Cutting and Sewing and Painting, Oh My!

There are times when my fingers need more to do than work a paint brush. In times like those I pull out my trusty sewing machine!
Needing a protective pouch for my iPod, that's what I turned my attentions and energy to. So after some trial and error (and a few uselessly small pouches), I finally came up with these. And in typical Christina Fashion I had to put a bit of hand-painting on each to give them my own spin. Each also sports vintage buttons as a final touch.
The first is my little Alice, once again making an appearance on my own pouch:

The second I created for my husband, with a hand-painted dragon, and very long necklace cord added so he can hang it around his neck:

Rivers of Tears Acrylic Painting

Every now and then I get disconected from art for a while. Eventually some strong emotion will need to manifest itself, and that's when I express myself in a painting that is completely different from the normal pieces I paint. These paintings are done very quickly with no pre-thinking; I basically let the brush do what is wants to do.
Last night I completed one of those "emotional" paintings, and this is the result.

A bit of Romance....

I found this lovely and very romantic dedication in the first page of my 100 year old copy of Jane Austen's Letters and my heart skipped a beat. Who owned this book? Who were these people? What was THEIR love story? So very sweet, to have this viable connection to the romance of two people who lived and loved so very long ago.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2 weeks ago I celebrated a pretty big birthday. My sweetheart of a husband (and my incredible mom-turned-babysitter) gave me a wonderful date night out. After a lovely romantic movie (Letters to Juliet - I so loved this movie) we went to a local outdoor hot spot where I took pictures to my heart's content:




For dinner we went to a wonderful Louisiana style restaurant.

The food was amazing...etouffe, gumbo, jambalaya...and best of all, these fried green tomatoes with a mouth-watering remoulade sauce and juicy prawns...yummm!

To top it off, I had quite the shopping spree at our local art supply store...I have enough blank canvas now to keep my imagination ecstatically happy for quite some time...

I was so spoiled...and I loved every minute of it!

And The Winner Is....!

First off, I would like to thank everyone who attended my little tea party here last weekend! I would also like to give a special thanks to everyone who left such sweet comments about my artwork; that meant so much to me! (And to answer one lovely person's question, yes, I did create all of the paintings and pendants specifically for the Mad Tea Party.)
And now, to announce the winner...!
("Off With Her Head" acrylics and collaged playing cards on gallery stretched canvas, 16"x20")

The wonderfully sweet person who won the Mad Hatter hand-painted pendant is Scrap Vamp! Congratulations!

Thank you again to everyone for visiting my blog! I hope to see you back here soon!
All the best,
Christina