Something to do on a rainy day...

I wanted to bring in some color to the studio today
and thought of these great tissue paper pompoms
from Martha Stewart's site.
Nothing like hot pink and orange
to brighten up up a room!

They are very easy to make,
you can find the instructions here

It has been raining all day today...
but what was a typical rainy afternoon
turned into huge cherry size hail falling from the sky!
It was a sight to be seen AND heard...
Thankfully it only lasted a few minutes,
and now back to the rain :o)

Baby shower gift

I recently finished a tote for my good friend Mariana.
She's having a baby shower in a few weeks.
I plan to fill it up with goodies
for baby Ana's room.

I embroidered
one of my little ink bird designs on the tote

and the rooted flower design
on the zippered pouch.

These are some simple cotton onesies
that will go inside the tote
along with a few more things I have to finish.

I kindly asked my friend Mariana
not to visit my blog till after her baby shower
to keep all the goodies a secret, so shhhhhhh :o)

Rooted flower stamp

Another stamp I carved this weekend.
This one's 4 inches tall.
I used VersaColor's Ultimate Pigment ink pad in Bamboo
to stamp it on watercolor paper.

Songbird stamp

Here's little Songbird (4x4 inches)
in a different medium.
This time I hand carved him into a stamp.
I used a Staedtler Mastercarve carving block
& my Speedball linoleum cutters.
There is a great tutorial online
on how to carve your own stamps right here, if you're interested.
You can also take a look at my growing collection of hand carved stamps
by clicking here.

Illustration Friday: MOON

Hand carved linoleum print on paper.

This is the original watercolor
that inspired me to give linoleum printing a try.

Lil Green Buildings

Workin' the paint nib & ink today.
Acrylic ink on watercolor paper.

Lil Red House

Just warmin' up the pen and ink...
Red Acrylic on watercolor paper.

Illustration Friday: POEM

Salmos 119:1-8 (Reina Valera 1960)
Acrylic ink and watercolor on paper.
Click on it to see it BIGGER and read it BETTER :o)

ABCs

This little alphabet
is the latest addition to my ever growing
hand carved stamp collection.
The "y" & "z" didn't fit in the box :o(
I'll have to find a bigger box
so they can all be together.
By the way...I flipped the image so you could see the letters straight.
If you want to carve out some letters remember
to draw them backwards.

Cabin love

The move to the cabin was great
...it took a lot of organization and planning
to squeeze all of our stuff into this wee 700 sq.ft cabin.
We are enjoying it so much!
Living in the middle of the woods is beautiful,
I'm inspired by all the lush green, the birds,
squirrels and bunnies we have for neighbors.
I've created a new set on my Flickr
with pictures of the cabin if you want to
take a peek :)

Journal pages for July

Singing bird embroidery

I'm embroidering the series of ink birdies I made last month.
This is the first one, made into a pillow.
This has been the most time consuming embroidery project I've done so far
and it was totally worth the time put into it.
I used a single thread in order to have more detail.
The fabric for the pillow is a heavy linen/cotton blend I really love.

Yay!

After a long long time (almost a month!)
I've missed my blog and you guys sooooo much and it feels great to be back :o)
Thank you for visiting this blog while I was in "offline world".
I'll resume my regular posting tomorrow, I've got tons of emails to reply to...
Big hug to all!