Synchronicity! (Meaningful Chance)

Have you ever had one of those days when you felt like there was true meaning in a chance meeting with someone? Or, you just felt like...I was "supposed" to meet this person? Well, that happened to me today...

I had gone to the printers to get some of our new collage sheets printed, and this lovely older lady standing at the counter beside me was having some very old pictures reproduced as part of a family album. I was, of course, immediately drawn to the very old images and the character in the face of the primary subject - the woman's grandfather (born in the 1800s). We began to chat as she allowed me to look through these wonderful old pictures.... She told me that her grandfather had fought in the Battle of San Jacinto in early Texas. One of the pictures even showed him with his sword and gun - reminded me of pictures of the men from the Alamo. Another picture was of a group of men and women (her grandfather included) - she pointed out that one of the men was William Jennings Bryant and another was the son of Sam Houston! I was hooked, fascinated, and enthralled!!

As we continued to talk, I mentioned that the photos could be enhanced to take away some of their grainy look (she was working from a copy of the original, but still...). She said that it would be too expensive to fix with as many photos as she had, although she would love to! So, I suggested that she might get in touch with the local University graphics dept. and see if there might be a student who would be interested in taking this project on - for a lesser cost. Then, as the conversation continued and she found out more about me and what I did, she suggested that perhaps we could trade something I wanted for something she wanted; e.g., she wanted the photos enhanced and I wanted to scan some of her fabulous photos! So, we struck a barter trade right there in the print shop!! She also told me she had some great 1920's magazines with women's fashions and one on bridal fashions, and some other things she had collected over the years that I might be interested in as well...talk about synchronicity (meaningful chance)that we should both be there at the same time and had a "connection" right away. She was such a lovely lady - and a quilter too!

Later she told me that she had been having a very bad day and I had helped make it a good day for her! Now, that's a SPECIAL thing, don't you think??? When I have finished working on some of her photos, I'll post them for you to see. Hopefully, I can make them look a little better for her.

Besides working on filling orders this week, I've been making MORE collage sheets! Sometimes I just get on a roll with ideas and make a whole bunch at one time. But, I've got to get busy on the sample for the October Newsletter, so I'll probably slow down on collage sheets for a few days....BUT here are a few of the soon to be uploaded on the website NEW COLLAGE SHEETS!

Dawn has had soooo many comments on her Fish Lady from our September Newsletter, that we decided to give you a Fish Collage sheet so you can play too!

PLEASE let us know if there is a theme you would like to see in collage sheets and we will do our best to accommodate you! One customer has requested Fairytales, so they will be coming soon!

I feel that the following quote is applicable to the experiences of this day for me...and perhaps to your's as well.

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”

Have a great day!

Our Art on ZNE!

Hello All!

Dawn here!

I don't have a lot to add for the day but was playing around with some HTML code and thought I'd see if I could get it to show up as a post!

You see, mom & I belong to this really great group of artistic women at www.zneart.com ... you should really check it out!

Fabulous women~Fabulous art! And, everyone who belongs gets to post their art for all to see! So, being the wonderful ladies that they are, they have given us the ability to share, with you, all the art we have posted on the ZNE website!

Variazione is Italian for "Variation" and they have taken the "ZNE" from this cool Italian word! Anyway... check out the site & our cool new video feed and have a wonderful night!

Where's FALL?

Ok, I'm already feeling guilty already about this blogging thing! I think you're supposed to post a lot...and here it is days and days later and I'm just trying to do this again! As I said, I'll get the hang of this pretty soon (I hope)!!


I put my FALL wreath on the door of our house today, but it seemed really strange because it is still very much Summer in Okieland!! It's 90 degrees and extremely sunny and HOT - just not conducive to feeling very Autumn like! My birthday is coming up very soon (a much dreaded one I might add), and I always wish for a lovely "blue norther" (Okie speak for a big cold front that drops temps about 20 degrees in 30 minutes!) to blow in for my b'day!!! Can you guess that I'm a Winter person - hate the Summer heat! Dawn, on the other hand LOVES the sun and Summer. At least one of us is happy for about half of the year!!


Just in case anybody's curious as to what we look like - well, here we are - The Divas D'Este!! Everyone says we look a LOT alike!! Oh, BTW, Dawn's the one on the left (the beautiful one)!!!

Now here's my excuse for the delay in blogging. It goes something like this....I started off pretty good (one blog attempt), but then I got really distracted with the ton of orders generated by our September Divas D'Este Newsletter!! WOW! Since I'm the head Diva in charge of processing and mailing all of our orders (Dawn's the head Diva in charge of the newsletter), I got a little overwhelmed (couldn't be my age, now could it???!!). Anyway, with all the orders last week, I was lucky to get to bed before midnight for several nights - which is waaaaaaaaay past my bedtime! HOWEVER, I really love doing the processing and mailing, cause it gives me an excuse to chat with a lot of our customers online...it's so neat to get to know the lovely ladies who visit our website. We often end up just chatting about our lives and art...not just about when their order was mailed!! Many have even said that it feels like we have "known" each other for a long time. Isn't that just the coolest (do people still use that word - coolest) thing??

This week we've been working on even MORE stuff to have our lovely and talented webmistress (Pat) upload! She said she will get all the new stuff up sometime this week, but thought I would give you Bloggers a SNEAK PREVIEW of a few things we've been playing with!
With the holidays approaching, Dawn decided to create a beautiful Jingle Girl Christmas Card/Holiday Party Invitation (whatever you want them to be, I guess) using one of her original art pieces.

The Jingle Girl cards are printed on photo quality paper and measure 8.25x5.45 (after folding). They are blank inside. These cards are absolutely gorgeous!! They would make great Christmas cards, invitations to a Special Holiday Party, or thank you cards for those special Christmas gifts - anything holidayish you can think of!!

We've also gotten in two NEW color palettes of Hand-dyed Rayon Ribbon for embellishing your fabric and paper ARTwork! Ribbon #1 is a deeply rich color palette of varigated purples, teals, and rusty reds. Ribbon #2 is a softer color palette including varigated shades (from light to darker shades) of mossy greens, shrimp, teals, and touches of coffee with cream. The hand on the ribbon is soft and flowy making for beautiful embellishments for one-of-a-kind artwork pieces! We're going to be selling these gorgeous ribbons by the yard.

And, last, but certainly not least, are a couple of NEW collage sheets. The Kalaidoscope Flowers are pics that my brother (retired Prof of Horticulture/Floriculture) took and turned into Kalaidoscope images (he's a super great photographer!). I just think they are fantastic images to use as backgrounds, embellishments, focal points, etc. I would really like do something on fabric with them! The Lovely Ladies of the Folies Bergere are sooooo bright and blingy - I know they will fly off our shelves! We also have some new Bird Trading Cards that I will make a collage sheet out of later this week.

Well, I think I've about blogged my way to the end of this little chat with you. Hope all of you have a very CREATIVE week.

If anybody has ideas/suggestions for things they would like to see, PLEASE let us know - we're always looking for new ideas!

Dawn and De

De's FIRST Attempt at Blogging!!!

Hi to everyone!! Dawn threw down the challenge to me last night to TRY to do some "blogging," so here I am!! I told her the other day that I was older than she is now the first time I ever used a computer!!! So, I feel like I've really come a very long way (applause, applause)... I've even done a couple of digital art pieces!! Here's one of my very first attempts. This is really a lot of fun - it's just that the learning curve is HUGE for me. Most of you grew up with a computer at home, at school, everywhere! I grew up when we were still fascinated by the test pattern at the end of the day on the TV screen (yes, my young friends, TV did go off the air at night in those days)!!! I'm really telling my age, aren't I????? That's okay...I still feel YOUNG! Big giggle!

My primary love though is fabric art and I love to crazy quilt and embroidery and embellish like crazy, but I don't make quilts!! I make purses, wall art hangings...just about anything I can find to create something "crazy" with fabric! My stash of fabric is taking over my studio!!! aaaaargh!!! But, I also love to play with just about any medium, especially Golden acrylic paints and lots and lots of layering effects. I'll upload my latest one in a couple of days...I still need to add the quote to it.

The most exciting news for us lately was the release of Lane Thaw's new CD called Tokyo Belle with Dawn's art on the front cover, the inside, and back cover! WOW!! It is a unique blend of country swing with a touch of cajun spice. We just love the music! This is Lane's first release with 5 time Grammy Winner, Bruce Swedie. Check out his website at http://www.lanethaw.com/index.html - Dawn even has her own page there!! Here's a pic of the cover.

I think in this FIRST, of hopefully many, blogs, we would like to take this opportunity to say a HUGE THANK YOU from both of us to all our MARVELOUSLY talented and loyal customers at Divas D'Este!! You have all been so supportive and friendly and kind - YOU are, of course, what has made us a successful website and what inspires us to continue to try to create new and fun things for you! We also absolutely love going "treasure hunting" for unique ephemera for each of you!!! It gives us such a great excuse to go shopping!!! Seriously, we truly appreciate each and every one of you...from all over the U.S. to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Germany, the UK, etc., etc. It is always amazing to me how our little company has reached across the world to help fellow artists find just the perfect image or piece of ephemera for their latest piece of art! What a great feeling this gives us! Thanks to EACH of you!

As Bugs Bunny says, "That's All Folks"!! Let me know how I did on this ole' lady's FIRST blog!

Mom De

Greetings!

Greetings to all you Gypsies, Rebels, Artists, Wicked Women & Divas!

We here in Divaville have finally decided to join the 21st Century and start our own blog! There is a definite learning curve associated with this blog thing ...

so please be patient with us while we play at Bloggin'

First a little about us! Divas D'Este is owned by the rockin' rebellious duo of De Crow & Dawn Beckert. (Mom & Daughter to be exact!) We began our artful journies at very young ages with De's Mom, Dawn's Meenaw, as our DIVA-INE Inspiration!

She was the first D'Este woman artist, an absolute gypsy, rebel & diva in her own right!

We can only hope to create our lives in her shadow and do her rebel spirt proud!

We started a little website to pass on the fun & funky things we find to you! You can find us at http://www.divasdeste.com There you'll find collage sheets, image & ephemera CDs, fabulous hand-dyed fibers, exciting ephemera, original mixed media collage art, poetic purses, artful rubber stamps and, we're even available for commissions should you so desire!

In addition to being rebels, De is retired from the FAA and Dawn is a title attorney for an Oil Company. But our souls belong to art & all the wonderful friends we've made along the way! We spend our days traveling the highways and byways of the world and our nights creating! (It's the only thing that keeps us sane!)

In regards to our artful careers... De & Dawn have both been honored with being published in Somerset Studio Magazine. Dawn even got her own little 8 minutes of television fame on HGTV's "That's Clever". We've also designed t-shirts, CD covers, posters, cards, found object jewelry, fabric art, coasters, print ads, purses and so much more!

We hope to add a little bit of our own quirky, funky, cool view on the world to your days (or nights) and we hope to hear from you all! Thanks so much for joining us! We pledge to make this an exciting (or maybe just funny) journey for all of you!