Country living

Time here in the country is always the best. Laid back, easy going living. We arrived last night to much fanfare. This is what greeted me at the door. Lil sis had been working hard to wish me an American Happy Birthday!


She even cut out these little flags and put in each wine glass. There was also had a stack of presents at my place! What a sweetie. We had much fun and good food...and even a wonderful chocolate mousse cake like only the french could make. Superb!


This morning this little guy greeted me on the terrace! I have never seen such a bright green frog in real life. We also found several others among the branches. They seemed to be sunning themselves.


This afternoon we went off wandering around the countryside and I took some photos to show you. It was such a beautiful time. Everything is starting to turn green and its just wonderful!


I haven't had much time to work on my project but I did get most of the clouds and moon attached!

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Happy Birthday to me!

So today is my birthday and I had planned on lazing it away. Eating fattening food with my feet up on the table *hehe* Well...something like that.
Anyway...nix that! I have barely had time to sit down. Dorian told me right before bed last night...that we are leaving after he gets off work today. Going down to the country for the weekend.So I spent the morning in the kitchen cooking up all the food we have in the fridge that would go bad. I made some nice pulled pork sandwiches and asian coleslaw. YUM! Than had to run around getting laundry done, dishes washed, house straightened, clothes packed, sheew!
Now I am all done except picking out what supplies to take with me for my project. I am going to sit here and finish needlefelting clouds right now. I am trying to get the background finished completely before I start embellishing and I dont really want to drag a bag of wool around with me all weekend *grin*


I finished all of the bottom layer of clouds and attached them last night. I really love this three dimensional look. I also ordered some beads to go on this piece. I hope they come quickly!


I'm going to cut this short as I have to pack my supplies and finish needlefelting the clouds..then I am off to the country for music, wine, cake and fun! You all have a wonderful weekend!!

Painting on fabric experiment

Continueing on with the Small World project. Yesterday after finishing painting the background in I started thinking about how to do the moon. I really didnt have any fabric that I wanted to use for him. I wanted him to glow softly and that made me think of my window paints. I have many that have special finishes. Pearl, Iridescent and glow-in-the-dark. I wondered how they would work on fabrics. So I cut myself a swatch of fabric and did a little experiment.


First I painted a swatch of each of my selected colors. Then I painted some more swatches with some of them mixed together. After letting them dry I examined them and decided that they actually worked quite well on fabric. They sunk into the fibers instead of floating on top and although they did dry somewhat stiff, they were still pliable to the point that I felt I could sew onto them. They are similar to painting with watered down acrylics.
I chose the blue glow in the dark mixed with the silver sparkle to paint my moon with. The silver sparkle is very nice as its not an overpowering glitter. It just sparkles softly. Adding it with the blue gave it a nice muted tone with the added plus that it glows in the dark ^_^ Fun! I have decided to paint the stars also, probably with a mix of yello glow-in-the-dark and gold sparkle.
I also painted the eyes a pearl white.


All in all I feel like I got quite a bit accomplished yesterday. Today...well thats a different story *grin* French class took me away....

Small World

So my mind has been consumed with my latest project. I want to combine so many elements into this piece and it was hard to say where the focus was landing. I finally broke down and printed some copies of the drawings in different sizes and cut the pieces out. Then I could play with them to my hearts content until I had the sizing satisfactory in my mind. I had originally thought up this idea as a sleeping moon with a small dream bubble popping up beside his head. It just didnt cut it in my book. I liked the sun and the world both so much. I love little patchwork fields and the idea for the paisley rayed sun was just too delicious in my mind. I needed them bigger! This is what I finally came up with...


I think its a nice blalnce.
Next I wanted some nice sunrise colors behind my sun. Since dyeing is out of the question right now. (when I find some more soda ash I am buying a TON) I decided to hand paint the sunrise...also the night sky...and the patchwork fields *grin* I just couldn't stop! I have really been enjoying picking up a paintbrush again. It's been a long time since I did any serious brushwork. This photo shows the colors still wet. As it dries the tone will mute a little.

Next I want to try a few experiments for the moon. I would love it to have a little iridescent glow to it. I'm not sure how I will go about this but I have a few ideas...more tomorrow!

A day shopping

Yesterday was my post-op check-up and since we were already halfway there we decided to go on into town and do some shopping. D needed some new pants for work...he starts tomorrow! I also wanted to check out a few shops I had looked up in the phonebook. I have had such a hard time finding supplies since I moved here and half the reason is because I havent explored enough I think.


It was a perfect sunny day, such a beautiful blue sky! Signs of spring are everywhere. I just had to stop and snap a few pics of these...


This gorgeous rosemary bush, this is as tall as me! In full bloom, so beautiful


Lilacs everywhere, I wanted to take some home with me. The perfume wafted down the sidewalk after us.


This wisteria is just getting ready to burst out in bloom. I will try to get back up there later this week and take a picture of it in all its glory. I remember last year it was just gorgeous!


We took a walk down Rue St. Catherine, the longest pedestrian street in Europe. This is a bustling area with many a pedestrian and shops lining it all the way down.

We visited 5 of the places on my list. One was gone and the lettering was already fading on the sign above the entrance, two were closed and a look in the windows showed they were not what I was looking for, but two were open and they were great! One was a yarn shop just chock full of fiber goodness. The lady there was very friendly, even showing me some examples of her CQ work and also giving me the web address and phone number of an American woman who owns a fiber shop not far out of town. She even had some wool rovings, silk ribbons and DMC's. I bought a nice ball of ribbon yarn that I liked the colors of and five little baby buttons...they were too cute to resist.
The second place was an art supply store and had oils, water colors and all kinds of fine art supplies, in the back was a huge room with various fancy papers. I spotted a few I wouldnt mind having. I have been wanting to make a tall lamp for the livingroom, one of those cylinder lamps made with special paper like that. Sometime...
Upstairs they had all kinds of craft supplies and I found a great treasure. White silk by the yard! Many kinds including velvet. The best part of all was it was reasoably priced and I bought a yard of the velvet for only 7 euros!


I am quite happy about finding these two shops. I plan to explore further into the city at some later date. I still have about 10 stores on my list to find ^_^


Late last night on another insomnia evening...I think I finally came up with the idea for my next piece. What do you think?