Heavenly Music for Christmas

Six Months!

While working on my blog last night it dawned on me  in a couple weeks I’ve been blogging for six months!  I can hardly believe it!   At the encouragement of my brother and fellow blogger “FJ”   I  entered the blogosphere not knowing what to expect or what to write about.   FJ (Bobby) told me to write about the things I know something about and the things I  love!  For me , it was all about inspiring and encouraging others in the area of style , design and the arts!

I know there are millions of bloggers and I only occupy a tiny piece of the pie, but its been so much fun to reach out and meet such wonderful people from all over the world.  The biggest honor and blessing is  I now have a humble following and some very dear loyal bloggers I call my dear friends.

The photograph of me was taken over the Thanksgiving Holiday in California while visiting my brother (FJ) and his family.  I’m sitting at his dining room table reading all your wonderful blogs!  I would like to say  when I arrived at Bobby’s house  the first thing we talked about was all of our terrific friends in the blogosphere!

A special thanks need to go out to FJ, Timm, Sean, Neil, Scott,  Shipra, Claire Pamela , Jennifer  and my Facebook  faithful,  Prescott , Lori and Angie!  I love you all and your amazing talent and input!  I  look forward to the months ahead in sharing and friendship!   I wish you all a very Merry Christmas  and Happy Hanukkah this Holiday Season!

All my heartfelt love and Huge Bear Hugs!

Organic Tartan!

Fall into Winter

(image – the mona lisa)

(image -  Mona-aaa  )

(image – Matt Cline )

(image – mawa73527 flickr)

(image -  ismasans flickr)

(image – desert by blue )

The view from my porch!

(image – BL )

I’m on the road again!

I’ll be one the road for a few days!  Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Veteran’s Day

Warrior Creed

I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit.  I will never leave a fallen comrade.

Today more than ever and in light of the lingering grief and tragedy at  Fort Hood,  I think its very important to stop today to remember and reflect upon all those men and women throughout our history who have unselfishly answered the call to defend and preserve our  freedoms.  Today is not a political day,  it is simply a day to say thank you to all those who have served and are currently serving our country.  To them we owe  our support and gratitude.

World War I

World War II

Korean War

Vietnam War

Gulf War

Afghanistan War

Iraq War

Veteran’s

This post is dedicated to my beloved husband who is a Combat Medic in the U.S Army.  He has been sent to Afghanistan once and Iraq four times.  He is currently serving in Iraq today.

Make your own Paint by Numbers!

You can go to eHow.com to find the instructions on how to make your very own paint by numbers art work.  Here are a few examples to show how you might want your painting to appear.    You have the option of printing on art paper or canvas then paint away!

Original photograph

Paint by numbers pattern

Original photograph – (image – leslie thompson flickr)

Paint by number pattern

You can take any photograph and you decide how detailed you want the image.  Happy Painting everyone!

“I Painted it Myself”

Prototype Abstract #1   – First Paint by number painting.

In the post World War II era of the 1950′s America elevated its famous can do spirit into a place where dreams really do come true. Dan Robbins was one of those people.  Dan made a modest living by producing washable paints sets for kids when one day he remembered how Leonardo de Vinci would hand out numbered patterns to his apprentices and thought , “Why not do the same for anyone who wants to paint but does not have the talent to draw or mix paint colors”.   Dan quickly took his idea and prototype to the  owner of Palmer Paint Company  Max Klein . It was to be a terrific merger and as they say,  the rest is history! The years between 1951 through 1954 they sold 12 million paint by number kits alone.

“I painted it myself” became household conversation!  It rapidly was the number one leisure activity of the day!

These are just a few samplings of Dan Robbins paint-by-numbers paint kits.

Dan Robbins and Doug James teamed up to produce the now very famous paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa paint kit.   Doug once said,  “While paint-by-numbers weren’t ‘art’ at the time of their origin,  they certainly are now,  by virtue of ideas and concepts which have evolved into being”.

Nowadays,  paint-by-number paintings have become collector items!

“Picture Walls” are popping up in homes with paint-by-number paintings.

I particularly  love this gallery wall !

These days its becoming increasingly difficult to find paint-by-number paintings in antique stores, but you can now find replicas  like this Poodle painting at Urban Outfitters for only $19.99 !

If you are fortunate enough to run across a Dan Robbins paint-by-number painting I suggest you snatch it up !  Its now an iconic American form of Art!

So good to be back in the land of Corner Paint !

Ahhh!!  Its great to be back online.  I took a few days off to creatively catch my breath and reconnect with my love of painting.    I guess you could say, painting is my creative muse of sorts.

For me, painting is a full contact sport.  It may look a bit chaotic from a distance, but I assure you all my senses are fully engaged.

In the midst of all the colors and textures of my day,  I was meditatively chewing like a ruminant mammal for new ideas to share on future postings.

Most of all , I’d like to say thank you for all the sweet Emails, Face Book messages and comments from my loyal friends and readers.  I missed you and hope in the days ahead I’ll bring you some newly hatched ideas!

Everyone has asked me to post my work…and I will.  I’m still in the process, but I thought I’d post some previous paint projects of mine for now .

Most of my painting on wood has been in the form of furniture, but several months ago I painted a bunch of wooden bracelets for fun. Here’s just a few samples.

This is a small section of a gallery wall in my home leading to my library room.  Can you guess which oil painting is mine?

Looking forward to the days ahead and hopefully we’ll all share in the delight of creative blogging!  Hugs everyone!

(images – PhotoKit and Sebaneze Flickr)

Taking a few days off to paint !

I’ll be taking the next few days off to catch up on some painting projects.  Hope you all have a wonderful week!  Love and Hugs Vicki