071414 Creative Blog Tour

Welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere courtesy of a shout-out from my LOADsista DANI. We are two in a long line of creative types who hope you will enjoy checking out this Creative Blog Tour fueled by friendship & admiration. At the end of this post I will be introducing you to a few more of my creative friends. Please visit their blogs for an inspirational stop on the tour!

 A wonderfully funny, friendly & gifted teacher Dani can help you get all things Instagram down on the page with her series of classes. Her blog is wonderfully entertaining & a few times a year she does a daily video for the LayOutADay LOAD challenge month that is charming & delightful.

Link here

I am a born-again believer living in the heartland, married to my high school sweetheart. My creative interests are scrapbooking, photography, quilting & interior decorating, and I am planning to work on a book series now that I am retired!

At this moment I have been officially retired for two weeks. I have spent the last six months at work purging 30 years of paper records and every day I wondered why I wasn't at home purging 20 years of my personal flotsam & jetsam. My goal in the first go-round is to clear all closets & hidey-holes and make my home work better for this new stage of life.

On the creative front I currently have mini-book kits in progress for my 2013 December Daily & 2014 Spring Break vacation, a secret birthday gift for my scrap-bestie plus some yummy shabby green shutters to mount in my office. I am a Master Forger on the Design Team at Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog, where each month we are given a current scrapbook kit to imitate from our own stash, as well as three monthly challenges. We provide tutorials on how we've made our forgeries.

I must confess that I have a rather unorthodox creative & personal style. I would have to describe it on a good day as traditional eclectic with a twist. I am not particularly interested in having the latest trend but I love to have new stuff. I really like to incorporate vintage elements where it makes sense. I have a very active mind & a rather photographic memory so all things visually ingested become incorporated into my inspiration. Visit my Flickr gallery for a look at my pages.


I find it impossible to go even a day without creating although some days that may mean only a mental exercise or jotting down an idea. During a few rough years when my young adult children were having troubles & I was going through menopause & caring for my sweet elderly aunt who eventually passed away, creative pursuits were a real blessing. I don't know if it's that way for everyone but as the old cliche says, It's as essential as breathing for me. I am fortunate to have an inspiring space to create in.

I have tried to analyze how my creative process works. I have come to the conclusion that some days are for visiting my supplies to get inspired. On other days my photographs spark a story or a page style. I have scraplifted inspiring pages, used a sketch as a starting point, or taken up a scrapbook challenge. I find it fun to stretch in new directions. Now that I will have more time I'm looking forward to altered art & art journaling.

Thanks for visiting with me for a bit! I would love to get to know you better. Please leave a link to your blog or gallery with a comment introducing yourself. As promised, I want you to meet a creative friend.

This is where you will find an amazing artist, 

Mandy Dodd, of Tasmania, Australia.

By her own description: We live in a vintage house near the sea....

I cant imagine not seeing the sea. My layouts just about always feature 

my gorgeous daughters, our life, or nature. You'll find a variety 

of scrapping genres - LO's, cards, OTP, journal work and

 Project Life, sketching, painting, photography - just love it all. 

I love nothing more than this, helped along by my computer and a good cup of tea!

I have two other wonderful bloggers for you, 

but will save those until I have their permission.

7/22/14 UPDATE: ANOTHER CREATIVE TALENT

 Sherrie Breese (aka Queen at the Crop) is my Canadian sister-by-another-mother. We are muy sympatico virtual buds who share a passion for photography, gardening & being grannies. Visit her blog at: http://sherriesmuddlepuddle.blogspot.ca/ which includes a link to her Flickr gallery.
 

Thanks for stopping by!