The days do fly by. I have just discovered this blog and there is a very generous giveaway on it. Debbie is a new blogger so maybe you'd like to stop by and visit her. http://debbie-mylife-myloves-mystuff.blogspot.com/

I spent yesterday sewing some crazy quilt patches together, it took me all afternoon to do three. I have four more ready to go but I find that I change my choice of colours part way through so it takes quite a bit of time and that's okay.

I stopped by Book Warehouse earlier this week just to wander around and immediately found a book called How To Draw & Paint Fairyland by Linda Ravenscroft. I wrote a post last year about wanting to paint faeries but didn't know quite where to start. This book is great for this. It shows how to create different weather moods and seasons and how to build up a composition. It has some exercises where you can trace a picture and paint it for practice. I have been gathering the equipment I need and will start soon. I realized after looking though the book that I have loved doing this type of thing since I was a child. I have often bought children's books for the illustrations and liked to draw snails, butterflies, dragonflies, toadstools, etc. When my girls were small I used to make a candyland at Christmas with little pixies and faeries with gumdrops on straws stuck in foam that was covered in cotton wool. Linda suggests taking a camera and going on nature walks, taking pictures from a fairie point of view, sketching and collecting bits and pieces to use for inspiration and to draw from. I have always collected bits and pieces of driftwood, conkers (chestnuts), acorns, snail shells (empty ones only) and anything else that looks interesting. I am looking forward to this new direction. I think the faeries I bought last year were the beginning of this.

The Olympics are almost here. No snow at all on one of the mountains and the weather is very much like Spring. I saw some snowdrops today and a couple of crocuses. Apparently it is very busy in downtown Vancouver but it was very quiet on Granville Island and along Broadway and 4th Avenue today. Helicopters have been flying around pretty regularly because I live near the Olympic village and there are searchlights in English Bay that you can see around the city, every night. Someone said the torch was coming by here on Thursday or Friday so I'll have to find out where and when and watch for it. I am not terribly excited about the Olympics because it is a corporate money-grab and money that should be spent on needed resources for people (health care, education and support services for the disadvantage) is being spent in the billions on this two week event. It is no longer about the athletes and also with so many athletes taking drugs it has taken the shine off of it for me. Anyway, it is going on so I may as well stop by some of the free events and I think I will go downtown tomorrow and see what's going on down there.
I can actually see one of the sites from my window where they will be showing the events on a huge TV screen.

I am doing an ATC trade with my granddaughter and a friend from blogland so I am looking forward to that - I love getting mail, especially when it is something creative.

That's it for today, sleep well and may tomorrow be filled with grace and love.

It's been fun to visit the other blogs in OWOH and to find all the new visitors who have flown by on their magic carpets to visit me.

I have made the Spring wreath for my door in time for February 2nd which is Imbolc/Candlemas/Groundhog's Day, (depending on where you live and your beliefs) the mid point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. The first stirrings of Spring with snowdrops appearing and the suggestion that the earth is awakening after it's long winter's sleep. I am loving boas at the moment and so I had to use one for my wreath and every time I see it it makes me smile and isn't that what it's all about?

No snow and mild temperatures here in Vancouver so it feels like Spring!

It is four days late but I am entering the One World One Heart giveaway.

My giveaway is my latest crazy quilt faerie pouch.

I am just learning crazy quilting, silk ribbon embroidery and embroidery and this is the fourth pouch I have made. I love the textures of all the fabrics and embellishments and all the colours there is to choose from.

If you would like to enter my draw, please leave a comment with a link back to you so I can contact you if you win the draw. I love the idea of meeting people from all over the world and sharing arts, crafts and other things that the giver loves or loves to do. I look forward to meeting you!

If you would like to do your own giveaway go to http://www.awhimsicalbohemian.typepad.com/ to enter.

My draw will be on February 15th, 2010.

I made three ATC's today - all the same.

I went back to the store where they sell the cut embroidery tablecloths on Monday and they were open so I bought a tablecloth and runner. They had, in fact, been closed since Christmas.

Tonight I am going to sort the rest of my fabric.

That is the extent of my creativity for now. I will pick out some fabrics for more bags in the next day or two and then get on with that. I really have an over-abundance of beige and brown tones - I am obviously attracted to those colours!

I just tidied my desk-top a couple of days ago and it is a disaster again! Does anyone else have that problem. It seems to attract paper and all sorts of things like a magnet.

Time to make some dinner.

I can't believe it's a week since I last posted, the time goes by so quickly. I only have one cupboard left to clear out and I have sorted through most of my fabrics and put them together by colour into drawers.

Today I finished another faerie pouch:

I have almost finished writing the February newsletter for the building I live in and I made one ATC:
Some time ago I painted several backgrounds and I decided to cut them into ATC sizes and make a picture from them and then I added some micro-beads. This is kind of a fun way to do a picture because the picture comes from the paint that was applied. The leaf in this was already there and so was most of the bird.

Tonight I am going to sew the boa onto my cushion. I went shopping for a cut embroidery tablecloth and runner but the store was closed, the lady in the store next to them said it had been closed for about a month. I hope they re-open soon. I bought some gathering tape for the top of the new curtains I have bought, I just have to adapt them to my window. Things are coming together slowly.

I went out today instead of finishing my walk-in closet. I was feeling a little of the January blahs! Vancouver can be so dreary in the winter, lots of cloudy days and many rainy days and also lots of sad news about neighbours. First I went to Chapters and bought my youngest daughter Simple Abundance: A Day Book of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach. I bought it for myself when it first came out in 1995 and a couple of years later for my eldest daughter. My YD wasn't really into that sort of thing but she is turning 40 on the 27th of January - my ED turns 46 on the same day - and she said she would like a copy. Unfortunately, they no longer put the pink ribbon book mark in it so I will have to figure out a way to put one it. Don't you think the ribbon markers make a book more luxurious. There is something about it that makes it more special. Yes, both my daughters were born on the same day six years and forty minutes apart. They are as different as chalk and cheese in many ways and so alike in others. They had a few years of not getting along so well but are great friends now.

Next I went to a costume shop and bought a pink boa to put on a cushion. I think I will buy another rosebud cushion and put it around the edge instead of covering the whole cushion. It actually will probably be cheaper that way rather than making a cushion myself. Something really feminine. After that, I went for a California roll and then on to Starbucks. It was a nice break and so I may do some sorting this evening but maybe not, it is Sunday - a day of rest - after all!

Almost finished clearing out a closet today and built a shelf in it. Getting rid of lots of stuff. I have got my Old Country Rose china out and given some to my DD, the rest I will use myself. I have had it for thirty years and it has hardly seen the light of day. It makes me nervous using a teapot that costs clost to $100 but what it the point of having it if it isn't used?

I made a couple of ATC's a couple of days ago:

The one on the write had a Haiku that says: seashells, oracles of the sea, whispering secrets of the deep.

I am itching to do more and wanting to do something creative but I feel the need to get this clearing out done. I feels important so that is my focus for now. By the time I get around to creating again, I will be good and ready. Maybe I'll fit some little things in here and there.