I thought i would share a few of the photos my Stepdad Reinhard (Ron) took of the Mother’s Day/birthday Celebration yesterday.  We were blessed with a gorgeous day, lots of relatives and a sparkling Magic cottage garden. Here’s the Fishpond i fixed up for Sam’s first fishpond experience.

My glittergirl van still lives on in the garden – well the door at least .

Here’s a picture of my Mom with her two daughters (the other daughter Linda is in N.Carolina). My big sister doesn’t like being on my blog so i often put a smiley face over her to obscure her face .

My daughter-in-law Kathryn is ready to have baby number 2 any day now!  Doesn’t she look awesome?  Little Sam has found a very comfy perch to sit on – hopefully baby brother won’t mind too much?

This was Sam’s first encounter with a fishpond!  His daddy, my son Ryan, taught him to say “Here fishy fishy” before he cast his line over the fishpond.

Lucky Sam – he was the happy recipient of several lovely prizes (mostly from his Auntie Jessy) . What a fun game this “fishpond” is!

Baby Cillian checking out the festivities from his blanket. He’s thinking “Next year it will be my turn to catch a fish!” He’s such an alert little guy!

My daughter Jessica, Cillian and son-in-law Nis.

Some of the party goers enjoying yummy food.

Bernie, Jessica and Ryan’s Dad with baby Cillian

Bernie and lovely partner Nathalie feeding Cillian. Bernie is a yoga instructor – can you tell by the way he’s sitting?

My Mom chatting with Mr. G as he has a rest on the newly painted swing.

Here we are having a fun swing together!  And of course the paparazzi was in full swing for this fun photo opportunity.

All in all we had a pretty magical day! I hope you Mothers out there were able to celebrate in your own special way too!

Thank you for letting me share a bit of our family celebration with you!

This is the image i created for a Girl’s Conference I’m participating in at the end of May – i thought it was appropriate for Earth Day.  Let’s Love the Earth and of course Love ourselves!!!

We are having tons of fun over at the 21 Secrets Art Journaling Playground!  I am amazed by the beautiful and soulful pieces of art everyone is creating.  Leith graciously gave me permission to post her two art journal pages – society page and the shadow page.  Aren’t they amazing?  Thank you Leith.  I met Leith a number of years ago at the Seattle Art Car blowout when we both were in the art car parade.  That’s when my van Glittergirl was still around. Leith was such a sweet person – her car was pretty nifty too if i recall.  I was so excited when i saw that Leith signed up for 21 Secrets – you can still sign up – it’s not too late!

Today I’m working on a stuffy bunny for my grandson Sammy.  He will be having first Easter Egg hunt tomorrow (that’s when everyone is able to get together).  I started off sketching and then painted an eyeball, cut it out and THEN made a paper pattern.  There is often no rhyme or reason to how i begin a project – except for the part the sketching an idea part – it might begin on a scrap piece of paper or even a napkin.  Yesterday i had the idea of painting an eyeball – strange eh? That turquoise/greenish piece of fabric that you see is a baby wipe that was used in a project and ended up getting dyed a pretty colour.  I’m thinking of using it for the foliage on a stuffed carrot – we shall see.

Well I’m off – I hope you all have a Happy Easter (if you celebrate)!  I’ll see you on Monday!

Here is a sketch i created of a flying heart – i love using this symbol in my work. I transferred the sketch to an apron using a piece of graphite paper.

Here is the finished piece – i used copic markers and fabric paints. I’m happy with the results.

Wouldn’t this apron be such fun to wear?

The square-ish Chickenlady briefcase

Detail

The other day i was talking to Shireen of Get Fresh! Webdesign about Branding – and she basically said everything about you – your website/blog, what you create, how you dress, your business card, brochures, letterhead etc. is your brand. So there i was at a Meetup gathering (with Nicci) wearing a dark grey top, blue jeans and carrying my book Journal Bliss and i-pad in a bag of all things! That sure as heck wasn’t very representative of who i am – maybe that day it was since i was not feeling too sparky.  Anyways it got me thinking that i should be using some kind of funky briefcase to hold my i-pad, biz cards and brochures when i go out to meetings.  I was on a mission to find and buy a case that i could paint.

The tale of the Chickenlady case

I went into my over-flowing studio and found this Chickenlady case that was half finished. My i-pad fit perfectly inside and so will some of my other funky art and products.  You may recall in the past that i had blogged about this case.  About 10 or 11 years ago before Glittergirl van was born i drove another blue, boring van. It was stolen outside of the magic cottage – the horror, the horror.  This case was in it.  Several months later the case was returned – the robbers had thrown it along with the contents of the other stolen vans into one van.  I COULDN’T EVEN GIVE IT AWAY!!!!!!!!!  Part of me was happy that the case was returned and part of me was upset….go figure.

The front of the case is painted (i think that I’ll give the Chickenlady some clothes this time) but the sides and back are still black.  I think I’ll paint the gypsy soul image on the back because I’m liking it so much and it makes me happy! I’ll videotape the process and post it on youtube.

Server problems

You may notice that many of the photos have disappeared from my blog – pre- December 23ish i think.  I’m having server problems so hopefully it will be rectified today…….grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr………….! If you have signed up for my newsletter and did not receive the Creative Playcards please e-mail me and I’ll send you the proper link now. And thank you so much for signing up!

Newsletter

I’ll be sending out my newsletter tomorrow if you would like to sign up. My newsletter subscribers will be getting discounts for some of the products in my store . 

I came home yesterday to find the door of glittergirl (my van) propped up against the garage.  I guess the Auto shop teacher at the High School around the corner dropped it off with his helpers. You can see some images of it here .  Having to donate Glittergirl was a pretty traumatic event for me since i had wrapped up so much of my identity in her. Not very ZEN of me was it? Anyways now i have to find a place for the door……..any ideas?  There is no available wall space in the Magic Cottage but i do know that i want to keep it and one day if we sell the Magic Cottage and have a bigger home i’ll find a special place of honour for it .

If you haven’t already done so leave a comment on yesterday’s post to enter to win the December Holiday giveaway  Lots of swag to win and to inspire you! I am so enjoying reading about your fondest holiday memories!

Podcast with Sue Bleiweiss  – inteviewed by Rice Freeman Zachary

Check out the interview Sue Bleiweiss of the Sketchbook Project did with Rice Freeman Zachary - Rice is a wonderfully fun interviewer – like a modern day alchemist she brings out the best in everyone.  After listening to the interview and hearing what Sue has to say about the project you will want to sign up for sure.  There will be lots of fun, prizes and goodies to be had just by being a part of the project. Not only will you be able to win some artful swag sure to enrich your creative life but your sketching and creating skills will improve as you sketch along with us!

Crafty links:

Check out Traci Bautista’s blog where she shows you how to collage a birdhouse

Alisa Burke has a lovely Stitched Gift Wrap tutorial

Margot Potter has a free jewelry making project.

Enjoy being creative!  I’m off to Christmas shop if you can believe it! Wish me luck!

Have a fun, festive weekend!

Love Violette xoxo

Mr. G’s elaborate Altar stand

The Creative tribe that will populate my new altar….i’m not sure about Disco girl though….i don’t think she belongs there anymore.

This is the altar that was in Glittergirl

Close-up of Altar

The other day i asked Mr. G if he could make me a wooden base for my altar – you see i rescued the above “creative tribe” from Glittergirl before she was unceremoniously wisked away.  I asked Mr. G for a simple base – two pieces of wood, one larger as a base and one smaller to go behind to give the altar a tiered effect. But this is what Mr. G came up with……he has all of the fancy dancy tools and he likes to come up with nifty things, rounding corners and altering the original idea to make it EVEN BETTER.  Anyways i was pleased with the results now i have to paint the altar base and then assemble my tribe on it. I don’t think i’ll use the disco queen again…..it doesn’t feel quite right to include her.  I will include the others though, Mary, Jesus, Sarasvati and pink troll.  I think i’ll add a few others like a buddha and perhaps Ganesh.

I considered gluing the altar in the old Lexus however the safety pillow ejection thingy is right where the altar would be and in the unlikely event of an accident i could envision me or my passenger being impaled by Sarasvati (goddess of creativity) right between the eyes.  How’s that for having Creativity driven home???  Ha ha ha! So now the next best thing is to host my Creative Tribe Shrine in my office where i spend lots of time. 

Ethel asked me in the comments section of my contest blogpost if the Glittergirl door has been returned to me and the answer is not yet   .

And speaking of having creativity driven home to you…….i am going to put up a small tutorial on creating your own Creativity Shrine candle tomorrow.

Margot Potter has a wonderful article on Crescendoh about expectations and life.  Margot’s posts are always so enlightening.

Just a reminder that i’ll be on Tina Ferguson’s Queen of Dreams Podcast tonite at 6pm PST!

You still have time to enter my the Whole Enchilada contest……i will draw a winner tomorrow!

This is the beginnings of an art journal page – the sunflowers and sky are from a magazine and the dolphin is from a piece  of Junk Mail. I probably mentioned a while ago that right after 9/11 happened i was attending my first art car festival.  In the parking lot where all of the artcars were assembled and ready to go we were approached by a woman who appeared inebriated, she was hiding a bottle under her jacket. This was not unusual since we were in a part of town that was considered a bit seedy.  Anyways this woman was swerving as she walked towards us….i could tell everyone was a bit freaked out….she made a beeline for me and said something to the effect that i came into this world to inspire people with my paintings and …..now here is the puzzling part……..she also said that Dolphins would be important to me.  Well so far they are not that important to me, i like them but don’t collect Dolphin memorabilia or anything. But in honour of this strange occurence i thought that i would create an art journal page around it.

This is a brief post as i am attending a Social Media Marketing for small businesses event. Ciao for now! xo