Magic Evening

I have three wonderful friends that I get together with once a month. We encourage eachother to develope as women and artists. We usually set goals for ourselves at the end of each meeting and then discuss our successes or lessons learned at the following one.
This time we decided to just get together and enjoy eachothers company. Sally invited us up to the farmhouse adjacent to the Oak Hieghts Winery that she runs. Her fiance, who owns the property and the winery, was gracious enough to let us take over the house for a night. It was a most delightful evening.
Apon our arrival we popped into the winery where we started our evening with some wine tasting.
This is the beautiful Sally. She's been an awsome friend to me and I adore her.

Troy was there when we first arrived. He is Sally's right hand man. He was, as always, a wonderful host, and joined us for a glass of wine before leaving us to our night of the sisterhood.

This is Sielagh. She's always great fun to be with. She's so genuine, kind, and funny. She was instrumental in helping me discover myself as an artist.

This is Veronica, who I've mentioned breifly in a previous post. She is such a talented and inspiring artist. I've been very influenced by her throughout my self exploration. I'm going to be helping her set up a blog after the summer. I've been pushing her to have one because she takes great photographs and surrounds her life with such beauty. I know everyone will fall in love with her.

After our wine, we headed over to the farm house to prepare dinner with all the goodies we brought. This is me at the counter creating a salad with lettuces, avacado, herbs, rose petals and calendula.

We had a fantatic feast. Fresh water fish, cheezes and dips, pasta, fruit, and veggie salads. I thought I was going to explode.



After dinner and sunset, we ventured out to the hot tub. We enjoyed the water and our wine immensly. Sally said she felt like we were the Witches of Eastwick. We then dubbed ourselves the Witches of Warkworth.


There really did seem to be some magic flowing that evening as we sat in our cauldrin.

Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble.

I took this picture the morning after.

I hadn't even realized there was a birds nest in the gazibo. It's a good thing no one sat on it in the dark.

Some Delphinium in the gardens.

The pool. If I had known how delightfully warm the water was, I would have gone swimming the night before as well.

Views of the property,

The vinyards.

The winery and restaurant.


Saying goodbye was hard.

Coming Show

I have a show coming up in July so much to my families shergrin my studio is taking over the whole livingroom at the moment as I cram every working hour in I can. They are actually being quite tolerant of the situation. I have to be thankful. Would you want to live with this mess?




These are some dolls that I've been working on.

I call them "Sassy Girl" and they each have thier own name sewn on the back, with a ribbon to hang them.

Some of them are made with vintage nude photos. I plan to place these ones behind a screen that will have a sign saying naughty dolls. They have an X on thier name tags, as in x rated. This one is not stuffed yet. I love this particular photo of Louise Brooks, as you will see further on. I name the dolls as I see them if I don't know who they were. Funny thing is, I named her Lou Lou before I found out who she'd been.

More dolls waiting to be turned right side out and stuffed.

I started designing some pillows with vintage fabrics. I was greatly inspired by the wonderful pillows, I fell in love with, featured at "Dream in Cream" by artist Felicia Blair. You must check them out!

The back.

I put my name on everything I make now.

This is a photo of my Mom when she was just a wee girl. wasn't she adorable?



The hankie is left open at the top to create a pocket to slip some vintage goodies in.

Previously I made a bunch of little fabric collages that I will either add to pillows or totes. This one is "The Earth Laughs in Flowers".

"Dreams of Flight"

"Have Dress, will Party."
"Flights of Fancy"

"French Kiss is Bliss"

Another "Flights of Fancy"

"Sing, Dance, Play, be Naughty."

Another "Dreams of Flight"

Lots more work to do, gotta go.
xo

Peonies and Other Garden Beauties

I kept forgetting to get pictures of these beautiful Peonies at work. Unfortuneately they were droopy by the time I remembered. I wish I could have caught them for you when they were still fresh and perky. They were soooo gorgious!!! They are actually the size of a dinner plate. The next door neighbors, who are both artists, have them in their garden.



Mine aren't quite as big but I love them still. I cut some for a vase and left it on the poarch. I don't want to have to kill the ants inorder to bring them in.



It was such a gorgious day here, finally, I spent the afternoon taking pictures of my garden for everyone. I planted some Calendula in my garden this year. I want to add them to my summer salads.

Here's some Chamomile I just planted as well. It smells scrumptous!

I've had these Egyption onions for years. My artist friend Veronica gave them to me when she was thinning hers out. I love how ornate they become.

My apple and orange mint are doing well. I also have Bergamot whicn I'll catch when in bloom.

There's only a few Poppies left. Most have started going to seed now.


This Comfrey was here when I arrived. It's quite lovely and it's great in a poltice for cuts and bone problems.


Watering the garden and admiring the drops on the leaves.

My Roses are starting to bloom in the front yard.

This is the first year my Clamatis bloomed, yah!!!


My wonderful Lavender. Can't get enough of the stuff. I'm very excited about a friend out near Rice Lake who is Bee keeping now and planting rows of Lavender so the Bees can make Lavender honey. I'd like to get out there and blog all about it for you.

My heart of stone. My actual heart is a little softer.

My smoke plant which is looking vibrant this year!!


That's all for now. Hope you enjoy.
Spell check won't work for me tonight so I hope you'll all forgive my plethera of spelling errors.

Magic

I caught a Rainbow Fairy in my room this morning! She was very lovely!




She came to light on my hand.




After a while of playing with me, she disappeared into a piece of Labradorite that sits on my night stand. She made the stone glow. I think she's still in there.



Have a Magical day!

More Great Finds for My Art

This was my husband's old photo developer. He doesn't often let me have his old things for my art so I was thrilled when he offered this one.



I've already started deconstructing this mirror frame I got at a yard sale.




The urn and candle stick holders belonged to the owner of Mackechnie House B&B where I work. I intercepted them on their way to her yard sale.





Some more "Beyond the Blue Box" finds.






I'm thinking of a mini May-Pole scene for inside this once pepper grinder.





My aunt found these wonderful tiny dice at a church rummage sale and grabbed them up for me. Aren't they GREAT?





She also found some great little dolls for me. This one's already being prepared for an assemblage to be named "Survivor". It will be a tribute to all the women who have survived breast cancer.

Some of My Art

dollsI wanted to share some of my more recent art work with everyone. I do so many differant things and have so many projects going at the same time. Here are a few things that are finished, and some that are not as yet.

This is the lid of an Altoid tin.




One of my many mint tin pendants.




My somewhat naughty miniature dolls.




A not so naughty doll face. Although the expression on her face says otherwise, don't you think?


Here's the start of one of the Marie Antoinette books I'm working on. It's still waiting for much more embellishing.








Here's a peek at some other projects on the go.



There's the bottom of that Altoid tin.



A patinaed copper book cover.



This book page is kind of like those old pop-up books. Don't peek!



Hope you enjoyed.

Family Heirlooms

My husband Rob, and his family have some great vintage things. I do covet them for my art, but I at least get to enjoy them on display in our living room now. They used to be stored away for no one to see.

His Dad and Grandfather were both avid woodworkers. These are a couple of well worn wood planers.




I would like to get this lovely clock back together and working again.







His Dad used to fix time pieces but he's got Parkinson's now and it's too far progressed. All the things he loved to do (paint, sketch, play piano and guitar, fix and build things) all require too many fine motor skills. He built the house that Rob grew up in, that we live in now. Here's some of his clock and watch tools. I particularly love the bottles, of course.



His Grandfather was also artistically inclined. He carved these whimsical folk art figures, and also made these great bookends. A man after my own heart. I unfortunately never got the chance to meet him.




I adore this old set of playing cards that he used as a tarot deck.







What will your fortune be????