The Year of 2011 and Word For 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!

The last day of 2011... wow this year flew by. Here's a recap of my year...

January had me experimenting in my journal with things I was thinking about...

Things that were really on my mind...

Then I had an Emergency Appendectomy which kept me in bed for a few weeks.


February had me take part in a Community Art Project over at Phoenix Peacocks Blog...

March had me....




April had me in Phoenix for 10 days with my family...

as well as working on an idea for a book through my All Kinds of Artists Bloghop... (I only received about 10 submissions so needless to say this project fell through:(

May kept me in the Texturizing mode as I worked on a few pieces in this medium...

June kept me busy as I worked on a number of different journal spreads...

And worked on setting goals at the Chronic Pain clinic.

Also, June was the month I was diagnosed with Hypermobility of My Joints, Degenerative Discs in my neck and an appointment was set up for an MRI for April of 2012.

July had me making paper dolls (through Julie Nutting's book) with neighborhood girls...

as well as learning to make Duct tape wallets with my son Benjamin.

August had me working on my FIRST piece for friends of ours for their daughter Madelyn's room... this project was so much fun - I soaked in every moment of being engulfed in this girlie procedure!!!!

September had me taking an online class through Doll Dreams on Eyes and I was able to create this "Sisters" piece (which sold out during my art fair in November).

October kept me busy as I worked on piece after piece for my upcoming Art fairs in November. I also wrote my first "booklet" called "The Art of Zen Doodling".

November was the "BIG MONTH" for art fairs having FOUR in a row, weekend after weekend! It was an eye opener for me as I have never sold my art work before. I also learned that I will NEVER again plan to do four in a row :)

December was a relaxing month for me after the busy past few months... I worked on a few more mood charts, a few joural pages but mostly I just chilled out with my family.

Every winter I get the "Fever" for a winter project (which is usually knitting or crocheting some blanket I never finish)... This year I chose to do a cross stitch but only with strict conditions laid out by my son Josh... I must finish this project to completion within 8 months! He likes to bug me about all the projects I don't finish.

AND FINALLY, THE BIG REVEAL... my word for 2012 is...

My Hubbub chose this word for me. My process for choosing my word this year was to google "positive words"... it came up with a list of over 300 words. I worked my way through this list and circled the ones that jumped out at me. There were a number of them. Then I drew lines from one word to the next of the words that related to each other (sort of like word webbing)... my logic was pretty solid (or so I thought)... I then attempted to show my hubbub my process...

um... ya...

why oh why do I do this to myself??????

Within seconds he see's the word 'EFFERVESCENT' and say's... "That should be your word for the year!"

I just stare at him and say with sad looking eyes, "But I haven't shown you my process yet!"


He says, "Nope, your word is Effervescent! That's how I think you should be this year, bubbly, high-spirited, full of life, sparkly... it's perfect! DONE! Your word is EFFERVESCENT.

I looked from his face to the page, back and forth, back and forth... it took me a few minutes to 'let go' of my entire process and see things his way!

Then I settled into my new word of the year... EFFERVESCENT... hmmmm... yes... I could work with this word. Yes... I want to be high-spirited and bubbly this year! Yes, it will work just fine!

How does my HUBBUB know me so well???

It took me a few weeks to finish this page dedicated to EFFERVESCENT. I did it completely with my Twinkling H20's (watercolors that SHINE). I thought it suited my word of the year perfectly. What do you think???

Wishing you all a wonderfully Happy New Year - may you all be richly blessed with goodness, love, joy, peace, prosperity and anything else in these categories!

Big New Years Hugs!!!!

Wishing You All A Merry Christmas

Hello everyone. Are you ready for Christmas? We have a light dusting of snow on the ground and nothing in the forecast for coming snow until after Christmas:( It is strange for me to pout about that fact, but Christmas just isn't Christmas without snow ~ for me anyway. I love snow in December but HATE it other months! To say that I am NOT a snow bunny would be an understatement:) If the cold didn't hurt my bones so darn much I think I would love it!

So far this year we have watched some of our favorite Christmas movies...
First and foremost is definitely White Christmas. Then we watched A Christmas Carol (Jim Carey), Fred Claus, Elf, the Holiday and Miracle on 34th Street. Oh yes, I also had my Christmas blubbering session by watching "The Christmas Shoes" for what I believe was the first time, however my son told me I have seen it before! That's the great thing about having a memory like mine... everything seems like seeing, or reading it for the first time! It's Christmas everyday:)

What are your favorite Christmas movies?

We still have yet to watch Home Alone (My son's favorite), It's a Wonderful Life (hubby and my favorite), Deck the Halls (again my son's like this one), 12 Days of Christmas Eve (a cute no-brainer), The Grinch (Jim Carey edition), The Nativity Story (my favorite)... and I am thinking that's the best of them...



This year for Christmas music I purchased the music of Michael Buble's Christmas - it is an awesome track. I don't really know what to call it as it isn't his CD when you purchase it on Itunes right? Now, instead of buying cd's we buy Itunes giftcards? What a strange world we live in! If you wanted you wouldn't really have to leave your house now would you? I don't think I would like that very much.

Well, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I am not certain if I will get to posting my Word of the Year before the New Year. We have a lot of Super Scrabble matches to play this holiday! Which by the way is my favorite game!




May God bless you this Christmas and in the New Year.

Hugs and blessings.

Mandala Supreme

Hello everyone! I am so sorry I have been 10 days neglectful of my blog! Shame on me!!!
Here is my latest piece of doodles called "Mandala Supreme" inspired by my dear friend Terri over at Comfort Cottage. I just finished it today, although I was inspired by Terri's work a few weeks back.

I began drawing circles upon circles...




Then brought out my Prismacolor pencil crayons...



Adding a hint of color here and there...



...and voila! It is finished! I had fun working within the circles and patterns and color.

I pray you are all enjoying a lovely December... in the hustle and bustle this month brings take time to be bless and be blessed.

Merry Christmas everyone!

All Kinds Of Artists Check IN

I have been a horrible moderator of this blog hop lately... too busy with getting things ready for four fairs that I was involved in. However, I checked in on it this morning and wow! it's up to 813 artists plugged in to give and receive an enormous amount of inspiration!!!

For Example:
#799 - L'Art-en-Ciel (Flo)
Created this amazing painting, you can check out her blog by clicking on her highlighted name of her blog! Beautiful! The above painting is one of Flo's!!!




Crystal Cook is our #813 Artist with this beautiful painting of the horse named "Troy". I wasn't kidding when I said their is some awesome inspiration in these artists! Wow!



Denice #806 over at InkStitch has a great post about the color black! Tune it to see the entire post at her blog. Doesn't the above picture peek your interest to discover what it's all about. Go over and take a look, you will not be disappointed!!!!


#801 The Slumbering Herd is such a cute little blog filled with... well take a look for yourself with the picture below...



Does not this image exuberate 'the-bees-knees' all over it??? I love it! Such an amazing imagination this lady has and from what I've seen she does most of her work with my favorite medium COPIC MARKERS! You must, must, must go take a look at all of her wonderful critters and fantasy land images.


So just something little to make your mouth water for inspiration (at least mine is watering)!!!! Please let me know what you think of these talented gals!

Hugs and blessings and I hope you are all staying warm. Here in Calgary it is supposed to dip to -17 by Thursday YIKES-A-DOODLE! That says "Stay-under-the-covers-comfy-cozy-with-a-good-book" kind of day!!!! Don't you think????

Mood Calendar #6 - Fantasy Fun

I had a little fun with this one drawing and coloring the fairies. The squares covered up a lot of the picture, but it will work.




Hope you are all having a beautiful week. Getting into Christmas music for the first time this year!

Hugs and blessings

Mandala Time

After seeing Terri's Mandala over at Comfort Cottage (my dear friend), I knew I had caught the bug and needed to make my own Mandala.
If you go check out her site she has created an amazingly very geometrically correct and detailed piece ~ it is exquisite!

My mandala is much simpler and I decided to give it some color. Ben (my youngest son) wanted me to color it in colors that I don't normally use like purple and orange and yellow and red (all together in the same piece!!!!) I am not comfortable with that yet! Does that make me a bad Mama??? It actually makes me cringe just thinking about using those colors together:( "Shake it off! Shake it off!" Okay... much better now.
I hope you enjoy sneaking a peek into the lovely Terri's site - she is an amazingly talented artist!

Hugs and many blessing to you all - Happy American Thanksgiving/Black Friday to you all!

Mermaid Mood Chart

Hello again lovelies! This week is a tremendous blessing to me because I am able to accomplish things that I haven't been able to in awhile! Yahooey:) I have been an experimental guinea pig for the past few months trying to find the right medication for me that will help with my Fibromyalgia/hypermobility of my joints and Celebrex is the winner! I have been on it before but stopped it because of misinformation in regards to using it long-term. I seriously do not care about being on this medication long-term, IT WORKS! I haven't felt this good in a long time and I am sticking with it! No more experimenting for me!

So, back to the Mood Charts. The above chart was so fun to create. I did it while watching Pirates of The Caribbean (The one with the mermaids ~ so you can see my influence here:) She's a good mermaid though, without fangs and cannibal tendencies! I love drawing mermaids!

How many of you lovelies have ever kept track of your moods? I could have used these charts a number of years ago when I went through my depression; so many people are effected by this disease. Now I use them to monitor my moods as well as how certain medication is working for me. Being on medication means that you will go through side effects, at least that's how it is with me. I find them helpful in monitoring the side effects such as irritability, nausea, dizziness, mood swings... the list could go on and on. That's why I like to refer back to my charts to see how I was feeling. I also use it to monitor my pain levels with Fibromyalgia. I don't want to use them like a journal and write down every emotion I was feeling on a particular day, no... that's what a journal is for; that is why I have only made the space for each day relatively small.

From some comments I am receiving about these mood charts I am guessing they could be used for any number of things, even an affirmation chart to give yourself a positive word, or quote for each day.

What do you think? Would you use a mood chart? What would you use it for? I would love to hear your opinion.

Happy day to you, many hugs and blessings.

No one Can Make You Feel Inferior

Hello everyone! Back from another busy, busy weekend. Phew! I'm glad this one is over! The fair that I was in on Saturday was one of the worst I've been to (not complaining ~ it just had a horrible vibe written all over it from beginning to end). It is the first one that I have been to where I found the people coming to the fair weren't friendly. It was very bizarre. Oh well, onto bigger and better things right?

I thought I would steer away from the charts for a day and show you the drawing I did on Saturday during the fair.

I really love the above saying... It is so true and many times we do not realize it, it is in our hands how 'inferior' we feel because of other people in our lives! So many times I have been at the mercy of this feeling... thank God that I have grown up, matured and learned from my life, from the lessons God has taught me, brought me through. I pray you all have been through this so that you no longer feel inferior to other people.

And here is the full drawing! Do you love the purple hair and matching purple eyes?




I have NEVER attempted to draw purple hair or purple eyes but I have to tell ya, I kind a like it!!! It was so fun to draw and... the best part was the hair was a tool to get out my frustration from the yucky fair:) Venting in color!!! LOVE IT!

Well raise your glass and make a toast to no longer feeling inferior in this world!!!! Hugs and many blessings to all you lovelies out there! Have a wonderful week!

Mood Chart #4

I hope you are enjoying my mood charts this week. It seems to be the theme of November here:) I had a fun time with this chart using the shape of masks for the days of the month! I adore this pink color (Blush copic marker).

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Hugs and many many blessings to you all!