There's More!

Happy New Year blog friends!

I'm so happy you are here!

It's time to start everything fresh, right!

Shouldn't we do that EVERYDAY?  Each year we have 365 days to start over, there is always such a push on those first few days in January... and then it slowly fades away...

Just now my husband went to the gym and I was going to join him in a bit, but the parking lot is full!  Always that excitement of 'getting back' into shape.

It's not by any means that I think outside the box... which I know I should do more... but slow and steady..... I know that for the past two years I have diligently been going to the gym two days a week, at least, and then doing supplemental exercising with stretches and yoga and walking at home.

I've decided on my word for the year.  Something I intend to focus on.  MORE... I want to be MORE me!  Like a Peggy Sue  2.2 or even higher.

When I do something, consciously... I want to do it a little better, a little harder, and with a tad more intent.  I want to grow and be just a little bit better than I was the last time, or the day before.  So for instance... with the gym... I have an idea that I will walk a mile on the track... but when I'm actually there, I intentionally or consciously... walk another 2 laps, or another 5 minutes... something just a bit MORE!

I'm here to change my world!!! And those who are immediately a part of it!

 I think of these goals, and what is really doable.  By no means am I outwardly putting myself down.... but to be REAL... I'm not a scientist, or a doctor or even a teacher.... (someone who can make a big difference for many others) 

....but in my corner of the world... I can make a difference this year.... I can give MORE (if it's a donation of money or time.... I CAN step it up a notch). I can LIVE more, by being present in my situation and not comparing the moment to any other or any other person.  I can show MORE kindness, I can learn MORE and I can certainly do MORE.

In the mean time....

I will create MORE artwork and share MORE as gifts and orders to friends and family near and far...

So, always a ***shameless*** plug.... cards on my blog are for sale.  Just inquire and I will tell you if they are still available, if I have something similar or I can create it uniquely for you!

Here is to a new year.... a new year of MORE  .... SHINE MORE, and it depends on how you look at it... it could be Less is MORE or  MORE is less.... you'll just have to stop back.... because, wait... there's more!!

Don't Just be Taken for a Ride

Trust the journey!

I love to doodle, I love puns and I love a challenge.  Wrap that all together and you get a fun card!

Hello!  Welcome to my blog.  I share my creative greetings here with my twist on life.

Greeting cards are for sale! 

My cards are unique and in most ALL cases, ONE OF A KIND (I do make duplicates upon request)

I'm working on a movement.... snail mail --> FuN MaiL

Brighten Someone's Day!!!

Greeting Card Update

Hello Friends!!

I'm here! Being creative every day, still.... but not always here on the blog.

Looking for a great card for a special friend?  In the need of a small hostess gift?  Want a birthday gift that will be truly loved???  Pick out a few cards from PRDesigns, creative greetings.

My cards are unique and whimsical.... and one of kind!

House Warming Card

Add a gift card to the local Home Depot or

Dinner out on you, to a local diner.

 Book Lover Friend

Add a gift card to Barnes & Noble

or a cute journal with a pen

Want your friend to know that they are a super

sHERO?

Add a gift card to a spa or some funky nail polish with a file!

Can't quite put your finger on it.... but you want a special card?

More ideas can be found on the left side of this blog.  Clicking on one of the categories takes you to a post that has that style card.  Similar cards can be recreated.  Four, five or 6 pack of a variety of cards make a great gift!!<----- 6="" and="" another="" any="" blog="" can="" cards="" categories="" click="" created.="" custom="" five="" for="" gifts="" great="" i="" it="" just="" made="" make="" nbsp="" of="" on="" or="" other="" our="" p="" pack="" post="" samples="" similar="" something="" take="" the="" to="" too="" variety="" ve="" will="" with="" you="">

I'd be happy to answer any of your questions. I mail anywhere in the US using Priority Shipping. Never had any ask if I mail overseas.... but standard international shipping rates would apply.  

Email me at prdesigns1@sbcglobal.net.  

Send snail mail, and Brighten Someone's Day

Where to Start

Where do ideas come from?

After I wrote that line, I reread it and realized there is more to that once little sentence.  Where do GOOD ideas come from?  or Where do GREAT ideas come from?  or even, Where do BAD ideas come from?


I found out that ideas come from everything you experience. Some people draw their ideas.

That is how I am looking at my art.  I brought a few different ideas in to create this piece.
I'll name Bunny!!

As you can see from the above picture, I had a background of blues and greens and white dots. That, came from a picture I saw with cool colors.  I knew I wanted a cute girly and so I doodled and decided I wanted an Easter theme. I sketched the girl on regular white paper, cut her out and layered her on top of the dried painted background.

I 'glued' (mod podge) her to the background and then I colored her, or painted her in.  The surface is acrylic paint, markers and gel pens.  

Not sure what it is, but I think it is missing something, My idea is not complete!

  

The good thing about painting in a notebook is that I can just add paint over the top to change it, or enhance it, or eliminate it!

And then by capturing the photo with my iPhone camera and loading the picture into my computer, I can adjust color and add text with PhotoShop. 

And now my idea got bigger and better, or smaller and greater.... depending on how you look at it.

Imagination and creativity are the juices that produces great ideas.

Girls, Girls,Girls

Yes I know.... (sorry dad,) I have been slacking writing to my blog. 

The excuse is that my job has gotten in the way of some of my fun! 

Although I only work part time, I still have my full time job at home.  Now, leaving time for creative fun has moved further and further down my list of things to do. 

Oh, I'm still creating something EVERY day and I'm making creative greetings, crafting, accessorising, reading, crocheting etc.... I'm just not documenting all my 'stuff' like I used to.

 

Sometimes my cards are so precious to me. So know, they are really coming from my heart. Now I understand you and some of my friends when you say to me ... the cards are too cute to give away to just anyone.  The person has to be special.

 

I've been trying to create simpler card designs... but then I think... the card is missing something. I'm not giving it all when I'm creating.

 

In today's post I have 3 different girly cards.

 

The first one above... I stamped the background paper.  Then I paper pieced her 'clothing' with patterned paper, and then I painted a simple face and hair with acrylic paint. I added a special heart ♥ to each girly girl in the series of cards I made.

 

I love these cutsie girly girls.  Just a cartoon doodle.  (Not my design.  But super easy to copy with my own PR touch, ha ha).  And with scraps of paper all in shades of pink, I made the quilted pattern look on the background paper.  She is doodled with pen and ink. And I just love the sentiment: You're my little sparkle & sunshine

 

And this is my latest take on the girly girls .... an angel. 

 

This card is inspired by Sissy's sorority Pi Phi's.  They are angles.  I painted over embossed pattern paper for the background.  Paper pieced book paper for the wings and patterned paper for her dress, and then she is painted with acrylics.  I was working on shading and highlighting. And made special focus on her expression .... so angelic!

 

2014 is my year of Possibilities .... everything is Possible, truly .... but getting things done when you thought you wanted to get to them.... needs to be done now with a little more creative maneuvering. 

 

I'll get there.  I'll get back to blogging a bit more too .... I'm keeping perspective and realizing I can only do 'so much' well and every day I look for new opportunities to SHINE!!

 

Come back and visit me again!!

Advantage LEFTIES!

Well, it's official.... the nest is empty.... but that's a whole 'nother story for a different day!

This week I'm talking about #32 LIFE'S simple pleasures - left handedness ( or in some cases.... embracing your differences)

Science tells us that the right brain controls the left side of the body and the opposite is true for the left brain controlling the right side. There's a bit more science to it all.  Currently, scientist haven't quite figured out which gene it is that creates left handedness, but there are some statistics and facts that they have gathered throughout the years. 

Being left handed is genetic.  The older the mother is, the more likely she is to have left handed children. About 30 million people in the United States are left handed.

 

The girls in today's cards are lefties!

 

Four of 5 original designers of the Mac Computer are left handed. Three of the last 5 presidents were/are left handed. The Boston Strangler, Jack the Ripper, and Osama Bin Laden were lefties.

 

Additionally, left-handers are often discriminated against by social, educational, and religious institutions.  For thousands of years, the Devil has been associated with the left hand in various ways and is normally portrayed as being left-handed in pictures and other images. Social customs and even language set the left-hander apart as “different” and even “bad.  In many societies, efforts are made to "convert" children who are naturally left-handed to using their right hands.  Modern neurology strongly frowns upon this practice. Left handers are not disappearing and as the creativity of new science evolves, there is more understanding for the left handed child and more tools are being created specifically for their needs.

 

 

I don't know about you, but my eye is drawn to someone I see on tv doing things with their left hand.... writing or a manual tasks.  Because we live in a predominately right handed world, I notice... and get a little giddy when I see a fellow lefty!!! 

 

Here are a few noted lefties (in no particular order)  Presidents, Obama, Clinton, Bush 41, Reagan, Ford, Ben Franklin, Col. Oliver North, Alexander the Great, Prince Charles and William, Oprah, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Phil Collins, Jimi Hendrix, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Carol Burnett, Cary Grant, Peggy R. & Delores H!

 

Now, there are a lot of great things about being different and left handed.  One cool thing is.... I can work on the computer and move my mouse and write with my LEFT hand at the same time.... I don't have to adjust the mouse and drop it to write with my pen.  Gottcha there righties!!!!  Us lefties have to adapt to everything!!!!!

 

It's All Up in the Air

EXCUSE MY MESS.... still WORKING ON MY BLOG!

Your life is like a balloon...if you never let yourself go, you will never know how far you can rise.

- Linda Poindexter

This week I'm discovering the simple pleasures in attending a fair. 

 

I remember as a child attending a fair and the overwhelming excitement when you walk in past the ticket gate!!!  Right away you would see things you wanted to buy and places you wanted to stop first!!!  I liked the site of a friendly clown or a mid way vendor selling balloons.

They would be bunched together like a large bouquet of exotic flowers.  Floating together the different colors and shapes would attract me. Then there was the dilemma of choosing the perfect one.  Oh the joy of someone  tying  the string of the balloon to my wrist.   Magically the balloon would bob and weave as I pulled my arm up and down in all different directions.  You could always see the balloon bopping above all the heads in the crowd. I was special!!

 

A balloon is a flexible bag which can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. 

 

And of course, there would be sadness as I got in the car  after a long day of walking at the fair and mistakenly untie the balloon and it would leave the backseat and slip away up into the sky..... floating up to the heavens above!

 

Yesterday I spotlighted a county fair here on my blog, but in doing a little research.... there are so many different types of fairs.... there are even all different kinds of Balloon Festivals and Fairs.

 

google images 

 

The above link is describing those huge hot air balloons that are part of everyone's bucket list.  Top of the list of Balloon Festivals to visit?  Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in October.

 

In late summer just at dusk, we've had  the pleasure spotting 2 or 3 hot air balloons fly over our house at a time.... it is quite a site to see and hear that up close!

 

Love is like a balloon,

easy to blow up

and fun to see grow

But hard to let go and fly away.

 

A simple pleasure.... going to a fair and getting a balloon! 

 

You Are Doing Just Fine

One fine day I saw these really cute gals and I thought how simple, closed eyes with pretty lashes, pouty lips like a heart ♥, fun and silly hair bobs, collars on the shirt or do-dads sitting on the hair, dresses out of amazing patterned paper and different backgrounds with computer generated type written classic sayings... and then poof, all of sudden... I made bunches of these adorable girlies

...inspiration,

validation,

adulation!!!

Each one is a little master piece of similar but one of a kind artwork.  All of them are for sale!  Tell your friends, okay!!!! I'm okay, you're okay! Kay?

If I 'took it all in' my head would be swimming with even more ideas.  But I am grateful and thankful for each new day... sad, but sometimes I have to convince myself of that.  I think the holidays and the change of seasons always makes one melancholy... but I have to believe that I am doing just fine!!!

It's a Wrap

Ok... all the advertising for holiday shopping is getting to me already, and I really don't watch that much tv or read the entire newspaper for ads or open all the emails I get.  I'm overwhelmed!!

Sigh!!!

But the month of November and December have birthdays (just a few) and then get togethers with family and friends, and everybody you meet talks about how the holidays are here already... and they're not ready, so that makes YOU feel not ready.

Sigh!! (breathe)

I'm okay!  I'll just remember what my dh has always told me, when you are overwhelmed take a step back... and it's like eating an elephant... one bite at a time....now deep breath!!!

We picked up the college boy who took a nice coach bus and was dropped off at a major mall nearby this past Friday night, and then we said adios to Sissy who went on a school field trip to Pigeon Forge Tennessee!  The dogs are so confused with who is in the house and who isn't.  Plus the hubby was out of town the first part of last week on a two night trip to Atlanta... but I'm still here!! sadly I say 'I'm always here... I need to change that, and real soon!!!'

It was a beautiful weekend here in the midwest.... time for walks, cleaning up the yard from all the leaf debris, lovely dinners, wine, home improvements, dusting the cobwebs and even a little play time in my creative space.  So much to do... so little time!

I'm also in the process of reading Harper Lee's To Catch a Mockingbird... so far it is an excellent book. (For book club I'm hosting next month!!) I started knitting a scarf... I've got card orders (I love that.... please always remember.... cards for sale!!!!  Celebrate extraordinary events and remarkable people in your life!!!)

I like being a little bit busy!!! No comments... really, compared to some... my life is soooo quiet!!

 Come back and visit with me again.  This weekend is a wrap!!!