Springtime in the DESERT

Recently I took some photos of the springtime blooms around my house and neighborhood,

I thought I'd share a few with you. Okay it's more than a few, but I got carried away by the beauty of it all. A lot of people think that in the desert there really isn't much of a springtime or many blooms at all. I wanted to show you all that aren't very familiar with the desert that there is quite a bit of blooming going on in the spring. What never ceases to amazes me is that some of the most magnificent and incredibly beautiful flowers bloom on cactus's. It's such a contrast because you see the thorns that are long, sharp and just waiting to poke you, and in between those thorns are the prettiest flowers. They are big and bright and oh so beautiful.

You'll find that most people either love the desert or hate it, me, I adore the desert. You can find such beauty here everywhere you look. You should see this mountain behind my house, it's truly breathtaking. It's called the Superstition Mountains and there is also all kinds of tales about the mountain from centuries ago. About the miners looking for gold and people finding treasure up at the top of the mountain. Supposedly a lot of people still think there is gold in the mountains. Maybe I'll try and take a picture of the mountain to show you all next. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my pictures of the desert in bloom.

This is my entry for the "Girly Girl" Challenge over at the Stampotique site. I cut out a bunch of brand names from a magazine, copied them and then colored them in with different colors. If shopping isn't what being a "Girly Girl" is all about, then I don't know what is?

I can tell now that I have picked up different influences in my artwork from some of the blogs I frequent. TumbleFish being one and maybe even a small about of Zetti (Teesha Moore) in there too. The last thing I want to do is copy someone else's work, but if I can learn from them and make it my own, then that's completely different. I can only hope that the people I've learned from take it as a compliment.

Well as it turns out I'm not so cut off from the Internet world as I thought I was. My step-dad is letting me use his very old, and very antiquated laptop until I get my beautiful DELL system back. Yeah!! Beggars can't be choosers. Now I can post on my blog as well, however lately I've been really bad about posting artwork, I need to give myself a swift kick in the butt and start posting more artwork. I just feel like I went into slow motion this last winter and I have yet to speed it up a bit. I tell ya what, I wouldn't wish this type of arthritis on my worst enemy. But I don't talk about that, too depressing. Moving on...........

At any rate, I wanted to tell you all if you haven't checked out Maya Road on their Facebook page yet, do it when you get a chance. It's worth it and as we all know their products are amazing. They are also having a wee giveaway on their Facebook page so if you leave a comment, you never know, you might win. But you have to be fast, I think they pick the winner tomorrow.

I also wanted to thank my new follower for joining my humble blog. I haven't had a chance to figure out who exactly it is yet, but I am very grateful and I welcome you and hope you find something positive or inspirational here.

Oh..and since I can't post any artwork for a few days or however long it takes for my computer to be fixed, I found these older photos on my step-dad's laptop I thought I'd share a couple with you. Hopefully I've never shown them before? This is when my sister and brother in law and I went to Key West. It wasn't all that long ago, but probably about 2 years. This is me and Steph in the bar after several cocktails and then on the beach at sunset. And the other photo is us leaving Key West on this big boat at sunset (going back to Fort Meyers). Isn't that the most beautiful photo of a sunset with water and everything? And to make things even more perfect, that sailboat just happen to be cruising on by when I was taking the photo. It really was a breathtaking sunset.

Talk to you soon. Hugs all around.

Computer Crashed &/or Virus

Just to give my viewers a heads up, this morning when I logged on I found out that I have a virus/worm, or I have a crashed computer. Not sure which? Dropped it off at Staples for repairs, will probably be four to five days.

Is it just me or are a lot of people having crashes right now? I know Marsha at TumbleFish had problems and then someone else on their blog but I can't think of their name right now. At any rate, boy does it suck. You really realize how much you do use the computer when you don't have it anymore.

Talk to you soon and take care.

I can't even believe it's been since March 17th since I last posted. For anyone who likes to follow me and notices when I'm gone, I sincerely apologize for that. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am so honored to have 54 followers and I just want to make those followers happy or inspired in some way. I just hope that when I do post you get some sort of inspiration or something positive from my postings?

I haven't been posting much for a couple reasons. The first being my physical issues. I'm just finding that as I get older, I work a lot slower than I already did and I just have to get used to this new pace of mine. The second reason being is that I was working on something for Helga at ArtChix. And third, I just haven't found the time lately. I hope my wonderful followers understand?

These tags I made are a little different I know, but they are just something I was playing with the last few nights. I first did a random, free-style background using paints, gesso, bubble wrap, a few different stencils, plastic lids, old cardstock that has had larger holes punched out of it and so on. Once dry I used a black felt tip pen to add more to the background such as tiny dots around the larger circles and various borders. I then stitched all of the edges of each tag. I now wish I had used black thread, but I used white. I wanted to incorporate some acetate pieces made by Hambly which were journaling spots. They have lines for writing on them obviously and then flourishes and swirls. I just thought instead of using them for journaling I wanted to use them as an additional texture piece. And I pretty much made all of the tags a "Bird" theme. The stamped birds are either from Invoke Arts or from Character Constructions. I colored in the stamped birds with Stampin Up colored pens &/or Twinkling H2O's. The acetate journaling spots were actually put over each stamped bird. I attached most of the acetate pieces by sewing them on and one of them I attached with brads. I finished the tags off with a small little sticker quote. Like I said, they are a little different, but sometimes different is good. I'm actually really pleased with how they look (except for one of them).

I'm in the process of making a few cards using Crafty Individuals new stamps. I will post those as soon as I'm done. They have the most amazing stamps and they just get better and better. If you haven't been over to their website, do yourself a favor and check out their wonderful products. If you've never been over to their website, the first thing I would recommend doing if you do go to check it out, is to look at the finished pieces in their Gallery. It just seems to me like no matter what someone makes using their papers, stamps &/or images, it comes out so beautifully because you basically can't go wrong. Can you tell I just love their products?