Saturday Centus ~ The Ring

It is week 98 of the Saturday Centus, and to celebrate, Jenny has challenged us with only 98 words including the use of the prompt which is "it was only 98 cents ..."  Here's my little offering!

It had been a beautiful life; years spent in each other’s company, first just the two of them, then the growing family.  Finally just the two of them again until the day that he passed.  It was her turn now, she felt the cold coming, but she was not afraid, she knew that she’d be with him soon.  Her daughters found her the next day … curled up in her bed, clutching his photo and a dimestore ring.  It was only 98 cents back then, but it was with this tiny token, they had cemented their young love.

thanks so much for joining me ... late as usually but i am blaming St Patrick's Day ... tee he he ...

If you want to read other 98 word tales, just click on Jenny's button below and follow her linky!

Happy St. Patricks day to you all!

Well our little miss honey is all decked out and raring party & celebrate ... The sad truth is she will be staying home as I am pretty sure the local pubs don't allow doggies, now matter how much green they wear.

I will be hitting the local Irish pub by 10:30 am ... by 11:00 there will be line ups outside the door.  Have fun today people and I hope the luck of the Irish is with you all today!

Shhhh ....

... turn everything off and let's focus on the quiet ...

I always find it interesting that no matter what the situation, i can never find absolute quiet.  Perhaps this living earth was never meant to be completely quiet ... as i sit here in the quiet, I can hear a car driving by on the road ... my dog is scruffling up her blanket to make a nest ... and my keys are clicking as i type.

In the evening ... curled up in a blanket reading ... pages turn, there is a clink of china as i rest my tea cup, daughter sneezes as she clicks away on a paper she is writing ... Honey lets out a little yip as during a doggy dream.

I love the quiet of the outdoors ... and as much as i would like to sit in the quiet, birds fly by ... a tiny bee will buzz on his search for pollen ... wind rustles the trees, the creek gurgles and every once in a while a squirrel will take on a crow or two over possession of some bit of scrap.

image from Pinterest

At the beach ... even the quietest of beaches ... there is always a gull ... at least one, crying out as it drifts over the shoreline ... quiet waves, lap at the shore, and then there is that unmistakeable sound of footsteps in the sand ...

image from Pinterest

The closest I have come to quiet, is on the early morning of a heavy snowfall ... no tracks in the snow from animals or people ... the birds, unseen and unheard ... it is so quiet, that i can hear the snow flakes fall.

image from Pinterest

So maybe ... just maybe ... we are not to know what absolute quiet is ...the earth is a living mass of organisms ... constantly in motion ... maybe quiet is not to be heard here on earth.  So then, do we ever experience absolute quiet?  Maybe when passing from this world to the next it will be quiet ... but then, I have always thought that Adagio for Strings should be surrounding our soul on the journey to the next plane ...  hmmmm ... i wonder ...

image from Pinterest

thank you for joining me for the later Q.  I am late as usual, although I really am working on that procrastination thing I have going.  Linking up to Jenny's fabulous Alphabe-Thursday meme!

Saturday Centus ~ The Machine

Well, seems like our dear Centus leader is back to her old tricks ... this week, we don't get a prompt ... and we don't get 100 words .... instead we get Fives ... you heard me ... fives!!!  which means we must write on any topic, any style, and tell the story in Five sentences ... and if that is not enough, we also must limit each sentence to Five words only ... oh this was a struggle ... easier said than done!

She fed the noisy machine.
Grey descended and enveloped her. 
It this all that remains?
Tiny shreds of my existence.
Is anyone out there ... anyone?

okay, okay, so i was shredding documents on this cold grey day while listening to the Beatles and yes, Eleanor Rigby was playing ...
well, thats my Five & Five.  Just click on Jenny's button below for some interesting reads!

as promised .... procrastination

Procrastination, procrastination
is making me late
is keeping me waiting .....

Yeah, okay, i did borrow that  from the uber talented Carly Simon ... just replace my "procrastination" and add in her "anticipation" and you have her amazing hit "Anticipation" ... of course i left it too late to write a hit of my own, so i am borrowing hers...

does any one else out there procrastinate?  please tell me there is someone out there who does ... i look at all of your lovely blogs and wonder where everyone gets the time to do all that they do ... and then i look at time management blogs and realize that i have more hours in the day than i thought ... but i spend them all procrastinating ... seriously, you should see my pile of ironing or mending ... they just grow by the week and yet i continue to put them off ...

okay, enough whining about my P problem ... so from today on ... hopefully (and don't hold me to this)
... but from today on, i am going to try my best to not procrastinate ... and that way, i may find a few more hours for fun stuff, like blogging, and reading and well, just enjoying!!!

Oddly enough i don't have a picture of me procrastinating ... but i do have one of me getting a henna on Tuesday night ... that was fun!

 I wish i had taken more photos ... but this is the henna right after it has been applied.  After it dries, it is set, and then glitter is applied to it.  Mine was done in silver and sapphire blue, I loved it.

This is my DD's henna at the end of the night ... the beautiful dark textured colour comes off as well as the glitter and then you are left with the "tattoo" marks left by the henna.

omg, when did my hands get so wrinkly looking!!!

And this is what mine looks like today ... still loving it!

Now without further procrastination, click on the Jenny button below and visit some other Promising P Posts!

O ... ooops, I forgot M and N

Well okay in all honesty i didn't forget M, i just kind of tossed one idea around so much, and i couldn't Make it work, and by the time M naturally came to me, it was kinda late to write it, and yes, the dog did eat my homework ... sigh ...
I can tell ya one thing for sure, come P my word will be Procrastination ... but back to O and N ... and M ...

Magic .... do you believe in Magic?  and what is magic? what is it to you?  I think sometimes we are all on a path looking for a magic trick to make life so much easier .... but really ... i doubt that any of us will find it ... and oh so many wonderful tales have been spun around magic, tales of bravery, of loss and redemption, of miracles and of endless happiness and fountains of youth ...
magic ... in my mind ... my wee little mind, is just waking up every day ... it's in taking time to notice all of the little things ... the tiny mushrooms growing in moss, the beauty of a new bud on a tree, the sounds of children playing ... a crisp breeze on a sunny day ... the noise the rain, in all of it's forms, makes ... how good it feels to stretch both the mind and body ... that's magic ...

this is magic

N is for Natural ... please tell me, what the heck happened to Natural?  why can't we just let things unfold in a natural and organic way?  why must we "fix" everything now ... why is Botox and other fillers just so almost necessary ... please let me age naturally ... i really don't mind age spots and a hint of grey ... but advertisements and celebrities are telling me that they are bad bad bad and what i really need is some injection, implant or other body modification just to "fit in" with my fellow 50+ friends ...

Even Honey is aging naturally

and finally O is for Options ... sometimes i wonder if we all forget ... we have options at every point in every day ... sometimes choosing the one that right for us is just all too difficult .... but they are there, and they must be shared ... please always teach your younger generations that there are always options ... nothing in life is "life or death" there is always a choice somewhere ... just keep looking for it ...

Yesterday was pink shirt day in Canada ... a Nation wide campaign to end bullying.  DD and I are suited up in our pink shirts supporting this important cause.

Thanks so much for hanging in for this uber long post ... and i promise, no procrastination next week ... well as little as possible ...

as always, linking up to Jenny ...

Graphic 45 Design Team 2012 Audition

Hello my friends ...  I've decided to try something ... something that I haven't tried before ... and yes, I am going out on a limb here, and yes ... it is kind of scary, especially because my "Audition" is out in the world for all to see ... eeeeks, I must be a little crazy to do this, but hey ... just another fun experience to add to life's book of ... well stuff!

Without further adieu, here are my 6 projects for the audition!


Project 1, a 12 x 12 layout using the Graphic 45 Le Cirque collection ... I loved this collection, you are going to see a lot of it in my audition.

Project 1, details ... i deconstructed an old Prima Lollypop flower and added some new layers made from G45 papers, the circles are distressed and edged in white gesso.  The hand cut banners are coated with glossy accents and little bit of my favourite glitter to bring some shine to the page.  I added a bit of zipper just to add some texture to the border.

Project 2, Graphic 45 5 x 8 Altered Art Box ... Again using Le Cirque line ... The box is covered in it's entirety with paper from the line.

 Project 2, details, there is a lot of technique here ... after coating the box with paper I used a combination of black ink, white and copper paints to distress and add dimension the edges and sides.  I also aged the large metal embellishment and covered the paper within it with glossy accents.  I made some paper pinwheels and coated the edges with glitter, the chipboard heart was also glittered on the edges. I distressed the frozen charlotte doll, and made it a little hat from the paper.

Project 3, Graphic 45 Mini Album.  This is the folded mini that sits inside the Altered Art Box

This is the box opened, with the mini sitting inside.  This project was a lot of fun to make.

I added two 1/4 wings to extend the length of the album.  This mini is full of fab pictures my DD and her friends took when they went on a Halloween Circus Train Ride ...

The little "wings" are covered with black ruffled ribbon.  They also hold secrets in their pockets!

This part of the album has a 3D component, the bakers twine is strung between two parts of the album and is strung with "flags" and a rosette.

The noticeable fold on the right side hinges upwards to hide some photos.  The photo on the larger left side is actually two skeletons doing a tight rope act ... hilarious, but hard to shoot from a moving train in low light.  This was so much fun to make ... The pictures totally worked with this line!

Project 4 a 12 x 12 layout using the gorgeous Tropical Travelogue line.  DD was clowning around in a public art piece ... so i kind of kept the circle in a square them going with the mini canvases and stickers.

Project 4, details ... this was fun to make (okay i say that about each project, but it really was fun!)   The mini canvases are dry brushed with small amounts of tan and copper paints.  I did a lot of fussy cutting on this layout ... fussy cutting is one of my favourite techniques.  a lot of ripping and curling and distressing as well.  The flowers were made out of kraft glassine paper and scrupled up a bit, and had copper paint sponged on in places.  I immediately thought of the "concrete jungle" when looking at this photo, hence the use of leaves and curls. And the title ... well i don't always do titles ... or journalling ... sometimes i just date my layout and add a card to the back with the journalling.

Project 5, a 12 x 12 layout using more of the Tropical Travelogue.

Project 5, details, Again, fussy cutting ...  Stamping my journalling and/or my titles is another one of my fave things to do on a layout.  I enhanced this relatively flat layout with little bends and twists to the leaves, glossy accents and stickles to the flowers and popdots under the birds.  I just wanted to do something warm and tropical with the cold wintery photo.

 Project 6, two cards from the Tropical Travelogue line.

Project 6 Details, Sadly I had to shoot these photos indoors using flash ... The wind outside was snapping branches off trees, so shooting in natural light just wasn't feasible.  I used to do a lot of cards with loads of layers ... but my current style is very random.  I just love grabbing a few little bits and fussy cutting a few things to make rather informal looking cards.  The card on the left uses a feather, some swiss dot netting, hemp twine, a bit of lace, and ink.  the card on the right uses an inked doily, the patterned paper has been dry brushed with tan, so fussy cut flowers and a die cut border and flower.

Well friends, if you have read down this far, I applaud you!  And G45 Team, I am honoured that you took the time to review my submission.  Thank you so much!