Merry Christmas to All !!
And a special thank-you to everyone that purchased my ornaments and gourds this holiday season !!
Merry Christmas
Fall arrives
Finally we have some wonderful fall weather! I am loving it – I can open up the house and enjoy the outdoors. Just hearing the birds chirping and listening to the leaves rustling makes me feel alive!
I have also been working on my Christmas items to hopefully sell next month and in December. Unfortunately our craft show was a little slow for me in October. I just sold a few things and not one Halloween gourd. Oh well, I sent them off with a friend that has a store & hopefully they will sell.
Enjoy the day!!
Mini Gourd Pumpkin
Gardening. .
this is something that takes me lots of determination . . . going outside and experiencing the dreadful heat index of 100 plus degrees and the high, high, high humid weather and just knowing before hand how gross I am going to feel in minutes when I depart from the air conditioning.
But for the past three days that is what my hubby and I have been doing – just for three gourd plants. This all started when a few weeks ago I spotted some gourds spouting up in our grass. I just could not bear the thought of the lawn mower running over them so I very carefully uprooted them and placed them in nice little peat pots. They began to flourish so we decided they needed a proper place to grow and bear fruit – so we cleared a little plot in the back yard and built a trellis. I am hopeful they will continue to grow and I will have a nice gourd harvest around December. Here is a look at what we did-
The gourd patch
One of the gourd plants
Peeking through to the gourd patch
This is my favorite orchid! The fragrance is chocolate - yummm !!
Getting Ready –
Carved gourd. Painted with acrylics
For the holiday season which is right around the corner. Hard to even think about Halloween with the temps in the 90’s and heat index in the 100’s! Halloween gourds make so much sense here in Florida. There are no guarantees that October is a cool temperature month and the real pumpkins don’t tolerate the heat so for those of us that are not really keen on the fake pumpkins we see at the craft stores a real gourd is a great alternative ! 
Carved gourds. The ghosts can be removed to insert a votive
redecorating
It has been awhile since my last post & actually this is my first post of the year! Yikes – where has the year gone, almost the first quarter gone and past us, time certainly does fly by us when we are busy! Yesterday was a day of overflows and spills – one being my washer overflowing and the other a plastic container of old sealer bursting in my hands and spilling all over my drawing table. Well, that prompted me to finally get going on rearranging my studio. I purchased new wire type shelving before the New Year and still have not done anything about cleaning up and rearranging – but today is the day – what a mess!! LOL – I definitely have my work cut out for me –
Glitter and Bling
Usually I have a pretty traditional theme in our home for the holidays – but this year I decided to light the house up with some color and sparkle. I purchased the small pink and red Christmas trees at Michaels two years ago for $1.00 each – a real bargain! I didn’t really know what I was going to do with them but could not pass up this deal. This year I took some old, small terra cotta flower pots, sponge painted them with pink acrylic paint and glued on snowflakes that were punched with the Martha Stewart snowflake punch and added Martha Stewart fine white glitter to the snowflakes. I glued the trees into the flower pots. Since the trees had the lights on them all I did was add the colored Christmas balls. A different look but I love it !
Almost time . ..
to start decorating my house for the Christmas season. It is a little later then I usually start decorating but I have been so busy with painting for shows this is the first break I have had and with the kids pretty much on their own it is sometimes difficult to get motivated but once I get started it is hard to stop !! So – this afternoon it is up in the attic and pull everything down! Here are a few photos from last year. The Peace on Earth Choir girls sit on the mantle with the wire tree sculpture hanging on the wall above them. The choir girls were made many years ago with a dip and drape fabric over a styrofoam armature. They were painted with acrylic paints and accessorized with fabric. The second photo is of angels ornaments that I made with the glass ornaments purchased from the craft store and I sculpted the paper clay heads over a styrofoam ball. This year I am going “bling” with some funky glitter trees- I will post them when completed!! 
Friday
Kinda’ ready for the weekend and I just wish it was cooler! It is so hot outside I am still hiding – but of course that means I am painting!
Yesterday I did venture out and looked for some photo opportunities and caught this Ibis dancing on the dock railing – so graceful! Some day I will try and paint one these birds but feel my work would be so inferior to God’s creation.
I will leave you with a sneak peek of my latest recycled light bulb Christmas ornament design which is inspired by the Russian matryoshka dolls –
Have a great weekend!
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