IF......Remember When

I made this for my mom. Her birthday is coming up in September. She will be 89. It kind of represents our conversations. "Remember when we did this, or remember so and so, wonder what they are up to now." She is a simple remember when angel.

Faces Progression

I did not realize I could embed a slide show through my google account. Just goes to show you learn something every day.

My Girl

Ever since I took Paulette Insall's face painting class, I feel so much more confident in my sketches. I love to sketch in my journal each morning. Here is one of my sketches I did from memory. Sometimes I draw from memory and sometimes I draw from a picture. I really enjoyed and learned so much from her class.
If you want to take her classes I think she is now taking sign-ups. I am going to take her background class next. I cant wait.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Tomorrow is my son's Birthday. He wants Lemon Meringue Pie instead of a cake. And I thought great because it is so much easier than making a cake. This pie is our family favorite at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is not the typical lemon meringue pie made out of a custard. It is so easy and delicious.
Here is the recipe:
3 eggs separated
1 14 ounce can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk ( not evaporated milk)
1/2 cup lemon juice, few drops of yellow food coloring

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In medium bowl, beat egg yolks, (save whites for meringue in separate bowl) stir in eagle brand, lemon juice and food coloring. Pour into a prepared vanilla wafer crust.
For crust you will need about 1 1/2 cups (36) vanilla wafers, crushed into crumbs,6 tbls. butter or margarine melted. Mix butter and crumbs together then
Press firmly into a 8 or 9 inch pie plate...chill for a little bit. Line pie with whole vanilla wafers then pour the lemon mixture into prepared crust.
Top with meringue.
Take the saved whites and beat with a 1/4 tsp cream of tartar until soft peak forms then add 1/3 cup of sugar gradually, beating until a stiff peak forms but not dry.
Spread on top of pie sealing carefully to edge.
Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.
Refrigerate when cool.

Altered Art Journal Letter F

F is for family. Here is the next page in my altered art journal.
My family is the most important thing in my life. I am what I am because of them. The only thing I ever wanted to be was a Mom.
It is funny how these paintings came out. We really do not look like any of these people. My daughter and son are only two years apart. And my poor husband does not wear a cap all of the time. oh well hopefully it looks like a family.

Feeling Blue

Practicing face painting on watercolor paper this time. I think I will name it "feeling blue" but not sure yet. It is just a practice piece. The size is all goofy. And when I say the size is goofy, I mean it is not a good size for framing. I am very pleased with the way it turned out. So not sure what I will do with her yet.
My son was home most of last week. Actually he's been home most of the summer, so I have been spending a lot of time with him. We had fun and I will miss him when he goes back to school. He starts graduate school next week at Texas State. I'm very proud of him. He will also work as an assistant to some professor. Summer is coming to an end for us. He wont be able to come home as much once school starts.
Today is a rainy day, which is very unusual for August in San Antonio. But it's great for my flowers and water bill. I'm not complaining. I love it. Rain is rare here. It cleans off the dust and cools everything down by a degree or two. And what a great day to get lost in my studio. Maybe I can finish some of the many projects I'm working on and start some new ones too.

Ou est mon amour?

Ok here is my third canvas...my third attempt at face painting. Paulette is really a great teacher. I loved her class and will miss it. I hope I can remember everything she taught me. If you want to see the finished results of my 1st painting it is on my flickr account. I have not finished number 2 because it is so similar to number 1. I'm having a hard time deciding what to do different.

Memory Glass Pendants

Here are some new listings at my Etsy shop. I did some great memory glass collages of these French Lady's. The one on the bottom has a copy of my original 1940's photo of the Eiffel tower. I'm going to have to do more with the Eiffel Tower. Right now this is the only one I've made. The Eiffel tower is on the back of the pendant with girl on the very bottom of this post.
I decided to enter these in the vintage theme at Artygirlz.

Altered Art Journal Letter E

E for Eiffel....ok so it's probably most girls dream to go to Paris and see the Eiffel tower. It's been mine for a long time and one of these days I'll get there. But it's rather discouraging because so many people tell me " Why do you want to go to France? The people there hate Americans. It's so expensive! Now is not the time to go. You will be disappointed. I lived there, they are such snobs." This is what I get from people when I tell them my dream is to go to Paris. It's mostly men of course. Never met a woman or girl who does not want to go to Paris. So here is the next installment in my altered art journal......E for Eiffel.

Simple Pleasures

I'm in a delightful mood today so I thought I'd share some of my simple pleasures. I turned my daughters old room into a shabby chic room. I have all my treasured collectibles in it. Mostly left over stuff from my shop and stuff I could not bare to sell. I love going in there to stare. My husband calls it my shrine. Men don't understand. I have some fun items there and wish the pictures I've taken would come out better. I'll have to work on that. I love small containers like the small trinket boxes or jewelry boxes. This is just a few.
I usually don't blog on the weekends so I thought I'd leave a different picture to look at other than my face paintings. I have been sort of obsessed with them lately. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and gets plenty of RnR.

Charlie