HAPPY NEW YEAR

Please go to my new blog at http://silverthreadsanartistspilgrimage.blogspot.com

MY BIRTHDAY

Today I turned 71. I started a new blog to celebrate the beginning of a new year and to record LITTLE MOMENTS that I experience each day. I an keeping this blog to record my artistic accomplishments and will also keep my crazy quilt blog to record my sewing accomplishments. I'll see how it goes having three blogs and may end up combining them but for now I will have all three. I hope you will visit http://silverthreadsanartistspilgrimage.blogspot.com/ My other blog is http://secretgardencrazyquilting.blogspot.com/ but there isn't much there right now, I hope to change that in 2011.

NEW YEARS INTENTIONS

I have begun to set my intentions for 2011 and have started a Book Of Possibilities (from the movie Last Holidays). This is my new journal for 2011, I love the Paperblanks Journals. They have such beautiful covers and the paper inside is good quality:

This is my Book Of Possibilities. I love the cover with the turtles and the shiny gold:

This is the first page:

The picture is from DJ Pettitt http://djpettitt.typepad.com/ it says "begin again". The verse on the other page is from the new calendar I bought with art and writing from Jeannine Roberts Royce http://www.jeaninerobertsroyce.blogspot.com/ The words are: "I burn with a fiery passion. My fearless stance is held with a calm and poise belying the fire and focus at my core. My passion burns freely....igniting my dreams, illuminating my path. I rise beyond all limits. I have an abiding resilience and resolve to never hold back, never stand back, never look back. I reach great heights. I shine as I soar."

The next pages are a photo from DJ Pettitt that says "love flowing freely" and buttons and headers from the challenges that I am joining. "Twenty Minute Challenge", "100 Paintings Challenge" and "The Sketchbook Challenge". They are all related so I don't think it will be too much:

I also plan to take some classes from Laure Ferlita at http://paintedthoughtsblog.blogspot.com All of these challenges and classes are to improve my watercolour painting.

I hope you have some really fun, creative intentions for 2011. If you have, I would love to hear what they are.

BOXING DAY

Relaxing after a busy Christmas:

I had really nice Christmas day with my YDD. We had a very laid back day - opened our gifts to each other, ate snacks, went for a walk, had a meal of chicken, broccoli and cauliflower, watched Shrek and played a couple of games of scrabble. We chatted lots and generally relaxed and enjoyed each others company. My other DD and my GD phoned so my day was complete.

I woke up with my cold worse than ever yesterday which put a bit of a damper on things for me, I was dripping and sneezing and all those fun things - I am concerned about my DD catching it, so hope she will be okay. I feel much better today and went out to buy a new journal for my Book of Possibilities for 2011 and also found a really nice calendar for 2011. With my Birthday being on the 30th and New Years Eve on the 31st, it is an especially good time to set some intentions for the year and think about what I would like to focus on. I asked DJ Pettitt if I could use a couple of her photos in my 2011 journal and she very kindly sent me a couple of copies. Her handmade journals and photographs are amazing, you can visit her at http://djpettitt.typepad.com/


I thought I would take you on a tour around my living space decorated for Christmas. First is my living, sleeping space:

Next is my studio not far to walk from my bed to my studio:

As you can see, it's very tiny and I have given up a lot of living space to have a decent sized studio.

Next is my Christmas forest scene with my watercolour, that I just had framed, in the background:

Butterflies, birds and boas were my theme for this year and I found it all very magical and have so enjoyed being in this little forest space over Christmas:


Jack Frost was a gift from my EDD several years ago and it is one of my favourite decorations:

Hope you enjoyed my little tour. It is a tiny space but is very cozy and has a great view!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

My very best wishes to everyone for a Merry Christmas. Blogging has become an important part of my life and I have so enjoyed meeting everyone from all over the world and seeing all the wonderful creativity.

HAVE A JOYFUL HOLIDAY!!!

I've been gone for a long time again! I get busy and just don't take the time to write anything. I visit all my favourite blogs everyday though.

We did the Santa Shuffle and had great fun. I walked it in just under one hour and was pleased that I wasn't last. LOL We raised $610 for the Salvation Army Christmas Fund between the three of us.

I am continuing with my walking and weight training and have lost ten pound so far. I feel so much better and have so much more energy.

My two daughters and I had our Christmas on December 11th because my eldest daughter went out of town the following weekend. My youngest daughter and I will get together on Christmas day and have another Christmas so it has been a very strange year. I feel like I have two last minute preparations in the past three weeks. It is all good though and I am looking forward to spending the day with my daughter on Christmas day.

I have done a couple of mixed media pictures 18X24, one is for my eldest daughter for her birthday. My two girls have their birthdays on the same day- Jan 27th - having been born six years and forty minutes apart. My birthday is on the 30th Dec my granddaughter on the 4th Jan, my great granddaughter on 4th Nov. All out birthdays within two and a half months with Christmas and New Years thrown in for good measure. We really could have timed things better!! LOL

When things get back to normal and some sanity returns (hopefully) in January I will blog more often and maybe get more connected by joining One World One Heart again.

Last Sunday, I went to my friend's book launch. It is so exciting so see someone creative work come to fruition. So much blood, sweat and tears go into the production of a book. My daughter did the layout for her so that was very exciting. He book is called Romance Your Writer Within,

And Reawaken Your Passion To Write. If you are interested in this book you can contact Melba Burns at melbawrites@gmail.com or go to her website http://www.melbaburns.com/

Another neighbour is getting his book into production at this time. He has worked on it for ten years!! Maybe this will get me inspired to do something with the book I started many years ago.

SANTA SHUFFLE
I am going to walk the 5k Santa Shuffle on Saturday to raise money for the Salvation Army. My two daughters are going to run it so it should be lots of fun. They can cheer me on to the finish line. I cheered them on two years ago when they ran it in Victoria.



After we do the run we are going to the Burnaby Village Heritage Museum that is all decked out for Christmas. They also have the carousel from the Pacific National Exhibition that I used to ride when I was a kid.

Hope you are getting into the Christmas spirit and that it is a happy time for you. I know it isn't for some people. Hugs to you if it isn't.