Hurry, Hurry.....Rush, Rush!!!

Today is one of those busy days where I have lots of errands to run so this will be a quickie. I didn't get my page finished for yesterday so I did it first thing this morning and it reflects how I'm feeling!

June 29:

Not sure you can read any of this one because some of it is so dark. Mostly it's just me complaining about not having enough time to do everything! I'm sorry that I don't post larger photos but I try to keep them smallish so I don't use up my free blogger space too fast! This one is posted bigger on my flickr page.

Slowly but surely I'm making it around to visit your blogs. Last night I didn't do much on the computer though. HB and I watched a little tv and since so much of it is reruns I went to bed early and read. I have three books going right now!

Tomorrow I begin the July A Prompt a Day journaling class with Kelly Kilmer....the link is in my previous post. I'm too lazy this morning to look it up!! Sorry! At least I'm honest about it. So hopefully my journal pages will be better. I feel as if I'm sort of in a rut right now with them. I can definitely use some new

I'm Doin' it Again....

Monday morning and we are in the heat! I got spoiled with all that nice, cool weather we had for awhile but now it's decided to get serious and turn HOT! It was around 100ºF yesterday and expected to be hotter today. I may not be very productive today.

Recently I mentioned that I was not going to take any more art classes for awhile so that I could have time to absorb what I've learned from the ones I've taken. And I've been pretty good about not looking for them and not signing up for ones that I see. But for the month of July I'm going to be doing Kelly Kilmer's Prompt a Day art journaling class. If you remember I took the one in March and it really gave me a jump-start on my journaling, and she has some new things in store for July so I thought I'd give it another go. If you're interested, just click on her name above and it will take you to her blog where she has all the info.

Over the weekend I kind of cheated on my journal pages. I had some spray painted backgrounds in my journal that I just tweaked a little bit and used for my pages during my busy days.

June 26:


June 27:


June 28:


I hope these pictures look ok. I'm trying different photo editing. I had an older version of Easy Share from Kodak in my computer and I loved it for resizing photos but recently I decided to upgrade because it wasn't working smoothly anymore....and of course, the "new and improved" version doesn't have any of the features I loved best about the old one!! So now I'm using online editing through Picnik and I'm not too sure I like it yet.

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As many of you know, I'm behind again in visiting and answering emails and comments. I seem to always be saying this but it's true! I can't keep up anymore! So I hope you won't be mad at me if I haven't been around for a few days. You know I'll always make it eventually, and I do try to keep up with my emails but when I don't get them done over the weekend then by Monday I really have a lot to answer. I guess I'm just not a very good blog buddy!

Delayed Celebrating....

Since our anniversary was during the week, HB and I celebrated it today. We decided to drive down to Pasadena and visit The Norton Simon Museum.


It was a bit smoggy today but this is the skyline of Glendale, CA....almost there.


This is the entrance to the museum. It was very shady so a bit difficult to get a good photo. This is what wikipedia has to say about the museum: The Simon collections include European paintings, sculpture, tapestry and remarkable sculpture from South Asia. Outside gardens house sculpture and a pond. The museum is located along the route of the Tournament of Roses Parade, where its distinctive, brown tile-exterior can be seen in the background on television.

We wandered around the museum for a couple of hours, then decided to sit down and have a cold drink. The little cafe is outside right beside the pond. Very relaxing.



After we finished our drinks we went back inside and made it to almost all the exhibitions before we both decided we were tired and hungry. By then it was late afternoon so we headed out to find food.

Sadly the restaurant where HB and I met is no longer there. It's been gone for several years. However we remembered another place where we used to go.... The Castaway....so we headed over there.

We had a great table by the window with a wonderful view....


Here we are with our margaritas....it's a tradition for us to have a margarita on our anniversary since we met in a Mexican restaurant. And here's what we had for dinner....


It was called Seafood Collage and included a lobster tail, scallops, shrimp, and a piece of salmon served on a bed of linguini in a sauce that was to die for!! I'm not the best at photographing food so this picture really doesn't do it justice. Believe me....it was delicious!

This is the view from the outside patio at the restaurant....


It's really spectacular on a clear day, or at night when you can see all the lights below.

We had a fun day, a great dinner, laughed a lot, held hands, and reminisced about the past 19 years that we've spent together. It was a perfect day.

A Little Bit of Snoozin' and Some Cleaning....

Today I'm in the studio. Not all fun though. I got up early and did my art journal page for today, then stood back and looked at the studio and decided it needed some attention. What do you think?


As you can tell, I have been going through some magazines, clipping out images I like. They're all over the floor.


This work table still has some open space which is amazing! And you can see my hot pink glass of ice water that is always close by wherever I am.

I'm not going to get any help from these guys today....

Harley is snoozing on the couch in the family room....


and LuLu is snoozing in the extra office chair. She blends right in, doesn't she? They lead such a tough life!!

Gosh, can you believe it! I'm actually caught up on posting my art journal pages! Here's the one I did for today.

June 25:


Ok, I'm off to bring order to the chaos!! I doubt that I'll be completely successful but I'm going to give it a shot. I hope you're all having a great day. And Happy Birthday to Julie and Pirk!!!

It's a Very Special Day....

Nineteen years ago today my life changed....I met HB. If you don't already know the story of how we met you can read about it here and here....with a couple of old photos of us. HB is very much the romantic in this family! Since we met on June 24, when we got married it had to be on June 24 exactly five years later. So today is my 14th wedding anniversary. We don't have a lot of wedding photos since it was such a casual wedding. I wore purple....what? Is that a surprise?? And I even wore purple cowboy boots! Hey, we were married in a meadow on our property near Cripple Creek, Colorado. Boots were sensible attire! HB wore jeans, a cowboy shirt, and boots, too. We aren't fancy people!



Yes, that's me with hair!! And you can't see it in this photo but HB had a longer beard than it is today. Not ZZ Top long though!! The woman in the photo is the minister who married us. We wrote our own vows and she did a modified, Native American inspired service. It was perfect for us.

We won't be doing anything special today but we will celebrate on the weekend. I'll cook something nice for his dinner tonight....or as nice as I can since I'm not a very good cook!

I should have done an anniversary page in my art journal but this morning I just did what came to me and this is it....

June 24:

I was able to do some spray painting early. I'm really loving the numbers and alphabet that I've been using recently....and circles....I love circles and swirls.

Have a great day!!!

It's a New Look for Me!!

I'm sure some of you were surprised when you came to The Lavender Loft and didn't find it!! I've been thinking about a new look and a new name for quite awhile and today I decided to finally do it. I will be changing the header picture before too long....I know you won't want to look at my face plastered all over the place but it was all I had on short notice. And I am impulsive at times!

HB had a very good Father's Day. He heard from both of his kids and both of mine. And he had a nice dinner that evening....he cooked! Now before you get upset with me for not cooking, he wanted to grill some baby back ribs. So he did. He said they were delicious. He marinated them in apple juice overnight so they must have had a good, sweet taste.

Yesterday I had lots of errands to run so I didn't have much time for the computer but today I'll get caught up on my recent journal pages.

June 21:

You may not be able to see it in the picture but this one has lots of texture. Several months ago I glued on lots of crumpled newspaper but then never did anything with it. So I finally sprayed and stenciled over it and it seems to work ok.

June 22:

This is that stencil I cut from my drawing. I'm happy with this page.

June 23:

On this one I used the head of one of my drawings and some of the petals from her skirt and did the flower girl. A little bit of stencil and spray paint and she's finished.

Ok, that's all for today....hope you're having a good day and making lots of art.

Up Early on Saturday....

It's the weekend!! Do you have lots of fun things planned? I hope wherever you are that the weather is good....no storms or anything bad. I know parts of the country have been having some pretty severe storms recently so I hope you're all safe.

I'm not sure what we're doing this weekend so I decided to get my journal pages up to date and posted early.

June 17:


Just playing around with a lot of things here.

June 18:


This is a stencil from Mary Ann's class.

June 19:


This was a background that I had in my journal and I wasn't crazy about it so I started doodling/painting on it and ended up with this! Not sure I like it but it was fun.

June 20:


Yes!! I actually got up early today and already have my page finished!! It's been so nice to be able to spray paint recently. On the left side it says "the world is a colorful place"

Ok, that's it for today. Get out there and have some fun!! Or stay inside if the weather's bad and play in your studio. Just have a great weekend!!!!!

An Award, Art, and Buddha!!

First off I received this award from the beautiful and talented Maria....


Thank you Maria!! I was so honored to be in the company of the other recipients, all very talented artists!

When you receive this award you're supposed to list seven things you love so here are mine.

1. My family....that includes my kitties!

2. My friends

3. ART!!

4. Birds singing in the morning

5. Oatmeal....I know, I'm crazy! But I truly love the stuff.

6. Reading a good book

7. And because we've already established I'm crazy...."LOST"

Now if that isn't a weird, varied list I don't know what is!!

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After that here's some more spray art I did the other day.






Can you tell I'm obsessed with this stencil!! It was such a bear to cut that I'm going to get my money's worth out of it!





I think the last one is my favorite. The birds are done with a stamp. All of these were done on an 8x8 pad of scrapbook paper with the exception of the one with the fist. They were just experiments to try out some different stencils and ideas I had. Not "fine" art by any means!!!

My back is doing a little better but still not 100%. I'm just taking it easy and not doing anything too strenuous.

I Said I Would....

Yesterday I said I'd be back today to catch up on my journal pages....and here I am! I've also been trying to get by to visit your blogs but it's been rather slow. I can't stay sitting for too long at a time. My back is giving me problems....this is nothing new. It just slows me down a little every now and then.

I managed to take advantage of some calm winds this morning and did a little spray painting....nothing finished yet to show you except one little piece that was a screw up but I saved it....


I messed up the yellow flower in the corner so I blotted most of it out and put a red flower in its place....it's ok. Then I drew over the rays with a new white pen I just got. It's a Permapaque by Sakura. Not too bad but it doesn't give the intense white like the Sharpie Poster Paint pens.

This was one of those experimental pieces where I just put anything down and sprayed! I liked how the background turned out and decided to put down something over it. It really isn't crooked....I had to take a photo of it and when I cropped it the angle makes it look like it isn't straight. This is a fairly big piece, maybe 14x18 or something like that. Too big for the scanner!



And here are my journal pages.

June 14:


I didn't write anything on this one yet. I kind of like the soft aqua color and I used stamps that I carved. In person it has a white-washed look that doesn't show up here.

June 15:


I was working in a smaller book and as I painted the page the dragon's head decided it wanted to stay! I just worked with it and came up with this.

June 16:


I was feeling in a goofy mood yesterday! I found this picture and couldn't believe the size of that loaf of bread so I had to use it on my page! It's just silly but I had fun with it.

I haven't done my page for today yet. I took a picture of my art journal yesterday to show you how full it's getting....


You can see the waxed paper I put between some of the pages to keep them from sticking together....there are about 30 more pages left to do in this book. Do you think it will hold together?? I've started using some other books from time to time as my art journal. Since I already have soooooo many books in the garage leftover from my online book business, I figured I might as well use some of them. If they aren't anything that would sell I'm just using them for art! I have a couple of children's books that are just stupid so I paint over the pages and go! I don't feel the need to buy an expensive book just to do art. Some of the paper in the books I have is really good stuff and takes the abuse of art quite nicely.

Ok, I'm off to take a nap! I'm actually mostly just going to rest my back before HB gets home in a couple of hours.

Art and Gifts....and Daisy

Hi everyone....sorry it's been so long since my last post. I really didn't think it had been that long but then I had several emails yesterday inquiring if I was ok. I suddenly realized that I hadn't been posting anything nor had I been visiting. "Life" just takes so much time!! Some days I just don't have anything left over for blogging. But nothing is wrong. I'm fine. Thanks for all your concern....I appreciate it.

First off, I recently won a giveaway over on Snap's blog. My package arrived yesterday and WOW!!!....just look at what I won.


I've already started the book, and a blank journal is always welcome here, and I know that bag is going to be so handy. It's all made from recycled plastic bags. If you didn't read about this when I posted earlier about this giveaway then you can go here to read about these bags and how important they are to the community where they're made.

Also included was a print of one of Snap's photographs. I chose this one....


I think calla lilies have such a graceful line and she's captured it so beautifully. Thanks for the fantastic giveaway, Snap!! I love everything!

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Here I am again waaaay behind in posting my art journal pages. Does that sound familiar?! I think I'll re-name this blog and call it "I'm Late Again"....but then people might get the wrong idea and think it was about something else!!! Thank goodness all of that is behind me!

Here are a few pages. And remember that bit about showing you everything? Well, keep that in mind!

June 10:


I haven't done any girls for a long time and I'm really out of practice!

June 11:


You may not be able to see what this is! This image of a large bird's nest was the cover on a catalog I received a few years back. I loved it and kept the image but I don't think it shows up too good on this page.

June 12:


Totally awful! I saw a picture in a magazine that inspired me to do this but my interpretation didn't turn out too good!! Plus the background is pale pink and it just won't show in the scan.

June 13:


This was my favorite of these but it's so wrinkled that it doesn't look good! Oh, well you win some and you lose some but it's all fun in the end!

I'll catch you up on the most recent pages tomorrow. I'm also working on a painting that is taking me forever because I'm using lots of texture and it takes a long time to dry in between. I hope it turns out good. What I see in my mind is great but whether or not I can translate it onto paper....we'll see.

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For anyone who has followed my blog for a long time, you may remember one of my dear blog friends, Daisy Lupine. Today it has been two years since she died and we who knew her miss her very much. She was such a talented, beautiful, giving person and so full of knowledge about herbs and gardens and such. Her blog was a pleasure to read. If you never met her and haven't read her blog it's still online and available and it would be worth a visit to check it out. Daisy could spin a story like no other!! You can find her at Cats in the Kitchen Flora in the Garden....isn't that a wonderful name for a blog?!! We miss you, Daisy!!

A Little Purchase I Made....

This will be a quickie post but I'll be back later to share some art. First off, I re-did my blog list....finally! I hope I didn't leave anyone out! I also did some other rearranging on my blog and sort of cleaned things up a bit. Whew!! After all that cleaning I think I'll have to wait to do the house!! (I'll use any excuse I can come up with!)
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I want to share with you something that arrived in my mailbox recently. My blog friend, Nydia lives in Brazil, has just moved into a new home, and has the most adorable little boy named Lucas. (I'm in love with him!) I have been reading her blog for awhile now but had never noticed her Etsy shop link. Sometimes I'm just not too quick! Well, when I finally learned she had a shop I went right over and took a peek....and found something wonderful to buy. I hope you visit her shop (here) too.

When the package arrived not only was my purchase there but Nydia and Lucas had included some other things too.

This handmade card from Lucas....


He also sent me a little bookmark he made but I forgot to get a picture of it.

And Nydia sent me this card....



Now here's the item I bought from her....inside this little pouch....



this set of runes....all handmade using felt and embroidery!!



Her work is just amazing! Each one is perfect. And the embroidery is done in lavender! Thank you, Nydia and Lucas!!

Journal Pages, Again!

I just always seem to be behind on posting my journal pages. I keep forgetting that I do one each day!! I know it makes it kind of boring to just look at pictures of my journal pages but lately I haven't really done anything exciting to show you!

HB and I lead such a "jet-setter" life style, you know! We travel all the time.... from the couch to the kitchen for something to eat or drink, and then back to the couch! At least we don't need a passport and nothing has to be declared....well, maybe we should declare the calories on some of the things we eat!! So photos of our travels aren't really very enticing. The refrigerator looks just like everyone else's and probably the couch does too.

So here are my most recent journal pages.

June 6:


I'm not sure if you can see what the picture is....old dwellings from Tunisia and they seem to be carved out of the sand. I was intrigued by the picture and decided to use it on this brown page. (Leftover paint from something else!)

June 7:



June 8:



June 9:


Today I wasn't very inspired. I just had to make myself put some paint down on the paper and this was about all I could manage. Some days I just don't feel very creative. I have a project that I need to spray paint but the wind is not cooperating. We are still having very cool weather so I can't complain.

In Julie's Layer Love class we are up to lesson seven but I'm not keeping up! I have lessons five and six to do yet. I think I've been going at such a fast pace for the past couple of months that now my mojo is slowing down!! I still do some art each day but I haven't done anything big since the challenge ended at the end of May. And my studio really needs a good cleaning. Maybe that would help me get going again.

Ok, that's all for today. I hope your week is going good and that you're being creative.