Hold Dear

justjohanna.

Howdy...just wanted to share with you some of my projects I submitted for this month's justjohanna Whimsical Rubber Stamp Design Team.

Cards...

The background paper is gift wrap I bought at Monticello Antique Mall. Happy.

This is a new and improved version of the Valentine's Day card I made for Glen. I used a bingo card because with Glen, well, I hit the jackpot. :-)

This card is a version of the birthday card I made for my sister. Is it okay for me to restate how much I love the "Michelle's Small Scroll" even though I designed it?? :-) I'm just having so much fun with it! I stamped with StazOn black ink and then filled it in with Uniball Signo white gel pen. It just turned out oh so fabulous! (In my opinion, anyways.) The "party hat" is actually a Christmas tree. I tell's ya, those justjohanna stamps are so versatile!

And then this is a version of a thank you card I made for my friend Malou. I like the simplicity of it with just the Merci stamp. The paper is Cosmo Cricket, which ROCKS! I love two-sided paper.

Okay, so before I finish up here, I just have to say how I ever got along without a scanner, I'll never know. It's SO easy now and it is SUCH the time saver! :-)

So on to my journal pages...

This page is in the style of a LO I did for the Circle Journal I'm in right now (hosted by Andrea.) Just watercolor on drawing paper. And this style was inspired by Keri Smith.

This page has lots of my favorite bits in it. Sheet music, old dictionary, tissue, and some snazzy wallpaper I bought at Monticello Antique Mall. I bought FOUR rolls of some gorgeous old stuff! Yummy! I stamped with ink and acrylic paint. I just LOVE stamping with acrylic paint!  I love how distressed and messy it turns out!

The two journal pages have quotes on them rather my own words this month. I've been digging through my collection of quotes lately in preparation for an upcoming topic in the Circle Journal group! Although the minute I saw the topic was quotes, I KNEW which one I'd use. Without any question in my mind I have a quote that single-handedly motivates me to find my own voice and my own style. Pretty powerful that a quote can do that for a person. But this one doesit for me...

Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another. ~Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

studio friday.

This week's topic at Studio Friday is part two of a mini-series. "The Seven Deadly Sins" as seen from an artisit's perspective. This week's topic is "gluttony."

What do you overindulge in during your days in your studio while creating? Food or drink? How bad is it and how bad is it for you? How are you planning on changing it?

Oh dear. Do I dare share with you my one true weakness? My Achilles heel? Okay, I'll do it, but you have to promise to still love me! :-)

Okay, here goes. I love Coca-Cola. Love it. LOVE it!

I am at my happiest when I am in my studio, with lots of time, supplies and an icey cold Coca-Cola by my side.

I know I shouldn't love it so. It's SO bad for me. All that sugar. That high fructose corn syrup? Might as well just inject me with pure fat. All that phosphoric acid leaching calcium from my womanly bones? Dang you Coca-Cola, you sweet exilir of sugary perfection! Why are you so satisfying in your most Heavenly state, icey cold from the can? Why is it whenever I see the color red, I think of you?

I've tried the diet colas. Honest I have. I just can't get past that artificial taste. It just tastes like chemicals to me. Especially Diet Coke. I just hate that stuff.

I do drink lots of water and try to drink iced tea as an alternative. It's okay, I guess, but deep down, there's always this little song in my head, "I'd like to teach the world to sing....in perfect harmony..."

playing card journal.

Hi ...

So steady as she goes, I am STILL following Emily Falconbridge's Playing Card Art Journal project. I think I'm finally in between enough things so that I can play some catch up now! :-)

Here is number 6...LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Sorry, but I used one of my all-time favorite self-portraits that I took of Glen and I last Mother's Day. My eyes make me smile. :-)

And then number 7...SHOES...there is always a story to tell.

So I'm not really that into shoes. For my own feet, I am totally about function and comfort. I love Birkenstocks and shoes with no heel and shoes that you can just slip on and go. I rarely wear high heels anymore; however, I can completely appreciate shoes as artwork. Incredible. The image here is from my old Andy Warhol's Taming of the Shoe 2006 calendar. The rubber stamps I used are justjohanna.

Okay, so only five more prompts to go and I'll be caught up...until next Sunday! :-)

Nuts!

You heard me! NUTS! This past Saturday, Glen and I went for a walk and we (finally!) walked up to a shop I've been wanting to go to for a long time! Farmhouse Knit Shop. Man o' man! It is SO gorgeous! I really really wish I had realized it was SO close and SO fabulous because I would have taken Lilli there during her visit! Oh well. Next time Lilli!

COMPLETELY makes me want to bust out all the assorted yarns I've been collecting and do something with them just to use them up! Then that way, I'd have an excuse to buy more!

Oh the way home from our knit shop visit, there was LOTS of spring action going on in our neighborhood!

And then right outside my own front door....

Happy Springing, yall!

a few more...

Hi ho...I wanted to share the last few pictures from Lilli's visit. We spent a lot of time exploring Portland, shopping, and visiting. How perfect!!!

Lilli in my car! Cool!

Here's some general Portland prettiness. The weather MOSTLY cooperated. We had lots of sun but it was chilly.

The day it rained and rained was the day we went Multnomah Falls. It turned out okay though because just as we got to the Women's Forum outlook, the clouds cleared and we got a gorgeous view of the Vista House and the Columbia Gorge.

I just love this picture....totally frameable! This is the lower portion of Multnomah Falls. For whatever reason, I didn't take a picture of the full falls. Next time!

   

Here's Lilli and I in Staccato Gelato. This was the afternoon that Steve bugged out on us because we were stopping at too many girlie shops. From the eastside, he just caught public transportation and made his way across town to get back to our house on the westside. Quite impressive.

We also made a stop in Anthropologie just to fill up the ol' eyeballs with inspiration...

Yeah, it was yummy! And speaking of yummy, Lilli and I went to Monticello Antique Mall (where Alicia Paulson has a booth). We arrived at 10:30 am and left at 3:00 pm. Good thing the boys weren't with us on that trip!!! Miranda joined us for lunch and then afterwards we stopped at Paper Doll, Inc., SCRAP, and Rerun. It was a VERY good day!

Jeff Buckley poster on the ceiling at Crossroads Music on Hawthrone Blvd. Sigh. If only...

Thankfully, I have my Ukulele Man. :-)

And lastly, a picture of our last meal together. The last night, we decided to eat up our leftovers from a few meals out (Blossoming Lotus, Hodas) and the meal Steve and Lilli had prepared (basmati rice with veggies). It was a feast!

A perfect finish to a fabulous visit and fabulous vacation!

trunks full of happiness....

So are you ready to get an eyeful of happiness? Absolute beauty? Eye candy in it's most delicious, purest form? Well, get ready because when Lilli came to visit, she brought gifts for me that were sheer bliss! I am STILL reeling from these glorious gifts. She brought for me two of the loveliest trunks filled with things that absolutely make my heart swoon.

The trunks were presented to me like this. Lilli made me close my eyes so she could set them up! :-)

Okay, so upon laying my eyes on these, I started hyperventilating right away! The trunks all by themselves are drop dead gorgeous, right? Well, there was more in store. Lots more!

The first trunk...

SO much beauty. Lilli has an amazing eye. She coordinated incredible colors and textures. The fabrics she brought for me were from an Indian shop she visited in her town. She blogged about it here.

Then, trunk #2...

In this trunk, Lilli layered ribbon, buttons, and trims, including some vintage items, with this spectacular fabric. AND...she included some lovely bracelets AND she put some cardamom pods in between them all! I would go from teary eyes to bug eyes. Just so beautiful and so thoughtful.

Aren't they amazingly beautiful?? I'm really feeling like all the fabric and trims from each trunk needs to be treated as "a set" and made into it's own purse or something. Sigh. I'm just not sure what I'll do. For now, though, I'm just going to display these trunks on my desk. They just please my soul just to gaze at them.

Thank you, dear Lilli.

In addition to these amazing, glorious, thoughtful, generous gifts, Steve and Lilli also left a few other gifts behind for us! Steve chose books for Glen and I. He gave Glen True History of the Kelly Gang and for me, The Memory Keeper's Daughter. When we were wandering around Powell's Books, I said I wanted to read it. He remembered that little casually mentioned comment and went back and bought that book for me! Amazing kindness.

For Miranda, Steve and Lilli gave her one of the ukulele's they brought. Incredible. SO perfect! Miranda is pretty musical and very quickly fell in love with this fun instrument. She proclaimed that she wants to learn to play it, carry it with her everywhere she goes, and be known around town as "That Ukulele Girl." Funny kid. Well, Steve and Lilli just helped her get a little closer to that dream! :-)

Isn't it just the cutest thing?? And it's SO fun to play! Thank you Lilli for introducing all the Gellers to the ukulele!!!

And one more fun little picture of something Lilli left in my studio.

Indeed she was. :-)

circle journal action.

Hello My Friends! Tonight was a very productive night for me. I have to come clean and share that I was behind with my Circle Journal hosted by Andrea. I was very busy spending time with Lilli and her husband and taking some vacation time. But I jumped right on it tonight and finished it!

The Circle Journal I had was Elizabeth M's and her topic was "Let's Eat!" Oh boy! I'm a girl who definitely knows how to eat! :-)

*** SPOILER ALERT***   ***IMPENDING CIRCLE JOURNAL GOODNESS AHEAD***

Elizabeth gave us each a recipe card to use as our sign in "page." SO cute. She also gave us each a sweet little package of blank recipe cards! Thank you Elizabeth!!!

Left side - my yummy recipe for hmm hmm hmm hummus!!!!

This is one of my all time favorite recipes!!! There's a deli in town called Elephant's and they make the most amazing tomato-orange soup. One Heavenly Tuesday, the recipe appeared in the Food Day section of the Oregonian. That was a very happy day. I keep photocopies of it so I am always prepared to share it. Since we don't do dairy in our house, we use soy butter for the butter and Silk Half and Half for the Heavy Cream. In the days when we did eat dairy, we used to float thin slices of Cotswold cheese on top. Oh. My. God. SO good!

The images I used for these pages are color photocopies from a 1934 cookbook I found at at a junque shop. It didn't have a cover but I still bought it (I think it was $1) since it had these amazing images in it! LOVE 'EM!

So yippee skippy, this CJ is happily on it's way to Dana! This weekend I am working on March's justjohanna Design Team assignment and then I need to play catch up on Emily's Playing Card journal! Eeeeeee! So much fun and art on my horizon!!! :-)

Oh and I still have LOTS more pictures to share with you from Lilli's visit!! Busy busy busy! But no school for me until April 2 so I have time to play!

studio friday.

Hi there! I was getting a bit anxious about the fact that I haven't played studio friday for quite awhile. I decided to jump in today since Tine is starting a mini SF series. The series topic is "The Seven Deadly Sins" and today's topic is LUST!

What do you desire? What feeds your passion and excessive love? Do you listen to your heart's desires or not? What happens if you do, what happens if you don't?

In regards to my art, my "lust" has absolutely got to be buttons. I really think I may have some kind of problem. I love buttons and I love LOTS of buttons. I also "lust" after wooden spools of thread. I've got quite a collection of those goin' as well.

So here is my button lust.

My daughter says my room is starting to look like a button store. I think she's trying to imply that I'm obsessing over buttons but her observation really just makes me happy. :-) I am overjoyed at the sight of all these buttons and it feeds me so I completely give in to it.

I picked up that sweet spinning rack at a junque store for something like $2.

Here's a closer look under the shelf.

You can also gather from these shots that I'm leaning towards a button storage preference. Old canning jars with zinc lids. Happy happy.

And then here's a couple of shots of my wooden spools of thread collection.

So what do you think? Do I need an intervention? :-)

Happy Friday!!!!

Sigh.

I know it's been awhile since I've posted but I'm sure you'll kindly excuse my absence when you understand why.

On Saturday, Lilli (of MakeMineBlissful) and her dear husband, Steve, arrived on my street, honking their horn!!! They came to visit Portland, me, my family, and Atticus!!  Eeeeeeee!!. :-) And so far, our time together has been absolutely wonderful!

Saturday was spent getting acquainted, which actually took all of five minutes!!! :-) We then walked up to the local pub for a meal and then came back to the house where we spent the evening playing music. Lilli, as I expected, is an amazing musician and has an absolutely beautiful singing voice as well!!! She brought with her three ukuleles and some music and taught the Gellers how to play. I am now completely hooked! It is SO fun!!!!

On Sunday, Glen and I took Steve and Lilli into downtown Portland to the Saturday Market and a whirlwind tour of the city. We then walked across the Hawthorne Bridge and then got stuck in traffic due to the big anti-war protest. Yesterday I took them to Multnomah Falls which was superb. We had lunch at the Multnomah Lodge. Oh and on the way to the falls, we went to Penzey's Spice store. What a great store that is!!! The food was so-so but the ambiance and company was fantastic!!!

Today, Steve, Lilli, and I went to Powell's Book store and the Hawthorne District and did a bit of shopping. This evening, Steve and Lilli cooked a yummy dinner for us and then we played a quick round of cork golf.

Our days have been filled with adventures and exploration and our evenings are filled with great conversation, laughter, and LOTS of music.

Here are a few pictures of us around town...

Lilli and I on the Hawthorne Bridge.

In Moonstruck Chocolate Shop on NW 23rd Ave.

On the street around the corner from the Oregon Historical Society.

I'll blog more later...for now...we're on our way to more adventures! :-)

H a P p Y . B i R t H d A y . L i L L i !

Just wanted to wish my dear friend Lilli a very happy birthday!!!