Musing Crow Designs

I am really feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I'm behind on book reviews, behind on correspondence, behind on house work, laundry and life!
I've been working on a very overdue memorial quilt for a lovely woman. It took me some time to get my mojo going but it is making excellent progress and should be done soon! I spent the last 3 days getting the strips put together from the front - made from her late husband's shirts were all needed stabilization before I could work with them. Today I scanned and cleaned up nearly 30 photographs and printed them all. They're curing now and I'll begin the wide border construction tomorrow. I will, most surely, do a post about it when all is said and done. I know I will feel better once the quilt is done and I can pain play again. Funny how art journaling has really taken root in my life !, l The one thing that I have been keeping up with is my Blipfoto blipping - my daily photo journal. I find being able to upload only one ph…

I am big believer that my life goes in circles. One circle begins, another completes. Many bring happiness, closure, adventure, new perspectives, beginnings and ending. It seems that my love for photography has reinvented itself and I feel re-energized by the wonderful new horizons that the digital age and my IPhone have afforded me. Oddly enough I seldom use the cell phone -I am not a big fan of phones in general - but I could not give up my IPhone because of all the other things it can do!
Photography has been a part of my life for many years, I actually went to a two years photography degree program. It was just as the digital age was beginning and, collectively, none of thought it would last! I used to spend hours and hours days at a time enjoying the quiet and marvels of the darkroom. It was a place that felt like home. Ultimately, of course, digital caught on. Big Time! It didn't take me long to hop on the digital photography wagon. It did, however, take me awhile to decide t…

'Twas the day before Tuesday, and all through the house
not a creature was stirring, not even a spouse

When out on the deck there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash
tripped off the shutter, and whipped back the sash.


The moon on the last of  a sunshiney day
gave the lustre of evening to objects that strayed,
and, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a miniature goldfinch and a large boyish deer.
We really did hear a racket and wondered what it could be. I thought at first the raccoons were making earlier than usual. They're up to teaching their new babies the ropes these days. DH got up and surveyed the commotion and said I had to to out of my Lazy Girl to have a look - and, indeed, what to my wondering eyes did appear but a brash boyish deer cleaning up the scattered, leftover, birdseed!  I took a tumble as I dismounted from the table where I had been snapping pictures. I took two large plant…

Each month Michelle Ward posts a unique challenge on her Green Pepper Press Street Team Blog. This month's "Crusade #52" is about your seasonal color choices. Do you change your palette when the skies are blue and the sun is warm? It posed an interesting concept. I find that I generally use the same basic color palette year round; both for art as well as for clothes. My clothes always include black. It goes with anything and, in art, it gives such a nice punch. Of course, I don't tend to pastels or I might not say that! In fact, working with monotone and pastel palettes is one of personal challenges this year. I plan to have fun challenging myself to step away from my comfort colors.
My comfort colors include all green-gold, olive, poison, ick and lime greens - though not too neon bright. I love ochers and deep yellow golds as well as reds and burgundys of a variety of shades. My staples are black, gray, navy and white or off white. I use brighter tones of my favorite…

This months swap them at Arts In The Cards was Sunflowers and Lemonade.  I adore sunflowers and take lots of photos of them every year. They never fail to make me smile!  These look like simple photographs and, indeed, that's what they are. It was difficult to photograph these cards adequately. They look better in person that in these photos - although I don't suppose that they are the most original cards I've ever made they are the beginning of a new process that I have been experimenting with. What is a bit different about these cards is that the images are printed on common, off the drugstore shelf, untreated, white tissue paper. I have been experimenting with this process lately and think I have a process finally figured out. After being printed, the images are placed over an embossed mat board - so that when the card is held in a certain way you see the embossing (which in this case is script).  I've been having fun experimenting with this technique. It can be…

This afternoon as I went to complete the daily cleaning and refilling of the 5 quart sized hummingbird feeders I realized that it's bee season. The bees seem to feed as much as the hummingbirds - or at least they try to ! I took all but one of the feeders in and cleaned them, but left one outside so that I could take some photographs. The bees were obliging and could not be bothered to move - even as I changed the location of the feeder to get better light.
They were all so intent on feeding..nothing bothered them and almost nothing would move them. I hoped I wouldn't rile them up - since I can be very allergic to their stings. I don't know anything about bees except that I love honey and I am grateful to them and pray that their populations will not continue to decline. I wondered if the large bee with the shiny 'cap' might be a queen. Anyone know anything about bees? Once all of the feeders were back in place all of the winged ones were content again - DH just br…

A friend, Patsy Moreland, sent me a link to this thoroughly mind blowing work of art. I would so love to be able to be a part of something like this. What vision - what beauty. Click on the link (yes, it's safe) and be prepared to be surprised!


http://www.muralmosaic.com/Cochrane.html

One of the things about living on an island, the down side if you will, is that there are few opportunities to take classes that you want to. Generally speaking those of us who live here travel to get the the classes we want. That becomes pricey when you figure in the costs of the class, supplies, travel costs, ferry costs and room and board. Many relatively available classes that we can take are prohibitively expensive by themselves - pricing many of us out of the creative loop.
When we started our local quilting guild years ago it was with the intention of being able to bring teachers to us - rather than us having to the teachers. In the intervening years I have become gobsmacked by mixed media - and I thirst for some classes to help me put some of the mixed media puzzle pieces. My friend Janet, who has generously become my social organizer, who knows everyone in town and is well connected, stopped by my office one day to tell me about a class with Jane LaFazio that that she had hear…

A friend gave me one perfect Gerbera bloom for my birthday. It was so perfect, so white and so beautiful that I had to "play" with some images of it.  These are probably best viewed full size - so double click on the images if you want to see the larger view. I am continually in awe of things that Mother Nature allows us to share with her. WoW !

I wanted to be able to enclose a little something in some thank-you notes I was mailing out and decide to try making little blessing patches. I found that using Golden Fluid Matte Medium worked but, quite honestly I wasn't too thrilled with the results . The image on the right is transferred with matte medium. Last night I decided that I needed to make a few extra extra patches and thought "why not try Purell" - I'd read about it at some point although I had no recollection of what to do or how to do it. I lightly spread just a bit of Purell on the flannel patch and then tried to transfer the image. Voila! I was gobsmacked! This was crystal clear- perfect. Oh! Why hadn't I tried this before they had all been sent out?!!  The Purell samples are on the left. Amazing! I remember reading that only the brand name Purell will work - so now I'm on the hunt for a large economy size. Anyone know where to get it?!
In another, unrelated, amusing issue. An all things foun…

I haunt bookstores and book sellers on line. I am, and always have been, a bibliophile. There have been times when I walked the aisles of a book store and happily snapped up a copy of a book that sound just so good that I had to have it - only to discover that I already owned it. Now, if you love in an area that allows you to return or exchange the book that is not so much of a problem - just perhaps a small irritation. Then again having to go back to a book store seems like a good thing to me ! When you lie far away from any stores though - having a second copy of a  book can prove to be more frustrating.
I have wanted to be able to catalog  the books in my ever expanding library - but the thought and tediousness of the work seemed overwhelming to me - and of course I always figured that I had better things to do with my time that meticulously catalog my books manually. Enter the new age of scanners. There is a system of cataloging your books using a scanner. I found one program but i…