don't have a dryer, it works

and the HEAT sets the color

Nothing stains better than koolaid.

You can decorate this in many ways like using puffy paint or any kind of fabric paint or marker.

I am embroidering the cuffs, first you have to sew the cut edges.

then I embroider around on the top

I'm halfway done with one of mine, it looks like this

This was dyed in purple but I didn't use enough packets

looks kind of like salmon pink!

I am embroidering the edge with purple floss, you can just see the seam

where I sewed the cut edge back into the sock.

This is my first try and the next one was a lot neater

In fact the first pair will be mine to show while the others will be sold

This is my practice piece, so I know what works what won't and take that knowledge 

to the next pair.

I have made sets of blue, orange, and will soon make red.

I will list them on Etsy, 

Wristwarmers made with old socks (mine are new just cut) is a Shappy Chic way of looking cool!

A great way to improve something that is worn out.

I have a lot of worn out HEELS on my socks so now I 

have a project to do with my kids.

NEW ART BOTTLES Support up cycled art

CHOICE Strawberry or Fairy Bottle

This is the collection of bottles, part of it anyway.  I still have yet to list the 'party bottle' that's the bottle with the purple and red squiggles, I want to make a collection pic of those 'party bottles' I made.

Pond and Dragonflies Bottle

Blueberry Bottle

There are probably many uses for an old wine bottle.  I also have some Irish Whiskey bottles that are begging for a make over too,  I only painted two so far.

These bottles are meant to be decorative, they can hold a single flower like a bud vase,

it can grace the table with a little eye candy like a centerpiece

it can sit on the mantel of your fireplace or shelf or bookcase.

I have LOTS of bottles but I can only do so much at a time.  That's a lot of work the listing and promoting of my new item, I only try to do it like one or two items a day.

It helps to bring attention to my store of varied arts.

I am working on a new bottle now, more of a mosaic piece. I'm using Gallery Glass liquid leading and that takes a bit to dry before I put in the color.  While that is drying I do other things like making more gift pockets for the bracelets I have and I still have more bracelets to list on Etsy.

I really need to get back to my painting.  I have a new painting based on a sermon my pastor was talking on, he uses a lot of word pictures, something I get and actually remember.  I feel bad when I can't remember a sermon, but it turns out it's how it's presented that makes me remember it.  I DRAW during the sermons, and that helps me, I end up having to explain why I do that, but at least the pastor and his wife are impressed, his wife admitted she had no talent in that area.

I am going to do a small oil painting that shows a stone jar overflowing with water

This is the watercolor sketch I did during church.  I used watercolor pencils and when service was over I took out my little hairspray bottle that is really filled with water, took of the cap and used the paint brush I always carry with me.

I have a mini artist tool kit that I made with felt.  Kind of a crappy looking job, as I only glued the edges of the felt together and now that's coming apart.

I am in the works of not only fixing that by just sewing but in developing an art kit using beautiful blue fabric

and having white felt inside for cushioning  and sewing the whole thing up.  When that's done I'll post it here and list it on Etsy.

I am also in the middle of making wrist warmers, dying them with koolaid dye which isn't a strong dye and gives it a lighter color, but I'm planning on using paints to stamp fall leaves on since Fall is coming around the corner.  I know it's August but days pass by soo quickly.

Fall Around the Corner

I have this item on Etsy HERE

I got a better photo of it, finally.  The only problem is a little bit of the red flash leaked through when I was holding my fingers over it trying to block the flash.  Other than that little red spot the picture is much better.  On the shop there is a pic of the photo by itself so lookers can really see it with no color problems because it was scanned.  I really love this frame and will make one for my other prints but I want to make some empty frames using my hummingbirds to decorate them.  Can't wait to do that one.

I have been busy today dyeing the cut up socks from VBS.  I am making wrist warmers, the first batch is dyed in a grape Koolaid dye.  Every mom knows how bad that stuff stains right?

I did mine outside, I got the recipe from a favorite book of mine called Kids Knitting.  They tell you how to dye your own wool using koolaid.  It does stain the hands a bit, don't have any gloves but scrubbing with my facial scrub gets it out, as well as all the dead skin cells.

I'm letting the socks dry out now.  Then I will embroider the cut edges so they look nice and don't fray out.

I think these are going to be wacky things for the preteen teen set.

Well, things have changed since I was a teen.  I'd probably would use a pair that's jet black with dragons or vampires or skulls on them.

Hey your reading about a gal that dyed her hair black in order to be Eric Draven from the Crow movie!

I still like things a little on the dark side but I love bright colors and have that innerchild smiling, but once in awhile picks up a meatcleaver.

MMMMMwwwwahahahaha!

Halloween isn't here yet and I'm already getting morbid, which reminds me, I have to bring out my fall items.

This is my Purple Passion Muppet Scarf

I showed a part of in scanned in in an earlier post.

I paired this up with a rust brown coat I have, and it looks great.

The flash made the scarf look lighter than it did.  I have to try again to get the color right.

I did a neat styleboard with this scarf on Kaboodle to show how it goes with Fall fashions.

This scarf is one of a kind not because of it's pattern which is simple but because of the yarn which is from 

Lambsears and each of her hand dyed yarns is unique, you won't see the same yarn again.

She may do another purple but it won't be this purple.

I have other scarfs coming up too.  The yarn is original because it's hand dyed and you won't see the same color again.  If you really like this scarf, get it now.  Check out the link to it and see if the color is you.

If it doesn't work out you can return it for a full refund.