Hold Dear

next circle journal...

Hello Sweetests...

Last year at ArtFest I had the distinct priviledge of rooming, getting to know and in general, getting in some serious quality hanging out time with some SPECTACULARLY talented artists. In addition to the marvelous classes and the ArtFest event itself, every evening was spent in either the Dorm's common area or someone's room chatting, laughing, sharing art, sharing snacks and, of course, some drinkies! What a blast!

One of roommates last year was Alexandria and she is an incredibly talented artist. I LOVE her style...every last little bit of it! Alex started some discussion about doing a Circle Journal and invited some ArtFest sisters to join her in doing one. Man oh man! How could I miss this?!

So this Circle Journal has officially begun! This a big group and I can just feel it...this is gonna be good!!!!

The participants are:

Adeola

Alex

Amanda

Amy Renae

Andria

Cheryl

Colleen

Emily ruth

Jessica

Jill

Nikki

Senta

Stephanie

Tami

and with me, that puts us at 15!

This is the largest circle journal I've ever done so I'm pretty itchy to see how it all turns out! What an amazing bunch, don't you think?! Oh I'm so happy!

The theme of my book is Birds and Natural Findings. I just couldn't imagine a book with any other theme since my similarly themed circle journal returned home to me a few months back. That book was magical and I felt like I wasn't quite done with this topic. :-)

I started with a ready to go book 8' x 6 1/4" with 7 1/4" x 6". I gessoed, painted, added a ribbon for the closure and then covered the whole front and back with UTEE.

Here's my book...

 

Closer...

and a few of the pages...

 

  

 

 

 

 

Everything all buttoned up and on it's way...first stop...Nikki!

 

 

I just received Jill's (GORGEOUS) journal so I can't wait to get started!

I'm SO looking forward to seeing how all of this one turns out! Thanks girls for letting me play!!!!

have you seen this?

Found this on http://icanhascheezburger.com/. LOVE it! :-)

The original photo was taken by Melissa and Jackson Brandts in Banff in late May. Here's an interview with the couple.

SOOOOO cute!

miscellaneous fun stuff...

Hi there...

Just wanted to share a few fun artsy bits from things in my life.

I don't think I showed you a picture of the completed mosaic I did with my friend, Grace, last month.

 

I'm really happy with the way it turned out and will definitely do some more of this type of work!

Another fun thing...I have in my possession a journal from a "Wreck This Journal" group I'm in right now. One of the prompts was "doodle this entire page." Since I am a fan of doodling, I jumped at the chance to take on this challenge!!

 

Other things going on...I am going to be teaching a class on September 12th in Eugene as part of Jill and Emily's fantastic event ComePlay: Eugene. I'm SO excited for this...I can hardly believe it!

I've been working on my class sample and I created a fun little postcard that will go on the cover.

 

Also, I've been working on a travel journal that I started for my trip to California. I've only had the chance to do a few pages but so far, here are a few sweet spots that I'm loving.

 

 

 

I'm definitely stuck on a specific style of journaling right now, ya think?

Okay my sweets, off to go start a wonderful weekend with Mr. G. Hope you have some fun stuff planned. I'm hoping to get in LOTS of artsy time. I am officially up to my artballs with projects! :-)

seal beach sky

seal beach sky
Originally uploaded by Hold Dear

Hi there...I just added some pictures to my Flickr account from our recent vacation to California. Sigh...such an amazing time. It feels like it was all a dream.

Here's a link to the Vacation 2009 set. I'll be adding more pictures and I still need to add descriptions for each picture but this is a good healthy start! Love you, family!!!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

girls night!

Hi ya pals...

I just got in from a lovely Friday night with some girlfriends. We went to a marvelous spot for some dinner...Noble Rot. If you are in or near the Portland area, I highly recommend this place.

After a delish dinner, we went to the movies to watch Julie and Julia. LOVED it! I wasn't sure how true to the book it was going to be since the ads seemed to focus quite a bit on Julia's life. Turns out the movie is based on TWO books - Julie and Julia and My Life in France.

I was teary pretty much through the whole movie. There were just so many good spots. Julia and her husband were so in love. Then there was the relationship between Julia and her sister, Dorothy. It was so beautiful. And after having spent some fabulous quality with my gorgeous sisters recently, I was just giddy watching these two characters interact on the screen. There's one scene in particular at a wedding that filled my heart with so much joy that I had to stifle a sob!

That's all I'll say because I don't want to spoil anything! Like I said, I LOVED this movie!

Okay...bye for now. I just had to stop by and blab! :-)

back from vacation...

Hi there...

I just wanted to pop in and shout out a howdy do to you.

I'm back from a memorable and magical *best-ever* vacation. I've been living a dream come true these past 10 days so it will take me some time to settle back into the routine of life.

We took tons of pictures while we were away. Oh my gosh we had so much fun! I uploaded the pix last night and was SUPER surprised to see we took 1,052 pictures! Thank goodness we're in the digital age! In the old days, to process that many pictures would have cost hundreds of dollars! As they were loading I asked Glen to guess how many pictures there were. He guessed 679. I thought, "That's crazy! No way!" Boy was I surprised! Now granted, we were on the road a lot so there are lots of blurry, fuzzy pictures of sky and guard rails, or "deleters," as my sister calls them, but there's definitely some keepers in there. :-)

SO much going on that I need to catch up with but the super-de-duper biggest thing going on is that the info for September's ComePlayEugene is up on Jill's blog!

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I'm going to be teaching at Emily and Jill's ComePlayEugene! EEeeekkk! I'm SO honored to be a part of this fantastic event!!!! These girls are so talented and so fun and will take VERY good care of you! Activities planned include my Souvenir Journal class, lots of great treats and goodies, a slumber party, and a trip to the Coburg Antique Fair! You can join us for the full weekend or even just one of the class sessions.

Here are a few detail from the Souvenir Journal...

 

 

There's gonna be some very dear and talented people at ComePlayEugene including this gal and this gal! I hope you local gals and pals will plan on joining us!!! You can register here and if you have any questions, just let me know!

See you soon...I'll be back in a few days, renewed and recharged and ready to fly!!! :-)