oops...

soo...i hit the publish button too quickly...having trouble with this template and where it puts my pics! I want to write, then add a pic beneath rather than have them up top or on the side...but don't seem to have that option. I'd also like to have a more groovy page (skin!) but just spent over an hour on a custom blogskin design website and am none the wiser...can't download, or upload ...only overload!! aaaghhh!!...sigh

Well...thats enough from me for today. I'm really freezing now and must check the fire downstairs...it's probably gone out :(...but i hope not.On to making more adorable flowers - and might just go have a latte - I hear it calling my name!!

ciao bellas! have a fab God-filled CREATIVE day!
jessie xx

Ah a little overcast today...wish I had a laptop so I could blog in the warm lounge on my squishy couch in front of the delicious fire! But I haven't so i'm upstairs in the cold office, quickly (actually not-so-quickly)tapping away at the keyboard. I've added a pic of my gorgeous family at the top of my page...aren't they beautiful? Evan with his lovely fiancee Renee, then me and Steve, the happy couple, then our other 3 gorgeous daughters Emma,Laura and Beth(bridesmaid). Evan, Emma and Laura sang a beautiful song at the wedding - When God made You - sooo beautiful...and it was so precious to have them all a part of their sisters day.

Anyway...what else have I been up to? Here's some little decorations I did on the back of the envelopes of two cards I sent my sisters recently. They were store bought cards and when I'd written them I thought "I just want to add a creative touch"..but one was sealed already! so I decided to 'scrap' the envelope and hope they got there intact - which they did! I think my sisters loved them...

...and more fun ;)

Ah, so enjoying making these flowers...check em out..

hmmm...odd arrangement of photos!

Fun with Rhonna...!

Wow! That's what I have to say about stumbling across Rhonna Farrer...and amazing, very girly(!) designer in the USofA who is part of House of 3 with Heidi Swapp and Janet someone (sorry Janet...missed your surname)...anyway, I watched a webshow on Heidis blog of Rhonna making some fabric flowers for brooches, headbands, wristbands, belts whatever...exquisite!! Of course i'm watching at 9pm on a Saturday night (AS you do!!) with no fabulous fabric to hand to start making so had to improvise with what I had...my friend Mandie gave me some gold fabric recently that wasn't quite right for a particular idea and its just lying around waiting to become something...so I made my first flower brooch with it...and added some turquoise and white pearls for the centre...gorgeous! I'm SO impressed. Can't wait to intentionally buy some fabric in some fab colours and have another go...all done with heat, scissors, glue and a bit of handstiching..easy peasy!! have a look!

I can SO imagine making a bunch of these and giving them as gifts to my friends...they can even adorn a parcel or cover of a journal...whatever you like! So beautiful. What I particularly love is to be able to create something out of practically nothing, in no time at all, and get something that looks so fabulous it appears to have been something you'd have bought at an expensive boutique or taken hours making...a labour of love, but a reasonably quick one! Next one I will add some feathers behind it, some tulle...see how that looks...really girly and glam!

Well...its chilly up here at the computer...I think i'll go down to the lounge on my squishy gorgeous couch in front of the fire while I continue to wait to go pick up my beautiful daughter Beth from her first 'date'...a party, so not a real 'date', but with her special boyfriend Jono, all the same. Ah, young love...

Goodnight fellow bloggers...do drop by again.

luv and blessings...jessie

and inside...

This is another of my pages inside the book, just begun...just playing around with layout. My daughter Beth was playing around with the old cinema tickets and added a cool swirling rubon to them and then didn't know what to do with it, so added it to my container of papers...so I snaffled it for this project! Dont you love the 40s photo of the woman...so feminine. Some great mags at our one and only 'vintage' shop in Nelson...and good prices. Watch this space to see how the page progresses!

Ciao bella!

Ahh...making memories

Yesterday marked a great achievement in the household...I now have a (partly)dedicated craft/art room!! The 'spare' room has now become a semi spare/craft room...and it's BLISS I tell you! to have my gorgeous old wooden trolley (loaded with all my scrapping/art supplies!) upstairs out of the lounge is probably a blessing to all! And a new dining table enabled the old one to also go upstairs so now I can work at the table...AND LEAVE IT ALL THERE to carry on with tomorrow! Not put away because, wonder of wonders, we need to eat at the dining table!!
So right away I was able to pick up my altered book and recommence my altering! I took a childrens cardboard 'accordion' book (the kind that have all pages joined in the style of an accordion so instead of turning the pages, you kind of open it all out as you go - I'm sure you'll know the type)...anyway...got it for 50c or something at a local thrift shop and painted it all over with white paint ready to alter! I've entitled the book SHE (cover is shown above) as i have wonderful pictures of women thru the ages - old magazines from vintage shops from the 40s and other gorgeous victorian style pictures from old sheet music and from images off the net...I transferred the picture above onto the cover by printing a picture on my printer, painting the cover with thickish acrylic white paint and laying the picture on top, face down. Then I rubbed it all in well and left to dry. When dry I wet the back of the page and started rubbing the paper with my finger till it all rubbed off, leaving the image on the book cover!! MAGIC!! I read about it recently online and couldn't wait to have a go...SO impressed with this method of transferring an image...I love not simply gluing a printed image onto my artwork, but somehow 'getting' the image into the work in a magical way like this...LOVE IT!!! (what do you think bloggers? do try it if you haven't before...and comment!!)

Anyways...had a lovely time this afternoon sorting my 'stuff' into new see thru plastic containers so that everything truly is in it's own type and I can open them all and see everything. I'm the kind of scrapper/artist that if I don't see what i have to use, I tend not to use it - out of sight, out of mind!
So i'm looking forward to some lovely relaxed creative time over the winter months...which are practically upon us. Lovely to have the fire going and snuggling up on my gorgeous new couches!! Brand new lounge suite - first ever in my life! Bliss...sheer bliss!!
Ciao for now, fellow bloggers...catch you soon.
God bless
jessie

Life after...

Well there is life after weddings...and giving your daughter away!!...sigh...the next season is upon me. And as my family diminishes in that there are less and less of them living at home, they come and go as usual. Emma will be home for three months plus in June to do a course here in Nelson, so I've kindof lost one, gained one! I'm so enjoying having my days to ponder...to create...to LIVE. Getting a new loungesuite today...my first BRAND NEW one in all my years of being here! Very exciting...so have had a springclean (tho we're heading into winter!!) taking all paintings and creative expressions off my walls and cleaning the walls, removing the hooks etc...it looks SO big...and empty!! I DON'T LIKE IT!! haha...a mimimalist I could never be...I feel warm and safe and lovely with my homely creative works around me - mine or someone elses..so the paintings are crying out to go back up, my beautiful crosses and mirrors too...but will have a 'restructure'...somehow a fresh arrangement of the same beautiful things will be like a breath of fresh air to go along with my lovely new couches!
And wonder of wonders...I'm creating a craft room. With one daughter gone, the other has moved into her smaller room and i'm commandeering the huge room upstairs as my craft room...NOW THAT'S EXCITING! - maybe more than the couches!!...it'll also be the spare room for visitors, but that'll be a bonus to sleep in the creative space it will become - cos tho it will be creatively chaotic at times, I'm sure if i have visitors it will simply be creatively welcoming!!
Well..off to read Heidi Swapp and Rebecca Sowers blogs...inspiring women...
And LOVE that publication Somerset Studios - got my first copy off trademe, brand new, and I could just eat it up! WISH i could go to America and experience all those 'flea markets' myself - the amazing finds people make at these huge, overflowing markets ...ah be still my heart. :) maybe one day!
So, coffee is calling...ah the latte - my friend!
till next time
happy creating!
jessie