Hello, friends! Here's a little bit about life right now: What are you wearing? This sweater over and over and over again: I'm blaming the weather and laziness. (PS: I know I love food, but look at how I look at the food! LOL!) What have you bought? Well, I haven't bought it yet. We are shopping for kitchen cabinets and I really loved the ones in this photo, but they were out of my price range. But I think I found something else fab that I really love and that is half the price...crossing my fingers that it works... Read more →

A few weeks ago, I headed up to the Portland Museum of Art (PMA) in Portland, Maine. They were hosting their second annual "Art in Bloom." This is an event that many museums host, where local florists and garden clubs are challenged to create floral designs inspired by specific works of art in the museum. We took a docent-led tour of the Art in Bloom installation and it was fascinating for two major reasons: The docent really wanted us to give our opinions about whether or not the floral arrangements "worked." There was a lot of disagreement in the crowd,... Read more →

As promised, here are my four wall quilts: Looking at them all together makes me think that I should have turned them into one big quilt...but I guess that idea will have to wait for the next one! Here's a closer look at each of the quilts: It's all raw edge applique, so you can see lots of little strings and raveled edges hanging down. My quilting is very simple: Some messy lines. And I used a facing for the binding so that the quilt appears to be borderless. I really enjoyed making these quilts, but I'm also thinking I... Read more →

Last Fall I took a class from Melissa Averinos (She's in the center of the photo below, holding a corner of her quilt). The class was all about how to create a face using fabric. Here are some of the faces the other students created: Some very cool faces -- especially for a classroom full of people who had never tried to draw a face before. And now I must confess: I was bored. I was very bored in class and feeling like maybe it was a waste of time. We were covering basics that I know extremely well. And... Read more →

I have tried paint pouring several times. I don't really like it. I feel like it "wastes" a lot of paint and that nobody really has an artistic signature when they pour. All pour paintings kind of look alike. Nevertheless, it's super duper popular at the moment, so I put together a video tutorial on how I approach paint pouring. I hope it's useful to you! After staring at the poured paintings for a while, I decided that they weren't finished and so I went to town. Here's how they turned out: I love them! It's amazing what you can... Read more →

Here are some ScanNCut DX Tips & Tricks for you! First up, one of my favorite new features in the ScanNCut DX. It's a small thing, but it makes such a big difference in workflow. And as we all know, the key to happiness is good workflow. Every ScanNCut machine comes loaded with lots of built-in designs. Some of those built-in designs are layered, as in this duck example below: You used to have to bring each part of the layered file in individually -- one wing, one foot, etc. It was tedious. However, in the new ScanNCut DX, you... Read more →

From time to time I like to experiment with art ideas by working small. Kind of a thumbnail sketch. So, yesterday I created a pair of tiny mixed media paintings. They each measure just 4"x4". Supplies Used: Cardstock Pencil Colored Pencils Stabilo Pencil Acrylic Paint China Marker Gesso Amazing that so many supplies go into these little paintings, isn't it? But I think that's part of what makes them interesting. They're complex and layered. I really like this style of painting and I'm excited to work on sizing these guys up. In the meantime, you can find these pieces for... Read more →

I can't believe it's almost the end of February. Where does the time go? Today -- at long last -- I'm sharing the last few days of the #CarveDecember fun with you -- days 28, 29, 30 & 31. The prompt on day 28 was "asymmetrical." This was my interpretation: If you receive this blog via e-mail and can't see the image above, click on the title of the blog post to be taken to my blog where you can view the images. And here are some other interpretations of the word, "asymmetrical." The prompt for day 29 was "hexagon."... Read more →

Happy Friday! I wanted to share some photos from our home renovation. As you may recall, we purchased a house in August 2018. Great bones, and exactly the location I wanted, but it needed some updating. We began work on the house at the end of November 2018. We started in the basement, which had a lot of issues. It was wet -- like pools of water. Part of the floor was dirt. The stairs were falling down. There was huge pipe sticking up out of the ground. The floor was uneven. And then we discovered...the foundation was crumbling. So,... Read more →

Happy Valentine's Day! These are, hands down, the easiest cookies I have ever frosted. If you ever wanted to make dozens and dozens of pretty cookies for a wedding, a bake sale, or a party, these are the ones because they're fast and easy with great results! Watch this short (90 second) video for the how to: And here are the cookies I made: Aren't they fabulous?! The hardest part was keeping my fingers clean. I was actually sad when there were no more cookies to dip because I was having so much fun! Just remember, you have to use... Read more →