end of summer

is the wonderful theme over at G.A. this week chosen by Nancy Dooren, the talented hostess of the week.

The end of summer for me means the beginning of fall, relief from the sometimes oppressive heat and humidity we have at this time of year, leaves turning colours, although we don't get a lot of colour here, mostly yellow and brown, and kids back to school!LOL

I walked to a friends house today to try out her Cricut, to decide if I needed one (YES, I do!!!) and as I was looking around I noticed there was a different quality to the sunshine, more fall like, and that leaves were already falling off the trees, probabaly doe to the fact that we have had no rain this month, but I decided the fall fairies were already out and about playing their tricks on Mother nature!! Hence my fall fairie.

I used coordinating paper and vellum in a leaf theme, used a fairie image that I cut off the wings and attached skeleton leaves for them and had her surrounded by leaves.

Hope you like it!

forgive me

I like to shake things up every once in a while and that's what I was trying to do this morning but discovered I'm missing an element in my layout. I hope to get this resolved soon. But in the mean time, please forgive my 'in construction' look!! LOL

Now, I don't often speak about my home life as I don't enjoy putting my private life out there for all to see but I need some advise on how to deal with something that every mother has to deal with, her children growing up.

I have 2 sons, my oldest is 26 but because he's mentally, and to a small extent physically challenged, I never went through the late nights, dating, etc that comes with being a teenager. Now my youngest, who will be 19 at the end of Novenber, decided this summer to become a social butterfly and comes home at all hours and forgets to call when he knows he will be later than what he's told us he'll be home. And to be fair to the boy, he doesn't go out often but when he does........ And he is off to uni next week. He's going to the one in our city and will be living at home but knowing that his life is expanding and growing away from us is making me crazy.

How do you mothers who have gone through this handle it so you don't drive yourself insane with worry? I know this sounds like I want to keep him tied to the apron strings, but I know I have to let go and I want to do it as graciously as I possibly can!!! Now I know what my mother meant when she said 'One day you'll have kids of your own'!!! Sorry Mom.

Thank you all for listening, I hope I can come up with a solution to this soon.

I am flattered

and pleased to have recieved another award. This time from a very dear friend and fantastic artist, Rob from Australia.

This is a total cop out but there are truly so many wonderful artist who have gorgeous blogs that I absolutely love, I wouldn't be able to pick 7. So, if you're reading this and you have someone who you'd like to give this award to, be my guest.

Here are a few of my favourite artist, some of whom haven't made it into my blog roll yet. I just keep finding more wonderful blogs to look at.

Heather at Creative Solace
Anne at Bulles dorees
Nina at Ornamental
Lydia at Kenning Stone
Frieda at Frieda Oxenham
Sija at Sija
Hermine at Hermine's Place

black and white and a hint of red

is the theme at G.A. this weekend. A wonderful theme chosen by hostess Chrissie Rollins. It gave me a bit of trouble as most of my images are in colour or sepia coloured but not many are black and white and i think I only have the one with red. I'm so glad I found it!! LOL

The background of the arch is a picture I took of one of the trees that are outside our windows. When they bloom in the spring, they are absolutely gorgeous with small white blossoms in bunches all over the canopy. But because there was too much sky showing and too much green from the leaves, I greyscaled it in Photoshop, along with the picture of the Eiffel Tower and there was my B&W!! The text is CG.

Hope you like it!

recycle/repurpose

is the theme at mixed media mondays this week.

I had made this pendant for a very dear friend of mine using an old Scrabble tile, the back has her initial, some embroidery floss left over from my cross stitching days and wired beads and feathers. luckily my friend loved it and allowed me to upload the pic to my blog. This is my entry for MMM this week.

I want to thank all the wonderful artists who visited me last week and left absolutely incredible comments about my entry last week. It did my heart good!!!

Proud member of

View my page on Can-eh? Can-Artistry

mixed media monday

it's my 1st time doing this challenge but I really wanted to do something as

• my friend Heather is the guest hostess this week! LOL
  
• it deals with numbers, which I love along with letters and for which I have a great stamp that I don't use often
• and I have been itching to try to do some kind of canvas, this is actually canvas board, with acrylics and other stuff I have laying around.

I had fun doing this board.

Thanks for looking

renaissance

is the theme at G.A. this week chosen by the hostess Tami, whose art is just gorgeous. I was a bit of an over achiever with this theme as I want to do something specifically with these arches and more if I get them made. LOL

I used more of that gorgeous paper from DCWV and clipart images from Dover and Above The Mark web site. The flourishes are form Martha Stewart! A neat little pack of 17 clear flourish stamps for a reasonable price, at Wal-Mart!!!

I hope you enjoy them! Click on the pic for a larger image.

bird arch

I liked my bird arch so much, I kept it and framed it in a shadow box frame I had hanging around for just such a use. You can't tell from the picture but I used pieces of a thick foam tape to make the arch stand off the back of the box.

Yalpha for August

on one of my groups we do a monthly alphabet mingle in a 4.5x4" format, using any letter of the alphabet but designing it so the elements of the piece are reflective of the 3" high, at least, letter we choose.

My letter for August is R with the words Royalty, Regal, Romanov, reality, romance, romantic, and my list ended there. I swear I go brain dead sometimes, I know there a lot more.

This piece is using a background that Hermine Koster put up on her blog as a freebie to use and for a challenge.

royalty/crowns

is the theme that Kris Dickinson picked for this weeks G.A. I have always had a fascination for royalty and when I was a kid, I wanted to be a princess desperately. A wonderful daydream for me!!!

This is my take on Royalty/Crowns for the week. The paper is from the pack I picked up last month from DCVW Once Upon a Time. It' already got glittered crowns on it so i just placed my little prince under one and had fun with the rest. The image is from Lisa's Altered Arts.

shades of white

is the theme on G.A. this week set by the wonderful artist Hermine Koster. Even tho this is one of my favourite themes, I had a really difficult time with it and although I tried not to I still managed to get a bit of colour in it. I scanned it 1st, then because the texture in the embossed paper didn't show, I took a picure of it. very plain, very simple but i'm happy with it!

Thank you Hermine for this fantastic theme!

another award

I was so surprised when Faye gave me this wonderful award.

Here are the rules.
1. Only 5 people are allowed to receive this award.
2. Four dedicated followers of your blog.
3. One has to be new to your blog and live in another part of the world.
4. You must link back to whoever gave you the award.
I would like to pass this honor on to the following five persons, whose blogs I enjoy.
They are:
Heather
Jodi
Rob
Bethel
Nancy

Thank you Faye for giving me this great award and thank you ladies for checking in on me. There are a few more ladies to whom I'd love to give this award but ......

atc

a bit on the serious side for the moment, I am a huge 'supporter' of Breast Cancer research, having lost my mother to it 24 yrs ago and now getting to about the same age she was when it was discovered, and I wish I could do more to help.

On one of the Yahoo groups I belong to there is also a lovely lady by the name of Patty Jones who owns a fantastic site called Lisa's Altered Art. She makes up the most darling collage sheet containing the sweetest images and on Wendsdays she offers 1 digital sheet for $1!!! What a great deal!! And to add to that she usually adds a sample sheet to your order!. Well I ordered her Awareness sheet and this is what I made. I used some Basic Grey paper, still my favourite, a flourish stamp from, oh m'gosh I can't remember the company name right now, get back to you on that, Red Rocket Gol Brilliance Dew Drop ink and 2 of the images from Patty's sheet.

FANCY PANTS, that's the company that makes the stamp I used, jeesh.... from the set Pollen Dust!

'Wylde Woman' award

that's what I was when my dear friend Heather awarded me this tag. I love being thought of as a wild woman and am amazed that I inspire her, incredible artist that she is!! Thank you so much Heather!!! I am so happy to be considered a 'Wylde Woman'

Here are the rules of this award:

1. You can give it to one or one hundred or any number in between - it's up to you. Make sure you link to their site in your post.
2. Link back to this blogsite (http://www.TammyVitale.com/) so Tammy can go visit all these wonderful women.
and remember the Purpose of the Award: To send love and acknowledgment to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.

These women continually bring joy to my life through their encouragement, humour, inspiration and talent. It is with great pleasure that I award the "Wylde Women Award" to

if she hadn't awarded this to me, I would have tagged Heather LOL

Nina Bagly - an incredible artist who gives so much of herself to her readers and everyone in her life. I think she is amazing!!!!

When I am really down or stressed, I go to both of these ladies blogs and am almost immediately soothed, calmed and inspired. Thank you both so much.

For the Birds....

Nancy asked me to hostess Gothic Arches again, thrilled me to death, and the theme I chose was .... For the Birds. Any interpretation of the theme as long as it has birds. Thanks to a dear friend of mine, my interest in nature and birds has been sparked! Going home from work one morning after a huge thunderstorm yielded all kinds of interesting twigs which I gathered up and brought home with me. I am now using them in my art whenever I can. This is my arch for the week and I hope everyone has fun with the theme. I can't wait to see what you all do.

wow

I didn't realize it had been so long since I'd posted anything. But I'm back, for today anyway. I was hosting this wonderful danglie swap and it truly wouldn't let me concentrate on anything else to it was all together and gone. Happily, it is and is landing in the homes of the members. And from what I've been hearing, they love them!! Yea, a successful swap, just what I like!!

Anywho, I have missed doing my favourite challenges, Gothic arches and dans ma maison so I'm trying to catch up!



Dymphie has set the theme this week on G.A. as Handwriting. Use your own writing on your arch. This is a challenge cuz I never know from one day to the next if my writing is going to be legible or not. Luckily today, it was!!!! My DH took me to Indigo yesterday where we found the most scrumptious (scrummy for short!) 12x12 paper pack by DCWV for $21. The theme is Once Upon a Time and has glitter already on the paper in a gel like form but it's not gooey or scratchy, just beautiful. It's so romantic, I just had to have it. The arch uses a corner of one of the pages.

Be sure to check back to G.A. next week.

apologies to my American friends and relatives


Happy July 4th

I hope it was a good day for all and have a festive weekend!

new banner

I'm taking all kinds of pics on my journeys around the town right now and I made my new banner out of one of them. To think this tub of lilies is just outside our back door and I never paid much attention to them til now. I was lucky enough to get the pic before the flowers started to fade.

Happy Canada Day

Jeez, do you believe the year is half gone already? I hope everybody has a safe and festive holiday week!

I think I have to share this, maybe someone reading, if there's anyone left after my absences, can get something out of it. I mentioned in a previous post that I am hosting a swap. It is due to me today. I received a message on Saturday that one lady will not be taking part in the swap after joining in good faith 2 months ago. I gave 2 months to get 15 items made and to me and this person says sorry, maybe next time, with no care or concern or remorse. Well I'm sorry but there will be no next time for her. I think I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to host a swap again, I will invite people I know and trust. If this makes me a b...h, so be it. It's better than having something like this happen. Luckily a good friend of mine, who was very excited about the swap when I asked her, offered to make another set so as to not disappoint the other members.

My feathers were so ruffled by this turn of events that I needed some soothing and I headed straight for Nina Bagly's blog, Ornamental. Love, love, love everything about it and her. Check it out if you haven't already. You may not get the same out of it that I do but it's worth a look. I think! LOL

And lastly, I leave you with a look at my art space, like you really needed to see it. It's in a sunny corner of the bedroom, to the right is the window and to the right of the window is another storage cabinet with my computer and printers on top. Crowded little corner but it works for me. Care to share yours? I'd love to see! I need better ideas for storage. heeheeee

edited july 7 to include pic - hope I haven't lost my lovely comments.