BEE Happy!

The final touches to the "Happy Flowers" are finally complete!

I finished the last detail of the Happy Flowers just as the lady on the downloaded audio book, Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott, finished reading the last chapter. Perfect timing! My daughter, Allana, just introduced me to the website for the audio books. I'm so glad I gave it a try. It has been different having someone read to me....usually I'm the one doing the reading while Micah listens. It was nice to listen to this sweet and refreshing story as I painted flowers. I haven't read a Louisa May Alcott book in such a long time, well, not since I was a young girl.... which was quite a few years ago.

I painted this set for a little girl that has the Happy Flower bedding set from Target. She is about to move into her big girl room. I experimented with painting a variety of background papers as options for these designs. They will be available with a white background or with a striped background. I'm excited that I was able to get a slide show added to the side...I won't mention how long it took me to figure it out though! You can see how the design will look with the different background colors :) yay!


This little garden includes a set of three different floral designs each with scripture verses that make good "how to be happy" reminders. It seemed to take the longest to narrow down which verses to choose for the designs. There are so many good ones...it was hard. God has been teaching me some things about my happiness, my mind and my heart.... so these verses reflect some of what the Lord has been teaching me personally. Happiness is all in my perspective. When the focus of my mind and my heart gets off of God and onto things or people I quickly get out of sorts. It happens so quickly. Through reading the Old Testament, He is showing me so much about the importance of the condition of my heart. He sees my heart and it's motives. He sees what is deep inside. I think it is pretty amazing! I hope you are blessed by what you see and the reminders they include.

I'll have these designs available in my online gift shop: www.fromtheheartart.com and in my ebay store.

Well, thanks to my daughter introducing me to http://www.librivoxx.org/, I enjoyed going back in time as I listened to the adventures of a little girl named Rose & her eight boy cousins, while painting a Happy Flower Garden for modern day girls. Hmm.... I just realized how funny that is....listening to a story about a girl named Rose....while painting flowers! Wasn't planned that way. I started out listening to a Mark Twain story....it started out with Eve being critical of the creation....I decided quickly I didn't need to fill my mind up with that. Good thing Allana warned me to be cautious of some of the books. She does good to look out for her momma! Lousia May Alcott was the next author's name I recognized. So I'm glad I found it. I might have to check out the sequel for the next painting. :)

There is a new baby in my Jungle. It is a baby Tiger!
He was created as a special request from a very special lady. She is a good customer, friend, and "teeth cleaner lady"a.k.a. dental hygienist.
She has taken on the project of cleaning and decorating her church's nursery. It is in an older church and very outdated. She wanted to give it a fresh look to make it more welcoming to parents. She has taken the project on herself. She has painted the walls yellow and decided to decorate the walls with my Jungle Collection prints. After framing and hanging her new Jungle Babies, she decided it was missing an important animal. She told me that since it is Auburn, she really wanted a tiger to add to that empty spot on the wall. Of all the animals I've painted, I've never done a tiger. ... until now! I delivered him to her today along with the sign I painted for the nursery door. So now the newly decorated walls in the little "country" church in Auburn are complete!
And I'm happy because my friend is happy and excited about this fresh new room in their church. It is always such a blessing to do projects like this in the Lord's House. I bet the joy & excitement will be contagious! I'm thinking it probably won't be long before they decide to update another room and make it fresher and more welcoming... and this time I bet she'll have others wanting to join in.

Now on to my next special project in the works. A painting using a poem for a Down's Syndrome baby due to be born in August. I've been praying the Lord would give me the picture to go with the poem. I'll keep you posted.

There is a new baby to add to the art collection! It's a baby sparrow.

I've had birds on my mind a lot lately. Maybe it is because I have two windows in my painting studio that give a great view of our bird feeders in the backyard. So while I'm painting, I easily get distracted by those birds...and an occasional pesky squirrel that steals their food. So I've been painting and thinking about those birds and the verse in the Bible that talks about sparrows. "His eye is on the sparrow" kept going through my mind over and over. I decided to take a break from the custom orders and give painting a sparrow a try. I figured if I could get it painted it wouldn't keep going over and over in my mind. I started it on Friday. Didn't have time to finish because we were attending my nephew's wedding in Athens, Ga. I was really disappointed that I couldn't get it finished. We made the 3 1/2 hr drive for the wedding on Saturday. It was such a sweet wedding ceremony! It also a blessing to see two people purpose in their hearts to have a Christian marriage. Their wedding vows were amazing. They taught a Biblical lesson on marriage through their vows. I received an extra special blessing from the wedding.... for all their music, Mark and Anna chose hymns. It was a sweet surprise when the first hymn sung was none other than "His Eye is on the Sparrow" ! It was really special! It was ok that I didn't finish my baby bird after all. So I'm back in the studio today and Just finished up my little baby bird. The verses about the sparrow are very comforting. Luke 12: 6 & 7 and Matthew 10:29-31. I'm going to make this design into prints but I also want to use it on cards. I think I'll include those verses on the back of the card. Now maybe I can focus on finishing up those orders :)