WEEK 2 ICAD

Hi Everyone!

Week 2 of the Index Card A Day challenge is posted and up on 30 Days in April ICAD.  Just click on the sidebar and you'll be able to view Day1-7 and Day 8-14.

Let me know what you think! Have a great week.

Bee Creative,
Suzy

Veggie Tale

BreesMimi Design Studio (BMDS)

Hi Everyone!

It's hard for me to remember a time when I didn't eat veggies, even when I was little there wasn't much in the veggie department I wouldn't eat.  But when my husband and I met some forty plus years ago, he wasn't a fan of vegetables, in fact the only veggies he ate were corn, tomatoes and onions.   He told me the story about how much he disliked peas and how he put them down the heat register in the floor to hide them!  Many years later his father discovered the dry, hard peas when he investigated a strange rattling sound..... coming from the heat register.  We still laugh about that one.

Watercolor sketching veggies

SO how did I get him to willingly eat veggies?!?  The answer was to smother the vegetables in cheese sauce.  Yep, I lured  umm, introduce him to veggies smothered with cheese and gradually weaned him from the sauce. He's a big veggie lover now, with the exception of beets.  Okay, I can live with that, because I Do have one vegetable I won't eat. Brussel sprouts.  Ewww! Gag. Enough said.

But why all this talk about veggies?

 I've been painting veggies for an online class with on of my favorite artist, Tracy Fletcher King.  Having fun with the sketching and water color.

Finished watercolor of fruit & veggies.

Here's a few of my favorite veggies/fruits, in case you can't make out what they are: eggplant, pears, apples, carrot and zucchini. 

Sometimes a process will inspire other things like the Index Cards below.

Hope you find some delicious inspiration today!  

Bee Creative,

Suzy

30 DAYS IN APRIL REVEAL

Hi Everyone!

Please join me for the reveal of Index Card A Day (ICAD) 30 Days in April.  This is the third  ICAD challenge I've completed in the last several years.  My first challenge was with Daisy Yellow's 60 Day Challenge!  Sixty days was a bit ambitious for a first timer so I scaled it back to 30 days as a personal challenge each year. Thirty days once a year works as a great starting point for the new year or whenever I feel I need a kick start in creativity.  If you've never heard of an ICAD challenge, please go over to Daisy Yellow Blog to see how this challenge works.  It's so much fun!

Meanwhile join me for the weekly reveal of my personal challenge on Thursdays. Just click on the side bar 30 Days in April ICAD and you'll see what I created each day and a glimpse into the "how" I made each card and the thought process behind it.  Enjoy!

I'd love to hear if you are interested in this process...please leave a comment so I know you've stopped by.  Have a great week!

Bee Creative,
Suzy

A Yarn Tale

Hi Everyone!

A few weeks ago on a Saturday morning, I was perusing my favorite online site for knitting patterns and looking for knitting stores in my area.  My neighbor who is visiting from PA and I thought we would take a ride up to the next county where there was supposed to be a yarn store, unfortunately, after 35 minutes driving up the busiest road with some fairly crazy drivers we found the store closed. OUT OF BUSINESS (apparently for some time since another business had taken its place).  We were both very disappointed that the information was neither updated on the knitting site nor on GOOGLE Maps. Just goes to show, perhaps we should have called before making the trip.  But do not fear, for we did find a new vintage/junk store which provided us with entertainment for several hours and the Back up Plan B, included lunch. It was all good.

So back to my tale of the knitting store....later on the knitting site again I found a contact person and sent a note asking if the group that met at the yarn store still met, I received a prompt reply that a group met during the day.  Unfortunately, I'm still working and not able to meet up in the day, but after a few emails back and forth we decided to meet in the evening and she offered to contact some of the other ladies in the group and post our evening group online. Well, I am happy to report that we have a nice group of knitters meeting once a week at a local restaurant/coffee shop.

This was my first time "knitting in public" (other than a hospital room or lobby) and I was a bit concerned about chatting and knitting at the same time which apparently is a common issue among knitters, especially if you are working on anything that requires concentration (pattern or stitch changes).  Currently I've been working on a knit a long (KAL) sweater project and at a point in the pattern where there was going to be a significant change, concentration was required so the sweater wasn't a good candidate to take along to knitting group.  My Go To project (in between knitting projects) are baby hats (knitted for local hospitals). With knitting group in mind,  I started the ribbing on the baby hat so during the group meeting all I needed to do was basically stockinette stitch and some decreases to finish the hat that night.

Baby Hat for Hospital

 After knitting half a dozen baby hats in the last two weeks, I pretty much am burned out on them and looking for something else "fun & easy" to do in group knitting.  Dish cloths are fun and easy knitting and Michael's had a sale on Sugar & Cream cotton yarn yesterday!  I started my first dish cloth after watching this video from VeryPink Knits on You Tube last night.  Look out! I might be hooked on knitting dish cloths now.

My First Knitted Dish Cloth WiP

Simple and easy and fun to knit!  The dish cloth is another good Go To between projects.  Dish cloths are re-usable and an Eco-friendly alternative to sponges and paper towels and really, who can have enough dish cloths???  Look at those ridges, perfect for scrubbing things! Give it a go and see if you don't agree and actually enjoy the process.

Bee Creative!
Suzy

A Little Over It

Hello Everyone!

Happy Summer!  It's been a little over a year since my last post. Once again I managed to fall off the blog-O-sphere after trying to re-establish the SketchyGirlz blog with my best friend last year. It just was a bit overwhelming (to both of us) trying to keep up with two blogs, working full time and creating art. That's how it happened....Now, it is time for a fresh start once again.

How is your summer going?  Are you working on anything new?  Living in south Florida, the average temperature each day is in the 90's so it may seem a bit strange to know that knitting is one of my hobbies.  Most people think of knitting as a winter activity but because of the warmer hot temperatures here, it becomes a summer activity for me.  I enjoy looking for knitting patterns and taking classes online during the summer months and have several knitting projects going.  In the knitting world, these are called WIPs or Works in Progress. My latest WIPs are a sweater knit-a-long (KAL), a few baby hats (charity donation) and finishing up a cabled pattern blanket (almost done with that project!). Any knitters out there that can identify with the WIPs?  I'd love to hear from you.

The Knit-A-Long (KAL) is where you join a group of knitters for a specific project during a period of time.  The KAL is new to me, my first one!  I'll talk more about it in an upcoming post.

On the ART palette are several works that have been completed and another ICAD project (Index Card A Day) which I'll be sharing with you soon.  Each year I challenge myself to do the ICAD for 30 days.  You can see my previous works by clicking on the side bar. Meanwhile here's a glimpse of the recent challenge and I'll be posting more in the coming weeks.

My daughter and family visited recently and we had a great night out at "Painting With A Twist". This was a totally new experience for me, painting in a group setting where everyone paints the same design and it was SO much fun!  We painted a beach scene and every single painting was different! Fun seeing what everyone was doing and how they interpreted the theme.  I'd definitely do it again and would encourage everyone to try it at least once!  Take a group of friends and enjoy the evening painting and having a blast.

Let me know what summer projects you've been working on!  I'd love to hear from you.

Bee Creative,
Suzy