Art for Heart's Sake

Summer Time is Here!

Yikes, summer time is here and I had just written a very newsy post for you when Monty came along and hit a key just as I had everything highlighted to change the font.  Yes, you guessed it, he deleted it!!  Aaaaaggghhhhh... I need to get back outside so I will fill you in tomorrow.. Dang it was such a good post too!  I love you Monty, I love you Monty.. oh yes luckily I really do!  smiles...

More Tealight/Trinket Holders!

Hi, I wanted to share some more of my tealight/trinket holders.  These ones have a Christmas theme.. eeek yes it's not that long until Christmas so I thought I'd have some of these for sale at my October market stall.  I'm also going to display these and more of my creations this coming Thursday when a garden group comes to visit. 

The next ones are just glittered and are so pretty!

I managed to get some witloof and lettuce seedlings planted in the kitchen garden yesterday and am hoping to get some kohl rabi planted today too.  This is the first time I've raised them all from seed for our garden and it is so satisfying.  My first heritage tomatoes are ready for sale too so keep positive energy flowing to send customers to me!  I'm opening my nursery today, so fingers crossed!!  Smiles..

BEYOND EXCITED!!

Hi, I couldn't wait until tomorrow to share this with you.  I mentioned I was working on an altered brush as part of Donna Downey's Altered Brush Project for the bathroom walls in her studio in the USA.  Today mine was posted (along with others) on her blog and I just had to share.  Scroll down and you will see my hot pink, lemon and gold creation.  I am SO HAPPY!  How cool to think something I've created is in a studio in the USA along with loads of others.  What a fabulous idea to brighten up a bathroom.  I for one would be spending way too much time in there looking at them all!!  I hope this link works.  Smiles..

http://donnadowney.typepad.com/simply_me/

Tealight Holders & a Re-Swab!

Hi, yay it's Friday, the sun is shining and the birds are singing!  I'm up earlier than usual because John tends to start work at 7.30am on Fridays from now on because we are heading towards the busiest season in the Nelson/Tasman District.  It's an interesting area to live in because we are fairly tourist-driven here.  People from all over the country (and overseas) tend to flock here during the summer so there are more restaurants open etc.  We know the silly season has started when motorhomes, campervans and caravans start appearing in ''flocks'' on the roads.

Yesterday I went to the doctor and he swabbed my throat just in case it's Strep.  He also gave me a prescription for antibiotics, to be filled if the swab results are positive (later today or Monday).  Hmmm imagine my frustration when the practice nurse phoned me in the evening to say the doctor hadn't put my name on the swab so I have to go and have another one this morning!  Ack...  this also means if it is strep I have a further delay before I can start the antibiotics.  I could start them now anyway but that would mean if it isn't strep I'm taking them for nothing and would have to stop.  I'd rather not do that particularly as I had a lot of antibiotics when I had that nasty French sinus virus.. giggle, that rhymes!

Here are a couple of photos of tealight (or trinket) holders.  I love making these and am going to sell them for NZ$10 each or two for NZ$18.    I've made two of each just in case customers want two as a centrepiece for their dining tables.

They look a bit opaque like this but when a tealight candle is burning inside them they look SO pretty!  Í'll share some Christmas ones tomorrow. 

I'm going to sow some pea seeds today.  The doctor has told me to rest as much as I can but oh dear, I have so much to do in the garden especially as there is a garden group coming on 4 October!  I will try not to overdo it, but really I just can't sit and do nothing!  Smiles..

 

Who Pulled my Plug Out??!!

Hi, giggle, that's the only way I can describe me today.. I feel as though someone has pulled my plug out and all of my energy has drained away!  I'm off to the doctor this morning because my left tonsil isn't getting any better and I just feel so pooped.  Really annoying because I have so much to do before the first garden group comes to visit the garden next Thursday (eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!).

It rained off and on yesterday so I didn't achieve anything outside except walking the dog (I only took him for a fairly short one).  We went grocery shopping in the afternoon and I did get Mum's present wrapped and posted.  Here's a photograph of her gift tag.  The back of it is painted pale gold with a hint of the blue and edged with the red so we could write our birthday message on it.  I love this tag!

This technique is so much fun and so easy..  I just literally splooshed and splotched colour onto the tag (which is fairly solid chipboard, gessoed first) and then added alcohol ink mixative to the paint and watched the effects happen.  The reddish hue is a Stazon ink refill in Black Cherry.  My gold paint was watered down in a dropper bottle which made it easier to get plenty of liquid onto the tag.  Needless to say I had to wait quite a while for it to dry.

Here is a photo of the ''thing'' I did the other day that inspired this gift tag.  Exactly the same technique and the effects are so amazing!

Tomorrow I will share a few photos of the tealight holders I've been decorating. 

My nursery is open to day but I will have to shove my sign into the hedge when I go to the doctor!  Time for a cup of tea!  Smiles..

Monty has a new Talent...

.. one that I'm not too happy about - he appeared in our bedroom this morning with something in his mouth.  Imagine my angst when I realised it was a birds egg from a thrush' nest.  Aaaggghhhhh not impressed at all - he's a nest napper!  Thrushes are such special birds and we had a disastrous season here last year when we lost 6 adults for various reasons.  From memory I don't think Sabah was one of them!  Bless his heart, Sabah caught the occasional bird but he certainly didn't do it often.  I think we were very lucky with him - he was an indoor cat for his first couple of years because of being in Singapore (it was too dangerous to let him out) so he didn't learn bad habits at an early age.  Hmmm Monty seems to be a different story.  I'm just hoping when he gets older he might get bored with it (here's hoping anyway!!!).

I have realised much to my distress that I am fighting off tonsilitis.  My throat is gradually getting worse, oh pookies.  I don't want to have to go to the doctor but if it keeps getting worse I will have to.  Oh bother and darn it!  I'm hoping it's better by tomorrow pm or I may have to put off going to see my elderly friend Melva again which would be so sad as I know she looks forward to talking plants with me.

On a much brighter note, I suddenly realised yesterday that I needed to make Mum a gift tag pronto because I needed to get her present in the mail today so I set to work with my acrylics and the alcohol mixative and ink refill I used the day before.  I am so happy with the tag, it looks amazing and is definitely a one-off.  I've just sealed it (with an artist's fixative) and will take a photo before I send it off.

I also managed to get a few more vegetable plants into the ground before it rained and I uncovered my other vegetable plants so they could get a nice dose of rain.  It's raining horizontally at the moment and is fairly warm, perfect for spring growth (including the weeds, pookies, giggle). 

I'd better go and wrap up Mum's present because we need to post it this pm when we go grocery shopping.  Smiles..

Paint Fun & I Must Take Photos

Hi, yesterday I had such fun in my studio!  I also dusted and vacuumed the house (blech, giggle) and potted on some more tomato plants.  My fingers are crossed that I am going to be able to sell all of the tomatoes I've potted up from seed.. normally I would be selling them to Mapua Country Trading and it just feels wrong to not be.  Pookies!!   I'm sure I will sell some of them at least and they will be looking fabulous by my first market on 20 October.  Which reminds me, I must remember to liquid feed them in a week or so to keep them growing strongly till then.

One of the things I did in the afternoon was to tghrow caution to the wind and just have some paint fun.  I got out a small board canvas and started with distress stain in a green and one in turquoise (not that you can see that in the finished product, giggle).  Then I used a very intense reinking colour plus some splotches of gold paint I'd watered down and had in a ''dripper''.  Add to that some Alcohol ink dispersing liquid and WOW what a cool effect I got.  Needless to say I'm saying all this and thinking ''I need to take loads more photographs of the process of things''.  I PROMISE I will take a photo of it today for you.  When the paint was wet it almost looked like enamelling and I can't wait to see what it looks like today.  It will have lost its gloss of course, but how exciting.

I tend to be scared to just throw paint at a canvas but I really must try to do it more often, it's such fun.

Today I'm off to the optometrist to get the new lens for my glasses fitted.  When I got my progressive lenses one of them had a fault in it so they are replacing it.  I so wish I didn't have to go out but needs must!  It's drizzling this morning and that's meant to change to steady rain this pm.  I wanted to get some more vegie seedlings into the garden this morning but I don't think I'll have time.  Oh well, tomorrow morning will do.  I must finish my breakfast and walk the dog.  Smiles (big paint happy ones)..

Hello Monday Morning!

Hi, I hope you've all had (or are still having) a wonderful weekend.  I thought I'd start each week by saying ''hello'' to various things on a Monday.  If you don't like this, please tell me!! 

Today I'm saying hello to:

*    the first ducklings to appear.. 11 khaki campbells and 2 little yellow beauties

     (so gorgeous)

*    a bit of cloud.. rain is in the forecast for Wednesday

*    no energy!  I think I gardened too much over the weekend, giggle!

*    a slight sore throat still, ugh

*    oodles of beautiful blossom (photo to follow)

*    the water man coming to fix a leak on our property (arrived while I was eating

      breakfast)

*    tomato seedlings just begging to be potted on.

Have a fabulous week wherever you are.  Until tomorrow.. I'm off to the garden.  Smiles..

Our Blueberry Bushes Don't Like Me!

Hi and phew what a busy day I had in the garden yesterday!  I managed to get the raspberry patch thoroughly weeded and then turned around to start on the blueberry patch.

I planted five blueberry bushes in this one bed about 4 years ago and two seasons ago we got a great crop that went on and on, just from two of the bushes.  The other two never really did take off - not helped by Mr Hare who kept helping himself to the branches.  Ugh!  I have since replaced a couple of them but to no avail.  I have them in perfect soil conditions (they love acidic soil), they are very well mulched but except for one, they just aren't thriving.  Yesterday I realised this is an understatement - one of the larger ones has died completely so really I only have one healthy specimen.  They do have to compete with couch grass and I think this could be part of the problem but there's not much I can do about that .  I do keep it under control but the roots are so hard to get rid of completely.  Sigh!  I think I will just have to look after the one healthy bush and forget the others.  Sometimes plants simply don't thrive no matter what you do - perhaps a personality clash!??!!  Giggle.

John spent a lot of time weedeating yesterday morning including in the kitchen garden and also mowed lots of the paddock on the ride-on and used the motor mower for my KG paths.  All in all the rroperty looks lovely even though there is still more lawn to mow and garden to weed.  Today I'm heading back out to the blueberry patch to get rid of as much couch grass as I can.

I hope this post isn't boring - all I am talking about is weeding!  Crikey! 

It's another beautiful, beautiful day and I have put my nursery sign out again today just to see if I can tempt a customer or two.  Yesterday one car came up the drive and I got very excited - it was a neighbour coming to see the nursery and yes, you guessed it, I ended up giving him some forget-me-not seedlings, one hardy geranium that seeds very well and some bog sage (a lovely salvia) for his bees (he and his son have hives on their property)..  hmmm ah well, I couldn't bear to sell him the hardy geranium because he's a neighbour.  Maybe I need to harden up!!!!  Giggle.. 

Time to open my studio and throw myself into the garden head first!  Smiles..

Up and Out There!

Hi, yikes it's 9.20am on Saturday morning - my nursery sign is out (please please please let me have at least one customer today), the washing is on, I've added to and emptied my wheelbarrow-load of weeds and I'm about to head out to the kitchen garden to carry on attacking the raspberry patch.

I started weeding it yesterday late pm and I am determined to get it completely done, hopefully by the end of today or at least by the end of tomorrow.  It's really! hard work because it is full of couch grass but luckily raspberries are tough so I can really ''go for it'' with my big fork.

I got my hair trimmed yesterday pm which was lovely but I've realised she cut more off the bottom than I would like.. eeeeek I was enjoying the length so much but of course it will grow again.  Just frustrates me when I look in the mirror!

Oh yes, fingers crossed, I've let Bertie and his girls out today hoping and praying that Monty won't chase them again.  I couldn't bear to leave them in for another day because the weather if just so gorgeous and they've been in their coop (with a run downstairs) all week.  If Monty chases them today that might have to be the end of their free-ranging because I can't risk Bertie getting too stressed out again. 

Must away and leap with gusto into the garden.  Smiles..