I have been inside painting all week due to rainy weather. It has been kind of nice having an excuse not to garden. I did splurge on two new pieces of decorative paper. It is amazing how a new piece of paper can get the juices flowing. I fell kind of into this one. I just let it decide how to finish itself. I painted her first. Gave her a new mod dress and some yellow stockings. This little lady looked at me like I was crazy when I tried to put a tree on the painting. She told me she lives in the the city with her cat. I had fun half illustrating this one and I like the finished look. Reminds me of one of my favorite books, "Harold and the Purple Crayon". I always wished I could draw my surroundings. I might have to do a couple more like this. I think I am going to fill my etsy shop with all of my newest paintings so I have something in there! So hopefully soon you will see my paintings by my etsy sign. :)
Hope you all are having a super week!

Jennifer

I had a full day of gardening yesterday and I am heading into another full day today. My husband and I are starting to think maybe we are too old for all of this back breaking work. :? May is the toughest month of gardening around here. There is so much to be done. We start longing for our little yard in the city that we once had. The rewards will be worth all of our hard work someday....I hope.

We live near a park owned by the German Society and every year in May they have their big 'Mai fest' with Polka bands, dancers, food ,fun for the kids and of course beer. Usually after a hard day of work out in the yard we all clean up and head over to celebrate.

This brings me to my next painting 'May Day'. A sweet girl with a flower and ribbon crown dancing and enjoying spring. I can wait to do that!

Jennifer

This is another painting I had professionally scanned. I still need to add this one to my Etsy shop. Can you tell that I have not been working very hard on my shop yet?? Well, that does not mean that I have not been painting. I have been painting and actually have several finished, but I am waiting very patiently for my new Epson scanner to arrive at my door. :) It should come tomorrow. Yippy! Once I get my new paintings scanned I will put them up on ebay as soon as I can.

Along with painting I've been having fun with Netflix. My husband gave me a membership for Christmas. This is very cool, but it can be hard to find time to watch a movie at night. Well..... I just found out that you can instantly watch or in my case listen to movies on the computer for free along with the movies you order. Duh, I did not know this. Now I can listen to documentaries and such while I paint. Soooo fun. My little office/art room has now added another / TV room to the name. It is kind of fun hanging out in here watching instant movies. I did watch one in here the other night that I could not listen to because it was subtitled. It was recommended to me by one of my nieces and I also recommend it. It is called "Persepolis" It is an animated film. Very interesting funny, dark and sad. If you have instant watch check it out some time.

Jennifer

I promised my next post would be about a painting. So this is the latest painting I have finished. I painted this one on acrylic paper. I am not sure about selling it for a couple of reasons. Instead I had it professionally scanned so I could make a print. Now I KNOW I need a good scanner. I love the way it turned out. I already have an Epson scanner picked out on Amazon, I just need to fork over the money. :/ It will save me a ton of time though. I have been taking pictures all this time and that is quite a process to get a good one. Anyway....I have also been messing around with a shop on Etsy. I am still working on it in my spare time so it is not finished by far, but I did put a print of this painting up there just to see how it works. You are welcome to check it out by clicking the picture. I am still working on my banner and considering I have no real software to make a banner, it turned out OK. I should get some cool software with the scanner I picked.

Next, I want to thank Micki of The Art Hermit and Cris of Mommy's Midwest Mountain for giving me the Renee Award. This is a very special award created for a very special person, Renee.

This Renee award was created by Bella and Ces in honour of their friend Renee.
In Bella's own words "this is a brand new award and I have the pleasure and honor of spreading the seed, watching it grow. I hope it finds it's way to those who are like Renee: the acorn, a small package becoming a tall and sturdy oak, giving more acorns, becoming a tall and sturdy oaks, giving more acorns...."

I also want to thank K from Heart Wing Sisters for giving me her "You Do Inspire Me"award. K is new to my blog list and I love her blog. Check it out.

You all made my week! Thank you so much! Please Check out all of these lovely blogs if you have not already.

Now, a little something for the senses. This was sent to me by my younger niece. I thought it was timely. It is amazing how disturbing this can be. Try to remember this is not a real bunny! It is only chocolate. ;)

Jennifer

Man, I wouldn't mind climbing up on that tree all by myself. Doesn't it look peaceful?

I have not been painting lately. I would hope to have something to share by now, but I have been a little preoccupied with Nino's food allergies and asthma. They have been acting up. That is always so frustrating and scary. He has so many borderline ones along with his main ones. Easter parties can be stressful because of them, but we made it through. Whew! AND, he is still alive so that is a blessing indeed.




Here are a couple of shots from our Mushroom hunt. Every spring we search for Morel mushrooms in the woods behind our home.

Foster played Bobcat the entire time. Climbing trees and walking through the streams with the kids.

I swear he is part dog. He loves to go on walks in the woods with us.

This is such a cool tree and that lump on it is Foster.

These are our farm fresh eggs that we colored. Although, I loved the colors they were.

I hope you all had a very blessed weekend! Hopefully my next post will be of a painting! Jennifer

Hi Jenny! I made it here!

Here is Old Glory's new home. I won this awesome doll from Jenny at Wonders of Whimsy .

You too could win a doll! All ticket donations go to helping feral cats. Check it out!

It has been one of those weeks! We all have them, I know. I won't bore you with all the stressful, scary, aggravating details, but it has not been fun!

So this is how Old Glory arrived.

I was working with Nino on his vocab word 'ever' and he had to write it in a sentence. Well, if any of you know Sponge Bob there is a song called "The Best Day Ever" ..I added it to my playlist if you want to hear it. Anthony started singing it and right then the door bell rang! It was my doll! Anthony was so happy to see me smile that he sang the song the whole time I was opening the package. Thank you Jenny! Old Glory put a much needed smile on my face. She is sooo neat too. Looks like she was so much work to make right down to her cute toes.

Of course Tamale had to play with the paper.

Thank you again Jenny! I love her.

Jennifer