Time for another Photo MashUP and I’m loving the definition on these little buttercup flowers. Keeping the blue-green highlight hues was my goal and I’m loving how it turned out. I’m working on creating a delft colorway of this as well and so far it’s looking really nice. I’ll keep you posted on how that one turns out. :0)
Wishing you a beautiful week!
My husband and I just spent a fabulous weekend in Napa with my sister and brother in law. What an oasis and retreat from regular life. It is hard to go there and not come home with a boat load of gorgeous pictures (and amazing wine). I came home with both (yay!). Feeling inspired I decided to make another “Photo MashUP” for my series. This one incorporates a beautiful ivy covered wall outside Oxbow Market, and a gorgeous variegated tree at Chappellet Winery. I’m loving how this turned out. It makes me dream for some autumn weather and Fall color.
Stay tuned for more! Wishing you a colorful and fabulous week my friends!
xo
Happy Mash-UP! I’ve been messing around with some photo editing programs, filters, and textures that I’ve acquired over the years, and truth be told I’m having a little too much distracting fun doing it. I am LOVING the results so much that I decided to start a little series of them. Here’s the first installment – “Floral et Granit”.
Below are the two base images that I used to get this finished product
Wishing you a fabulously colorful and awesome week my friends!
Hi my friends! I’m coming off of a month of crazy-awesomeness as my family celebrated the graduations of both my boys (college and high school) and my beautiful niece’s wedding reception (the U.S. one since her actual ceremony was in Jamaica). It has been a big fat happy blur of activity and I think we are now ready to settle back into a regular rhythm of life, though this past month has been pretty awesome so I’m not complaining. I love how this color palette turned out because it’s a rainbow, the perfect representation of the hope, promise, and joy I wish for my boys and my niece & nephew as they enter in to their respective new exciting life chapters. It also represents my wish for you and for myself as well: Hope, Promise, & Joy!
sending you light & love
Create a fun & fabulous custom A-2 Envelope!
I started making these magazine envelopes when I was in high school. I loved using my favorite fashion, fitness, and architectural magazines to create unique little containers for my crafted cards and letters. I’d even opt to not use the envelope a store bought card came with to make a special one that was more personalized. These envelopes really gave a fun touch to my correspondence but they also were an economical way to fancy up a regular letter, or get by when I didn’t have any envelopes on hand, which is what brought back this DIY project to me. I had a card that didn’t have an envelope so I immediately pulled out my magazines and started creating. It had been years since I last made one of these envelopes and I had so much fun doing it that I figured I’d make a post and a template for you.
*Note – the template I’ve included here is for a card size of 4″ x 5.5″ and an envelope size of A-2 – using a typical 8.5 x 11 size magazine page. For larger sized envelopes you can adapt this template but just be sure your magazine page is large enough.
Happy Mother’s Day to all my Mama friends!
This is definitely one of my favorite days of the year. I hope you all enjoy pampering the Moms in your lives, and/or if you’re a Mom then make sure you do some self-pampering. You’ve earned it!
ALSO – For my Subscribers I’ve made a couple of special printable Mother’s Day Cards and Envelopes ‘Fun Freebies’ for you just in time for the big day (sneak peek below). Enjoy! BTW – If you aren’t a subscriber yet just click on the “subscribe” button and you’ll be all set!
This past weekend I had the ultimate treat of visiting my friend Jennifer’s ranch in Ventura to peruse her Spring Tag Sale. Jennifer has an amazing sense of style and design and is in the midst of opening a shop that will house her vision for “home & garden & retro & anything else amazing that I’d love to buy”. I’m so excited for her and I’ll be sure to announce more info as her plans take shape, but for now I just had to post this color palette (above) for you because I thought it was an amazing one. These were just a few of the pics I took. There were so many nooks and crannies to preview and explore and I came home with some amazing new & vintage table cloths and tea towels, home grown lavender sachets in hand embroidered pouches, and vintage greeting card packs! I can’t wait for Jennifer to open her shop!
One more fun note … Jennifer’s husband is planting citrus and olive groves and soon they will be sharing the fruit and oil they will be harvesting to the world! I can’t wait for that because that is my retirement dream! I’ll be watching closely and asking lots of questions as they progress for sure!
Wishing you a treasure filled week! Have some fun!
love & light
Ahimsa is one of the yamas of the Yoga Sutra and it is most recognizably translated to mean “non-violence”. If you practice yoga you will often hear your teacher reminding you throughout the practice to work through your positions with ahimsa. Not that anyone would become violent per say in a yoga class, but we all know that if our thoughts could be heard aloud it would be mind blowing how horrendous and vitriolic we can be to ourselves and to others. Whether it is psychological violence or physical violence, injury occurs, which is why ahimsa is a foundation to not only yoga but to life.
So here’s my story about this…
In addition to some new branches of my art business I’m super excited about and setting into motion, I’m also starting what will end up being a year long intensive yoga training. I’m excited and scared by it all, but mostly excited. I’ve been running on adrenaline, caffeine, and yoga, and it’s been awesome! Until the last two days when my body decided it was done and needed a rest …….. enter ahimsa.
I guess somewhere along the way I stopped remembering to treat myself with love and kindness. I forgot to embrace the journey I was starting, and just plain started to regress into nasty self hate talk. It started with some art I was inspired to create but just couldn’t get to look right while sketching. The hate talk came on with a vengeance : “You suck! Can’t you sketch better then that? Seriously you’ve been working on the computer too long – you can’t even sketch anymore! You should just quit!”. This then moved on to a computer glitch (I’ve had many lately) and I lost some work that had taken 3 hours to do. More hate talk : “You should know by now to save your file! How lame are you? I can’t believe you didn’t save the file and now you have to start all over again! You’re so stupid!”. Next up was yoga class where I watched my limber and amazing teacher blissfully glide into full lotus position (Padmasana). I don’t know what I was thinking because I’ve never been able to do this pose as of yet, but in my ego-mind I guess because I knew I had been working so hard on my training I felt that this particular pose would suddenly be available to me. Well, as you might guess it wasn’t, and I felt like a fool. Here’s how that hate talk went : “You look like such an idiot trying to force your foot like that! Who do you think you are? Ouch – you are going to tear something! I can’t believe you ever thought you could do this! You should just quit now and save yourself a whole lot of pain!”.
It was at that moment, when all I wanted to do was crawl into a fetal position and cry, that I finally remembered ahimsa. Ahimsa to be patient with my art, knowing that practice and patience will bring forth the art I’m envisioning in my minds eye. Ahimsa to know that technology is not full proof and that I am human and sometimes forget to take steps (like saving my file). There also might be a greater reason for the need to start over again. Finally Ahimsa to know that my yoga journey is just that … a journey / a life practice … and that even though today my body may not be able to enter into all the poses I wish to enter I will get there eventually with practice, and I WILL SIT FULL LOTUS one day!
Today I am enjoying some play time, some rest time, and some unwind time …. I’m helping a friend out by painting on wine glasses and vases that she will be giving to her students at her upcoming yoga retreats, and as I paint they are making me smile because on the vase is a lotus flower and on the wine glass is the sanskrit symbol for OM. You’ve got to love how the Universe comes full circle in times of growth!
Wishing you Peace & Love
