Hold Dear

dang i'm excited!

Okay so here I am just cruisin' along doing my fun artsy craftsy projects, making some friends, I apply for the Just Johanna Rubber Stamp company Design Team, I'm accepted, I submit some cards,make some suggestions for stamps, you know, the usual, and then whoosh...before I know it, some stamps now exist on this great big blue planet designed by yours truly!! I am just beyond thrilled! This is FUN FUN FUN! :-)

Here are a few...did I mention that one of the perks of the the Design Team is that if one of your designs is made into a stamp, you get that stamp free!!! I have to say I did not design the kitty cat (Priscilla) but since Johanna used my Santy hat on her little head, she graciously sent me the stamp!

I designed the words with the intention of using them in the Banner Frame stamp, like so...

The placement of these isn't PERFECT but you get the idea.

Here is a card I made for my friend Lisa for her bridal shower using the Small Scroll stamp.

And yes, I will be making a version of this as one of my submissions for this month. I LOVE how this turned out. Strikingly simple but I think with the doodle, it works!

Two of the other stamps Johanna made were from a bird that I had hand-carved and used on one of my submissions for the Design Team. I can't tell you how amazed I am at how beautiful this turned out. I don't mean to brag (or at least not TOO much) but if I saw this stamp, I would want to buy it! And the fact that Johanna did an outline and a shadow just floors me! I'm totally diggin' it!

Okay okay...thanks for indulging me! Hope you enjoy your Monday evening! So what's good on cable on Monday nights?

busy day!

Hi..Saturday here. It's a busy day but I had a few moments so I thought I'd post!!! LOL!

Glen and I just got back from marching with the Washington Country Democrats in a local parade. GREAT neighborhood community feeling! That was SO fun! High school marching bands, dance schools, community non-profits, the Navy, the new grocery store, TONS of Republican and Democratic nominees. SO cool to be a part of it all!

I'm on my way now to go to the bridal shower of a dear friend, Lisa. Check out the postmark on her  wedding invitation ...

LOVE it! Such detail! My wedding was March 17 and I used "Love" stamps and mailed our invitations on February 14. Such romantics!

Later tonight we are going to another friend's house to watch "The Pirate Movie" with some pals. Cheesy cheesy movie but that's what this movie "club" is all about. Next gathering is going to be at our house and our turn to choose! We're picking "Army of Darkness." Groovy!

See ya!

hallelujah!

So you KNOW what that means? YES my lovelies!!! We have high speed!!!!! I think the new service is even faster than the connection at my office! He he he! I'll have to post some pictures to check out how fast that works! Whenever I posted a picture before, it would take up to five minutes of just sitting there. That's for ONE picture people! I was the queen of multi-tasking!

So I think I'll share some photos from our trip to Vashon Island. Glen and I went back this past weekend (Sunday/Monday) as a driving trip this time. We did a self-portrait on the ferry from Port Defiance to the island and I'm really happy with how this one came out! I look so young! :-)

So we went to Vashon to join our friends Roger, Anne, and Julia. Julia, as you recall lives on Vashon. Anne is another one of Glen's childhood friends and Roger is Anne's husband. Well, the primary motivator for getting us over there was to celebrate Roger. He turned 50 and I must say, he did it while looking fabulous!!! Anne's not too shabby herself! Heck, Julia's gorgeous too! Wonderful, kind, smart, funny people and WE got to hang out with them and their families! Thanks again Julia!!!

I LOVE this picture! I thought it was cool to find a hen house while strolling along the main highway. Pretty neato, huh Mom! The author Betty MacDonald wrote "The Egg and I" while she was living on Vashon!

One of the shops we went into was called The Country Store and Gardens. It was this big old barn with some beautiful gardens and I was TOTALLY expecting it to be all knick-knacky country clutter type stuff but it was a real, working general store. Clothes, books, food, farming and gardening supplies, etc. I poked around and found a very small "antique" section which consisted of some books, a box of zinc jelly jar lids, dishes, and some assorted odd bits. Next to the antique section was a shelf with a few remnants of what I would imagine used to the "dry goods" section: some flat spools of lace and assorted trims. The lace was on sale for .10 a yard or the entire spool for $2.00. There were a total of eight spools. I bought five and after a fair amount of fretting and kicking myself, I called the shop the following day and asked if I could order the remaining three spools over the phone and have them send them to me. They were quite gracious and agreed to do so! I had to pay for shipping which effectively made the spools $4.00 each which I thought was still a good enough deal. And to my surprise, the dears at the shop threw in a bunch of lace remnants!! Guess they felt sorry for this city girl trying to immerse herself in the goodness of some country trimmin's!!

Here are the spools on my shelf....

And the remnants have already found themselves a little home...

Okay. I am seriously about to weep. This entire post, pictures and all, has taken me 10 minutes. AND I even loaded some new pics onto the computer, named and filed them! Now I know what everyone was talking about!!!

This, dear reader, is a happy day. :-)

studio friday.

This week's Studio Friday was pretty easy cheesy for me. The topic is TOOLS OF THE TRADE as suggested by Carrie.

Okay so here's why is was so easy. I carry this little treatly-treat-filled pouch with me EVERYWHERE I go:

Contents: My favorite tools -- mechanical pencil, spare lead, plastic eraser, black Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens in assorted sizes, white Uniball signo pen, exacto knife, super sharp scissors, bone folder and glue stick. In the studio, this pouch is my companion but you would NOT believe how often I also use these little tools everywhere else. At work, whenever a birthday, anniversary, baby, bridal, etc. card comes around, I usually claim dibs on the envelope and decorate it accordingly. Out and about on errands, I can clip, trim, and snip! I try to keep my favorite tweezers in there too, mainly so I always know where they are but they're not there now. Hmmm....now what did I do with those things?

just johanna.

Hey all you groovy kids! I wanted to let you know that the fabulous Johanna has just put out the call for the Design Team for Just Johanna Rubber Stamp. It's SO much fun and the benefits are super premium! For the details, check out Johanna's blog here.

just a hello.

Hi there...just wanted to say "hi!" It seems like it's been a long time since I've posted but it's really only been since Saturday! Guess the reason it feels so much longer is probably because I hadn't even logged in to the computer in two days. The main reason was because Glen shampooed the carpet TWICE in the family room. Oh Lordy did it need it. The carpet in here is white Berber and it shows EVERYTHING! It was here when we moved in and for the life of me, I will never understand why a person would ever choose to lay down white carpet in a room with doors to a garage, laundry room, bathroom, kitchen AND back yard?! Crazy!!!

The other reason, I haven't been too inclined to log in is because...because...oh...I'm holding back the tears of joy here...is because this Saturday we are getting high speed connection! Hallelujah... hallelujah! I can literally hear angels singing! We're also getting cable so that will be a big huge change in our house too. We may be wearing a few new butt grooves into the couch. Ahh...feels good to be a part of the 21st Century! :-)

So I've had a few days off of work, including today. I've been trying to catch up on some house stuff and desperately trying to do some artsy stuff but not having too much luck with that. I got caught in that glorious trap of re-arranging and re-organizing my little studio. I did get a LO set up and a page prepared in my heART journal. So some progress has been made! Also spent some time with the fam. Miranda and I did some thrift store shopping yesterday and made a few good finds. We also watched a couple of movies over the weekend. We rented "You've Got Mail." I'd never seen it and seems like lots of people were referencing it lately. It was very cute. Then Sunday night we went to see "Crank." It was okay I guess. Lots of great action but some not so great action. I LOVE Jason Statham (he also did the "Transporter" movies) but I'm not recommending this one.

Okay I'm off for some fun fun fun....see ya!

colorful saturday.

GORGEOUS day here in the Portland area. 90 degrees, clear, and slightly breezy.

There was a bit of a mystery in our little neighborhood! So yesterday, Miranda and a couple of friends were in our backyard doing some tye-dye. Doesn't THAT bring back memories! :-) They did an awesome job. I didn't get any pictures of their best ones but I thought even their rejects looks great!

Okay so here's where the mystery comes in. This afternoon was Karly's Bon Voyage party. We're in their backyard hangin' out, and their cat, Mo, comes strollin' up sporting a lovely streak of blue  across his face! Hmmmm...any connection to the tye-dye party at the Gellers? Atticus and Mo are best friends by the way so it's a possibility those two were rolling around together in the clothes as they were drying. We can't really proof this, but the evidence is definitely mounting....

Atticus? What do you have to say for yourself?

Also, if you look carefully, you'll notice the cement has some red on it. I told Miranda not to be too careful with the dye because in the spring we are going to re-do our patio. My vision is to break up the existing cement slab and then use the chunks as stepping stones. I thought it would look cool if the "stones" had some color to them!

And lastly, here's just a nice picture of Glen and I taken with our Karly. She's leaves in one week and will gone for nine months! Bon Voyage sweet friend!

Studio Friday.

Thought I'd jump in and play Studio Friday this week! This week's topic was suggested by Gabi: ARTIST'S BLOCK.

"You've heard of 'writer's block'. Well as an artist, I sometimes suffer from "Artist's block". What is this you ask? It's when you sit and sit and can't come up with anything. This can go on for hours, days, weeks even months sometimes.
I want to know how you break free of Artist's block! "  ~ Gabi

I LOVE this week's topic. And I took the time to actually think about it! I realized that what I instinctively thought how I unblocked the ol' creativity was likely the precise thing that caused that "I've forgotten everything I know" feeling! My mind jumped right to the thought that to create, just go in the studio and play! Experiment! Make a mess! Pull out the stops! Sounded logical to me and I'm sure that works for a lot of people! But after really considering this, I determined that's not at all what I do when I feel stuck. When I'm empty, have no more ideas, feel spent, etc., I have to remove myself from my toys and supplies. Just take a break, take a walk, take a nap, take a chill pill. When the well's empty, "forcing" it only causes me to resent whatever project I'm working on. And I end up just making a mess. Ugly messes. I feel like it's a "mood" thing and sometimes the only thing that can change that mood is to be able to call it "yesterday."

The other thing that helps me unblock is input. Visual or some other sensory stimulation. A magazine, a car ride, going in the garden, baking cookies, or a glass of wine! Stimulating another part of the brain helps me "articulate" my creativity. I also call it "cross-training." This magazine fed my creativity recently...

 

And the last thing that helps me is to go have some fun. I have to remind myself to not take things so seriously. I get intense. Glen can attest to that. A few days ago I was in my studio, supposedly playing and making art, and when he popped in to say "hi," I pretty much bit his head off! "I'm busy!" I snapped! So with that, I leave you with a picture of this little sweet spot found in the garden yesterday.

"I'm ready for my close up, Mr. Del Monte!"