New ACEO Team

'Memories of Happy Times'




'Constant'




'Glorious Garden'






'Much Room in my Mushroom'






'My Happy Place'

'Tears of a Clown'

Hoping you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and/or friends! We had a great day, lots of family, laughter of kids, and yummy food!! :)

I was recently asked to join an ACEO group on Etsy called ACT. I haven't done any new aceos in awhile so I spent the last couple of mornings playing with my watercolors! So fun :) I sealed all these with beeswax too.

Anyway, I better hit the shower and try get some other stuff done today. No black Friday shopping for this girl. I would go CRAZY!!

They say Blue Jays are mean

I think I've captured that :)

This is a 12 x 12 wooden canvas that I had applied texture medium to and planned to do an abstract painting on. Well, those are much harder to do when you set out to do them, it seems (for me anyway) it's easier to do them by accident.

I decided to just paint a Blue Jay design from one of my Ros Stallcup books. I was lucky enough to attend two of her painting seminars in Virginia Beach years ago and we mostly painted fruit and florals so it was fun to try something different.

Hoping to get to Michaels today, we have a touch of snow on the ground but hopefully roads are just fine.

Hope you're all having a nice weekend and doing what you enjoy surrounded by those that make you smile :)

It's a slippery slope

When I'm good.....I'm very good, but when I don't care it's downright dangerous!

I spent most of the year totally focused on getting healthy, losing weight and changing my thinking on food. It was simple! Eat healthy, make good choices and move my bod. I lost 25 lbs and then we got busy with harvest here at work and I opted to quit my membership at the Y until things settled down again. BAD MOVE! For the past 2 months I've been basically inactive and eating pretty much whatever I crave :( For some reason I feel if I'm not giving 100% I shouldn't give it anything? I am the queen of self-sabotage!

For example: flavored coffee creamers! When it gets cold outside, I love nothing more than to have a nice, hot cup of coffee and if creamer is added, well......it's pure heaven for me. It just takes the edge off of winter and tells it to 'back off!'. But if I put a little creamer in every cup I have, it really adds up during the day. NOT GOOD! I know better, yet I make this poor choice.

I need to get back on track before I regain it all :( Believe me, I've done this over and over in my life and would once...........JUST ONCE........like to learn to live without being obsessed with this issue.

With the holidays coming, it will be hard but I can do this! :)

Wishing you all a great weekend!
Darla

p.s. This is a journal page where I used water soluble crayons and watercolor pencils, acrylics, fabric (dragon flies), graphite and ink. Oh, and there's a cute little metal embellishment that says 'HOPE' but it's impossible to read ;)

Time flies!

I hope I'm not alone here but do you find yourself, on Sunday evenings, thinking.........'ugh, Monday again!' I do! Not that I don't enjoy having a job to go to but I just love my time at home being able to do whatever I feel like doing! It might be cooking, baking, but usually~it's painting :)

Then before I know it, it's Thursday and the weekend is almost here again! Where does the time go? I need to stop wishing for the weekends and just try to enjoy each day and make the most of what it brings. The days go fast, the months go faster and before long the years have flown by as well and I'm left wondering 'how did this happen!?'

Here's to slowing things down a bit and appreciating each day...even Mondays♥

I adore Erma Bombeck

I admire (and miss) Ms. Erma! She was so wise and shared so much but with a lovely and unique sense of humor!

One of my favorites is this one:
"When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say 'I used everything you gave me'!"

Here are a few more of her precious gems:

“When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.”

“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”

“I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.”

“In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.”

“Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.”

Oh my, there are so many! You can see for yourself here!



Thank you Erma.....

What inspires you?

I received one of those beautiful emails today with the power point pictures and wonderful wording to go along, you know, the stuff that really makes you think.

One of the phrases/quotes was: 'Aspire to inspire before you expire'

I just love that!

It got me thinking about all the things that inspire me. I'm inspired by a smile or friendly gesture. I'm inspired by someone's committment to something they believe in. I'm inspired by someone's thoughtfulness and kindness. I'm inspired daily by all the artists who share their work, talent and time via the internet.

I'm inspired by others intelligence and knowledge. I'm inspired by others' ability to forgive. I'm even inspired at funerals when I hear all the wonderful things that the late soul did that touched so many and I hope there will be something nice to say when my time comes :)

I'm inspired by others' courage when facing things in life I'm just not sure I could handle.

My children inspire me. My 3 beautiful grandchildren inspire me. My friends inspire me.

Oh boy, the list is endless!!

What inspires you?

Cassidy is still on my mind

I did this last night on a 9 x 12 piece of watercolor paper.
I found it and many other quotes she had listed on her facebook page. You'll have to click on the photo to enlarge it enough to read the wording. If you missed the post regarding Cassidy, you can read about it here

You can visit a page dedicated to her also.


Did I tell you I thought my computer at home crashed last Thursday night? I thought it did and I thought I lost EVERYTHING!! I headed to Best Buy and got myself a new one! A LAPTOP!
I'm so excited to be able to take it and sit in a comfy chair in my living room and visit blogs, write emails, etc. Of course, I've been too busy and haven't done this yet, but I will!!

On Saturday I cleaned the office really well and was going over the old system accessories and was trying to decide what I should keep (monitor, processor) and what I could toss (mouse, keyboard, etc.) I noticed there was QUITE a bit of dust built up in the fans of the processor so I gave it one good vacuuming, said a little prayer and plugged it in. VOILA! It came on! I'm so excited that I didn't lose 5 years worth of photos! I'm still happy to have a new computer and I will definitely get a backup system in place in case this should ever happen for real. It did once and I should have known better :)

Have a Happy Hump Day!! It will soon be Friday :)
Darla