Hold Dear

all of a sudden...

I don't think I ever want to play the ukulele again! Check out this young man...

Absolutely amazing!!!

wonderful and magical...

I am back from a wonderful, wonderful weekend. I went down to Eugene to take a class at ComePlayEugene, a paper arts event that two very talented and dear friends,Jill and Emily, host. Sadly, I don't have any pictures to share. I took my camera but my battery card was DOA. I knew it was low but I thought I'd be able to get a few more days out of it. I will do some catch up at some point to share with the project we made as well as some of the goodies I scored on our junkin' trip around Eugene! That is a GREAT town for that kind of shopping! It's probably a good thing it's an hour and 45 minutes drive for me. :-)

So now I am getting ready for an amazing weekend coming up...my fabulous friends, Hope and Kari and coming in to Portland to visit and stay with me. We've got lots and lots of fun things planned!

I also get to see Cassondra, Jill, Andrea and Lonnie during the long weekend! What fun! And there are a few other surprises planned for some of the girls along the way. I am just so tickled and giddy with excitement! Happy!

And speaking of happy, I came across this on Mary Ann's blog and it makes me seriously happy...

Absolutely magical and with that, I'll say TTFN and wish you a magical week!

Art Journaling...

So happy! Tomorrow, April 12, my sweet friend Hope's online art journaling "Nostalgic Musings" class starts! To register, go here.

Hope is so talented and so creative! I've been working like crazy trying to clear the decks of all other artsy projects in anticipation of being able to actually work on this project real time. I can't wait!

rainy monday and some catch up...

First...thank you all SOOOO much for all your prayers and wishes for my sweet little Atticus' safe return. All is back to normal. That was definitely a very rough little patch.

I hope you all had a lovely Easter holiday and weekend. We had a fun one. Miranda, her friend Trevor and our friends, Harriet and Anita, came over for dinner. And I made...get this...halibut! It was DIVINE! I was inspired by a recipe I saw in Portland's Mix magazine. As you may or may not know, I've been vegetarian for about seven years and in an effort to increase my protein after going through "the change," I am introducing some fish. I've been wrangling with this for months because my reasons for being vegetarian are ethical and ecological. But I've been taking it real slow and it seems to working for me. For dessert, I followed a Quinoa Pudding recipe I got from New Seasons. It was another hit! Yum yum all around!

I have the day off today so I am home and man, I'm so happy about that! It is RAINING like crazy out there so it's a great day for coziness and crafting and listening to this spectacular singer and Miranda is in the kitchen making her famous egg salad from dyed eggs that Harriet and Anita brought over for us! I have a few things artsy that I'm looking to finishing up. I have a circle journal to work on, a Wreck This Journal circle journal to finish, and the focal piece to finish for a necklace round robin I'm doing with some of my favorite Silver Bella pals! Speaking of Silver Bella...tomorrow is registration! I'm pretty thrilled because I am going with my friend, Jill! It's gonna be a blast and a half!!! Who else is going??

Last weekend was ArtFest and I'm not quite sure what was going on with me but I hardly took any pictures! I'm guessing it's because I've been exhausted and so low energy from all my foot drama. I don't know what level of pain I would have been in had I not had a steriod shot the week before because even with that, it about did me in and I was struggling (BTW it's lots better now!)

I traveled with my dear friends, Ilene and Cassondra. We started in Portland and made our way to Port Townsend, stopping in Kalama for some fabulous antique shopping and a perfect lunch! Cassondra and I signed up to be roommates in a dorm but we were put in a house instead. Oh my. That was dangerous because now I fear I will always want to stay in a house! And we had the nicest roommates! I'm so glad it worked out that way because I'm sure I would have never had a chance to meet Becca and Amy.

Check out the DELICIOUS apron that Cassondra made for me...

Cassondra knows I love bark cloth and pom poms! So gorgeous! Thank you again Cassondra! 

Oh and Ilene brought me a package of amazing cookies and a book about Sea Glass. She knows me so well!!! Thank you again, dear friend!

Here are the pictures of my projects and a few others...

Melissa Manley's Muse's Talisman class...

Details...

Couldn't resist gluing a little moth wing to this.

 I LOVED this class and adored Melissa!
 

Here are pieces created in Richard Salley's Enameling 101 and Melissa Manley's Lustruous Beads classes. Richard's class was incredible! What a great teacher! Most of the pieces were made in Richard's class and then I made one bead and a few pendant pieces in Melissa's class. I was utterly exhausted by day three and was very content to just hang out, punch out metal and do a few things on my own.

A few close ups...

I am all about butterflies right now so I made a quick little butterfly stencil and experimented.

And these little pieces I'll be turning into some earrings...

 

And lastly, a few pictures from beach exploration. I gathered beach glass on two different occasions...

 
...absolutely one of my life's favorite activities.

More pix...

 

Okay...time to get back to work to clear the creative decks, so to speak. I signed up to join for this talented friend's online course! I'll be back soon to because I want to give this it's own blog post!