Friday Mix

A little eye candy for the last day of the month. A new bowl made with paper I am in LOVE with... Feeling a little homesick seeing Parliament Hill getting ready for the big celebration tomorrow... Some necklaces I am coveting... The hair I would get if I wasn't such a big chicken and was willing to spend more than four minutes fixing it in the morning (could my hair ever be this shiny?)... "Remote Control Jack" (a co-workers son) cracks me up! I want to learn embroidery so I can put this scooter girl on every t-shirt I own... Jimmy asking "How many more miles???" on the way to the mountains last weekend.
Happy Canada Day everyone!

Second Day of Summer ...

Ugh! It's hot!
Luckily David and I are leaving tomorrow for four days up in the Blue Ridge mountains. David is going to golf at his favourite course and Jimmy and I are going to hike and laze about.

35 Years of Papier Mache

When I was a girl - four or five perhaps, I remember making papier mache maracas with my mum. We would take a burned out light bulb, papier mache it with strips of newspaper and flour glue, paint it, and then mum would break the glass inside (with a hammer?) and magic! Colourful, homemade musical instrument. I don't know how many I made as a kid... Did we do this once a month? Once a year? (Ruth, do you have this memory?) I must ask my mum if she saved any of them.
The white bowl is made with paper Ruth sent me. Canadian money paper! If you look closely you can see a 0 from a 10 dollar bill in the lower right.

This is the life ...

I had such a great day yesterday. I had the day off, and before I went to sleep Wednesday night, I made a list of all the things I wanted to get done.
Laundry. Cleaning. Papier Mache. Sorting Mail. All sorts of to-do items that I could look back on at the end of the day and think "look at all the things I got done".
But Thursday morning, I opened the door and it was just too perfect out. Sunny, but not too hot. Breezy, but not too breezy. No humidity. So I ditched my list, and spent the day being a tourist. I walked to a coffee shop after my shower, and watched the people go to work. I came home, grabbed Jimmy and played frisbee at a park down the street. Lunch was at an outdoor cafe downtown, reading a book, sipping my water, eating black bean cakes, watching the world go by. It was still too nice to contemplate chores inside, so I continued on to Trade Street with all the galleries and shops. I found two great wicker chairs for the front room, stopped for tea and cake and got inspired by all the cool stuff. By 4:00pm I was getting worn out, so I made my way home, heated up some garlic lemon pasta leftovers and flopped down for a lazy evening.

Dreaming of NYC

To-Do

I am looking forward to all these things this weekend:
• seeing this movie
• going to this store
• reading this book
• eating at this cafe

Hope Springs Eternal

My favourite tea is Earl Grey. My favourite time to drink Earl Grey is 4:00pm. My favourite thing to have with my Earl Grey is a plate of Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies. Jimmy's favouite thing is when I drop a cookie on the floor.

Sunday Leisure

Last summer David and I had a habit of going for breakfast and browsing the complimentary Sunday Times. The thing is so big I always left wanting to take it with me just so I could finish the articles. So I signed up for Sunday delivery at home. My Sunday afternoons are often spent on the backyard swing, Sunday Times in lap, Earl Grey in cup, Jimmy napping at side. I am still careful about monitering my angst levels, so sometimes I pass over the political and world news and head straight for the arts and leisure sections - uninformed but happy.

Have scanner, will travel.

My first scan! And my first post for the web-site Illustration Friday.
Not my usual style (as you will see as I get more things scanned), but I did several of these draw without looking portraits in school and always thought they were very interesting. David is off golfing today and I am happy-happy playing in my studio, making some papier mache forms and now being a scanning fool :-)

Creativity Corner

Amazon just emailed me to say my new scanner is en route and should arrive by the weekend :-) I am excited about being able to post some of my doodles and illustrations. It is the first step towards becoming an Illustrator (capital I). There I said it. Now I feel compelled to backspace and erase it. It's that whole, if you put it out into the Universe things will happen thing that seems so scary. Fear of saying it outloud and then failing. Or fear of succeeding and then discovering that it isn't actually what I want.
Then I listen to the news, and think, what the heck am I stressing about??!

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