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i am a creative person. mother to a daughter who is an active young woman and a constant blessing in my life. i hope that you enjoy your visit here and that you will return often.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

yesterday i discovered that i am the very lucky winner of a blog giveaway~!!!~yiipppeeeee~!!!~i participated in a giveaway hosted by Eileen of Keeping it Rural in Wisconsin (http://ruralwisconsin.blogspot.com/ ) and it's been promised that it holds some surprises, but i do know that there are vintage linens and ephemera handpicked from her very own antiques and collectibles store~Wellers (http://www.wellerstore.com/).

of course, all i can think about is what sort of wonderful art i can morph these goodies into . . . a package is on it's way and when it gets here i'll be sure and share the details within my blog. until then you should make a point of stopping by her charming blog as well as the Weller website to see what is going on. i understand that the store merchandise changes daily and is overflowing with fabulous collectible treats of every kind~!!~



speaking of art from ephemera: earlier this week i received a package from Viv Sliwka/Hensteeth (www.hensteethart.blogspot.com). i placed an order from her etsy space and am quite thrilled with, not only her work, but her incredible customer service. for those of you who don't know of Viv's work you really must take a minute or two (or five or ten) and visit her site. it's chocked full of fabulous handmade goodies that have the sweetest whimsical nature about them. her art is a treat for any eyes~!!~

i went out into the garden today and was overwhelmed with the enormous amount of tomatoes that i have ripening. i think there will be some canning/preserving in my upcoming weekend~!!~

and check out the size of that zucchini~!~i don't know how it got overlooked but once it was finally discovered it was promptly picked~! it's ginourmous~!!~

i also met up with cricket, our calico kitty who wanted to help with the gardening glory. isn't she a sweetie~!?!~ looks can be a bit deceiving though . . . she used to be an inside cat until she became very territorial and especially honry with gracie, another one of our cats. in the end, the only way to make it work out short of finding some new homes for both of them, was to make one of them a house cat and one an outside cat and keep them separated at all times~!!~ cricket actually prefers being outside anyway and as long as she has the shelter of the garage at night and during bad weather seems quite happy to be the queen of her own kingdom. meanwhile gracie sits in the windows and makes faces and hissy noises through the glass at her every time she gets the chance . . .


a couple of weeks ago i posted some shots of mayflies hatching from our pond. i've recently been able to capture shots of what looks to be either a dragonfly or a damselfly doing the same. in the top photo there are some fantastic details that can be seen, especially if you click on it and look at the larger version of the shot.

it seemed to be a lengthy and difficult process for the dragonfly and at times it would just hang limp and exhausted from the "skin" bit. in the lower photo you can see the papery shell that it has nearly completely labored out of. just a bit of one wing to go . . . unfortunately i did not get to witness the end of this drama as i had to move on to other things that needed doing. i noticed later that evening that it was gone and am assuming that all went as it should have for this "baby" dragonfly.

i continue to make good progress in rearranging my schedule for more art making. i do still have to work on giving some things up and deciding just what my priorities are . . . it's tough when you like doing everything~!!~!

this week i managed to get six tulips done and three crumb pieced nine-patches.

the nine-patches take a surprising amount of time due to the crumb/string piecing of the "darker" squares. these will measure nine inches when sewn up.

i've also begun to sort out the very smallest scraps so that i can streamline them into a project and make them useful too . . . was going to brainstorm that this afternoon but am running out of time . . . please feel free to share ideas if you have any.

the Christmas card (#4) that i was working on last week is now bound and complete. i went around the edges with a machined zig zag stitch in a variegated thread (Christmas colors). time to start working on # 5~!~
i have been working on my SPA postcard and this week's theme is "school".

while thinking about what i wanted to do i was remembering what my own favorite things were about starting a new school year. i know for some it was all about getting a new pair of shoes. i did not grow up wealthy. my parents both worked hard providing for our family and although there was always "enough", brand new shoes were not a part of every new school year. so what got me excited was that new box of crayons that i would get at the beginning of the year. that was back in the day when the school still provided those supplies . . . new crayons, new pencils, new erasers and once in a while a few colored pencils(!!!) . . . and the books . . . i was a voracious reader~!~ so share with me what memories you have of school. i want to know what you did or did not enjoy about school. what year you remember as being particularly good or eventful in some way and why . . . were you a social butterfly or more the wall-flower type? or maybe you were one of those rebel types that the rest of us wished we had the courage to be . . . in the meantime; i'll work on my postcard and you can pop back in on sunday and have a look.

10 comments:

  1. I was the homesick kid! I cried EVERY day at kindergarten! After that, I loved the friends. I was always a bit lazy about the school work, considering it a necessary evil. Oh, and I loved LUNCH and recess! xopp

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  2. What a lovely start to your weekend to win those goodies. Loving all your pictures

    Have a lovely weekend

    Carolyn ♥

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  3. Your garden produce looks wonderful Libby, all of those delicious tomatoes, so ripe and red, I bet they're really sweet. Like your fish postcard below and the finished Xmas themed card is great. BFN. Lesley

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  4. When i saw all that mention of ephemera at the top, I was going to ask if you won any Ephemeroptera - and then you mentioned mayflies as well. Here's your new word for the day: those shed skins/shells are called exuviae (exuvia is the singular form).

    School memories: I grew up in southeastern New Mexico, and I'm pretty sure we went back to school in early August. I never could figure out why the back-to-school clothes (at Sears and the like) were long sleeved blouses, corduroy skirts and pants, and so on. It was so warm! Then in my early 20s I moved to southeast Michigan for grad school, and very quickly decided those clothes were being picked for the upper midwest! (wasn't Sears based in Chicago back then?)

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  5. good morning all~!!~

    Pom Pom: thank you for visiting, commenting and sharing your own sweet memories of school with me.

    Carolyn: thanks for the visit and the comment. the giveaway really was a fun start to the weekend~!~

    Lesley: the tomatoes are so satisfying to get into jars and sealed for the winter months. have decided to do them as crushed/pureed this year as we seem to have such a bumper crop. doing them that way is a bit more work but they are all recipe ready when we go to use them . . . what satisfying little rows they make in the pantry~!!~

    Tricia: thanks for the new word :) and for sharing your school memories~!~ around here we are generally grateful for those warmer clothing lines as it usually turns off cold early in the fall season but i can certainly understand them not working out well for some warmer climates~!~

    so happy to see you all here in my comment box this a.m. Thank You~!!~
    :)
    libbyQ

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  6. libbyQ, Yep, you found me on Flickr. I decided to download some of my blog quilt photos ~ not sure why ~ boredom perhaps? May I e-mail you with questions?

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  7. hi Diane~! and of course you can e-mail me with questions~!~
    i love being able to see your photos on flickr AND your blog~!!~

    :)
    libbyQ

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  8. So much goodies from your garden! Lovely! And your little beautiful cat, so look alike my Elsa, the same colours !!!
    Thank you for your kind comments on my blog. And I agree with you; to photograf is a very good way to loose your self!! I enjoy it very much! I ahve been out several hours this wekeen, both by the sea and in the forrest

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  9. wow~!~ Peggy, you really know how to make a girl's day brighter~!!~ what a nice thing to say~!!!!!~
    i hope that you come back and visit often.

    good morning Gunnel~!~ so glad to hear that you are out and about with that camera. i'll have to check out your blog to see some of the great shots~!!~

    :)
    libbyQ

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