We exchanged breast cancer war stories.   I had heard that she was a breast cancer survivor.  Her cancer was very aggressive and she had to undergo a double mastectomy. She told me that Herceptin saved her life.  It had just come on the market and without it she would not have survived.  She had just passed the 4 year anniversary. She looked so healthy and so happy.  She treasures each day. So do I.

My breast cancer was 15 years ago.  Both of us underwent the stereotactic core biopsy which we both recalled with trepidation.  Not a pleasant experience.

My cancer was detected in a mammogram.  It was the pattern of calcium spots that is suspicious.  So the first test was the core biopsy.  It could not be pin-pointed that way and I had suffered hours of having to remain completely still while I was being probed with a needle. The end result was that I needed to have a surgical biopsy.  Another long period of waiting, to find out that it was recommended that I have a total mastectomy on the right side.  I did not seek a second opinion for I could not be sure which was right and I opted to do the most radical thing.

I underwent the mastectomy and reconstruction in November of 1996.  The reconstruction did not go well, the skin necrosed and it had to be redone.  So in 1 week I experienced 3 surgeries.  My hospital stay was extended.  I was grateful for the visits from friends and the cards I received.

The results from the pathology of the breast tissue and the sentinel node showed NO cancer anywhere.  So I was fortunate that I did not have to have chemo or radiation or tamoxifen therapy.  It was like-”hey-you lost your breast-sorry-not sure why but that’s how it is”.

To this day, I wonder if my surgical biopsy was correct but it doesn’t much matter as I have no right breast and in its place I have a scarred reconstruction.   However the outcome could have been far more devastating and what other choice could I have made??

It is too cold to plant these lovelies-or it may be too cold.  It has been too wet for the

past several days also.  The Mid-Atlantic area has had such a temperate winter

and a beautiful spring,  so when the planting itch time comes one must

temper the desire to beautify the ground.  Many a flower has lost its life by a late frost.

Mother’s Day is considered the signal time to rev your engines and plant.  Mowing of

course, has resumed.

I did break down and put my tomato plants in the ground though and have radishes,

lettuce and peas from seed happily clapping with the wind.  So far, the past few days have

been marginal but no frost.

Therefore, soon the lobelia, stock, Jacob’s Ladder, Snow Princess, forget-me-nots, p0ppies

and a black hellebore will be planted and my pressing will be active.

Right now, I have bleeding hearts, dogwood, candytuft and buttercups in my presses.

So I am pressing-on.  Why don’t you try it too?

After about 25 minutes they are ready (you can fork them on the bottom to see that they are tender).  Preparing a dip for them is easy-I just use melted butter with a touch of hot sauce.

Hollandaise used to be the preferred dip but that was when I was young and thinner.  Just pull them through your teeth to get the meat  and you will be in heaven!

My second favorite vegetable is Asparagus.  We are entering asparagus season here in southcentral PA.  My sons used to think that their heads were going to turn green and pointy during asparagus season-probably did!

Check out this image to see mushrooms that were pressed and used on a botanic collage done on canvas.  I have used that to make giclee prints on cards.  These mushrooms took a very long time to press as they were quite large and had a lot of moisture in them.  They also were very pungent !

You can see these botanicollage cards at www.etsy.com/shop/judyorcutt
They are 5×7 flat cards that fit into 5×7 frame. Collect all 8 designs for a display of
beautiful wall art.  The black around the image is to set off the image from the background-there is no black border on the art.

So all vegetables are not for eating-some are for art work !!!

Happy pressing.

Judy

www.quilligraphy.com

perennials, adequate soil preparation is the key to long term health and vigor.

Though hellebores will grow in a great variety of soil conditions, a well-drained

base containing plenty of organic matter suits them. Preparing deep beds will

provide the extensive root systems plenty of growing room and potentially many

decades of healthy growth. Ideally, the soil should receive regular moisture

without being waterlogged. However, the plants are surprisingly drought-tolerant

once established and can survive in less than optimum conditions.

Almost invariably hellebores are sold as shade plants. One of the benefits is that

they will tolerate shady conditions, but by no means are they shade-loving plants.

Many of my plants receive full afternoon sun throughout the year, and all of them

receive virtually no shade from November-March. Plants in deep shade will live

but generally exhibit sparser growth and produce fewer blooms.

Content from hellebores.org

  Visit www.quilligraphy.com to see designs that celebrate life and beauty.

Here is a link to a hellebore design on my website

http://www.quilligraphy.com/onlinestore/products/posy/P911.htm

It is called Spring Bouquet.  I hope you enjoy it.

Judy

What could be more “VALENTINE” than the Copperplate calligraphy script?

I am working diligently to learn how to do this very elegant form of writing.  It would certainly take us back to  Victorian times which Valentine’s Day celebrates.

I do believe this will take lots of practice.  I use a special “oblique” style pen which has the nib at an angle off the pen holder.

This is not a normal way to do things so it is giving me a great opportunity to learn a new skill.

MEANWHILE

A New Year’s special offer is that I have

FREE SHIPPING

on cards and matted prints.

The order has to be less than $25. explained below.

I know that sounds complicated (it is!)

If you are placing an order for Notecards and/or Framed Mats

that exceeds $25, to take advantage of FREE shipping

you must break up your order into separate orders – each at $25 or less.

There is no limit to number of orders that you can place with this special offer.

Here are some great Valentine picks

Here are just a few of the cards that I have that make wonderful cards from the heart.

Since there is NO SHIPPING it is just like going to the store.

Just click on the images and you will go to site to see them.

The sit is www.quilligraphy.com where you will find lots of other cards and framed prints to meet your every need–over 160 designs.

REMEMBER that YOU are someone’s Valentine.  We all need to share our love and make the world a better place.

Judy

The first Christmas card

As I developed a nice line of note cards, I realized that I had better come up with some CHRISTMAS CARDS.  So I began to do that.  The first Christmas card was not so hard.  I wanted to create a kinda Charlie Brown tree with some flowers as ornaments and lettering for the season-hence the Merry Christmas created as a ribbon with a bird carrying it to the tree!  Good. that seemed to work OK.   My first design was finished.  That was 1999.

The 2nd design required some new thought.  As I was into pressing mushrooms and vegetables at the time, I thought, well they might create a tree.  Remember when you are creating Christmas designs for the card markets they need to be done by early summer at the lastest.  Drat, not so easy.  My mind is not there.  But chili peppers and green hot peppers had that red and green look, didn’t they?

 The next year certainly wasn’t so hard either.  This was a sprig of multifloral roses.  And when I held it upside down it looked like a tree!  Good-add some flowers and it became the Christmas card for 2001.

Well, let’s skip a year or so.  It became increasingly hard to come up with something new each year with a Christmas theme. 

One of my favorites is the one for 2003.  This has a music back ground and is capturing the wonderful Christmas song “O, Tannenbaum” . 

This design has a music background and asparagus fern is the tree and buttercups, red salvia petals, and verbena are the ornaments.  The star is a coreopsis.  This remains a popular choice.  All it needs are the lit candles!

I did try to stay with trees as much as possible but did find I had to stray.  The wreath design in 2005 came about from cardinal vine leaves.  They have a semicircular base and I thought-WOW-put them all together and they make a circle. That was excellent for a wreath with buttercups, cleome, red salvia as the design and a marvelous quote from Dale Evans: “Every time we love, every time we give: it is Christmas”.

So by now each year is getting harder.  I begin to dread coming up with something new and exciting for Christmas when it is hot and humid.

The one year, I started to plan in early January-Ah, HA!  I pressed the small petals of a red pointsettia and saved them-until July, of course;  and then I reassembled them to look like a complete flower.  A poinsettia flower is far too large for pressing for my purposes.  It turned out pretty nice and again I used a music background for the final card.                                                                                 

This is has now stretched into 13 designs and
I am  hard-pressed (!) to tell you my favorite.

I really like the one with the tree that has tomato crowns as the stars (2010), and this year the theme is “The Holly and the Ivy”.  There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth to get this design.

But I do think my all time favorite is this one which uses the calligraphy principles of illumination where the artwork becomes part of the letters-usually only used with capital letters.  It is from 2009.

The leaves are from the passion vine and coreopsis is the yellow flower, then tendrils are also from the passion vine and the red is a fuschia.  The letters have music in them.

I hope you have enjoyed this enlightenment of the creation of Christmas card designs by QuilliGraphy.

You can view all the Christmas cards at

http://www.quilligraphy.com/onlinestore/products/christmas-cards.php

I will try to answer some of them here.

First of all, I press all my botanical material.  I collect all of it too.  I don’t grow all of it-I have dedicated friends and acquaintances who allow me to groom their gardens for “just the right specimen”.   Often I will trade notecards for flowers.

Choosing the right quote is easy as I have so many to choose from.  They are everywhere and they truly find me.  I have so many to do that it scares me!  Sometimes it is difficult to prioritize. 

OK so now I have chosen the quote or saying or poem or better yet, I wrote something that is suitable.  What calligraphy script ?  Well, it has to work with the words.  If the quote is succint-I may choose a bookhand script which does not have so many flourishes and is fairly straighforward.  If the quote is romantic, I probably will do an italic or version of italic.  If the quote is strong, I may use gothic or blackletter or Roman. 

Now, I have figured that out and must choose the ink color.  Again, what the quote says or portends to say influences the colors I use.  If it is a baby piece, I will generally use a blue or a pink (sorry-very traditional here!) or at least work those colors into the piece.  If it is a garden piece, I will generally use green.  One of my favorites to use is burgundy as it goes with so many things.

So, the lettering is finished.  I work on Bristol Board which is a stiff heavy paper.  I use dip pens for my ink and like the feel of the pen pulling on the Bristol Board-it has what they call “tooth” which is the rough feel of the paper. 

Now, I just let it be for awhile.  When I come back to it, I start to place the flowers I want around the design.  Sometimes it just works and sometimes it takes a lot of picking, choosing and rearranging.  Color is essential.

When I am satisfied with the design I render it as a digital image.  That way I can reproduce it in any size, the colors of the flowers will not fade and it will look fresh and vibrant always.

Let’s look at one of the latest designs.  It is a quote by Maya Angelou who is one of my favorites.  You know, she is the Poet Laureate of our country!  I will post some pictures of the different stages of the design.

Now let’s see if I followed my “rules”-

I chose the Bookhand script because I felt this was a straighforward quote with real impact.  I chose the blue ink because I wanted to   I also accentuaded the key words in my interpretation of this quote.

When you look at the completed design at the top, you see that I chose blue flowers, lobelia to accentuate the blue script and also as an accent piece, the orange zinnia.  I like to have a color that is fairly opposite on the color wheel to accent.  The other flowers used are astilbe, spirea, and a daisy.  Daisies are always friendly.

It is important to me to identify my botanical material and sometimes I miss-so if you don’t think I am right about something-please inform )

So now you have the finished design and you can see it on my website

http://www.quilligraphy.com/onlinestore/products/quotables/Q619.htm

I hope you visit QuilliGraphy often.  You can see many designs that are the work of my heart.

Also you can visit http://www.cafepress.com/mattersofheart for baby items and
http://www.cafepress.com/heartmatters for apparel and gifts.

and if you want something else to do !  check out my Etsy shop where I have new things I am trying like botanic collages, jewelry and instruction CD’s.

www.etsy.com/shop/judyorcutt

Many Blessings to You!   Please keep in touch.

Judy

These are some photographs from the trip (I have many, many more!). It is hard to select just a few. If you run your pointer over the photograph you will get the location where it was taken.

Please ENJOY !

I hope you enjoy these varieties of
peonies as well as some of the other
photographs.

Judy

There is a beautiful garden near me that I delight in visiting.  The owner is so willing for me to photograph or take pressing material from her garden.  I trade notecards to those who do this for me.

She has a wall of poppies that fascinate me each Spring.  As a pharmacist I am interested in poppies as they are the source of opium.  This is a major drug problem in Turkey and Afghanistan because it is so lucrative for the farmers to produce it. 

Poppy for Medicine is an alternative counter-narcotics strategy that has been successfully implemented in many countries. It involves licensing the controlled cultivation of poppy to produce essential poppy-based medicines such as morphine, and unlicensed poppy cultivation remains a criminal activity.  www.poppyformedicine.net

Well, the poppies are just about finished for this year.  But they will live on in my photographs.  I hope you have enjoyed them too.

Judy

visit me at www.etsy.com/shop/judyorcutt

and http://www.quilligraphy.com/