A Visual Diary

of what my imagination's been up to

A little visual magic seemed to be called for, but with a dash of edginess for good measure. If you'll notice I ended things on an optimistic note

Click on the image for a better look.

A Visual Diary

of how I've been feeling lately:

I've been building treasuries a lot lately, especially when the Bean takes up a little more time with her teething and solid food eating ways. When I get a few moments here and there but not enough time to really get my make on; I put together a treasury of images that fit my mood as well as my need to make something.

So now I share.
Click on the collection above to get a super view of my curatorial activities

Just for me

There are a few things I've been up to lately that are doing a wonderful job of (to put it all smooshy like) feeding my soul.



Picking raspberries is one. Harvesting the lavender is another. I love the intense blue violet of the tiny blossoms, the smell is divine and a big sniff can undo any amount of stress for even just a second which is so worth it. Also there's a soothing drone in my garden that comes from the bees who come to visit for the lavender and thyme flowers.

Also feeding my soul is the few minutes here and there that I've been able to be creative again. It started for the Peanut's birthday with a Chinese lantern chandelier, a stick a hat on Quack poster and a tiny tissue cake banner. Since then I've been playing around with image transfers.

I've been using images from the Vintage Moth blog which are fantastic by the way. I've almost perfected a transfer technique using liquid sculpey and my mind is whirling around ways to put it to good use. I recently bought some small cradled panels that I want to make into shadow box art pieces which would work well with a little translucent imagery.

So don't let me air out all my soul feeding ways alone; what's been feeding your soul lately?

A Thousand Words

The Pictures that should have been in my last post

There should really be a photograph with this post

but rather than taking my camera out in the morning when I head into the garden, I've been focused on the much more important task of berry picking.

There's something intensely satisfying about the juicy thud that a raspberry makes when it's dropped into a large yogurt container. Also the glow of the red berries when the morning sun touches them through the leaves... like poetry to my eyes. I love picking berries. It's my latest just for me thing to do. I head out before the husband leaves for work and fill a container with those enticing ruby red treasures.

I also annihilate a few slugs, pull up a few weeds, pick some pees and disturb the ants that have decided to make the strawberry plants their home base. It's satisfying and I get to feel like I've gotten something good done at the start of the day since the Bean is still a big time napper.

I'm keenly looking forward to the wild blackberries at the end of our street to ripen...

Fingers crossed I'll take the camera out and shoot a few of those berries before they fill up my bucket

Change of Plans

So, since the number of entries for the Melissa and Doug giveaway was way below their requested number I decided to continue on with the draw and send the lucky winner a little something else.

Having made that decision I visited random.org and entered in the number of entries I had for the giveaway (including the extra ones I had promised to those who had commented on or before the original deadline) and out of the 74 qualified entrants number 37 was picked.

Congratulations to Seattlemom, who was the lucky name behind my random number! I'll post another day about what I'll be sending her.

It's Canada Day

and I'm doing laundry, changing the beds (the ones that aren't being slept in anyway) and getting ready to spend some time with friends at a BBQ later this afternoon.

I wanted to say that I love my country, I love that I am Canadian and that I know full well that we have a long road ahead of us before we can become as great as the potential within us hints at. We are a country built on diversity and tolerance but there are some of us who still hold tight to intolerance towards the aboriginals whose land this was before it was taken from them.

I have a First Nations friend who puts it best. Sonny is an amazing political artist and although I don't get as much face time with him (or many of my other arty friends for that matter) I always enjoy seeing what he's working on and hearing what he has to say. I invite you to click on the link to Sonny's blog.