It's "Celebrate Oz 2012" Time! An "Oz-some" Event!

Wha-Hoo!  Today is Celebrate Oz 2012 Day!  I have been reading a lot about "The Wizard of Oz" on the internet in the past several weeks and I found the following post on the web that I felt to be very poignant ... its about how the name Dorothy Gale came about......

In 1898, Dorothy Louise Gage was born to the brother and sister-in-law of Maud Gage Baum, wife of author L. Frank Baum. When little Dorothy died, exactly five months later, Maud was heartbroken. Baum was just finishing "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and, to comfort his wife, named his heroine after Dorothy, changing her last name to Gale in his second book. Dorothy Gage was buried in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois, where her grave was forgotten until 1996 when it was rediscovered. When Mickey Carroll, one of the last existing Munchkins from the movie, learned of the discovery, he was eager to replace her deteriorated grave marker with a new one created by his own monument company. The new stone was dedicated in 1997 and the children's section of the cemetery renamed the Dorothy L. Gage Memorial Garden, in the hope that bereaved families would be comforted in thinking of their lost children as being with Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz".

It was in the late 1950's that I first viewed "The Wizard of Oz" on my parents black and white television (going to a movie house was a luxury I never experienced until about 1964) ... it was awesome and it was scarey!  I was more terrified of the flying monkeys than I was of the Wicked Witch, those little beasts with their sharp little teeth and sharp nailed fingers scared the bee-jeebies out of me!  It seems, to me at least, that we viewed "The Wizard of Oz" every year after that - just around Thanksgiving time (course I may be wrong).

You know, I never realized that "The Wizard of Oz" was in color until I was married, had two children and purchased our very first color TV (as the result of three months of babysitting and saving every single dollar, that Sony TV cost $300 - but I wanted a really good reliable TV if I was gonna invest that kind of money!) in around the early 1970's.   Well, shortly thereafter one of the networks was airing "The Wizard of Oz" ... I wasn't sure I wanted to watch it because it was in black and white and I had a new "color" TV!  But, I wanted my kids to experience the wonder and magic of "The Wizard of Oz".  So we settled back and the movie began.  Black and white, just as I had always seen ... the tornado caught up Auntie Em's house and whirled away ... and then it landed ... and BAM the colorful land of the Munchkins came exploding across the screen!  I was totally stunned, amazed and excited!  Wow!  Seeing it in color made it all new and even more exciting and terrifying!  I had one child on each side of me and we all had our pillows so we could cover our faces if the terror became too horrifying for us to watch!  We screamed, we laughed, we enjoyed!  "The Wizard of Oz" in color was absolutely amazing!

Well, I am not so good at verbalizing, I most often express myself in drawing ... as many of you have seen.  I have been posting ACEOs I created as my way of participating in Oma Linda's "Celebrate Oz 2012" Blog Party.   This is new to me as well, I have never participated in a blog party ... but I have sure had a bunch of fun creating these 18 ACEO's!  And I am sooooooooo looking forward to visiting all the blogs of the bloggers who are participating!

So, Welcome to my "Celebrate Oz 2012" participation!  I want to share some give aways with those of you who are participating (whether by a participating blog or by simply visiting) .... If you would like to win one of my give aways ... just post a comment on this posting ... if you'd like to follow my blog - well, that would be an added bonus and gift to me from you.

Without further ado ... my Give Aways are .....
1st Place -  this lucky winner gets to pick their choice of one of the original (right now only open editions are listed) "Oz ACEO Series" in my Etsy Shop.
2nd Place - oh, this is a good one!  This winner gets an entire "Oz ACEO Series" Open Edition Set of the 18 ACEOs!
3rd Place -  this winner gets 2 groupings of the "Oz Series" characters 8" x 10" art prints... as seen here:

4th Place is a Red Heart Bookmarker (this is an original crochet pattern I created a few years back) as a tribute to the Tin Man's quest for a heart ...

And finally, 5th and 6th Place winners will each receive a green (a tribute to the love in the Emerald City) heart amulet necklace (in which each is held a penny from heaven for good luck) ... another variation of my heart pattern

Bottom line, have a fun day and enjoy all the bloggers and their individual ways of Celebrating Oz with Oma Linda!  To find all of the bloggers who are linked into this grand party just go over to Oma Linda's blog "Olde Baggs 'n Stuffed Shirts" and you will find the links (right hand side) to all the bloggers who are participating in this Oz-some event!

Happy Day!
Karen Anne

PS  I noticed that most "Celebrate Oz 2012" participants are having their drawings on July 26th ... due to my time schedule, give away entries will be accepted up until Noon on July 20th at this blog ... I will put all the names in the hat and draw the winning entries and post them later in the day of 7/20!  Good luck to all who put their names in my Witch Hat!