Art Gallery and the Creativ Festival

We went to the Art Gallery function on Thursday night.  I was determined to go, regardless of how I felt.  We'll get back to that later.

Lot of different people there; new people.  We have been going for I think five years, and the price has gone up from around $150 to $225 per couple.  I think the price hike has put some people off, but regardless it is a good night and worth the money.  I was pleasantly surprised at how many pieces I liked in person, and chose 14 for my list. 

Unfortunately our names was pulled 8th from the last.  There were around 100 tickets sold and so all our choices were taken.  However I do feel our choice is actually very nice and perfect for us.

 The artist is called Silvia Castellarin, and the piece is oil on canvas and the title is Nasturtiums.

I'll take another photo when I have hung it on the wall.

On Friday dh and I went to the Creativ Festival.  Dh actually enjoyed himself, and was surprised at how many guys were there.  I picked up a couple of things I wanted and had a good look around.

This is going to be the backing for dd quilt that I have been working on.  The binding on the quilt will be the orange so it will all work out nice.  I got it for $16.99 a yard and it is extra wide.

 This charm pack is gorgeous and I want to make a cushion with it, the tutorial for it is here.

 I picked up a yard of this material.  Not sure what I am going to make with it yet, but I will make something.

So all in all it's been a busy couple of days, so I am tired.  I am still full of cold and have a nasty cough.  I am better than I was but still a way off from being back to full health.

Nice n' Easy type of day.........

well this type of Nice n' Easy!!

With our big night out looming and with us mixing with all the "well-to-do's" figured I better make an effort!!!  There are a lot of high flying folks that attend this event.  One year I stood and talked to a CEO of something or other, and he went on and on about the bloody value of all the pieces and how he chose his pieces on how much money they would make him in the future.

Me; well I pick what I like regardless of how much money they are or will be!!  And to my mind that's the way it should be.

Back to the hair I have been writing and complaining about my hair I think from day one of this blog, or near enough.  Here is a post back in May of 2008 that has me whining on about my hair.  (sorry about the deleted photos on that old post) Fast forward to April 2015 and I am still whining on about my hair. {SIGH}

Finally updated my grocery total's for this month and I can see me going way over budget now {{SIGH}}  It's because of the over the counter meds I have bought this past week or so.  Just worked out I have spent over $60 on those.  Now granted some will last for a while, but others are already gone.  Oh well some months you win, some months you don't!!

It's a...........

not a boy, nor a girl, but another bloody sinus infection!!!!  It's more or less two months to the day since I had my last sinus infection.  I am not happy.  For those of you who have medical knowledge is it common to have sinus infections like this close to one another?

Good news though the weather is miserable, cold, wet and even the threat of snow this week, so no major plans to go outside.  I do have the art gallery fundraiser on Thursday night, and unless I am on death's door I will be going!!  If you want to have a peek at what's on offer this year click on this link; it looks as though there have been some other works added.

I rather like this one, not sure what sort of bird that is.

This one also caught my eye. 

One thing for sure I will not be getting the royal family one.

I was "talking" to a fellow blogger and mentioned a "quick" project that you can pick up and work on for short periods of time, English Paper Piecing.  I gave her the link to this post and this post.  Here are more links to my work, here and here and here.  I think it is time to do some more of this.  

One thing I enjoyed doing was re-reading my old posts.  Do any of you enjoy English Paper Piecing?

Artwork over the fireplace.

The Home Stager suggested a larger piece of artwork over our fireplace and I agreed with her.  So I decided to borrow the painting below from our dd.  She "won" it at The Drawing for Art event that we go too every year.  It looks gorgeous there, but as it's an original piece of art which is probably worth a few hundred dollars I am concerned with the heat coming off the fireplace and worried about the soot from the fireplace making it dirty.  So we decided to go out and see if we can get something similar.

 

Last weekend we saw this print and the colours were right.  However when we got it home it was much too big.  So we took it back yesterday.

We ended up buying this one instead.

The price was right at $39.99 and it is the right colour.  Dh is taking down the light fixture; that too was suggested by the Home Stager.

One question that was asked yesterday was are we moving closer to the kids.  Dd, hubby and Miss Nora, live around 90 minutes from us, we are moving around 10 minutes closer to them.  We do not want to live in the area they live and there is a possibility that dd hubby's work location may move to the west of the city.  

 

Our son lives around 40 minutes from us, again that will be cut by around 10 minutes.  Our little Princess and her family will be around another 10 to 15 minutes further away, so it will probably take us around 75 minutes to get to their house.  Also on a positive note, dh's commute will also be 10 minutes shorter.  It takes him a full hour to get to work.

 

By the way this weather sucks....just thought I'd mention that.

Ice Storm

We had a nasty ice storm on Thursday/Friday, which resulted in us having our hydro/electricity out for around 24 hours. This was the view from the dining room window when I got up on Friday:

All the windows to the east of the house were like this covered in ice.

When the ice started to melt on Friday afternoon, that's when the damage began:

It looks as though the poor tree is bleeding:

This in one of the willows by the road, so much too clean up; it's hard to see it though:

This tree has lost it's top:

One of the hardest things for us, is that our well is powered by electricity, so we had only the water that was in the pipes.  Also dh's sleep apnea machine is powered by electricity, so he had a restless night as well.  In the scheme of things ours was a minor inconvenience!

On Thursday night we went to the Drawing for Art function and it was a lovely but long night.  We were all chosen near the end, so none of us got what we really wanted but we all got something.  I was lucky enough to get a painting by the artist George Mocanu.  You can view the painting here.  The one I got was called Mountain Landscape and it's on the third row on the right.  Dd got on by an up and coming artist called Pete Smith, or so the curator of the gallery told her?  This is all I could find about him  

I have published another couple of book reviews here  Managed to get some reading done while the hydro was out!!!

Nothing much to talk about....

I am a weary one at the moment, not helped by the weather.  So I think I'll show you this weeks Home of the week, instead of tomorrow.

I actually like this week's "Home of the Week," the price is crazy though at $1.65 million and for that you get a semi?  I often wonder where they come up with these prices.  I guess it's all to do with location?  Regardless I would like a lot more property and land for that price.  Cute coach house though?

The "Condo of the Week," is a nice big Condo with a big price tag to go with it at $1.75 million.  It's to white and sterile for me though, I would be terrified of making a mess or spilling something.

We are going to the Drawing For Art Show tonight, so it will be a late night for us; possibly made even later by the bad weather we are expecting.  We are expecting ice pellets and freezing rain.  I just wish the weather would actually make up its mind what it wants to do at the moment!!!!

Sorry it's short and sweet today, I could just do with going back to bed and sleeping the morning away!!!

Forgot to tell you about the art gallery fundraiser.....

We had a super time again at the art gallery fundraiser.  This time we were chosen around 5th or 6th and so I got my top pick this beautiful watercolour of a Canadian Waxwing by the artist Catherine Delhaise.  I also had the privilege of meeting her and she was a lovely lady who lives north of Oshawa.  The details on this watercolour are just beautiful and as I said to her, it will be going to a home where it belongs and will be loved.

Dd was picked around half way through the night so her first choices were taken, but she had this one on the list of ones she wanted.  Now she is not going to be happy me saying this, but her choice is no better in real life than it is in the picture!!!  However each to their own and some people may hate my choice and love hers.  I will say it will fit nicely in her condo as it is very modern.  It is made out of concrete.

For those of you in Southern Ontario looking for a puppy, check out these cute ones they are looking for a loving home........

It's coming up to that time of year again....

when we go to the Station Gallery in Whitby for the fund raiser and in turn we get to pick out a painting.  We went last year and I wrote about it here and here.  It doesn't happen until the end of the month, which is just as well as this year I think I am going to have a hard time narrowing down my selections, as there is more that I like this year.  Here is a link to the ones for this year, are there any that you would go for?  I am a floral/landscape type of gal, and prefer watercolours over oils.  As always the sculptures leave a lot to be desired, so hopefully they will all go in a flash as we wouldn't appreciate them. 

I am hoping there is the chocolate display again, as they were yummy last year.........I know I am supposed to be on a diet!!!

Molly had a busy morning as first we had a coyote in the back garden quite close to the deck.  It was the closest one has been to the house.  Molly went crazy, thank goodness she was in the house.  She had only just come back in from outside.  I do not like them coming that close to the house.  Then a rabbit turned up by the shed, so that kept her out of mischief for ages watching that.  All the time she was wagging her tale.  Then she went downstairs into the basement where a chipmunk was sitting outside beside the patio door eating bird seed.  Obviously that drove Molly crazy.  So with all that activity she had to have a rest....

She looks comfortable doesn't she!!

Our night out.........

We really enjoyed our night out.  Funny thing was that dd's number was drawn first and she chose this one  there was a groan from a number of people in the crowd, as it was a popular one.

Meanwhile we were beginning to wonder if our number was in the jar, as more and more people got to pick their choices.  We finally had our number called third from the end!!  Thank goodness they had more pieces of art left than tickets, otherwise I could have ended up with a horrible thing.

I have to say all the abstract pieces went fast, and despite the fact we were third from the last I still managed to get my second choice, which was not on my original list.  We came home with this piece:

Just ignore my hand reflection in the photo.  This is by the artist Michael Jack.  I have no idea about the man, but did like this piece and it fits in perfectly in our bedroom.  Also the last five tickets pulled got extra gifts.  We got a necklace and four tickets to a concert at the gallery worth $60.  I gave them to dd, as it's an hour and a half's drive for us.

The place was packed, the snacks were yummy, especially the chocolates...I made sure I taste tested a number of those.........wanted to make sure they were okay for everyone to eat.

Here are some of the sculptures that were included. That silver tree thingy, was the only one I sort of liked, but all but one went.

There's my painting on the bottom left.  I also had the top left and the bottom right on my list as possibles.

Although this is hard to see, maybe click on the photo to enlarge it, this was pretty neat.

So we didn't get in from our night out until after 11pm.  Needless to say on Friday we were pooped, espcially as we had the builders in finishing off the job.  I will post more about what the builders did etc. on Sunday.
Here is my column for the Orangeville Banner for this week!

News Flash, we went out on Thursday night!!!

I know shocker, as we never go anywhere.  However, dh got me tickets to this event for my birthday.

Now as I am writing this on Thursday afternoon, I neither have photos, or can tell you which piece of art I came home with.

I can tell you which are my top 10 favourties:
TODD TREMEER



ANGELA LABRIOLA


MAUREEN LOWRY- Spring Fling


THERESA AUSTIN


GLORIA JEAN


KAREN RICHARDSON


MARION STEVENSON


DAN STEEVES


HENRY RAETSEN - Flight of the Phoenix


MAUREEN LOWRY - Lakeside Colour

So it should be interesting to see if I come home with any of my choices.

Dd is also going and here are her top two choices:
http://whitbystationgallery.com/eventsarticle.php?id=AX5-DD

and this one:

http://whitbystationgallery.com/eventsarticle.php?id=AX5-AN

However, me and dd said that knowing our luck we could end up with either this or this.....I hope not though!!

Also this one is worth close to $2,500!!  However I don't like it, and neither does dd.

I will take my camera and tell you all about it on Friday or Saturday. 

Oh and on squirrel tv we had a guest appearance by Mr. Blue Jay:

Please forgive the dirty window, I didn't get it cleaned until after I took the photo........I know what is my problem!!!!!  I had only cleaned it the day before, but Molly is like a toddler, finger/nose prints everywhere!!