one hundred thousand smiles, gorillas & dried florals

Yippee!!

(That's American slang for hooray, I'm super happy, great news...)

We just HAVE to celebrate!!!

I am well over

100,000 page views!!!

wow!!!

Cool!!!

Doing a little jiggy-dance now!!

You guys all happy dancing with me?

Seeing other people smiling just makes you want to smile doesn't it?

I remember, far back in the dusty region of my brain, a movie about smiles.

It was considered a 'virus' and was highly contagious.

Anybody know the name of this one?

Let me know!



I tried to get some photos of people celebrating and smiling from all over the world, just like my inkspired musings friends!

Ah, you are great people.

You have to be, because you like my blog!!!

:0)

from www.creatinggrace.blogspot.com

Of course, with all this hip-hip-hoooray-ing, I have to let you know:

I am drinking lukewarm coffee from a "Grumpy" (SnowWhite & the Seven Dwarfs) mug.

I just finished my breakfast/lunch:

1 doughnut, softened in the microwave for 12 seconds

and

1 slice of cream havarti cheese;

Accompanied by....room temp water!

Whaaa?????

My temporary crowns that I got on Wednesday,

one of them cracked, broke and came off.

Not nice. Not too painful really, as long as I didn't eat or drink anything!

I went back this am to get another set of temp crowns.

More molds, more poking (but done in a nice way!)

Hey!

This could be a NEW DIET!!!

The Leave a Tooth Nerve Semi-exposed Diet

I just KNOW this is going to be a big money-maker

with many satisfied customers!

'Cause let me tell you, you are NOT going to over eat on this one!

tee hee

Okay, enough silliness!

Let's get on to a serious subject.

Today I want to share with you a Walk/Run that I have never heard of!

The Run brings in $$$ to help support the (at least 3) different programs

that are trying to save and maintain Mountain Gorillas in

Rwanda, the Congo, Uganda and others.

The Run is appropriately named

The Denver Gorilla Run

There are several good companies that help make this run a success.

http://denvergorillarun.com/index.html

You can learn more at the above link.

Here are some highlights from past years' runs:

Gorilla Runners waiting for the bus.

There is ample crowd control.

Some runners bring their own gorillas.

There are even some runners that bring their humans.

These Gorillas are sure Gathering for a Great Greet!

Mountain Gorilla in Rwanda

infant gorilla

Mountain Gorilla in Uganda

This is a very sobering fact for me -

there are only 790 wild mountain gorillas in existence.

I do think of my son. I think of the children born and unborn.

I really hate it that they may grow up in a world

with no mountain gorillas

or

Tigers

or

Rhinos

or

Black Bears

that live in the natural world that they were born to be in.

We simply must NOT let these animals down.

We must NOT let our children down.

We must NOT let ourselves down.

Do a little research

(what? you think I have time to do it all for you???)

Find an organization or Fund that is honest,

with most of the $$ going to the field work

and native workers; and education.

My first place to look would be to google

'Diane Fosser'

any organization that she runs or is involved in should be a good one.

I respect her tremendously.

Now that's something to celebrate!!

a celebration in Ghana

a celebration in Paris, France



Budget Crafts:

Let's finish up today with just a couple of fun things to do with dried florals.

These are flower illustrations that have been cut out and decoupaged onto a plain wood frame (I have seen these at Michael's, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's Fabrics.)

I also have found wrapping paper with some wonderful images to cut out. Of course, your dried florals will be perfect for this too!

Not sure how to do it?

Just check out my tutorial on "Decoupage".

I am using glass plates in that, but the same steps can be used for wood!

Give it a base coat if you wish of a neutral color, or a bright one!

Start with laying out some larg-ish scraps of scrip -

foreign language, dictionary terms, letters, etc.

#2

What an incredibly beautiful ornament, yet so easy!

Go get out those clear ornaments you bought a few years ago to swirl paint in, and use some for dried florals. This pine tree snippet is perfect, but what about some other plant pod? A dried sunflower head? marigolds? Let you imagination expand. Could you decoupage some dried flowers on the inside of the surface?

#3

These are dried fauna that have been glued into a seashell, and then shellacked.

I would switch it up a little and use my trusty Aleene's Tacky Glue to make a miniature scene inside one of them.

Use the dried fauna, but also tuck in a little mermaid charm, a 'pearl' or two, maybe even a gold doubloon!!

If I need to seal it all, I would try Mod Podge Clear first.

Or perhaps try spraying it with Krylon Crystal Clear Sealant.

After you have done a few of these, take a nice picture,

and send it to me!

Remember, it's WAY EASY to leave a comment now!

No sign-ups. No hassles.

:0)

Time to sign off....

Thaaaaat's All Folks!

inkspired

www.inkspired.etsy.com

www.inkspiredmusings.blogspot.com

If you haven't seen Shelly's new lattice cards,

and butterfly cards, you are missing out!

Check out her blog, listed on the right!

The Language of Flowers - Water Lily

mambo

(Congo)

Today is Water Lily Day!

No, not official....but everything else seems to have a holiday....

so why not have Water Lily Day today?

http://www.wisdompaintings.com/

There are two flowers for the month of July.

The first is delphinium, or larkspur.

Check my older blogs in July for that feature.

The second flower is the water lily.



The water lily's 'discovery' by a white man

in the lagoons of South American jungles

made this beautiful flower known to the European world.

a pink water lily

Remains of tropical water lilies have been found in

European pre-Ice Age (according to Darwin fans) stratas.

Just a side note here:

Did you know that all the carbon testing, dating of ancient bones and objects, etc. is all based on Darwin's theories?

Very little of it can be proven as fact.

Mainstream scientists have started with a presumption,

and then made the data fit.

As anyone who has taken basic science classes,

we know that true scientific research starts

with no pre-conceived idea of an outcome.

A scientist needs to be non-biased to achieve true results.

oops.

That's not what happened with all this 'dating' of our history.

I LOVE God's sense of humor.

How He must chuckle when He reveals an archeologist's site,

and there is proof that Darwin got it all wrong!!

We can be so silly.

And so stubborn.

The South American natives had many names for this

water lily.

One of them is "Yrupe", which literally means

water platter.

A giant water lily, victorian amazonica, at Kew.

When the bushmen collected and opened the fruit of the water lily, it broke open with a cluster of hard, shiny seeds,

and a soft mealy flesh surrounding them within.

They called the seeds (which are considered a great delicacy)

water corn, or water maize.

a blue water lily

In the language of flowers,

Water Lily

means Eloquence

and

Purity of heart.

c.1902

Other plants in the Water Lily Family

Nymphaeaceae

(and no, don't ask be how to pronounce it!)

include Buttercups and Magnolias

and the Lotus Blossom.

"What loved little islands,

          twice seen in their lakes,

Can the wild water-lily restore."

- Thomas Campbell

"When you have only two pennies left in the world,

Buy a loaf of bread with one,

and a lily with the other."

- Chinese proverb

painting by a Chinese artist

Water lily flowers can be up to 15 inches wide,

opened at dusk,remain open all the night

and close after sunrise.

Grumpy: "A fine bunch of water lilies you turned out to be.

I'd like to see anybody make me wash,

if I didn't wanna."

- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, c.1937

"The slender water-lily

    Peeps dreamingly out of the lake;

         The moon, oppress'd with love's sorrow,

              Looks tenderly down for her sake."

by Heinrich Heine, Book of Songs-New Spring

The fragrance of a water lily

is somewhat like that of crushed pineapple.

'waterlilies' by Claude Monet, 1916

I just can't have a blog about water lilies

without mentioning Monet's series of

water lily paintings.

There are many.

Claude Monet, 83 years old, after his cataract surgery

c.1918

As someone who has had cataracts myself,

I find this very interesting in viewing Monet's work.

It is noted that his eyesight had been deteriorating for a long time.

Yes, he was considered the Founder of Impressionist Painting.

Yet,

his paintings look very much

like what 'I saw' when my cataracts were so bad.

'water lilies' by Claude Monet, 1906

'Nympheas' by Claude Monet, c.1914 - 1917

Just having fun speculation- draw your own conclusions.

This is definitely NOT an art history class!!

purple water lilies

"Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

And slips into the bosom of the lake;

So fold thyself, my dearest thou, and slip

Into my bosom, and be lost in me."

Lord Alfred Tennyson, 'The Princess'

"The knowledge of the world

can only to be acquired

in the world,

and not in a closet."

- Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield

lived 1694 - 1773

I bet he hated his parents when he went to school,

and had to fill out all those papers with his name!

Well, I think that covers water lilies pretty well!

I hope you enjoyed this little piece from the complex picture of

The Language of Flowers,

and

Flowers of the Month.

flower mandala

water lilies

'The Water Lily Pond 4' by Claude Monet

inkspired

http://www.inkspired.etsy.com/

http://www.inkspiredmusings.blogspot.com/

dominoes@myinkspired.com