Well I have been so bad when it came to my blog.  Our move in September took so much out of me physically and emotionally I am now just getting back to my art and blogging.

I am loving our new nest and it took some adjusting to the 'smallness' of it as we always lived in a bigger home; but having said that I love my garden apartment...we have a small yard and a garden plot and we are on the lake which is so pretty in the summer and winter with lots of walking trails all around.

It was hard to let go of furniture that has been with me for years and art supplies I simply had no room for here.  All my pieces of furniture etc had a memory, but, it is a good lesson to learn to let go. I hate letting go of anyone or anything.

Now I am back to my art and looking forward to sitting outside with coffee and my easel in the mornings....hurry Spring please!!!

I am in the midst of working on a cabinet for our bathroom and also a swap in one of my groups. We are doing atcs - men and boys should be interesting to see what I come up with...I always go in one direction and finish in another...my muse and I don't always well hardly ever work well together....and she mostly wins.....grrrh.

I am going to try and keep this blog up daily even if it is with a new recipe instead of art.  I am on a kick right now of doing slow cooker freezer recipes so if I don't feel like cooking one night I can pot a meal in the slow cooker and let it go....yeah.

I love cooking but some days it does get in my way of doing things I want to finish and now I'll spend a couple days doing recipes and freezing them and then I won't have to worry about the off days.

I hope everyone had a great holiday in spite of our horrible weather.  I am not a fan of winter I like warm and hot!!!

I have been working on cards.  This is a window card made this morning.  I wanted to get more cards done but I seem to be so slow at this kind of art for some reason.

this is from the card class I took and I had fun making this one.

I just had to put up this cartoon....me bad!! I always said I would not go in to old age gracefully but would go in as a dirty old womyn.....yup that's the way I want it!!!!!

Have a great day everyone.  I do think Spring has actually sprung...now off to do some art.

A card for my daughter's birthday...

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.
Oscar Wilde

A couple more pages for a journal swap.

I Did a Flora Bowley online seminar. I really enjoyed her free expression of painting.  I am doing mine which is a work in progress but I now know what I want to add to complete it so hopefully it will be finished by the weekend...The little spot in the middle just needs some little thing to be added....

I am finally back to creating. So many things to accomplish, well, you know the feeling.  Here are a couple journal pages I have completed.

One day before spring and we have cold and snowy weather!!  The weather this winter reminds me of the winters we had as a kid.  Our winters have been fairly mild in the last years....I am so looking forward to warm weather again.

a couple cards I made....the golf one was an inspiration from another card I saw....

This is a painting my granddaughter and her girlfriend did for me for my birthday.  I just love this and it sits where I can see it every day and it always makes me smile...

Our Granddog Tucker who comes to spend every day with me while Mom and Dad work and the kids are in school.  Our Pepito loves him to death and has learned a great deal about being a dog from him.  Tucker has great patience.

A finished mixed media piece I did. It is in our bathroom because the colours look good in their.  I try to incorporate some personal images in my work...the love birds are from an Anniversary card from my hubby....

this is Pepito.  We brought him to his forever home October Thanksgiving weekend.  8 years old and about 7 of those years he was kept in a cage in a puppy mill and brought out by the neck and I guess carried around that way.  he didn't trust humans at all and couldn't be picked up or patted and therefore was wanted by no one...I saw him on the internet and fell in love immediately and made arrangements to go see him.  His foster Mom taught him so much...to walk up and down stairs and to walk on a leash..she picked him up and bonded with him and even got to pat him on occasion when he was feeling particularly trusting.  He has come so far in his little journey in our lives.  He circled the table all the time when he first came as that is all he knew how to do all those years in the crate...now he circles less and less and does happy tight little circles when ever we have been out or come down stairs in the morning.  He is happy and each day he becomes a little more trusting.  He comes up and gives me a kiss on the hand in the morning and will kiss me on the leg from behind...He will sit on the floor close to us now and will come and get treats...We are so lucky to have him.  He rules us all even the cats.

Sunday morning and my blog is finally fixed with a twist.  I wanted to call it Valerie my days in the studio but it won't let me do this without making another blog...NO WAY!! I like the look of my bellbookcandleblog so I am leaving that name as the title to come visit but on my page you'll see it say my days in the studio...I like that and it will probably confuse some people but what the heck...it will make life interesting until I get bored again...I never keep things the same...my Aquarious moon or sun.....

Today I will spend some time putting up some art I have done over the last few months and tidbits of other things my life has taken on in the time frame I've been away.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday.  It is sunny here in my part of the world.

I'm back....I think...

I belong to the sketchbookproject group and we are doing a monthly theme for chunky book pages.  Below are my pages for the month of August.  They are lots of fun to do and you don't have to do every month if you don't want to and that takes a lot of the pressure off...I enjoyed this month's theme, 'Wine Women and Song' but boy sometimes it is not easy to think up so many different ideas for one theme....

Yesterday was the day to get off my butt and stop procrastinating...get out to the conservation and take pictures of anything and everything to gain more experience with my camera...What a blast I had...I wondered around clicking here and clicking there.  If you look at the photos constructive help is always welcomed.  The picture of the tree trunk does anyone know what the heck is growing out of that trunk; you can see it on the front and also in the little hole in the trunk....the picture of the two exact flowers I put up because I have a hard time with some of the pictures....when I photo adjust them they of course become brighter but I really like some of the ones I left alone...the darker muted colours...those two ways I put up so you could see them adjusted and left alone....which flower do you like the best of these two, the darker or lighter one?  I think I may have to take the pictures twice so I can do both...I have a lot more but will put them up later.  I don't want you to get too bored by my new passion.  In the name of art these will work for wonderful backgrounds for my mixed media and great paintings on canvas....and they will be my designs...life is pretty cool sometimes!!!