Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mums.

My mother's day so far has consisted of sleeping in because the littlies are at their dad, it is his weekend to have them so i will see them later today when i pick them up.

So sleeping in was my luxury though i would have prefered to have kiddies jumping on my bed bringing me burned toast and weak coffee and dandilions from the garden :)

however my 20y old son did make me (half burned) toast and scrambled eggs and brought it out into the garden without even a mumble of happy mother's day haha and then went off inside to watch a recorded film from last night... typical my son lol!

so again peace and quiet...

except for my little buddy blackbird who i have named George :)

my sweet son did give me a gift certificate for new sunglasses so yesterday we had a nice day in the city, choosing some pretty cool sunglasses that i will have by the end of next week, lunch out in the sun, well not so much sun but it was nice enough.

I'm not one for expecting gifts for Mother's day, whenever my kids used to aks what i wanted i always replied that it would be fantastic if they would for one day not fight or make a mess and make me a cup of tea without me asking for it... i always got the tea!

motherhood is quiet a ride, one that i have learned lots from, with five kids there is a lesson every day! my hardest lesson has been to let go... my teenage daughter taught me how to do that, in not such a soft way (some of you will remember she ran away from home in feb 2009 and is now living with her father) it hurt like hell and on some days it still does... but i have learned to let it go as much as i can, she is nearly adult now, 18 in June.

My own mother died last year in September and that too was a hard thing to deal with in different ways than most of you would expect.

She died at the age of 59 after a seven year struggle with Alhzeimers

we never had a connection, i only met her for the first time as a teenager so it was not the average mourning journey i went through...

this morning sitting out in the garden, for the very first time in my life i felt she might just be watching over me after all and it made me cry and then i started to miss my runaway teen and that made me cry and then George started singing and that made me smile and cry... and then the song hallelujah came on my ipod and ok... you get the picture.

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i went to a really cool party on Friday night.... oh i got home at 3.30am after playing taxi for a sad soul who's car had broke down ;)

i met so many cool, beautiful, crazy people, we laughed so much and omg you don't want to knows ome of the convo's we had, hilarious believe me!!

so happy Esther invited me :))

and i made her a little present because the very first time we met she fell in love with my framed collage necklace and insantly dived into my cleavage lol... she is like that!

(here is what i made for her, not so good pics but it is hard with the glass that reflects)

she pretty much squeeled with delight and we immediatly fitted the chain to fit and then she had to change her earrings because they didn't match lol ... and every one just had to admire it! she gave them no choice lol!!

ah well i'm going to let you all have a wonderful day and i'm going to continue to relax out in the sun, today the sun seems to have come back to play and i am not complaining!!!

love & peace

tanya xx

where does time go??

it might be just me but i feel like this year is moving on at high speed, some how it is almost half of April without me realizing...

due to the hernia, which is causing me more pain and grief than i care to talk about, i haven't been up to much, i did work on this painting though, a work that took about two weeks for me to finish, i had to learn to paint at my easle sitting down, not the easiest thing with this 54X107 cm painting!!

Absolem Butterfly Girl paintingthis beautiful butterfly that a friend gave me after the Alice in Wonderland film, was my inspiration

it was quite a journey, a new adventure actually! first i painted my girl on wood as i usually do, this time i painted a bit smaller than i am used too and that proved a bit tricky for me to do details but it didn't matter reaaly, i painted on 15X30 and then i had it scanned at the photographer, Paul Croes in Hasselt, he printed it on to canvas with the Epson fine art printer. a really nice starting point for me to finish off my art on this huge size!

the nice thing is that i had the finished piece photographed in the studio so now i can sell prints on canvas that i can further embellish if i please, this way i can make more people happy withmy painting at a lower cost. the original is no longer available.

i have already had the draft version printed again, flipped horizontally so she is now facing the opposite direction, this one i will be painting in very different colours, a totally different butterfly girl! i wil show once finished.

ok that is enoigh blogging for me, my back is aching like razy so i better take the lie-down

hope you are all enjoying Spring! here in the countryside the first blossoms are starting to show, hopefully the weather will stay nice and then we will have the full white burst of the apple, pear and cherry trees! it is a wonderful sight!! tourist come from all over to visit our area then.

talk to you again soon!

love & peace
tanya

busy as a bee

i've been as busy as a bee these last few days, i painted another petite doll, just have to beeswax the piece and she's finished, i enjoy doing these dolls, they are my playtime and i get to experiment with colours and mixtures, i love it! i love Claudine Hellmuth 's new Studio paints from Ranger!!

i altered a brown embossed journal i bought in the US, i painted it with pebble and black Dabber, Ranger and rubbed on some kiwi Perfect Pearls, Ranger and then waxed the whole thing with natural beeswax, Ranger and buffed it for a shine

i also altered a very old shabby work agenda for a friend, i painted it with black dabber, stamped on some wild flowers, covered the stamped image with kiwi perfect pearls then beeswaxed the whole cover using red, copper, gold en natural beeswax and buffed for shine! it looks way nicer in reallife, i couldn't get this picture any better with the nice shine :-)

i altered a beermat, made a little collage, stamped, inked, rubbed Perfect Pearls, added some little objects and Grungboard! i love Grungeboard!!! then beeswaxed it! i'm so loving the whole beeswax adventure! seeing Micheal Putmans works of art has got me jumpstarted on my own beeswax fun!! ( see blog Jack & Cat!!! in my links)

i also made a little present, one of a few i'm sending to a special lady, this is a sneak peek for her :-)

i got these two little kids dressed for their Halloween party at school! a mummy and a corpse bride

and i've been the perfect mam! i've been preparing fresh veggies everyday! leeks, cauliflower, sprouts, my kids love brussel sprouts! i made pumpkinsoup, i started baking our daily bread!!!

and i even found time to do a little pumpkin arrangement on my front steps!!

so, there you have it! that's what i've been up to! and now i'm off to school in a rush! just got a phonecall! Robin got a frisbee thrown in the face and apparently his eye is looking ugly! so off i go! supermama!!!

talk to you all soon!