Memories Are A Powerful Thing...The Vintage Toy Box

Maybe it's a song,  a simple phrase, an image or even food that you hear, see or smell...and it instantly transports you back through time to that pure moment of bliss when you first experienced it.

For me, it's many things...

For A Great Cause...

On Thursday, July 19th...I received an interesting email.

Here it is...

Hi, Lyann.  

My name is Mary Beth Gibson, and I am the Executive Director of a non-profit organization in the U.S. that supports young women with breast cancer.  You can visit our website at www.beyondboobs.org to learn more, if you want. 

 

Anyway, we are in the process of creating our sixth calendar of young breast cancer survivors, and the theme this year is an artistic one. 

Our graphic designer loves the palette you designed for your blog and really wants to use it in our calendar.  We print 10,000 copies of the calendar, and it is fundraiser for us. 

We would be very honored if you granted us permission to use the palette.  

I should let you know that despite what the name of our organization may suggest, our calendar is very tasteful.  There is no nudity or suggested nudity.

 

I eagerly await your response.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  Thank you for considering our request.

 

MB

 

P.S.  I visited Nova Scotia the year prior to my breast cancer diagnosis.  I LOVED IT!!!!

Well, I felt extremely honored...I was like, WOW!

Naturally, I called my husband at work to tell him.  

He said, "Wow! You should email her back and say YES right away!"

I started to laugh, and said,  "I already did!"

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a commercial artist...and this request, not only is it a great cause...it's awesome that they saw MY GRAPHIC and thought it was good enough to use in the Calendar to Live By.

I have recently discovered something new!

I mentioned in an earlier post that my husband is taking a couple of computer courses. 

 A part of his work will require that he use  
Adobe Photoshop. 

Being the kind man that he is, when Trevor was installing the program on his computer,  he also installed it on mine!

At first I was like, "Yeah, I doubt I'll ever even open that program...It seems so complicated!"

Should I? or Shouldn't I?

For a long time now, I have debated over getting business cards made.

Should I?    
OR    
Shouldn't I?

I could see the marketing benefits, however, I chose NOT to investigate any further at this time...

just assuming that I wouldn't be able to customize the design to my specifications and I was afraid that the price would be too high.

So, I just let it go.

Then a couple weeks ago, I mentioned to my friend Gloria that I was thinking about getting some business cards made.

I told her that I wanted to be able to design them myself and she told me about Vistaprint...well, I was HOOKED!

"How do I love thee Vistaprint?  Let me count the ways...

Four to be exact!!!!

All Screened In

Have you ever wondered what to do with an old screen door after it has served it's original purpose?

Okay then,...I guess it's just me!

I suppose their are worse things I could wonder about...Ha ha ha!

Here is a bit of background information to explain...

Last week, my husband started a course at the local college.

He decided that he "needed" a brand new computer with the capability to handle the huge programs of today...we hadn't purchased a new computer since 2005, so it was definitely time.

Since I am definitely NOT a computer geek, I am at a complete loss to explain it's AWESOME technological qualities...My husband however, could go on for hours about it's hard drive capabilities, memory capacity...blah, blah, blah....

I'm pretty much computer illiterate, or maybe it's computer deficit syndrome...when I hear people talking about them for too long, I can't help it, it just sounds like gibberish! 

I'll just stick to things like...

"Wow, it looks great!"  or "Gee, it's so quiet!"

I'm just glad that Trevor loves it... he understands all the technical stuff, so that's what matters.

 

Things You Find Along The Path

Along came a spider that scared the crap out of her...

This is probably the most disgusting spider I have ever seen!!!

And in NO WAY am I saying that I'd like to see others even more menacing that this to challenge my statement...I was traumatized enough by this one.

 I had the creepy crawly's so bad after taking this shot, I almost dropped my camera...

I was convinced it had gotten on me since I was about 5mm away from it to take this shot.  

YUCK! Yuck and more YUCK!!! 

Thank goodness the rest of the photos aren't this gross....I promise!

Latest Photograhy: The Wonders Of Nature

Isn't this the most awesome thing you have ever seen?

I captured this purely by accident...and a very happy accident it was too!

I hope I wasn't interrupting his bath... or maybe it's fly gel for that "oh so difficult hairstyle"!

From this day forward, I'll be forever branded a "fly voyeur"... but I don't care because whatever he was doing,  I am pretty pleased with myself for catching him doing it!!!

Now join me for a visual tour of the images I captured over the last few days.

Finding Beauty In The Most Unlikely Things---INSECTS & DEW DROPS!!!

Finding Beauty In The Most Unlikely Things--- 

INSECTS & DEW DROPS!!!

This dragonfly was just sitting on my patio, waiting for his  

"big break"

 ...well, now he's famous!

Check out the wing...isn't that amazingly beautiful?

Let's take a visual journey through my latest photos...

Watkinson's GROCERY

NOTE:  This is the first draft of the sign.

  I don't often create pieces for myself, but I made an exception in this case.

The sign I will showcase in this blog post is called Watkinson's GROCERY, and it was inspired from an old sign that appeared in an episode of Sarah's Cottage on HGTV.
  
*If you go to The Candy Shack  blog post (inspired by the same source), you will find a link leading you to the episode in question* 
  
As usual, I will take you on a journey through all the steps I took between the preliminary sketch, all the way to the completed piece.

Beautiful Garbage

I call this post "Beautiful Garbage" because that is where I found the table I just finished.

When I first saw it, I noticed right away that it was tiger oak...but I have to admit, it wasn't pretty!

With a little imagination...and a good scraper and a handy screwdriver , you'd be amazed at what you are capable of doing!

Slipcover Extravaganza

In this post, I will showcase three separate slipcover projects.

I did NOT use a pattern, but thought it would be nice to show that patterns are available for purchase just in case you find the prospect of creating one on your own too daunting at first (view image at left).

My camera, due to a memory card malfunction, wasn't working at the time that I made these slipcovers so I resorted to creating rough sketches as a means to explain the process as simply as I could.

I have since purchased a new memory card, enabling me to include photos of the finished products from the reverse and right sides.

MORE Colouring Pages For You To Enjoy!!!

Here is one of the many designs that I have created for this post for you to colour in!

I coloured this one in as an example of how it could look...but you could use any colour you wanted! 

I hope you enjoy!

Colouring Pages For The Kids...Just save each image and print

Just When You Thought You'd Seen It All...SLAMB Happened!

Just having pizza and root-beer

This post is purely for fun!

Anyone who knows me, knows SLAMB,  a.k.a Special Lamb. 

Trevor and I found Slamb at a GIANT TIGER grand opening when we lived in Mississauga, Ontario in 2006.

At first, Slamb was your typical stuffed animal.  He just sat there and looked, well...stuffed!

Then one day, I had to wake Trevor for work. I had Slamb in my hands because I had been playing with him, so I took him along...I  shook his little hooves (there are little beads in them that sound like a rattle) and hit the wall to wake Trevor up !

That was it!  He became our constant little companion.

I Didn't Get My Castle, So I Settled For A Sectional!!!!

I know, I know, the title of this post sounds a bit strange but I'll explain.

When I was a young girl living in Dalhousie, New Brunswick I had two dreams.
I wanted to be an artist like my Grandfather, and I wanted to be a princess and live in a castle (specifically Chateau Frontenac because I had seen a photograph of it).

Oh, the dreams of youth...
What am I saying? I still want to be a princess and live in a castle!!!

Gloria's Bench

My friend Gloria had a small, decorative pine bench just screaming for embellishment and asked if I would paint something on it for her.

Of course,  I said YES!

So, we got together for coffee and took a look through my portfolio.

She saw a photograph of two monarch butterflies sitting on a flower that she absolutely loved...

 so I showed her one of my previous blog posts, called (MONARCH GARDEN PLAQUE) as an example of how the finished piece could look seeing as I had used the same photograph as my inspiration for it.

"BIG BUNNY"

This is a fabric pattern that I bought quite a few years ago with the intention of practicing my sewing skills.
(Photo at left depicts the finished product)

However, I found that I didn't want to destroy it so I just kept it in my craft cupboard for 12 years until I decided what to do with it. 

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY!!!!!

Since I made the decision to keep it intact... 

I can now use it as a template for a paper pattern, and use any fabric I want. 

So, I took out some tracing paper and copied the whole thing...

In this post, I will show you how this bunny looks in two different sizes.

One of them, which I call "BIG BUNNY", is the actual size the pattern depicts...the other one is a miniature.