Why Aeriegraphics?

AERIEGRAPHICS is creative place offering services in art, graphics, web design, and creative writing, even teaching instruction for creative writers. We specialize in small assignments, lower fees and getting to know our clients. Our main brain is Elsie Montgomery. She selected this business name while living at “The Summit” on “Falconer Road” because aerie is an eagle’s nest. Elsie’s bio follows this list of experience in art, design and being creative.

ART • GRAPHICS

• Completed several art courses and classes
• Fed her family several years through sales of animal portraits and wildlife paintings
• Loved being the Layout Editor of church and organization newsletters and journals
• Designed numerous letterheads, logos, advertising documents, etc. winning prizes for some of them

ART • FIBER

• Designed/constructed more than 150 quilts and original art quilts.
• Teaches quilters, particularly those called the Fellowship Peacemakers
• Keeps weekly journal of current projects Quilt Blog
• Records UFOs on her PhD page (unfinished objects, projects half done) PHD page
• Sells quilts too, privately and at Quilts for Sale

CREATIVE EXPERIENCE

• Former FellowScript newsletter Editor & Layout designer
• Current Webmaster for Quilts of Valour, Canada
• Designer / webmaster — InScribe Website & all graphic arts (until Oct 2010)
• Designer — web sites for about a dozen writers
• Gardener: landscape design including rockery, perennial beds
• Avid reader, puzzler, sewer, student of many disciplines, loves research, jazz, travel and all things with color and overtones of geometry!

CREATIVE WRITER • TEACHER

• Published — more than 2000 articles.
• Practical Faith — daily blog, thoughts on living out my faith.
• Reproducing Spiritual Women: Coaching Kit — for women coaching disciples.
• The Journey — a twelve unit, self-study discipleship tool for new Christians.
• Writing Creatively — extensive course,  basics to getting your work published.
• Parables — editorial published weekly for 17 years.
• Edited and co-wrote two nonfiction books
• Created instructional material for writers, as listed below. (For more information, see this page )

• Bible Studies — taught for 30 years, written curriculum for more than 15 years
• Teacher & Speaker — Workshops, retreats, etc., devotionals, instruction, inspirational, many titles from Balanced Life to Roles of Women

• DISTANCE LEARNING COURSE: How to Write Bible studies — Extensive, personalized instruction on writing the Bible study of your choice. See “Elsie Writes” below for more information.
• BOOKLET: Getting Started in Nonfiction — answers basic questions.
• BOOKLET Getting Started: Writing Bible Studies — write an Inductive Bible Study for adults.
• FREE Pamphlets — various topics for writer
• Bible Studies — for individuals or groups. Many titles. (To order any of these material, click here)

Biography • My roots are in Scotland, Ireland and a small one in Sweden. My family farmed and I grew up with horses, cattle, and belonging to various 4-H clubs. We learned to work hard, love and enjoy our friends and neighbors, and develop our skills. I’m working on a family history and now have traced my family back several generations.

I have a Bachelor degree in Religious Education, and a half a Master’s degree in the same area. Most of my education comes from what my husband calls the School of Experience.

I’ve been married twice, with two children from the first marriage,one from the second. We currently have five grandchildren, ages 12 to 26 and four great grandkids. If some of that crew did not play soccer, I likely would — it is one sport that I really enjoy!

When our three were at home, our family theme song used to be “On the Road Again.” We moved all over North America. I’ve lived at nearly 30 different addresses, from Alaska to Illinois. During those years, we received an education that cannot be found in any institution.

I started writing at 16. My first submission was accepted by <a href="Canadian Cattleman, but I didn’t “get it” that such an early success indicated that I should keep at it. I didn’t write again until my family was nearly grown. In 1985, I began column called Parables published in an Alberta weekly newspaper. It ran for 17 years. I’ve had other articles published in various magazine, plus three big projects:Writing Creatively, a two-part course for Briercrest Schools’ Dept. of Extension; The Journey, a discipleship manual used by Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Canada; and Reproducing Spiritual Women, a coaching kit for woman in a one-on-one Christian discipleship relationship.

I enjoy writing, mostly nonfiction but some fiction and even a bit of poetry. I like to edit too and have helped authors with their books. However, at the top of my list is writing and teaching Bible studies. I’ve taught a ladies Bible class at Fellowship Baptist Church in Edmonton, AB for many years, and several others before that. During that time, I realized that most of the available study material has missing parts, either discussion questions, application ideas, good openings, or sound study principles. I began writing my own material and have used it for many years. Now I offer some of that material for sale. I also teach a distance learning course called “How to Write Bible Studies.”

I found out late in life that I love geometry. I’ve always loved color and like reading mysteries. Quilting combines all three, so it is a close second on that list of that “things I love to do” — Teaching others how to quilt has become a joyful ministry. Quilt blog

I live in Edmonton, AB in a two-story walk-out with an average size yard that draws me outside, if not to pull weeds, just to enjoy being in the color and challenge of it.

We like to travel. Not counting touring around North America, we’ve been to Scotland to a clan gathering (I’m a Leslie) in 1995 and again in 2005, and to the Homecoming in 2009. We managed to get to Europe several times (Austria, Germany, Italy); and in 2004 to Thailand and China. We enjoyed South Korea in November, 2008.

My Spiritual Journal is on my Blog Practical Faith.

ELSIE MONTGOMERY — My soul waits for the LORD; He is my help and my shield.  (Psalm 33:20)