Aurora-tique

A Mermaid Tea Party! At Lisa's Blog!

2009-04-18T17:05:00.000-07:00

My daughter Lisa is hosting a Mermaid Tea Party today on her blog, along with many other fabulous artists and people who have taken part in it.

A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head and torso and the tail of an aquatic animal such as a fish or dolphin. Various cultures throughout the world have similar figures. The word is a compound of mere, the Old English word for "sea," and maid, in its usual sense. The male equivalent is a merman.

Much like sirens, mermaids would sometimes sing to people and gods and enchant them, distracting them from their work and causing them to walk off the deck or run their ships aground. Other stories have them squeezing the life out of drowning men while attempting to rescue them. They are also said to take humans down to their underwater kingdoms. In Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid it is said that they forget that humans cannot breathe underwater, while others say they drown men out of spite.

The sirens of Greek mythology are sometimes portrayed in later folklore as mermaid-like; in fact, some languages use the same word for both bird and fish creatures, such as the Maltese word 'sirena'. Other related types of mythical or legendary creature are water fairies (e.g. various water nymphs) and selkies, animals that can transform themselves from seals to humans.

I find it fascinating to learn about folklore and explore the many beautiful artworks that grace the sites of artists and designers, everyone creates their interpretation of mermaids or characters in time, its always a pleasure to see what people come up with, plus its very inspirational. My daughter Lisa inspires me everyday and I love to see what's brewing inside her head, come to life.

Last year she hosted a fabulous tea party at her house and did it all, the cooking, the baking, the party favors, the set up, the decorating and the drinks. She is a tea lover and has storage of packaed teas from her business,as well as art, print and design. Her teas are fabulous and she mixes them all, with delicious flavors.

Here are some photos from her party:

Here is a photo of one of the favors: Captured Jar Fairies: Little Obelia's Garden!
She also gave out handmade paper tea cups filled with treats, crowns and cupcake color candles.

I hope you have enjoyed my post for The Mermaid Tea Party, now I'm off to swim some more!

All the Best!
Joan!

A Parcel Trip and East Coast Art Expo 20009!

2009-04-09T07:57:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a few different artful things, a trip with friends to Montclair, my fave town, a place I lived for many years to visit the cute store called: Parcel with Marlene, Ralene, Geralyn, Zandra and my daughter Lisa!Geralyn hosted a such a wonderful Tea Party back in early March,filled with fabulous foods and treats, she was the perfect Tea party Hostess, Parcel was our next adventure, I heard the new one is Ocean Grove, stay tuned.

We had such a great time sharing stories and inspiration, these girls are so wonderful and talented. If you get a moment head out to Parcel and enter a fairytale world, if you visit the other girls blogs you will see their perspectives and photos, these pictures came from my daughter Lisa, she is the photo queen, LOL! You can visit her site at:
http://faerieenchantment.blogspot.com

Here she is playing around with one of the tini masks, now she is determined to make face sized one with all her glitter, lol, I hope I get one...
Here are some sweet and delicious candies that I wanted to try, they looked so good, in the next photo is the fabulous Marlene and Lisa, she is wonderful
Now we skip a day and head straight to Sunday where another group of such wonderful and talented woman get together for what they call The Tiara Chronicles, meeting each month or so to create or get inspired, today their adventure brought them to The Summit Visual Arts Center in Summit, NJ for The East Coast Art Expo, sponsored by Jerry's Artists Supply. My daughter Lisa also teaches at this location.The Tiara girls in attendence today were Suze, Bonnie, Linda, Lennis and Lisa, along with me. Each of these woman have a talent all their own and are beyond sweet, wonderful and genuine, I have had the pleasure of being in their company many of times.

SO many art suppliers and companies, all top in their fields, My daughter especially loved: Pebeo, Pan Pastel, Art Molds and Daler-Rowney. I loved them all as well and bought some supplies to use in my own works. After a few hours, we broke for a late breakfast at the Summit Diner, such a great place, then headed back to the expo to pick up our purchases and chat some more.

Then on the way home my Daughter and I stopped at St.Joseph's Shrine, in Stirling, NJ, our fave place to pick up our Palms for Palm Sunday, then it was back to our homes. Thank You for sharing in my weekend of artful adventure.

Blessings, Joan!

Whimsical ATC"s Set! My First Blog Post!

2009-04-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hello, I am so excited today, this is my first blog and first blog post, I've been meaning to update this for sometime and with encouragement from my daughter and friends, I have finally done it.

I thought I would start my first post with the first ATC's I have ever done.
Before taking my daughter's book class, she taught me ATC 101, I have never made them before, now I am addicted to ATC's, my daughter is the photo queen and has been taking the snapshots of my artworks and cleaning them up for me, so I can share them with all of you.
In this photo is the Fairy Friendship ATC, made from a variety of papers and images curteosy of my daughter Lisa you can visit her blog at: http://faerieenchantment.blogspot.com
This is a photo of the Fairy Queen ATC I made.Sophie's Butterfly Garden ATC is a fave atc of mine, its the first ATC I have made and the first I have sold, now you see why its become my favorite.Winter Wonderland is another ATC I made with more romantic tones, I just love the idea of romance and ready many romance novels, which inspire me all the time to create.

If you visit my Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6390013
you will find my jewelry, romantic wares and now my paper ats in there. I hope you enjoy your visit to my Etsy Store, Flickr Site and now my New Blog!

Blessings,
Joan!