Castle in the Meadow (and other stuff)

I am so excited about this fun opportunity. I am going to Castle in the Meadow, a one-day art event sponsored by ZNE. Because I don't have the extra money or time to go to the big art events, this will be perfect for me. It's going to be on June 8 at the historic Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester Hills, MI. We'll be having a tour of the house and gardens, a lovely reception time, and ART! The brains behind ZNE, Chel Stroud Hery, will be leading us in creating a paper craft castle. If you are interested in learning more or you're wanting to attend, click here.

I realized I forgot to take pictures of my paper dresses before I sent them off. Actually, I've not been good at taking pictures at all. I've received some awesome things as RAK's from Christian Paper Artist members. I just have so much I need/want to do and so little time. And I don't even have a husband or kids! Maybe God is waiting for me to learn better time management before He brings those blessings into my life.

I'm working on my RAK's. I got an idea last week when I was in Goodwill to make decoupaged Easter eggs. I bought plastic eggs and egg decorating kits (for the stickers) there and some flowery tissue paper at Target. I came home and started working on them. Perhaps it's the plastic, perhaps it's the shape of the egg, or maybe I was just having a bad creating day. In any case, I was not pleased at all with how they were turning out. I even left them for a while thinking maybe I would like them better at a later time. Nope. So I've moved onto another idea that I'm enjoying better. Now I just have to sit down and finish them.

I'm actually doing some creating!

It's really hard for me to focus on too many things at the same time because I want to do my best with whatever I am focusing on. Lately my focus has been on getting healthy. You can check out my health blog for more about that. But I signed up for a swap in the Art in the Word group, and it's due soon. On Sunday I started working on it. It's a paper dress swap, and I'm having fun with it. So far I have the base papers done for the dresses. I hope to do the embellishing this coming weekend. I hope to share some pics once I have them finished.

Well, that's it. I just wanted to check in. Now I have to go finish dinner, finish laundry, memorize my lines for a skit I'm in this weekend at my camp, and go to bed. Hopefully I'll catch The Biggest Loser while I'm folding laundry. I think that's my least favorite household duty. Watching the show while doing it should help.

Blessings,
Carrie

The big announcement!

I did do the drawing for One World, One Heart on Thursday and notified the winner that day. However, I have not had time to post about the winner until now. I used the random number generator that was provided for us. It "spit out" the number 72. After counting down that far, I came to the comment from Loquacity Of Latharia. She (Susanne) is super excited and plans to show me what she creates with the moo card holders. Thank you all (125 comments) for participating. This is the first time I've done anything to get my blog "out there." I had a great time, and I look forward to having so many more blogs to check out when I have the chance. And thank you to all who sent me get well wishes. I've been back to work for a week, but I've just gotten my energy completely restored in the past couple of days. I know that getting back to eating healthy and exercising definitely helped in getting my energy back. If you're interested, you can check out my journey to better health blog. Have a wonderful day! And may you realize how much you are loved today, not just by friends and family, but by the one who created you, the Almighty God.

The list keeps getting longer!

The number of One World, One Heart participants seems to be growing longer by the hour. One good thing that has come from me being sick is that I've had the chance to check out everyone on the list (so far.) Now I'm feeling quite a bit better. I'm staying home from work to recuperate the rest of the way. I have a bout of cabin fever, but I'm wary of going out today. We've had some freezing rain over night and this morning. Now it's snow, and there's 4-6 inches predicted. Since I don't need anything, I guess I'll stay inside for another day.

Inspiration from word verification?

I've been checking out a lot of OWOH participant blogs and entering many drawings. I just left a comment for one, and the word verification was "elfedu." I thought about that and pictured in my head a group of elves at school. Perhaps they are learning toy making for Santa. Or maybe they're Tolkien elves, learning to fight for Frodo. What is rolling around in your head? I invite you to take this inspiration and create. Do a collage. Write a story or poem. If you take this challenge, I would love to see your work. Have fun!

One World, One Heart Giveaway!

I have just come across a way for you to get connected with other bloggers who are artists and win tons of fabulous prizes along the way. And some of those fabulous prizes will come from me.

Click here to get to the event information and to find a list of all the wonderful participants. You will find details of their giveaways once you go to their blogs. Here are the details for mine. Just leave a comment on this post letting me know you would like to be entered. If you don't have a blog, that's fine. Leave me your e-mail address so that I can contact you if you're the lucky winner. Please leave some form of identity. How can I contact someone who is anonymous? Also, you do not have to have a giveaway of your own to have a chance to win mine. Come one, come all! You have until 12:00 A.M. EST on February 14 to sign up. When I wake up and get around to it on the love holiday, I'll randomly pick a comment as a winner and then notify you.

Now for what you'll win! I am giving away a chipboard letter magnet and four microscope slide holders that are the perfect size for moo cards. I got a bunch as a PIF on etsy, and I have every intention of decorating them. If you win these and decorate them, I would love to see pictures! FYI, I'm not feeling the greatest right now, so I didn't do much to the pictures. I hope they are a good representation of the prizes.

Good luck! Enjoy viewing the wonderful creations of the participants and making some new connections.

The winner is...

Denise!

Denise was the closest guesser in the contest. She guessed 33. The answer is 29. It was a few years after my parents were married before they had me. Now for the blizzard story (as best as I can remember it from all the re-tellings.) I was born during one of the blizzards of '79. It had just started to snow when my mom started having her first contractions. Since they weren't very close together yet, my dad wanted to finish up some chores and preparing the pigs for the storm that they knew was coming. Well, by the time he was finished and ready to take mom to the hospital, there was already quite a bit of snow. They called the doctor who told them to head to the hospital and he would get there as soon as he could. He had to call the county to send a snow plow to his house. The snow plow led the way to the hospital as the doctor followed the clear path behind. The delivery went fairly smoothly, and the nurses were so excited to see me. It had been quite a few days of only boys being born. They were glad to see a girl. Because of the blizzard, I didn't get any visitors except for my grandparents. Well, that's the story. Mom, feel free to correct me if I messed something up or left something out.

In other news, I've started another blog to chronicle my journey towards healthy living. I just wrote the intro this morning. You may find it here.