Moving Day!

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED to www.cottage6studio.typepad.com.

As Senator Claghorn used to say, "I'm busier than the pea in a traffic cop's whistle when the light's a-changin'!"

The hours at work are loooong right now to say the least, and I definitely haven't learned as much about the new computer as I had hoped, but this change has been some time in coming and the time is now.

This blog has been irking me for some time. Blogger and I do not get along! Spacing issues and big issues with getting my pictures where I want them have been frustrating me for a while. Also, I hate the name with a passion. It was supposed to be something of an homage to my Dad who passed away four years ago last week, but it was really contrived, and it just has to go.

So, I decided some time ago to move over to Typepad and start fresh.

Moving to Cottage 6

When I was very young, my parents and I started spending summer vacations on Prince Edward Island in Canada. We were very lucky to have long vacations because my father was the primary bread-winner and he could work overtime for extra vacation time instead of pay. We spent weeks there, sometimes as long as a month.

It was, and is, a beautiful place. In spite of its popularity as a summer vacation spot, it is still mostly farmland, so much of it is untouched and rural. Summers were relaxed but fun and eventful. My mothers parents stayed in a cottage nearby and my father's parents came every so often as well.

We saw "Anne of Green Gables in Charlottetown, steamed lobsters and made fresh blueberry pie. We stargazed and explored, swam and lazed-around, it was really idyllic. And every summer we stayed in Cottage 6 at Corey's Cottages in Stanhope.

If you told me I could have a studio anywhere in the world, that is where it would be; with a view of the bay out my front windows and the red sandy ocean beaches a short walk away and a blanket of thyme on the lawn.

So, that is my tribute to Dad and my whole family and to the happy memories of what we once shared there.

So, please, come with me to Cottage 6, there is some art waiting there already!

Be Back Soon!

Not a crash, but some serious computer issues forced us to The Apple Store yesterday. I have lots of art to share, so I'll be back as soon as we get this baby up and running.

See you soon!

EDIT - Friday the 13th

**OK, it took about 5 minutes to get the computer up and running...now I have to learn how to use it! I got an iMac and I have no clue how to use the photo software, but I'm going for my first one-on-one lesson tomorrow. And since I'm down for a bit now anyway, I may be away a bit longer to work on something else. But I'll definately be back by next weekend and all will be revealed. See you soon!**

Peace Out!

I have to say, I just love these cards. You know when you get an idea, and you don't have time to work on it right away, so in the meantime, you may come up with some variations.

When you finally settledown to work on your piece there may be a few hiccups along the way, and then you have it...your finished product, and its as good or even better than you had hoped?

That's how I feel about these cards.

It started with this card.

Christmas '07 I wanted to make some cards in bright, non-traditional colors, and I decided to work with Rubber Stamp Tapestry's Embellished Holiday Wreath set in a traditional wreath shape. I liked that card, didn't love it and moved on. When I started working on ideas for cards for the SCS Christmas Card Challenge, I thought of that card and started toying with ways to improve it. Well, I had used the Peace sentiment on the original card, and all of a sudden it came to me. And the ideas for the other cards followed.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

(All stamps are Rubber Stamp Tapestry except for the sentiment, which is Stampendous and the earth, which is from Sunday International.)

In other news.....SNOW!!!! An unexpected day off due to 15-inches of beautiful snow! This was already a productive weekend on the creating front. In addition to three of each of these cards, I also made 20 ATCs for a swap over at A Year of Color. I'll share those with you later in the week. Now, its time for some eggs and turkey bacon and a trip to the Post Office.

Witch Hazel

I've been meaning to share these forever!

I made these collages back in the summer for the "Powder Room".

That is were I keep my collection of vintage toiletries and after we painted in there, I wanted to make some art that would set them off.

It all started back when I first began perusing blogland. Somewhere on some blog that I have long forgotten the name of, I saw a picture of a beautiful vintage bottle of Witch Hazel. Ooooh, I wanted that bottle so badly! My paternal grandfather used Witch Hazel. On one of our visits a ritual began; I would watch him shave every morning, and after he slapped that WH on his own cheeks, he would slap some on mine. To this day, put a bottle of WH under my nose and I'm standing in the upstairs bathroom at 147 Old Mill Road.

Search as I have, I've never found such a beautiful bottle of Witch Hazel for my collection, but I did find some old labels, Witch Hazel among them. So I bought them and used them as the centerpieces of a set of collages for the Powder Room, with some of Donna Layton's beautiful flocked vintage wallpaper as a background.

Enjoy!

My Loves

No matter what the weather, no matter what the family news, no matter what is going on at the 9-5, these guys can make it all better.

I don't mean to preach, but since this is something near and dear to my heart I will tell you that they are all adopted or rescued, even the purebreads. And they are all spayed or neutered.

Otis is a 12-year old seal-point Himalayan. He was a show cat, but his owner put him up for adoption when she decided to show his son instead. This is not a great picture of him. We took this just after moving him in with us and he looks so mean, but really he is such a mush!!

My Moxie-girl will be four next month. She found me at a cat show where my mother and I had been invited to sell our cards, etc. She was rescued after being abandoned in a warehouse, taped in a box with her six kittens (they all survived), and she wasn't even a year old herself. She hates Otis, but loooves the dog who terrorizes her, go figure!

DJ just turned two. He is a total sweetheart, he worships Daddy and loves everyone else he meets (except the cats), and he is so funny; he makes us laugh every day. That said, Basenjis are not an easy breed and not for everyone. His owners couldn't handle him and were ready to take him to the pound when we stepped in. He's a handful but mostly a joy.

Puppy kisses!

Heart Ornament

Here is another project that I made late last month for the All That I Love swap on A Year of Color. Jerri loves the sea and seashells, and she had decided to keep the tree in her store up after Christmas as a Valentine tree, so I combined the two and came up with this as the heart item for our swap.

I painted in blue to start and then adhered a piece of vintage sheet music with gel medium. Once that was dry I applied a wash of blue paint. I collaged a bit with bits of old advertisements and vintage flocked wallpaper and also added a strip of flocked white-on-white to the edge.

Now here's where I would do this differently were I to do it again. What I did next was apply the small shells around the edge with get medium. What I should I have done first was the "J" in the center. Very difficult to shake glitter off of your piece when you've put a roadblock around it!! Oh, well, live and learn. Once the shells had a chance to dry, I used a technique that Donna Layton taught on the Bellaween Zine last year to glitter Jerri's initial in the center. With a "J" sticker as a guide, I applied Aleene's tacky glue and then fine silver German glass glitter, and there you have it.

Well, it is 3:30 on Sunday afternoon and this is the first chance I have had to create this weekend, so I'm off to make some cards that I will share with you soon.

Hope you're haveing a great weekend!

A Family Treasure

This album and the wonderful photos inside would be an amazing find any day of the week. But this album is even more special because it is my family. My mother gave me this album for Valentine's Day and I am just amazed by it.

We do not know who half of these people are although we can glean from the captions who some were related to, but just the fact that I know these people were my family, or related by marriage, or even just family friends, makes them incredibly special.

It makes me want to step back in time and see the album and the pictures when they were new; to meet the people and see all of them at the time the photos were taken. There is even one tintype in there, a very serious looking young man with his cheeks tinted pink!

But I especially love the photographs of the children, so I thought I would share them here with you.

Enjoy.