Liberate Your Art!

What a great year at Liberate Your Art!

The postcards kept my mailbox happy week after week! 

Here are the wonders I received....

The first card is from Andrea. What a lovely scene!

I love this one with the chairs! I am not sure of the name of the artist---I hope to find out through the blog hop! It's amazing!

This sweet honey bear is from another artist I hope to find! Isn't he great! 

Hey--- I know the amazing talent who did this---my friend, JoAnna from Fiddlesnips! She is lovely, Jo!

This one is of the benches at the pentagon Memorial by Karen Walker. Such interesting lines--Amazing!!

Last, but not least, our fearless leader's card! Kat, this is great! I love it!

Thank you, Everyone for all the amazing art! I also had a great time checking out cards people received on the facebook event, and look forward to blog hopping this weekend to see more!

ps. If you received one of mine, I'd love to hear from you. :0)

The Dream Home!

Here it is! 

It was built in 1922 by a company that provided most of the brick for Franklin's downtown buildings. The last of the bricks were used to build this house. It has had some changes over the years. The kitchen was made bigger by converting what was the "morning room", and the back porch was turned into an enclosed sunroom ( my favorite room!). What was a garage in the 1950s is now going to be the "music room" for us.

It is just 7 blocks from downtown Franklin. We'll be able to walk to the farmers market, shops, restaurants and bars, and coffee shops. We'll also be able to walk to the grocery store and Post Office ( handy for me!).

( By the way, all the pictures have the current owners stuff. We don't move in until June!)

 I love the backyard. It even has a koi pond with fish in there! You can't tell from the pictures but it's a big lot. There will be plenty of room for gardening.

 The sunroom! I love the white painted brick in here.

 The formal living room. There is a working fireplace here. The family room has one that's filled in.

All the upstairs bedrooms have transoms. I love all the little details.

An old switch they left for decoration in the living room

One of the 2 stained glass.

Remodeled bathroom. I love the all white! 

This upstairs window is where my studio will be! I'm taking the biggest room! Besides, another bedroom has a walk in closet! There is a surprising amount of storage and closet space for a house this old.

We are excited to get moved in! 

It has been a whirlwind of appointments, packing, cleaning, and stuff. Also, I'm feeling hopeful about a job. I'm hoping to have it all put together by July and I can relax. 

Sold!

Hi everyone! I haven't been around much lately. We have been house hunting, and found the One in Franklin! I am so excited.......it's lovely. I will get some pictures posted soon. The inspection is this Friday, and I'm hoping it all goes well. Looks like we'll be moving again in June. Wait, didn't I just do this? Yup. Good thing I left 70% of it packed!

I also have all my postcards from Liberate Your Art to post! It's has been a fun 6 weeks! Wow- that time flew by!

Last weekend, a friend an I went to an auction for Indianapolis Public Schools. It was my first auction and I didn't know what to expect....it was AWESOME!

 There were all kinds of things....and about 20 Singer sewing machines mounted on sewing tables ( not in the picture...but you know what those look like!) that sold for ( GET THIS!) $5!!! Yes, 5 bucks! That's the price of a latte!

 I figured I'd get one, and even if the machine didn't work, I could use the table! I plugged it in today and it appears to run like a champ! It seems to be missing a foot though. I may have to look this up online. I'm planning to use it for odd mixed media, encaustic, and paper projects. 

I wonder how many kids came through high school Home-Ec learning on this?

Hope you're all having a nice spring! I'll be stopping by blogs soon! Sometimes, I lurk around and just don't comment! XO

A Slideshow with Ford

Last weekend, a friend and I went treasure hunting at the Indie Arts vintage Marketplace! 

I am always attracted to old photos and film...it's sort of my version of "bright shiny objects".

A small box of old slides caught my eye. Upon further inspection, I realized they were old slides from the Ford Motor Company. There were all kinds of factory shots, men working, and only one with an old truck in it. The slides are 4'' x 3'' and framed with a thin metal. 

I gathered up a pile of some of my favorite images, not knowing what I will be using them for. I believe this is how I acquire most of my art objects. I just know i want to use them. I have visions of some kind of window panel or light box.  Maybe a stained glass lampshade for a shop light. Oh yea, Dad would love it!  Truthfully, it could be years until they work their way into my art, but I am guessing they will.

What do you bet this first slide says, "Safety is everybody's business"?

I love images from big industry. The machinery fascinates me.

Moving to Indiana has been great for the vintage shopping alone! 

Paint. Draw.

Here's a canvas board I did with acrylic paints, sharpie pen, and oil pastels.

I like playing on small canvas boards, and it just so happens I have a big stack of them!

I want to do some small paintings that will translate well to postcards and greeting cards.

Are there no "normal" pictures of me?

So, I am making a LinkedIn account and trying to find the most professional looking picture of me. After scrolling through tons of photos, I realized that I am usually being silly when the camera is pointed at me! It's not as though I have those horrible drunken pics that people regret putting out in the world....there are just a lot of me jumping...doing yoga poses in the middle of nowhere...eating (lots of those!)....totally bundled up in big cozy hats...doing my "Lewis and Clark" pointing....and so on. 

 I would like to point out, MOM, that there are a lot of you like this, too! Does the apple not fall far from the tree?

While I may be the kind of person who would hire someone sticking their head through the cut-out of a wooden snowman or chili pepper, I'm not really in that position, am I? 

I thought I would share some of these random shots!

Here I am in Roslyn, WA, pretending to be the DJ for the TV show Northern Exposure. 

Would you hire her?

Pretending to be one of the goats!

Leavenworth, WA

Oh, you didn't see boat captain on my resume? How strange. You can see from this picture, I have a lot of experience. I sail around to coffee shops.

Who doesn't hug and kiss George Washington?

Olympia, WA

And, I have been doing a little painting.

Now, back to the job search!

Cherish Every Moment

Happy First Day of Spring!

I finished another art quilt. Here she is!

I decided to keep her black and white.

Next up....time to do a bird, I think.

Worked on this art journal spread. It's ready to write in some day when the mood strikes.

It's always lovely to hear from you! xo

In the Works

Yesterday, I met up with the art journaling group in Indy. Here are the pages I worked on. 

I used Distress Ink Stains for the background and covered it with a layer of gesso. 

This background is acrylics and I just started doodling and writing. 

I got my postcards in the mail to Kat for Liberate Your Art!

Today's project: Keep working on another art quilt.

I ordered a lot of cards from MOO this time. I often put them in packages as a Thank You, and send them to friends. I took a few and put a set of my mixed media collage images in my shop. I am trying to get the inventory built up in there and want to do more with it. 

She found a home...

...in an art quilt!

Here's the first of the girls. This quilt is 20'' x 10''. I had the embroidered "Create" waiting in a fabric book for about a year. It found a home too. She's in my shop now as well.

I love this fabric I found. It has a cute story throughout.

I learned something about my sewing machine and free motion quilting recently. I have been messing with the tension and things trying to get the back of my quilting "prettier", but there were always big loops and it was quite messy. A couple weeks ago, I went to do some free motion and forgot to drop my feed dogs.....and it worked better! It moved around better and got a lot cleaner on the back.

Everything I have watched and read says to drop those feed dogs...but I think I may never drop them again.

Have a great weekend!