My Artist Pick of the Week: Mary Cassett

I love being inspired by the works of famous artists and I clearly remember the first time I ever saw one of Mary Cassett's Paintings in the National Gallery in Washington, DC.  From that moment on, I was an huge fan.  I remember the piece was of a little girl in a straw hat and the expression on her face was priceless and amazing.  Mary is also known for her tender gentle interpretation of Mother's with their children and babies.  Her ability to capture on canvas that special bond between mother and child, truly creates one of those remarkable moments when a picture does speak a thousand words.  So  here are some of my favorite paintings by Mary Cassatt.  I hope you enjoy them.

Vintage Floral Beauties

It's been one of those crazy weeks weather wise this week, We started off with warm temps that melted the snow and we actually saw the ground, but Jack Frost decided to let us know he's not done with us yet and we got an unexpected 6 inches of snow and another snow day off from school. So with all that said, I'm in the mood for Spring today.   In anticipation of what will surely come our way in the coming weeks, I've put together some vintage floral postcards for you to enjoy!

Happy Presidents Day!

Well I hope everyone here in the US is enjoying their Presidents Day, and if you are one of the lucky ones who gets the day off, I'm sure you are enjoying your free day! Years ago when I worked at the Courthouse we used to get Lincoln's Birthday and George Washington's Birthday off separately. It was great! Now the two have been combined and made into one group holiday to save money. Alas most companies these days don't even give their employees the day off, my husband's company being one of them. So I guess we must celebrate our Nation's Forefathers on our own time. Anyway, I have put together some images that celebrate this special occasion and also some cool vintage cherry images too. So have fun and enjoy!

Cute Little Irish Kids

OK I have been on a little break here for a while but I'm back with more stuff now! Here are some cute little Irish children for you to print out and have fun with.    I'm still working on other goodies so keep coming back to check out the new things I'll be posting!  Have a great weekend all.

And the Winner for the One World One Heart Blog Event is....

CONGRATULATIONS to Rob (CreativSpirit)! from the land down Under!  She is the winner of all 3 Art Trading Cards!  They will be whisking their way to Australia as soon as I hear back from her and get her mailing information!

I had a wonderful time participating in this wonderful event and I thank Lisa Swifka for organizing this 5 years in a row!  I'm just sorry I only found out about it for the first time this year!

On another quick note I'm behind in posting some new freebies for you to download but I will be putting some new stuff up real soon!

9 Heart Designs to Scrapbook and Craft With

I been a little busy on the "One World One Heart" blogging journey that it's been a while since I posted some new stuff so since Valentines Day is only a week away, I've put together 9 12x12 pages of heart designs for you to download and use.  I'm so behind I still need to make valentines for the kiddos to take to school and then my youngest who's in Kindergarten gets to address them and sign them.  He has 28 kids in his class!  It's actually ridiculous amount of kids but our school is so overcrowded we have 6 kindergarten rooms of 28 kids. They desperately need to redo the boundaries of the school districts. But I digress...

I hope you come up with some cool ideas to use these papers with and have a great week!

One World One Heart Blog Event

Hello, and welcome to my "One World One Heart" Blog Entry.  I first have to say I'm so excited to be able to participate for the first time in the final 5th year of this event.  I think it's such a great idea and I'm very grateful to Lisa Swifka from A Whimsical Bohemian Blog for sponsoring it.  So with no further ado, I would like to introduce myself and give you a good sneak peek at what I'm offering for my give away here.

My name is Chris, and I am a stay at home mom living in the suburbs of Baltimore, MD.  I've been married to my wonderful hubby for 23 years on February 20th! YIKES can it really be 23 years?   Since I'm only "29",  I really was a "child bride", ofcourse I did stop counting how old I was once I hit 29.  We have two beautiful boys who are the light of my life, and both are on the Autism spectrum.  Life is never dull at our house with two special needs boys and I like to call our world "Adventures in Autism".  This year is the first year I have  both of my kiddos in school full time and back in November 2010, I started my blog.  I offer lots of Free Graphics for folks to download and use for their own art projects, which is the main purpose here, but I have also found that blogging about other things as well has been quite therapeutic for me.  In my other life before "Adventures in Autism" I was a freelance illustrator and worked from home.  When my first son was born, I put down my pen & brush and focused on being a mommy as it took over 8 years of infertility and several miscarriages to finally become a mother.  Autism was the curve ball we were not expecting and I made the decision to focus entirely on the boys medical needs, and therapies, as early intervention is a key component to successful outcomes.  Now 11 years later, I'm finally able to take a bit of time for myself and this blog is the result. I love being creative and I really enjoy sharing and meeting other kindred spirits so that is why I'm so excited about this event.  Being a "Newbie" to the blogging world this is such a great venue for me to  meet folks, so I really am looking forward to going through the list of participants.  

Now onto my offerings:

I love Art Trading Cards and so I will be offering 3 original Art Trading Cards that I drew in Pen & Ink and then watercolored.  Art Trading Cards are always 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" in size (The standard size of a baseball car).  This is really the only rule that you need to adhere to when creating your cards.  I've been  trading and collecting for about 4 years or so, and it's a very fun hobby.  So here are the cards I will be giving away.

"Clover" (Original  Pen & Ink, Watercolor)

"Floral Bouquet" (Original Pen & Ink, Watercolor)

"Chickipoo" (Original Pen & Ink, Watercolor)

If you would like to be including in the drawing for my giveaway, please leave a comment below and a way to contact you if you win.  Good Luck All!

It's Groundhog Day!

Hello and Happy Groundhog Day! The prognosticator of prognosticators has come out of his hole in Gobbler's Knob, Punxsutawney, PA  and made his prediction for 2011 and it is official:  "Spring will come early".  Now if you happen to live in two thirds of the US states covered in snow and enduring the weekly cataclysmic winter storms, you probably are somewhat skeptical  of Phil's prediction.  Of course if he's right we all will be singing the praises of the groundhog!

So to celebrate this auspicious occasion I have put together a clip art sheet to honor the weather predicting rodent!  I hope you find some fun things to make with today's offering!

Some cute Valentine Kitties

I know I've already put together a Cat Valentine clipart sheet but my oldest son absolutely LOVES cats, and  I'm pretty sure we will personally be using this page to make our own valentines with, so I thought I would share some more kitties with you!
Have a great day!