Decoration everywhere

  I like to decorate everywhere, a couple of times a year. Halloween, Christmas, and easter, are when I tend to do a lot of decorating.

My door wreath carries the bronze theme and lends a sparkling greeting to anyone who comes to my door durning the holiday season.

  The mantle and coffee table/end tables also get decorations, even though they will be rearranged by a certain black fuzzball. He thinks he can do it better, and I am forever picking things up or recovering things he has removed. If it's got feathers, he thinks it's his.

  I really enjoy decorating, and have the uninterrupted time to do as I please. By hitting the sales, I can afford to indulge my decorating. My bedroom also gets an extensive amount of decorating, although not for the holidays, just by the seasons.

  The bathroom carries a major theme of mermaids, with wall art, paintings and a fabric mermaid that presides over a corner all her own.

As the season come and go, so to will Christmas. But for now I shall enjoy my decor, as well as share with any who come to view it here. Maybe you will be influenced by my designs, and use some of my ideas in your own decorating for the season. So for this bronze, green and cream season of 2008, I wish you all a wonderful heartfelt, christmas blessing. And may your new year be a joyous one.

That time of year again!

  Well it's that time of year again. We will be decorating, baking, wrapping, and in general... going nuts. My favorite thing to do is getting the tree up. I have been decorating in different colors and motif's now for a few years. I stopped doing the family tree when I no longer had a family to enjoy it.

  Anyway, I love decorating, and as an artist it's something I do very well, for the most part. Last year right after Christmas, I started to search out bronze ornaments, during the sales. I was able to pick up a lot of different designs for just a fraction of their original cost. I also decided to use a kiwi shade of green and cream colors to accent the bronze I was finding. There were several different shades of bronze as well, which gave more interest to what I would be doing.

  I also found bronze berries, flowers and leaves, as well as lovely green velvet holly leaves in the right shade. A cream flower, as well as bronze poinsettias, would make lovely focal points. I also found a few glass ornaments like the slice of pie, mushrooms, "orange" slices, and large kiwi green icicles. I use a lot of bronze wired ribbon in a couple of different shades. 

  The flower and berry "nosegays" are a favorite of mine and I always make up a few each year. I like to have birds in my tree, but this year there are large bronze butterflies. A real find and most unexpected. I also was able to get 2 strands of cream pine cone lights, that are wonderful mixed into the other colors. There are bronze pine cones as well.

  Around the bottom of the tree are the "unbreakable" ornaments. Those are there for the adventuresome kitties that always find their way into the scheme of the tree decorations. They like to think they are one {tree decoration} or that it's all just for them to play in. Either way, I have the plastic ones on the bottom row. Most of the time they don't look to bad either. I also like to find small little balls to go towards the top of the tree, and anywhere they fit, that larger ones don't.

  I also have a strand of green lights and a strand of orange lights. I was hoping for bronze, but the orange lends its-self well to the color scheme. As you can see, not all ornaments have to be little/large balls. And no you don't have to have garland or tinsel. The tree topper was a plain rusty looking snowflake. I added the glitter, and finding bronze glitter was not easy.

  I still need to make a tree skirt, and the stocking that will hang on the fireplace mantel.

I like to get my tree up by the first of Dec. and down by the new year. All in all this tree is a keeper!

And more done

This is what it will look like when I am done with it. It's coming along, but why o why do I always pick the hard ones to do? lol. This is not an easy pattern to create. I'm ending up with a really mis- alined square. There is lots of room to square it up thankfully, but it's still a mess until that process is completed.Mostly bias problems, and any quilters out there will know what I am talking about. It will still make for a nice quilt when I am done, but 50 squares? I've only finished 12 so far, and I must get back to another project. So this will have to wait for a bit. I shall do a few and then work on something else. In time it will all get done. I just hope when I am sewing all the squares together, they line up right.

At Last! The French Nosegay Quilt

I wanted to start on this quilt many times in the past, but I was trying to finish up other projects and quilts before starting on something new. And so my Dresden Plate Quilt is finished and now at long last..... {drum roll please}..... I can start on the French Nosegay Quilt.

  It is a bit tricky, but with care I should be able to get it all together, and in one piece. The backing on this quilt will be a deeper yellow flannel. The background to the right here seems to be a bit washed out, but it is a pale yellow.

  It shouldn't take to long to piece all the squares. Well, with fifty of them it might take a bit.

  But I am up for the challenge, and really looking forward to it. I have no real idea how long it will take me and I will be working on other things as I go along. I have several items that must be finished, with deadlines to meet, and people looking for the end results.

  I enjoy making quilts, and when one is done, there is a real sense of having done something.

What is it?

  Have you ever wondered about all those self help books out there? I had a conversation with a friend of mine a couple of days ago, where she talked about some self help books she had been reading. One of the things she brought up was pertaining to Negative thought, and does that effect your life? Or the jest of it anyway.

  I was reminded of the book about the power of positive thinking. More or less the same thing, just a different angle. My feelings about it was the idea that if your busy searching for negative things, or your letting anger rule your emotions, you will only draw, attract, and find anything and everything that has to do with anger. In other words.... look for the devil and that is all you will find.

  I have never understood jealousy. It is one emotion I never let take hold over anything. I confront it, dive into it, feel it, and then it holds no power over me. There is nothing, although not  easy to do, about it I care to deal with. I can't for the life of me see how someone could live so many years, and not exercise that ghost. It lies with-in that persons fear of confronting their own demons. I have seen people go to great lengths just so they could ignore this problem.

  The real problem is that it will spread though out every faucet of your life and color everything you try to do. Until you confront it, and deal with it, it will continue to effect all aspects of your life, and every creative project you attempt.

  I don't like dealing with jealousy. It's a nasty thing to have that in your face. I can't imagine living with it for forty one years.

  Well, the moral of the story is.... face your own demons, and leave others to face theirs.

  Well, that's it for tonight, I'm yawning so much I have to take it to bed. But... I'll be back!