Shopping and turkey

When you have dinner at your in-laws house and that is where the turkey was cooked....it leaves you with no leftovers for the time honored turkey sandwiches!! Wellll.....we can't have that, now can we!
So, YES, I've bought a turkey and it is in the oven right now. I just have to have my leftovers...lol

While I didn't join the actual madness of the Friday
shopping day, I did go out and poke around a bit.

Didn't go anywhere near the mall. I had certain missions in mind, so went to the little shops that I had something in mind to get. They weren't anywhere near as busy.

As for shopping......I certainly hope to see Etsy get some business! I've been busy making new pieces like these earrings and other items and I know all the other shops have as well. There are also many great sales going on along with Free Shipping deals!

Shopping Etsy in your PJ's with a nice cup of coffee is really the way to go!

Being Thankful

Hope everyone has had a great Thanksgiving Day!!!
While so many problems surround us at this time....it's still time to sit back and look at what we DO have to be thankful for!
I know I have much to give thanks for....a wonderful husband and family, a comfortable warm home, enough food, logs for the fire, a nice cup of tea, a good book......all the simple things. Things that get overlooked everyday!
Stop and take a good look at them today.
All the bigger things will all work themselves out in time.

Well.....off to take care of business now.
Gotta go get my Etsy shop ready for tomorrow's big sales!
Geesh....hard to believe we are now into the big Christmas crunch.
Take care and be careful out there tomorrow. I personally don't intend to get up and join the throngs of 4am shoppers. Yikes. I think I'll sit in my pj's with my coffee and see what sales there are online!

My first step

I took my very first class last night for doing Real Estate sales. Yikes....soooo much to learn. I'm sure (or at least hope) the fun part will start after I get the license.
With the school budget cuts and their thought that there's no need for art (how wrong they are) finding more work as an art teacher doesn't look like it's going to happen.
I've always been interested in real estate....so I decided that it's a good time to go for it.
Taking the classes now while the economy is slow will give me time to become licensed and get my feet wet. I already know of a couple of firms that will take me on...so that's good.
One never knows how long they will have a job available these days. My husband sells yachts...and I have to say, they are not a hot seller these days.
Luckily, everyone at one time or another will need to buy or sell a house....so I'm hopful that this will help keep us afloat if the yachts sink!
Fingers crossed!!

My prize package

arrived today!! This was the package of goodies I'd won for my Halloween postcard design at MailArtWorld. Since the prizes were coming all the way from Australia, I knew they would take quite a while, so I wasn't worried and knew they'd show up at some point.

Well....today was my surprise. It was just like a bit of an early Christmas. There in my mailbox was a package. At first I wondered if it was merely a package from some of my early online Christmas shopping...but upon pulling it out....WOW...it was for ME!

How wonderful. The goodies were even gift wrapped!

There were two brown kraft books for altering, two watercolor blank postcards, a white pen, a "mail art" stamp, and YES....24 Twinkling H2O's!!!

Just look at those yummy colors! Love the shimmer of these little beauties. I had invested in just a couple of basic colors at one time to give them a try....so what a delight it was to receive these!!!

Thank you MailArtWorld....and to all the members who voted for my card! With sooo many fine artists at the site, I'm especially honored to have won.

Paths

It was such a beautiful fall day recently that my husband and I decided to go off and walk the paths around our pond.
In all the time we've been here I'd actually never gone off and done the whole thing.
The area all around the pond, actually a series of 5 ponds, is all conservation land.
The paths turned out to be really beautiful and well taken care of. In this first pic you just about see the water to the left.

The next shot shows the view of my house from the best visual spot. Mine is the one right in the middle. From this distance you can't see very much at all. Can't even make out the dock.
Guess there is no need to worry about privacy from the trail walkers!

I do have a pretty good zoom on my camera, so

here is a bit of a closer view. Still can't make

out very much.

It was a lovely walk and great to see all the nature back there and how well taken care of it is.

When we got back home it was time to rake the leaves in our own yard then stoke the fireplace!

Off season finds

I just love finding things that are "after the holiday" clearence sales. I was recently at a craft shop and found their clearence on all the Halloween items that were left over. After hunting through everything, I found these wooden "haunted tree" decorations. The only thing I really saw that was "haunted" was that they had a face.

Well....that was easily taken care of!!!
I purchased two of these....at 75% off....which brought them down to $1 each.

I took them home and first painted white over the faces.
I then painted the whole tree with a lovely shade of green.
Well..........look what a nice "earring display" they turned into. I've put a bunch of the leaf earrings that I've been making for my Etsy shop on the trees....and they look sweet.

I'm going to use one of them as a display for the earrings at my sister-in-laws wellness center.

Gotta love those off season finds!!

Cuppa Joe

Here is my first attempt at trying something other than a cupcake. I still didn't want to get very complicated since I've still got a loooong way to go in learning to do this process effectively.
I'm beginning to feel as if I'm headed in the right direction and I like where it's going.
Trust me...it's anything but easy. Most of the way through this one I saw an area that I just couldn't live with....the colors/patterns were all wrong. A big part of it could luckily sill be pulled off....the rest, simply covered over.
Still pretty "hit & miss"...but fun nevertheless.

More torn paper

Yes....I did another torn paper painting. As always, when I find something new that is fun to do I can't seem to stop...lol
I know I'll be making quite a few more of these. Although this one is another cupcake, I think I'll try my hand next time on something new.
This one is another 4x6" size.
If nothing else...it's giving me a new use for all those papers that I've yet to throw away!!!

An experiment

Having recently been quite inspired by the torn paper paintings of artist Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson, I decided to give it a try.
Wow....is it ever harder than you might think. While I did completely enjoy the process and the mess making, I certainly have a great respect for the beautiful work she does and how effortless she makes it look.
I know I've got a long way to go, but I do intend to do some more of these and hopefully get a LOT better at it...lol
Just thought I'd share this one and show that even artists that are confident in the medium they normally use can produce less than wonderful work when trying something new. But that's the fun of it!
Get out of you comfort zone and give something new a try!

And the winner is......

Yay!! The Halloween postcard that I had in an earlier post just won the contest at MailArtWorld. It was a close race....soooo many wonderful creations were made for the contest. I was proud to be among all that wonderful creativity!!
Hats off to everyone!!!

Sitting on the edge

of my seat. Waiting for all the election results to come in!!!
SUCH a big day! Nope...I won't tell you how I voted....but I will say "we do need change!!!!!!!!!"