Life is good in the country!  Country life is really great, and that is the sentiment I used inside this beautiful water colored card I made for our monthly swap in Maine.  The theme was Landscape.  I really like this card and had fun making it..  The set is from Close to my Heart rubber stamps.  It is called Country Born Seasons & Nature D1543.  It is a great stamp set.  I am looking forward to playing with the rest of the stamp set when I get time.  Enjoy!

Got my new Layers of Love stamps for June from Unity Stamp Company.  A special thanks to Angela for making a subscription stamp that is affordable.  Once a month, for $11.79, we get a really fabulous set of stamps.  Can't beat that.

I love the collage butterfly in June's kit so I worked with that one.

The sight of a bride or a wedding party always brings feelings of hope and joy to my heart.  This month's card swap was for wedding cards.   I am of the age that most people are already married.  Despite having many "love" stamps and "heart" stamps, I had no wedding stamps per se.  I chose the dress from "shop.lunch.chat.repeat." from Unity's SOTW collection and "Love, Cherish, Embrace" from Unity's LOL collection and made this beautiful wedding card.  I will credit Sheryl Kemper, another Unity stamper, whose inspiring scrapbook page helped me with this process.  Enjoy!

I hope that all of the recipients of these cards will live happily ever after and share much joy and happiness always!

"Imagine" if we all picked up our paint brushes, pens, and pencils and crayons instead of picking up weapons.  What a different that would make in the world.  Imagine if we dropped love on

everyone.  Go into a public place, and pray for blessings, healing, and peace for everyone you see walking in and out of a store.  Imagine the changes we could make in the world if we spread love around!  God is love.  I call this collage "Imagine Heart."  Enjoy!  Spread some love around today, tomorrow and the next day!  Love is always there for us!

Please double click on all images to see larger picture.

We needed to do a collage for the Wings Class and find an image on line.  Finding an image was much harder than I thought.   I liked this one, and the first thought that came into my head was "my faith looks up to thee."  I googled it and found out the phrase is from an old hymn.  We all need an extra dose of faith!
Enjoy!

I have been using my wings, and flying as high as I can in my "Wings" art class.  I got behind after I had my lupus infusion this month, which was a little bit gruelling.  We could not find a vein to put the infusion in, and once we did, each one of them kept blowing up.  The infusion that was supposed to take two hours took two days and many hours.  I was black and blue all over, and it hurt.  It feels like shards of glass are in my arm when I touch it after getting so bruised up.  I gave myself a bit of time to heal.

This is a collage using "Wings."  I really like this one a lot.  I used a Navejo Prayer where the seeker requests from the Great Spirit to walk in beauty all the days of their life.  It is very similar to Psalm 23.
There are various versions of this.  Being in a hurry to create the art, I did not copy down the version I used but here is the idea:

Walking In Beauty (Blessing)

Today I will walk out, today everything unnecessary will leave me,
I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body, I will be happy forever,
nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.

In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.

With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful.

Here is the collage I made to go with it.  Feathers are sacred in Native American medicine.  The medicine people will use them to fan incense with and to send away evil spirits. 

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.”
– Anne Morrow Lindberg from “Gift from the Sea”

I was working on this painting today for my "Wings" class.  I did not follow the exact assignment, which was to paint a heart with wings framed by some squiggly lines.  While I was sitting here at my computer, a bald eagle flew over the lake in front of my house.  I had not ever seen one up close before.  It did a couple of loops and flew off further down the lake, very near an American flag.  It was quite a moment of beauty to see a bald eagle fly by the flag in the backdrop of a beautiful nature scene.  I love being an American, I love our freedoms, and I love my country.

This is my second butterfly painting.  I like it a lot more.  I was inspired by a box of tissues, which had a blue and green background with a blue butterfly.  My butterfly came out a little chubby.  I really like that!  :)

This is my first butterfly painting.  I created it on my own, so I did not have any pattern to follow.  I think it is a little bit too busy, but I do like the cheerful colors.

The falling snow has turned to sleet and rain here in NJ.  I have been working on my cards today for my swap with the gals in Maine.  Our theme for this project was "things that have wings but don't breathe."  I thought that was a really great idea.  Things such as airplanes, helicopters, hot air balloons, zeplins---all of these would fit the bill for the assigned theme. The "wings" part of the project goes right along with my Brave Girls Art Club Class called "Wings 2" where we are making birds and butterflies.  I was very eager to tackle this assignment!

I found a set of stamps from Inkadinkadoo that had hot air balloons, etc.  It is called "Inspirational Lift" and is number "60-30379."  The decorative background paper I used is by Stampin' Up, and it is called "Welcome Neighbor Designer Series" Paper Pad.  This paper is really adorable and it has houses, clouds, and trees on it.  In keeping with ideas presented in my art class, I added some doodles to this card which I do not usually do.  I used a white Signo pigment ink pen from Stampin' Up for the doodling.  I wasn't going to doodle on the background paper but my hand slipped and left a big white blob on the orange decorative paper.  I had to make the blob into something beautiful so I tried doodling.  We are learning in our Wings 2 class that there are no mistakes in art.  Just cover it over with something else and keep working!  :)  I added some glitter to the clouds and parts of the balloon.  I used some brads from Stampin' Up to outline the borders.  I tried different color brads but liked the dark blue ones because they added some heft to the card.

I am not sure if I would doodle on the cards again.  It was fun for an experiment, but the pigment ink does not always flow out of the pen evenly which leaves some empty spots.  Once I started to try to color in these spots, the doodles became uneven.  Then, there was the process of making the lines appear more even, with more or less success.  Generally less. When my stamping friend Mary makes a mistake, she would call it an "Amish" card.   The Amish quilters believe that only God is perfect so therefore, they will put a mistake in every quilt they make.  Thank God for the Amish!  I hope you will enjoy my "Amish" card while you think of some wonderful friend who always cheers you up!

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart.  I am.  I am.  I am." 

Syliva Plath 

The Bell Jar

I found this quote online today.  I had forgotten how much I love poetry, especially the poetry of Sylvia Plath.  This reminded me of my school days and made me sigh.  My friend's father died recently and I sent her a care package with loose teas and a chocolate bar.  She listed on her FB page that I nurtured her soul in college, and I am still nurturing it today.  Smiles.  She was trudging through Shakespeare.  We used to trudge through Shakespeare together before exams and take turns reading the parts.  Such fun times.

For Christmas, my husband got me art lessons from the Brave Girl's Club's Wings-II class.  This is my first painting.