Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: Slim Pickin's

It’s another week of slim pickin’s around here so this one may not be too long.

I spent the week working on a two-sided sign for Miss Rosie. I found the cutest chicken for Valentine’s Day and Miss Rosie loves chickens. I actually laid out three buckaroos to buy the image when I could’ve just as easily copied it for free.

“Why would you do that?” you ask.

Whoever drew the picture did so with the intent to sell it, and if I make money on it, it’s only fair they get their share.

I had so much fun painting this.

It has a lot of pink in it and Miss Rosie isn’t crazy about pink but it’s Valentine’s so what are ya gonna do!

I changed the pink glasses to green because green is Miss Rosie’s favorite color, and I made some of the flowers purple.

I was going to put something on the other side for St. Patrick’s Day. I found the cutest little mouse, but Miss Rosie thought something for spring would be more useful.

I couldn’t find anything I liked so I decided to design my own SPRING board. I’ve got tons of clipart and spent hours going through it until I found something I liked. Then I spent more hours trying to lay it out on my computer. I wanted to overlap flowers but found out I don’t really have the software to do that. What I ended up doing was printing everything out individually and laying them on the board. Sometimes I had to go back and resize them. And I couldn’t see how to overlap without getting a confusion of lines from my transfers. I thought I’d start here and go back and add more if I needed to.

It’s nice to have help.

Tiger helped.

And all my peeps helped, too.

I posted a picture online and asked for opinions. Almost everyone thought it needed something in the upper right corner and maybe a crocus in the lower right corner.

“I don’t know, Miss Rosie,” I told her on our morning love call. “My peeps aren’t crazy about your SPRING board. Maybe you won’t like it either.”

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Well, don’t pay any attention to them, then,” she advised. “You and I are the only ones who count.”

Then I had to fess up. “There were some positive comments, too. ‘It’s perfect the way it is,’ was one, and, ‘I’d be proud to hang it on my porch,’ was another. But you know how it goes, we tend to focus on the negative.”

After I hung up, I picked up my coffee, sat back in my desk chair, and contemplated the sign. They all were right. My little grasshopper looked a little lonely up there.

I went searching for a butterfly and found one. Actually, I found more than one but settled on this blue one. I transferred it to the board and hated it.

I erased it and went for this Monarch butterfly instead.

The crocus were easy.

I got my spray can of protectant out and was looking at the sign while I was shaking it.

It needs another butterfly, I thought. I put the can down, got the sign back up on the table and but the blue butterfly on again, just in a different spot this time.

Spraying the semi-gloss clear coat on top brings out all the colors and makes it shine. I was very happy with the additions to the board. It was just what it needed and I thanked my peeps for their help, “...but if she hates it, I’m blamin’ all y’all!” I told them.

“How did she like it?” you wanna know.

I think she likes it. Both sides. “But if you don’t, I can sell it and make you a different one,” I told her.

“You’re not selling my sign!” she said.

I’ve picked up another commission. One of my peeps wants the chicken, minus the XOXO, flowers yellow, and the sign to say WELCOME.

And I’ve got another one lined up after that one, but it’s one I’ve been given the elements for and I have to design.

Sigh. We already know I’m not good at designing.

“Practice makes perfect,” my beautiful West Virginia gal points out.

While we’re talking about painting, I belong to a rock painting club. I’m not interested in painting rocks, per se, but I love to see the talent some of these artists have. They make these cute and beautiful works of art then hide them for people to find.

On the back of the rock is a note asking them to go to the website and post the rock they found.

It was interesting to follow the conversation that came up one day when one of the members posted a picture of the box of rocks they’d just gotten in the mail.

“I’m so STINKIN EXCITED!!!!” she posted.

Some people asked about the cost and she said it was about $30 with free shipping from Amazon.

Other people wondered why you’d buy rocks when you could go pick them up for free.

“It’s illegal to take rocks from the creeks and lakes here in the UK,” was a response.

Someone else said all the rocks were buried under three feet of snow.

Another person said she buys all her rocks because she can’t get this kind of rock where she lives.

And let me show you one more picture that came up in my Facebook feed.

“Comfort food made easy with a few new kitchen comforts,” it says. I guess their idea of a kitchen is like my kitchen with half of it turned craft area, but seriously, food? None of the items displayed had anything to do with food.

We did make a foray into the wild not-so-blue yonder this week. It was snowing when we pulled out of the garage.

We drove out of the snow as we came down the mountain but it was still overcast.

Flags blowing on the bridge in Towanda and view from the bridge.

A pole painted like a giant pencil.

“I think that was a skull sitting on that post,” I told Mike as we drove in to Wysox. “Remind me to get a picture when we’re heading back out.”

I got the picture and when I look at it on the computer it looks like a baby doll’s head.

I saw a hawk perched on a branch and got my camera up in time for that one. Birds against the sky seldom come out good for me but it doesn’t stop me from trying — and sharing them with you.