First I painted flowers following lessons online and in books using techniques by one-step maven Dona Dewberry it was fun, they certainly weren’t botanical specimens but after gifting many I began selling them, people liked them at craft fairs. Then I started making cards with my photos and selling them too.

 

Next up, I saw the papers that my sister used to make her rocks and thought about what else could be made with the same papers.   I thought jewelry and ordered wood bangles from China when I couldn’t ‘find any suppliers in the USA, I did try..  I covered them with beautiful papers made in Japan, Thailand, India, and Tibet. and gave them three coats of varnish.  I ordered some rings from China too so they would match the bangles.  Beautiful items but our wrists and fingers are larger than those of Chinese women and we had trouble getting them over our hands without scraping our knuckles and the rings only fit to the first knuckle, (so I called them knuckle knockers).  I still have most of them, will give them away one of these days. Slight miscalculation but many pleasant hours of making.

Never one to be without a project   I started sewing little purses, I called them pursettas and I must have sewn 100 pursettas , thinking surely women would see how convenient they were, it was when we wore our mini purses hanging from our shoulders and kept our phones and keys ready for a trip to the store,  I made vertical and horizontal pursettas with pretty buttons to use for the office. Some for summer, others for winter and some large enough to carry a tennis ball.

I must have 85 of them still.  Need a pursetta?

I am an idea person but unfortunately, I have difficulty following through with marketing because if you can’t sell you should go slowly into the project and maybe start with making only a few items to test and not go crazy with this new idea. Good advice

I need to follow my advice.

For me it’s not even about making money as I often give my stuff away, you like it?  it’s yours.

I do that.

Next up I made rocks like my sister Shar but only used papers from Thailand because I loved the elegance and deep colors of the papers. Shar made these beauties and I made the next,  by the way, they are still for sale, drop me a note if you are interested, she sells them by weight and design.

Ready for more?

I ordered online classes from  Tim Gagnon to learn to paint landscapes.  I’m still working on my trees, having trouble painting realistic blooming, foliage on my trees.

 

next was a flurry of abstract paintings on canvas paper, practicing ribbon art and most lately my dots and lines that I really enjoyed making but don’t expect them to be a hot item, that’s okay I still like them any way they make a nice statement framed in a white frame.I took this photo thru the glass frame and I like how it turned out with a change of color and I bet I could change it more. I think I’ll try it with a few more of those paintings because I think it would make a cool image  on a print.( when it warms up, too cold to get out in the sun just yet)

It’s good for me to have a project that makes me get up in the morning, eager to get started.  I think besides getting prints, finding the right papers for prints, my next project will be learning all I can about living RV full-time, as time is getting short!