Hawaiian Breakfast

Hawaiian Breakfast, originally uploaded by ruthrae.

I did way to much over the last 2 days... so now I am back in bed :(
but I did get this lovely hawaiian breakfast brought to me :)
if you have never had a hawaiian breakfast it includes:
Portuguese sausage
Eggs
White rice with shoyu
Guava juice.

the last time I left the house was Christmas... so I am going a little stir crazy... I did get the kids to help me put away the christmas stuff yeasterday and I did get my stuido clean... but today I will hang low maybe I will go out and get some movies (I have HGTV overload can you believe that!!!) becuse me and my new supper best friend (AKA the bed) have a date for new years!

ALL THE BEST IN 2007 Blog viewers and fellow art girls! I wonder what fun artful things are ahead of us in the new year ? :)

the end of a year long journey

My pages for Marci's Paris theme RR Calendar.
This is the last of 12 calendars that I worked in this year.
I grew so much from doing this... the girls that worked in the Calenders were all so outstanding! it was a journey and a Honor to work with them and get to know there art up close and personal. I can not wait untill I get my book back! I will be sure to share it with you when I do :)

(if you want to see the pages up close you can here along with all the pages that I did this year.)

MMCA Interview :)

I did this interview almost 2 years ago... its part of a process to being acceped into the MMCA art group... I cringe to read it now!!! Its funny how some parts of us can change so much while others stay the same :)

I have been in bed for 2 days now...

I am doing a little better today and my goal is to only take a nap this after noon... everyone in my house has avoided me like I have the plague! because who wants to get sick on during winter break!

Things I must do today!

1. clean the computer screen and mirrors behind the bed!!!
2. change my sheets!
3. toss out all the tissue I used last night!



the only family member who is by my side is baxter! because even the Jack Russell is smart enough to stay away!

Motion

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. ~Rumi

Today I made some motion pieces (you can see more here) I call them that becuse all the stuff inside of the vinyl moves around :)

I made it to the post office!

I spent the morning finishing last minute gifts and warping them.

this is a secret santa gift that I just got out today! I was a bad secret santa sister this year and very late! I stitched the present inside of the black felt, you must cut the red X's to open the package :) the girl I made this for favorte colors are red and purple :)
This is what is inside of the Heart case. Its so great to know that I got all my packages out :)

create life

I want to work more on this set of egg's, I need to find a old wooden box to house these with a nest of some kind maybe even a real egg...

fabric charms

I was checking out my favorite Fabric group's post and I noticed that they were hosting a charm swap... now right away my mind went crazy with the ideas of what you could do with cloth and turn them into charms.
but they were not doing a fabric art bracelet but a mixed media charms like the oh so lovely just simply charming one.

so I got a small group of 14 fiber art girls over at flickr together and we are going to create fabric art charms for a swap .
this is what I came up with to show as ideas to help jump start the project, I have not decided what I will do for my charm yet :) you can see the details of the charms here


I have been thanked so many times for sharing my art and my process... I have been told so many artist would not share so much... but I started this blog to share what I do its a diary of my art and as I grow with my art its helpful for me to be able to look back at what I did.

Art is what I do... its fun! I have to create its part of me... its my soul...

how fast things can change!

until today I did not know how much I love my rebel xt eos camera. I have been on a 4 day freak out cleaning fit in my studio because I had lost my charger for my camera and it was dead! now I got a lot done and I even at long last got all my fabric organized and put away in bins... then I started to play and made these ATC's

I wanted to post them but I still had not found my charger so I have to resort to the scanner now let me tell you I used to just LOVE my scanner I was a scanner pro! I took scanning to a new level! I will even admit that 80% of my jewelry website was done with the scanner, so today as I scaned the atc's, I just about had a nervous break down... I had lost the art of scanning! I missed my camera and I needed to find my charger! and on the forth day of searching in boxes and behind and under bookshelf's and crawling on the studio floor (alot of fun stuff was down there!) it was time I was going to have to go out and buy a new charger but first I decided to ask the 15 year old girl if maybe she had seen it and lo and behold she had it! I hugged her and told her that it was like my birthday and Christmas all at once! its amazing how fast we can move on :)

(all the atc's are open for trade at flickr)

6 weird things about me?

Are there really 6 weird things about me?
I don't think so! :) but I will try... I was tagged by Shari so here it goes.

1) I have dyslexia, I still to this day have a really hard time with p, b and d's.

2) I am a complete and utter control feak and I would much rather do it ALL my self then ask for help or delegate, that way I know the only person to blame is ME!

3) I was a vegetarian for over 7 years due to heath issues then one day I popped open a can of chicken thinking that it was tuna and found to my joy that I did not get sick any more!

4) I take pitchers of my shoes and put them on the outside of the box :)
and my closet is organized by color. ( I wanted to post a pitcher but my camera is dead)

5) I had an extreme fear of driving over bridges or overpasses my whole life ... all most to the point of a panic attack, but 8 years ago I rolled our SUV over 4 times with my whole family in it and even thought we were all beat to hell with a few broken bones and many stitches (I was air lifted due to extreme head trauma) we all made it :)
it did however take us all a year or so before we trusted my driving skills once more, but strangely my fear of bridges and overpasses was gone... I guess after a near death experience you just don't worry about the small stuff any more! :)

6) I am a loner and really shy... and I have to push myself to be friendly... I tend to have conversations in my head more then with people... oh my! this just may be the weirdest thing about me! :)

(I have been playing with photoshop)

childhood

Dawn
invited us to create like a child in her RR calendar...
I started by painting my back rounds with acrylic paint... I used my favorite colors from when I was a girl and used clear vinyl to make packets to hold pop rocks candy and those Balloons we use to blow up from a straw :). I always love butterfly's and flowers and always dreamed that I could fly :)

Plant your seeds... so you can grow.
when I was about 8, I just loved to plant and grow flowers, marigolds and sunflowers from seeds were my joy!

my childhood art was all about fun!
when I was young I loved hot pink & lime green! I even designed my dream house in this color scheme in home economics!
I never did get my pink and green dream house, but I do have a hot pink walk in closet with lepard carpet!

Me! as a butterfly princess pull out tag



Butterfly princess floating over the land.
I loved to play dress up! and dreamed I could fly!

Little Tiny

I did get a few things done today... the idea for this box has been in my head for a few days now...
I used this little atc as a cover layer,
for this story book necklace about fairys



its a secret Santa gift that I need to get into the mail soon ,but I have to wrap it all up first :)

I am just about done with my calender pages for Dawn
she invited us to create like a child... I will post my pages as soon as I get them together ... they are very different from most of what I do... it was kinda cool thinking about them from a child's point of view, but in the end I think that I did a homage to the past :)

creative block

why is it that the more I have to do the more blocked I always become!
when I need to create and cant I tend to go shopping for new fun supplies to help spark me so I did my artsy shopping yesterday and went to a few of my favorite thrift stores and I got this really great bag of vintage fabric.

these are fabric post cards that I am working on but because of the block they are just sitting on this try.
I guess I need to go and clean my desk up... because by the looks of it there is no more room to create :)

Learn how to make a Bracelet.

I just posted a bracelet tutorial at just simply charming please take a look :)

Fabric book page for Connie

I did this last night for a 5x5 Fabric page RR at creative chix For Connie her theme is Asian with the colors of red, black, cream and gold. I used to do Asian all the time but I wondered away from it, so it was fun to get back to it :) the back round is all machine stitched and I stamped the words and the flower back round on the coffee dyed muslin.

spoiled rotten! and loving it!

I get a lot of great mail days but today by far was one of the best!
First off was this great little ATC pack from my best atc friend Judith warped in this stunning gold paper with postage stamps that once belong to her grandfather where these supper cool atc!

Then from Cece I received a supper sweet thank you gift for hosting the just simply charming swap. In this great little red hot tin was this great bracelet with my initials and a super hero thank you card :)

Last but not least my supper best friend from high school Deb, strikes one more with not one but 2 amazing bracelets that came in a sealed pop top can! (now how did she do that!?)

she hand made all the charms for this bracelet with PMC clay!

Thanks girls for spoiling me rotten!!!
:)

Minnie ATC

I went to my first ever ATC in person trading event this weekend at stamp your heart out I made 20 cards in all for trade all of mine were one of a kind. I noticed that alot of the people did sets of ther cards (like 1 of 5 or 1 of 20), its always been hard for me to replicate my work, I may use the same image or material but I like to see how things evolve.

I felt a little out of place because all the lady's there were like professional ATC trades it kinda felt like I was on wall street and out of place because I had a paper bag for with my cards and they all had folders with plastic pockets for there briefcases :) but it was fun and something new :)

wii

I spent the last night in a line at circuit city so my son and his friend could get the wii (now the only reason why I did this was because it has been all he could talk about for the last 6 mounts! and I needed him to stop, because I could not take it any more!), this morning at 7am they handed out vouchers for us to come back at 10...
we were # 11 and 12 :) ok.. I need to go to sleep now! the only upside to the whole thing was that there was a a really cool meteor shower at 4am this morning :)

I love music! All kinds... its a must for me when I am in the studio to hear music ... it puts me in a state to create, I have 4775 songs on my itunes... this means that I can hear a different song for 14 days :)
now I really thought that my itunes were all I needed in this life but I have to admit that I have a new love in Pandora Internet Radio ... its the more amazing way to find new music, how it works is you type in an artist that you like and they will play songs that are like minded ... its truly amazing! If you like music you really have to cheek them out!

I just updated the simply charming charm blog with a few necklaces from Lelainia N. Lloyd, Deryn Mentock and Jerri Reimann they are all stunning so please take a look at what the girls did :)

I finished up my Divine Definitions Swap for the Creative Underground its a Vessel of Inspiration and Enlightenment they give us size guide lines and we had to pick out an uncommon creative / inspirational word that had to be on piece with its meaning and we were to create something that was inter active ... when we get this swap back there will be 17 diffrent interactive creations encased in a box for inspiration here is a little peek at what I did (its supposed to be a surprise that is why you only get a peek) it even open's up so its like a little package :)

RR calender pages for Beth

I don't know why I was so taken back by Beth's theme of "journeys"
but I was...
I guess it was because of all the possibilities ~

I started out by doing the background pages in acrylics then I pulled together small ATC sized fabric collages with words and fibers buttons and beads, I used a pencil and traced a circle around the cards and wrote some of my thoughts.
the small hearts and images that are hanging from the red thread and two sided and a few of them had a little bit of batting in them so they are fluffy :)

Journey Within

Discover This Life
atc (front)

discover this life
atc (back)

Discover Love
we seek love and we find our self's on a grand journey to find it, along the road to love we discover our self's
(these are the words that wrap around the circle)

Journey Together
I meet my husband at 19, we married when I was 23 and we had our first child when I was 25 , our journey together 21 years.
(these are the words that wrap around the circle)

Explore This Life

Discover Another Road

Travel Explore
I never know where my art journey will lead me, it's a trip we can not plan our soul is our guide on this trip.
(these are the words that wrap around the circle)

With In My Art
it takes courage to travel and journey within, but once we take that leap we are for ever free with out self.
(these are the words that wrap around the circle)

Holiday Ornaments

I made these for a holiday show at the folk tree gallery.
I waited till the last minute to get these done ... the deadline was Sunday at 4 and I made it in the door at 3:30 on Sunday to droop them off ... now you may be wondering just when did she make them well I got up around 8am Sunday morning and started and some how I was even able to take a shower! why do I wait to the last minute? I did 12 in all, you can see the rest at flicker flickr

Explore & Life (fronts)

Explore & life (backs)

I used a little bit of batting in these and a bell inside so its soft and jingles a little :)

Happy Halloween!

domanatrix and Naruito
now how is it that its harder to get a 16 and 13 year old dressed for halloween then a 6 and 3 year old?