The year of the Ledger

 I think I have posted the rest of the ledger pages that I did this past year, satisfying the themes of 10 other artists.  My theme was the month of February and this is the page that I did for myself.  I have chosen February before, another year when we did this, and so this time i decided to put a little humor in it.

When looking through old photographs, I found these people in my grandmother's old photo box.  I just couldn't resist her.  I also found a vintage ad for lipstick in an old Movie magazine which I thought would go perfectly with the theme.

Actually, this guy was in a different photo, but he seems to be looking longingly at something, so why not her!  I will have to show you my bookful of February pages that i have received from others!

Family Art

On Sunday we took Danielle to The Center for a papermaking workshop.  

It was fun!  There were seed packets too, so you could sprinkle some seeds in and make "plantable notecards". 

Everyone loved the spring colors of paper and Shari, our instructor, made it a very happy time!  Now the papers are drying and then maybe Danielle will make some little cards out of hers or I will show her how to make the cover for a little book!

surprise!

Yesterday i found a love note written on my deck.

It must be Spring, there's romance in the air.

I used to find little notes here and there, years ago, but not for a long time.

Henri says "Hmpf!  Never mind that mushy stuff - let's play ball!"

Let's play!

I found this wonderful little solution for holding playing cards for Danielle's little hands.  When she plays "Let's Fish" with Uncle Mark, she can't hold them all and they usually set up a barrier so her cards can't be seen.  The Fellowcrafters make these and they are for sale in The Center's little Gift Shop!  It's two beautifully decorated circles sewn together and the cards slide right inbetween.  She loved it!  Very nice!

a first sign of spring

Look who's peeking out!  The Snowdrops!  The first green of Spring.  What a "feel good" greeting at The Center yesterday when I arrived for drawing class.

And I'm still drawing winter snow scenes.  I love snow scenes but i better hurry up and finish because I won't be in that mood very long!

Marching on with March...

 Yesterday was the beginning class of a new collage session.  We worked on creating papers for our spring and color collages.  Here Marge is rolling a first layer of acrylic paint on her gessoed tissue.

 Sandy, applying some beautiful spring colors.

 Moving on, we made some Serendipity papers.  Here's Denise tearing and choosing her scraps to paste on.

 Serendipity paper!  Now we'll cut them into inchies and they will be nice little additons to a bigger collage.

 Judy is deciding on what colors she plans to use.

 Meanwhile, Mary Ann brought in her lovely winter piece from last session and cut the tape off the edges - an exciting finish!

 Marge applied a haiku transfer in her beautiful lettering.

 Soon it was on to an afternoon of quilting.  Here Denise is helping Shirley and Esther with their birdhouses.

 Denise had made extra birdhouses, so she decided to use one to make a banner to hang outside her house.  I like that idea!

 Lois, busy with quilting her "woodsy" birdhouse piece for her wall.

 Here they are, just waiting for those birdies to come!

 And mine.  Almost done - just to do the "fancy" quilting pattern on the borders and then the finishing seams.

And here's my little "fun" project from Soscrappy .  Adding onto my blue January square and my red February square is my green March square.  As I have said before, I am doing this "string" quilting and it is so much fun!  I will end up putting together all the squares representing the months of the year - for something - I don't know what yet.

Feelings

Writing about feelings.  That was our assignment for this week.  "A poem is a way of assembling a little bit of order amid chaos" is what Ted Kooser says in "The Poetry Home Repair Manual".  This is the book that we are using as a guide in our poetry class.  Here I have attempted some prose.  It has not been critiqued yet, but I just needed to write something today.

Holding Back

It was one of those coldest
days when the sky just hung
silent.  Silently waiting.
Everything seemed to stop.
Life on hold, an intermission
at the theatre, holding back,
but the clocks ticked on
relentlessly reminding us
that this too would pass.
Life would go on - and
our words choked
until the heavens opened
as they brought you
to your resting place.