A little tribute to Paul Harvey in the title there.
Here are the rest of the ATCs, along with the little envelopes I made for them.

This one is “Pretty in Pink”. Lot of glitter, lots of pink, and pretty ribbon.

I just wasn’t sure about this one at all when I was working on it. I painted it and wanted to have the lace detail on it, but it didn’t quite work out like I had wanted. I almost just tossed it, when I kept at it and added some pretty ribbon (always fixes things!) and the perfect words. In the end, my boss said this one was her favorite! You just never know how things are going to turn out sometimes. I entitled this one “A Wonderful Way to Live.”

Again, Josh Groban was singing when I was creating this one. I went between “Mi Mancherai” and “Hymne A L’Amour”. I wanted an Old Paris look to this one, and I think I acheived it. In fact, “Old Paris” is it’s title.

This one was a lot of fun. The little horse from a Piñata fit perfectly! A bit of glitter and glitz and we have “Pink Pony.”

The last two both tie for my favorite. I loved how this little beary turned out. Another foamy little bear, this time a white one painted pink and a stripedy old greeting card form the main focus. That is a little Gooseberry face I drew and again the perfect words. I did look back at my other ATCs from the last swap and realized I used a brown foamy bear with the same words in that swap! Oh, well…probably will for next one, too. This one just makes me happy. I call this one “In the Pink.”

This one is the only one that stayed almost the same from concept to finished art. A BIG thank you and I love you to my mama for giving me tips on how to cut out an enclosed circle! I just really loved how this one turned out. Here are my “Rose Colored Glasses.”

Here are the little envelopes made out of magazine pages. It took some doing to find 11 pink pages!

It is customary to send a little gifty to the host or hostess of the ATC swap. I sent our lovely hostess this little envelope made out of a paper doiley and put some pretty ribbons in it for her to use in a future art project. Maybe even ATCs!

I really enjoyed this theme and how they all turned out. It was difficult letting them go, but I know I’ll get some lovely ones in return. I did learn a lot from this swap and I’m already looking forward to the next one!

The last ATC (Artist Trading Card) swap I was involved in had “monochromatic” as its theme. I could have been more adventuresome, I supposed, but I chose my favorite color as my theme color. Guess what  it is!  Actually, it did turn out to be more challenging than I thought. I knew more what I didn’t want rather than what I did want this theme. No Pepto-Bismol cards and not to be too frilly. The non-Pepto was easier than trying to curtail the femininity of the cards (after all,  they are pink.) A couple are very feminine, but in an Old Paris kind of way, which I love.

Come along with me to the land of ATCs and my very favorite color…pink! I also re-used many items I had around for the cards. I’ll let you know what some of the elements of the cards are.

Enjoy!

For some of my cards, I was lucky to have common sayings and phrases to lend me some inspiration. This one is entitled “When Pigs Fly.” The background is made of the cardstock paper that was in a package of stickers (for support of the package.) I already had the little pig confetties and ribbon. A few free-hand wings and eyes for the piggies, and we’re flying! The corners are photo corners, white which I painted pink. 

This next one uses paint, stationery and a magazine picture along with a sparkly heart. I worked particularly hard on the polka dots, so this one is called “Polka Pink”.

I used an old piece of lightweight cardboard for this next one. My mother acquired it for me and there was writing on it. I think it the writing was notation for possibly a building project. The handwrting itself was just so pretty that I included it for “Love Note.”  The pretty rose paper was one of those mail-in postcards to receive a magazine and just bits and ends of ribbon I had. I really like how this turned out.

Music definitely influenced this one. I had in mind a playful, light little card, charicatures of the roses, actually. This is not how it turned out at all. This was the first card I made for this collection and it took the longest. I painted the background and roses and corners. What took so long was gluing down the mesh and finding the perfect words. I finally accomplished both. I made this while listening to Josh Groban’s “Mi Mancherai.” I give you “Soul of the Rose.”

This one turned out happy and light. More paint, more polka dots, an old doilie and bits and ends of ribbon. Oh…the pink foil heart in the middle? It’s made out of the foil off a Hershey’s Kiss.

This is about half of what I made for the swap. It’s getting late and I have to get up early tomorrow. So, enjoy these cards and the others will be following in the next day or two. (I’ll really try hard to get the rest up here tomorrow night.)

‘night!

ZZZzzzzZZZZZZzzzzz

Ta-da!!! Here is my first ever art video!!! (actually, the first video I’ve made of any kind!)

I’ve been wanting to get into Art Journaling for a while now. For some reason, it has been a little intimidating for me to just jump in. Lots of excuses “I don’t know how to do this”, “I don’t know what I’m doing”, “I don’t have an art journal.” Lots of “I don’t”s there. So, I thought “All I need to do is play!” and came up with an art journal that’s just all about play without any big expense.

Hope you enjoy it, and that it may help you find your own way to art (or creative) journaling.

You may have noticed a new pink button to the right under “Lovely Enjoyments.” I am part of a Creative Adventure, begun by a dear on-line friend, Andrea.  I signed up for the course but between work and life in general, it fell out of my slippery mind. I found it again, picked it up, dusted it off and am committed to finishing it and reaping the benefits it has to offer (h hee, hee…I meant I found the Creative Dream Adventure again, but I guess I also found my mind!)  So, here I truly begin the Creative Dreamer adventure, a little late, but here it goes.

Assignment #1: Create the Big Dream list for 2010. (not necessarily big dreams, but a big list, ha!)

1. Really get my art/sewing room organized and spend time in it every day, even if only for half and hour a day (more on the weekends!)

2. Get my greeting card line up and running.

3. Really have an Etsy store, with items for sale there!

4. Make paper from recycled paper at least twice a month.

5. Get my ATCs done for swaps at my leisure, and not in a rush because of procrastination (*blushy blushes*)

6. Make all my Christmas gifts this year.

7. Be brave enough to approach shop keepers in town about carrying my cards in their shops on consignment.

8. Write at least 5 paper letters a week to family and friends.

9. Post at least 2 articles a week here, on my Wild Gooseberry site.

10. Finish my quilt!!! (that’s for you, Mamacita.)

11. Take more long walks with my husband and dogs.

12. Go to the beach more.

13. Go to the Okefenokee Swamp!

14. Visit Helen, Ga.

15. See Autumn leaves in the mountains.

16. Visit Charleston, NC.

17. Take a dolphin watching trip!

18. Go out on artist dates with myself (from Julie Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way.”)

19. Get my mama some pretty beads for her own beading projects.

20. Reconnect with old friends.

21. Get to my ideal weight (I’ve already made a head start!)

22. Sit by the lake more often.

23. Play more board games with my sweet husband.

24. Read at least one book every quarter for pleasure.

25. Get my house really together and tidy, so anyone can drop by at any time.

26. That includes the garage.

27. Buy or make some really pretty clothes.

28. Buy a real ballet leotard and skirt.

29. Branch out into gifts for my Etsy shop and in-town set-up.

30. Get our backyard straightened out, grass, flowers, etc. to make it a lovely place to be.

31. Get Georgia Rose leash-trained.

32. Dress up for the Renaissance Faire this year!

33. Visit the Biltmore in Asheville, NC this year.

34. Visit my parents.

35. Visit my brother and sis-in-law at their home in Northeastern CA.

36. Actually use my art journal!

37. Visit the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum in Atlanta.

38. Attend Marilyn’s high school graduation.

39. Finish Leonie’s Creative Goddess Course!!!

40. Bake honey-sweetened cookies.

41. Take a tourist walk of Savannah.

42. Visit Savannah’s quirky little shops.

43. Get an article published in a magazine.

44. Send a children’s story to a publisher.

44. Write more poetry.

45. Get a professional pedicure and manicure (never have done this!)

46. Visit the mountains at least twice.

47. Go on picnics with my husband.

48. Make more friends here, in person.

49. Be confident enough to wear a swimsuit to the beach this summer!

50. Take an Adventure with my husband, just driving where the road takes us for the weekend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While I’m dreaming, here are some actual BIG dreams of mine…maybe not for this year, but for someday…

♥ Visit Prince Edward Island, Cananda.

♥ Visit the British Isles.

♥ Have a cottage on Tybee Island, GA. someday.

♥ See the Statue of Liberty.

♥ Live somewhere that has four seasons.

♥ Autumn in New England.

♥ Have my own little shop.

♥ Live closer to my family someday (or have them live closer to me!)

That’s it for now. I may add more to it…but already it is working out to be quite a year!

What would you put down in your own list? If you make one yourself, please let me know. If you’d like to join the Creative Dreams Adventure, just click the pink button to the left and follow your own heart.

Hello, dear friends (and that includes my Mama!)

I can’t believe how January went tripping right along, and here it is, almost to an end. I promised, quite a long while ago now, to share with you my ATCs (Artist trading cards) for the second swap I was involved in. Not that I forgot, but I didn’t remember to remember…until now!

Here are my cards for ATC swap #2: Freestyle! It was a little intimidating to not have more clear-cut guidelines…just whatever we wanted to do. In the end, it was a lot of fun.

I thought this was funny–I had the same little flowers that were featured on this magazine page that made up the background!

The little girl sticker came in a box of Japanese rice candy. The script is from the wrapper on my chopsticks at a Japanese restaurant and the background is again from a magazine.

The moon here is made of aluminum foil, although I still call it “tin”.

This was my favorite. The little bear is a foamy little bear that came in a big box of many other little foamy bears and hearts at the craft store (you just never know when you’ll need foamy hearts and bears.) The background is a magazine page (isn’t the little pincushion chair perfect?!) I also cut the face from a magazine. I just fell in love with that little face! The heart is made of aluminum duct tape painted with alcohol paints. You’ll see more aluminum duct tape work a bit later.

Another rice candy sticker! And an English lesson in progress, apparently.

More aluminum duct tape art. This is wonderful, amazing stuff. I love the look of metal art, but don’t have all the expensive equipment to do it. So…aluminum duct tape gives me the look, the enjoyment, but for a lot less money, and it’s really fun to work with.

I really enjoyed working with this medium…

I really did!

And now for the little envelopes made of magazine pages…

hee hee…I really like this one.

I love making art out of things I already have. The only thing I have bought specifically for ATCs are the alcohol inks to work with the aluminum duct tape. Other than that, it’s what’s on hand.

Pretty soon, I’ll be posting the pictures of the newest swap: Monochromatic.

Hello, dear friends. I have not fallen off the face of the earth, as may have been feared. Sometimes, wild gooseberries are just that…we wander off the beaten track and enjoy adventures and then find our way back. So, here I am, finding my way back to tell of what treasures December 2009 had for me.

First of all, it was my 41st birthday on the 6th. I still feel like I’m lying when I tell my age. I think I have one of those eternally young souls. I don’t like the phrase which I often hear “I refuse to grow up.” That phrase smacks of rebellion, immaturity  and shaking fists at the sunrises and sunsets and the seasons that make up our sense of time. No, it’s not that I refuse to grow up. I don’t grow *old*. I have grown up and try to handle myself and household responsibly…but growing old just has not ever been a thought or an option. I still play, still delight in finding the first shoots of green plants in Springtime and in the wonder of Nature in general. And…I still love surprises. So, imagine my delight when I went to work the day after my birthday and received this beautiful surprise from the family I’m Nanny for…

The mama and little girls made this lovely cake for me and had a beautiful little celebration for me that evening. I just felt so loved and appreciated.

Also, the day before (my actual birthday) I was on my own. My husband was in Idaho, enjoying snowfall and doing his best to pass Tank Commander School for the South Carolina National Guard. (he did pass, by the way.) So, instead of feeling too sad about being on my own, I was thankful he was in Idaho and not Iraq (which he had been on previous birthdays) and went out to find myself a treat. Look at what I selected…

A chocolate cup! It was filled with a coffee flavored chocolate mousse and the whole thing was edible…even the cup and spoon!

hee hee!

My husband came back from the frozen Midwest and we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on the 22nd. Lots of wonderful times, some hard times, too many deployments and subsequent lost years together. This year brought us our most difficult times. But we came through on the other side of deployment stress, still in love and still best friends.

Then it was Christmas. I had some much appreciated and needed time off to catch my breath, to enjoy being in my own home and to rest.

We had the most perfect, absolutely triangle shaped tree imaginable.

(please forgive the quality of the next two pictures. Either my camera was not feeling well, or it was dazzled by the beauty of the Christmas tree.)

Appreciative of it’s natural beauty, we opted to forgo all of the decorations we have and simply put in colored lights…

While we decorated, John Denver and the Muppets kept us company on CD. Here is a video of my favorite song from the album, A Christmas Together, The Peace Carol…

The day after Christmas, my sweet husband took me to the Moroccan restaurant in Savannah, the Casbah (a Moroccan Hideaway, the sign out front whispers.) It’s like going on a vacation to the exotic land of Morocco, to go into that restaurant. It’s always a surprise to leave it and find myself back in Savannah, Georgia! Afterward, we walked along River Street (named because it runs along the Savannah River) and were treated to many wonderful surprises by the street performers there. Then, we discovered Leopold’s Ice Cream shop, oh yum!

These were just a few of the wonderful surprises December had in store for me and for us this year. Now, I look ahead and wonder what delights lay ahead…come along with me as we discover them.

As many of you know, I am a transplanted California poppy. I miss the desert, the wide open spaces, the big sky. Here, in Coastal Georgia, there are places that you can only see the sky if you look straight up…and sometimes not even then! It is rare that I get to see a real, honest to goodness sunset.

Imagine my delight when, a few weeks ago, we were out in a less wooded area where the sky was much larger than it is where we live. We were just going into a restaurant to eat dinner, when this beauty showed up for us…

Please excuse the power lines…I was too excited to try for a picture without them.

The more I find out about the cosmos, the more I am in awe of the Creator who designed it all. There seems to be an ongoing debate (and hate) between religious and more science-minded folks. It seems that one has to be either one or the other. I say, God is the ultimate Scientist, Physicist, Biologist and Astronomer. Who could be more so than the Creator of it all?

I found this to go along with the video I posted yesterday. It makes me weep for the beauty of it.

I do love science and the sky…especially in the desert one can see into forever in the night sky. This video just gives me wild gooseberry bumps. hee hee.

Enjoy A Glorious Dawn…

[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some when-else in time

The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky

But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes
it generates abstractions

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has it’s own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world

[Hawking]
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit

From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas

[Sagan]
How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we’ve waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting

Source: John Boswell (musician who created this video) john@symphonyofscience.com
Learn more about the artist here.
Check out his other site, colorpulsemusic.com,

The first time I ever heard that phrase “We are made of star stuff”, it just blew my mind. The fact that we, our bodies, are made up of the very same elements that make up stars still gives me shivers.

A couple of years ago, I accompanied my family to visit Washington, D.C. to attend my nephew’s graduation from the Air Force Presidential Honor Guard training. While there, we were able to visit parts of the Smithsonian Institute. I wandered, by myself, throughout the Natural Sciences museum. There, in a small corner of the museum, I found a most wonderful thing–a vial, dark blue and mysterious, set under a glass cube. Inside this vial was stardust, brought back from a NASA mission. I looked at this vial, into the dust collected from a star billions of years old and tears streamed down my face. What was in this vial was also what made up me…what makes up all of us. For it to have traveled so far, from so long ago, still gives me shivers.

I believe in Creation, in the idea that we and the universe around began with an intelligent force, a Creator which most folks refer to as God. How that creation came to be, though, is a great mystery. I believe that it all could have started with a word, with a bang, with a tremendous moment in time witnessed only be the Creator. None of us were there and anything we think or believe, including scientific or religious truths about how it all started cannot be totally proven or disproven. However, I cannot, nor would not want to, deny the fact that science has found the answers to many mysteries.   To truly be able to tell us what elements we are made of is a great accomplishment. To be able to study what is in the stardust, what makes up the universe,  is also a great accomplishment. To be able to tell us that we and the stardust, the universe itself,  is made of the same stuff is heart-soaring to me.  To have scientific evidence for my long-believed faith that the Creator made us and the physical universe of the same stuff, that we are made of the earth, of the sky, of the stars, is overwhelming.

It is in that light, that shimmering of understanding that while gazing at the stars, we are also gazing at ourselves, that I share with you this video made up of pieces and parts of Carl Sagan’s talks on The Cosmos and other scientific discussions and interviews with Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye (The Science Guy!)  Here is the Symphony of Science, We are All Connected.

[deGrasse Tyson]
We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically

[Feynman]
I think nature’s imagination
Is so much greater than man’s
She’s never going to let us relax

[Sagan]
We live in an in-between universe
Where things change all right
But according to patterns, rules,
Or as we call them, laws of nature

[Nye]
I’m this guy standing on a planet
Really I’m just a speck
Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck
To think about all of this
To think about the vast emptiness of space
There’s billions and billions of stars
Billions and billions of specks

[Sagan]
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We’re made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself

Across the sea of space
The stars are other suns
We have traveled this way before
And there is much to be learned

I find it elevating and exhilarating
To discover that we live in a universe
Which permits the evolution of molecular machines
As intricate and subtle as we

[deGrasse Tyson]
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
To phenomena in the cosmos
That makes me want to grab people in the street
And say, have you heard this??

(Richard Feynman on hand drums and chanting)

[Feynman]
There’s this tremendous mess
Of waves all over in space
Which is the light bouncing around the room
And going from one thing to the other

And it’s all really there
But you gotta stop and think about it
About the complexity to really get the pleasure
And it’s all really there
The inconceivable nature of nature

Source: John Boswell (musician who created this video) john@symphonyofscience.com
Learn more about the artist here.
Check out his other site, colorpulsemusic.com, )

Thank you to my online friend, Peni, for sharing this with me
in the first place.

You’ll remember the little ducky I just posted about yesterday. The poor little one whose foot was so badly injured by a 3-barbed fishing lure with a rag hooked onto it. Here she is when we found her behind our house on September 27th…

We thought the barb had deformed her web between the middle and left toe. When we released her, the webbing was just a little pink lump under her foot. We haven’t seen her again…

Well, today, I  had a surprise!!! Sweetie has returned to us! She’s stayed away these couple of weeks, healing and mustering up her courage to come back to our yard. I thought I saw her this morning, but her foot looked so good, I thought it couldn’t be her. But how many duckies who looked like her could have the same injury? Turns out, it IS her!!! She has two little freckles on her middle toe of her left foot…and that’s what I looked for today.

There is a dent across her toes from the main part of the barb, but she’s doing great! The webbing has unfolded back out and except for some slight pinkness and the obvious hole, is looking wonderful. I tossed seeds and bread and popcorn out so she would know it’s ok to come back (and so I could get some pictures!)

Oh, welcome back, sweet Sweetie! It made my heart absolutely soar to see you today.