Husband and I are off to Palm Springs first thing in the morning tomorrow morning. The plan is to be on the road by 530 am so we get across the border before the lineups start. We will be spending the first night in Canyonville at the Seven Feathers Casino, then on to Buttonwillow (just outside Bakersfield) for night 2 and then on into Palm Springs on Thursday morning. We can't pickup the keys to the house til after 2 pm so this should work out well.

We're being joined down there by the BIL and SIL and another couple who are friends of the guys. Should be a good time by all. We'll be party central in CA and my daughter will be party central in Pitt Meadows. Sounds like a plan. So......will be away from the blog til March 5th. Will miss all you guys. It's a hard thing to deal with....pool and margaritas or cold wet weather? Hmmmmm........I'm going to miss the cold wet weather!

This is my second 30 Minute Collage. I'm very pleased with it and it was a lot of fun to do. I'm really enjoying doing these little projects; they are so quick to complete.

I used Aquarelle watercolour crayons and did a splatter technique on the notebook. The brush bristles would become saturated with whatever colour I was using so when that happened, I just dabbed the colour off on the paper and re-wet the brush. Once I had all the colour I wanted on the paper, I went back with a wet brush and stippled and spread the colour and/or added to it. I am really happy with the mottled result.

Once the paper was dry, I overstamped it and then added some butterfly stickers and some expoxy stickers from my sticker supply. I have so much stuff in my stash and it's fun to finally be able to use it instead of hoarding it. This could become addictive!

I finally figured out how to load the image into the post so here's my first 30 Minute Collage.

I'm very pleased with the way the colours came together with the image. Since I'm a rank novice at this I decided to just pick a colour scheme and go with that, rather than choosing a specific theme. It was fun to approach it that way and to just go where the colours took me.

Someone on one of the lists I'm on, made the comment that there was no "right" or "wrong " way to do art. She made the point, which had never occurred to me, that art is whatever the artist says it is. That really struck a chord with me! So, here's my art. I hope you enjoy it.

It's just 1 more week - well actually not quite 9 days - til we leave for Palm Springs. I've been busy trying to get everything finished up. Why does everything take 2 or 3 times as long as I figure it should???? Maybe because I keep finding these amazing blogs with fabulous art and I'm spending time doing that instead of what I should be doing??

I've been surfing some fabulous sites and seen some wonderful art work in journals, tags, ATCs and all kinds of art pieces. I particularly like Patty D's artwork(from Tuscan Rose and River Bend Ranch fame). I keep going back to her site to view her 30 Minute Collages. I've also discovered so many other artists' blogs and the work is unbelievable. These artists truly inspired me!

I've been threatening to start an art journal but just never seem to get around to it. Well this afternoon I finally did it! I created my first 30 Minute Collage! I am sooooo excited and I actually did it in a journal I started last year but never kept up. I decided to continue with that journal, rather than starting "fresh", in a brand new journal, as I normally would have done. As I'm very much an "all or nothing" type gal, this is yet another first for me! It's a really big change for me so maybe I'm turning over a new leaf?

I'm going to follow Patty's example and pledge to create some 30 Minute Collages. I won't be able to create a collage a day. I work shiftwork and long days so there are blocks of a time when I really am not motivated, nor do I have the energy or concentration to do art. But I will pledge to create at least one 30 minute collage every week. I will not be working on this plan until I come back from PS at the beginning of March but I pledge to do it faithfully from the first of March til the end of the year. If I work to this plan, I will have a minimum of 40 collages done by the end of the year. Now, that's exciting and if I can do it, it will be so cool!!

I'm soooooo excited about this, that I'm even considering taking a few supplies away on holiday with me. But on the other hand, I feel like I'm just setting myself up for failure. That seems kind of pointless as I know the vacation environment is not conducive to doing my "art thing" when our holiday is going to be party central.

The weather here on the Coast is unbelievably cold. I have no idea what the temperature is but it feels like it is well below zero. Totally not our typical weather.

We are off to Palm Springs for our annual vacation in just 16 days. I can hardly wait. I'm just hoping that this cold front moves on very soon because it is also affecting the weather in Palm Springs. Can you believe it was only 15 there today? BRRRRR.

I have been squirreling away my change and odd bills for several months now so I have a good little chunk of seed money for my gambling. Now the trick is to be able to give enough to the gambling gods to keep them happy but keep enough to be able to gamble for awhile and, of course, win.

I have a lenthy list of tasks to complete before I go and of course not enough time to get them all done. So what else is new??

The New Year is in full swing ! The weather here on the coast has turned a little ugly; the January monsoons have arrived again so it's cold and damp and miserable. Probably a lot more miserable if you were living on the streets. Funny, don't know why but I find myself thinking about the street people a lot lately. It's got to be very tough out there!

On a cheerier note, I'm counting the days - 26 to be exact - until we go on our annual Palm Springs vacation. Last year we were by ourselves for 2 weeks and the brother-in-law and his wife joined us for 2 weeks. This year, they are coming for the full month. A third couple, whom I have never met but whom husband and brother-in-law know, will be joining us for about 3 weeks. Same house, just a couple of weeks earlier this year. Iwould have preferred to go for the month of March but the conscensus was for February so that's when we go. I can understand that the others want to go earlier as January and February in Ottawa can be quite hateful - cold weather, blizzards - who wouldn't rather be in Palm Springs? Let's just hope the weather cooperates for us.....I'll pray to the weather gods!

The new year is here already. Lots to be grateful for:
- good health
- the love and support of family and friends
- a roof over my head and lots of food on the table
- a hobby I enjoy and money enough to be able to indulge it
- a reasonably good job - sometimes this is more a curse than a blessing!

Life is good!