Oh Christmas Tree! :D

Every year, since I was a baby, my dad and I have put up the Christmas tree together. For that reason, I just couldn't bring myself to get out our old tree to decorate this year. It's still too soon and too many memories, but I did want to put something pretty up for Christmas.

After pottering about online, trying to find some inspiration, I saw exactly what I was after. A "flat" tree to hang against a wall or in a window. The one online cost £30 and was pretty basic, so I decided to make one myself. :)

My tree took 3 dowel sticks (1 metre long) and string. You could use thinnish bamboo as well. Whole lot came to less than £4.

I sweated for hours doing the maths to figure out length of pieces to fit a tree shape, but then Sandy sorted it out EASY. He put the string down on the carpet in a tree shape and we put the dowels on top at regular intervals and marked where to cut them. My bottom dowel was 72cm going up to a tree point, with about 20cm gaps between each dowel. Knotting the string on the dowels was the hard part!

I left a long bit of string at top to hang it up with. Then sticky-taped the lights all over it and added the tinsel and baubles last.  

 

I made it a bit big, no room for a star or angel on top, but it still looks very pretty from outside. 

Wonder Full

Stunning water sculptures by Malgorzata Chodakowska. You can see the entire collection HERE.

The Book Promo Video is up!

Almost a year after publication, I finally got the promo video for "Wisdoms of the Light" up on Youtube today. I'm putting it up here on my blog, with some of the artwork slides I made.

Hope you enjoy watching it.

Just in time for Christmas? ;-)

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Blog4Peace Countdown Badges

It is two months until Blogblast for Peace (Blog4Peace) 2014. Mimi already has all the info and new badges up on her blog. As she says...

"We Blog for peace annually each November 4th and keep the peace alive on the Internet via social networking sites and many websites and blogs. Peace Bloggers can be found on six continents and in 202 countries and territories around the globe. Grab this free logo for your own sidebar or page if you'd like to join us. We're 21K strong on Facebook and growing.

Here's our Fan Page."

Please join us! Blog4Peace November 4 and everyday on our Facebook page Our Peace Store

How To Blog4Peace ™ 1. Make a peace globe. Choose any graphic on this page. Save. Sign. Decorate

2. Send the finished peace globe to blog4peace@yahoo.com or TAG Mimi Lenox on Facebook

3. Post it anywhere online November 4
4. Title your post or status Dona Nobis Pacem (Latin for Grant us Peace) hashtag #blog4peace #blogblast4peace

I've made some extra badges myself, for the event. These are free to share and use wherever you want. Just click and save. :-)

Small Addictions

A friend sent me his latest addiction - online jigsaw puzzles! I've always loved doing jigsaws, so I was quickly hooked. Whenever my brain gets tired of words - I go do a puzzle. ;-)

I have two places I like the most:

the jigsaw puzzles has a huge assortment of choices...

It allows you to decide if you want normal shape pieces or weird ones. It also lets you set how many pieces. So you can go from really tricky 200 piece ones to quick and simple 50 piece using the same picture.Another nice feature is that it will allow you to do the edges first. Makes large puzzles a lot easier.

jigsaw planet has a really nice feature. You can upload any photo or picture you have and create your own puzzle. You can also save your puzzles and share them with others. :-) Here's me trying my book cover artwork as a puzzle...

Photos and Fun

I found some photos I took last summer that I'd forgotten on the camera. They were taken in Nairn, by the beach. I tacked them together to make a panorama shot. :) This time I haven't put it up on my blog. It's a little on the large size, as a panorama, so I've put it up on my Flikr page, along with photos I've used as banners on this blog over the years.

You can view all of the Scottish photo album HERE

it got me thinking... this could be fun and useful. So I put all my Blogblast for Peace art into another photo album and then did the same with the pictures I've made for my books over the years.

Blogblast Album

First Light Saga Album

A new Website and a Map

I've finally put up a website for my books, First Light and Wisdoms of the Light. I've chewed over the idea of a website before, but always found reasons to put it off. The biggest reason being the fact I'm an artist with a fussy eye for details. I can take weeks just deciding on web page background designs!

The new website is HERE 

I've been busy working on art for the site the last week and I finally put up the last finishing touch this morning - a map of Sindorus.

All the artwork is mine, including the map of Sindorus. If you run your cursor arrow over a thumbnail picture it will show you a book quote. If you click on the thumbnails they open up full size.There's a small square in the bottom right that shuts a full size picture.

Behind the Scenes with Bookmarks

The awesome and talented Gina Scarcella, of the blog Behind a Million and One Pages, has kindly allowed me to feature as a guest post author. Not only that... she's also made fantastic bookmarks out of my book covers. So cool!  

You can read my guest post here: Guest Post with Michelle Frost

The bookmark links are at the base of the page or you can link direct through these:

First Light

Wisdoms of the Light

Here's a taster. ;-)

I've Got it Covered

I was chatting to a friend about my book cover and I thought it might be fun to show how I made it, using a lot of different photos. 

Most of the photos I use are from a great place called morguefile. The sky is from Scotland, which is appropriate! I put that in first, changing the colours slightly, since this isn't a sky on Earth. ;-) Then I added in the "beam of light". It's actually made up of three white stripes, one wide and two narrow. I made the wide stripe partially transparent before I fused all three together and then added a white glow around it.

Then I added in the building dome. This has been altered and had the colour changed as well. 

Next was the park. The original photo had no grass, so that was taken from another photo.

I had to lighten it a little, as the printing comes out darker.

The only photo that was paid for, from a professional site, was the two models for the characters on the cover.As you can see, they had no clothes! I had quite a time finding a dress, but the man was easy. I already had a smashing jacket, worn by a facebook friend, Jesse. He's let me use his photos before, for my book video.

I also "removed" the woman's modern make up and had to find hair for the top of the man's head (another photo). The woman's dress I had to change the colour and add shadows. Here it is, half way done...

All in all the couple took five photos to create and the background took another five plus the light beam. A lot of work, but well worth it. I'm very happy with the end result. :-)

Book News

Well, I'm on chapter 30 and the end is in sight... for me and the book! It has been such fun, but I'm living, eating and even sleeping the story. Yup, I'm dreaming I'm the characters! It's a bit weird, but interesting.

I've started thinking about covers, which is part exciting, part headache. For  FIRST LIGHT I totally hated the cover the publishers/printers chose and was thrilled when I was able to design my own for the kindle version...

But the problem with doing your own artwork is the limitations of what you are capable of. I used photos for this cover above, but that meant finding photos I could use that fitted what I was envisioning. Thankfully I have photographer friends as well as belonging to a place that shares photos for artwork,but even so the girl's face (Daen) is a patchwork of three girls (hair, face, eyes) plus some serious photo-shopping!

Magic for Monday

Smashing Art and lovely music... enjoy!

New Book Trailer!

My book trailer is finally up on YouTube... after a month of computer crashes, software seizures and long hard work. 

It might seem strange that 3 minutes of video could take weeks and weeks of hard work, but every detail of clothing, hair, eyes, clouds, buildings... everything was created or altered in some form or another. It was a lot of work, but I'm really pleased with the results. I hope you enjoy watching it. :-)

I'm on Kindle

I know I've been very quite lately, in big part due to my hands, but also because I've been busy getting my book, First Light, ready to put onto Kindle.

The longest struggle has been creating a new book cover. Last time I had to go with the Printer/Publisher choice of this...

Dull "blaaah" cover. :( Back when this first came out I did my own artwork to create bookmarks and a YouTube video as advertising. At least here I had a chance to create something I liked.

This time I wanted something that really expressed what the book is about - the world and its people. So I worked on created a city that fitted the capital city and that took AGES, but I'm really thrilled with the results. I even got in the dock front (far right), where two of the main characters are destined to meet up. :-)

Then I added in the mountains, which are important, and the two moons, because they're fun and point out that this world isn't Earth, and then I added Daen's face, because she just brings it all together. The fonts gave me grief too. I forgot the fact that Amazon link pictures are thumbnails - on a thumbnail my first font vanished and my second became a blob. :-(

So... FINALLY, after months of slow and painful work, (painful thanks to my hands and my fusy arty perfectionism!) here it is, my new cover:

The actual book (writing) transference was... interesting. They tell you it's a case of take your word doc, save it as html webpage, send it to them, but inbetween lies a whole range of formatting and coding errors that can boil your brain! Hubby and I took two full days to get the manuscript completely error free. Then I had to wait as Amazon checks all the legalities, such as "do you really own this book?", "Do you have publishing rights?", etc.

Well... it is finally up, on ALL the Amazon Kindle stores from the America to France. :-)

I even have an author page!

I'm so thrilled, and so relieved all my months of hard work has finally reached an end. Now the equally hard, but more fun side begins - advertising! Amazon already has me connected to Shelfari, which was very nice of them. I want to update my YouTube video for the book with a new, better version, but I promise not to leave my blog so ghostly empty this time.

Rabbit Rabbit and cat, frog, elephant...

The first of the month and I'm adding some very special "rabbit rabbit" first day of the month good luck greeting, for this first day of Spring. :-)

A friend of mine has an etsy shop. She makes and sells all kinds of jewelry including the most adorable earrings. Those white rabbits above are her work and I'm sharing some of my other favourites below. ;-) I'm putting the link to each item with the photos, so you can click on them to get the details. Each item has a meaning and a story. ;-)

Frog Prince earrings



Maneki Neko necklace



...and the cutest Makeni Neko earrings.



"pink mouse" Chinese Astrology earrings



and a pink (Rose Quartz) elephant!



Chinese Rooster earrings

The Maneki Nekos are my all time favourites... for the moment! I can't wait to see what she makes next.

New Banner - Older Quote

I've made a new banner for my blog. All the photos on the right are real photos I've used on this blog in the past, but the middle quote is new, because it's older. ;-)

Yep, the quote I thought was the original actually wasn't! I always thought the saying was:

"The journey of a thousand miles start with a single step."

but that's a modern interpretation. Lao-Tze's actual words translates closer as:

"The journey of a thousand miles starts beneath one's feet."

It makes more sense actually. Lao-Tze was the founder of Taoism, the concept that gives us Tai-Chi and the Yin-Yang idea of perfect balance.

He also created the concept of Wu Wei - which kind of translates as "Without effort". What he was meaning was the way of Nature and the Universe. Planets turn, seasons come and go, plants grow and water flows... all in a natural unforced way - Wu Wei.

It makes more sense that he'd see a journey starting beneath feet than in a step forward. Stepping forward is an action of force... starting with a contemplative standing position is completely different. To me "beneath our feet" is where all our our dreams and hopes lie. It's who we are, our central core, and the best possible place to start any journey. :-)

My Peace Globe - the Grand Unveiling

Not much time left before Blogblast for Peace on Nov 4th. I'm still refining what I'm going to say on the day, but my Peace Globe is ready. I'm just on my way to post it off to Mimi, but thought I'd pop it up here first.

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Touching Beauty

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The next part of my Navajo inspired Beauty series. An artist with a difference. I hope you enjoy the videos, but do go look at John's paintings on his own website. They're brilliant, in every sense!

With beauty all around me may I walk...



Beautifully I will possess again

Best to finish with a quote from the artist himself:

“Everyone has an artist somewhere in them;
sometimes they just need a little help letting it out.”

John Bramblitt

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Seeing Beauty

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With beauty may I walk...

Years ago I read a book on Art where the author pointed out that what makes an artist great is not their ability to paint or draw, but their ability to SEE. It's not enough to have the skill (or the equipment, in the case of photography) - you have to have the ability to really look. This week I was reminded of someone who sees clearly and he is going to be my first post in my "Walk in Beauty" series, because...

To truthfully show beauty you first have to see it clearly.

Since my hands and fingers started to play up I've been reading websites and doing artwork more than typing. One of my favourite places to find shared photos I can use for art is morguefile.com - and one of my favourite photographers there is called 'hotblack' (real name Scott Liddell). I've used some of Scott's photos for my YouTube videos, especially his scenery and skies. This one below I've used behind the girl's face (Daen) in the video for my book, 'First Light.'

but I often go look at his pictures just to enjoy seeing beauty through his eyes...



All day long may I walk



Through the returning seasons may I walk

With dew about my feet may I walk

With beauty before me may I walk



With beauty behind me may I walk



With beauty above me may I walk



With beauty all around me may I walk

It is finished in Beauty.

Side note: If you think those photos (shared by Scott Liddell on morguefile) are great - go look at Scott's own photography website where he keeps all his work. Gorgeous photos! He has a very interesting blog as well and... he's recently written a book! You can find his new novel, 'The Beetle Man', on Amazon or on his website here.

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