I am Painting Birds, Birds and More Birds!

The next collection I am working on is going to be filled with birds.  Here’s where you can help.  If you have excellent, up close, high res images of birds that you would share with me and allow me to paint, please leave a message in the comments section (which will give me your email address) and I’ll be in contact.

I’m especially looking for the classic birds that people love: hummingbirds, blue birds, cardinals, all types of songbirds etc.  You are the most generous and amazing people I’m so blessed to be able to turn to you guys for source materials.  Thanks in advance!!!!!

I thought I might even make it a contest.  Each person that supplies photos for me will be entered into a drawing and will receive a digital clip art kit as a gift. By the way, if I use your photo, I’ll provide you the art on disk for personal use as a thank you.

I’ll have to have a release form filled out granting permission for me to use your photos as they are copyright covered items.  You will retain your copyright, but grant me permission to use it.

Surtex & Licensing Shows Coming Up

For those of you that are regular readers, now is the time of year that I have to bury myself in new design work to have it ready for the two biggest licensing shows of the year as well as other lesser shows.  So I’m going to apologize in advance for neglecting you from time-to-time.

I will try to use this time to upload many of my classic digital clip art kits to this site and www.aimeeasher.com since that doesn’t take too much time, but what I REALLY have to do is clean my art studio so I can CREATE ART IN IT!!!

The trash can is in the middle of the floor and I’m working from one end to the other.  It’s beyond awful and NO I will not post pics of it, LOL!  I am vulnerable to blackmail if pictures ever got out!

Have a great weekend all and thanks for your understanding and patience!

Thanks, Lucy! New Instant Scrap Book Pages in the Store Today

LINK TO ANTIQUED VICTORIAN PANSIES QUICK PAGES KIT IN STORE, $4.98

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.

My friend, Lucy Hampton brought an image that I had placed in my blog to my attention today.  I created it some time ago promising a kit to come shortly, well….  I had forgotten about the kit altogether and it was “lost” on my hard drive!

I had created six, 12 inch premade scrapbook pages and they were just sitting there waiting to be uploaded to the store.  It’s a little scary when your hard drive(s) are so big you can lose your work and not even remember you were working on it.

Ah well!  These are perfect for spring, so the timing is great.  If you scrapbook, you know how much time it can take just to find your pictures and develop your theme.  With quick pages all you have to do is drop your photos in behind the layer, size them and then print out your page.  If you don’t have a printer that can print 12″ pages, you can take them to office supply stores and have them printed onto photo paper very economically.  In fact some of my friends that scrap, feel it’s better quality at a lesser price than it costs to print at home!  You can also reduce them to 8″ size and print them on letter-sized paper to use either in an 8″ album or even place and 8″ page on top of a piece of 12″ store purchased paper and add a little bit more to complete your own unique page.

If you don’t scrapbook, consider the other uses for quickpages.  You can reduce the size, add a photo and some text and create your own announcements, invitations or greeting cards.  You can even send an image like these with your photos to your favorite photo lab via email and print out beautiful Wedding Invitations, Bridal Shower Invitations, Tea Party Invitations or create your own greeting cards.  I especially love receiving photo greeting cards, my refrigerator is covered with them.

Thanks so much for the reminder, Lucy!

Blog Contest Winner Wins Free Digital Clip Art Kit

I remembered on my own, are you as amazed as I am, LOL!  Of course, it is a day late, but as things go that’s not too bad for me.

The winner is the fourth comment on this post:

LINK TO POST FOR WINNER

Congratulations and she won this kit as her prize.  LINK TO HAPPY EASTER 2 KIT IN STORE

Devotional, “Times of Refreshing”, and Peony Cottage Blue 2 Digital Clip Art Kit

CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO PEONY COTTAGE BLUE 2 ART KIT IN STORE HERE, $4.98

I have the second art kit in the “Peony Cottage, Blue” series ready and in the store today.  This is a BRAND NEW art kit that I have hand water colored.  A beautiful a pink English Rose, and a floral cluster with tulips, peonies and roses are the foundation of this collection.  There is an 8″ x 8″ image suitable for a card front included and an elegant painting that is suitable for framing, along with 5, 12″ papers, 3 borders, 2 frames, 5 fun embellishments (two custom buttons, a tag, title banner and photo corners),  two small square art icons and an elegant rectangular floral swag complete the 18 piece collection.

This wonderful cottage-feeling collection will make you feel the warm, gentle winds of spring and the scent of roses on the air!

This artwork is extremely detailed and life-like.  It can be used to create your own cards, craft with or for scrapbooking.  The files in this kit are 300 dpi jpeg and png files.  Art copyright Audrey Jeanne Roberts, 2009  Special thanks to Atomic Cupcake.

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY: 1 John 2:15-17  Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.  NIV

DEVOTIONAL: Continuing our discussion about the ways that we grow dry and spiritually empty, I’m sharing today about how we get too wrapped up in “the world” and all of it’s cares.  How does scripture delineate the difference between the natural world that we live in and “the world” which is considered sinful and a wrong place to dwell?  First, we need to recognize that God made us to live in this world.  We need to eat and drink and sleep and earn a living — that’s part of the life he wants us to live.  But if or when the pursuit of any of those things goes to the extreme, we begin to live in “the world,” not the kingdom of God.

If as we work to pay our bills, we walk with Christ in prayer and meditation and we seek to be used by Him in the course of our day — we’re in a great place.  Whether we run the board room as a CEO or we sweep the floors as a janitor, God wants us to dedicate the entirety of ourselves to HIm and His purposes.  But, If we make climbing that ladder of success our goal, we will find that we just may climb the ladder and discover it has been placed against a wrong building!  Achievement for the sake of achievement, honor or money will not last.  It will not satisfy.  In fact it will leave you more empty than when you started.  That can be ANY achievement, even “good” ones — if the achievement becomes more important than the one who created you to achieve.

If you have a home that is a place for your family to gather in love and delight in each other and the Lord, it’s a precious gift from God, but if you are consumed by the caring for that home so much that it crowds out your devotion for God and love of your family — it can be a curse.  The world is less a list of things and much more an attitude of our heart towards those things.

Of course the bible also identifies the world as sins we participate in.  We lust after possessions.  We crave pleasures.  We look at someone else’s husband or wife and covet them.  We yearn for bigger, better, more expensive cars, homes or other things — certain that they will bring joy to our heart.  Perhaps we yearn for financial security in banks, stocks, homes, gold or other physical riches.  Any and all of these can be “the world,” and rob us of a closer relationship with God.

Take time to monitor your thoughts a little.  Are you worrying?  What are you worrying about?  What consumes your thoughts?  Where does God fit into your routine, daily thought life?  Do you ever think about things farther away than next week or next month?  By this I mean, do you ponder the eternal value of each task in your life?  Do you think about how God might want to use you today?  Or do you only think about God almost as another commitment you need to check off your to do list to keep on track?

Spend time today asking God to help you see your “world” through His eyes.  It might be a very interesting and profitable exercise!

PRAYER:  Lord, help me to look at my world through your eyes.  What in it is in the right place and is balanced and what isn’t?  Help me to discern anything in my life that is drawing me away from growing closer to you and anything that I am putting my effort into that will not matter in the light of eternity.  Show me anything that is creating a dry and dead place in my heart and help me to remove it.  Show me how I can add things to my day that will be like springs of living water springing up to water my very soul.

Help me to see how I can make the most of mundane of chores or responsibilities.  Show me ways that routine tasks can build the kingdom of God and how I can experience a refreshing from you as I do the ordinary tasks of life “as unto the Lord.”  Lord, renew a right spirit within me, for I am dry and weary and in need of your refreshing.

Peony Cottage Blue Kit for Spring

LINK TO PEONY COTTAGE, BLUE 1 DIGITAL CLIP ART KIT IN STORE

New in the store, this kit was hand water colored from a beautiful Peony that grows in my yard.  Being a warm weather girl all of my life (San Diego born and raised) one of my very favorite things about living in the mountains is that I get to raise peonies, tulips and clematis — all plants that would not grow in San Diego because our winters did not get cold enough!

I have paired the peony painting with pink roses in two varieties — wild roses and cottage roses.  There are also some beautiful small yellow wildflowers thrown in for a little bit of spring sunshine.  I painted four coordinating paintings that will each anchor their own art kit, the peony, a pink English rose, a coral tulip and a pink iris.

I must run!  I’m dashing out the door to meet my hubby and drive to San Diego for the weekend and see our grandson.  The funny thing is I’m leaving BEAUTIFUL, clear blue skies and 70 degrees to head into San Diego’s cloudy and 60 degree forecast, LOL!  Don’t tell anyone how really wonderful the weather is here in my mountains or they would want to move here 🙂

Custom Personalized Baby Name Digital Art for Framing

LINK TO CUSTOM BABY BOY NAME FRAME KIT IN STORE $9.98

LINK TO CUSTOM BABY GIRL NAME FRAME KIT IN STORE $9.98

I’ve been working on a really fun idea, one that’s very different than my usual product.  When I first started my framed print business, I designed a fun baby room name frame called “Brennan’s Bears” (which was because my last name then was Brennan)  These were framed 8″ x 20,” hand watercolored individually created artwork that sold for close to $100.00 framed.  I always have enjoyed the specialty baby business and creating gifts that can be treasured for a lifetime.

I wanted to update that product line and came up with “Jungle Babies.”  This is a item that I will custom create for your baby, grand baby or baby gift.  You order your item by downloading the instruction kit, which consists of an instruction sheet on how to order your custom name, and two idea sheets with suggestions and instructions for what you can make with the art when you receive it.

Once we receive your email telling us what the baby’s name is and the color combination you would like to order, we digitally create your own custom artwork and send it to you within two weeks or less (the goal is always to send it as fast as possible).  You will receive via email your artwork in two sizes, a 14″ x 4 1/2″ version that can be printed out on legal sized paper (8 1/2″ x 14″) and an 11″ x 3 1/2″ that can be printed out on standard letter sized paper.  Both are jpeg files of original water colored art work with your baby’s name surrounded by jungle animals that is suitable for framing or making a variety of crafts with.

We give you instructions on how you can make a simple plaque version of this artwork to hang in your child’s room.  We also give you some ideas of how you can print this art on printable fabric and create a quilt, a crib bumper, a pillow or a diaper stacker.  Print it on iron-on transfer paper and make a baby onesie and a matching Grandmother’s sweat shirt, the ideas are endless!

Three New Easter/Spring Digital Clip Art Kits

LINK TO HAPPY EASTER 2 CLIP ART KIT IN THE STORE $4.98

Three more Easter/Spring Digital Clip Art Kits have been released today.  There is a second Easter Clip art featuring two Easter Bunnies, more Easter eggs, papers, tags and other fun art.

The font used in making the word art with this kit is AJ’s Whimsical and it is available in the store in case you would like to coordinate all of the elements.

LINK TO HAPPY SPRING ALPHA IN THE STORE $3.98

There are also two alphabets that have been created to coordinate, one is a plain, striped, stamped 2 1/2″ tall alpha bet with two different versions of every letter in a large size and a third version in a smaller size.  This will allow you to create word art or titles that are “Upper” and “Lower” case even though the letters are all capitals.

LINK TO DECORATED HAPPY EASTER ALPHABET IN THE STORE $4.98

The second alphabet is a coordinate to the plain alpha and it is decorated with bunnies, chicks, eggs and flowers for Easter.  There are two totally different versions included to make creating words easier.  Mix and match the two alphas to create an endless supply of word art!

“Happy Easter” Digital Clip Art and Crafting Kits

LINK TO HAPPY EASTER CLIP ART KIT IN STORE  $4.98

A couple of new kits to debut today!  I got some painting time in last week and created some brand new Easter art for children (naaah, my grandson had absolutely NOTHING to do with my motivation, LOL!)  There are 4-5 more kits in this collection coming over the next few weeks.  I hope you’ll enjoy them.

LINK TO ABIGAIL SCOTT’ S HOPPY EASTER TREAT BAG KIT IN STORE  $3.98

Also I’m reviving our “Abigail Scott DESIGN Studio” brand of printable digital crafting kits.  There’s a new kit using the “Happy Easter” art.  This is a fun kit that is very, very quick to assemble making it perfect for  doing treat bags for a classroom full of kids, a few kids in the neighborhood or perhaps for your own children or grandchildren.

I have also uploaded two of my previously released fonts to the store.  I have a couple more that I hope to get up soon as well.  Thanks for your patience!

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY:  Job 4:4-6
Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees.
But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed.   Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?  NIV

Eph 3:12-19
In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.  I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.

For this reason I kneel before the Father,  from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. NIV

DEVOTIONAL:  I’m continuing with our theme of understanding why our hearts become dry and shriveled spiritually.  When we experience dryness, how can we overcome it?  I’m tackling one of the most common reasons I have seen people pull away from God and that is their disappointment with Him over unanswered prayer or unexpected suffering.

All of us decide in our heart just how God “should” respond to our prayers or  circumstances, whether we realize it or not.  If God “fails” to perform as we wished, it is very easy to get discouraged, disappointed or even angry with Him.  When someone we love suffers and God doesn’t seem to be in the situation or someone that is dear to us is not healed but instead passes away, when the job we believe is perfect for us goes to a less worthy candidate, we can begin to harden our heart towards the Lord.

There are two different responses to suffering in the verses above.  One is from the book of Job and is a comment from one of Job’s friends who is observing him going through terrible suffering, with no apparent reason.  He believes that if Job is as righteous as he claims he wouldn’t be suffering.

The other is Paul encouraging others not to be discouraged at Paul’s own suffering on their behalf, but to be built up, filled with God’s love, encouraged and even empowered by it!

You will suffer at some point in your life.  You will be disappointed in God.  You will be disappointed in others.  You will become discouraged or saddened when the innocent suffer and the guilty appear to go free.  Life isn’t fair.  Life doesnt’ treat those we love fairly.  Will you pull away from God at this point or run toward Him?

I share with you the counsel of a wise saint of God who encouraged me early in my walk with the Lord.  She said, “A God you can control and manipulate isn’t much of a God my dear.  When life doesn’t go as planned, when God doesn’t do what you want — that’s when you have to decide ‘Who is God?’  Are you going to become your own God or will you let Him be?  Will you trust that He understands more than you and is working His purposes or will you pull away?”

Sometimes we will see in our lifetime the “Why” answered.  The job we wanted disappeared a year after we would have gotten it.  The home we were so sure was perfect for us sold before we could buy it, and a better one appeared soon thereafter.  But most often, like Job, we will never see the amazing plan of God, hidden in our suffering and the power of what He accomplishes through it.  Do you think Job might have gone through his suffering differently if he realized that multiplied billions of people would know his story and be encouraged by it?

If you don’t understand, praise God anyway.  If you’re hurting, choose to hand that hurt to Him and ask Him to use it to bless you and others.  If life is unfair — and it is, turn to the one who is perfect and who loves you perfectly.  If you’re angry with Him, tell Him that — He’s big enough to handle your temper tantrums.  The bible tells us that there are only two “gods,” the true God, our loving heavenly father and the false “god” of this world, Satan.  When you reject God as being “unfair” and turn away from Him you turn toward the “god” of this world… do you think he’s going to be fairer?!  Of course not, he wants to steal, kill and destroy you and everybody and everything you love.  But God loves you, trust Him in the middle of your pain and ask Him to help you through it.

PRAYER:  Lord, I am discouraged and weary.  Life isn’t going as I hoped or planned.  It seems like you are so far away from me and uncaring.  I know that isn’t true, but it feels like it.  Help me to praise you in the middle of the pain.  Help me to trust you when all I trusted in seems to be failing.

Restore my trust in You where I have allowed doubts and anger to destroy it.  Show me that you truly are God, You are real, You are powerful and You are sovereign over my life.  Please show me where my assumptions about You as God are off and teach me who You really are.  Please God, help my suffering to not be in vain but to be used to build me up and strengthen me that I might in turn strengthen others.

The Contest Winner is…

The first comment on THIS POST (LINK HERE).  She will receive my “Red Poppy Fields” digital clip art kit as her prize.

Oh, and yesterday my hit counter went over 100,000 on my new blog which brings me to about 430,000 since I started.  That is a staggering number and I am soooo blessed that there are a few of you who love to come and visit.  I’m getting ready to make some changes here with a friend’s help so bear with us.  I want to install a new format for the store, I hate it’s current function but am stuck with it!  Also, I want to do a monthly newsletter soon and I will see about installing a sign up box here for all who are interested.

I’ve added three kits, one entirely new and two fonts that hadn’t been in the store since the Daisie days.  I’ll try to write some this afternoon and feature them.  Have a great day and CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNER!