still scrappin'~

I'm still scrappin'... I did a page of my Dear Hubby Slim and his brothers ~

The Donner Brothers
JD, Slim, Duke, Rod

Slim is the oldest of the four guys ~ they are all two years apart from each other.  The birth order is Perry (Slim) to Rod, Jeff (JD) and Tim (Duke).  Poor guys ~ they never experienced what it was like to grow up with a sister ... just boys in that family ... until I came along and became the wife and sister in law!! Life as they knew it was never the same after that. lol

I also did a page of our daughter Staci ~

Spread your wings and let the fairy within you fly!

Staci is such an outdoorsy person ... and when I saw this image on the internet of a fairy in the trunk of a tree I just had to try transposing her into it.  I just wish I could remember where I found this image and could give credit for it to whom it's due.  I think it worked great for my page.

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel

born to be wild ~

I was feeling a little scrappy today and decided to do up a few pages ... I'm calling it my Born To Be Wild pages.  These are photos from last June taken in our woods.

I hope you enjoyed my pages.  I'm anxious for the snow to go and the bear to come back out of hibernation.

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel

disappearing post~

for some reason I'm having blogger issues ... with my images ... will try again later ... I removed my last two post

today~

There isn't much going on in my neck of the woods ~

I'm repainting a sign that I had propped up against the house, sitting on the deck rail by my front door ...
I need to add some ivy or little flowers to it yet and come up with a hanger for it ... the wind kept knocking it off the rail where I had it propped up before.

I didn't do any more painting on my cardinals ... maybe today sometime I'll finish them up.

Last fall I took all my bird houses down and have them in the garage waiting for my attention.  Some of them need new roofs or walls, some need a new coat of stain, or just need the nesting boxes cleaned out before spring.  I think I'll give them the once over this afternoon ... although we still have a ton of snow and spring feels a long ways off.

A few weeks back I was all gun ho on doing my spring cleaning.  I got the bathroom and kitchen cabinets done, the dresser drawers done and then I seemed to fizzle out on the rest of the house.  I need to get back into the cleaning mode ... while it's still cold out ... because once it warms up ... I'm out of this house and into the flower gardens and doing yard work.

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel

cardinals ~

Oil painting ... project number 3.

Here we go again ... the lady has gone bonkers and is going to attempt another painting!

I figured the only way that I am going to overcome my fear of using oil paints is to jump right back into the saddle and tackle another picture.

I decided not to waste any expensive hard board or canvas during this trial and error period ... so I dug around in some scrap lumber laying around out in the garage and decided to paint on those for a while, until I build up my confidence.

I found a board a little bigger than a post card and decided to paint it white ... and now I'm in the process of adding a pair of cardinals.

Here's my photo progress so far:

 ~ my rough draft sketching in pencil ~

~ giving the Mrs. some color ~

~ adding some color to the Mr. ~

I took Sunny's advice and decided to use a picture for some reference.  What better place to look for reference than my bird book.  This photo also shows how small this painting actually is .. it's propped up on my paint brush.

Other then my trying to bring out my creative side ... nothing much is going on around here.  I would love to be digging in the dirt, getting my hands dirty in the flower beds; but they are still under a good foot of snow ... and more is falling as I make this post.  

I told Dear Hubby I was bored ... and he had all kinds of domestic suggestions ... such as laundry, cooking, cleaning and sex.  I said, "What! Has it been six months already?  Is it really time for vacuuming and sex?"

I decided to paint.

Until next time...

So it goes in my neck of the woods.

~mel

update on the goose painting ~

My daughter was over and I asked her what to do with the goose ... she said, "GO BOLD".

So bold I went:

My goose it done ... it's seen it's last laying of the brush to it!

Thank you for enduring my ups and downs and smiles and frowns of learning how to oil paint.  

Until next time ... 

So it goes in my neck of the woods.

~mel

goose painting 3 ~

I truly appreciated all the comments and encouragement I received on my goose painting yesterday.  Thank you ... that's what I needed ... someone to tell me not to trash it and keep at it.  I felt very discouraged with it; but I also wanted to keep going with it and prove to myself that I can oil paint.  

So...
I took your advice and kept at it ...

After looking it over and over and trying to figure out what was bugging me about this painting,  I came to the conclusion what was bothering me about the painting was that it looked like the goose had only one wing ~ and that wing was laying awkwardly across it's back ... there was no separation between it's wings.  Also, I thought it was too orangey looking ... it's not easy sometimes being colored blind and having to rely on reading the color on the paint tubes and hope that it's going to come out right ... or looking at a picture of something and trying to duplicate that color.

So....

With a lot of hesitation ... and then ... oh my gosh! what have I done ... look at this muddled mess ...
I gave the goose a wider wing,  two wings, a back area, tried to tone down the color a notch and added some slight shading ...

Oh my ... I am really screwing this goose!
 Now I was really ready to throw in the towel.

Now what?  So I took Jack's advice and gave it some legs ... or I should say, half legs.... the toes are in the water.  I tossed in some more feathers, and plopped some water on the page and today I'm at a whole new stage with painting my goose.

If this oil painting has proven anything to me ... it's the great admiration I have for those people who can slap out a painting a day!  Mercy ... I really am not that patient of a person ~ and oil painting is certainly teaching me patience.

I am not giving up on completing this painting.


Until next time ...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel

goose painting 2 ~

I'm still plucking away at my goose ~ pun intended

Here's the photo progress report so far:

I'm not happy with it :(

I think it looks like a goose with the back of a pheasant.  

More updates coming after I do something to change it ...

what am I changing??  how am I changing it??

I don't know ...

time will tell.

Thanks for bearing with me on this.

Critiques welcomed ...

Maybe you are seeing something I'm not and I really do welcome your comments on it.

Should I just trash it and start over?

Until next time ...

So it goes in my neck of the woods.

~mel

goose painting ~

Well ...
I took the first brave step and added some oil paint to the drawing.  Baby steps ... baby steps ... using oil paints is a whole new thing for me.  This is my second attempt at using them.  I'm finding them so much harder to work with than acrylics; but I love the look of the oils over the acrylics.  I also love that they don't dry so fast and give me more working time.

I do know one thing that I'm going to do one of these days ~ take some lessons so I can learn the proper techniques of doing this and I'm also going to invest in some good brushes.  You should see the barn painters I'm using.  A real artist would have a good laugh!  They are the left overs that date back to all the craft projects that I used to do with my girls when they were babies.  There isn't a good one in the lot.

I have a house guest today ... my Grandlove Bailey is sick with pink eye.  I guess it's going through the school district pretty bad right now ... and the poor little whipper snapper is one of them afflicted with it.  She looks terrible ~ but says she feels okay and doesn't know why she can't go to school.

Getting to eat a bowl of chicken snack ramen noodles in the living room in front of the television seemed to perk her up!

She is such a funny kid!

When we were watching the morning news there was a shot of New York city on the TV screen and a shot of the Statue of Liberty.  She told me that she was in New York when she was a baby. (not so)  She also told me that she visited the "Cement Lady with the Torch" (not so).  I asked her what else she did while visiting New York and seeing the Cement Lady with the Torch.  She said, "Don't you remember Grandma?  That's where you bought all my baby clothes.  You were there and so was my Mom.  Why do you keep asking me what we did there? Grandma, sometimes I wonder about you.  Your memory is getting real bad."

LOL ~ yes Bailey ... that it is!

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel

from an owl to a goose ~

I finally feel like I'm catching up with things around here ~ after being on vacation.  Dear Hubby goes back to work tomorrow ... bummer ... but life goes on and the bills keep coming in ... so off to work he goes.
~~
I was trying today to update the web pages on the JPD Warrior site ~ and I'm so frustrated with bravehost right now I could scream.  Three times I typed out all the winners of the fisheree on a page and tried to publish it and it keeps disappearing on me.  grrrrrrrrr........  I'm walking away from that for now and will attempt it again tomorrow.
~~

I decided to try my hand again at another painting.  My last painting of the owl now graces the mantel by my sister Colleen.  She seemed very happy to receive it.  I never did take a picture of it once it was all completed and sitting on her fireplace.

Now on to the next project ... I'm painting a goose!   Don't know why ... just thought it would be a fun subject. lol  I'm still in the learning process of using oil paints ... and I know the only way I'm going to figure out if I like painting with them or not is to dig in and do it. After getting a feel for it with the owl painting ~ I think I'm liking it.

Here's what I have done so far of my goose ... a light pencil sketching on the board ~ I'll let you know how things are going when I start in with the oils.

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel

Happy Valentine's Day~

Happy Valentine's Day!

I told Dear Hubby some new chrome would be a nice gift ...

meaning

a new car ...

BUT

I'll settle 

for 

a

new

kitchen faucet. 

No more DRIP DRIP DRIP

that had a way of irritating my last good nerve.

~*~

Yesterday afternoon, we picked up Mom and took her for a drive up north of us to my brother Eric's land.  He is logging off and making firewood of some of the blown down trees from the tornado that went through there last summer.  

We could only drive in so far ...

Then we had to walk the trail to where my brothers Eric and Randy were working.

An orange hard hat and a Green Bay Packer sweatshirt ~

what a fashion statement!

Slim jumped right in there with helping to run the controls on the jammer to load up some logs.

Boys and their toys.

 ~gotta love that green and gold~

The big yellow thing on the right is the new dray the guys put together to haul out logs behind the jammer.  They have to haul the logs out across 2 forty acre sections ... so it saves them a little time and effort ... although when I was there they only hauled out the one load with the tractor and trailer.

Along side the trail was a nice sized wolf track.  

There was also a nice sized deer track ... with a drop of blood in front of it.

My guess ... the deer is no longer there.

As you can see by the pictures ... we still have a LOT of snow in the woods.

it's rough navigation with all the broken down trees laying everywhere

The weather has warmed up enough that the sap is starting to drip from the trees.

Mom just cracks me up some times ...

The snow was falling off the trees and where does she stop to have a look around ~

Right smack dab under it.

It didn't fall on her ...

but seriously 

nasty little me

was half hoping it would have.

I would have laughed. 

I'm bad.

I know.

Eric ~ Randy & Slim

looking across the field

heading across the field with a load of wood

looking up the road ... checking both ways for traffic ... lol

Slim ... sporting his short goatee ... 

It was all the way down to his chest but he decided to 'clean up' for spring early and cut it shorter right before Christmas. 

Truthfully ... it was starting to curl and it was driving him crazy ... but he won't admit that. 

Until next time...

So it goes in my neck of the woods.

~mel

marbleous~

Home again ~

We still have a few days left of Dear Hubby's vacation ... seeing as how we didn't make it to all the places we intended ...  so once again ~ it's a time will tell situation. 

Who knows what's in store for us two vagabonds.

Maybe we'll just spend the time out in the garage making table and bench frames for the marble we bought home from Texas ~ my sister lives next door to a place where they cut and polish marble.  Slim, Colleen and I walked over there one afternoon to see what they had laying around ~ and what we could find for a table top or bench top or to make some accent pieces for in my flower gardens.

So how awesome are these?

Aren't they MARBLEOUS!!

 I have a ton of catching up to do on my emails and blogging ~ and hope to do so within a few days.  In the meantime ... I just wanted to pop in quick and leave a post.  I promised Dear Hubby while he's still on vacation I would spend more time with him than my computer.  I know... sometimes I just lose my grip on reality and make weird little promises like that to The Man ... I must have been pricked by Cupid's arrow.

Happy Valentine's Day !!

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel

follow me ~

snowy image of ft worth

 

Look what we brought to Texas!  Yuppers... I think we're the quilty ones.  What a mess this state is in since we got here.  I'm soooooooooooooo sorry!!!  The roads this morning are horrible ... the interstates are closing down ... the sand trucks are sliding off the ramps ... traffic is at a HALT ... big time.  We're renegotiating what our travel plans are going to be ... because right now ... it's a big I DON'T KNOW.  This storm system seems to be traveling northeast  ~ and that's the direction of our original plans of leaving here tonight and heading towards Tennessee and we already know that is NOT going to happen.  I think we may be here the rest of the week ... Colleen needs me ... enough said.

More later...  I promised Dear Hubby I wouldn't be hanging on the computer too long.  He's cooking a big ol' breakfast for us and the sausage and eggs are calling my name.

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods. (snowy, iced over Ft Worth)
~mel

va ... k ~

After some very hazardous one lane interstate driving from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth  we finally made it to our destinatation on Friday.  The roads further north were icy and snow covered too; but 'up north' they have the equipment to clean off the roads ... unlike the southern states.  They REALLY don't do snow well down here!

None the less ...
We made it to my sister's place and we are having a grand old time!

Yesterday, was the Super Bowl and we LOVED IT!!! Yeah ~ Packer's ... you bought the Vince Lombardi trophy home where it belongs!
~~
Colleen made me put this picture on here ... because she's standing over my shoulder watching me make this post... so now I have to explain:

The big Slim needed a belt ... so off to Justin Boots ... to find one with "GOOD" leather.  Oh yum.... I just LOVE the smell of leather ... and it did smell good in there.  I should have taken more pics in there ... there were rows and rows and rows of boots ... all sizes ... all styles ... and some of them were REALLY awesome ... and REALLY expensive ... 

We also took a run over to the Imax Omni Theater yesterday and saw "Under The Sea". 

The Omni Theater is a huge dome theater ... 80 feet tall.   The whole dome is the screen ... and you sit right in the middle of it.   We sat up in the nose bleed seats ... which in my opinion were the best seats in the house.  We watched "Under the Sea".  The 3D effects are spectacular!  You feel like you are right there in the ocean with the urchins and other sea creatures. 

Well ... gotta go for now ... I'll try to update a little later this week before we head off to TN. 

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods ... (this week is Texas)
~mel