Frustrated

I was typing a post to share with you my younger daughter's Hello Kitty themed birthday party this past weekend.  My operating system decided that would be a good time to "reconfigure" and restart...no warning, just a blanked-out screen.

Once the computer finally came back on again, Blogger kept telling me that an error occurred during saving, but I persisted in finishing the post.  When I went to preview it before posting, Blogger navigated to a "page not found" page, at which time my entire post was deleted.

So, you know what?  I'm done.  Tomorrow, I am going on a "media-free" church retreat, and I am just going to get started a day early.  When I get back next week, I will try again with the birthday post.  And I will also share an envelope-making tutorial with you, and news of my progress in Joanne Sharpe's Letter Love class.

Until then, happy creating!  And I hope you have better luck with your technology than I have been having with mine.

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I am still looking for another person to participate with me, April, and Laurie in the Pay It Forward project.  If you are interested, please read the post here and leave me a comment.  Thanks!!

Mom-dalas

My mother visited this past weekend, and brought some of her art to share with me.  Since she doesn't have her own blog, I insisted that she let me take photos and share her work with you on mine!

My mom is one of those people who will insist over and over again that she's not "artistic" or "creative."  She seems to think that those are labels reserved for "certain kinds of people," and not for her.

Yet, there isn't a moment of my life that I don't remember her cooking, sewing clothing, crocheting, hooking rugs, writing and journaling, candlewicking, cross-stitching, and decorating--all pretty "artistic" and "creative" in my book!

When I got so excited about Zentangles last year, I shared my new interest with her, and her own talent for the pasttime really took off.  Many of her tangles are done in the form of mandalas.

We have talked about her tangles during our phone conversations (she lives in Kentucky and I live in Pennsylvania), but I had not seen any of her work until she brought them along on this visit.  When I saw them, I knew that you should see them too!

I love her innovation, like using the small scraps of security envelopes to add color and pattern to this design:

And look at the adorable lips on this patterned fish:

Amazing and talented?

Why, yes!  I think so, too!

Who Loves Art in the Mail?

I do!  I do!

I have been receiving postcards as part of Shannon's International Postcard Swap.  Participating in swaps means racing to the mailbox every day, hoping that today is one of the days when a fabulous postcard appears!

Here are the three I have gotten so far:

Beth sent this first card---with an absolutely gorgeous subdued color palette.  I was really wowed by her college (one of those things that looks even more spectacular in person).  The back of her postcard was super-fun, too:

I loved the exposed stitching on the back, similar to the exposed stitching on my own postcards!  Be sure to check out Beth's blog.

Next came this postcard from Judith:

I love that drawing of a Gothic building!  She had fun with the back of her postcard as well:

There was no Internet contact information for Judith, so I hope that she will run across this blog post to see a big "Thank You" from me!

Most recently Trish sent me this colorful beauty:

And more color on the back:

You can see more of Trish's projects at her blog, Lost Muse Journals.

You can see the postcards I sent out as part of this swap in this post from last month.

I am also doing an altered rolodex card swap with Chris, of Parabolic Muse.  In the midst of a million projects, she created these fun and colorful cards from...guess what?!...paper towel!!

Side One

Side Two

All of the card have fun designs, but I like that top one best of all!

So, do YOU want an original handmade gift in the mail over the next couple of weeks??  If so, please check out my most recent post, about the Pay It Forward Project.  I need two more people to sign up, and I will send a gift to you in the next couple of weeks. 

Be sure to leave a comment on yesterday's post if you are interested!

Happy Thursday!