What a difference 23 years makes. My husband and I have been in our home 23 years this month. Sometimes it seems like the time has just flown by - other times it seems like forever. The difference became very evident when I ran into a picture of our house taken right after we moved into it. The first picture is summer 1985, the other one is how it looks today in 2008. We dug up the red oak trees (they weren't as big around as my wrist at the time) the first winter we were in the house and planted them. At one time we had 17, but lost one several years ago to severe ice storm damage. The house is still there - just not very visable from the road due to the trees. The yard looks huge in the old picture, but with all the trees, it appears much smaller.

Today must be catch-up time on my blog. I'm finally taking the time to post some of the items I've been meaning to do for so long. March gave me the opportunity to take another class from my favorite teacher (and friend), Lisa Renner. This time Lisa taught a lovely journal book. The moring was spent creating our papers for the journals and in the afternoon we constructed the books. Her technique for making the papers was so much fun that several of us got together again and made more paper to use in our art.

In February of this year, our guild had Kathleen Davis come to teach another workshop (and I had the pleasure of hosting her at my home). I had previously taken her 2-day Fairy/Gnome workshop and thoroughly enjoyed it and her teaching style, so when another workshop was offered, I jumped at the chance. This time the workshop was Dragons, Frogs & Friends. Kathy is a great instructor and we turned out some amazing pieces.

Here are the pieces I did in the workshop.

I did a couple of dragons, a couple of frogs, a couple of snails and a "creature from the blue lagoon".