a few pics, hopefully...

Yay, it worked! Sedona went to the groomer's Saturday, for a long-overdue "Bath, Brush, and Tidy" and this is the result. She cleans up nicely, doesn't she?? Amazingly enough, her third birthday is next month... hard to believe it's been that long! (sometime in the next few years, hopefully she will start to calm down at least a little!) This is her newest trick... she isn't exactly patient, but she can do it. (unless the treat starts to slide... then, all bets are off) This picture is for you, Mom. This is the red yucca in our front yard; these are the seeds you have. I finally cut last year's flower scape off a couple months ago, and this one started blooming a couple months ago... it should last for at least another six months. These are a couple in-process projects- above is a two-page spread from a board book I bought at the thrift store... so far, I've gessoed the pages, and startd painting the backgrounds. I have no idea what I'll use it for, yet... a two-page spread I started working on in the composition book... painting, stamping with foam stamps and the lid off a soda bottle, glitter glue, and white pen, so far... no plans for this spread yet, either, but it was fun to do. Perhaps a border of some sort...

a post of links...

Follow your Bliss is a blog I just found while surfing... wonderful photos and journaling. Check out the pics of crafting supplies, here! It totally makes me want to spread my supplies out all over the dining room table...

Dispatch from LA is a blog I found thru a book, oddly enough. This woman is a visual journaler who makes her own stencils and uses spray paint (something I would love to try sometime!), and also takes wonderful photos, of course. See a couple of posts with great pics here and here. The book is a Somerset book, the second issue of Artful Blogging. I bought this book on a whim, not expecting to like it... I mean, c'mon, a book about blogging? But, I was very pleasantly surprised- curling up with a book was a nice change from clicking on the laptop, and the book also gives a good backstory about each of the bloggers' motivations, how they started blogging, and how they found their "blogging" voice. I found quite a lot of blogs I want to check out, and got quite a few ideas for my own blog (but will I ever follow thru with them, is the question).

I found a couple more links I wanted to keep (crafty tutorials), but of course, I did something funky when I was typing the previous post, so I accidentally closed it... so, I think I better hit Publish before something else happens...

links to remember... yay!

Yay, I forgot Blogger now has an Auto-Save feature! I thought I lost this post, but it was still there, in Draft form...

Here is a tutorial (from a blog titled Doll- the Art and Craft of Mimi Kirchner) on some really neat fabric Christmas ornaments... they involve figural fabric, felt, tulle, and the sewing machine (which I'm not so sure about). I know it's a long time till Christmas, but fabric is starting to intrigue me again- especially after signing up for the Art Quilt class at Art Unraveled.

Here is another tutorial from the same blog... this one involves stamping on fabric, which also sounds interesting.

spring has sprung in the desert...

okay, Blogger is being difficult today... I've tried to load pictures twice now, and it gave me an error, so I'll just point to my Flickr page, where I have added some new pics of the plants in our yard and other places, such as wildflowers growing along the highway north of town. We have a couple prickly pear cactus in our yard that were only one individual pad when we planted them- all winter, we've wondered if they would do anything. Our friend Mike, who gave them to us, said "just wait... they're like weeds, and you'll have to keep them in check by trimming them back, eventually." Well, he was right, I think- they're finally growing new pads (which are pretty funny-looking- see here and here), and it seems like they will be very prolific!

I also added a few newer pics of the pets- Sedona, Pandora, and Butters... and have actually done some work in my new journal... this page is not my usual style at all, but it captured the feeling that I wanted, so I'm pretty happy with it. The idea for the page style came from a new book, Journal Revolution. (bought it with a gift card from work, so that makes it even better!)

Next time, hopefully Blogger will cooperate and I can add the pics here... now, I'm off to make a mess in my craft room!