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Gardening, Books & Dollhouses

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Happy Thursday!

I am sitting in my studio after having spent some time today in the garden! Oh it feels so good to be out in the sunshine! I planted my lettuce seeds and cleared out 2 beds and had a nice long sit, petting the dogs, and thinking about what my plans are for the garden this year.

I am really excited that after 20+ years of wanting we are finally purchasing privacy trees for the back border of our yard. This is something I have always wanted to do but at first our yard was already full of trees that cast it in full shade so growing anything like evergreens wasn’t going to work. Sadly most of those trees died, the upside is that our backyard is now full sun-yay! I have also been able to replace almost all of the trees we have lost and just put them in more appropriate spots.

The other thing I did was had a good swing on the swing set. Last year my husband built one for the kids and I had requested that he build it sturdy enough so that I could also use it as swings were my favorite as a child. I have to ask the last time you were on a swing set? Can I just say that I forgot how amazing it feels! I told my husband that from now on whenever we are grumbly we should just come out and swing for 5 minutes and suddenly all is right with the world. Really it was pretty awesome.

In other, more blog-focused news I will be hosting my first in-person class this June! I am so excited and really can’t wait to get everything pulled together. I already have lists and ideas and I am planning a goody bag-including a brand new art journal-for each participant. It’s going to be so much fun! I will be sure to keep you updated and I do plan on offering an online version of the class so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

With the gorgeous weather today my husband was kind enough to help me transport my dollhouse to the studio. Originally I was excited to work on it at home but other than the very first steps I just haven’t been able to find the time. I spent this past week designing a digital planner so I could plot out my studio time with my current projects. I was able to use it to carve out time each week to work on the dollhouse and the content creation that goes along with it.

If you read this post you know I am dipping my toe into the world of miniatures and I have begun my first project-renovating my childhood dollhouse. I have quite a bit of footage filmed and wanted to see how I was going to do with it before deciding if it was content I was prepared to create and share on a regular basis. I feel ready now and I am going to spend the rest of April filming some videos and then launch a separate YouTube channel just for the dollhouse.

I will keep the same format here which is writing a blog post and sharing the YouTube video. I’ll create a separate link that takes your right to the dollhouse content and all the appropriate videos but I didn’t want the videos on YouTube to be under my art journaling channel. I really thought it would be confusing for subscribers and probably make some algorithm somewhere cranky. I have designated Sundays as my dollhouse day to share all things miniature. Currently I post content here on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so I thought adding Sundays would help you know what to expect and when here on the blog.

That brings me to another thought-my podcast. I have loved making podcasts in the past but lately I have been struggling to find topics to share about. I have some ideas and things I might do-including taking a step back all-together but I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you listen to the podcasts? If so what would you like me to talk about? For now, I am going to take the rest of April off and see what comes up for May.

Lastly I did want to give you a Book Club update. I finished 1 mini book this week-“A Christmas Tartan” by Paige Shelton (affiliate link). It was really good-her Scottish Bookshop Mysteries (affiliate link) are one of my favorites. I am currently reading the next book, “Lost Books and Old Bones” (affiliate link) along with “Emerald Isle” (affiliate link) Stacy Justice Mysteries Book #5 by Barbara Annino. I started this book last year and then just stopped reading on my kindle for a bit. I am hoping to finish both of these books this week along with the audio book I am currently listening to which is “The Secret Adversary” by Agatha Christie.  I mentioned in the last book club update that I am working on The Agatha Christie Mystery Challenge and I really enjoy listening to them in my studio. They are so well produced. If you are interested in the version I am listening to it’s on Audible here (affiliate link).

So that is the news for me! It’s funny I didn’t know how much I would have to share with you this week but it turns out it’s been quite a bit! I would love to hear what you are up to so please do share a comment below. If you share about your reading adventures on your own blog you can join my link part (see below) and we can all come and see what you have been reading. One day I hope to host a virtual book club-does that sound fun? Let me know!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

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My First Magazine Article is HERE! (Strawberry Moon Magazine Issue #5)

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I am so excited for this week’s Museum of Me share!

If I were to pick a theme for this installment of Museum of Me it would be “Dreams Realized.”  It’s easy to think that if something hasn’t happened in a pre-imagined time frame that it will never happen. To think that we need to realize a goal by a certain age or a certain life phase can in some cases cause us to give up. It is my deepest hope that I will keep dreaming and keeping working towards new goals until the last breath leaves me.

I was 8 years old when I decided I wanted to be a writer. As a child I was so committed to this that I felt I was a writer. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I started to believe I wasn’t a writer because I hadn’t checked certain boxes that I had for myself.  It’s taken me a few decades to realize that we don’t need anything external of us to define us. For me, having my words published is a dream come true and I hope, if you have a long-held dream, you won’t give up hope or stop working towards your goal.

You may remember I mentioned that I have an article coming out-it’s my first published work and I am just so over the moon! I wrote a bit about my journey as a writer in this post but to say that this is the realization of a life-long dream is no exaggeration.

If you aren’t familiar with Strawberry Moon it’s a wonderful new, independent publication. Each issue is jammed full of creative inspiration and beautiful photos from talented artists from all over. If you are an art journaler or mixed media artist I really think you will enjoy it.

Issue #5 is all about Self-care, a subject I am passionate (and always learning) about. I was so honored to be included among other talented artists and writers to offer our take on Self-Care as a creative practice. I hope you enjoy my contribution as much as I enjoyed creating it.

If you are interested in pre-ordering this issue you can do that here.

I will have lots more to share in the upcoming month-including a new class launch that will be available over on Teachable in April. (If you are a newsletter subscriber you will also receive a special discount code for the class). It’s going to be lots of mixed-media, textured filled, paint covered hands fun and I do hope you will join me!

Another announcement is that I am back on Instagram. If you remember I left social media about 3 years ago and while I don’t miss it I thought that Instagram would be a nice way to connect with other creatives and to share some of the projects I’m working on. I don’t plan to dedicate tons of time to each but if you would like to follow me you can find me here.

Well that’s it for today’s installment of Museum of Me. I have been so excited to share this with you all and I will be sure to let you know when I have the issue in my hands. I think a special Vlog on Dilettante TV will be in order 🙂

Wishing you a lovely day!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Sharing this post as part of Kym’s Museum of Me Blog Series.
You can read Kym’s blog here.

My Week in Doodles: #1

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How have you been? I have been MIA a bit around here. I had my hibernation week and then I was just feeling very tired so I rested, made art, watched some art classes and just tried to take care of myself. How about you? How have you been feeling? Are you making time for art? Please do comment and let me know I would love to hear.

I had an idea that woke me up this morning and I couldn’t wait to have a play with it. I thought it would be fun to make a sheet of little doodles, little memories of what I did the previous week and share them in a blog post for you. I also thought I could make my little doodle sheet available for download so if you wanted to use them in your personal collage or mixed media projects you could! All you need to do is to right click and safe the image to your computer-that’s it! The full sheet is at the bottom of this post. If you do use it please share with me I would love to see how you use them!

 

So this week was a bit of a roller coaster for us. The weather hadn’t been the gorgeous spring weather we were teased with in March but my youngest loves being outside so we bundled up a bit and went outside to gather up some sunshine. My son joined us one day and he cleared out his vegetable garden getting it ready for planting. He managed to harvest about 4 tiny and one large carrot from his garden. When I told him we could use the large one for dinner he was just so proud! He has his garden plan all made up and set up his support poles and planted his first round of snap peas (his favorite!).

I also managed to get in some gardening this week. I cleared a few more beds, put some cardboard down to suppress the weeds and added fresh topsoil and compost to 2 of my beds. I was able to mulch my herb garden and plant out my poppies, lettuce, snap peas, radish and parsnips. I’m in Zone 6 so we are pretty limited in what can go out in the ground but everything I planted should do just fine. I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

 

I finished 2 books this week. I’ll share it with you in my next Book Club update but in addition to finishing 2 I added 4 to my list after some library requests. I laugh at how man new ones I am adding and reading in addition to what was already on my shelf but I think that’s the best part isn’t it? To know you’ll never run out of books to read?

My husband had a work function to go to one night so I took the kids out for a little adventure. We went for a drive then stopped at a fast food restaurant and went inside to eat which they loved. After dinner we stopped at Starbucks for cookies and a cake pop (popcorn for my girls) and Decaf Caramel Macchiato for me. It was a nice time just the 4 of us.

On Friday my husband called us all out to see a full rainbow that he had seen in the sky on his way home. Unfortunately we couldn’t see it from out house but he was so happy to see it and it added a simple joy to the day.

On Saturday my husband took the kids to the park (where my 3 year-old made a friend and had the best time!) and I had the house to myself. The sun was shining and I lounged in my hammock with my dogs at my feet. The neighborhood was silent except for the chorus of birds and I could feel myself recharging and healing.

 

We also gave our guinea pig Trixie a little pedicure-her nails needed a clean so we had her in just a little bit of water to soften and give her feet a gentle clean. She was quite content with all the attention and enjoyed the special treat after even more.

 

Sadly our week had started off with the loss of our cat Piper. She was almost 14 years old and was a very special friend to me and my oldest daughter. She is the one I credit with showing me how to be a Momma long before I was one and she has guarded my oldest all of her 11 years. My daughter had asked the we cremate her so we brought her to a really fabulous place not too far from us and it made me feel grateful for people who extend compassion to others. We are all managing well though and are so grateful that she went so peacefully here at home with us. I hesitated to include this as I want to keep my site positive but I drew a little picture of her in the download and it felt only right to share her with you.

Here is this week’s doodle sheet:

I hope you like my little experiment. I had so much fun doing it and would love to make it a regular part of my blog. I would love your thoughts so please share them below and if you would like to make your own doodles to share on your blog then be sure to link it up below using my link party. Just link directly to your blog post with your own doodles so we can stop by and say “hello!”

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Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

 

Resting, Sewing & Our Weekly Challenge

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I am sitting with a cup of tea writing this. We spent yesterday at a family gathering where we gifted the anniversary journal I made a few weeks ago. It was a nice day but today is my re-coup day and I am very grateful for the current silence in our home.

We are almost fully moved out of our old bedroom. I have 2 small boxes to go through and then a bookshelf and our closet which should go pretty quickly. I am planning to start painting tomorrow as we would love to have the room done in time to surprise our daughter with her new bedroom for her birthday. The painting should go pretty quickly so I’m feeling pretty confident we can get it all done.

For this week’s challenge I realized I completed it without realizing I had! We had ordered a birthday dress for my youngest that she was also going to wear to yesterday’s party. There was an issue with delivery so come Friday (2 days before the party) she had no dress. I broke my “Creative Detox” just a tiny bit to pull up a video tutorial to walk me through making this really sweet dress.

 

I couldn’t be happier with how the dress came out! It was lined and absolutely adorable. If you remember last week’s challenge was to use a supply you have but hardly use. For me that’s my fabric stash and my sewing machine. I tend to overbuy my fabric when I buy it for a specific purpose and I also tend to sew a bunch and then not sew for a while. So for my daughter’s dress I decided to raid the stash for a pretty fabric with a matching coordinating fabric I could use for the lining. The fabric I chose was also used last spring to make a throw pillow for our bed. It’s bright and happy and looked really adorable on my daughter. I still want to take a better photo of her in the dress but this is what I have for now.


So I was able to use my sewing machine which was collecting dust along with some fabric that was stored away. I do plan on keeping this challenge in my mind to boost my creativity and use up some of those supplies. I want to start clearing out the cabinets and cupboards and get to making more things than I purchase. I also want to start sharing more of what I am making with others how about you? Please do comment below and let me know what item you have in your stash that you hardly use.

 

Don’t forget to add your links to our link party. If the party is already closed feel free to comment below with the link to your blog post so we can stop by and see what you did for the weekly challenge.

The challenge for this week is to do something with a book/journal theme.

I cannot wait to see what you make! Be sure to add your links to the link party below.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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I’m also sharing this post with my hand sewn dress over on Sew Can Do as party of Cheryl’s Craftastic Link Party.