Beautiful Things Come in Small Packages

The contents of my magical mailbox made me cry this morning. It held a box marked with a return address belonging to Karenann Young.

Karenann is one of the sweetest people I have ever known. Though we have never met in person, she has been immensely kind to me and is a huge inspiration to me artistically. I consider her to be my art faerie godmother. This morning when I opened this unexpected package from her, I found Alyce's Diary inside. I don't know that I can tell you just how beautiful and intricate the work inside it is. Layer upon layer of papers and paints and images. It's a feast for the eyes and I just kept flipping the pages in sheer wonderment.

Months ago, at the beginning of the year, Karenann and I had both bought a copy of Alphabetica. Both of us were so taken with what we saw there, we decided to do a collaborative book project together, just the two of us using alphabets and numbers. Unfortunately, before we could get started, our plans were derailed by some personal life happenings and we never got started. (Or so I thought!) Little did I know that Karenann had already started working on pages for me. Alyce's Diary are those pages she had created and she wanted me to have them.

Karenann, you have no idea how sweet and precious this gift is. It comes at a time when I really needed a lift-October has become such a hard month for me, even though it is my favourite time of year. I truely appreciate our friendship and I thank you from the bottom of my grateful heart for this gift. It goes far beyond paper and paint. I will treasure it always.

My second package was a box of water soluble oil pastels I had ordered. They arrived in perfect time-I plan to do some hardcore painting tomorrow! Now I have 24 colours to play with instead of just 12. Sometimes more is MORE!! I have had a hard time finding a source for these in Canada (I got my pack of 12 in the US) but funnily enough managed source them out at Quietfire Designs, which is based just over on the island! Lucky me! I can't wait to play with them!