"GONE FROM MY SIGHT"

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength.  I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says:  "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight.  That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in  her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says:  "There, she is gone!"  There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad should:  "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.


~ Henry Van Dyke

FAUX GEL PRINTING

Jennibellie does it again.  She has such fun ideas for creating papers.  See here what she does with a craft mat and paints to make pretty papers for collage and mixed-media.

FOR YOUR LITTLE GIRL

I thought this was such a cute idea for a little girl.  It could be done in place of a Christmas stocking or even as ornaments on a tree.  These are done my Maria Vitalina.  You can see more of her lovely work on her Facebook site:  https://www.facebook.com/MariaVitalinaPorFlaviaPegado

ALTERED ART WORK

Wanted to share these beautiful chairs with you for ideas on what to do with that old chair you have sitting somewhere.  We all have them.  We don't do anything with them and yet we don't want to throw them out.  I have just such a heavy oak chair.  Now if I can be brave enough to paint it.

CALIFORNIA FLOWERS AND HOSPICE

I am now entering my third week in California where my family lives.  I got an emergency call just one night after returning home from the country of Georgia (south of Russia).  I left the next morning.  My father, who is less than two months short of his 90th year had a brain bleed and they didn't expect he would live.  He rallied, we thought he was going to make it and now he is not.  We thank God for all the years he has had.

He is now enrolled in the hospice program and we have support in his dying process.  Though it is hard to loose a family member, we know that God has "numbered our days" and we trust him for that.  I am grateful that I can be here as a support for my step-mom and my two sisters.  I would greatly appreciate your prayers for them.  These two beautiful flower pictures are actually some I took in 2010 while here in winter.  Just as the flowers, we are each and all here for a "season," so be sure to tell your loved ones what they mean to you.

Julie Burstein: 4 lessons in creativity

WASHI TAPE ~ HOMEMADE BY JENNIBELLIE

ABANDONED ART ~ A CAN IS BORN

My Dog Sighs - A Can is Born from Strong Island Media on Vimeo.

JULIE BALZER ~ ART JOURNALING

I love what she does here.  Posting this so I can watch it again and again.  So many good ideas.

Art Journaling Fast Forward featuring matching stamps & stencils from Julie Balzer on Vimeo.

UKRAINE GARDEN DELIGHT

Already we have had several freezes in Ukraine so the flowers have been gone now for a bit, but I wanted to show you this pretty little corner of my garden because in the cold and bitterness of winter it is a delight for the soul to see something lovely.  Therefore as winter goes on I shall occasionally post some beautiful little tidbit from the summer display.  Like my art, the garden is one of my areas of pleasure.  It really is simply another expression of art using the medium of the garden.

When we moved to this home 15 years ago the yard was nothing more than a wild forest.  It was chest high in  "maleena" (wild raspberries)  and an abundant crop of "krapeeva" (stinging nettle).  I never had a plan to necessarily do the whole yard, but little by little, year after year I would plant more and it just grew.  Many of the sweet people of Ukraine gave me things from their gardens to get a start.  From that time I've transplanted and added.  This tiny teapot above has been in the garden since we moved here.  Winter after winter it survives through the season and moves from one spot to another.  As you can see here I do have a few little figurines in the garden that some have given me, but you can rest assured there are no elves or gnomes lurking around in the tall plantings.  Both of these pictures are shots of my rock garden.  It started out as a small clay hill in one corner of the yard in which I knew not a lot would grow so rock garden seemed like the thing to do.  Hope you like this little peek into my garden.

VINTAGE TAGS

"Life is like a bowl of cherries."

"Keep moving forward, don't look back."

"Live everyday up to your expectations, not others."

HOLLY PHILLIPS ~ JOURNAL ARTISTA

Here's a very fun and simple stencil technique that I'm really wanting to try.  Just another twist on stencils, but I'd have not thought of it had I not seen it.  Give it a try.

WHIMISICAL WORKSPACES BY RHOMANY

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"Forget 'decluttering', 'minimalism' & 'organisation strategies'. Join me for a month-long nurturing of your creative space."
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