am working on a paper collaged postcard for my wonderful daughter. she left yesterday and before she had gotten halfway through her flight plan she was contacted and told that her original destination had been (temporarily?) changed due to sudden political unrest in Honduras. i'm sure that you can imagine what that has done to ease her mother's stress (NOT~!!~). however, she seems to be taking it in stride and waiting for further instructions while getting through the orientation rigamarole in Miami.yesterday's a.m. tea bags were seen as potential grist for this mill, and used, as well as a bit of appropriate map and a tiny butterfly to represent the adventurous young woman that she has become. i had pre prepared several watercolor paper postcard forms for collage work. unfortunately i was only able to find one of them . . . and still have no idea where the rest have disapeared to . . . despite a great mucking out of my studio as i attempted to find their "safe" location. in fact, the mucking out was so great that i didn't really get to start on the work of this card until this morning. one thing led to another and before you knew it i was doing what mother's do when all ruffled up about something. i have been cleaning and catching up on neglected household chores . . . why is it that we do that anyway~!?!~i suppose that the constant movement without intense thought must distract us just enough to be able to not sit and cry over something that we have no control over anyway. the house becomes tidier as i wait for further information from my daughter regarding her big adventure.

an antique spoon/strainer that i spotted yesterday and had to snap a shot of. i have no idea why; i just liked the look of it sitting there with the sun coming through the small holes. i think this spoon may have been used in canning many years ago . . .

the nasturtiums are busy doing their thing and i can't even look at them without my spirits being lifted a little. they are such happy little flowers~!!~ and i hope they make you feel the same. tomorrow and the next day i have medical tests being run and my posting will be kept to a minimum as i get through that. hopefully whatever is wrong will be easily corrected and i'll be back to (relatively) full speed very soon.

today we decided to visit the lake. Angel Lake is a relatively small mountain lake that sits in a rocky "bowl" surrounded by mountains. it's at such a high altitude that many of the trees and flowers are just now beginning to really get leaves and blossoms. it was a beautiful day to be there.

i so rarely take photos that aren't macro that it feels very odd to do so and i really REALLY need to practice~!!~but here you have it; a landscape/lakescape shot. so now i'll get back to the more comfortable realm of the macro.

found these mushrooms by a very tiny stream (created by snow melt). they were growing all stacked up on top of each other like little apartment houses . . . the light was very dappled due to the dense foliage over their "heads" which is why i got the wonderful glow in this shot~!~it's a fairey tale shot . . .

this is a tiny grass flower that was nestled in with a thick layer of mosses.

this is what greed looks like~!~

:)

this ant (and some of it's buddies) were busily licking out (all) the nectar from the middle of these blossoms.

yum. yum. yum.

not sure just what kind of butterfly this is. it's very small and much bluer when it's wings are spread open.

i can never resist

taking a closer look

at the lichens on the rocks.

they can be so varied in their shapes and colors~!~

we found a water snake that allowed me to get a few shots. you can see the very tip of his tongue if you click on the photo to enlarge it.this shot makes it look a bit menacing but it was just very interested in getting back into it's own environment and not at all looking to hurt us.

i'm very happy to have gotten to spend some time with my daughter in this beautiful area today. it was her idea to go up and i'm glad that we did.

tomorrow we will be taking an early morning trip to the airport to send her off to Honduras. everything seems to be in order and she is VERY excited to begin this newest adventure in her life.

every second with my daughter has become more precious than the last . . . time is speeding by and she'll be flying out on Monday in the early a.m.

constantly fighting the tears.
one of the Christmas postcards in finished form. i like the stamped pear that has been highlighted with stitch. my daughter preferred the "Joy" (word) embellishment.

the cactus are beginning their brief annual show of bloom and they are gorgeous~!!~

consider yourself invited. tall cool glasses of refreshing beverages have been poured. the day was actually sunny and warm (for the whole (!) day) and i was able to take myself outside into the warm and enjoy~!~

yesterday i received the newest issue of one of my favorite magazines, "Cloth, Paper, Scissors". so i took some time to see what might be interesting to read about and ponder for future art activity. i think the thing that ended up popping out at me the most was a newer feature that they're calling "homework". i ended up thinking about how much i could use the ideas, tips and prompts . . . if i were really smart, i would set up a simple daily art prompt for myself . . . hmmmm . . . is there anyone else who has thought that they might benefit from such a practice? have you tried it? and if so to what level of success? i really need a twenty to thirty minute art activity for daily creative growth. i might not be able to do it every single day but i could certainly attempt to make it a habit. art is a spiritually creative activity. why don't i treat it as if it's important in my life~!!~?~!!~ instead, i allow daily chores and other "stuff" to get in the way of making time to explore creatively and i shouldn't continue to do this. i know better~!~

but then again; i have almost completed a commitment to a 365 daily photo discipline and so i suppose have begun paving the way for continuing an art practice of some sort when i've finished with that goal . . . i guess i'm not a complete failure when it comes to a daily creative practice . . . i really have a lot to think about . . . and would welcome any thoughts on how other creative minds handle this issue within their daily life.

speaking of practicing art; my daughter and i continue to make progress on the Christmas fabric/paper postcards. i don't have any idea why i decided that we needed approximately a half yard piece of this medium. now it seems like it's going to produce more cards than we will probably need . . .

the first cut i made into it was a six inch wide strip. from that i have proceeded to cut four inch slices to produce the necessary six by four inch "base" from which to create the individual cards.

so here are a couple of those base pieces with a machined basting stitch completely around the outside edges.

i am considering various options for adding embellishments, text, etc to each individual card . . . if i'm not careful i will "over consider" and be faced with a creative block . . .

i need to just jump in and try doing some random embroidery stitches on them and see where that takes me . . .

i will attempt to post progress of this Christmas card project as i move along.

since i do have so much of the fabric/paper collage piece, i was even considering trying out an ATC or two . . . we'll see . . . there may be some small bits left over that would work out well for that.

here is another shot of the pinks(?) for Love Stitching Red. they do look like a relative of the carnation family . . . and i really appreciate your help in identifying them~!~

Random Moments From The Garden

columbine enjoying the sun
square crop

an abstract of a vehicle license plate dated 1923~!~

i think these may be called pinks but i'm not sure. if anyone knows feel free to share.

a very tiny flower (probably a weed)

square crop

definately a weed~!!~and wicked looking in macro

found a mushroom this a.m. and can't decide whether i prefer the square crop/composition

or this one with lots of negative space . . .

i have an old cow skull that has accumulated some lichen over the years . . . it made for another interesting abstract as well as a great study in texture. i was also playing around with my dof on this shot.

Happy Father's Day to all those wonderful dads, grand-dads and other important father figures. the world would be a sad place without your love, hard work and guidance~!~

other highlights of this day include:

my first nasturtium blossom of the summer ~ it's orange~!~what a happy color~!~

the roses continue gearing up their beautiful show of blosssoms,

a batch of baby orb spiders just hatched out in the garden. this is always such an amazing sight to me~!~there are so very many of them and they are so ultra tiny . . .

this batch is a bit later than normal . . . i suppose due to our cooler rainy days . . . i know that these spiders are a harmless and very beneficial part of our garden and am always happy to see them. there will undoubtably be more photos of them over the summer as they grow and spin and do their thing.

and what exactly is Emmitt up to~!?!~he is playing/hiding in some bits of Chirstmas wrapping paper that i've saved for an art project.

my daughter and i are working on making some fiber paper that will then be used for making postcards. she will send these postcards out to her friends and family from Honduras this year at Christmas time. i'm not sure that it's turning out quite the way that i expected but to be fair, it's still in process and this is the first time that i've experimented with this technique. after the fiber paper is dried, it will be cut to the proper postcard sizes and then further embellished. i like the idea of adding some stitching to it and who knows what else will develop . . .

Emmitt is having a very good time while we cut and paste~!~

speaking of postcards~!~ it's time to reveal the give-away winner . . .

i did this the old fashioned way and hand wrote each participant's name on a slip of paper along with the post date that it was collected from and (on some) noted whether it was a flickr comment. as it turned out the winner pulled was from a blog post.

i asked my daughter to pull one of the slips of paper out . . .

and the winner is . . .

Pink Sky Studios~!!~ i am so excited for her and at the same time so sorry that i couldn't make everyone a winner . . . i will definately do this again~!!~ thank you all for participating and for making my blog a happy and creative place for me to come to every day~!!~

Congratulations Pink Sky~!~ please e-mail me with your address information. i will be getting the package ready to send during the upcoming week.

if by some chance, i don't hear from my lucky winner within a week or she changes her mind about wanting the card, i will redraw a new name from the basket.