Free Image Tuesday and Thawing Out in Texas...

Saturday it was in the 80's. Sunday it was in the 30's. Yesterday we had an ice storm and lost power because of ice on the powerlines. Today it's going to be in 50's/60's. I can't keep up with the clothing changes for the kids! LOL!! At least the power is back on and we had fun with flashlights yesterday. Did you know that a five year old will chase a flashlight light on the floor for hours? HOURS. Excellent exercise.

The FIT for this week is such a sweet cutie! His identity is unknown but, this Carte de Visite photograph was taken in 1874 by Taylor and Preston Photography Studio.

Carte de Visite photographs measure 2.5" x 4". They first became popular in 1854 in France and were often left for friends and family while visiting. Hence the name "Carte de Viste" which means "visiting card". By the 1860's this type of photo had become popular all over the world and was used more than any other photographing process. The civil war times in the United States were so prolific for the Carte that a tax stamp was placed on the backs of the photos. This stamp also aids in dating photographs from this time period. Luckily, this photo was dated by the photography studio on the reverse side.

This child reminds me of my Sweet James. Of course, Sweet James would never sit still for that lace collar. A mother can dream, right? LOL!

Things I am Thankful for today...warm, sweet boys to snuggle, sugar free hot chocolate and sleeping through the night.

Happy New Year!... Let's Have A FIT!...

Happy New Year!!! I hope the first two days of the New Year have been good to you. And I hope the next 363 days are just as wonderful!

We have been busy cleaning out and donating and throwing away and it feels so freeing. At first every decision is sooooooo agonizing. Will I need it? Can I find it again if I do need it? Oh and then there's always the, "But, I have these attached memories to this gum wrapper." But then, I love it when you finally get to that Zen level of de-cluttering where you say, "Just toss it/donate it" and there is no emotional attachment left to your piles of "stuff". THEN the real cleaning out process can start. We are at that point and it's awesome! My garage is ready for the "Helping Hands" truck and I have so much room in my kitchen cabinets and closets and playroom. I hope the cleaning bug lasts a long time:)

Here's the first FIT of the New Year. This is the maddest baby I have ever seen! The expression on her face is so adult for such a small little baby. If you use this cutie in your art please send me a link and I will post it on the blog. She is just precious!
For those of you new to the FIT it stands for Free Image Tuesday or Thursday or any day it's posted:) I try to get it on a T day! The past FITs are gathered into a group under my profile on the right in the sidebar. Click on it and you should be able to have all the FIT posts in one batch. Right click the photo and copy and use in your art. I scanned each on a high resolution so the images would be clear for your projects. PLEASE let me know if you use it. I LOVE that! All I ask is that the images are not copied and sold in Collage Sheets for profit or Image Cd's for profit. These photos are from my private collection and I want to share them with other artists. Thank you so much for respecting the FIT:) Love, Jamie

Soon...

I know it's been awhile. It's been too long. This past year has been the hardest of my adult life, but I can see through to where I want to be now. That flash card was on my idea board for months and every time I passed it I would think, "Yes. Soon." Soon I will Art. Soon I will reopen the Etsy store. Soon I will post. Soon I will visit friends and admired artists. Soon. But soon never came. But, Life gave me a wake up call and I am answering it with Now. Now I will do all those things. I will do them because they are important to me. They are a part of my life that makes me happy and fulfilled. So this new year is a time for Now. And a blog name change. And lots of much needed catching up. Oh! And FITS. Lots of FITS:)

I am so thankful to each and every one of you who have emailed and sent me such sweet notes. They are treasured.

Love, Jamie

FIT...and I'm Still Not Fit...

Still hanging low and recupperating. The flu really does suck just like Lori says. LOL!! Thank you for your well wishes and virtual chicken soup:) Here is the FIT for this week. I have no info. on these but I am guessing 40's or 50's era. I love the big cheesy grin on the boy:)

Here are pics of the journal kit I am sending to my sweet friend Pat. Nothing fancy, just general things I like to have handy with arting.
*colored pencils
*drawing pencils
*good, permanent black pen
*eraser
*Cutter Bee scissors for collage cutting
*glue stick
*paint brushes
*paint
*Journal paper
Everyone has their arting needs and Pat can add to and subtract anything she needs to the container once she gets going. Happy Arting friend! Love,

FIT for the Week, FLU and Journal Kit....

Look at this cutie!!!!!! I LOVE how her little feet are stuffed in those little shoes:) The flowers around her are perfect for the coming Spring also.

I have the FLU. The FLU is horrible and I feel 100 years old. Hopefully it will go away soon. To all the winners of my giveaway, your packages are on their way to you:) I hope you all love everything:)

I wanted to share a journal kit I made for a friend who is just starting out on her mixed media journey. It has everything you need to have on hand to make a quick journal page. I will take pictures before I pack it away and share them with you later:)

And the Winners Are!.....FIT for the Week...

So sorry this was delayed. Poor David came home sick yesterday and I am not feeling so good myself! Apparently, I am NOT Wonder Woman! Who knew? LOL!!! I used the random number generator to pick my winners this year:) So, here they are!

*The winner of the 1834 ledger paper is sweet Miss Artsyfran. Her blog is filled with wonderful art so check it out when you have a chance:)

*The winner of the 1867 Paris Fashion page from Peterson's magazine is sweet Miss Shelley. I love her site and I love that her favorite word is Oiseaux EVEN more! LOL!!

*And the winner of the French letter from 1766 is Sweet Miss Tootsiegrace who CAN count herself as the luckiest girl in the world! LOL!! I had to laugh when her post was generated. I guess all that finger crossing really worked Marisa!

Lisa, you really outdid yourself this year sweetie! Thank you for all of your hard work and for once again bringing us all together. My only regret is not having the time to reach more bloggers this year. I thank everyone who visited and hope you stop back in often and enjoy the free collage images here at the Terra-Cottage. Love, Jamie


Here are the FITs for this week.

* The first is a RPPC from 1907. It is a photo of Gussie and her identical twin sister. The tree is an incredible background for the photo and it looks to be beside a stream. Just lovely! The postcard was mailed here to Rockwall to Gussie's suitor a Mr. Francis Clark Jr. I got this in a plastic baggie at a garage sale this summer. I have other photos of the sisters I will share at another time.
This tintype is one of my favorites! (Which ones aren't? LOL!!) The babies are heartbreakingly beautiful. I love how the little one has his little hand on his brother's shoulder. It has spots and marks and bends, but that only enhances it more for me.

Happy Valentine's Day!

My sweet David when he was only 1:)

I am out the door off to the Design Center to pick out hardware and such for my In-laws, then Valentine's day parties and THEN I get to teach my little Cub Scouts after they have been jacked up on sugar all day! LOL!! So, feel free to enter the giveaway until this evening and I will annouce the winners then. I hope everyone has wonderful day! Love, Jamie ps-I will also post the FIT tonight:)

Flowers from my sweetheart:)

Wonderful Turn Out!...Thank You...Journal Page...

I am so very excited about the giveaway turn out! Thank you so much and please know that I am slowly working my way to you. I need to dedicate a full morning this week to finish getting to everyone. The people participating are awesome! Thank you so much. I know Lisa is beyond thrilled:)

The later part of the week and this weekend was spent with my Mother-in-law looking at houses. We flew her here Friday and she left this morning. They are moving here from Houston so we can help her take care of my Father-in-law. I can't believe it, but due to an awesome realtor, a lot of footwork and fate we actually found and bought a house in two days. The house will be finished in 30 to 45 days and it is sooo beautiful! She is super excited. I thought the process would take at least several trips up here, but it worked out perfectly. She has left me in charge of picking out the granite counter tops, carpet and hardware. I am a little nervous, but I think we are on the same page. I hope:) I better be!

Art Journal Page 02/18/08

FIT (Free Image Tuesday) and Quickie Journal...

Here's the FIT (Free Image Tuesday)for today. For those of you just visiting I have a free image posted every Tuesday. Eventually, I will get around to getting them all in one spot to make it easier to get to the past images. As it is now you can look through the past posts and grab them:) You are free to use these images in your mixed media pieces. I love to see what you make, so send me a link:)

I love her dress and the colorization they did on the table rug. I also love the pocket watch she has tucked in the waist of her skirt. You all know that tintypes are my favorite form of antique photographs. She is an exceptional example of civil war era photography.

Daily Art Journal page 2/5/08

Thank You All and Journal Page.....

I am so thrilled with the giveaway so far! I am slowly working my way around to everyone's wonderful offerings. I want to win them all! LOL!! Thank you for participating and making this year even bigger than last. Thank YOU Lisa for making it all happen.

Daily Art Journal 02/04/08

One World, One Heart Giveaway.....

*The winner of the 1834 ledger paper is sweet Miss Artsyfran. Her blog is filled with wonderful art so check it out when you have a chance:)

*The winner of the 1867 Paris Fashion page from Peterson's magazine is sweet Miss Shelley. I love her site and I love that her favorite word is Oiseaux EVEN more! LOL!!

*And the winner of the French letter from 1766 is Sweet Miss Tootsiegrace who CAN count herself as the luckiest girl in the world! LOL!! I had to laugh when her post was generated. I guess all that finger crossing really worked Marisa!


Lisa , you really outdid yourself this year sweetie! Thank you for all of your hard work and for once again bringing us all together. My only regret is not having the time to reach more bloggers this year. I thank everyone who visited and hope you stop back in often and enjoy the free college images here at the Terra-Cottage. Love, Jamie



It's that time again!!! Time for the One World, One Heart Giveaway!!! Thank you so much Lisa from Heart of the Nest for hosting this wonderful event again for us. Those of you who were involved in the first OWOH know how awesome it turned out. If you have a blog I highly recommend participating. Lisa has set up a One World, One Heart Giveaway blog to tell you all about it here.



These are my three offerings:

Giveaway 1- A lovely packet of 4 sheets of ledger paper from 1834. One has prints of antique egg images from my collection.

Giveaway 2- A beautiful engraving of two well dressed French ladies entitled "Les Mode Parisiennes" from Peterson`s Magazine 1865 February issue.

Giveaway 3- A French letter from 1766. When America was not even America yet:) How cool is that?!!!

On February 14th there will be three winners whose names will be drawn. One person will be choosen for each of these items. Just leave your name in the comment section of this post to enter. Now, go have fun entering all the other wonderful giveaways also!!!

FIT Early and a History lesson for Me:)...

I am posting the FIT early because I will be busy with appointments on Tuesday.
I found this photo almost a year ago and since Mardi Gras had already passed I filed it away until this year. I thought it would make an awesome Mardi Gras collage.

When I pulled it back out last week and scanned it I was able to get a clear close up of the words written at the bottom of the woman on the right hand side's dress. I had always assumed the origin of the photo was France, but it's not. The words say, "Grand Ball of the Philharmonic Society of Hanoi". Hanoi was the capital of French Indochina from 1887 to 1954. The French occupied Vietnam until after WWII. During the years of 1901 through 1911 the French built an opera house that was a smaller scale copy of the Palais Garner, one of Paris' famous opera houses. That is now called the Hanoi Opera House.

I wonder where the Ball was held? Was the photographer set up at the ball to take everyone's photos? I bet everyone was so excited to be getting the Opera house which would remind them of home. It's a very cool piece of French Colonialist history. The lady in the Mardi Gras dress is named Madame Laurent and I can not clearly read her "Queen of Spades" girlfriend. I will post the names in case one of you can:)

I Got Issues...

Apparently I need to Art. My wrapping just gets more and more complicated! LOL!! Thank you everyone for your continued concern about the boys. They are not well yet but hopefully a few more days will take care of that:) We are going on little sleep and lots of hot chocolate. Hugs to all and I will be posting FIT early tomorrow and it is really lovely:)

Step 1

Step 2

Lesson Learned....

"The silly when deceived exclaim loudly; the fool complains; the honest man walks away and is silent."

[Fr., Le bruit est pour le fat, la plainte pour le sot; L'honnete homme trompe s'eloigne et ne dit mot.] Author: Francois de la Noue ("Bras de Fer")Source: La Coquette Corrigee (I, 3)

Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks...

Ok. I thought it would be romantic to learn how to use a fountain pen. So I bought a set with instruction books and practice paper and pens. Yeah. Not so much romantic and more like NOT fun at all! Maybe I should give it some more time and I am being a perfectionist and too impatient. I just had notions about how my pen would flow over the page and create wonderful letters. It is really closer to fits and starts with a lot of blotting in between, oh, and the cramping from trying to hold your hand at a constant 45 degree angle. All I can say is thank goodness for computer fonts, 'cause I don't really see me mastering this craft! LOL!!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Thursday. We are staying inside out of the cold (high today in the 30's!) and continuing to recuperate. Thank you everyone for all your sweet get well notes:) The boys are holding steady which is good and I slept through the night last night which is beyond good:)

"...for a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin-real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served or a debt to be paid. THEN life would begin.

At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

~Daisaku Ikeda

We Are Not FIT, but Here is Your FIT!

BOTH of the boys are sick!!! They were sick last week, but I was just thinking it was a cold. They both became worse over the weekend. I took them in yesterday to the doctors and James has bronchitis and David has pneumonia! Poor buddies:( I have not slept since Saturday night. Poor Mommy:( So now they BOTH get breathing treatments, steroids and antibiotics. I have to admit that hearing David wheezing for the first time was really scary. I am used to James wheezing with the asthma, but not David. So here we are all tired and resting:) There was a little girl in the doctor's waiting room yesterday throwing up with the stomach flu, so I am waiting on that too! That chicken soup is as close as I am getting to homemade. We picked it up at the deli yesterday:)

Here is the FIT for the week. I found this about a month ago. I am still on the fence about the gender of this cutie. I can't tell, so I am researching the clothing. This is a Carte de Vista photo from the civil war. I am really in love with it. It seems very ethereal to me.

Happy Monday!

"And the day came

When the risk

To remain tight in a bud

Was more painful

Than the risk it took to

Blossom."

~Anais Nin

Have a Happy Monday Everyone!

Love, Jamie

How In the Heck Do You Take Your Own Picture?!!!!

I won't tell you how many bad words I have said tonight!!! These are the best I can do for now. I have taken about a bajillion pictures, cussed them all and had a full blown temper tantrum! LOL!! Any way, it's nice to meet you. This is me. Warts and all:) Except, I usually wear glasses. But every time the flash... Oh! Nevermind!! I finally gave up and took them off because it just wasn't working out.

I wanted to post again because I forgot some really lovely Victorian Calling cards that I should have posted this morning. I want my own calling card. Maybe I should make one. One of the ladies is named Ida Bean. Like, "I'da bean here on time but the carriage was late." BaBumBump!I bet she heard some dumb jokes about her name. Feel free to use these in your art, make tags with them or labels with them. I love them.

Ps-My son; he's no dummy. He just saw the blog and said, "Mom, why did you take a picture of yourself?" and I said so people who visit the blog can know what I look like. And THEN he said, "Well, what if they think you just put a beautiful woman in front the camera?" God, I love that kid:)

Here is the lovely Fit for this week. I love how the baby is so alert and staring straight at the camera. This also has a nice example of a "hidden mother". She is under that blanket to the left of the baby and her arm is outstretched holding on to the back of the baby. In earlier photos that I have (mainly tintypes) the baby will be sitting on the mother's lap and the mom is completely covered from head to toe in a blanket. It can look a little creepy. It is definitely a person shaped lump under there:) There are groups of antique photo collectors who only collect Hidden Mother examples.

Here is what I have been working on this past week and this week house wise. I redid the kitchen and made myself a little home office area to keep up with ETSY and what-not. Then, of course, I had to go back and redo everything else in the kitchen:) I even made a matching calendar and magnets for the fridge and recovered my cookbooks. So silly! But, fun!

I also finally found THE painting for the livingroom. We have been staring at a blank wall for a year. The interior decorator brought in a huge oil painting of the Tuscan seaside villages. Yeah, uummm, not us sweetie. Anyhoo, I had been keeping my eye open and this painting just blew me away. Amazing how an object can make us happy, but that's what I feel every time I look at this lovely piece. It is entitled " Parchment" and it is actually painted on parchment. Which was one of the first forms of paper and you know how I love me some paper:) The artist, Matthew Menger, is really into old and aged objects and loves to work with metallic paints. The canvas is so touchable. Rough where the parchment is and smooth where his paint begins. I can't keep my hands off of it! LOL!!

'Twas two weeks after Christmas, and all through the house,
not a wee one was stirring, not even my spouse.
The stockings were packed, the chimney was bare,
The tree was recycled, it's stand stored for next year.

The children were packed and sent off to school,
I'd practically shoved them, totally NOT cool.
And I in my sweatpants and elastic headband,
Had just hunkered down for a trip thru Blogland.

I had just hit sign in, when I heard a terrible noise,
I jumped from the chair thinking it was the boys!
But, Wait. It's just me, alone, free and clear,
But then, I knew, was over come by fear.

The dust, as it settled in my art closet reveled great distress,
The shelves had collapsed and Oh, what a mess!
I said some choice words, which I won't repeat to you,
got down on my knees and began to sort through.

The treasures lay helpless, a mess on the floor,
So jumbled and crumbled and pretty no more.
And just when I thought "Why bother! I can't win, I just lose!"
I spied in the pile my lovely, sweet Muse.

She, forgotten so long ago, lie on the floor; waiting.
Her silence spoke volumes, admonishing me for not creating.
"Where have you been?" she asked, hurt and alone,
"I have been here, waiting for answers and there have been none".

She was right to be angry, stored up on a shelf,
And I cried when I saw her, in spite of myself;
I'd missed her so and tried explaining all the reasons;
The husband, the boys, the holiday season.

But really, the excuses, rang false in my ear,
And the real reason was that I was blocked by fear.
Fear of failure and not measuring up sounded more true,
And I realized then that I had to push through.

My fears were my own and needed attention,
And working them out seemed like the best prescription.
So I dusted her off, placed her back in my heart,
And there she'll reside, gently guiding my art.
~Jamie Miller





Thank you for your sweet emails of concern. Everything is fine. I am just arting/organizing like mad and it is consuming my free time. Balance is an art in itself. I am learning in fits and starts.