pictures

Here are some photos from Donna's home. Just want you to see how she incorporates her art in her home.

Sometimes life is just too much.

Hello, Yes, I'm still here. My plate has just been so full for the last month that I haven't had the energy to even come in here and write. I am so sorry. I guess you might say that I'm dealing with a little bit of depression too, and that has a tendency to make you tired and to lose all interest in your activities. I will try to get you caught up on my life really fast, don't want to bore anyone out there in blog land. Okay, here goes.

My husband and I are losing our home. Yes, you read it right. He is in the building business and it has died in our area, has been dead for a while and we have held on to the things for as long as we could but about a month ago, maybe a little longer, we decided that we just couldn't do it anymore and made the decision to let the house go. We are getting a modular and putting it on a piece of land that we own, and we will just start over. I have been spending the last month going thru all of our things and making three piles. 1. things that we need to keep, 2. things to sell, and 3. things to let go of all the way. This has been interesting, I still have things from high school. I love having things that meant a lot to me in the past, but now I'm at the point of do I keep them or let them go. We are going from a house that is over 3000 sq. feet, plus a garage, storage unit, and a huge back yard with hot tube and swimming pool to a small modular with not much land at all. So I am really trying to downsize things. Then I'm running out of time. Time is short here in the house, but the modular hasn't even begun to be set on the lot yet. I'm concerned about where we will go. But then I have been given more time than I thought, so that is a blessing in itself. Let's be honest here, I never ever thought that this could happen to us. We have always done pretty good, nice homes, cars, and could get pretty much anything that we wanted. Whoa, talk about a wake up call. but I have to tell you, I am believing that God will use this in a special way. This is one of our valleys that we are walking thru, and like the Bible tells us, this shall come to pass.

My trip to Florida was nice, but it was hard because I kept getting phone calls all the time about what was happening back here at home. but I've got to tell you, Sandy, my roommate and friend that is in Ga., and Donna was wonderful to me. God blessed me that week with the two of them. And I learned so much. Sandy and I were invited to Donna's house on Tuesday night for a chocolate tasting, check the link for the healthy chocolate on the right of my blog, and her house is wonderful. You just feel comfortable when you walk in, and at the same time you are so busy trying to take everything in. Sandy and I were both amazed at all the paintings that were in here house. I mean, the things that you see in her books are really in her house. I loved it. And, i really need to tell you this, Donna is such a special person. Her heart is so big, and she truly cares about her OSCI and students. I was fortunate to sit with her for two meals, and I just love her. And she is so funny. Really. The certification for the HD paints was the first one, and it was hard. We painted about 12 hours a day, for three days. To me it was hard, this is something that I've never really done before. But I learned and have already been playing with it some at home. I will post some pictures soon.

Well, I'm going to go for now. I've taken some sleeping pills and need to go to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day and the sun will be shining.
Believing,
Charlie

Found the camera and lots to share.

Hello, it's been a long week, and thank God Friday is finally here. When I leave the studio today it will be closed for a week because I'm going to Florida for my certification class in the High Definition paints with Dewberry Designs. I am rooming with my friend Sandy, from Ga., and we are going to be showing each other different techniques with our paintings in the evening. I'm going to share watercolor batiks with her and she is going to help me with landscapes. So, not only will we be learning in the day time, but our nights will be educational too. AND guess where Sandy and I will be on Tuesday night. We will be at Donna's home, can you believe it? We got an invitation this week, and of course we both replied YES!!! Anyway, When I get back I'm sure that I will have lots of pictures to post and share with you.

And speaking of pictures to post, I have about a weeks worth to post so let me get to it.

We are painting a watercolor batik from a book by Kathie George on Watercolor Batiks. This is a very small picture that I blew up so that they could get a taste of doing these batiks. They loved it and so we are going to be purchasing a packet from Kathie George in the very near future.

See Kathy's tee shirt? It saids "Save the Ta-Tas". This is

one of the items we had for our Angie's Amazing Race 2.

And this is Joanie's first time with a paint brush in her hand. Looks like she is having fun.

LaDonna is drying her batik so that she can add more wax.

Maria is sitting and knitting while Joanie paints. Then Joanie is done with the painting and waxing, so now she is ironing off the wax.

And now for the finished pieces. This is Kathie's piece, and she really enjoyed doing this and looks forward to other batiks.

And this is Kathy's piece, and of course she is holding Myles. She is really excited cause she gets to keep him while I'm in Florida. He will be SO SPOILED.

This is LaDonna's first class with us. I think that she liked it and I hope that she makes back for some other classes.

And Penni is becoming a faithful student for Thursday nights, along with Kathie. She didn't want to do the batik But I think she liked it after finishing it.

And of course here is Joanie and Maria with Joanie's finished piece. They are a hoot. And the Pink piece is a batik that I did for JoAnne's pink project that she is doing. Go check it out.

T

Then for last nights class we painted roses. But first take a look at the birthday crown that I made for Joanie. I got the idea from Gabriela's blog, she makes beautiful crowns. Did I mention that they are beautiful? Go check them out.

This is Maureen, and she

had come to a class back before Christmas and wanted to come do the roses. She did very well for only her second time in class.

This Kathie's rose, and she did great. The ones that she was practicing were beautiful. She said that she knew what she was going to be doing all weekend, painting roses.

And of course here is Penni, with her new and sexy looking haircut. She said that she is going to call her sister and have her come look at the blog so that she can see her new look. Such a funny girl.

And what would a post be without a few picture of my Myles. And some of the flowers in my yard.

Enjoy your weekend, and I'll be back in after next week. Take care and keep on

Believing.

Charlie

Well, I've managed to misplace my camera.

I meant to post pictures from last Thursday night's class, but I can't find my camera. I know that it is somewhere, I just don't know where that somewhere might be. But class was a lot of fun, Joanie even tried the watercolor batik and that is the first time that I've been able to get a paint brush in her hand. When I find my camera I will post the pictures then.

Today, Monday, started off not so well. At 7:20a.m. my cell phone rang and it was my hubby, Phil. He proceeded to tell me that he had been in a car accident and that it was bad. I got up, threw a jacket on and headed right out the door. It took me a year to get to him, or so it seemed. There were three cars involved, but only two really connected. The woman in the front car slammed on her brakes, for some unknown reason, and the semi truck hauling gasoline slammed on his brakes, but Phil didn't have time to slam on his. Needless to say, Phil's car went under the gasoline truck. He is okay, just very sore. He didn't go to the hospital, which I'm really upset over, but promises to go tomorrow. His car is probaby totaled, and it is his company car. Thank God that he is okay!!!! A car can be replaced, but he can't.

I guess that while I'm on this kind of subject I'll share some other things with you. We are moving out of our home within the next month. We have decided to downsize. Phil had a scare with cancer around Christmas and it got us to thinking. If something would happen to him there is no way that I could hold onto the house that we are living in. So we had a family meeting with our kids and told them what we are thinking about doing and they are supporting us in our decision. We are selling our pool, selling my jeep, and selling my 1955 Ford Truck. This scare was really a big wake up call, and we are going to get all of our ducks in a row. Of course with Phil being in the building business and the construction business has taken a nose dive this just seems to be the smartest thing for us to do. And you know what, I am really looking forward to this change. I will miss my neighbors, I have the best neighbors of anyone, but we will remain close. They come up to the studio all the time and we have a blast. Anyway, Just thought that I would share this with you. And it really helps to write about it, too.

I am going to go for now. I hope that all of you have a great Monday night, and I'll be back in a day or two.
Believing,
Charlie

BATIKS AND PAPER QUILLING.

Tuesday was really a lot of fun. It started off with my morning class doing a watercolor batik. Patty didn't make it for class, but we did have a new student, Jean. The girls really loved doing this and we have picked out a big one to do possibly next month. I will be ordering them from the Artist, Kathie George.

This is Theresa adding a wash to her piece.

And this is Jean and she is drying her piece so that she can add another layer of wax.

And now for our finished pieces.

Aren't these really nice? And you can tell by the smiles on their faces that they really enjoyed this class.

Then for the night class, finally we got to learn how to do Paper Quilling. I loved it. This is a craft that you are either going to love or just not get it. There were three of us taking the class and two of us are hooked, and the third one is going to try a different class. Our teacher, Arden, has been doing it forever and was thrilled to be able to do a class. She is such a sweet lady and we are very lucky to have her with us.

Arden is helping Joanie with the stems to her flowers that she was making.

Brenda joined us for her first class. She made some beautiful flowers. and Joanie is hiding her face while showing us her flowers. Then next is the three pots that we did, fun, fun, fun!

Next week we are going to do a blue bird. This is an art that nuns started doing in the 13 th century. They used quills from birds for the rolling of the paper. I saw this in a book and picked it up and loved what I saw. Then I tried to find someone to teach me and couldn't. One day while I was sitting in the studio Arden walked in and asked me if I was interested in paper quilling. I about fell out of my chair! And that is how our quilling class came to be.

Tomorrow is a busy day, Crochet class and painting class. I love Thursday classes, and I'm already looking forward to all the laughter.

Believe.....

Charlie

Myles and classes

My baby Myles, isn't he just the cutes thing? This is a picture of him in his little play area at the studio. He is still so tiny, but I think he is starting to gain some of his weight back.

I didn't post last week about my classes, well I did on Tuesday class, but not Thursday night. Now get this, I had three students and all three were named Kathy, Kathy, and Cathy. Now talk about being confusing.

This is Kathy, and it looks like she is having a good time. We spent the night practicing different strokes. See Myles in the backgound?

This is Kathy, my demon helper. She likes to
come take classes too. She really helps to keep the laughter going.

And this is my friend Cathy, and it was her first night for class. She is the one that introduced me to a lot of other painters in the area. Everyone thinks that we are sisters, so we just tell everyone that we are twins separated at birth.

We also had our first night crochet class. We decided to do both classes at one time, we have pleny of room, so the more the merrier.

This is Joanie, our crochet teacher, and she is teaching Margaret for her first night. Joanie is in the white.

Margaret has been a friend for a few years. Her son was a good friend to my oldest son and we got to know each other that way.

This is our sweet Maria. Isn't she a beautiful woman . She is our neighbor and comes up with Joanie on Thursday nights. She sits there and knits while Joanie crochets. She is a woman full of wisdom, beauty and love.

Now for some pictures of my studio.

This is the entrance, or at least what you see when you walk in the door.

The items on the wall are pieces that I've painted, along with some of the windows. The purses are things that Joanie has crochet.

Okay, that is it for now. I'll post more later.

have a great night.

Charlie