Karma Friends Award

Cheryl of Scrappy Cat generously sent this to me............

The wording for this award is as follows:

The Karma Award: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kinds of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

Through my blog, I have met & made tons of friends in the States as well as Internationally. (Should we ever end up living in North Carolina or in the UK, I can happily say I have tons of artists friends to go visit) :)

Purple Missus

ArtMixter

Elizabeth Creates

Mags

Sherry in NC

Alis Clair

Michelle

Huckleberry Arts

My brain is in a funk.............

Ever since we got back from holiday in Rome & Croatia, my non-creative brain has been in a funk! One day, I was determined to try to attempt working in my studio & I ended up organizing & cleaning it instead (which was actually needed).

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon working on a single quilt block & didn't get ANYWHERE!! Maybe I'm trying to hard, maybe I'm not trying hard enough? But I'm finding this frustrating & a little depressing!!

I did, however manage to create a journal using Evolon & submitted it to hopefully be published in Marion Barnett's new book. Sorry no pics to share (yet), it was one of those things where my deadline was tight & the last 3 days before deadline, I put MANY hours into it, so by the time it was completed, I was tired of looking at it AND it was finished the night before the morning it was to be sent out, so I didn't have time to photograph. I also wasn't sure if my photography work would be able to pick up the play of light of the Evolon & Golden Acrylics & since Marion is having everything professionally photographed, I wasn't too worried. Sounds like my biggest worry should be getting my journal back. Marion says she's love it so much, she doesn't want to part with it :)

If anyone is interested, I've been slowly adding pics of our trip here to our Flickr account. We took over 1100 pictures & as you can see, I've only added about 1/5 of the photos to our site. All the deleting of the bad photos & putting names to the good ones & only doing about a handful each day, it's taking a little bit of time. Feel free to check back on the site, since I'm constantly adding new photos.

(Hopefully by next week, I'll have some art to post!!)

No art today to share, however...............

Since I don't have any new art to share today (it's all in progress, either sitting in dye baths or drying after being dyed) I'd thought I'd share with you a couple of purchases I made while in Italy :)


Some of you are aware that I love my green Chucks (Converse sneakers) & that I took them to Italy with me. My motto, "I can never have enough funky (but comfortable) shoes." So, while in Rome, I came across these & HAD to have them. I refer to both pairs as my Italian Pumas :)

While I was admiring my new green shoes, my loving DH, who always says that I have way too many pairs of shoes as it is, locates the shoes below for me. (He always tells me that I have too many, but he's really good at supporting my habit & luckily has GREAT taste. :)

And, can I tell you, that my green is SO popular in Rome right now, it's unbelievable!! Swimsuits, underwear, shoes, socks, handbags, etc. It's all I could do to contain myself. I did, however, cave & purchase an Italian leather handbag dyed green, of course!! :)

Hopefully by next post (if all goes right) everything that's in progress now, I'll be able to soon share with you!!!

Smaller Journals

© 2009 Tracy Borders

Love the size of these & am thinking of making some to sell in my shop. They're each approxiamately 5" by 6".

I included two pictures of them since in the top photo you can see the Angelina Fibers better in the Green, Turquoise & Purple Squiggle journals & the variation of color in the top left journal.

The bottom picture shows the texture better in the middle brown journal.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

These journals were made for a swap in the Surface Design Group.

I'll try to explain from top to bottom what each journal is made from.................

the top left journal (peacock colors) & the middle brown journal were made by manipulating modeling paste & then adding color with Golden Acrylics.

The green & brown with turquoise journals were made of hand dyed bamboo fabric, Angelina Fibers & eyelash yarn that were free motion quilted. The purple journal embellished with metal squiggles, was hand dyed cotton with layers of rubber stamping, Angelina Fibers & hand dyed cheesecloth.

I think the colors turned out great in each of the journals & I hope the ladies on the receiving end of these enjoy them as much as I did making them :)

Rome/Croatia Teaser Photos

We took over 1050 photos while on our trip, so it is taking me awhile to go through each of them & weed out the bad pics & put names to the rest.

So far, I've made it through 72 photos, only 978 more to go, which is ok, because as I go through them it brings up very happy memories :)

When going through our Rome pics, I have noticed that Rome has been documented VERY well in books & on the net. So that pic that I took of the three columns, actually does have a name & it was easy to locate the information.

Thought I'd include a few photos of my most favorite places.................


While in Rome.....................................

The Pantheon was my MOST favorite place!! We had tried to get in to see it for two days & both times, they were having Liturgy services. The third day, we went really early in the morning & it paid off. There were only about 7 people inside including my DH & I. What a BEAUTIFUL & peaceful site!! AND with only the 7 of us inside, it was so quiet & I hate to use the word but "awesome", I found myself quite emotional. I could have spent hours there just looking around & enjoying the site. Unfortunately, that didn't last long, a huge drove of people entered & that calm peacefulness disappeared, which was really too bad.

My second most favorite place, the Coliseum

If you're wondering, the top two photos are not postcards, I actually took those pics, myself & am VERY happy how they turned out.

DH & Me

Those who follow my blog, know this little gal. Adriana went on our trip with us & had a blast. She wasn't camera shy either :) We have pics where she's overlooking Palatine Hill, hanging out in the Amsterdam airport waiting for our flight to Rome, overlooking Old Towne Dubrovnik from our apartment & hanging with mom at the Trevi Fountain & St Peter's Square.

(I had to share this.) While walking the Roman Forum, I came across this beautiful ruin. It was just sitting there looking SO brand new :)

Rome was wonderful to see, all of it's Art history, the culture, the food, but I think we enjoyed Croatia just a little bit more.

It's so hard to explain why.............like in Dubrovnik, the culture, the people, the food, everything seemed more relaxed, seemed like the "old ways" (if that makes any sense). Rome, as we know is "old" too with the art & history, but it seems modernized, tons of people walking everywhere, driving their tiny little cars & riding their scooters everywhere & the feeling I had while staying in Dubrovnik & visiting the villages while on our Flotilla, seemed a lot slower & kind of "old world". It was just wonderful!!

We flew into Croatia around 9:30 at night & this was the most spectacular view from our apartment of Old Town Dubrovnik. (Glad we brought the tri-pod for the camera along.)

Old Towne Dubrovnik is surrounded by a high fortressed wall & you can walk all along the top of it capturing beautiful views. DH took this photo of me resting at the highest point on the wall overlooking Old Towne. (Think he did a great job at taking this photo, even though, he's an engineer, the guy has an eye for art.) :)

There are 6 of us (co-workers & friends) that all enjoy sailing together & about a year ago one of them mentioned doing a sailing Flotilla in Croatia & here we are!! There were 4 of us on one boat & the other 2 invited another couple that were friends of theirs. We had a WONDERFUL time!!

This placed tied with Old Towne for my most favorite place in Croatia. We had one free day & evening to go wherever we wanted to moor. We actually were planning on just anchoring in a cove nearby, but after a day of very strong wind & waves, the women of both our boats (either from being seasick or just "shot" nerves) ruled the majority & "strongly suggested" that we moor here in Trestenik (Trstenik). Apparently, the Ferry used to stop here but has since moved on to a different place to tie up. You can see both of our Sunsail boats moored up right in the very same place the Ferry used to dock.





This little village was absolutely fabulous!! We had coffee & gelato at their cafe & had a wondeful dinner at their outdoor restaurant AND it was so quiet & NO winds tossing around the boat!!

That evening, while on a walk, we discovered the Grgic Winery. The next morning, we visited for a wine tasting. Now you may be thinking, tasting wine at 10 AM? Something I noticed while on this 2.5 week trip, time on a clock meant nothing. Wine tasting at 10 AM, drinking a beer at a cafe at 10:30 AM because it's SO hot & humid, eating hot dogs at breakfast. Now that is an entirely different & VERY hilarious story. Unfortunately, no pictures were taken, but there were 4 witnesses.

We had thee most FABULOUS time while in Rome & Croatia & have already started planning for our next trip? Greece? Thailand?

I'm Back!!

Bawd (that's Croatian for Hello) :)

I'm back from my Rome/Croatia trip & have to tell you, I had the MOST wonderful time!!! The only reasons I was looking forward to coming home were to see my 4-legged kids, sleep in my own bed & drink a Dr Pepper. (Some people smoke, some people have to have their coffee, I have to have my Dr Pepper.) The only soda that I found in Rome was Coke, Coke Zero, Fanta or Sprite and in Croatia the same with every once in awhile finding a Pepsi. So, I compensated by drinking more wine & beer while I was there (that's another story for later.)

I learned a few things as well :

• Americans are always in a hurry
• eat WAY too much junk food/greasy foods/foods just in general not good for our health
• should have adopted the metric system
• don't eat enough gelato (lol)

& oh yeah, somewhat shy about showing skin on Croatian beaches. We saw a lot of FKK (we never figured out the translation, so if someone knows please tell me, but from what we can tell, FKK has something to do with nudity). We saw quite a bit of nudity on Croatian beaches & everytime, it was shocking. And, if any of you are wondering if I participated in this................ARE YOU KIDDING?! Um, NO!!! :)

Anyway, I'm back & I miss those beautiful & wonderful places already. I took TONS of photos & once I can get them all organized with all of the proper names of the places on them, I'll share a few here AND plans are to set up a new site/blog with all of the photos that were taken by my DH, me & the friends who went on our sailing Flotilla with us in Croatia. I'll let you know once it's up, if anyone is interested.

(btw, Adriana went with us, so she has some photogs as well) :)

A Journal for Me

Looking back at the journals I've made, I think I only kept the first one & all of the rest have either been given away as gifts or sold in my shop or as special orders at my "day job". So, I decided to make myself one for my upcoming trip to Rome/Croatia, which is now only 2 1/2 days away. (I don't think it will sink in until I board the plane on Saturday, that I'm actually going to Rome.) :)

So here she is.......................... (I'm really happy with her)

© 2009 Tracy Borders

I just LOVE the textures that you can get with modeling paste & fortunately, with this design, if the paste cracks, as it dries, it totally works with the piece.

This was painted with Golden Acrylics, thank you Lynda & Carol for introducing me to such wonder paint!!

I unfortunately, did not dye the interior fabric. I found this beautifully hand dyed cotton in a quilt store. (This is the first time I've ever included commercial fabric in one of my pieces & I kind of felt dirty for doing it, but I figured I wasn't marketing it as MY work, trying to sell it to anyone & I thought it fit nicely with the piece.)

Ok, so the interior signatures, I couldn't decide between dragonflies & squiggles, so I figured, what the heck, this journal is staying with me, do both :)

On another note, I was very happy to see that my "Green Woven Squiggles" that I donated for Fiberart For a Cause sold the first day!! Thank you, Heather for "bidding" on it & donating to a very important cause!! (Heather, I sent you an email requesting your address, so should it go into spam & you don't see it & you happen to read this post, please email me your address) :)

(You still have time to "purchase" wonderful collages at Collage Mania 2009, for the next two days, so go check it out!!)