Updates & Awards Time

I was in touch with the project planner for the Diary 2009 Project in hopes to send an updated version of the first image - it occured to me that the print was going to be really small and that the grayed out area made my web address look kind of muddied ... she didn't have any problem with the updates ...

... AND ...

... she has decided to use the second design. I find myself more drawn to the second one, so was thrilled when she sent the date - February 15th. Here are the final versions of both dates:

This was a fun project to be involved in. I don't know what the cost of the books are/is going to be, but considering the number of artists that are involved, it ought to be worth whatever the price. I'm definitely hoping it's within my budget & if it is, maybe I'll just purchase the disc and print them out myself. All said and done, I'd be willing to do this again next year.

On to a different topic ...

Carmen from Writing from Life recently presented me with this:

The Arte y Pico Award is presented blogger to blogger ... in researching the origin, I visited the site (via the wonderful imperfection of its translated version as I cannont read Spanish) and came across this statement:

What is the meaning of the expression: Art and Pico And basically, ironically, it translates into a wonderful phrase in Mexico, “lo maximo.” LOL! It will never find its counterpart in English, but if it HAD to, it would be something like, Wow. The Best Art. Over the top.

Wow. I like the word ... it simply says so much. :) So, to continue paying it forward, I would like to present it to the following five blogs:

Monica - for without her (& the Pink Artists Community Doll Project) I wouldn't even be blogging ... seriously ... if you still don't believe me, check out this very first post

Vanessa - because my head is STILL spinning from her most Fanciful Mad Tea Party!

Sandy - it's all in the name ... ok, inside joke ... go visit her.

Jessi - simply for the sake that she's FINALLY opened her Etsy store and I know you've been just itching for a lil shopping spree!

Amber Dawn - if it hadn't been for her, I would never have tried a Charm Challenge or done the Diary 2009 Project, so that's definitely inspiration, dontcha think? ... ps - she stole my middle name!

If you were selected for the award, please pay it forward by following these steps:

1) Choose 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award based on creativity, design, interesting material, and overall contribution to the blogger community, regardless of the language.

2) Post the name of the author and a link to his or her blog so everyone can view it.

3) Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award.

4) The award-winner and the presenter should post the link of the "Arte y pico" blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5) Please post these rules!

I guess when it rains it pours ... when I logged on today, I was surprised to find that Denise at Couture de Papier has bestowed this lovely little sparkly on me:

The rules of accepting are as follows:

1) Put the logo on your blog.

2) Add a link to the person who awarded you.

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4) Add links to those blogs on yours.

5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

Here are my 7 nominated blogs:

Donna

Marilyn

Kathryn

Marlou B

Lea

Christine

Cathie

... and on that note, I have stuff to make and a spouse that's itchin for his turn in the chair ... I'll be sure to let all my nominee's know in the next day or two.
Cheers! ~M~

Nothing Like Waiting Until The Last Minute ...

ok, not quite the last minute ... I'm about 23 hours and 35 minutes away from the very last minute ... *giggles* ... I must be tired as I can tell I'm a bit punchy. In an effort to avoid rambling for days, I'll get to the point. Remember the 2009 Diary Project that I signed up for? I posted my first design attempts on THIS post to get some feedback (I recieved such a great response and the feedback helped ... A LOT, so thank you). The format for the pages really threw me for a loop ... 1350X2400 Pixels in .jpg ... eek ... doesn't really translate to an 8.5x12 inch piece of paper very easily, but I think I figured it out (guess we'll really know when the project is complete and can hold a copy in our hands).

Anyway, here's what I just sent over:

In the last email that the project coordinator sent she mentioned that she still had pages that weren't taken. I didn't respond requesting another date, but I did go ahead and do another design ... I followed up my first email with a second one letting her know that if she was (is?) still looking for more designs and liked it, I could easily add the date ... this is the second design:

and on that note, I think it's time for bed.

Off to the Tea Party ... Finally!

Updated July 1st ... and the winners are:

Janet

Trina

dubuhdudesigns

Many, many thanks to everyone for taking the time to stop by.

_____________________________________

It's here, it's here! It's finally time for the long anticipated Mad Tea Party!

I had all these grand plans of making party hats and masks and goodies and such,

but unfortunately it was all I could do to get the gang together ...

Let me introduce you to everyone:

Queenie E:

The Girl With the Pearl:

Esmerelda:

(left to right) Penelope, May, Mathilde & Coco:

MewMew:

Elizabeth:

Mathilde:

Olivia:

Connie:

Almost everyone:

Now that we're all here, we are off to visit Vanessa and all her fabulous guests.

PS - I'll be giving away three of the Fairy Cork Dolls. If you'd like to be included in the drawing, please be sure to leave a comment. All comments received between now and 9:00 p.m. Wednesday, July 2nd will be included in the drawing.

Thank you for stopping by. Come again any time.

Tag ... I'm it

It's a first ... I was just tagged by that most charming Amber Dawn (sorry, I just couldn't resist ... she really is the Queen of Charms) ... here's the scoop:

The rules are: link back to the person's blog who tagged you, include these rules, list 3 unimportant things about yourself (** wait, I have to admit that there are unimportant things about me?!? ... uh, ok.) and then list 3 more bloggers who are tagged to do the same.

Ready?

1. I have two standard replies when complimented, "years and years of practice" or "shhh ... it's a secret".

2. I'm convinced the most romantic line in movie history is from the most recent version of Pride and Prejudice when Darcy tells Elizabeth "and I love, love, love you ..." - I know it has everything to do with his delivery, but I melt every time I see that scene. *sighs*

... hmmm ... then again, it just might be "as you wish" from the Princess Bride.

3. I think I'm part crow (the bird) or octopuss because I really, really like sparkly shiny things.

who's next?!?

Donna over at Mice and Moonbeams (and be sure to check out her Princess Squash Diary's)

Sandy from Sandy's Creations (a real delight)

Carmen of Writing From Life (writing of life through the eyes of a mermaid)

Wedding Party

The invitation read:

Do you love looking at wedding photos? I do. Let's see yours, please! On Thursday, June 26th, play along with me at my Virtual Wedding Party. Post photos from your wedding - they can be pretty or funny or just pretty funny! Tell us a story! What happened at your wedding? Did Aunt Marge trip and fall on the cake? Who caught the bouquet, and did they get married yet? We'd love to hear it. Don't spare any details.

Excellent idea, don't you think?

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I thought that I would start off with two of my

most favorite wedding pictures ... EVER

Here's my Omi (Mom's mom) on her wedding day:

and this is Omi and Grandpa Pitcarin:

so romantic and dreamy, don't you think? *sighs*

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Ok, now onto my own story ...

Before I share, I'll give you a little background info ... Don and I started dating in June of 1997. He asked me to marry him right around Halloween and we were married on November 22, 1997. Yep, five months later.

When he "popped the question" I wasn't even sure that he had asked. I was just waking up and actually thought that I was dreaming, so ... I didn't answer. The day happened like almost any other. That night (over a game of backgammon) he said, "you never answered my question" ... ok, so it was real ... and I said, "yes". That simple. It's important to note that I am the Queen of Second Guessing myself and almost everything I do. This was one of those rare occasions when I didn't pause and just reacted from the core of my being; I'm convinced it's the best decision I have ever made.

So, we sent out our wedding invitations (a bunch of post cards that I ... and he ... had collected throughout the years - some were of beautiful places, works of art, cute post cards, sweet ones, funny - they ran the whole gammit) and started planning - we had a little over a month to pull it off. Thank heavens for our moms and our friends!

We decided to have the wedding in the back yard of one of my dearest friends in AZ - we had just over 40 invitee's RSVP and the house/yard could easily accomodate that number. Don's mom and brother flew in a few nights before the wedding - it was the first time I met either of them ... thankfully, we had soooo much going on and soooooo much to do that there wasn't time to not like each other (and actually we all got along splendidly! - sometimes I am a really lucky girl). I put together all the wedding favors - a polished rock & a chocolate lady bug placed in a pretty piece of lace and tied with a ribbon. The food planning was easy, too: simple snacks out - cheeses, crackers, shrimp, nuts, veggies, etc. and after the ceremony Don would grill a bunch of sheesh kabobs - lots of veggies, filet & shrimp. We opted for fruit pies from Marie Calendars rather than a wedding cake ... we had so many pies that some of the guests would leave with an entire pie. There'd be a full bar (thanks to the mom-in-law) and plenty of great music (thanks to the house DJ).

Flash forward to the wedding day. Our friends came to help out, so even the set up seemed like a party. We all spent most of the morning setting up chairs & getting the food ready - there was tons of laughter in the house. My girlfriend (and hair stylist), Beth, came over to do my hair and make-up, so I actually ended up looking put together.

Friends started arriving and there was such a casual atmosphere ... pretty laid back, actually. The minister showed up ... and that's when we realized that our marriage license was back at our apartment - oops. My best friend, Tom (the person that was supposed to "give me away"), decided to jump into the nearest auto and fly back to our place to pick it up ... wouldn't you know it, he was in a fender bender and ended up missing the entire ceremony (the minister decided to go ahead with the service & planned to visit our apartment the next morning to sign the license). My mom had bought me a lovely eggplant colored Laura Ashley dress (completely inappropriate for a back yard wedding - and what was I thinking getting a PURPLE dress - but I loved it. I still have it and it's perfect for a nice dinner party). Don wore jeans and a lightweight long sleeve pullover (he looked/was way more comfortable than me). The minister was a strange duck. He talked about the wind in the trees and other more random stuff (while Kinu, our Shiba Inu, proceeded to lift her leg awfully close to his trousers) ... I don't really recall what he said, but I do remember trembling and I remember hearing Don say, "Yep" ... and his sweet kiss. Suddenly I was a Mrs. ... How weird. Cool, but weird.

My girlfriend, Jody, took a whole role of black and white photo's during and right after the ceremony and then did one of the cleverest things ... during our "reception" she snuck out to a one hour photo place, had the pictures developed and put a handful in one of those multi-picture frames.

This is my absolute favorite photo from our wedding:

Hmmm ... those two just might actually like each other, eh?

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Random Tidbits (wedding related, of course):

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We had a tatoo artist at our wedding (to do our wedding bands for us). Big mistake. Not the tatoo's, the artist (not so much an artist). Don's tatoo isn't great, but mine looked like a horrible prison tat, sooooo after the party dust settled we spent some time with a wire brush and that gritty orange soap stuff and tried to remove as much ink from my finger as possible. Not a pleasant experience, but it did help lighten the tatoo.

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The minister showed up at our place the next morning to complete the paperwork. Remember how Tom was supposed to give me away? Well, he was supposed to come over to be a witness for the paperwork ... guess what ... he was LATE and missed the whole shebang ... we did have him sign our copy just the same.

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OH! and the poor minister forgot about the cabinets right above his head ... he stood up too fast after signing on his dotted line and wacked his head so hard it made my teeth hurt!

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Don's wedding gift to me was a beautiful wooden backgammon board.

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Not long after the wedding (about 10 days, actually), Don and I moved to Baltimore, MD (and if you want to call driving 2000+ miles across country in a U-haul a honeymoon, I wouldn't neccessarily disagree with you) ... as we entered VA we were treated to one of the most amazing meteor showers I have ever seen.

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We stopped someplace in VA and had a really crabby guy attempt to fix my wedding band; he was pretty clueless, too. I ended up having to draw what I wanted right on my finger and went over it with his gun (I'm left handed, too) ... it now looks like a messy XOX ... ah well. watcha gonna do?)

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Sadie was born one week after our first wedding anniversary.

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At the rehearsal dinner of my most funnelest girlfriend we were served some terrific food ... it was so good infact, there was a party crasher:

This praying mantis must have really liked the red frosting ... it was kind enough to pose long enough for me to get a few snaps (before picking a fight with me and trying to take my head off!)

That face!

If you've made it this far then I believe you have time for one more wedding tidbit ... I became an ordained minister just so I could perform the ceremony of my best friend (from high school) Tom - the same one that was in a fender bender on my wedding day ... AND for the beginning of the service I recited the wedding scene from The Princess Bride ...

"Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday.

Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...

And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva..."

"I never Got to Thank You"

Monica over at Girl Gone Thread Wild shares some of the coolest stuff with us ... recently I came across "A Thank You Letter To My Oma (for charity)". She was prompted to write this beautiful thank you in response to this post: "I Never Got to Thank You" from Bill over at Loving Her Beautiful ... I checked out the project and it spoke to me ... so I posted a comment letting Bill know that I would be sure to send him a contribution before the weekend was through ... well ... that was June 6th ... I had sooooo many issues with this and totally got caught up in over thinking the whole thing.

I started (and scrapped) more than a dozen letters and find myself getting more and more despondent with each attempt ... I actually wrote one Thank You to the Moon & Stars that was sooooooo over the top, you'd blush in embarrassment for me. Seriously. (Though I actually do think that thanking the moon and stars is a pretty good idea).

Initially I started to write a thank you to Amy Walker. She was a waitress at the Jacksonville, FL Bombay Bicycle Company back in 1987 (I worked there, too, as a busser). That year for my birthday she gave me a slim hard covered pocket book of William Blake poems - one that has his artwork in it - and the coolest/lovliest crane card ... and for some reason this has stuck with me all these years (yes, I still have the book ... and the card). Sounds good, right? Obviously this girl had some sort of impact on me. Plus, I think it's pretty cool that I ended up with her last name. OK, good idea ... until it dawned on me that I can't recall anything about her other than she had shoulder length dark brown hair & left for Auburn shorlty after my birthday ... how weird. Does this mean that I have held onto her memory all these years simply because she wrote, "dip him in the water, he who loves to learn" on the inside of the book???

Then there's Mrs. Looman - an English teacher of some unknown grade ... how can I thank her if I can't remember what grade it was?!? I know it couldn't have been earlier than junior high and definitely before college. I've always liked teachers that challenged me and my thinking. She did that ... and more. Mrs. Looman had a groovy haircut.

How about H.G. Bergstrom who was at least 152 years old when I first met him. I was barely out of high school and working at a copy center. He came in with a 300+ page book that he had written and needed to make 3 copies of - this is over 20 years ago and 3 copies of 300+ pages was easily a four hour job - maybe more. That four hours was some of the best time that I have ever spent with a stranger. He was one of the most interesting men I have ever had the pleasure of speaking with. Believe it or not, we exchanged addresses that day and actually kept in touch for a while after that first meeting.

I could thank my dad for being such a great dad ... until he stopped being a great dad. Hmmm ... I sense deep seeded issues there. Probably not a good idea.

Or Robin ... my very best girlfriend for many, many (including the most formative) years. This was a girl that was a serious touchstone in my life ... I'm fairly certain the majority of good (as in proper/right) decisions I have made in my lifetime can be directly traced back to me asking myself, "what would Robin do?". Nope - I should thank her directly ... which leads me to a list that's at least a half page long of people that I need to write a Thank You to that I actually can ...
See what I mean? And where does it stop? There are soooooo many people (and places ... and even things) that have come in and out of my life and made an impact on me ... took part in shaping the who I am today. Aha! That's the ticket! A letter to the Universe ...

Dear Moon & Stars,

ok, so uber spouse thought it was a good idea to send Bill that whole thing. It was late and I was tired, so I did ... but for a few days after that I kept getting this nagging feeling about not doing the "assignment" right and I couldn't get HG out of my head, so ... I wrote this:

Dear H.G. Bergstrom,

I'm not sure you'd even remember my face, let alone my name, but it's been 22 years since I met you and I still find myself thinking of you often. You came into my life on such an ordinary day. I was just a kid working at a print shop and on this particular day you walked in with a book that you had just finished writing. You needed to make copies and I was lucky enough to be the one to help you (though, to be honest, I didn't feel lucky at first). The book was your history. 300+ pages. While we set to getting your task accomplished you shared with me so many of the stories that book held. Listening to you was such a treat for me. It also taught me so much more than I realized at the time. The years (and their wisdom) marked your face with kind features and deep laugh lines. Your life, adventures and the changes that you witnessed seemed so incredible to me, but your spirit is what I remember the most. There was a quiet gentleness about you, a calmness - you just might be the first person I ever realized was comfortable in their skin. That simple visit changed the way I look at the world. Because of you I know that everyone ... every single person ... has a story worth telling. A story worth hearing. Because of you I have been less quick to judge and more open to listen. I have had the pleasure of meeting people and hearing stories that I might not have if not for you and that wonderful day. Thank you for taking the time to talk with that kid, for sharing your story and listening to hers. Your simple gesture helped me become a much better person and I am forever grateful to you.

With a happy heart & much love always,

M.

OK - your turn! Bill is still collection thank you's for his project.

am I making this more difficult than it actually is?!?

I worked on three different designs for the 2009 Diary Project. I wanted to keep them fairly simple graphics and I think I was pretty successful at that ... here's the thing ... now that I have the basic images to choose from, I need to figure out how they translate from the black and white Sharpie drawings to an actual page ... I thought that I would be able to ghost the images so they would be in the background, but now that I am working with the template, I'm not sure that's the best plan. In an effort to clear my brain (and because I think it would be fun for you to vote for your favorite design) I am putting the three basic graphics out for you to vote on. I chose to work on Friday, May 29, 2009 (go figure, eh?).

Please take a look at the following three images:

(you should be able to click on each image to view a close up)

1.

2.

3.

Vote for your favorite by leaving me a comment in this blog post.

Feel free to share any suggestions that you might have.

VOTING WILL CLOSE AT MIDNIGHT THIS FRIDAY JUNE 27th

(all pages due July 1st, but I will be working on the three designs between now and then, so ought to be ready to send in the design Saturday before the party at Vanessa's)