All Packed Up and Ready to go......

back into my studio. It was a wonderful holiday season and with my birthday tucked in-between, making it even better and a little more hectic. I'm finally back on track and sooooooo ready to get back to creating. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and I wish you a very blessed, healthy New Year. Tucked in with my good wishes is the hope that you'll all find lots of wonderful moments for creating or just doing what you love to do. 

 So first on my list for this week...first week of January...was to take down all the decorations. Fraggle wanted to help so desperately but just created more craziness, but you gotta love him!

 I do a lot of decorating, it's a lot of work but I love the way it looks and keep it up a long time.

 So consequently, the take down is just as much work. There is tissue, bags etc everywhere.

 There are 10 of these bins to be filled, so half way there

The table is full of stuff...

 The tree is bare...
 
 along with the mantle...

 and bannisters...

 So when everything is packed up, vacumned (although I know I'll be finding pine needles for a long time) it's my time to get out some books I love and spend time perusing for inspiration. SAQA puts out a wonderful publication every year called Portfolio. It features work from the professional members of SAQA. Every page features a different artist; the artist chooses what she/he wants to be featured on their page.

Another series I turn to is the "Masters" series featuring artists who were invited to participate. The Masters has many different books each concentrating on a different art form. Of course my favorite is the art quilts. Each artist has 4-5 pages dedicated to their work so you can get a good feel for their style.

And I love Elizabeth Barton and her newest book - Inspired to Design and all the Benn and Morgan surface design books. So hopefully very soon, I'll be listening to the sound of my sewing machine and again...Thanks so much for hanging in there with me....and a very Happy New Year to each and everyone of you my dear readers!