This is soooo not like me....

WHAT??? TWO posts in TWO days??? Yes. I know... shocking. But, that's not all. No... Not it at ALL.

I ACTUALLY did a little Christmas crafting. WAIT JUST A MINUTE, HERE!!! Isn't it NOVEMBER?? Technically the BEGINNING of November?

Yes, children, it's true. I did something early for a change. And by early, I DON'T mean December 20th. I know...gasp!!!

Now, pick yourselves up off the floor and let me explain, OK??? Jeez, you people....

I went to an estate sale last weekend. Squeaked in at the very end, which is entirely the fault of my kids' Dad and Google maps, but... whatever...

I don't like to go to sales at the end. Unless I already went at the beginning and snatched up all the good stuff I wanted then came back to clean up the stuff I kinda wanted but couldn't justify buying at the prices they were asking. Know what I mean?

Well, I am quite sure I missed all kinds of good stuff from the day before (but I try REALLY hard not to think too much about the stuff that got away...). But I DID get:

Another cute little suitcase to feed my sickness..I mean addiction...I MEAN love for these handy vintage items. A prett pair of Me/You embroidered pillowcases for my bed, a embroidered tea cloth edged in hot pink ( I SOOOOO love that color!!!), an aqua clutch (which I will embellish an show off in a later post), 4 vintage velvet grabby Santas and a cutter quilt top.

So, the quilt top was a partial. It has a pink background and it had these great stars.

I have been wabting to make Christmas Stockings for forever. But, you know how it is...I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. I knew I wanted something vintage, of course, but I didn't want to do a lot of work. Well, the quilt top was perfect. The colors will go perfectly with the candy colors of the vintage mercury glass ornies I have been collecting.

I have to say, I am soooo proud of myself!

C'est bien

New Art Journal page

She's packed her bags...

Put on her ruffly dress...

And she's movin' on...but she wants you to know...C'est bien. It's good. She's gonna be O.K.

I'll tell you all about it soon...

I've fallen in love...

...with my new pink Converse. Sigh. I've waited a long time to find a love like this, and now that it's here, I couldn't be happier. Aint love grand?

2 ATCs and a Tag...

So, I'm a working girl now. (only in the strictest non-prostitute sense of that phrase.) (how weird is it that I have now mentioned prostitution TWICE in a ROW on my artsy-having-nothing-whatsoever-to-do-with-sex blog???) Huh...

I haven't had enough time to do much crafting, but I did manage to squeak out a few ATCs:

(Both of the images are from ArtChix...)

And a thank you tag, which I can't show the whole of because its a thank you and that would ruin the surprise...(this image is from Spark your Imagination)

Gotta run...doin the working girl thing...

New artwork and quotes

I LOVE quotes.

I love how a cleverly put together string of words can lodge itself inside my head.

I have been in love with words and especially quotes my whole life, or, at least what I can remember of it. Granted, I kind of have a bad memory, but...whatever.

I do love quotes!

And I almost always include a quote in my artwork. I keep a quote book and sometimes I pull a quote first and create a collage around it. The quote drives the creative bus, so to speak.

Sometimes the art comes first and the quote follows.

This piece has a quote I got from Teesha Moore's blog. I've never heard of this guy, but, DANG, she's got some good things to say! She was a German author and had a meeting house for intellectual and artistic gatherings. At least that's what I can gather from Wikipedia.

The quote is "Woman is born to create. In creating she becomes herself, accomplishes her destiny. Her whole life is only an initiation into creative power. To create is not merely to make a work. It is to give of ones own individuality."

I LOVE THAT!!!!

**The dark yellowish strips above the birdhouse and around the edges of the piece are actually ancient pieces of scotch tape that I took off of a globe I got at an estate sale. I just couldn't throw them out!!! Isn't that sick?

The next piece is kind of a departure for me. I collaged/decoupaged/painted the background before I even knew what I was going to put on it. I am totally DIGGING the drippy paint thing right now, btw...(if you hadn't noticed!)

I made a birdcage out of wire and glued it on at the junctures, sprinkling chunky vintage silver glass glitter onto the glue. I have also been finding myself creating these woman-as-birdcage girls. Notice how the cage is empty? That's not a bad thing. I think she sort of creates and then releases her creation (art, children, etc...) into the world, to find its own way.

This one needs a quote, but I haven't decided which one yet. Any suggestions? Do you collect quotes, too?

Thanks for coming over!

xoxo,

Tammy

A dream come true...

Ever since I was a little tyke...knee high to a grasshopper, as my mother used to say...I've wanted to work at a Starbucks.
Okay, well, maybe I wasn't little. Really, I was an adult, but, oh, so much younger and less jaded than I am now...
Anyways, I have always wanted to join the ranks of those ultra-cool coffee-slingers who came to be known as "baristas".
Well, okay, if you want to get technical, I didn't even LIKE coffee until I moved to coffee central, otherwise known as Seattle. That was 12 years ago. But, oh, man...once the bug bites, it bites HARD. The very AIR smells like coffee here, truly it does! This is the HOME of Starbucks, people. Be in awe.
Well, I got a job. As a barisata. At a Starbucks. A Safeway Starbucks. (how awesome is America? Not only can you get a fresh, delicious, creamy espresso from a bikini-clad barista on just about any corner (no, I mean in a drive thru stand, not that they stand there hawking their wares on the actual corner! Can you imagine? "Hey, baby...how 'bout a hot one? I have whipped cream!!!...we could call them Barista-tutes...)
Oh, gosh...I got a wee bit carried away there, didn't I? Get it together, Tammy! Where was I? Oh, yeah...you can get coffee while you shop! LOVE it!
So, I start training tomorrow. I'm so excited. Wish me luck!



Here's my last collage:

I found this WONDERFUL vintage book on Oil Portraits. The images are fabulous! The quote is from Lao Tzu "when I let go of what I am, I become what I might be"

This is the one I'm working on next:

Have a lovely day!

Pull up a chair...

I found this old office chair at Value Village last week. (For $2,50, thank you very much!!!)

You've all seen them...painted an ugly non-color industrial tan, seats an even uglier brown vinyl...

Well, I know you'll all be so shocked to find out that I didn't take a before picture...you know how on top of things I am...how calculated..how focused...

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(just had to take a chuckle break there for a second...)

No, really, what happened was I tore into that baby as soon as I could. I couldn't take the ugliness...I was inspired and couldn't be bothered with the before picture...What can I say? I'm an artist! Can't tell the muse to wait a second for the before picture.

A can of cream spray paint and some vintage Waverly barkcloth, and voila!

Isn't it CUTE???? Sooooooooooooooo much better than the big, huge, ugly, black pleather monstrosity I was sitting in before.

I'm way more productive and focused sittting in a cute computer chair. What about you?