It is a beautiful day today!!! Couldn't ask for a nicer Indian Summer here. The sky is brilliant blue and the temperature is near 80 already, and I am so excited to get out and soak up some sunshine before winter hits. 
I love this rose bush! the flowers have such a beautiful velvety look!
The bush is a rather large rose bush (rooftop at it's tallest point) that has been growing for the past 10 years, I planted it when my son was born. The rose may or may not be what it started out as, I swear I bought the JFK which is a whitish beautiful tea rose, and I'm pretty sure that is how it bloomed the first year, I think it might have frozen back that winter and is now reverted to the old stock that it was grown on, but the flowers are beautiful... it just has tons and tons of thorns. I was told that it is probably the "Red Radiance", and is pretty hardy. Like I say, it has tons of thorns, and it hurts to cut the flowers off, so I usually leave them on the plant... and I didn't even prune it back the past two years...  there are so  many thorns that the plant has chewed up most of the roses that are on it.
 Saying that... it has been dormant for most of the past two years. Off and on again it has flower buds, mostly after a rain,  but usually they are dried up before they have a chance to open up.  It rained really slow and soaking a while back and now with the cooler temperatures, the bush has gone crazy, thinking it is now or never to bloom!!!  and the pink? it is an oleander that, like the rose, has been dormant for a long time. There are other oleanders but this one seems to think it is time to bloom as well. 

I have been doing the AEDM and haven't posted anything so far of the things that I have done, but thought I would catch you up on some of the things I've been doing since Summer... well, some things, mostly stuff that doesn't pertain to art, but then some does... and I have enjoyed doing artwork this month, but there has been so much since the last time that I actually  posted about anything. 
So here goes... 

My booth, you can't see the glitter everywhere!

Some of my items

In August I did the Highland Games in my hometown, and it was fun but not very profitable. There is always more work when it is local, there are so many things you can bring that it seems unending what you have in the booth.  This first picture doesn't do it justice... there is tons of glitter that just didn't show up when I looked at the picture. Glitter absolutely everywhere. I had probably the sparkliest booth in the whole arena. 
    I do like the booth, it is very comfy. People don't understand why I don't want to be out in the open, why I hide away in the closed part of the booth... even when I only did a 10'x10' I had the walls covered, but that is the way I like it. I don't like being very social when I am at a festival, and I have kids with me usually, and they need a "quiet" place to be, away from the hubbub and I think the walls help with that, as well as they serve as a place for me to hang quilts and head garlands, etc... 

This is another shot of the booth, That is my 98 pound baby laying in the floor. He has his own bed when we go to the shows, fairs, and festivals. My real baby has his own "room", it is just behind the screen with the wings hanging on it. He takes the dvd player and snacks, rugs, pillows and blankets and hangs out there when he gets tired. He really has grown into the helper though. He found that he can do work, get paid, and go spend the money right away!  What a character... 

Then school started and things got really busy, my son decided to play football again, though he had put off enrolling for it until the last minute. He said he didn't want to play again, but when he came home the first day of school, he said all the boys had asked him if he was going to play...
 so he guessed he would... sigh.  I wasn't un-happy for him to not play... and I was apprehensive when he wanted to play. but even with moves like this (without his helmet on).... he made it through without a broken bone :) ..... OK, don't ask, just don't ask what he was doing...

Then we had some days that we weren't so busy, with my mom sick and us sitting with her, school, my classes, and football.. we did get some stuff done, OK, not a lot, but I did repair this wig form that I bought to display hats on, but her/his nose got broken off when we were going home, so I had to build another one, though he/she was kind of cute without the nose... I got a bit carried away and made it into a faerie with the ears and a cute hairdo, I didn't take a picture of the finished head, and, well, now I can't, well.. I could but I used it on the front porch for Halloween as a severed head and it got knocked off and broken... so I am going to have to redo the nose and one ear and patch the parts that chipped off. 

My son working on a science experiment

Then we had science experiments, and math projects and GT with it's unique
projects, and the never ending homework, homework, homework...
This is my son, he did a science experiment on solubility/ conductivity and insulation... I was taking pictures for his powerpoint, he wasn't impressed when I told him to smile so most of the shots were like this one. 




Which brings me to this picture of my kitchen, well, a little bit of the kitchen. We started last Summer to work on it, but we went to Britain and France for the Summer and didn't get much done, then Fall and Winter, Spring, Summer again and I didn't get it finished still....But it ends up that what I have for the counter top is kind of nice, and even if it isn't permanent it looks ok. 
I haven't done the floor, and the ceiling is still half done, but it doesn't have any holes in it either, just needs to be finished up. I want a tin ceiling, but might settle for it to be just finished!

 Halloween came and went, it was nice but we thought about all the people that had passed away or were without homes or power on the Eastern seaboard and it kind of put a damper on the occasion.  But since there are kids, there is a Halloween...

We always decorate, just to what extent is not always known until the day of... I keep all the decorations from year to year, but there is no telling what we will use and what we won't. The case in this picture(to the right) usually holds my ceramic bunny and ceramic eggs. I used to use them just at Easter but found they were kind of cute all year long, but I put black birds and vulture eggs in the case for Halloween, it just seemed right for them. I have a jar of Vulture Eggs on top of it, Somehow I didn't find the box with the large bottles of "blood- O+" or the "Vulture Vomit" 'ghoul guts' or other assorted vile viles....  I don't know what happened to them, but we had moved so many of the items last year when we were moving boxes of kitchen stuff, that well, I don't honestly know where anything is! So we did the laboratory without them. It does have the small jar of monster dentures and severed fingers, eyeballs, and other ghoulish items... 

Which brings me back up to this point in time... and the AEDM... I have sketches from 4 days, and a couple of rings and a bracelet, and yesterday? the dining table was my project. I know it isn't really art... but I started stripping the table of the paint and the nasty surface that I had covered up in the first place and  it is going to be my labor of love. I didn't do anything else creative yesterday. The table is kind of big and bulky, and it is going to be another day to get it all sanded down and bleached (I am going for a well worn surface that is bare, kind of a rustic French Country look, so it doesn't need any sealer or anything on it. My son, ever the optimist said ..."well, we can always use a tablecloth if anyone comes over"....  yes, son, we can... I don't know if he is embarrassed by me at any point or not... My daughter is I am sure, but she has gotten used to me being eccentric I guess... my son, not as much used to it as he is learning to live with it!!
So, what have you been up to lately????