Feeling grateful right about now

I got to thinking the other night... it has now almost been 3 months since I started selling my paintings.... not even 3 months! The time has flown so quickly. I've been so caught up lately in future plans, markets I want to go to, new products I want to create, how I want to advertise that I kind of lost sight of what I have actually ACHIEVED.

In the past 3 months I have sold 35 paintings and I have orders for at least 4 more... I can't believe it sometimes. That is so much more than I would have ever thought! I debated with myself for weeks/months about whether to start selling or not... I was afraid of what people would think, that they would look at my art and think "I can't believe she's trying to sell that". I just hoped that people wouldn't laugh when they saw what I was selling - and they didn't! Well, not that I heard anyway... LOL.

There is SO much more that I want to do, I have more plans than time. I've learned to just stay focused on what I am doing and what direction it is that I want to take.... not to worry about what others are doing. I am a big believer in karma and that if you put the right energy out, you will get the right energy back. I have a group of friends around me who are fantastic arty inspiration - I like to believe that I may have inspired them in some way to take their own leaps of faith into the hand-made business world. :)

So stay tuned for lots more exciting things happening over the next 3 months.... I look forward to the day that I can give up my 4hr/week job because I am earning enough from my arty business venture. I think I'm about half way there - and in such a short time!! I just know that I will achieve it, it and probably many other fantastic things that I've only dared to dream about.

So I just want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you - my blog readers, facebook fans, customers and whoever else you may be. Without you all none of this would have been possible.

And speaking of arty friends... Check out these fabulous dolls that my friend Naomi makes...


They have been customised for my girls... each one has her own doll made in their own likeness (hair/eye colour) and they're clothes and shoes are all removable so you can change their clothes and dress them in all kinds of cute outfits. Naomi is going to be starting up a facebook page soon selling these gorgeous dolls. My girls are currently doing quality control on these cuties, and trust me, Jenna is taking hers EVERYWHERE with her so it's getting plenty of testing. LOL I tried to get a picture with Amani in it but she wouldn't stay still, she kept crawling straight over to the slide so she could crawl up it... but that's a whole other story. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

I had the best intentions...

I had the best of intentions of sharing a meaningful post with you all... but my sinuses are not liking me at the moment - I've had a cold the last few days. So for now, I'm just going to share all of my latest paintings that I haven't shared here yet. Some are commissioned paintings, others have already sold, and some are still available for sale. To see which is which, you'll have to check out my facebook page.










But I will be back soon... I've been feeling pretty happy the last few days and I wanted to share. :)

Birthday Celebration announcement

On Friday, 29th July I will be auctioning this painting off for charity on my Facebook page. ALL proceeds will go to Heartkids Qld.

The auction will begin at 7.30pm Qld time and continue until bids close at 7.30pm Saturday the 30th July. You will need to be a "liker" of my page to be able to comment on the photo and bid. If you are unsure, please contact me and I will help you.

I will also be donating the postage to Australian postcodes, international will be actual postage minus $5.

Please share this with all your friends and help raise some money for this worthy charity. :)

Birthday Celebration... and YOU get the gifts!

In exactly 2 weeks it will be my birthday and I've decided to celebrate it with a bit of a sale/giveaway. :)

I've got a few ideas spinning around in my head....

First up: I'll be giving away a painting to one of my mailing list subscribers, so if you haven't already signed up now's your chance. (You can sign up to the right of this page) Postage will also be included for free... although if you are not in Australia you will have to pay actual postage minus $5. Stay tuned for details on which painting is up for grabs.

Second: I'll be auctioning off a painting for charity on my facebook page. So make sure you head on over and click on the "like" button to keep up to date with that.

Third: I'll be having some kind of discount on all items for sale on the 29th July. Not quite sure how much at this stage... but my generosity may go up in relation to the number of likers I have on my facebook page. :) So make sure to share my page with your friends!

There'll also be a few more things, so stay tuned here and on my facebook page to keep up with all the announcements!

Markets and a quick share

I'm heading off to Gladstone for the Mumma's Fair markets so I'm trying to get all those last minute things done today.

So here is where you are going to be able to find me the next two weekends...



And here are some paintings that I have finished off recently.




Thanks for stopping by... I'll be announcing something big soon!

Two things I'm loving right now

I'm loving these right now..



Giant sauce bottle filled with modpodge - I like to be able to squirt the modpodge onto my canvases and spread it around with my hands better than using a brush, but I couldn't really do that with the huge tub that I had. So instead of constant refilling my smaller bottle, I came up with this idea. Loving it!

Paper Garlands - So easy to make... I think I may have to decorate for Jenna's birthday party with these.


And guess who I just happened to see as I was taking that pic...


Hope you all had a great weekend!

Playing with tissue paper

Lately I have been in love with tissue paper... I just love how it adds texture to the background of a canvas. When I discovered tissue paper with images on it, such as these from 7Gypsies, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. But sometimes I don't like images to be all over the canvas - then I found this technique in Art Journaling magazine.

It was so simple I can't believe I hadn't thought of it before.... take just normal, plain old tissue paper and stamp your own images onto it. LOVE it! So here is what I did:


And here is what it ended up looking like:


I just love how it turned out and I can see me doing it a lot more. In fact, at my last crafty get together with some friends, I borrowed all their stamps and went crazy on the tissue paper I had. :)

This canvas is for sale on my facebook page. If you aren't on Facebook, just leave me a comment on this post and I can get back to you.

Thanks for stopping by! If you do have a go at using this technique, link me up with a pic of the finished product. :)

Sometimes the words pick you.

Oops... I didn't get to share that awesome technique with you yesterday... let's just say children were being "needy", however I will share it with you tomorrow. First up, I wanted to share the story of this canvas with you.



I'd gotten to the stage where it was pretty much finished and just needed some words, but I just couldn't think of anything that suited her. Most of the sayings on my canvases just come out of my head - half the time they are messages to myself. :) Anyway, I couldn't think of anything so I put a post on my facebook page asking for suggestions (and I got some great ones).

Now that I had some choices for words, I pulled out my trusty old letter stickers and set to work... but do you think I could make them work?? No. They either didn't go with the canvas or I was missing letters that I needed (anyone got any spare e's floating around??). The only letters that I liked on there for the main word was my old Heidi Swapp letters. But with no a, e or r that ruled out most words that I could think of. So at about 11pm, I wrote down all the letters I DID have and went to sit in bed and try and figure out a word. On the way, I grabbed an old notebook I have with quotes in it for when I get stuck like this.

The first quote in that book - "A loving heart is the truest wisdom." Yippee... I had those letters! So here she is all finished... it seems she ended up picking her OWN words. :)


Thanks for stopping by! And cool technique coming tomorrow....

July 123 Challenge

If you haven't done a 123 Challenge before, this is definitely the month to do it! I absolutely loved this challenge... it even got me out of my art journal funk temporarily.

July's challenge is:
Colour: Aqua/teal
Word: "Thing" - could be anything, everything, something etc...
Technique: Create a scene

Now your scene doesn't have to be a picture of sorts, just some kind of layering, texture & decorative background. The creative team have come up with some absolutely fabulous work and the guest designer Gina Rodgers has done a layout with some stunning layering.

Here's my sample:


I did this page really quickly - the background was already done so I just added the flowers, words and a few finishing touches. I even loved it so much that I've done a canvas based on it (will share later today). I also used a new technique on the canvas which I saw in Art Journaling magazine... one of those things were you slap yourself in the head for not thinking of it yourself!

Be back later!