I was so excited to find out that the International Quilt Festival in Houston Texas Oct 30th-Nov 2nd 2008 will be host to a Make It University with Cloth Paper Scissors magazine! Make it U is an open studio area for collage arts and crafts with demonstrations and participation in the art process. Also, what really excited me is a large Artist Trading card swap, ATCs, that will be going on at the show so I cracked open my Atc goodies and got to work making some Holiday inspired cards. My mom and I go every year and hope to see some of you Pinkdilla fans there!

After playing around with all of my alice in wonderland images and stickers I turned them into some cute cards. I had the most fun with my Stampington’s Angel of music stamp, I just cut the wings out of the image and dabbed some alice blue ink on her gown. Voila! She is a really good alice impersonator! I adored her sitting on the edge of the windows, I painted and inked a silver german dresden arch and cut out a window from a playing card and placed them over a stamped tree image. What’s really fun is sticking her with all of the different characters and sticking some teacups and teapots in there too.

I was so honored and delighted to be asked to add a page for the Somerset Studio Thank you collaborative book as a thank you to the editor of Holidays and Celebrations 2008 for including our artwork in that issue. The theme was “you as a child” and so I added one of my favorite photos and decked me out in Alice in wonderland gear! The project was headed up and put together by Candace Martens, a fellow artist and blogger. You can check out her blog Here.

My alice-inspired page

Page in the book

Arches in the sky

Little Band of Refugees sitting around the campfire

Well, I just don’t know what to say other than our lives will never be the same and everything is changed. We evacuated from the coast area 30 miles from Galveston, Texas and came home on Sunday night. There were no stores open, no lights, no Power, and lots of debris for several days. As our city began to return to normal we sat with our family of refugees who can’t go home to Galveston now. That childhood home is gone. We sat for 7 days without power scrounging for ice and food whenever we could find a pod or store open. Our families in Lake Jackson, Alvin, and Galveston, Texas are all still without power and trying to clean up the messes of what was left behind. Thank God for the fabulous neighbors of mine that traded ice and food back and forth between us. And the sweet Friends that had power who let us do laundry for our big family. I thought to only share the photos of peace and strength that I have from that return home. I love how the night sky seemed to be under arches of Rainbows! It was a little solace of Peace to be found in what was a very dark night.

I thought I would share this Birthday card I made for my sweet friend Renee, it was very therapeutic to have a creative outlet for my stress and sadness. I called this one "Looking Up, not Back". I am always looking up. Looking up in admiration of nature. Looking up at the created night sky. Looking up for a glimpse of peace. A sign of change. A hint of what is to come.