Leanne Shawler, Artist

Along with making other bracelets for those who joined me in this altered book page swap, I was going to make one for myself. Well, it took a year, but I finally sat down and did so. It's a little simpler: what looks like a lot of beading is actually a piece of beaded ribbon, but because of the pearls I couldn't fit any bling on :) There are other projects that need to be completed too, need to work on that.

In between clearing the fallen "not-ginger-but-sure-looks-like-it" branches and other yard work, I've been gluing bails to vintage rhinestone pieces for this swap : (editing to add the image is from Karla's blog) Hoping to mail this off on Monday. Am hoping the E6000 cures so I can do so (and that I've done this gluing on of bails thing correctly.

It's been a couple of weeks since I finished this painting, but my first chance to post about. This is part of the La Sirena class -- well, the techniques I learned are, and the slightly more mature face of my mermaid is Suzi Blu's template. (I finally got the hang of drawing the nose, I think.) Here she is, almost finished. Suzi said the lines radiating out through her hair were too dark, and she's right. The gel I used to seal had darkened the gold leaf. Some more close up images of the final painting. Ok, confession, I did actually go back after I took these photos and add some blue water-soluble wax crayons onto the green seaweed to help them meld better with the background. The title of the painting: Final version (sans some blue crayon!) See how it's shiny? This means I'm up to the last painting. Which means learning how to draw 3/4 faces, block out a giant painting's structure and then paint the darn thing... I know exactly what I want to do, but first......

So now it is over a week since Mother's Day, but I've simply been too busy to sit in front of a computer and edit photos and compose a post. Well, I got as far as editing the photos. I spent the past week rehearsing and practicing for last Sunday -- where for the first time, I sang with the praise band as lead. Yeah, it's one of those "No #$^#, there I was..." I was really nervous to start with, and it wasn't until after our offertory anthem (the only non-congregational piece, and half-way through) that I relaxed. Even though I kept telling myself it wasn't about me, it was about God... Oh my, I think I have to blog about this for my church's yet-to-be-launched blog. Hmm. Ok, alright, here's the Mother's Day pictures. Mum had oohed and ahhed over the Texas Silver Bellas mum corsages in '09, so I thought I would make her her very own. I mostly winged it based on homecoming mum corsage instructions online. And then Dan saw what I was doing...

Ok, so now that Blogger has stopped doing its maintenance thing, or whatever glitch it was, and now that I actually have time to type.... I thought I'd start with the most recent event and then backtrack to posts that have been waiting in draft mode. So over a month ago, I posted about planning for a high tea . To be precise, my table that I was hostess for. (Hmm, that was a poorly worded sentence.) I took the inspiration from the Spring issue of Victoria magazine (April 2011, I think?), of their woodland table setting. And here's what I came up with. The ferns were gifts for those who sat at my table. I made the wreath based on Miss Mustard Seed 's tutorial on HGTV . (I should have used more glue, it got bumped around during the break-down part and I have to reglue some moss --- although it looks kinda shabby-distressed... I got the bird's nest chargers from Pottery Barn and they were my biggest expense, by far. I had the grape wreath on hand, the moss (although I got...