Change the world ...one cookie at a Time

THis Saturday my boys and I had our community service project that they picked to do this summer. When discussing this months ago, I told them I wanted to do a project that they choose where all the money made could go to help a charity of their choice. They both agreed that they wanted to sell ice tea and cookies both homemade. My eldest, Michael, wanted the money he made to go to help the animals caught up in the Gulf oil spill while my youngest, Jake , wanted to buy food for a homeless family.

Once we got the details sorted out after careful deliberation, we made the cookies and ice tea and made our way over to my mother in law's house to sell them . She has a lot more traffic than we do.

It was a hot one, in the nineties ( or at least it felt like it). The boys were troopers taking very few breaks and trudging through the heat for 3 hours. The boys were greeted with their first customer not even 10 minutes into setting up. Then came another and more to follow. both boys tried to come up with clever ways to capture drivers attention. They had made a colorful sigh which they held up at passing cars. While that was garnering attention it wasn't always bringing in the customers. Next, they tried holding a sign while the other held up a cookie waving it eagerly in the air. That helped a bit more, but the last ideas I think were the best.

Michael would hold a plate of cookies and screamed "Cookies for Charity!" while Jake held the sign. I lost track of the customers, but not of their generosity. The boys sold nearly all their cookies and ice tea and made $90 plus dollars for the charities! That was enough to help 3 families and 5 gulf animals. They were so proud and happy and are planning to do it again soon. My mother in law mentioned that seeing this redeemed her faith in humanity. I must admit it redeeemed mine too.

For more ways you can help these and other great charities check out this link.

8 New Designs for your Iphone, Nano and more!

Please note: all images are copyrighted. Please do not redistribute. Thank you.









I have added 8 new designs to my etsy shop. These focus on a bit of steampunk ( Illusions) to Goth ( Skull and Flowers and Goth Tree) to ones geared toward kids ( Vision- first in the series -this one has my son Jake on it:) Right now I only have them available to iphones, nanos, itouch and ipads, but ereaders will be added soon as well as other cell phone types. Check them out at my etsy shop! Thanks for looking!

Silent Auction for Alexis!

I came across this info from Kerin Gale from the Mixed Media Art group. This little girl is in need of our help. I have posted the following from her mother's blog ( following info on the auction). There will be a silent auction through June 14th. Here are the two pieces that are in the auction from me if you are able to place a bid on. For more info or other works for auction check out http://countryfolkart.blogspot.com/






Here is the mother's blog:
It was a regular beautiful summer day, August 16th, 2006- Wednesday…meeting my mother & taking my 2 daughters (Austin Rose & Alexis) for my youngest’s well baby check up and going out for lunch. While our wonderful pediatrician was palpitating her abdomen, I was anxiously voicing my concerns about cradle cap, crying in the car seat….never did I notice that our normally bubbly, happy doctor’s demeanor had completely changed. He finally took a step back and said “I’ve found something in Alexis’s abdomen, I don’t like; I would like you to get an x-ray & an ultrasound at the hospital…you won’t leave here today until we know what it is.”

My sensitive mother (grammy Stella) started crying…. I said “Calm down mom! It’s not like it’s CANCER!”

The day our world turned upside down!

By the end of the day, our fantastic doctor, Dr. Oriel, had made us an appointment at Children’s hospital in Seattle the next morning and was explaining some form of cancer called “Neuroblastoma”.

The next 2 weeks were a blur, our 11 week old baby was being stuck daily by needles/ IV’s, NG tubes to her stomach and going thru numerous tests. Once the biopsy of the “main” tumor was in, we met with the doctors for the new- Worst day of our lives…they confirmed she had a very large tumor from her left kidney, and adrenal gland, that was wrapped around her aorta and pushing on major organs and inoperable and many tumors in her liver and also in her bone marrow and leg bone. It was called neuroblastoma, a cancer that only affects 600 children in the US a year. Her disease was progressive, MYCN gene amplified, which put her in the high risk, stage IV, 10% chance of survival category. How can an 11 week old baby have this horrible, monster of a cancer?

Now, it is March, 2009. She has endured 22 cycles of chemotherapy, 12 cycles of radiation, an 8 hour surgery to remove her primary tumor, kidney and adrenal gland. She has had 8 surgeries total. 44 sedations, 9 blood transfusions, many platelet transfusions, over 600 shots and countless numbers of medications being forced down her. She also had a stem cell harvest done to keep frozen if ever needed. Her disease is now considered “stable” the only disease left in her is small liver tumors; which there is no guaranteed treatment to cure. We aren’t doing any treatment at this time, she still has tumors on her liver that have remained unchanged/stable for the past 14 months, so we are at home, enjoying each other & family & go back to the hospital for check ups.

Thanks to our loving Heavenly Father she is still smiling radiantly, laughing, sparkling & has one feisty temper in lieu of all she’s been thru! There have been countless numbers of miracles on the way and we are in hopes & belief that God isn’t finished handing out the Miracles yet!

Thanks to everyone who has allowed Alexis to touch your heart, and all of the prayers being lifted up daily. God is good, we don’t know his plan, every one of us has only a chosen number of days on this earth, whether your 1 or 30 or 50. Alexis is living each moment to the fullest & we are trying to take her example and do the same and be ready just in case it’s our last.

Please read Alexis’s story, sign her guestbook or leave a comment, and take the time to view this amazing little angel that God has graced us with. Thank you God!

Please pray for Alexis Grace…

Please help the little girl if you can in any way! Shipping will be added to the item after you win it. Shipping for the bird art is $2.00 and shipping for the shadowbox is $4.00 Best of luck!

Imagination Moving Along

Hello again! First of all, congrats to Crystal again for winning the contest. I will be having another one soon. IF you aren't interested, enter for a friend! There is a lot of stuff in there to go through:)

The weekend was hectic which was to be expected. My youngest turned 5 on Sunday and the day before we mourned the passing of my husband's uncle. Just the other day after doing nothing but resting from the weekend, my eldest wanted to sit outside and eat dinner. First of all mind you, the cushions from the patio furniture had been removed out of the weekend rain and sitting on uncomfortable chairs with a bit of a chill was not necessarily what I wanted to do. I tried to get him to eat inside but that didn't work so out we went. We decided to have conversation time ( which there is never enough of). He asked what I wanted to talk about and I told him I would listen and he could talk. He wanted to talk about ice cream. OK....what about it? He said that he would one day invent warm cream so that people without refrigerators could also enjoy the special treat. Great idea for those that lack electricity. I believe he could do it too. He wants to be a chemist ( as well as a gold miner and artist) when he grows up. Alhtough only 7 his mind is fascinating and he takes it all very seriously. ( He is also a huge fan of the Disney show The Imagination Movers!) Then we got on the subject of how to change something else (which unfortunately the particulars escape me at the moment) and he said " all we need to do is contact a magician..." If only things were that simple. Ah the imagination of youth.

The Words of the Day are : Creating in Chaos

Listen. Do you hear that? Exactly, nothing but silence. It sounds nice doesn’t it? Ah, and now it is time to create….whoa wait a minute. Hey stop that! Leave your brother alone! Don’t make me come in there!
Now that sounds more like the reality I know and thrive in. Yes, a Zen like studio would be wonderful. Think about it: perfect places to have everything. Paper all lined up neatly stacked with that brand new $300.00 desk purchased just for that purpose. All of the rubber stamps and embellishments would be lined up neatly by color and size (maybe even alphabetically if so desired). Yes, most of us can only dream of that plush room filled with all the space our little art making hearts desire. In my case, I am lucky to find some fraction of room on my dining room table, that is after competing with the leftover cereal bowels from breakfast (I won this round!)
However, in my case anyway, (as I am quite sure is the case for many of you), this is not a possibility. In my world especially over the past 2 and a half years I have grown quite accustomed to creating with the chaos surrounding me and most of the time invading my space (particularly my lap) while trying to create the greatest masterpiece (well, I am still working on that). For the past few years, after my eldest was about 1, my husband and I discussed the fact that he was debating on going back to school for his master’s degree. Sure, I said. I mean what could change really? (We said that before having kids too. ) I mean it wouldn’t be right to say no to him. He warned me that things would be different. I was only concerned about still being able to create in peace when needed to, perhaps a few times a week. We agreed to work it out. In the beginning, we did. I would work on some art over the weekends and feel like I accomplished something for myself besides cleaning and chasing a toddler around all day and he excelled in his schooling. Over that time, however, we decided to have another child. That is when the art in peace really began to end. I was taking care of a 2 year old and a newborn pretty much round the clock while my husband worked during the day, sometimes on the weekends and then went to school twice a week. (I am lucky enough to be a stay at home mom because if I had to throw working outside the home in the mix, I don’t think I would have made it!)
Now, it has been a few years since my husband has completed his degree. That sense of random madness has ceased but another has taken its place. As many of you know, my husband has been out of work for a while now. Things are only getting tougher with unemployment benefits running out soon and emergency ones taking a bit to get going. The question remains: If you had asked me a few years ago, would I be happy to get back to that peace and quiet in my art? I would have screamed YES! Now, I gratefully shout NO! Why, you ask? I don’t think I could go back to it. I have gotten used to trying to glue something with one hand and wiping little chocolate faces with the other. Duality is a common them in my life (and a bit in my art as well!) I am proud of the little pieces of beauty that get created in the chaos. Maybe they would never have survived in the silence.
So to everyone reading this, know that it is possible to create beautiful things among the rubble (in my case mounds of toys). One day my husband and I talk of moving into a bigger house when things are a bit more secure. I have secretly claimed the 4th bedroom for my studio. Until then, move aside cereal bowels, this is my space now!

Sleeping is Nothing

Sleeping and hospitals are rarely synonymous, but in this case, a sleeping was exactly what you were supposed to do. Jake had been told that he needed to get a sleep study done even after his ear tubes were put in. He apparently has enlarged tonsils, still snores, and the prospect is not looking good for him to avoid getting his tonsils out. Being the 4 year old he is, he was brave and was looking forward to our "sleepover" as I had called it. My biggest fear was getting down there without getting lost. Once that hurdle was solved, we then went off to begin our new adventure.


The hospital seemed different at night. I had been there before when he had gotten his tubes in and it was livelier, more bustle. Now it was quiet, with sleepy children roaming the halls, along with the oncoming night shift. The imagination and fun didn't end even near bedtime however. Jake was enamoured with the idea of a McDonald's in a hospital. How cool is that!!! Even though I had taken him for McDonald's that afternoon, we just had to get fries. After our trip, we returned with steaming fries in a greasy bag and grins like cheshires to our room. Reading stories during the setup helped to ease Jake's uncomfortable ordeal. Nothing hurt...but the gel and "stickies" as they were called were cold and a bit irritating to him. The staff however was fantastic! They were sweet and informative and helped Jake open up. As of now, I can only guess at the results. He tossed and turned, snored like a lion and moved around quicker than a jackrabbit. Needless to say, nothing out of the ordinary. Me on the other hand, barely slept at all. 5 star hotel the couch was not:)

We were up at 6 am and had the get the wires removed. The gel had to be wiped down (that is impossible to get out!!!) before we were ready to be moving on. He got a big hug from me as we waved goodbye to the staff and made our way down the hallways to leave. We passed by the oncology department on our way out. For a moment, I found myself clutching Jake's hand a bit tighter. After all, sleeping is nothing.