Sleeping under the Christmas tree

This year, Emma was Santa's little helper.  We loaded all the presents under the Christmas tree super early Christmas morning, and then we brought out our blankets and pillows and slept under the tree.  Aeva joined us about an hour later, and by 4:30 in the morning, we were all under the tree.  It was a lot of fun.  I wore my new monkey slippers Christmas morning, and one of my favorite things of this season, is the book we made of Emma's blog.  We uploaded her blog to Blurb, and they printed the coolest book of all her artwork, quirky titles and descriptions.  What a treasure that is.

With Great Joy

cottagearts filters

The Christmas tree is up, and all of the decorations are up, including the snow angels I made with Becky Hayworth and Emma in 2008.  I just love it when there is so much love and wonderful memories that we think of every time we get ready for Christmas.  The new addition to our house this week, is the painting my friend Helen Trotter started and asked me to continue with.  It's taken a turn, literally.  It has gone from a mountain to a geyser, erupting joyfully.  I've titled it "With Great Joy".  Last night, Helen and I went and saw Voyage of The Dawn Treader, and when I had her over to see the painting after the movie, we saw all kinds of new symbolism in the painting.  Of course, the portal to Narnia being a painting of water, was fresh in our imagination!

Iowa feed sacks...

12x20 inch stretcher bars, feed sacks, cottagearts filters, staples

Now that these are stretched, what do I want to paint on them?  I've been getting the studio up and ready... I'm almost there, so soon and very soon I'll get to start working on these and other fun projects that have been dancing around in my brain.  I've been thinking about the theme of seeds for a while now, so it will be fun to work those out on actual feed sacks.  I'll keep y'all posted.