Drawing like crazy...

I've been drawing like mad.

Thanks (again and as always it seems) to my little buddy Lynne, I've figured out some direction for my card series and have been working on them. In the last week, I've completed artwork for over a dozen of them -- all the while beating through a week-long headache, which, for some reason, seems to have sort of stopped in the last thirty minutes or so! It feels iffy though, like it could start again any minute so I'm trying to hold still... ha ha.

Anyway, above is a few of them. I took more pictures, but most of them are so blurry you can't make out anything but my shaky hands.

I finished the artwork for another High Maintenance Girls series (number IV... that's a four... I also learned this from Lynne). I regrouped my first two series into one I was happier with and it is now series III (that's a three... aren't I brainy?) Anyway, series IV has all pointy-toed girls. When I die and go to heaven, I'm going to have those kinds of shoes. I'd have them now if I knew how to make them. I think they are extra-good unless you have to have the pointed curly toes to go with them. That would, somehow, be less desirable.

The other series I am working on is enormous, part of a Christmas series. More on that big secret idea later.

Other than that, how is everybody doing? I have been holed up for a week. What is going on out there?

Last, my bedspread arrived and is beautiful (see two posts ago), but my bedroom is still a misshapen heap, sort of like me humped up under the covers with a headache, griping because I am too hot but also too cold all at the same time. Frankie, however, never cares about the temperature. He is a faithful and loyal wiener dog. However, for my bedroom, I fear, there really is no hope.

The Evolution of Dance: Worth it!

Retro-dating my bedroom (and Tickles)

Somewhere between shabby-chic (I hate that word) and 1940's Hollywood... that's what I want in my bedroom.

Of course, what I really want is to be a vamp from the 1940's. Lately, the closest I am getting is looking like some kind of vampire born in the 1940's.

So today I started some small prescriptives to my itsy-bitsy (smallest room in the house) master suite bedroom that I share with my master sweet husband who doesn't care in the least (or notice unless I point out) what I do.

I started by hanging my chic new 1950's chandelier ball and I did it all by myself and didn't get electrocuted even once. I had watched my sons-in-law Matt and Josh change lights for me and figured since they could do it, so could I. I took five or six pictures and all of them are blurry... must be too much caffeine - couldn't hold still. But, as you can kind of tell, it's a charmer.

Next, I am finally putting up the curtains I've had for several weeks. I had to rehang the rods and though I had believed it would kill me to do so, it turned out to be no big whoop. Because I have constant migraines, I have black mini-blinds from the 1980's still hanging behind them and I also have heavy gold drapes to pull over them... but Doris and Rock would have liked them, I hope.

My bed is a metal four-poster canopy in gold and I have shiny gold (tacky but I love it) bedding that I picked up on sale. I don't know how it will do long-term with the dogs, but it was just so soooo.

I found a VINTAGE 1940's ITALIAN CUT VELVET TAPESTRY BEDSPREAD with cherubs...

* * * * * OH! I JUST SAW TICKLES OUT THE WINDOW RUNNING DOWN THE ROAD AFTER A BABY RABBIT AND HE CAUGHT IT AND DRAGGED IT AWAY! THAT'S TWO IN TWO DAYS! I'M GOING TO DIE! JUST DIE!!! How can anything as beautiful as Tickles also be so deadly!!! * * * * *

...in golds, greens, reds and pinks to use with it. I'm going to fold the comforter at the foot of the bed for my fat wiener dog Lucy to lay on when she is in one of her moods.

Next, I have to paint (icky) the room because now it is a ghastly purple that I loved five years ago but hate now. I think I'm going to paint it a sage green but...

* * * * * OH NO! HERE COMES TICKLES WITH THAT BUNNY ONTO THE PORCH! NO NO NO!... and there he goes. Oh but my heart is beating too fast! Poor little bunny!!! * * * * *

...if it looks...

* * * * * THAT BUNNY GOT AWAY! IT'S RUNNING AWAY! BUT TICKLES JUST CAUGHT IT AGAIN! OH THIS IS HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE! * * * * *

...I'm sorry. I'm Tickled out. I've got to go see about the bunny.

The Widow's Mites

Finally, I've photographed some of the original art I want to offer for sale, but good-night-America, I forgot to bring home the descriptions Lynne wrote for me and I am just too exhausted (i.e., lazy) to write them for myself when she's already done all the work, so I won't be posting anything until at least tomorrow or the day after.

Now that's a sentence. And it's sort of whiny too, so it's probably making your ears wince. It is mine.

I just appreciate Shonnette and Sarah at the shop who took the glass out of several pieces to make it easier to photograph. God love them. That's such a lot of work for a whole bunch of nothing. I love those girls.

I don't know whether to be excited, discouraged, exhausted, or melodramatic. Like always, I guess I'll be all of them at once. I think mostly I just feel underwhelmed.

I guess sitting here, I'm just delaying doing any real work around here.

I still have to finish my sister's birthday present (from last year and then one for this year) because her Par-tay is Friday.

I think I'll go eat some cornflakes first. And maybe take a nap because my head is killing me. Then by magic, maybe something will somehow, someway, get done.

Angel Mrs. Stormes

I love an art mess.

It's just pretty.

It looks kind of important and like something is about to happen.

It's like art class in grade school. Especially the smell of that glorious Elmer's Glue.

My art teacher was Mrs. Stormes: too mild-mannered and too patient for classrooms of 40+ rural children.

Nobody listened to Mrs. Stormes and that made me mad because I wanted to MAKE SOMETHING!

I wished she would whip those mean little boys or at least send them to Mrs. Harris in the Principal's office. (We girls were almost always good.)

I liked getting busy with those art supplies. I liked cutting and pasting (especially pasting) and ripping and snorting with that paint. Tempera paints smelled like something big was about to happen. She would mix a lot so we wouldn't run out and we had big fat paint brushes to use, and huge coffee cans of dirty water to slosh our brushes around in... then enormous old hopelessly stained sinks in the hall where the water splashed onto your clothes and into your face when you washed out the brushes "good." Mrs. Stormes didn't care how many times you got up to clean your brush "good".

She knew it was necessary business even if you were acting silly while you did it.

Mrs. Stormes bragged about the bonnets of tissue paper and paper plates we made for Easter. She liked the dinosaurs we cut out and glued, along with rocks and moss to dioramas made in cardboard boxes. She thought our Valentines Day mailboxes made from shoe boxes were stunning. She saw art everywhere she looked.

Maybe that's why she was so kind.

So patient.

Why she never whipped those mean boys.

Maybe everything she saw was beautiful... a beautiful mess.

In all our little excited, freckled, dirty rural faces: artists.

Maybe that's why she knew we actually were listening. Listening with a part of ourselves where our excitement couldn't be contained. Even the mean boys.

Angel, Mrs. Stormes.

Finishing the cards last week seemed an exercise from Mrs. Stormes' phenomenal art class. I wanted every interrupting thing to get a whipping. I could smell glue and excitement. There were lots of pairs of scissors to choose from. I jumped in and out of my seat dozens of times. No one got in trouble. No one fussed. No one complained.

Blessed angel, Mrs. Stormes.

And the shoppe is OPEN!

I am exhausted and tickled pink!

But, believe it or not, it's up and running with eight great items (and forty delicious pictures) of things for you (anybody!) to buy!

WWW.LUCYBLUEPEACHES.ETSY.COM!

I made the deadline date that I had set for myself too, although this posting is the next morning because it's after midnight. It's taken two 16-hour days to complete the chore (not just posting, but getting everything prepared) but now that it's up and running, it should be a breeze.

I posted two collections of High Maintenance Girls greeting cards and six rings made from vintage earrings and brooches.

I am happy happy happy and ready for bed.

Wonder what's going to happen today?

Visit my new shoppe at http://www.lucybluepeaches.etsy.com/! THANK YOU!

George the Cat

Alicia found her cat!

Sitting pretty as you please on the deck for all to admire, was George, the illusive hiding cat which wouldn't even meow for me for the past three days that he's been hiding, when his daddy came out of the house to see what he'd done to the screen.

Thank goodness.

Peace here at home again.