first class at Art is, "Cherished Snippets"

Here are pictures from the first class i will be teaching at

Art is. we will be using snippets of leftover material, fabric, tapestry, tulle, lace, hankies, deconstructed material, etc. plus and image to create a fabric collage that we will use to create our own personal journal cover. i love creating these as they are very simple and a great way to upcycle pieces that your would normally just toss out.

Enchanted April

I have a confession to make. if you ask me where i got the name for my business (Lemoncholy's), i will tell you that i got it from the movie, Enchanted April. in the movie, one of the actress says that she was feeling a little "lemoncholy". i thought that was so cute. but over the years, i started wondering, did she really say that or did i just think she said that. i kept meaning to rewatch the movie to find out. well last night, the movie was on tv, so i set out to discover the truth. i had to wait until the very end of the movie to find out and guess what she said?

she said she was feeling, meloncholy!

so how is it that i thought she said otherwise?did i just remember it wrong? my husband said i remembered it the way i wanted to and thus created my own little name. but regardless, it makes a cute little story.

well, besides taking care of a sick bunny (she's doing better now), in my spare time, i've been working on a couple of pieces. For some reason, I've had hearts on the brain (since making those hearts for Abbie in Dec.) and with Valentine's Day coming up, i felt inspired to create something with a heart and here it is. pretty cool, huh? it is being sold as a pendant (find it here) - don't think i'm going to make a necklace for it as i think a simple chain will do it more justice.

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and for some reason, i never posted the 2nd piece that i created in Cindy Forrestor's class in California, so here it is. it is also a pendant that i wear on my favorite chain.

recycling Christmas and greeting cards

i wanted to mention a place in Nevada, called St. Jude's ranch for Children . St. Jude's Ranch for Children has a 40 year history of healing and caring for abused, abandoned and neglected children. what they do is take used Christmas and greeting cards and turn them into new cards.

Currently they are accepting used, all-occasion greeting cards from November 15, 2008 thru February 28, 2009. You can mail your donations to:

St. Jude's Ranch for Children
Card Recycling Program
100 St. Jude's Street
Boulder City, NV 89005

take a look at their website to learn more about how the program works.

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a few of my new years goals have been to get new stuff added into my etsy shoppe ( i have so much stuff to add) - but i just hate the process of doing this on etsy (have i brought this up before?) it is so time consuming and takes a ridiculous amount of steps. (yes, i have definitely mentioned this before....) my other goal is to finish the tutorials and get my website going so that i no longer have to load all this stuff into etsy. with that said, i'm adding a few things in there tonight, such as this box: ( notice the tiny little shells that are sewed into the tulle.)

blog giveaway

well, i 've been quiet for a few days and that usually means that either i'm not feeling well or Tucker isn't feeling well. well, Tucker, it turned out, has bronchitis. wednesday night he was up til 5am coughing, coughing and coughing. i stayed up with him, suctioning, singing to him, talking to him, keep him company, etc. and then i spent the next few days trying to recover! we took him to the doctor on friday and she started him on an antibotic. i swear a few hours after the first dose, he was already sounding better. Friday i ended up sleeping in until 11:00am, something that rarely ever happens. i'm just not one to sleep in. i have some many things i want to get done on a daily basis and usually sleeping isn't one of them! but i was exhausted, had a horrible headache and needed to rest. so rest i did. i'm still a bit tired, but getting there!

my project for the last few days was working on a wreath. i decided i wanted to make a wreath using vintage ornaments. i've been collecting these for awhile, so i had plenty on hand. i started it last night and got about 1/2 done before i ran out of glue stix. stopped at Michale's this morning to restock my stix and back to work (why is that they only had 1 cashier on a saturday morning, a few days before Christmas and with a line 12 people deep? ugh!)

i made my first wreath when i was in college and had gone home for Christmas break (that was also the time i made all these adorable "gingerbread people" ornaments out of felt. ) my mom was making them and she showed me how. we would go deep into their property (she was living in Greensboro, NC at the time) and we would look for grapevine. then we would wrap it in a circle and begin the decorating. we used a glue gun and whatever supplies she had on hand (i really don't remember what it looked like!) i just fondly remember the time. so now that my wreath is completed, i thought it'd be fun to guess how many ornaments it took to fill in this wreath? whoever comes comes the closest will win a prize (a prize i am still determining)

i'm bummed

Well i got the phone call today from the data recovery service. I had sent them my external hard drive that houses all my pictures as it wasn't working ever since i accidently dropped it on the ground. he told me that my photos were not recoverable as some thingy-ma-gig suffered a traumatic blow when it fell. BUMMER! so here's some advice to you - make sure you back up your photos! i have many photos stored on flickr and there are many pics on my blog, but still there are so many that are just gone. so that' s my news.

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also, here's a holiday tip i thought i'd share with you. a few years ago, i started saving some of the tags that my mom uses when she wraps my holiday gifts. she usually has them all done up in lots of ribbon that she has curled. i save them and hang them on the tree. i wanted to do this because as my parents get older, i realize how fast time is going by and i like the thought of her writing out that tag for me as she wrapped my gift and i know she put a lot of love into it. i like seeing her handwriting as it is such a reflection of her. my dad doesn't wrap gifts, but i've been saving his letters and cards for the same reason, to have his handwriting and pieces of him.

is it friday yet?

(photo by Lucky Snap)
first i slipped outside (this was monday). i didn't fall, but a rug slid on me as it was icy underneath and i was on a ramp, so my body jerked as i slipped and then corrected myself. i was quite sore; actually felt like i had whiplash in my neck, shoulders and between the shoulder blades. then the next day (yesterday) i had to do a show alone and had to carry my table really far to this building and it was really heavy. i am not strong enough to carry that table, but we didn't really think that the door to the building would be so far off from parking. then i get up the doors and they are not automatic nor is there any buttons to push them open, nor anyone around to help. so it was very difficult. so after setting up, doing the show (which sucked - i made $18) and then taking everything down again and then driving an hour and a half home, i was exhausted and sore.

when i got home tucker started coughing and had to be suctioned almost all evening and then get this - we lost power for almost 4 hours. i have backup power for 2 hours and then his suction machine has a battery, but it was really dark (just candles) and i was getting concerned about how much longer the power would be out and how long the battery in his machine would last. so i called the police department to inquire about how long to expect the outage and the next thing i know, they want to send out a squad car and EMS to evaluate. talk about my stress level going through the roof. i was like, no, it's not necessary, this isn't an emergency, etc. but they came. good heavens. right after i hung up with him, the power came on! i told the guy on the phone, please don't come into our neighborhood with lights going and sirens blaring (our neighbor, Kevin, died 2 days ago and i thought it might be very upsetting all around). and then i didn't want all the neighbors worrying and coming over.

tucker ended up coughing almost all night, so i stayed up with him. when i got up this morning (I kind of curled up next to him in his bed) i felt like a mac truck hit me. i am even 3 times as sore now. jeff relieved me at 7am and i went back to bed until 1:00. i felt a tad better after a hot shower and then walking around is loosening up my tight muscles. i'm kind of walking like i was out horseback riding for 3 days!
kecia

p.s. don't forget to check out a collaborative necklace put together by our yahoo group, The Charmsters, being auction on ebay for our designated charity - 100% of the proceeds to go to Bernie Berlin's "A place to bark".

garden statuary goddess

inspired by cindy forrestor's bottle class in california, i made this tiny little bottle with a doll on it and turned it into a necklace