MAGPIE'S MUMBLINGS

A blog about my interests, which include fabric landscapes and various and assorted other artsy pursuits and sometimes known to contain mumblings of a random nature.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Magpie's Mumblings

Good day yesterday!
I finally decided yesterday to just go with my 'heart' and do something out in left field creatively and I am pleased with the results. (Gotta figure out how to post pictures!!). Anyway, it was 'just' an atc, but I used one of my ArtChix images and recycled candy wrappers and came up with something I love. Of course the fact that the theme was chocolate would have no bearing on whether or not I liked it...yeah, right. Now I have another idea for another one...

Good mail day too (which is highly unusual for a Friday...think our postal person wants to start weekends early and rarely delivers). Latest issue of Cloth,Paper, Scissors came. I've already drooled through the pictures and am anxious to sit down and have a good read. I'm denying myself the pleasure tho - at least for now.

Made a quick trip to my favourite dollar store yesterday too and got some neat goodies. They have great vials of beads...picked up three more (as if I need them!) AND got a cool set of Eeyore stickers. THAT was exciting. I know, I'm weird, but I like Eeyore. Also got a sheet of 'postal' stickers and a few sheets of inspiring scrapbooking paper (which will most likely be turned into atcs at some point). Fun stuff!

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Magpie's Mumblings

I'm in a quandry

What to do, what to do? So many projects and I can't settle on what I want to do first. For once I don't have a pressing 'order' or due date I have to meet and can do whatever I want to creatively. So why am I finding that so hard? The UFO stack is huge, the want-to-do list is huge...so why can't I find anything to do? I'm blaming it on spring fever...

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Magpie's Mumblings

Laughing, Talking and Creating

Yep, that's what I've spent the day doing. Oh yes...I forgot to mention, we did a lot of eating too...chocolate, of course! Today was our monthly CQTeers meeting where we exchange atc's, have a show and tell (or bring and brag, depending on how you want to look at it), and generally learn a new technique. Today Sue showed us a simple way to make envelopes for our atc's, but also adaptable to pretty much any size we require. We also had a demo/practice with a type of stamp pad glue to see how it worked with aluminum leaf and different types of glitter.

I have promised to demo a transfer technique for next month using packing tape and images. Guess I'm going to have to cut into my collage papers I got from ArtChixStudio in order to test it for myself first. I've been putting off actually doing anything with them because they seem too nice to cut up! I remember having the same problem when I first started doing CQ. I hated cutting up what seemed to be a perfectly good blouse or skirt in order to have nice (cheap) fabrics to work with. I got over it in a hurry, so hope that's what will happen with these too.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Magpie's Mumblings

Life In General

Well, I finished the seat cushion covers, much to the detriment of my hands. However, I can console myself with the fact that the chairs are going to look much better this summer. Anything is better than the 'duct-tape' look we had before. If Jack's garden ends up on the garden tour this year, at least the chairs might look nice.

Just finished reading a very interesting book - A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. After all the controversy over it, I thought it would be worth checking out. Actually I think it is a very good book and certainly makes you think about what actually happens in the world of an addict. Whether the book is truthful or not, only the author knows for sure. In my opinion, it may not be complete truth but I certainly feel that Frey has to have lived a lot of it in order to write so convincingly. Not only that, I found his writing style to be very different, which made the book much more believable too.

We have company coming for supper tonight, so I guess I won't be doing much in the creative line today. I have to decide which project I will tackle next...

Monday, March 27, 2006

Magpie's Mumblings

Sunshine and the flowers are growing!

The past couple of days are so much like spring. I can't wait. Anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that I am NOT a winter person and quite heartily dislike it from beginning to end. I have to admit that I can appreciate a pretty sunny winter day when the snow glitters like diamonds and there's a coating of frost on the trees - provided I'm on the inside looking at it!! Yesterday we had breakfast in our sunroom for the first time this year and this morning there was a huge flock of geese heading northwards. They were very loud and made me wonder why they expend so much energy with their honking when they should be concentrating on the distance they have to fly. Maybe they do that as a form of encouragement to each other. Wonder if that's where the expression 'honking for the road' came from?

We walked around the property yesterday and can see some little green shoots coming up through the ground...most likely tulips. The apple trees are starting to bud too. Hope we get some apples this year! So far we've only managed to have a couple of apples on each tree, which the squirrels have to sample just enough to make them inedible for us. Maybe we'll even have some plums this year too. The seed catalogues are lying all over the house with lots of post-its marking pages we have on our wish list. Hopefully we will have a better season and things will actually germinate, not like last year when most of the seeds Jack planted didn't even come up.

As a further sign of spring, my job this afternoon is to begin recovering the seat cushions for the lawn chairs.

Monday, March 20, 2006

I'm at the post!

Very first blog entry. Ask me if I'm terrified. Ask me if I think I know what I'm doing. Ask me if I think anybody is ever going to read this.
Quite truthfully, I rather expect my foray into the blogging world is just another attempt on my part to avoid doing what I really have hopes of doing. Sounds odd, I know. However, out and out fear enters into me every time I consider becoming any sort of 'artist' as opposed to being a 'craftsperson'. Some would argue that they are one and the same. Tell that to my brain!

I am a collector. Of ideas, plans, wishful thinkings. I collect how-to's with tremendous zeal. I collect raw materials until they overwhelm me. Above all, I dream - of what I could do, if only I knew how to start.

Procrastination...is that part of it? Do I procrastinate because I'm afraid to fail? Or is my inner self telling me that I WILL fail and it is a waste of time to even begin.

Is it perfectionism? Maybe. Maybe I want my artistic endeavours to be so perfect in their execution that I feel overwhelmed before I even begin.

Downright fear is a large part of it too. Fear that I will fall on my face. Fear that I will be laughed at. Fear that I will be ridiculed for even daring to think that I might become any sort of artist.

Above all, is the self-talk. It is so easy to convince myself that I am not good enough; that I am wasting my time trying to create; and that I should give it all up and go and spend more time with my husband. Questions to ponder......