Christmas Collage

This year I'm decorating the mantel with greenery and a few of my favorite Santas. I added a couple of sets of battery operated lights and it looks quite pretty. But, as I looked above the mantel, my eyes settled on the bird's nest painting. I love this painting---my mother did it years ago and it is one of my favorite treasures from her, but it just didn't seem to quite "go" with the rest of the Christmas decorations. With my recent collage class fresh on my mind, I decided to try one with a Christmas theme. At the beginning, all I planned was to use the colors red and green and the word "joy". I decided I'd just let it evolve that that. Here are a few pictures of the process: I squirted some paint on the canvas and swished it around with a piece of cardboard. After letting it dry, I added a couple of different shades of green in small quantities. I decided to try printing some greenery by dipping an artificial branch in the paint and pressing it on the canvas. This didn't really work the way I'd planned, so I resorted to just painting it with a paintbrush and I added a large star to the painting---a crooked star, but . . . oh well. Using the Cricut, I cut out the words "joy", "peace" and "love" and used Mod Podge to attach them. I used the opposite end of my paintbrush to make dots of gold in the corners and then painted the entire canvas with Mod Podge and randomly dropped some gold thread here and there onto the picture. Here's the finished product---really shiny, but definitely "Christmas-ey".

The Fifties

Well, it's official. I am now "in my fifties". Somehow that sounds a lot older than just being "50". But, really, who cares?? I mean, it's just a number, right?.

So for my birthday, I got tons of great birthday wishes on Facebook, which was really nice. Jana, Rob and Callie all called to sing to me (which was fun!!). And this afternoon at my final collage class, I was surprised by another song and casino cakes (compliments of Callie). It was great! Here is a semi-serious birthday photo of us---if you take away the Chrismon that Jamie is using as an earring in the picture. And then because I discovered that I have a "timed, 3 photo" option on my camera, we decided to try it out. (yes, Jamie has on my jeweled reading glasses)
Our collage group has been small, but so fun! I think we all hate to call it quits for a few weeks during this holiday season. But, our projects really turned out nice--each unique and great! (we were supposed to bring frames this week, but I was the only one that brought one----we aren't very good at homework).
And as you can tell, there was nothing very serious at all about our class. We worked and talked and created and laughed and just had a great time! .