Changing Seasons

Last weekend marked the end and beginning of a few areas in life.  For starters, it was the last weekend of summer.  So long to the dog days of feeling leisurely yet eager to enjoy the limited sun-filled days.  Welcome Fall and the crisp air you bring.  Here's to apple cider and projects to complete before the holidays hit.

Farewell to the single life; hello to the married life for Bobbijean and Andrew!  Big congrats to these two friends that tied the knot this weekend.  They had a lovely day for their wedding and it couldn't have gone more smoothly.  Doesn't the bride look just stunning!?

A pat on the back to me as I got to see my completed aisle runner laid out, ready for action.

When I was approached about this project, my first thought was that it fell into the category of unnecessary luxuries.  Having seen it completed in its rightful setting, I know that it was essential to define the look of the ceremony.  Thank you Bobbi for having such a beautiful vision for your wedding and allowing me to be a part of it.  To come.....a painting of her bouquet!

Speaking of bouquets, there is an ending and beginning in that department as well.  I have finally finished Paula Jean and Brian's painting.  55 hours of manual labor, and perfection is the result.

I love how this painting is so different from all my other ones....composition, color, detail....check out that necklace!  Welcome to the family little painting, welcome to the family.
Stay tuned for the beginning of my next painting.  Take a guess at what color bouquet I have lined up!

Starts and finishes, endings and beginnings.  Does this change of season bring anything new to you or complete another chapter of your life?

Reenie Rose Retreat 2011

This past weekend I indulged in a rare opportunity.  I participated in the first ever Reenie Rose Retreat.  Ok, so this sounds much fancier than what it really was.  Basically, I went up to my family's cottage in Wisconsin and spent the entire weekend plus a couple extra days by myself working.  Sounds like any typical day at home, right?  "What makes this so special?" you may be asking yourself.  Well, for one thing, whether or not anyone else in the family is up, my dad usually is here soaking up every morsel of time that he can before we close it up for winter.  Thanks to a wedding this weekend, cottage was minus dad.  Secondly, my cottage is located among a plethora of other cottages making this a very social atmosphere (impossible to work in).  The docks came out Saturday morning and everyone bolted.  Ghost town.  It's never been so quiet here.  Thus I am in the middle of ruralish Wisconsin on a lake enjoying being close to nature and being pretty productive.

Besides working on my monster of a painting, I had another project to work on....
 
My little cottage is blessed with a huge dining room table perfect for feeding large amounts of people and "craft" projects that would be ten times trickier in my 800 square foot condo.  Knowing my talents with a brush, a friend of mine asked if I would paint an aisle runner for her wedding this coming weekend.  Having access to this table space and being without a kitty that would find yards of fabric a fantastic playground, I took on this generous task.

75 feet of golden swirls.  I'll be sure to post the more professional looking pictures after the photographer captures this masterpiece.  Looks like I just added another line to my wedding resume...bouquet painter, day of coordinator and aisle runner visionary.  Who knew!?

Reenie Rose Retreat 2011 = success.  I kind of don't want to go home and back to reality.  Like the screen porch I am working on, this place has a way of filtering out the bugs.  Life just seems more simple here.  It could possibly be because I am choosing to ignore a bunch of things and stay focused on the task at hand...painting.  I somehow have to transition back without going stir crazy.
I was always good at playing pretend as a kid.  Maybe I can adapt that into my real city life by pretending that the street traffic and sirens are crickets and piles of "to do" lists are the piles of leaves that will soon be ready to play in.  Think this will work? 

Reenie Rose Craft Corner

I am forever inspired by all of the creativity out there and often find myself thinking, "This would be a really great idea for a business."  One business at a time chica, one at a time.  While I can't start a new business every other week, I can at least hold onto these ideas for a rainy day or that crazy phenomenon called "free time".  Ha!
There's this great site that is slowly growing on people, and I imagine it to be just booming by the end of the year.  Have you heard of Pinterest?  I am grateful to this site that allows me to organize all of my virtual inspirations onto "boards" in an orderly fashion that I can repeatedly return to for a mental reawakening.

I recently found a couple of fabulous ideas that just happened to appear around the same time and actually worked together to create an "aha" project for me / a possible source of income.

Check out this amazingly talented girl that is creating wallpaper out of stickers! 

I love this since I was an avid sticker collector in my youth and continue to stare at end caps of stickers whenever I encounter them.  Ah, the joys of playing with stickers...pealing and placing, pealing and placing.

Then this idea popped up on Pinterest and everything clicked.

Source: spearmintbaby.com via Loreen on Pinterest

In between painting, I sometimes will have another project of sorts come up.  Sometimes it's a job that strays away from the tight bouquet painting, and other times it's a craft that allows my mind and wrist a break from any brushes.  These two ideas above afforded me the perfect project for a baby shower I am co-hosting this weekend for a childhood friend.  Having played school and traded stickers as kiddies with this lovely friend, I just knew the perfect gift for her.  My two inspirations had a baby of their own, and viola....

Isn't this just the cutest for a baby's room!  I was having so much fun digging through my old collection and reminiscing about a good "trade" that I had to stop myself from creating the whole alphabet.  I can't wait for mama Hannah to see this.  I'm hoping it will remind her of all the good times we had as kids and how the simplest things like trading stickers brought so much joy to our childhood.  Boo to video games, yeah to $1.00 packets of stickers!

So back to that whole business idea.  What do you think about placing this idea on Etsy?  I could see monograms in blue and pink flying off the shelves.  Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but I think it's a neat idea and would love to hear your thoughts.

In the meantime, there are still paintings to be completed and paintings to come.  Here's a glance at the progress of my current business:

How ironic that I get the entrepreneurial bug this weekend.  Enjoy your Labor Day!