be yourself: live with passion

being the inspiration for an artist...

...has to be a thrill of a lifetime.

Just ask Vern.

About six weeks ago, he and Ashley were in Southern Cali at a trail ride competition.  There is usually a photographer on location and in this case, the professional equine photographer was Jane Gray.

Jane took a picture of Vern and Beamer that was just awesome.  Beamer apparently was checking out some cattle in the distance and Vern was getting ready to head into the trees.  It was a perfect shot...great position of horse and rider, perfect lighting, and just overall great composition.

Jane had her friend Mary, an artist by profession, with her.  Mary was inspired by the photograph and asked Vern's permission to create an oil painting based on the photo.  There was no obligation to us to purchase...with Vern's permission, she would paint it whether we bought it or not.

One peek at Mary Weldy's site, located here, convinced us that we simply had to purchase the painting.  She is an awesome artist and there is so much emotion in the work she does.  It was a once in a lifetime opportunity...a perfect photo providing inspiration to an exceptional artist.  A total no brainer for us...this would grace a wall in our home.

Mary completed the painting and delivered it to Vern over the weekend when they were in Southern Cali at another ride. 

We are amazed...the pix she sent us of the work in progress didn't do it justice...nor did the picture I took of the painting.   She has it beautifully framed although I didn't include the frame in my photo (posted with Mary's permission)...just framed it simply through Photoshop to keep the focus on the painting.   I wish I could convey to you how gorgeous it is in person...how much depth there really is...and how much emotion it evokes.

This painting will be a family heirloom; hopefully it will be passed down through many generations to come.

Thank you Mary, for the beautiful work of art.  Thank you Jane, for the perfect picture to provide the inspiration.  You two make quite a team.  And, Vern and Beamer, you certainly are totally inspirational!

remembering...

On this day set aside to remember our loved ones, I wanted to make special mention of four great people who impacted my life...my grandparents.  All of them immigrated to the U.S. from Russia and Poland.  All of them lived long lives in spite of all of the hard times they went through...my paternal grandpa passed away at age 102!

Despite the fact that they didn't speak English (except for my Dad's dad), they adapted to the American way of life and found ways to communicate with their neighbors, bankers, doctors and store clerks.

They owned their own homes...without mortgages!

They never owned a car, in fact didn't even know how to drive, yet mastered the public transit systems in their respective cities (Philadelphia and Chicago).

They worshipped with people of like faith with similar backgrounds...this probably gave them a stronger sense of community because of the common ground they shared.

Here's what I learned from them:

• The importance of family values, especially having a good marriage and family life
• The importance of hard work and exercising discipline even when you don't feel like doing something
• The importance of good food and sharing it with family and friends
• The importance of being yourself
• The importance of having creative outlets
• The importance of reading
• The importance of having faith in God

Quite a legacy they left behind...without lectures and being preachy (well, maybe a little, once in a while :D)...mostly just by living what they believed.

Did someone impact your life in a positive way?  Who are you remembering today?

a good question...

Kathi asked a good question in response to my last post.  Here's what she asked:

"With your supplies all packed away like they are--how do you know what you have and how do you determine what you will use in your projects?  I find that when I pack my stuff away, I don't use it, but I hate having everything out because it looks so messy.  Just curious what your process is."

Here's the process:  I'm a very visual person and I love having everything out where I can see it.  That being said, my circumstances really don't allow me to do that.  I share studio space with my family room and it's the first thing someone sees when they walk into the front door of our house.  When I'm in the thick of creating for classes or publication, everything in that area becomes messy and my friends and family understand and just live with it (or they don't understand and just keep their mouth shut, don't know which :)).  When we're entertaining or when I'm just tired of the mess, I do pick up everything and put it away.  I have three very large armoires that line one wall (our family room is big and has high ceilings so I can get away with some massive furniture), and they house a good portion of the little stuff that really can clutter up a studio.  The armoire that I posted earlier has a lot of clear jars or open basket type of containers that allow me to see at a glance what I have.  That really helps me in the visual department.

                              

This guy has a glass front and sits between its two solid fronted mates.  Because of the glass front, I need to keep the top interior tidy and uncluttered.  I use tins which I bought from IKEA and separate all of the embellishments and supplies into micro categories so that I can easily find things.  For example, one of the tins contains nothing but brads and they are sorted and stored in little containers according to color, which keeps it simple. 

I  lose track of what I have...and it's definitely fun to open one of those tins and see something I had forgotten about...like going shopping all over again...without emptying the checking account!

Speaking of organizational stuff and emptying the checking account, I just ordered some fun things from here.  I love Vintageweave Interiors...just wish I had more room for some of their flea market finds.  Here are a few things I did order...

A wire mail basket to hang on the wall...a fun way to organize collage elements like old papers, labels, etc.  In the center, a reproduction of a vintage silver tray...great to hold all of those pesky little elements like buttons and brads that get lost while I'm working on a project.  And, more locker baskets.  These are actually reproductions of original vintage ones, which suits me fine.  The original ones that I brought home last summer went through some major Lysol treatments...who knows how long those girls left their gym socks in there before taking them home to be laundered...oh my!

So there's my long winded answer to Kathi's simple and short question! :))

Hope you have a fabulous holiday weekend!

Someday...

...I will have unused storage space.

                              

My thought as I was rifling through one of my studio armoires this morning, looking for something.

What is your "someday wish" today?

a "no business" weekend...

I had a fantastic class on Friday at Scrapbooks, Etc.  One of the things I love so much about teaching this group of women (and one guy in Friday's class-a brave soul :)) is that they aren't afraid to take the ideas I present and springboard them into something of their own.  Love that! 

After class, I unloaded my stuff and decided on the spot that I was going to veg that evening and was going to have a "no business" weekend.  No class prep, no business emails, no bill paying...nothing.  So, how did I spend my weekend?

*Read David Baldacci's new book Simple Genius.  I had actually bought the book several weeks ago and "hid" it so that I wouldn't read it when I had so many other things to do.  Good book-not his best but still good.

*Caught up on laundry.

*Caught up on some new magazines

          Romantic Homes-  There's an article and photos of a room done by one of my favorite interior designers- Elizabeth Maxton.  That's an amazing iron bed that she built the room around.

          Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion-  Did you happen to see the Crop, Paper, Scissors featured artist?  It's none other than Tena Sprenger, girlfriend and co-author!  She did a really cool board book of their beach vacation...you'll want to check it out.  Congrats, Tena!

          Better Homes and Gardens 100 ideas flea market style- Always a fun idea magazine...sometimes frustrating because you want to get your hands on the junk they feature!

          Somerset Life-  Wow!  That was my first thought when I opened the magazine.  The presentation and projects were amazing.  Jenny Doh, you are an incredible editor AND artist!

*Went to ULTA and restocked on hair stuff and Bare Escentuals makeup.  Always makes me happy!

*Created a just for fun layout about Ashley's graduation.  Teaching Life Stories, a layout class, has gotten me back into creating pages and I'm really enjoying it!  I don't know if you've seen the doodle templates by The Crafter's Workshop.  I picked up a number of them recently at Scrapbooks, Etc. and incorporated one of them into Friday's class.  The one I used for this layout was the Paisley Swirl which I outlined in pencil, filled in with colored pencil, then Diamond Glazed all of the colored areas so that they "popped".  I then gessoed over the entire page.  You can't see the dimensional aspect in the scan but it looks and feels like embossed paper in person.  Had fun with this.

                              

*Was craving a cheese steak sandwich so went out to Streets of New York with the family on Saturday night.  Yum!

*Went out to the fish store looking to add more fancy goldfish to our pond.  Several weeks ago, our heron managed to get two of our fish...one being my very favorite boy, Beethoven.  That was a sad, sad day.  But, moving on, we are going to add at least 6 new guys.  Didn't find any we liked yesterday so the search continues for some special ones.

*Finished off the weekend by watching a movie.  I'm probably the last chick to see this flick- "How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days"- it was cute and a great way to end a relaxing weekend.

It's a new work week and business is calling my name...hope you had a relaxing weekend! 

Life Stories: In Black & White

I've been all over the B&W thing lately-home decor, clothing, memory art...

Just wanted to share a peek at two of the three layouts we'll be doing in tomorrow's class at Scrapbooks, Etc.

Excited to share them and the whole concept of stories about Dads!

Hope to see you there...10:30 to 1:00, Friday, May 18th.

Happy Thursday!

reflecting on parenting...

The last month has been filled with preparation for events and classes dealing with parent/child relationships...Mother's Day classes, Father's Day classes, Ashley's graduation from college signifying that she is now a full-fledged adult.  This prep time has given me time to reflect on good parenting vs. bad, has had me thinking about how we could have improved and what we did right, etc.

On Sunday, our pastor used Mother's Day to give a lesson on parenting.  The topic is definitely controversial and parts of it can be considered subjective and sometimes different things work for different people.  I liked his common sense, practical approach to parenting and wanted to share what he had to say.  Obviously, everyone isn't going to agree with everything he said.

He titled the sermon: "HOW TO RUIN YOUR KIDS"

1.  Attempt to live your life through your kids.

2.  Give them stuff instead of consistent love.

3.  Withhold discipline and give too few limits.

4.  Allow peer pressure control your parenting (comparing your children to OPK's, getting them involved in everything, keeping your kids up with the Jones' kids)

5.  Refuse to fulfill your God-given roles-put your kids in a more important role than your spouse.

6.  Never tell them that you're sorry.

7.  Teach them to be open-minded about spiritual things-there are no absolutes.

8.  Don't restrain your mouth.

9.  Buy into the myth of the two income family (Guaranteed, I'm sure he got lots of emails disagreeing with him on this one :)  )

10.  When problems come, split up and say it's better for the kids.

11.  Hold onto them too tightly.

Interestingly enough, a book we have in our library called "The 7 Worst Things Good Parents Do"  written by John C. Friel and Linda D. Friel (he's a psychologist, she's a counselor) which mirrors many of the points that I just listed.  Here's what they have to say:

1.  Baby Your Child

2.  Put your marriage last

3.  Push Your Child into too Many Activities

4.  Ignore Your Emotional or Spiritual Life

5.  Be Your Child's Best Friend

6.  Fail to Give Your Chld Structure

7.  Expect Your Child to Fulfill your Dreams

Interesting stuff...

Something that really hit me this week after hearing the message and after being around our parents is that many of these points are valid long after kids are grown and have left home...parents can still affect their children by their decisions, actions and expectations, even when they are in their senior years.  So, the learning and growing continues...there is always room for improvement.

I'd be interested in hearing your comments...your thoughts about parenting as you see it...how you parent...how you were parented...what you like...what you wish had been different...all in the vein of how we can be better children or parents.

Parenting can be tough and sometimes it doesn't seem like there's a lot of positive feedback or gratitude.  Maybe we could give some words of encouragement to each other...to "hug" each other...to share how it really is worth it.

Happy Parenting!

A great weekend...

The weekend was crazy busy... Ashley's party was so much fun.  Over the years, we've accumulated quite a number of extended family members who have moved to Arizona and it was great to spend some time with them.  It seems like the only times we can get together is if someone gets married, graduates or dies!  It was also good to hang out with some friends that we just don't have a chance to see as often as we'd like.  There are two things that I very seldom do when we are hosting a party...eat and take pictures so  I don't have a lot of pix to share.  Bad scrappin' mom!

Mother's Day was good for me...pretty relaxed and quiet.  Church in the morning and then a brunch at my sister-in-law's house.  Leftovers for dinner.  I have to tell you that we have enough food left over for an army...no joke!  We could have another large party and have enough to feed them.  It's that Slavic upbringing that surfaces whenever I cook...it's better to have twice as much as you need than to be short on food!

The day lily chose to open its first blossom on Mother's Day!  So pretty.  This was the first Mother's Day in a long time that my mom, mother-in-law, sister-in-law and I were all able to spend some time together which made it pretty special.

Lots to catch up on this week work-wise...will be posting some sneak peeks of my class on Friday at Scrapbooks, Etc. later this week.

Hope the week is good!

SHE DID IT!

Congratulations, Ashley!

This morning was the graduation ceremony of her college at Arizona State University.  She now has her B.S. in Justice Studies. (Just don't ask her what she's going to do with it...at least not for a few days :D)   I just wanted to share with you a few pictures that I took today.  We had an early start...left the house at 6:15 in the morning so that we could get decent seats.  I snapped the first picture outside in the early morning light.

Can you believe the sea of caps and gowns?  And this is only a fraction of the graduates as there are a number of ceremonies which have taken place over the past three days.  Loved the banners and wanted to preserve them for Ashley.

After we got home, I snapped some pictures of Ashley with her grandparents.  She is fortunate enough that both sets came in to help her celebrate!

We just finished shopping for party goods...LOTS of great food.

Party central at our house tomorrow night.  Mother's Day on Sunday...Happy Mother's Day to all the moms!  Hope you have a fabulous weekend!

a candid moment...

Yesterday, I peeked out into the back yard and this is what I saw.

Quickly, I grabbed the camera and snuck out to capture a pic.

My dad was so engrossed in his reading that he never saw or heard me.  He was sitting on a bench by the pond...totally in his own world.

Did you happen to notice what he was reading?  Yep, his copy of Lifelines.

Awww.  It just made me all soft and gooey inside to see him so into the stories and projects.  Definitely a special moment.

Just wanted to share the moment with you.

Hope you have a wonderful day!