Melange Team Challenge: Chapeau (and a progress report)

(available as a card on Etsy)

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This month's Mix It Up with Melange challenge theme is "Chapeau."  Anyone can participate, just post a hot link in the comments section of this post. (Instructions for creating a "hot link" are included in the post - or at least a link to instructions is.) 

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This was always one of my favorite ACEOs, "Myrtle's Hat" (recognize that bird?  I use Myrtle's image all the time - like in my current blog banner!), I loved how the first words of the background are "this hat" and always felt like the couch with the parrots was grounded just right.  Something I'm always struggling with in painting.  I also made this the very first year that I became involved in mixed media and just a month after I joined my first mixed media group.  I'm a little nostalgic, too, because that was when I could fit all my supplies into ONE drawer.  One!  Can you believe it???  I had to be pretty creative about what I did back then because I had so little to work with.  Now I'm surrounded by supplies and it takes me forever to get something done because I'm always looking for that "perfect" thing to include.

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Speaking of which...here is a shot of a couple WIPs I have going.  The poppy is turning out.... okaaaaaaaaaay.  I'm not currently in love with it.  We'll see.  The other is something I started because I had red paint left in the paint tray when I was painting a bookcase (okay, I'm still painting it - the coverage still doesn't look even) for Rexy.  I took a page out of Pam's (no pun intended for those in the know) book and used my leftover paint from one project to  paint some backgrounds in my journal and also on a couple of canvasses.  (I'll post the journal pages another time, I forgot to take pictures of them)  I'm still debating with myself about the martini glass that you can sort of see...I think I probably won't include it.  I'd like it to have a more universal appeal when I post it in my shop.

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(sorry, it's a little blurry because I wasn't using the flash or a tripod)

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(Am I the only one that has trouble with spaces between paragraphs on Blogger?  I just had to write "there should be space here" in white between my paragraphs so that I could get a space between them.  Then, next post, I'll hit the space bar once and when I post it will turn into 2 full inches of space for no reason at all.  I suppose I could insert some sort of html into my post to make up for it, but I stubbornly believe I shouldn't have to!  Sigh...I just published the post again after doing that and now I've gone from no space between to double the space!)