Celita's Bee

A snip for my friend in Italy, Celita.

Weekend

Another weekend at Rob's river house on the Potomac. Paddling, fishing, celebrating, trashing my diet beyond all belief.

This snip is of me as I hunt for sharks' teeth. (I found 52 in my secret spot yesterday.) I can bend over and pick up three or four sharks' teeth at a time and not even move an inch. After snipping it I thought that it looked like someone going to the bathroom. When I showed it to Mark it said that it looked like someone going to the bathroom too. Unfortunately, this is how I really look at my secret spot.

These are the Artist Trading Cards that I received in an art teacher ATC swap.



Mary Biekmann, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin



"Filatelia #5 Friendship," Samantha Melvin



"My Summer Vacation," Patti Siegel, St. Louis, Mo.



"Art is My Life," Cheryl Miehl

I get so excited getting these little works of art in the mail.

Playing. Getting goodies in the mail. It was a great weekend, but it ended all too soon.

Stitchery ATC

This is the latest Artist Trading Card that I have received. Wowser! It came from a swap with the Flickr Group "Stitched By Hand" and the theme was nautical. The artist was Andrea Zuill. I'm amazed at her skills.

Fish Stitch

Here's my latest Artist Trading Card. I participated in a swap for a group on Flickr called "Stitched By Hand." The theme was "nautical."

It took me for freaking ever to do this even though it is only 2.5" x 3.5". I never felt as though it knocked my socks off and that's why I kept working on it...and working on it some more. I agonized over what to do for a good while before I even started. At one point I even started a different one with a different idea. When, after spending more time on it than I anticipated, it fell in my morning bowl of oatmeal, I saw it as a sign from the gods to finish this one.

One more weekday of summer vacation. = (

Eattin' Crabs in Montross

Lord have mercy, I am pooped. Mark and I spent the better part of last week at our friend's river house in what is called "The Northern Neck" of Virginia. It was a gorgeous get away with lots of kayaking, seafood eatting and beach combing, plus a bit of staying up too late. So I could use a good nap or two.

The snip above is of Mark and me (though I am really not that svelte) eatting steamed Blue Crabs on the screened in porch. Oddly enough, I just realized that I dated the thing 2007. What tha??? I guess it doesn't matter. We were eatting crabs in Montross in 2007 also. I gave the snip to our friend who owns the house and he set it next to the paper cut Christmas tree forest I cut down there last winter.



One of the things we do every day down there is shark tooth hunt. There are a couple of barrier islands about a half mile off shore in which these teeth wash up on the beach. Usually I will find one tooth every fifteen or thirty minutes. Mark and I ventured about a quarter mile further to a more grown over island with lots of stinky marsh mud (which to me smells like home as I grew up in a woody/marshy spot an hour south of this river house). I hit the motherload back there finding 40 shark teeth within an hour. Mark found one here. Weird. Usually I am the person in the group who finds the least, so when I started picking up one right after the other, without taking a step, I wasn't going anywhere until I scoured every inch of the place. That was fun. Stinky. And I sunk up to my knees in black mud a time or two. But fun.

We got to the river house a day before our friend and his other guests arrived. During that time I finished stitching a couple of ATCs I made for myself.



I also read the book "The Nanny Diaries," another good beach read book that was better than I had anticipated. I subscribe to the book choosing theory that "Best Seller" means that I might have half a chance of getting through the book and half liking it. When I choose books for other reasons (such as choosing "Theodore Rex" after hearing the author on "Book Notes" on CSpan....and then spending six months getting through it), they usually have less enthusiastic results than when I choose them based on the stamped seal of approval of the masses, "Best Seller."

I did get a beautiful tan somehow, though I diligently slathered myself in SPF 50. Tanning is usually a futile act, as my darkest of tans will only have a shelf life of around 36 hours. A few freckles may remain after that. As I am hovering on the precipice of my 51st birthday, and am seeing more lines and wrinkles form on my face, I am more likely to seek the highest SPF known to science than to try and get brown for a day or two.

I also managed to stick to my diet at the river house, though every time I heard someone crunching on a Frito, I wanted to cry. (20 pounds lost in a little under 5 weeks!)

Mark and I are on vacation together this week and will be in and out. No plans are made at the moment. When I am done with whatever we do I will surely be pooped once again.

Does an Art Teacher Snip in the Woods?

Why, yes. Yes she does.

Preparing for our most recent backpacking trip, I packed as lightly as I could, with the exception of some luxury items. Book, snipping gear, and iPod Shuffle. Every ounce you put in your backpack is going to make your effort just a tiny bit harder.

Here was how I decided which book would make it on the trip.



I put them on the scales to see which weighed less. Though I was really pulling for Kite Runner, The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing won out by about 6 or 8 ounces.


Now, I probably should have not really gone on this trip. My nutritionist has me on a really restricted calorie (but amazingly easy) diet, in which you are supposed to cut back on your exercise for a time. I'm still in that restricted time, but I'm too smart to follow directions, so I didn't. (...rolling my eyes here...)

We drove to Dolly Sods, WV, which is my most favorite spot on the planet, and it took about 3 and a half hours to get there.

We hiked a familiar 3.5 miles to a trail I had been on only once or twice before. Then Mark led us up to the high country to camp. The next mile and a half went up 800 feet in elevation. When I got to the top I was almost heaving from over exhaustion. Not good. My 300 calories eaten for the day just weren't doing it for me. But anyway, I was at the top of the trail and ready to camp.




I barely could eat dinner an hour later because I still felt nauseous. I did sleep like a log that night though.

The next day Mark was ready to do some uber "man hike." I wasn't feeling the love for that, so I stayed in camp.



Right as Mark started walking out of camp, the rain started. It didn't deter him though, and it gave me the excuse to spend the morning inside the tent reading and napping.



When the rain stopped I did venture out to a spot by the water and did some snipping and drawing based on this tree.







At dinner time this visitor came to call. He must have thought that the lid on this water bottle was a flower, as he kept buzzing over to it. I have no idea what on earth he was, but he was creepy looking.


After going to bed that night, multiple storms passed through. Internally and externally. Here was the "tweet" I posted when I got home. ("Tweet" being a short note posted on Twitter.) It tells pretty succinctly about that night.

"Imagine this. 1 a.m. Tent. Thunderstorm. Downpour. Dark, very dark woods. Intestinal emergency."

Yup. It wasn't fun. Enough said about that.

The last morning of the trip, we ate breakfast and packed out. The trip down the mountain was much more pleasant than the trip up. Believe me, it was.

Here's a blurry photo of me at one of the waterfalls on the way out.

I was a much happier camper on the trip out and down than I was on the trip in and up.

As always, a trip into the woods is my favorite kind of trip and I'd head back in a heartbeat.

Goodies in the Mail

This ATC arrived in the mail today from the South West of England.


It was done by Jo at the blog, Things [Hand Made].
I am so excited to add it to my ATC collection. It's my first fiber ATC and I absolutely love it. Thank you, Jo!!!


Here are some ATCs that I have received in the last couple of weeks via Flickr swaps.




These are from Massachusetts, Australia, and Oregon. I have two in the world wide mail someplace coming from Italy.


If you are a reader of my blog (including you colleague/readers) and would like to swap, please let me know. Beware though. It does get addictive.

Bunny FuFu's Fairy Godmother

I snipped these for a Flickr Artist Trading Card swap with the theme of "Fantasy Creatures." The one on the left is based on a drawing by DaVinci. The bunny is just a chubby bunny fairy. When I had to name it, that's when it occurred to me that it could be part of the Little Bunny FuFu story.

Insect Snips

These were made for an ATC swap at the Ning site Art Education 2.0. After I made these I thought I'd like to make some to frame for my granddaughter's new bedroom. I don't think she'd like the bug theme though, and I am having difficulty wrapping my brain around snipping something Hannah Montana related. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

Second Day of Summer Break

I was so envious of the Artist Trading Card stitcheries that Jackie made and received in a recent swap, I decided to stitch an ATC for myself. And then I joined Jackie's Stitchery ATC group on Flickr. Check out the stitchery that she received and the one she made! I want both of them! Here's Jackie's blog.....Smoothpebble.

Wasting Away Again in Snippyville

Today was my last day at school for the 2007-08 school year. While I was listening to a required online training video for Sexual Harassment and Discrimination this morning, I snipped this Artist's Trading Card. (Evidently, I put more of my attention into the snipping than I did the training video. I failed a couple of the questions on the quiz and had the pleasure of watching those sections of the video again.)
,

When my colleagues asked the obligatory, "Are you going anywhere this summer?", I had no exotic answer. I will be going on a backpacking trip to West Virginia soon, which I am excited about, but we do that all the time. Mostly, I will be spending time downstairs in Snippyville.

ATCs for Flikr

These are a couple of Artist's Trading Cards I made for my Flickr group. Two people wanted to swap for the Pruning Fairy, so I made these to see if the second person might like one of these.

I've got an upcoming swap on with my Art Ed 2.0 group, and I'm looking forward to seeing what I get with that one. We make four and we get four back.

Pruning Fairy

A Snip Before Sleeping

All the yucky grown up stuff is done for the day. I had a couple of minutes to snip something quickly.

I was thinking about all of the end-of-the-year work I have to do at school. While this fairy needs just a dustpan and a broom to tidy her appointed space, my classroom needs a hazmat crew and a shovel.

Another ATC!

Another Artist's Trading Card has arrived. I'm so excited! This one came from Maija Lapore, who is about the craftiest blogger around. She does a lot of collages with a vintage theme. If I remember correctly, these baby doll images are from a lot of little antique baby dolls she acquired. The thing that tickles me the most about this ATC is that it is undeniably Maija. If I had seen it out in the world someplace, I would know immediately who made it. Thank you, Maija. I am indeed tickled pink.

First ATCs to Arrive

I'm so excited! I have received my first Artist Trading Cards in the mail. These are from Patricia (aka Doodlebug) at ZenCrafting. The floral one is a simple, pretty design, and I like it even more next to the photo she took of the plant that inspired it. (That's on her blog, but I will print it out for my ATC notebook.) Then there is her ATC of the bike matron. I do so love bike goodies, and I am 100% sure that all of the bike trinkets that I own have male cyclists on them. Thank you, Patricia. = )

Sun Salutations

A chubby fairy does sun salutations.

I finished my teacher research today, so I think I will salute the sun as well.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

I lost an ATC at school. I brought it in with me to....hmmm.....look at, I guess. It was one for my "water" themed swap. Geez, we tell the kids to not bring in things to school that matter to them for this very reason. Anyway, I cut another one today, and like this one much better.





Mark and I rode the Capital Crescent/Rock Creek Park Trails today. 21.3 miles. It was gorgeous. Oh my gosh, it was gorgeous. And not quite as crowded as it usually is on Sundays.

By the way, if you have never been to Washington, DC, you are really missing out. DC is one truly beautiful city, with many surprises. The mall, with all it's classical government buildings, museums, and monuments is a given, and would fill all of your time if you were here for a week. However, beyond the mall are so many wonderful and beautiful places that shouldn't miss. If you are a cyclist, the Capital Crescent/Rock Creek Trail circuit is a must do. I could do it monthly and not be tired of it.

I've been in the area for seven years now, and I still get goosebumps when I see the monuments and the capital dome across the Potomac.

Other things I saw today that struck me:

A deer at Arlington Cemetary with the tiniest fawn I have ever seen.

Thousands and thousands......and thousands more.......motorcycles lined up at the Pentagon parking lots, preparing to ride in "Rolling Thunder," in honor of our veterans.

Lots of folks on the overpasses above I395, hanging flags and bunting, in support of the "Rolling Thunder" riders.

Packs of runners along the Canal. Is it Team in Training time already?

It's another gorgeous day in Virginia, and I am so happy to be here.

Tiny Texture

I'm still playing around with the Artist Trading Cards. It's more of an impetice do some snipping as anything else. I did the crooked man from the nursery rhyme again, trying to add more tiny texture. The dancing fairies were an attempt to do tiny detail as well.

When I finished the fairy one, I had to trim the mat board on which it was attached. When I decided I had botched the trimming, and was going to remove the snip from the board, I discovered that I had smushed all up the top border of the snip. So, off with it's head, so to speak. I just removed the top border....and only cursed a wee tiny bit.

More ATCs

I am being self conscious. I did another "water" related ATC for the swap. Only two are needed. This isn't a commission, but I feel as though it is. Commissions make me overthink things, and I obsess about them.

The ATC for the illustration of "There Was a Crooked Man" was more fun to do because it was only done for my own edification.