Give~Away Winner!

Good day, Friends,

It’s such a glorious day on Leisure Lane, and a perfect day to announce the winner of our give~away.  I would like to thank all the lovely women who participated in this give~away.  I hope you had fun with it.  I’ll be giving away more nice things before the year is up, so you’ll have another chance to win.

Congratulations, S ♥ U ♥ S ♥ A ♥ N!

This is your lucky day, Susan…and may many more blessings come your way today.  I’ll be contacting you to get your mailing address, and you’ll be enjoying your potholders in no time.

Now for just a side note…I couldn’t resist taking the photo of this little visitor.  I think little tree frogs are grand (even though they’re so small), and this one is no exception.

     “This looks like a peaceful place to nap.”

And it wasn’t long before his little hands were tucked in, and his sleepy eyes were shut.

When I used to have my rose bushes in our other house, I’d catch a light green one sleeping peacefully nestled on a rose petal.  What a precious fairy-like sight that was.

This handsome green fellow, on the trunk, was a bit more skittish, so I didn’t stay long in his presence…just enough to admire his beauty, and thank him for letting me take a picture of him.  He’s been coming everyday to the large pot.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get a photo of my little toad friend, who’s, on occasion, found it quite cool and comforting to dig a ‘nest’ in the dirt of my potted miniature rosebush and sleep all day.

Until next time, may happy days abound.

Marianne

Beautiful Rain

It might shower today,
And make the trees say hooray,
And the birds sing Hal-le-lu-ia!

Hello Friends,

That is the first verse of a song I made up for our drought….I sang it every morning in my car to praise the storm clouds and encourage them to bless us with their bounty.  It worked, and they finally succumbed, blessing us with a beautiful rain last week, here on Leisure Lane.

The birds were singing contently with praise in their hearts, the little squirrels were happily romping in chase play, and so many other little creatures came out to proclaim their joy…

“Silas” the snail made an appearance.  Isn’t his shell beautiful, echoing the gorgeous swirl found throughout the Universe?

Headed one way….

he decides to change direction.  I imagine he’s thinking, “Oh, my, where to go first?

Taking the time to say ‘hello’ to the camera,

he steadily makes his way through rough and smooth. He truly was fascinating and beautiful.

This little ‘gal’ was in too much of a hurry to slow down for ‘hellos’ or ‘goodbyes’.  She was as jittery as can be in her after rain excitement.

Thank you for visiting.  Don’t forget to sign up for the give-away on June 30th.  If you haven’t signed up yet, click here for some schmoem fun.

Until next time, may happy days abound.

Marianne

Above verse from the song, “I See Beautiful Storm Clouds”, by Marianne Coyne
copyright2011Marianne Coyne

Butterfly x 2 = Fun

Hello Friends,

Now that you’re familiar with how Poetry Schometry came about, I’d like to share with you two fun shmoems which came out of this.  What my friend and I noticed during this time was that many poetry orgs. prefer the poems NOT to rhyme ~ geez, that just takes all the fun and challenge out of it.  Anyway, I’m glad it all happened because I wrote many good poems from it all.

Also, to add a little more fun to the mix be sure to read the bottom for details on a give~away.

Butterflies are grand, don’t you think?  I saw one flying and had to express it more than once.  ENJOY!!

                       Butterfly                       

 Flighty, airy, breezy; colorful and shapely.
How sweet to be as free; flitting, flirting.
Come alit on my finger, I invite.  But you
won’t; too busy for such nonsense.
Soft, fragile, bedazzled; I love flowers, too.
O, to be able to fly like that precious butterfly.
(Oops, I rhymed – deal with it)

copyright©2009 Marianne Coyne

Butterfly Jive

 Sweet flyin’, flower sighin’;
flittin’ through a meadow; this ain’t no ghetto.
You live upscale. 

 Fast pumpin’, wings jumpin’;
high and low; you ain’t no slow-joe.
You the bug.

 Light as a feather; sunny weather;
colorful rags; very arty; lookin’ for that nectar party.
You’re a cool-cat.

 Wanderin’ fellow; truly mellow;
Wish I could fly like that butterfly.
You got class.

copyright©2009 Marianne Coyne

I hope you found these fun…now for a little more fun let’s have a GIVE-AWAY!  All you have to do to enter is comment on your favorite Butterfly schmoem.  Make sure your email address is available so I can get in touch with you when you win.

I’m so excited to give-away this pretty, 100% cotton hand knitted potholder set.  The small ones are a lot of fun because they can be used for coasters, for holding hot bowls in the palm of your hand (you know, while your eating your soup or oatmeal in front of the television), and they are especially perfect for hot pot handles because they fit in your hand without hanging too far over the edges to catch a flame.

The bigger one has a pretty heart in the center with a pearl-colored button.  I love to make these, and the pattern is perfect for a novice knitter such as myself.

I’ll be announcing the winner on June 30th – Good Luck!  Until next time, may happy days abound.

Marianne

The above butterfly image is from an original watercolor by Marianne Coyne.

In Celebration of Father’s Day

Hello Friends,

I’d like to wish all the dads out there a Happy Father’s Day!

I’ve been getting home late from work the past few weeks, so that leaves little time for eating and resting, let alone crafting anything.  But at work I had a good idea for a father’s day card that I just had to do.  So last night I gathered together some objects,  and created this ‘suitcase’ card.

Isn’t it wonderful about creating that during the process an idea will begin to change or evolve with each step?  I’m always amazed by that.

Remember how vintage suitcases were stamped with all the different places traveled?  I love the muted green color of the scrapbook paper I glued to the card stock.  It already had a variegated aged look which was perfect.  The handle I made with a pipe cleaner with cloth binding glued around it.

I happened to have an aged looking coin which has an elephant imprinted on it and the word Somalia on the front.  On the back is printed ’1950 Roma 1 centecimo’.  It is a coin minted in Rome when Somalia was an Italian Protectorate. The coin I have happens to be ‘marred’ with two holes in it…but perfect to hang from the handle.  I wanted to make a tag also.  Maybe I’ll have time before heading out to work today.

My son’s dad is a very talented musician, so inside the card I wrote: “Happy Father’s Day to the world’s most talented Dad!” I had lots of different sayings that were really good, but this one seemed to work best for the moment.  Then I stamped gold and black musical notes around the inside.

I had so much fun doing this.  It brought back lots of crafting memories…I only wish that I didn’t have to do it ’til one in the morning, and that I had better lighting and my extra glasses because I couldn’t see what the heck I was doing!!!

Anyway, this is the result, and I think he’ll like it.  Thank you for visiting Leisure Lane…stay tuned, I’ll be featuring two more schmoems with a give-away very soon.

Until next time, may happy days abound!

Marianne

Poetry Schmoetry

Poetry Schmoetry was born out of an “Um-I don’t get it” moment during which my friend, Brenda and I were submitting poems to a local on-line poetry emagazine.  We noticed that all the winners seemed to be the cryptic, nonsensical, mishmash “poems’ which were very hard to read…choppy in wording, not really going anywhere, and, well, left one thinking “Huh?”

So, I suppose looking back on it, to quiet our egos, I suggested that we could write stuff just as cryptic and mishmashy…I called it poetry schmoetry.  But actually, to our surprise, some really good stuff came out of it, and to make matters even funnier, Brenda sent in one of hers just to see what would happen, and it was picked as a monthly winner.  LOL…we had a laugh over that.  I’m giving you the Reader’s Digest version, but you get the picture.

Here’s the poem which started it all…I hope it brings you a little humor.

Poetry Schmoetry

 What’s in a name?  That which they call poetry?
By any other name is more like jive, free-form laziness;
hesitant and choppy with no attention to punctuation,
rhythm, or the English language in general.
How does one know where one thought ends and the
other begins?  Where’s the point of it?  The reader’s
not drawn in, but dragged around from the top of the
page to the bottom, and left with a “Huh?”
Hmm…maybe emails are to blame, and
Twitters, or whatever they’re calling these pseudo
communications of the day.  So talk to the hand,
‘cause the ears just don’t ‘get it.

copyright©2009 Marianne Coyne

Thank you for stopping by Leisure Lane.  Until next time, may happy days abound!

Marianne

The above image is a detail from the Kare and Mare comic strip series by Marianne Coyne.

Note:  No insult intended to emailing, twittering, or any other new fangled form of communcation until otherwise stated.

Dark Night of the Soul: A Progression

Until next time, may happy days abound!

Marianne

Above modified image from an oil painting by Marianne Coyne.
Dark Night of the Soul poem by Marianne Coyne©2009

And The Award Goes To…

Hello friends,

If you follow Lynn at Cottage & Creek, you will have an understanding of what a remarkable woman she is.  If not, stop by and take a look.  You might even learn something new, like how to put a new roof on a shed.  Yes, I said it.  In fact, Lynn has been making quite a few “first time ever” home improvements.

She has knocked my socks off with her enthusiasm and grit.  So to honor her I’ve-never-done-this-before-but-I’m-doing-it-anyway attitude and success, I would like to award her the A Woman For All Seasons Award.

Congratulations, Lynn, you deserve it.  You are an inspiration to DIYers and women everywhere who are learning to embrace the different seasons of life.

Until next time, may happy days abound.

Marianne

Special acknowledgements to Lynn’s remarkable family for their help, encouragement, and support.

The Joy of June

Remember when June weddings were all the rave?  Well, it’s no different in Knittington, where the air is filled with excitement for the wedding of Lovliana.  She certainly is lovely, isn’t she?  Lovliana is ready to say “I do” to her beau.  What a happy day in Knittington!

WELCOME JUNE
from The Knittington Fairies

Until next time, may happy days abound.

Marianne

You can visit Lovliana at The Knittington Fairies’ Shop & Gallery