• Art - Blog - Creativity

    Just for fun AB complete

    October 22, 2008 - By 

    There are so many things I love about altered books.

    • The feeling of completion when I’ve filled up the all pages
    • The way they never close completely
    • The warped pages
    • The paint that got smudged onto the inside covers even though I thought I was careful
    • The colorful pages just begging to be touched

    I’m definitely going to start another “no theme” book. I love the freedom and chance to express what ever it is that I am feeling at any moment. It also gives me a great place to practice techniques and designs.

  • Blog

    October 19, 2008 - By 

    Should we all just stop paying the mortgage?

    If you have not read this article, you need to.

    I don’t normally rant but I can’t let this go by without comment.

    I hate the fact that we were responsible when we purchased this house 5+ years ago. We had a decent down payment from the sale of our previous home (which we skimped and saved and even borrowed from our 401k to make a down payment for 11 years ago) and qualified for a much larger mortgage but we chose not to overextend ourselves.
    We thought about all the scenarios that would make buying beyond our comfort zone wrong; taxes going up, job layoff, injury, etc.
    We looked at a couple of REALLY nice new homes that would have been SO AWESOME to live in but in the end….WE WERE RESPONSIBLE.
    We made good choices and now we are being punished. We’re paying for these people who decided that they needed a “McMansion” in the new subdivision carved out of the farmer’s fields that he had to sell because farming just didn’t pay the bills anymore.
    We were responsible and didn’t take out a home equity loan to remodel even though we have equity….we were responsible!
    We didn’t make ourselves “house poor”.
    We pay our bills on time, we don’t go and buy the latest and greatest this to hit that market. We don’t go out to eat. We don’t go to the movies. We haven’t had a vacation out of the state in 10 years. We’re careful with our money.
    But now I wonder, why? Why should we have skimped and saved and denied ourselves all the luxuries our credit would have allowed?

  • Art - Blog - Creativity

    Palm painting

    October 18, 2008 - By 


    After a morning spent thirfting, I decided to play a bit this afternoon.
    I know that my hubby was crossing his fingers that the front lawn would be mowed when he returned but that’s not likely to happen. Sorry sweetie!

    I used my “Just for Fun” AB to practice another tropical scene. I’m not satisfied with the one I created a while back for our upstairs bathroom. I have the vision of what I’d like it to look like but have yet to decide the medium. Maybe collage or another painting..who knows. It may be totally mixed media.