My HeART Friends

I wrote this years ago but never published this post. MaryAnn died about five years ago but is remembered by so many of us through the art groups that she started.

For years now I’ve been in the Itty Bitty Book Club. Our founder – Mary Ann was diagnosed with cancer a few month ago and it happened so fast – she’s gone. I met her on Flickr when she first started hosting IBBs. I’ll always regret missing the very first book but made sure I was entered on time after that. She had just finished a book and told us she was taking a break because of her illness and we all assumed she would get treatment, go through chemo and recover. After all – she was young. It didn’t happen that way, however, and the next thing we knew we were making one last book – in her memory.
Her Blog was Follow Your Bliss.

Here are some pages that others did. I love the Tree of Life page.

This is LaVerne’s page – it’s so pretty and meaningful.

This is mine – I used one of MaryAnn’s watercolors as a background surrounded by quotes I found throughout her work.

While MaryAnn was sick we were making another “Love” book to send to her. Little did we know that time would run out. My friend Rhonda from Rhondamum was coordinating this and when MaryAnn died she had such a struggle to finish this book and on top of that was pulled into service to plan a memory book for her and her family. I am so grateful to Rhonda for doing this. I hope she knows how much it helped all of us.
My pages for the Love book are made from old envelopes from the 1940’s and earlier. I love the feathery old handwriting in ink.

The stamps were perfect for a pastel, sepia themed book.

This is just a few of my IBBs.  They are a treasure to me and a tribute to my friend, MaryAnn.

I’m joining Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for Pink Saturday….another precious friend I’ve met through art and blogging. Check out Pink Saturday – they are a wonderful group of friends!
xoxo Nancy

To My Valentine

I had an idea…post on holidays. Yes, that would be manageable but it seems that I missed Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Maybe I’ll just write something when I change out the round shelves!  Actually I don’t even think I decorated these shelves at Christmas. I did good to get a tree up. But my valentines made by my friends and my circle journal group I absolutely treasure. They could be out all year and I’d be happy but then there’s Easter and eventually back in the case they go.

How do you like my little cutouts? As I find old pictures that were enlarged I’m putting them on tagboard and making little people. That’s my big sister and me and behind that my giant pouting son.

See the little Mary E book? My daily journal from last year? I maintained it for ohh……5 days! So I turned it into an album of the tons of wallet sized pictures of my grandsons and doodled frames. The closest I ever came to maintaining a journal would be this very blog for what six years or so and that’s not going swimmingly now.

I kept my candy boxes during the big V Day purge last year. So glad I did.

I’m definitely going to host another Valentine swap next year.

I totally love all the pinkness on this table along with the turquoise/aqua/teal. I could live my life in turquoise – it just makes me happy!

I used to be able to blog about nothing and it was effortless but it’s been so long that blogging about nothing took a lot of effort today! Anyway, just in case I don’t make it back for a while Happy Hearts Day to you!
xo

Long Time - No See

Let’s see if I can remember how to do this. First of all…Hellooo! I’ve missed you guys!  I have not done anything on this poor little neglected blog for months and months. So what have you guys been up to? I’ve been busy working on some projects that are now finished. Thank goodness. I’ve also put myself in self imposed isolation. Nope – I don’t have ebola but I have not only neglected the blog…I’ve neglected the house so I’m not going anywhere until I get things back in order.  I’m still paring down all the “stuff” and every time I decorate I’m trying to only keep a couple of boxes. Anyway – I got the Halloween/Fall “stuff” out in time for all the Halloween Hops!
What would I do without these round shelves? I just don’t seem to have the places to put things anymore! That’s my little grandson dressed up as Buzz Lightyear for Halloween….Halloween 1997! Still one of my favorite pictures of him.

That Pumpkin Man I had forgotten about. He probably wondered if he was on the purge list and now he’s got that scaredy cat grin on his face thinking he dodged the bullet!

I love this guy – so he’s safe while I’m around. Now see the dust on that Mary Englebreit chair? I thought I cleaned it so it’s a good thing I’m blogging to catch myself on these oversights – haha.

Remember this piece? I bought this at an auction dirt cheap because the glass doors on each end were broken. It’s narrow so it works for me in this room. How about the Dave Ramsey book on one end and the ledger books on the opposite end? I should have had that book about 50 years ago because those ledger books don’t contain  financial plans or budget…I’ve turned them into picture albums of my grandkids!

Great way to save all those years and years of school pictures and prom pictures of the kids and grandkids.

I love this tiny little painting but with the orange color it doesn’t go with anything in my house except in the fall.
 
So I just keep it with that stuff and bring it out once a year!

Same thing with the Jim  Shore cat! I picked him up for nothing at a Goodwill and he comes out once a year. I think a lot of people must get Jim Shore things who have no idea of the value or just don’t like his work because they seem to be easy to find!

The ME teapot and cups stay out most of the year. Black and white dots or checks??? They go with everything. That’s it for my tour de halloween today! I hope to stop by and see what everyone else has been doing.
xoxo and yours truly, I Once Was Lost But Now I’m Found Nancy!
Joining Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for Pink Saturday !

All Good Things Must Come To An End

Yes - sadly there are several things coming to an end.  My computer - a corupt file uploaded to my computer from ... of all places...my McAfee program.  It completely wiped out wireless detection.  I was fortunate that I really didn't lose anything important like my photos but I did lose some programs.  It also wiped out my husband's wireless, my Kindle wireless, my phone wireless and McAfees fix did not work.  I was crippled without my computer - addresses, appointments and oh yeah...the wireless printer so I had to actually go to the post office and physically pay for postage. I got the new Dell back in time to post my pictures of  Susan's Heart To Heart Journal.
Pink was one of the colors she preferred for her Journal. I made a word cloud shaped like a heart using words from her blog.  "Read" was her top word so I placed it on a book cover.

From me it goes to LaVerne, then to Shelia  and finally back to Susan so that's another good thing coming to an end...our journals.

And then there is The Roost.  We're closing it at the Round Rock Mall and will only be at the Austin Antique Mall.  We'll still have the Vintage Roost online but it makes me sad that I haven't been able to work at keeping it up like I did originally.  So - for now we'll just have Oodles which has been outselling the Roost 3 to 1.  Another good thing coming to an end. Sigh....And tonight at my grandson's football game the seniors will be honored.  I'm still trying to figure out how he was just starting kinder... 

 

and all of a sudden he's a senior in high school. #52

I've loved every minute of the past seventeen years and the joy he's brought to our lives. Okie Dokie.  That's it for me for Beverly's Pink Saturday.  I've got to get ready for the big game tonight.  BTW...they won last week 43 to 7! Go Raiders.

Here's to Good Things...beginning or ending! xoxo Nancy 

6 Years of Pink Saturday

Beverly has faithfully hosted Pink Saturday for six years now. Her blog is How Sweet The Sound and on that site I have met some of my best blog, Facebook and art buddies.  Thank you Beverly for bringing me into your World of Pink! Were it not for Pink Saturday I probably would have stopped blogging completely by now.  I’ve written just under 600 posts over six years now. When we had the antique store I always had things to write about and some really interesting pictures. So rather than just stop completely I’m just posting a lot less frequently these days. Unfortunately for you guys…I will never run out of my old pictures that I can show on here! So on that note….

I’m pulling out one of my most favorite pink pictures today. This is over 18 years ago at a nursery in Austin. What’s not to love about a herd of Pink Flamingos with my little grandson in the middle of them.

 

He was absolutely adorable! I’ve been putting my 50+ years of pictures in order and I can’t believe that I’m almost done. I finished my Christmas book which was a huge accomplishment! In another unfinished art album from an online class I took and completed one page….I converted into a timeline of wallet and school pictures of my two sons and grandsons. And then since I was on a roll I made an album out of an old accounting ledger and filled it with those 3 x 5 and 5 x 7 portraits. The 4 x 6 prints of which I have multiple prints of the same thing went into different sets for various people. I punched a hole in the corner, put them in order by date and ran a ribbon through them or used a binder ring.

“I've at times in my past been so unhappy, and thought, like, 'I would give anything for this not to be happening.' And, you know, as people say, time passes, and then you think, 'I'm kind of glad that happened to me.”

That is what I tried to tell my little guy in the middle of the flamingos  this week as he worries about his college angst. Some of the best things and people in my life came out of circumstances I absolutely didn’t want to happen and now…I wouldn’t change a thing.

to all of my blog friends along with Beverly for sharing ideas, projects, your kids and grandkids, and your homes with me. And thanks for allowing me to share my life with you!

xoxo Nancy