Where in the world did the last two months of 2016 go? I have been very remiss in posting and, for that, I am sorry. Chalk it up to holiday madness!
Despite the this being the busiest time of the year, I still found time for my creative self. Since my last post there were the last few weeks of the Colour Me Positive art journal challenge – a total of 53 art journal pages in 2016. I’m actually considering making a book of my adventure in art journaling. And a few original collages and paintings were completed. I have to say, while collage is still my favorite medium, I am loving learning new techniques and styles.
I am also in the process of creating a number of Valentine’s Day framed collages for my Etsy shop, MyMixedUpART. There will be more in the coming month, as well as some handmade Valentine’s Day cards.
My family and I also took a week-long trip to the Big Island of Hawaii over Thanksgiving. The main reason for the trip was to take my Mother’s ashes home to where she was born and raised. We took a lovely sailboat ride off the coast of the Big Island and scattered her ashes in the waters she loved the most. My granddaughters swam with Spinner dolphins as the rest of us watched. It was a beautiful way to pay homage to a beautiful woman, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend. Other highlights of the trip included a luau on Thanksgiving day, zip-lining, snorkeling, a trip to the volcano, a claustraphobic (for me) walk through a lava tube, and a visit to the graveyard where my great-grandparents, grandparents and an uncle are buried.
Then there was Christmas which zoomed past and here we are in 2017. Each year my family picks a part of the world or a country from which our Christmas Eve meal will be based. This year it was Cuba. It was a traditional Cuban dinner with pork, empanadas, rice with black beans, and rum cake for dessert. I have to say it was one of my favorites!
My oldest granddaughter made over 900 cookies for friends, family and neighbors. To my surprise, she enlisted me, the Grandmother who does not particularly like to cook, in last minute preparations – rolling cookie dough, dipping cookies in icing, and putting in the last two cookies and closing and sealing the gift boxes. Her peanut butter cookies are my favorite. And her Cranberry Bliss were to die for.
My last Colour Me Positive art journal page for 2016 will be framed as my mantra for 2017. I truly believe kindness will get us past the last very divisive and mean-spirited months of 2016 and help us in the challenging months ahead. While I try my best not to be political on this blog, I want to remind the President-Elect that he too should remember that “where there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”
I will end this blog on that note and promise you that I will commit to posting more often in 2017. Lots planned for this year, including a continuation of the Colour Me Positive art journal challenge, a class at Bloknote Acadamy on Water & Paper, other classes yet to be discovered, and lots of creating for my Etsy shop.
May 2017 bring peace, hope and kindness to the whole world.
MyMixedUpART 