life in the AZ desert

22nd Annual World Championship Hoop Dance Competition (post 1)

2012-02-12T22:12:00.001-07:00

I took over 200 photos on Saturday (it would have been more, but I forgot to charge my camera battery!), so I have lots more than one post's worth of photos from the Hoop Dance competition and the Heard Museum.

I'd say we saw about half the day's line-up of dancers, and we also saw two of the touring exhibits inside the museum- 'Native American Bolo Ties' and 'More than Child's Play: Native American Dolls.' (I just wish I had remembered to charge my camera!!)

(fyi, you can click on any of the photos to make them larger, to see more of the details.)

a pile of colorful hoops waits their turn in the competition ring.

some of the youngest entrants enjoying the Grand Entry parade.

all the dancers take part in the opening dance.

color and pattern everywhere.

a member of the next generation of dancers

listens to the Opening Prayer with his parents.

this dancer is getting a little help from her Dad

during the 'tiny tots' round of dancers.

This young competitor is getting ready to kick the hoop

up with his foot so he can pick it up.

He's quite skilled with the hoops, already!

He was quite a showman, and definitely got the crowd involved in his performance. (one of the judges is off the the left with his arms crossed, watching the performance with eagle eyes.)

This is such a unique sport: artistic and athletic, colorful,

and full of cultural traditions and symbolism.

I hope you're enjoying the photos so far; I'll be back with more!

random...

2012-02-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

just a few random pictures (and thoughts)

for your viewing pleasure:

I love this dog!! (I love all our pets, but
this look gets me every time.)

Tomorrow we will be going to see some of this:

The 22nd annual World Hoop Dancing Championship,

at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. (these pics were taken the

previous time we went, a couple years ago)

I wonder if this little guy will be performing again?? Hopefully he'll enjoy himself a little more this time... :)

The artistry and intricacy of what these dancers can do with such a simple thing as a hoop is just amazing!

Tom and I are enjoying this show, now that it's finally

back on the air. Timothy Olyphant, mobsters, complicated family relationships and criminal activity... what more could you want?? :D

^^^ this cat (Ariel)

is lucky she has nine lives! She has already jumped/fallen from the upstairs hallway overlook once (approx. 10 foot drop), and yesterday she took a header (purposefully, we think) from the upstairs hallway down into the stairwell (almost the full 2 story height). Thankfully she doesn't seem to be concussed (although sometimes it's hard to tell, with her... just kidding; she's fine- but exasperating!)

a couple 'real' scrapbook pages!

2012-02-07T12:00:00.001-07:00

and now, for a few 'real' scrapbook pages, to go along with my latest Project Life layouts! I want to keep up with Project Life to have a slice of our 'day-to-day' along with random things, but I still do like a well-designed (or not, lol!) 12x12 scrapbook layout. I finally decided to scrap photos of a Labor Day weekend trip we took to Las Vegas in 2009.

I decided to include a couple 'on-the-road' pictures as sort of a 'title page' for this section of layouts-- This was my first view of Joshua trees; they remind me of something out of a Dr. Seuss book! The picture of Tom was taken right over the state line into Nevada; I was sort of amazed to see the poker machines right in the gas station, but I guess when gambling is legal, everyone has to take the opportunity to get some $$ out of it.

this is a close-up of the upper right corner; the stickers are October Afternoon's Boarding Pass line of papers; it's full of really cute travel-themed things. I'm not really 'good at' that whole 'layered embellishment' thing that's popular right now, so this is about as layered as I get on my pages.

this is a picture of the entire 2-page spread. I got the background papers and stickers (Las Vegas themed) at a scrapbook store we stopped at on our way into town... yes, of course I planned that, haha!! The scrapbook store was our first stop, actually; I found out where it was before we left, and we planned our route accordingly. (Tom was pretty nice to accommodate that, for sure!) And since then, these papers and stickers have been knocking around in my craft room, so it feels good to finally use them, before they got lost forever (in the abyss).

the left-hand side: Since this paper is one of those 'photo' designs, I didn't want to cover up too much of the famous 'Welcome to Las Vegas' sign (besides which, I didn't get a good picture of it, myself). This page is a couple pictures of 'people we met' including a couple impersonators on the street, and Tom getting to meet Corey and Chumlee at the Gold & Silver Pawn shop (which was pretty cool, by the way!). It also includes a photo I took of the street pretty late at night, still filled to the brim with cars and people.

the right-hand side: again, it's a pre-printed themed paper, so I didn't do much embellishing. This page includes selected photos of things on the strip; my take on Las Vegas was that it was crowded, noisy, dirty, and pretty much 'all for show' so that's what my layout reflects. The photos are all 'fake' things: a fake volcano, fake Paris, fake New York city, etc. If we go back to Las Vegas again, I think it will be to see a show or to see more of the city / area than just the strip... neither of us gamble, and neither of us like large crowds, so spending time in and around the casinos on the strip is kind of pointless.

This layout is one of several I plan on doing to showcase some of our favorite Christmas ornaments. Both Tom and I have a collection of ornaments from before we met, and since we've gotten together, we've started buying ornaments when we go on trips. It's a really nice way to remember the trip when we're decorating the tree. This layout is based on a Scrapbook Generations Sketches for Scrapbooking sketch that I modified slightly to accommodate larger photos. At first I didn't really like the gold paper I used, but after adding the stars, I do like the way it turned out.

A closer look at the left-hand page-- the stars were cut on the Cricut electronic cutting machine; I don't have one of these machines yet, but the Scrapbook Cottage has one, and my fellow scrappers had quite a selection of cartridges with them for the weekend. They were nice enough to let me borrow them to cut whatever I wanted. The star design is from a military-themed cartridge of shapes; in addition to soldiers and planes, the cartridge included some really nice stars, badges, fireworks, etc.

An even closer look at the page- the journaling strips I included on this page. I hauled my typewriter with me to the cottage for the weekend, and I actually used it a lot for journaling! Since I write kind of big, I really like being able to include more text, and the 'coolness factor' of the vintage typewriter hasn't worn off yet... lol!

project life- the first 2 weeks of January

2012-02-03T16:29:00.000-07:00

okay, so I'm getting a bit behind in putting together my Project Life pages, already. But, I need to keep it do-able for me, so if working on them a couple weeks at a time is what it takes to keep up, then that's okay with me. I can't stress about "every Sunday afternoon at 2 pm, I need to do my PL pages" or anything like that, because that is precisely the sort of thing that would make me quit this project. Whew! I'm glad I got that off my chest! That said, here's another two Project Life spreads; not the best photos, but it took me at least 3 times to get decent photos of them, so I finally quit trying.

This is the entire 2-page spread for Jan 2-8. The week included a trip to the movies, a trip to an estate sale (where I found a vintage electric typewriter!! score!!), and photos from a lunch-break trip to the library (along with a photo of my lunch, LOL!), and a photo of one of our favorite dinners, Mexican Spaghetti (yum!).

a close-up of the right-hand page. The upper left photo is two 3x4 photos collaged together and printed as one 4x6 photo; I added the piece of velvet ribbon (attached with my Tiny Attacher- love that thing!) to separate the photos a bit. I used a few random pieces of scrapbook paper, a manila shipping tag, etc. in addition to pre-printed pieces from the Project Life kit.

This is a closeup of the journaling space above the typewriter photo- it's nothing fancy; I just wanted to save the piece of paper that was the first thing I typed with the typewriter. I stapled the scrap of paper to a tan piece of cardstock. (and what I typed on that piece of paper is true; it IS difficult to type without a delete key- lol!!)

I didn't have 'stuff' to fill up all the spaces, so I added in a quote, stamped on cardstock, with a couple pieces of scrapbook paper decorating the edges. It reads "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss something." Fitting, I thought- plus, it's from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which is one of my favorite 1980s movies.

This is Jan 9 - Jan 15th... random photos, including a few I posted here already (my haircut, the sad-looking flattened angel food cake, and the 10 lb box of oatmeal). The week also included a trip to Walmart (thankfully, a big grocery trip like that is only necessary once every few weeks), a Dr's appointment for me (I attached the business card to the outside of the page protector), and an estate sale on the weekend (photos posted here previously).

This is a closer look at the left-hand page for that week; I finally started using some of the label stickers included with the Project Life kit (the arrow above, and a clear day-of-the-week sticker on the laundry photo), and I really like the way they look. The bottom left photo is a picture I snapped of a gorgeous sunrise I saw on my way to work; the bottom right side is a story Tom told me about something that happened one afternoon before I got home... Tom was flying his model helicopter in our back yard, got it up too high to control, the wind caught it, and it drifted over the wall and through the neighbors' yard onto the next block!! He found it, thank goodness (lodged up in a tree one street over), but the story was so funny I didn't want to forget it. A design mention: I didn't like the decoration on the journaling card I typed that story on, so I cut up another decorated card (the green and gold design) and used it as a border. I added an extra detail with mini rick-rack (stapled on with the tiny attacher).

random pet photos

2012-02-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

Just some random animal shots from the last couple days:

Ariel watching something outside-- they just wish the could open the door by themselves!

Ariel 'flops' on the floor when we come into the house, looking for a belly-skritch

Krista is always smiling!! (she doesn't know she's going to the vet to get a shot, lol!)

Krista posing with Nano (one of the cats who lives at the vet's office)

I should be asleep right now...

2012-01-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

...because I haven't gotten more than 5 hours of sleep the last couple nights-- this weekend I stayed at the Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage, and who can sleep when there's scrapping to be done and Diet Mt. Dew to drink?? (you think one thing had anything to do with the other? haha!!) Anyway, I didn't take many pictures, and most of the ones that I did take turned out crappy, so they will be re-taken tomorrow afternoon. But, here's a little of what I worked on:

this is an addition to the Christmas week spread in my Project Life album... I wanted a way to save a few of the Christmas cards we got, so added them in a couple different ways- above I've used a 6x12 page protector; below I added a couple cards into the album just by punching holes right in the cards.

I also added in an 8x8 page protector, and made a collage-style page with snips and pieces from all the cards we received. I've seen Ali Edwards do something similar before, and really liked it.

(please excuse the slippers I'm wearing in the photo above- but you gotta be comfortable when you're crafting all day and all night, right?!?)

and as a refresher, above is the spread before adding in the extra page protectors. I really like this approach; it's a good way to add in more 'things' without feeling like I have to stretch the week into two entire 12x12 2-page spreads. It's probably just a psychological thing, because I know there's more than just the 2 12x12 pages of stuff there, but they're smaller-- so it works, in my brain.

This is a horrible photo, but it's a still photo from the movie Mona Lisa Smile. I was watching it on my laptop during a break from scrapping. The movie is decent (free-spirited Californian takes on the conservative mid-century view of 'the woman's place in society' at 1953 Wellesley College), but I absolutely LOVE the clothes in this movie. Every outfit-- I want to have the entire wardrobe in my closet! I really like her shirt-dress and sweater combo here, and I believe she's wearing a squash blossom silver and turquoise belt here, as well. I started noticing small things about people's outfits, like the fact that all the earrings are clip-ons, and the fact that Julia Roberts' character wore this super-cool silver and turquoise jewelry throughout the entire movie. Love it, love it, love it!! (I also found another piece of silver and turquoise jewelry to add to my own collection, at another local estate sale- I'll take a photo of that tomorrow, too!)

estate sale scores! (and some random pics)

2012-01-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

Last time I was at Costco, I picked up some oatmeal-- 10 lbs!! I won't run out anytime soon, that's for sure!! (Plus, I could use it to life weights- lol!)

I subscribe to a service that sends weekly e-mails with details about upcoming estate sales in the area. Every once in a while, I see a listing that sounds interesting: last Saturday, I got up early and hit up one particular sale right at 8 am (when they opened), and came home with this:

Score!! a Smith Corona Electra 120 typewriter, with the case and instruction manual. It still has its ribbon, and once we messed around with it a bit, it still types! I've wanted a typewriter for a while, now-- sometimes I would rather have typed journaling for my scrapbook pages, but I don't want to mess around with the computer printer- soooo, typewriter to the rescue! Yay!! Yesterday, I drove up to Scottsdale and went to three separate estate sales. Two of them were a bust (nothing I wanted to get), but the third was pretty nice- I actually went back to it to get something I left behind the first time (thankfully it was still there!)

There was regular household stuff, dishes, vintage clothing and shoes (unfortunately, the shoe size was way too big for me- 10 1/2) , but I spent most of my time looking at the jewelry. None of it was very expensive, but I really like all the pieces I bought. The top left pic is a pin from the 1950s, and has a mustard seed in- it was good luck, apparently? The top right pic is two silver bracelets- one sterling silver, and one Mexican silver. The bottom left ring is also sterling silver, with a sapphire (? no idea), but what I really like is the setting. The next ring is why I went back; I just couldn't forget about this little Zuni roadrunner ring- isn't he cute?? The pendant is turquoise, I think, and about 1-1 1/2 inches across. I doubt I hit the jackpot with any of it, but I think I did pretty good!

I also picked up a few pieces of paper ephemera, including these playing cards. I have a small collection of individual playing cards (dog and cat designs!), but I haven't bought any for quite a while-- it's really unusual for me to see individual designs like this, and I don't want to break up a deck just for one of the cards. More unusual, these cards were the only designs I saw!

here's a couple more pieces of paper ephemera I couldn't pass up- the Knoll Creek Dairy piece is a needle case (see below), and I love the little cow!! I especially like the old-fashioned telephone number. I don't know what the piece on the right is supposed to be, but I love the watercolor flowers.

below are a couple random pictures from the last week:

I got my hair cut and colored last week... my stylist styles it straight sometimes, which I like, but I don't have a flatiron yet, so I had Tom capture it for posterity (along with the naturally-curly look, just to be fair).

and this sad sight was supposed to be an angel food cake... I had it upside-down to cool, and it fell out of the pan, so it got smashed!! thankfully, it still tastes okay. but darn, it looked great when I took it out of the oven!! oh well...

Project Life- Spread 2: Christmas!

2012-01-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

A couple other things I want to mention regarding my approach to Project Life (a couple 'philosophy' type things I'm embracing to make this work for me): the photos aren't necessarily in any kind of 'order' in the page protector (other than the fact that the pics are from that week) because I don't want to have to worry that much about making them 'fit' into the page protector. They also aren't necessarily 'stellar' photography; I figure any decent photo that documents something is better than no photo at all. And, since the Project Life materials are all color-coordinated, I'm not worrying too much about coordinating anything 'with' the colors in the photos, or getting all 'scrapbook design-ish' over these pages. I want to make doing this as easy as possible so I can keep up with it!

This is the second week in my album: Christmas week. I jazzed up the title card a little (yes, right after I said I didn't want to go all 'scrapbooky' with this album, I did it after all... lol!) with a felt holly sprig that was a gift tag from Mom's package. I also made some photo collages in Picasa so I could include a few more photos.

The left-hand page includes a photo collage of the Christmas tree, the presents under the tree, and the Yule log on television (we watched a crackling fire and listened to Christmas carols while we opened presents!), the row of journaling cards with a couple extras- small photos of vintage books (from my childhood) that Mom sent me for Christmas, a business card from my Doctor's office, journaling with a 3-D sticker, a fortune from the Chinese dinner we had on Christmas Eve... The bottom row is two photos I took during the week: the left one on my way home from work one afternoon, and the right one was taken at my Dr's office during my yearly physical. (the office tech mentioned she was a scrapper, so I knew she'd understand when I whipped out my camera!)

a close-up of the title block: I covered up the design on the card with a piece of die-cut scrapbook paper.

Here, I stuck some file folder labels to the photo for journaling space.

For this photo collage, I separated the small pictures using rick-rack stapled to the photo using my new Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher- I finally bought it (using a 40% off coupon!) after wanting it for months! (I think those teeny tiny staples are just the cutest!!)

another close-up- the lower right part of the page. I attached the fortune cookie fortune to a patterned tag from the Project Life kit.

Above is the right-hand page: more photos of Christmas day, including a 2-photo collage of opening presents in the top right corner: The left picture is Tom opening one of his present, and the right picture is Bisbee and Prescott opening one of theirs! (I love watching them do that!) The center strip is journaling (I included a couple Christmas stamps from cards on one of them), a photo of Tom messing with Ariel, and a grocery shopping list I saved.

and, here are a couple more close-ups: the dogs enjoying their Christmas chewies (journaling on a vintage ticket stapled to the photo) and below, a pocket made using one of the photographs.

The photo is of one of my Christmas presents to Tom: a radio-controlled mini helicopter. (he's been having fun with it so far!) I trimmed the photo to about 3x6, and taped down the edges of the photo to create a pocket. I added a journaling tag with details of our Christmas presents, and stapled a punched, stamped circle to the top edge. Two weeks down, 50 (?) more to go!!

Project Life- or, what have I been up to?

2012-01-05T22:02:00.011-07:00

So, what have I (we) been up to, anyway?? Well, the regular stuff-- and some holiday stuff-- just not blogging about it, I guess... but, part of what I've been up to is a new-to-me idea for scrapbooking the 'everyday' stuff that comprises our life, using a concept (and cool products!) from Becky Higgins called Project Life. From Becky's website: "Project Life is designed to be an easier-than-ever scrapbooking system. Simply pair your photos and journaling with pre-designed title cards and journaling cards. Your photos, these cards, and even your memorabilia slip into the Photo Pocket Pages and that’s it. The result is a stylish masterpiece that represents your life or whatever occasion you choose to record. With Project Life’s beautifully simple format, deciding what supplies to use or how to design layouts becomes obsolete, leaving you more time to experience life." Project Life can be used to document a photo-a-day, a week-at-a-glance, a monthly roundup, random photos and stories- however the user decides.

I started out seeing Ali Edwards post Project Life layouts on her blog all throughout last year, and the more I saw, the more it grew on me- the idea of recording the details of daily life as well as the bigger, 'usual topics' for scrapbooking layouts such as holidays, birthdays, trips, or other special occasions. Making regular "designed" layouts is fun, but only doing those leaves out a lot of what happens in our life. (plus, I rarely get the uninterrupted time or creative inclination anymore to spend a couple hours on just one layout.) I decided to try out Project Life using a weekly approach, and see how it goes-- without further ado, here is my first 2-page spread:

Project Life is made to be used with divided page protectors (also designed by Becky Higgins, to go with the papers); you can slip the date / title card and 4x6 photos right into the larger slots, and the journaling tags (or smaller photos) slide into the smaller spaces. The kit comes with tons pre-cut, pre-designed cards, so you have plenty of room for journaling (some of the cards are folded, too, so you have even more room to write). Lots of people do this as a yearly thing, so they start on Jan 1, but I was so excited about it, I started as soon as I got the materials- haha!! (There will be a title or 'cover' page that goes with this album, but I need to take a couple more pet pics first, so I'll show that later.)

Above is the left-hand page, which covers Dec. 10 - Dec. 18th. We attended a performance of Handel's Messiah and ate lunch at a new-to-us Persian restaurant (which was tasty); I received my Project Life materials from Amazon (see the photos, at the bottom?? LOL! I was so excited about this package I tracked it all the way to my door!) The next weekend, we drove to the Queen Creek Olive Mill, and ate at a new-to-us Indian restaurant (also very tasty). I didn't take pictures of that, but I did save the business cards.

Above is the right-hand page, with more photos of the week's activities- Bisbee snuggling with Tom on the couch while we watched TV on Friday night (she very rarely does that, so I'm glad I got a photo of it, even if it wasn't the best quality); addressing the Christmas cards; a photo taken off of the Food Network website from the final Next Iron Chef episode (I still need to write more journaling, there); and photos documenting a couple movies we watched. (FYI, I got images for the movies from the Internet, cropped and printed them, then attached them to cardstock. The red "Take-and Bake Revolution" is a sticker from the grand opening of our local Papa Murphy's pizza; I just stuck it to a journaling card and folded the overhang to the back. (it's very good pizza, by the way- we've gotten it 3x already!)

This is a detail of the business cards from the left page: I cut a piece of coordinating cardstock to 4x6, rounded the edges, and attached the business cards to the cardstock. And, I wanted to mention something you can hopefully see on the right-hand page: some of the photos have labels on them. They are simply office file folder labels with extra journaling on, and I think I'll be doing this a lot to keep track of more details. Some labels are stuck to the photo itself, and some are stuck to the page protector. Thanks for looking, and reading about my new project, Project Life!! I'm excited for this to continue-- I have a couple more weeks (mostly) completed already, so I'll show you those soon.

still here! a photo post--

2011-12-12T09:37:00.003-07:00

yup, we're still here, and still doing stuff- I just haven't done anything with my photos lately! (I'm actually embarrassed to say that most of my recent pictures are still hanging out on the camera...) But, here are a few of them that I did rescue from photo cyber-purgatory!!

we took all three dogs to the groomers a month or so ago; no way are we patient enough to deal with all that hair!! Melissa and her staff at Puppy Love Pet Stylist always do a great job with them- Doesn't Krista look happy?? (Bisbee and Prescott are probably thinking, "come on, let's get home- it's dinnertime!")

a cool-looking early evening sky (the colors were much more vivid in real life)

everyone waiting at the door- must be dinnertime!!

Prescott's "olyphant" toy hanging out at the top of the stairs, waiting for him to come back.

"unpacking Christmas" from the coat closet. (I'll post some pics of the decorations, too!)

yesterday afternoon we went out for lunch, then attended a performance of Handel's Messiah given by the Scottsdale Choral Artists and Scottsdale Arts Orchestra. [The performance venue was a (large) Lutheran church-- notice all the organ pipes in the background? We didn't get to hear the organ yesterday, but I would definitely love to- it's one of the largest church organs in the state, and has over 5,000 pipes!]

pattern and color; details

2011-10-25T19:47:00.003-07:00

I was messing around with cropping and color saturation in Picasa. I'm still not sure what I think about street art overall in terms of its legality (I believe the artwork in all these photos was sanctioned by the property owner), but the amount of work that went into all of this is just phenomenal.

And when you looke at it closely, the colors and patterns are amazing! (be sure to click on the photos to see them larger.)

a sign of the season:

2011-10-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

I don't eat any of these, but I know when I see them in the store that Halloween (and candy corn!!) can't be far behind!

ArtFest- random photo wrapup

2011-10-20T10:30:00.001-07:00

This post includes some of the photos I took that didn't really "fit" anywhere else in this series of posts... (or pictuers that I forgot to include earlier- lol!)

this is a detail photo of decoration on a car in the parking log- some people go all out with their art!!

this pic and the one below, are of the "Art Asylum" which was really the lobby of my dorm building. Since there was a classroom in my building, the tables were set up there all week long, for us to use at night. Lots of art-making, project-completing, and sharing creative ideas went on there! (and the Art Asylum is why I got very little sleep the entire time I was there; I was up till after midnight every night, working in my art journal... I just couldn't turn off the creative impulses in my brain that easily-- I guess I figured I'd sleep when I got home.)

This is my area in our dorm room, the night before we had to leave, when I was trying to sort it out to pack-- I made it "just like home" during the time I was there! You might laugh at this statement, but if you ever saw my crafting space when I'm in the middle of a project, you wouldn't-- Tom will just nod his head (somewhat sadly) when he sees this picture, I'm sure.

these two pictures (above and below) were taken in the Seattle airport... these were inset into the floor in the terminal, and I had to take pictures of them. I'm sure some of the other travelers wondered what I was doing taking pictures of the floor, but really, you never know what you'll see when you take the time to look around!

my plane didn't really look like a whale (thank goodness, since I don't think whales can fly) but it did get me back home-- as always, I was glad to get back home. And extra-glad, and surprised, to see Tom waiting for me inside the terminal, rather than at the curb!! (not so glad to unpack, though... lol!) Thanks for sharing in my ArtFest experience! I would love to go back again sometime; there's just something magical about being in that sort of environment, where you can practically "feel" the creativity and inspiration in the air.

when did this happen??

2011-10-19T14:30:00.002-07:00

it seems like just yesterday we brought home this little ball of fur...

And now he's 13 months old already!! (and still growing into his legs and ears- lol!!) He's still really gangly and clumsy (and he's huge for a Sheltie), but once he finishes growing in his coat-- which could take a couple years-- he will be an absolutely beautiful dog. (Not that he's not now, you understand; he just looks a bit "unbalanced" with that big mane of hair and a "still un-Sheltie-like" look to his body.) this side-long look says, "enough posing; throw the darn frisbee, already!!" He is the master of the side-long look, that's for sure.

eye candy-- or, I almost wish I could sew (but not really)

2011-10-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

When I was in line at the Bazzill warehouse sale, I was chatting with a couple other ladies in line (you gotta pass the time somehow when you're waiting 1 1/2 hours, right?). One of the ladies mentioned that there was a SAS Fabrics store very near my work, so a couple weeks ago, I headed there after work to check it out. (check out their website by clicking here.) The tagline on their website is "fabrics by the yard and by the pound" and they are not kidding: this is the chaos you see when you walk into the store-- shelves of ribbon and trims, piles and piles of fabric, and boxes upon boxes of charms, sequins, buttons, and doo-dads. My first thought was, "oh my gosh!" (On the other hand, I was also thinking "oh, boy!! there's gotta be some good stuff here!") I didn't buy anything that day (I only had about an hour to look around before they closed), but took some photos and got some creative inspiration from the riot of colors and textures. (I will definitely go back again-- probably on a Saturday, when I can spend lots more time digging through the boxes and shelves for those hidden treasures.) Till then, enjoy the photos!!

Row after row of rick-rack, pom-pom trim, and fancy braided trims. these colors remind me of fruit-flavored sherbet.

I don't know where they get the huge rolls of trims they sell; lots of the labels look vintage, to me.

this huge table is just piled high with bolts and end-cuts of fabric.

At the end of the ailes, there are shelves just chock-full of narrow boxes; each box holds a different kind of charm, button, or trim.

more rolls of woven trims- I love, love, love that tan trim with the fruit; it reminds me of my Grandma's house, for some reason. I would have bought it, but I couldn't really think of what I would do with it. (I don't really think this is one of those stores; it's more like "buy it and figure it out later."

a look inside a box of embroidered patches for 25 cents each. The box was about as tall as my waist, and about 2/3 full. (oh, and by the way, there were two of these boxes.) I could have spent hours here, just digging to see what I could find.

Another view of the fabric table, with some other shoppers next to it, so you can get a sense of scale. Creative chaos for sure, right?!? :D Like I said, I almost wish I could sew!

it was sort of like a rock concert...

2011-10-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

A couple Saturdays ago, I got up early and spent my morning at a warehouse in Chandler, AZ. This was one of those times I realize I'm lucky to live where I do, since I wouldn't have gotten this opportunity anywhere else--

I spent my Saturday morning at the Bazzill Warehouse Sale!! Now, only a fellow papercrafter would really be able to relate to this, but just substitute your most favorite "thing," whatever it is, for the paper, and you'll get what I mean... they hold it once a year, and sell overstock and discontinued merchandise right out of their warehouse at dirt-cheap prices. The biggest draw (for me, anyway) is the paper-- luscious, heavyweight, 12x12 textured cardstock in hundreds of shades (they didn't have all the colors for sale, but enough of them), but I managed to find a few more things while I was there- haha!

So, how was it like a rock concert, you ask??

--there was a long line: I waited over 1 1/2 hours to get into the building (which might sound crazy, but again, if you love paper like I do, you understand.)

--it was pretty crowded: there was some pushing and shoving, just like at a crowded concert (none of it intentional, though- we scrappers are a pretty polite bunch, for the most part)

--there was loud music: they had a stereo going, playing some bouncy, upbeat oldies tunes while we shopped.

--there was a celebrity: Mr. Bazzill-- aka Doug Jones, the company founder-- was in attendance. Actually, he was acting as the doorman: keeping track of how many people were inside the building at any one time, and letting us in a few at a time so as not to get any fire code violations. (this also helped to prevent any riots by the paper racks, I'm sure.)

now, on to a couple pics of my loot:

my pizza box full of cardstock: over 120 sheets of smooth, textured, and specialty cardstock. (over $65-70 value for $20) Isn't it beautiful?? I just want to shuffle through it... I took a couple pieces of patterned paper with me to color-match, so as not to pick pretty-but-not-useful-to-me colors (like bubble-gum pink, taxi-cab yellow, fluorescent purple, or anything like that...) This pic is something I've been wanting to try: Bazzill makes stitching templates, so you can stitch on your scrapbook layouts. I think these were $2 each, and each one has 4-6 different designs in. (I also got a few other things: some chipboard, a couple accordian albums, and a package of fancy-shaped cardstock...) now, just to find the time to put these new supplies to use!

a well-deserved relaxing weekend...

2011-10-16T18:46:00.006-07:00

after a grueling couple weeks for both of us (Tom had tests, quizzes, and mid-terms the entire week, while I worked overtime for the past two weeks getting ready for an external audit at my work), we deserved a relaxing weekend to make up for it. We slept late on Saturday, then drove up to Cave Creek, AZ and had a leisurely lunch at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants in the area, El Encanto. This restaurant has indoor/outdoor seating and is situated around a pond where you can interact with the resident ducks, birds, and turtles while you enjoy some great food and drinks.

the pond in the middle of the restaurant. (I borrowed this photo from their website: see more photos in their gallery by clicking here.) The food is wonderful, and the atmosphere is non-stop... they were busy when we got there; we waited over 20 minutes to get a seat, and after we were seated, the service was a bit slow (a bit out of the ordinary compared to the last time we ate there).

this photo is, of course, sweets with my sweetie-- haha!! :D Because of the wait, they gave us a complimentary dessert-- fried ice cream with strawberry sauce.

a few of the resident ducks, trolling for corn chips. (I happily obliged.)

This sad sight was in front of one of the stores-- a sign that we were not the only victims of the dreaded agave weevil. (It doesn't make me feel any better about our agave dying, but at least we weren't alone in our misery.)

ooh, this caught our eye right away when we saw it-- a saguaro skeleton floor lamp!! We don't really have a place for it in our house, but if we had the $1800 on the price tag, we would definitely find a place! (file this one away in the "someday, when we build our adobe Santa-Fe style house" style file, I guess.) The day was topped off with a fire in the fire pit, a cigar, and some stargazing... the best way to end a relaxing day!

ArtFest: Vendor Night and Show & Tell

2011-10-16T13:25:00.008-07:00

this post is kind of photo-heavy, but I wanted to show you some of the wonderful pieces of artwork made during ArtFest 2011. Along with a bit of craziness: this pic is the line of people waiting to get into Vendor Night... the instructors set up tables and sell pieces of their artwork, supplies, etc. And it was CRAZY!! (see for yourself, below)

For quite a while, it was practically impossible to even get close to a table, let alone see anything on that table. I didn't buy much; I got a necklace made from WA-state-beach pebbles, to remember my trip by, and some unmounted rubber stamps. And then I got the heck out of there, to catch my breath! The rest of the pics in this post are examples from Show & Tell; everyone could bring pieces made during the classes, to show off. This gives everyone a chance to see what was made in the other classes, and to see what the artists were teaching (to get ideas for picking future classes!)

a beautiful encaustic wax collage. (not sure who taught this class, unfortunately)

I think these pieces were from the class "OverSaturated Polaroid look by Lisa Bebi"... making photocopies look like color-saturated photographs.

a sewn "prayer flag" I think, one of Karen Michel's classes.

a fun journal. Jill Berry class.

this is a blury photo, but I love this piece-- a collage made on a vintage book cover. (I believe this class was taught by Tracie Lyn and Marilyn Huskamp)

this wonderful Santos is entirely handmade (and about 18 inches tall). (not sure who taught this one)

This fantastical creature really intrigued me: this class was all about making a 3-D sculpture on a wire armature, using sausage casing to make the "skin." The sausage casing was wrapped around the armature when it was wet, then would shrink onto the frame as it dried. (not sure who the instructor was for this one, either.)

wonderfully collaged mail-art postcards. (class by Orli Avineri, I believe)

polymer clay quilt, class by Laura Mika. and this is my Show & Tell scrapbook page: I printed small photos of some of the artwork, arranged them on the page, then collaged other bits and pieces around them till the page was filled in (except for one small space I now see, that I still need to fill in- lol!) This page actually took 2-3 hours to complete, but it was a lot of fun in a meditative sort of way.

ArtFest- The Art of Silliness

2011-10-11T22:14:00.010-07:00

My third class at ArtFest was another one that had me kind of wary: The Art of Silliness, taught by Carla Sonheim. From the class description:

Here are the Top Five Reasons to take a Silly workshop: 5. You get to complete activity worksheets, third-grade style. 4. The drawings you create are meant to be silly, i.e. not perfect, i.e. not stressful, i.e. FUN! 3. You can mix metaphors all you want and pretend you did it on purpose. 2. You want to lighten up, in your artwork and your life. 1. The supply list is not a list. (fyi, the supply list was only one item: a black marker or pen) And also, there was this: "As a workshop teacher, I try to help adult students recover a more child-like approach to drawing and art-making. To loosen up… shed those fears, and just let the joy of creating be the primary focus: That’s what this workshop will be about."

I was wary because-- well, frankly, because I find it difficult to do that-- the whole "shed those fears, and loosen up" thing. It was a rewarding class, and it did made me think, about a lot of things-- but did it help me to loosen up in my artwork and in my life? To be perfectly honest, probably not much. (But that's not Carla's fault; that's all me-- it was still fun, though!)

Anyway, we did lots of fun (but kind of scary-to-me) things in that class, like drawing with our non-dominant hand, drawing without looking at the paper, drawing without lifting the pen / pencil from the paper, things like that. Below are some of the results:

On the left is a drawing I copied from a book for one of the drawing exercises. The point of the exercise (if I remember right) was to draw the "shapes" and "bulk" of the object without drawing the "outline" of the object. On the right is one of my "one-liner" (draw very quickly, without lifting your pen off the paper) drawings. I actually quite like how that cat turned out... I think he gives off the "essence" of cat, and he makes me laugh when I look at him! (I think what makes me laugh is that he's sort of cross-eyed, and that his whiskers look more like a droopy mustache than whiskers).

We also got to fill out elementary-school-style handouts throughout the day... filling out a worksheet takes the pressure off, somehow-- it really does take you back to that elementary school feeling. (FYI, Carla also offers this periodically as an online class; she sends fun worksheets like this to your e-mail inbox, along with othr fun stuff like photos of sidewalk cracks, ideas for doodling, etc. For more information about her classes, you can check out her blog by clicking here. ) The ship on the left was an exercise in randomness and using your imagination-- we ripped sticky-back foam into random shapes, then arranged them into an "object" and used the resulting image as a printing block. (a bit messy, but fun!)

This is the afternoon's exercises: we also got to make a sculpture!! (To be perfectly honest, I was not enthusiastic about this at the start-- my brain works much better in 2D than 3D). We made the wire armatures, then "filled" them in by wrapping yarn and fabric scraps around them. My bird didn't want to stand up, unfortunately-- he's tired, I guess! Then, we sketched our sculptures, and used Pan pastels to shade them... I actually like how these drawings turned out-- much looser than I would normally do, but again, I think they give the "essence" of the bird (as odd as he is!).

These are sort of amusing-- I don't remember the exact exercise- it was either "draw with your non-dominant hand," "or draw with your non-dominant hand without looking at the paper," I don't remember which. Whichever it was, the results are pretty funny; I was really worried about not going off the edge of the paper on that scrunched-up one, I guess!!

This little guy was one of the objects we drew for the "draw without looking" exercises...

I quite like how my drawing of him turned out! (see scrapbook page below)

And finally, here is the scrapbook page I made to document this class-- I included a couple of the actual class exercises on this page including my sad little dog scribble, and I used a pretty "loud" patterned paper for the background, because, well, it's all about being silly, after all!

ArtFest and SB page, next installment

2011-10-10T16:30:00.000-07:00

My second ArtFest class was "Fabric Paint Party" with Lisa Engelbrecht, which I was frankly a little afraid of. Lisa Engelbrecht is a wonderful calligrapher; her work seems very polished and elegant, which I knew I could not do. (Personally, I don't feel I'm a "polished and elegant" sort of person, in life or in my art.) Lisa Engelbrecht's website gallery, with examples of her work, is here... go check it out! But as I found out, there was no need to be intimidated at all- Lisa was very welcoming and gracious, and really, it was all about experimenting with the materials and paints, to see what would happen... now that, I can do! haha! The pic above is my workspace, partway through the day. These materials are ones I've never really worked with at all; liquid inks with very intense colors, walnut ink crystals, pigment powders, things like that. It was really a lot of fun, and the element of the unknown was definitely part of it-- you could never be sure what would happen when you painted the ink on the fabric, or what it would look like when it dried. Our class project "goal" was to make fabric pages and a cover, to sew into a fabric book with pages featuring words of things we love. (mine isn't done yet, but after looking at the pics here again, I really do think I need to get it out and finish it!) Here are some of my classmates; we laid our pieces out on the tables multiple times throughout the day, so everyone could take a look and see how each of us was interpreting the directions. (it was a beautiful day, so we also draped some of our pieces on the open windowsill to dry; thank goodness it wasn't very windy!)

And for a change of pace, these two pics are not class-related; they are of our dinner companions, who would come and join us every evening during the dinner service.

They were so docile, they were seriously less than 10 feet away from the patio, and would just hang out, keeping us company while we enjoyed our dinner inside the cafeteria... very pretty!!

Tthis is a closeup of the piece of fabric that will eventually become the cover of my book. We worked with all kinds of mark-making materials, not just brushes-- twigs, bamboo skewers, ink droppers, etc. And, all kinds of materials to color the fabric- liquid inks, markers, gesso, and some luxurious pigment powders I've never used before, called "Schminke" powders. (seriously, you need to click on this link; just the photograph of the containers is great!)

These powders were so light and fluffy, it was almost like working with powdered sugar. You would sprinkle them onto the wet paint or ink, and they would settle in the most wonderful, shiny, sparkly patterns. (the picture above does not do it justice at all; you'll just have to get some and try it for yourself; I definitely would love to have some in my art materials!)

These two pictures are two of my finished pages-- the page above has a bit of stenciling on with oil pastels (the pink squares), some sparkly gel pen (the heart), and my first attempt at "calligraphy" type writing.The page below is more "organic" and is more of my favorite subtle blues and greens. It got a bit too wet while I was working on it, unfortunately, so the writing ran a bit, but I still like how it turned out. I may add some paper and other collage materials to my pages before I finish them-- I can't leave my beloved paper out entirely, now, can I?? :D

Below is the SB layout I made for this class- again, I didn't want the papers or page design to overwhelm the colorful photographs, and hopefully, they don't. The background is a light grey, and since most of the pictures have teal/purple in, I chose purples as accent colors (with a little shot of yellow- the opposite of purple on the color wheel- to brighten it up). This is another Alison Davis page design, with a few changes- my photos are larger, and I replaced one of the background strips with the fabric squares. When I first designed this page, the black strip was horizontal, but I just couldn't get the photos to work on it that way. I tried-- believe me; I tried!! (again, it gets frustrating when I can't get a page to work.) It finally hit me to turn the page 90 degrees, and then it worked:

So really, if I was to show you the sketch, the only things you'd probably recognize from it are the long strip with the sewing and the background strips... the photo arrangement, title and journaling placement, etc. was all changed to work with my photos. That's the beauty of sketches-- they give you someplace to "start from" but you can still modify them as needed, so your page ends up looking like "you" in the end.

The area in the close-up could have been a title block, I suppose, but since I put the title down the side, I ended up just using this area to feature some of the actual pieces of fabric made in the class. We all made a few pieces of extra fabric, cut them up into pieces, and traded them with the other students in class. I still have more pieces of painted fabric... hmmm, now what to do with them? (after I finish making my book, of course!)

ArtFest SB layout (and another recap!)

2011-10-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

okay, so this recap is technically a bit of a re-run (so to speak). Remember this class? Lush Layered Canvas with Roxanne Padgett, where we painted, scribbled, stenciled, and stamped on fabric? See photo below of my table during class. (click here if you want to head to Roxanne's blog, to see what artsy things she's been up to.) (My previous post about it is here, if you want a refresher, and more fun photographs of lush layered colors and patterns. ) because after all, Roxanne's motto is "fear no color" and she does not!! her work is FULL of colors and layers that just draw you in and make you look at it again to see what else you can find in it. During the class, I took photos of some of my pieces while they were in progress... I blew this one up and changed it to B&W. I printed it on the copier, and ended up using it as background paper on the SB page I made about this class- how cool is that?!? (see my finished page below.)

FYI, the page background is white, so that's why it looks kinda funny-- the 12x12 white background didn't photograph all that well, but it really isn't a randomly-shaped page, I promise. I wanted to let the photographs be the focus, so I didn't want to use too many patterns and colors elsewhere on the page, but when I found the paper with my own pattern on, I couldn't resist. I added two different washes of blue acrylic paint over the B&W pattern, then ran upstairs to the SB Cottage bathroom so I could dry it with my hair dryer. (I was way too impatient to let them dry by themselves- haha!) I added the scalloped pattern by punching circles out of some collage pages I bought from Teesha Moore (while I was there), so this page is a "complete ArtFest" creation, with the help of an Alison Davis scrapbook sketch for the general page layout (I love these sketches-- I personally like having a "starting point" for a SB page layout). I'm on a roll, so come back soon for another ArtFest recap!

street art SB page(s)

2011-10-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

I knew when I took the graffiti photos a few weeks ago that I wanted to scrapbook them, and very quickly, I found the exactly perfect paper for it- yay! love when that happens!! (the skyline paper below). I knew that somehow I wanted to get the urban, paint-y feel to my pages, too. And I also knew I had a lot of pictures I wanted to use but didn't want to crop them at all, so wasn't sure how to do it. Enter the 2 peas in a bucket website, and their monthly class (with Shimelle Laine!), 4x6 photo love. This layout is the result- sort of a "page-and-a-half" layout, with a sneaky trick to it: it looks like just one page, doesn't it?? But look closer-- it's not!

It's really a 2-page layout (almost), as seen above. (the page protectors are supposed to be sewn together on the edge, too- I just haven't gotten my sewing machine out yet.) The link to the class is here: August 4x6 photo love: how to get (8) 4x6 pages onto a layout. (besides being useful, the classes are fun to watch; there's always a couple layouts along with a video for every month, which I love-- it's always fun to see someone else's process for making a scrapbooking layout.)

Close-up of the skyline with title. I cut the skyline out of the patterned paper and applied it to my base paper. After trying the title stickers out, I decided it was too dark for the red stickers on by themselves, so I lightened it up with a bit of gesso as a "background" for title.

I also tried out my spray inks on these pages, to give them sort of a "messy, gritty" kind of look. Not sure how successful I was at it; I think I may have overdone it a little, but it looks okay. (I really need to remember to stop right before I add that last thing, to let the layout percolate a little before I keep going with it.)

I do love the papers I chose for this layout; gray cardstock, and patterned paper from the Basic Grey Wander line; usually I think their patterns are somewhat overwhelming, but I think it totally works here. The staples work, too... and the fact that I had problems with the stapler just adds to the "urban" feel, right? lol!) I quite like the way this came out; the fact that the "title" area" is above all the photos and tricks the eye is a lot of fun... even though I did ruin a couple page protectors (okay, three, actually) trying to trim them down to the right height, I think I'll definitely use this layout idea again.

I do have quite a few more graffiti photos I want to scrap, so you'll be seeing more of them soon. (not sure about the spray ink, though- that might take some practicing before I break it out again!)

life (and death) in the AZ desert {garden}

2011-10-05T16:00:00.001-07:00

So, life in the AZ desert isn't all art journaling and scrapbooking... not hardly! Gardening is hard sometimes, even in the desert--you'd think that cacti and succulents would be pretty no-care and hardy, wouldn't you?? But that isn't always the case, as we just found out, in a pretty disheartening way... This is a picture of one of our favorite garden plants, a Blue Agave (the plant used to make tequila). It was given to us by a friend; when we planted it, it was probably only a foot and a half tall. It grew into a very impressive plant-- the photo above is from 2009 (I couldn't find any newer), and it had grown quite a bit since then. I'd say it was about 5 feet tall and at least 5 feet in diameter earlier this summer; after the saguaro, it was the main focal plant of our front yard. A couple months ago, we took at least 6-8 young plants (pups) off of it, to give it more room to grow. And then last month, this happened. We wondered: did we nick the roots when we dug up the pups?? did we not water it enough?? did we over-water it?? We had no idea. Then, it got worse: A couple days ago, Tom wiggled it from the center "growing stalk" and it tipped right over... there was nothing left under it at all!!

In talking to a friend of his, Tom found out what had happened: Our agave had been attacked. By a nasty bug called the agave snout weevil. The picture above is a close-up of (what used to be) the crown of the plant (it smelled horrible, by the way-- like rotting vegetables, or garbage). Turns out, the smell was from bacterial growth that started when the adult weevil drilled into the leaves to lay eggs; after that, the crown of the plant had been totally decimated by the larvae. Tom did the difficult (and very sad) job last night of cutting it up and putting it in the trash. It was quite awful, actually-- not only could you could see the larvae working their way through the plant base, but you could actually hear them chewing! ick!! honestly, it makes my skin crawl just thinking about it!! From what I've read on the internet, this pest is a difficult one to fight; apparently that's why you don't see many agave specimens that are more than about 5 years old. (which is about the age ours was, unfortunately.)

Regular gardening mishaps usually don't phase me: sometimes plants die; you re-plant, and go from there. But this one feels different-- more disheartening and more "personal" somehow, knowing it wasn't anything we did that caused it. I'll never look at a glass of tequila in the same way again, actually. (and I definitely won't ever eat the worm!)

a bit of random and a SB page

2011-10-04T22:12:00.005-07:00

after yet another dust storm blew through the Valley, it rained this afternoon and evening-- yay!! Some lightning, thunder, and I actually needed to use my windshield wipers (only on intermittent, but still... rain-- yay!!)

Below is another SB page that I've had in my head for a while; I just needed to work out how to lay it out. Quite honestly, it was inspired by a set of stickers that I found in the $1 bin at JoAnn's etc. When I saw them, I knew I had to buy them, and instantly had an idea for a scrapbook page-- I love when that happens!

This is a close-up of one of the stickers (they're 3-D, with printed transparency wings). The detail shot also shows the 3-D effect I got in the grass... lots of cutting with scissors, but it turned out nice!

Here is the entire page... a sort of goofy page about how having the patio screened in is good for us (no bugs) and for the cats (they can't get out into the yard). I used some actual window screen for the page background. Thankfully the bugs in our yard aren't actually that big; if they were, they might be able to fly right through the screen!! LOL!

games at gram's

2011-10-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

this scrapbook page is one that I thought about for quite a while but had to figure out how exactly to pull it off. It falls into the category of random childhood memories, along with a couple other pages I've made so far... I don't necessarily have photos to go with these memories, though, so I have to get a bit creative. (I found most of these photographs on the internet, but the Sorry! game is mine, along with the deck of cards-- they were actually my Grandma's, and I've kept them... I use them sometimes to play solitaire, but mostly I just like knowing I have them.) This page documents the games I remember playing when I would spend the afternoon at Gram's house. We would play board games or cards, either on the dining room table (with the clock on the buffet chiming the hour), or at the round wooden table (with the oilcloth tablecloth) in her homey, bright kitchen. I printed the photos 6-on-a-4x6 print so they would end up being approx. 2 inches square, and stitched the grid on the page with gray crafting floss, making sure to leave two spaces empty for adding the title and some journaling. The board games I remember most are Sorry!, Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, and also a very old board game called "Uncle Wiggily" (I think it may have been Mom's when she was little?? it was a board game with an elderly rabbit, along with some other characters, where you went thru the woods.) Many an afternoon was spent playing a rousing game of Sorry! where if you're lucky, you can send someone back to their home base, and of course, you're "really sorry" for it, but hey, that is how the game is played... lol!! I also remember playing card games: Crazy Eights, Old Maid, Go Fish-- I remember those exact Go Fish cards, and almost bought them on eBay when I found them, actually. There were also some really cutthroat games of Uno in there too for good measure... many good memories, to be sure!

pet pages from the SB cottage

2011-10-02T17:15:00.001-07:00

In addition to doing some art journaling and moving bits of paper (okay, lots of paper) around on the table, I did actually finish some scrapbook pages while I was at the Scrapbook Cottage last weekend; probably about 10 pages / layouts, all together. (wow, has it really been two weeks ago already?? where does the time go, anyway?? )

This page features one of my favorite photos of Bisbee... she had just been to the doggy beauty parlor, and was looking particularly cute, I thought. I love the little pink bow in her hair! (okay, I never thought I would ever write a sentence like that, but really, she does look cute with a bow.) She is such a happy dog, and particularly "girly" looking (she even runs like a girl- haha!!) so I wanted to showcase that. I fought with this page for AT LEAST an HOUR, trying to use a certain color scheme I had in mind, but I just couldn't get it to work. Once I gave up on that and started picking other papers, the page came together in about 15 minutes. Funny how that works, isn't it?!? (aggravating, too!!) The starting point for this layout came from Shimelle Laine's blog, and one of her newest series, "scrapbook starting points."

here is the "starting point" from Shimelle's blog for the page above featuring Bisbee... mine turned out quite different, right?? That's the beauty of the starting point concept. Different papers, different colors, add your own number of photos, etc. to "personalize" it just for you- absolutely brilliant!

This one is a portrait of Krista, also made using one of the layout starters from Shimelle Laine's "starting points" series. This is one of the first "portraits" I took of Krista, and had wanted to use pink / girly colors with it, too, but they just didn't work with the colors in the photo, so I switched to Sassafras Lass papers, which I think bring out the golden tones in her fur. A couple manila shipping tags, add in some of my vintage buttons and rickrack, and it was done. more or less-- I always fiddle with things on my pages for a while, moving things 1/4 inch here or there. (here is the suggested starting point from Shimelle's blog, which you can find here: Shimelle Laine) Basically, four 5 1/2 inch squares with a narow strip across the middle, then you take it from there.

This one is a portrait I took of Bisbee (on the left) and Prescott (on the right)... looking at him now, it's hard to believe he was ever that small! I love this picture, too-- they both cocked their heads just so, and I managed to get it on film... yay! The printed paper I used was leftover when I cut up the paper for another page (using the pattern on the reverse, I think), and it was just laying there-- it ended up being perfect for this picture! The paper is printed with a pattern that makes it look like layers of fabric and sewing, and when I got home, I added some of my own "real" sewing to it, along with a few more vintage buttons and stickers that match the patterned paper.

thanks for looking-- I'll be back soon with more scrapbook pages!! (and check out Shimelle's blog, if you have time- I promise, you'll find something inspirational there for your scrapbook pages!)

more of the blur...

2011-09-29T14:00:00.001-07:00

I know that none of these pictures are examples of great photography, but I get such a kick out of watching Bisbee and Prescott play in the backyard thatI keep trying to capture it on film. Even with the composition and focus problems (or maybe because of them), hopefully I've at least captured the "essence" of their joy and exuberance-- what do you think?

(they remind me of a shampoo commercial, with their hair blowing in the breeze!)

^^^ I really like this one!!

Below is Krista, being her usual smiley self!

It was sunnier out Wednesday afternoon, so the photos below were shot with the sunlight as a backdrop-- most of them didn't turn out very good at all, but I got a few that I think worked; it's sort of a neat effect.

Their playing only goes in spurts, though-- they flop down on the ground exhausted pretty quickly... I'm exhausted myself sometimes, just watching them!! (it's still fun, though.)

scrap! or what I did with all that stuff... part 1

2011-09-28T21:30:00.005-07:00

so, on Friday night when I got to the Scrapbook Cottage, I was kinda frazzled, what with work, packing, driving, and unpacking... So I didn't feel up to designing any scrapbook pages-- a little too much pressure for me right off the bat, I guess. So I'm really glad I took my art journaling supplies with me! Cutting, pasting, and doodling randomly is a great way to ease into a creative mindset, but with no pressure... (plus, my art journal had been feeling kind of neglected since I got back into scrapbooking!) Below are a few of the pages I worked on; some are finished, and a couple aren't. my current journal is a vintage gardening book, and I've kept some of the pages from the book-- this page is one of the chapter dividers. Details doodled on with gel and souffle pens, plus a bit of fun pink pom-pom trim.

the flip side of the page above. The motorcycle policeman came out of a vintage 1950s National Geographic magazine, I think.

an unfinished journal page-- gray cardstock, Asian newspaper, rubons and scrapbook paper, and a snippet from a vintage atlas page. I really like this vintage gardening book for journaling, because of the 3-ring binder mechanism. I can take pages out of the book to work on them, and rearrange pages as I want. (I've already found my next journal; it's a vintage 3-ring binder reservation book from a restaurant; I found it at one of the local thrift stores.)

another partly-finished journal page-- the card on the page is the valentine my sister sent me this year, which featured a vintage valentine card. It's so cute, I had to keep it!

I stayed up till about 1:30 am, then read a bit before finally getting to sleep about 2 am (!!! seriously, I can't remember the last time I stayed up that late!) Saturday I slept in (no dogs or cats to feed- it was a nice break from my regular schedule, I have to say...) till about 9 am, then put away my art journal and got out the scrapbook paper and photographs... (the photo above was a reference so I could remember the photo arrangement for the page I was working on... I don't think I ended up using this arrangement after all, but the digital camera is a nice tool for doing this.)

yes, it is a bit embarassing...

2011-09-24T01:14:00.004-07:00

...but this is actually the "before" picture:

This picture is of my workspace after finally getting unpacked and set up for a weekend at the Scrapbook Cottage, in Phoenix. (yay!! I've been waiting for this since I was first here back in May!) After a busy (and very long!) day at work, I drove home to pick up my supplies and give the pets their dinner, then zipped back up into Phoenix to get my scrapping mojo going. I decided to start with a bit of art journaling tonight to get warmed up, then I can hit the scrapbooking hard tomorrow. After some good sleep, that is. More pics to come!! (and by the way, in my defense, I literally "threw" my supplies together last night, at about 9:30 pm. Since I didn't really have a "plan" for the weekend, I just brought everything-- lol!!)

it's all a blur...

2011-09-16T19:36:00.006-07:00

Shelties in motion.

Bisbee and Prescott playing; Krista safely on the sidelines. It's a well-choreographed dance, and loads of fun to watch.

(Just difficult to capture on film.)

labor day weekend (so far) in pictures

2011-09-05T15:40:00.005-07:00

hanging out at the Honda dealership, getting new tires put on my car.

(it was sort of an emergency- this was not how I was planning on spending Saturday afternoon!)

Sunday afternoon: Labor Day barbecue with our dear friends Mike and Billie Nejedly.

Roasting vegetables on the grill- yum! Tom cooling off by hanging out in the pool . (approx 88 degrees: bathwater!)

barbecued ribs, corn, and roasted potatoes-- tasty!!

our gracious hosts-- hanging out by the pool, talking, at the end of the evening.

quick trip to the grocery store on Monday afternoon

(check out the letter "O" in the word Patio)

closeup of the O: they're almost out of room!!

roasting chile peppers: this is one of the best smells in the world!

waiting to be peeled, then added to grilled chicken-- a great way to finish off the weekend.

Hope you're all having an enjoyable long weekend!

street art- a day out

2011-08-27T23:12:00.005-07:00

I braved the heat today and went into downtown Phoenix with my camera. (and a large bottle of water)

This is a few pics of what I found, all of it within an area of just a few square blocks in the Roosevelt Row arts district.

Some is political, some is "tagging" (the artist's name, initials, etc), and some is pure art. (because I was in the arts district, I'm pretty a good bit of it is sanctioned by the property owners.)

Mary? modeled after a Da Vinci? not sure. found in an alley- I love the details on her!

"Police Navidad" spray paint on the sidewalk this building reminds me of stained glass.

"Bird is the Werd"

building along Roosevelt.

"Build Up Not Out" (on a large dumpster)

I love how the plates on its back are skyscrapers! (and the tiny saguaro cacti at the bottom)

...more to come!

scrap! a bit circular...

2011-08-26T17:57:00.004-07:00

...this post, that is: a blog post about a scrapbook layout that's about scrapbooking-- you follow? No?? I don't blame you; it took me quite a while to come up with that line. :D so, this is one of my recent scrapbook layouts-- it's a 2-page layout that I made using one of the new Scrapbook Generation sketch books I purchased a couple months ago. It's the first one I made following one of those sketches, actually. It took me a little while to understand the flow ofusing a sketch: 1) choose coordinating papers; 2) cut all the paper following the dimensions provided; 3) assemble the page; 4) add embellishments, title, journaling. I found out a couple things about myself during this process: a) choosing matching papers is difficult- I think it took me at least 45 minutes! 2) I buy paper in a vacuum! I buy it just 'cause I like it, not because it will go with any other papers I might already have... that's one of the reasons it took me so long to choose the matching papers. 3) Turns out that I am still as math-challenged as ever- oh, I can do straightforward math (with a calculator, that is); I just have a difficult time following measurements and dimensions sometimes (meaning these papers are not the original pieces I chose-- those got cut incorrectly, so they're waiting for some other project).

This layout is actually about National Scrapbooking Day 2011, so it is technically a "scrapbook layout about scrapbooking." This might seem kind of odd to anyone besides a scrapbooker, but it makes perfect sense to me- lol!! I won a 12-hour crop at the newly-opened Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage. (it's a beautifully-renovated bungalow that hosts day crops as well as weekend retreats, so of course, I had to document the day! I also previously blogged about it here. (and I'm going to go back, for an entire weekend sometime next month-- I can't wait!!)

This layout consists mainly of photos of my workspace, and photos of the layouts I worked on while I was there. The journaling talks about what's in the pics, along with how this event got me back into scrapping after over a year off. To quote Martha, "that's a good thing!!"

Even though this layout took such a long time to do and I ran into a few bumps along the way, after all that, I quite like how it turned out! (Now, should I make a scrapbook page about this blog post, to continue falling down the rabbit hole?? lol!! just kidding!)

(somewhat related: tomorrow is an open house at the Scrapbook Cottage, if you're located in the Valley and want to check it out! Go to their facebook page HERE to get the details.)

Three.

2011-08-21T19:13:00.004-07:00

Three. Three is the number of Shelties we have now.

(Well, since yesterday, anyway.)

L-R: Bisbee, Krista, and Prescott, waiting to come inside.

This is Krista. She is about four years old, and is the sweetest-tempered, most docile dog I think I have ever met.

She was a show dog, so she's very attentive, and very smart-- it only took her two tries to get the hang of going up and down the stairs. Next up: teaching her to pee in the gravel instead of on the grass.

card crafting

2011-08-17T14:22:00.008-07:00

I started out this whole scrapping / rubber-stamping "thing" by making cards. My sister went to a Stampin' Up! party, I think, then either showed me what she had done, or invited me to attend one myself. It's been a looong time ago, now; I don't really remember exactly any more... heck, I don't remember exactly what I had for lunch on Monday, let alone something that happened at least 15 years ago! :D

Anyhow, over time I lost the card-making-mojo... I went from making tons of cards, to making cards only for Christmas, and I think that might have been the last time I made any. Till yesterday, when I made these:

My problem with cards has been mainly that I can't figure out how to design them; it's easier for me to work on a scrapbook page, for some reason. So, I brought the scrapbooking thing to my card-making, by using a scrapbook page sketch to design the card!! You can see the sketch I used here: Sketchy Thursdays 8/11/11 challenge.

I used the main layout placement for my card design, and placed the butterflies where the photos would be placed. I think it worked out okay; plus, I used a new stamp (Martha Stewart doily), used some of my tiny left-over paper scraps, and used some rather "difficult" patterned paper. (hopefully the patterned paper doesn't overwhelm the butterflies; I don't think so, anyway-- let me know what you think!)

close-up, just to show that I popped-up the butterfly wings with 3-D foam tape... they needed some dimension to them! (too bad I didn't decide that before I glued them down, but I pried their wings back up...)

and, another cute dog picture! Bisbee was just hanging out on the couch this evening... she really doesn't like that Prescott can't play right now! (just one more day till he's recovered enough from being neutered to play again... then, only a couple more days till we pick up Krista!)

random photo of cuteness

2011-08-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

we have the best petsitters!! there was a "welcome home, we missed you" card (from the pets) waiting for us when we got home from vacation a couple weeks ago. This was the picture on the front of the card:

(photo courtesy of Kimberly Diedrich, Home is Where the Hound Is)

Kimberly took this photo months ago, while she was doing mid-day visits for Prescott right after we got him... this picture is such a cute one, I asked her for a copy of it so I can frame it. Seriously, though, Home is Where the Hound Is is the best petsitting service around. After Sedona passed away last year while we were on vacation, we were very leery of taking the dogs anywhere to be boarded, and weren't sure what we were going to do. Thankfully, one of the services Kimberly offers is an overnight stay option, so someone was at our house for 12 hours a day, sleeping over at night. The cats got attention every day, the dogs didn't have to go anywhere unfamiliar, be stressed out, or be exposed to any other (possible) dog germs or diseases in a kennel. They even got more attention than when we're home, because they got a mid-day visit, too! She also give multiple pet discounts on their services, which is good: we're planning on getting Krista this weekend, hopefully... :D

theme #2, also known as "where I grew up"

2011-08-12T07:00:00.001-07:00

Another "theme" for vacation photo-taking came about while Tom and I were out taking a drive and got stuck driving behind a "farm implement." This happens sometimes in that area, especially this time of year. You learn to live with it and be patient (till you can get to a passing zone, that is!), but it got me looking around and noticing the signs we passed along the way. (Bear with me here; these pictures might not be all that "interesting" in the traditional sense of tourist photos, but the more I think about it, I'm really glad I took them because they give me a visual sense of my "place and history," if you know what I mean. ) So, as we kept looking around during our driving, I started noticing seed company variety signs alongside the road. These signs are put up as sort of "advertising" for the different companies, in front of the fields. Once I started actually really "looking" at them, I realized there were a lot of them around and that they actually have kinda cool graphics on them: Someone who didn't grow up in this area of the country might not even take notice of these signs, or notice them without thinking about them, but growing up in a small town (population 1500; my high school graduating class was 42) where farming was all around, I think a little differently about these things. Well, now that I've grown up I do, anyway... I didn't really think much about it at all while I was in high school! :D Farming is not an easy profession- it's one of the most dangerous professions there is, and to me, it seems a lot like gambling: farmers gamble on what the weather will be like for the planting and growing seasons, they gamble on the prices they hope they'll get for your crops (months in the future), they gamble on whether their expenses and equipment will hold up, and they hope there won't be any emergencies... it's not for the faint of heart, I don't think! I grew up with this all around me (my dad worked for a seed corn company my whole life, actually, until he retired), and like I said, I never really thought too much about it before... how important this way of life is, how most people nowadays probably don't ever think about where their food actually comes from or that actual people work to grow it, and how we all should probably have a better understanding of these kinds of things. (I'm not going to get all political on you here, or anything... it's just something I think about sometimes, and it does make me glad I grew up where- and when- I did.)

This is a "test plot" on the edge of town; after Dad found out I wanted to take pictures of the signs, he told me where I could get a number of them all in one place... test plots are fields where they plant a lot of different varieties, so as to "show off" the different ones in close proximity, so farmers can compare them. (I took a drive out there, then kept driving to eventually find a few more... I ended up being late for lunch, actually!)

These two pictures showcase some of the gorgeous scenery you can find in northwest Illinois and southwestern Wisconsin (this area is "unglaciated," which means the glaciers did not go thru here and flatten everything during the Ice Age). It makes for some beautiful rolling hills and good farmland... the vistas aren't as dramatic as the Arizona landscape, but they are majestic in their own right, that's for sure. (These two photos are much prettier if you click on them to view them large; please do that!)

So, now that I've waxed all philisophical on you, I'll say thank you for indulging me, and I'll close with a quote from Willa Cather (one of my favorite authors for her lyrical descriptions of the land and countryside). She lived in the early 20th century and wrote a number of novels about pioneer life in Nebraska... this quote is from one of her best-known novels O, Pioneers!

We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand are the people who own it - for a little while.

a quick scrap! (...and a blog-post-title fail...)

2011-08-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

...the blog-post-title fail is from my last post-- it hit me as I was driving home from work yesterday that the title of my previous post should have been "Say Cheese!" ...how could I not have thought of that?!? (or would that have been too cheesy?? haha!!)

anyway, I think this is one of the quickest scrapbook pages I have ever put together, and I love the way it turned out! I ran across the digital pics on the computer when I was looking for something else, and decided to print them out. (I love having a home photo printer just for this reason-- granted, it's more expensive than sending them out, and it can only print 4x6 photos, but it's great for spur-of-the-moment inspiration!! and when you consider that I probably woulnd't print or scrap them otherwise, then it's a justifiable expense, in my book.)

I think I made this page right before we left on vacation. I probably should have been packing, or something else important like that, but you know how it goes; when the inspiration hits, you have to strike while the iron is hot! (I think I'm mixing my metaphors, but you know what I mean- hopefully!) We carved pumpkins last fall for the first time in years... I only had a couple photos of it, but it was enough. I used a sketch from the new Scrapbook Generation one-page sketchbook for this page, and it went together really easy. I messed with the colors in the small photos to tone down the bright orange from the pumpkins just a bit, paired the photos with some newer Sassafras stickers and added some letter stickers from my stash for the title. Nothing earth-shattering about the journaling, just documenting the main facts- and that it was messier than I remember, cleaning out pumpkin guts! (oh, and from a scrapping standpoint, I messed up the journaling on the upper left block; that's why "Halloween 2010" is written on a different color of paper... is it perfect? no... but it's done, and I like it anyway!)

I popped up some of the stars with foam tape, just because I like the added interest from the dimension... hmmm, from the pictures I took, it looks like some of my stickers aren't quite so sticky anymore-- that could be because I move them around at least once or twice (okay, possibly more than that) before I decide the final placement.

Theme #1... also known as somewhat random vacation pics

2011-08-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

For our vacation, we visited our families in NW Illinois and south-central WI. That area is the heart of dairy and cheese country, after all, so how could I resist taking pictures of cheese?? :D Pictures in a theme: when you actually go out and look for them, they're not too difficult to find... it started even before we left Phoenix!

we snacked on queso dip and chips in the airport while we were waiting for our flight. (it was tasty!)

the cheese sale display in the Milwaukee airport: possibly the only airport that sells cheese-to-go??

a sign on the way to my parents' house... cheese for sale at a random gas station / mini mart along the highway. This sign is from the cheese factory in the town where I grew up. It was at the end of the block where I grew up, actually... I remember walking down to the sales room to buy cheese before major holidays, so Mom could have all the necessary ingredients for the cheese and relish plate. (Sadly, this cheese factory is now closed.)

The cheese display in one of the stores when we visited Galena... we tried a couple of the more exotic cheeses, although I'm still wishing I would have tried the horseradish cheddar. (...just to see what it tasted like!) Tom's dad slicing into a fresh-from-the-oven cheese and pepperoni pizza prepared with freshly grated mozzarella and cheddar-- it was wonderful!!

Salt and pepper shakers from a gift shop in downtown Wisconsin Dells-- they're cute, but I prefer to be able to figure out which is which a little easier than this. (I told you, themed pictures are everywhere, if you look!!)

This is one of the traditions from Tom's family reunion-- if you watch Larry the Cable Guy's show "Only in America," you know that limburger is made in only one cheese factory in the country, and surprise, surprise-- it's in Wisconsin! It's an acquired taste, but one I have not yet acquired. I have tasted it- more than once- but I can't get past the (dirty sock) smell; give me a nice sharp cheddar any day!

Tom, however, does like it! The "limburger crowd" had the screen tent to themselves (along with their onions and liver sausage) while the rest of us kept our distance, waiting for the burgers and sweet corn to be ready... funny, but after putting this post together, I'm thinking now I need to go make some mac and cheese-- LOL!!

how time flies...

2011-08-08T21:42:00.004-07:00

it's been a year, but we still miss you.

Sedona, the best dog ever.

Because she was the first.

a short update--

2011-08-07T22:05:00.003-07:00

If you wondered where I've been, blogwise, I haven't posted because I've (we've) been gone! We just returned from a week in Illinois and Wisconsin, visiting family, and I didn't have any blog posts pre-set to post while I was gone... I ran out of time; I was lucky to get everything packed, to tell you the truth!

We spent a few days visiting my parents in NW Illinois, spent some time with Tom's family in SW Wisconsin, and I took a short road trip to visit my sister in SE(ish) Wisconsin.

During that week (it seemed to go by so quickly it was amazing, but it really was a week), I took well over 700 photos (ahhhh, the joys of digital cameras, right?!?) and even shot a few videos with my litle point-and-shoot camera (it did pretty good, but I think Steven Spielberg is safe-- lol!!), so once I get some serious editing time in, I'll be back to share some of the best ones with you!

a quick scrap!! (or, what I do when I can't sleep)

2011-07-28T11:48:00.004-07:00

We usually get up around 5 am-- earlier if one of the dogs is restless or if Ariel the cat decides it's time for us to get up: she jumps up on the bed, which sets the dogs off (their crates are next to my side of the bed). So, you would think I'd have no problem getting to sleep, right? Wrong. Most of the time I read in bed which makes me tired, but sometimes I know that just won't do it for me because my mind is just too active. Last night was one of those nights, so I worked on a couple SB projects instead. One of them is still in process, but the other was this page about catching lightning bugs (or fireflies, if you want to be technical) when I was a kid: Like I said, it really was a "quick scrap" because there was almost no design thought at all. The bug and jar stickers are Sassafras brand "Felties" that I got a couple months ago as part of their last "mystery box sale," which was a grab bag of all sorts of really fun products at a great price. (They're doing it again, by the way; $175 of product for $45, domestic shipping included. Check it out here: Mystery Box sale.) When I saw this sheet of stickers, I knew they would work perfect for a layout about catching lightning bugs. By the way, this page is 6x12, so it's a bit of an "odd" size, but I think it works perfect for this design!

The title: the small letter stickers are Making Memories Tiny Alphas, which I absolutely love-- the look of cutting letters out of a vintage book without actually having to do it! Each package has 468 individual letters, both lower and uppercase, and are a great price at only a couple dollars per package. So why have I kept them in their package, unopened, for the last 6 months?!? I think I feel like I have to "save" my supplies till something special comes along?? I'm finally starting to get over that, though; watching the TV show "Hoarders" might have something to do with it-- LOL!! The larger letter stickers are also from Sassafras, from the same mystery box sale the stickers came in. They have so many patterns and colors of letter stickers available (glittered, patterned, fabric-looking, etc) and they're really a nice size: not too big, not too small.

This is just an angled shot showing the dimension to the multi-layered felt stickers. This page is going to go in a ""Random Childhood Memories" album (when I buy one, lol!!) along with the Barbie page, and others that I haven't made yet... I have a whole list of memories that I'd like to document, and have found some good inspiration on the internet for how to do that when you might not have specific pictures to go with them. So far, I think this type of page make a good "break" from scrapping a larger subject such as a vacation. Since these types of pages will most likely be smaller snippets of memories, there's no feeling of pressure to scrap them before I forget the details, like there can be with photos from a trip, for example.

okay, this is a goofy pic, I know, but I wanted to show how I got the texture and layers in the grass at the bottom of the page- two different colors of green textured cardstock, trimmed with some of my deco scissors, which I've had for years, and popped up with dimensional foam tape. Yay! for breaking out the older- and newer- supplies and tools and actually using them, right?!?! And Yay (sort of, anyway-- lol!!) for not being able to sleep, so I can actually get some of these projects done- and out of my head!

scrap!! (or, why do I buy so much patterned paper??) ((edited))

2011-07-24T16:30:00.007-07:00

the last couple scrapbook pages I've made were pet pages... they're such fun and cute photo subjects, but-- photos of animals don't always turn out the best, do they? (at least not for me, they don't.) This page was made using a sketch from the new Sketch Support 1-page layout book. You can find more information about it here. (I got these books last week, and showed them off in my last post.) Sometimes, I don't want to think too hard about page design, so using sketches is a good way to get a "head-start on a page. For this page, I used my photo editing software and changed the photos to a more sepia tone before printing them to take out any distracting colors, and I used vintage and found papers along with strips of scrapbooking paper for embellishing the page. This page is photos of Ariel (an extreeeeme close-up), and a photo of Prescott gone bad (he ducked his head right as I clicked the button). Quite a few of my pet photos turn out this way, so I decided to just embrace it and showcase that fact! I scrounged around in my collage and art journaling supplies, and found things that included a miniature playing card, vintage postage stamps and trading stamps, and other doo-dads. I paired those items with my favorite Martha Stewart butterfly punch and some mother of pearl buttons from my stash. Edited this post to add: by using the stamps on this page, this layout met the criteria for the "Going Postal" summer postage-themed blogging project, and I didn't even know it! (I've always loved postage stamps, postcards, etc. although I am not an "official" collector of such items as their own categories-- mostly just as part of my love of all things paper.) Anyway, if you want more information about the Going Postal blogging project, you can click here: 'I'm Going Postal, How About You?' Reading this link again brings to mind the fact that my Grandma collected postage stamps; I used to love looking thru her notebooks when I was little. I now have those notebooks... I will definitely have to write a blog post about that, for sure!

I popped up the butterfly wings with some foam dots, and used blue craft floss in the buttons. The embellishment clusters use orange, blue, and purple, to tie into the colors in the striped paper. The page title and journaling read: I do try, but... No matter how many pictures I take, a good number of them turn out like this- "Action shots," I guess!

This is a close-up of today's page... this close-up shows the dimension of the puffy letter stickers I used for the title. (they're a recent Big Lots purchase; sometimes Big Lots and Tuesday Morning- both closeout stores- have scrapbooking supplies, and you can find some good deals if you hit them at the right time.)

This photo is of the entire page: Prescott and Bisbee have such a good time with their chewies, bones, and chew toys, and I wanted to show that off. I do get some good pictures of the pets from time to time, and I think these photos show off both their personalities! They can get into "the zone" when they're into a chewie or bone, and these pictures show that off as well.

And the title of this post-- how does that fit in, you ask?? Well, I've bought a lot of patterned paper lately, and strangely enough, both of these pages are in more of a "clean and simple" style, with relatively small touches of patterned paper! So, why do I keep buying it, then? (don't answer that!! haha!!)

scrap!

2011-07-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

since I've gotten into scrapping again, I have plenty of ideas and things I want to scrap... both recent photos as well as other things, like the following layout of a childhood memory / reminiscence: I found the Barbie trading cards at a local scrapbooking store, and just had to buy them. They were the impetus for the page, since I don't have any photos of all the childhood Barbie stuff-- I don't have any idea what happened to it all, actually...?? (Mom: any ideas?? ...just wondering.) Anyway, I pulled together some multicolored papers and letter stickers that I've had for a while with some others that are recent purchases / trades. I'm not thrilled about what I did to the upper corner (I think a splatter of paint or ink there would have been better than doing the dots by hand), but I do like the page overall, and the fact that the memory is on the page instead of just in my head. :D

I thought the pink stickers would stand out more than they did on the pink polka dot paper, so I outlined them with a black glaze pen-- that looked so good, I did some more of it around the edges of the pages, which I think really ties the page together.

disregard the mess in this pic (it's my craft studio; of course there's a mess!) but I wanted to show off my latest estate sale purchase: the rolling cart, circa early-mid 1970s, perhaps?? I got it on Saturday (half-price day) for the sum total of $3; she said how about $5, but I bargained her down to $3... do you think the American Pickers would be proud of me? haha!! (I know I'm still small potatoes compared to their bargaining skills.)

These two pics are my latest, and last, scrap-related purchase for quite a while. Some new-sized page protectors that I'm excited about using and mixing into my albums: 8x8 inches, 6x12 inches, and a set of 12x12 page protectors that allows you to just slide photos into the different slots.

This pic is of a couple things I'm quite excited to try out-- one of them is the Sew Easy; it's a tool that helps you make evenly spaced holes for sewing on paper (similar to a tracing wheel, but the interchangeable heads allow you to make different types of stitches, including zig-zag, scallop, cross-stitch, and more, without having to punch each hole by hand). The other item is two new idea books that include 60 totally pre-planned sketches; all I have to do is decide on the paper and photos-- the sketches even include the dimensions for trimming the paper!! ...so now, I'm off to scrap!!

7/18/11: haboob, the sequel... (also known as haboob lite)

2011-07-20T10:50:00.005-07:00

So, we had another dust-storm blow through on Monday, and I thought I'd share a bit of it with you. This is what I saw on Monday when I was driving home from work: yup, another dust storm. Not as impressive looking as the first one was, but kinda cool, nonetheless. I say "haboob lite" because the wind gusts were only reported as high as 50 mph, not the as-high-as 70 mph gusts the last one contained. Thank goodness, too, because I had to drive home in it, this time!

The wind really wasn't too, too bad, really- we had to slow down a little, but you could still see okay to drive. The dust is just so fine, with not much vegetation to hold it down, so a lot of it gets tossed really high up into the air in one of these storms. (Which does make me wonder: where does it all end up, anyway??) It reminded me of driving through snow or fog, both of which I'm used to, so it didn't phase me. And thank goodness for automatic window controls, right?! (I had my A/C on anyway, so mine were shut, but can you imagine driving into this with an open window? No, thank you! I would definitely be pulling over to take care of them, for sure.)

For comparison's sake, this is what it looked like on Tuesday when I drove home. Quite a difference, huh?? (there was still some residual dust in the air, but this pic is pretty clear overall.)

This is looking off the the west along the same stretch of highway. It looks like there's just nothing out there past that mountain, doesn't it?? This is actually kinda creepy to me, knowing how far (miles and miles) you can usually see out here in the desert.

Here's the view looking west on Tuesday (not the same mountain, I don't think, but you get the idea). This photo isn't much to look at scenery-wise, but it gives you a good idea of the wide-open expanses out here in the desert. You can see mountain ranges upon mountain ranges behind each other out there in the distance- I don't know how far away you can actually see, to tell the truth, but probably at least 40 or 50 miles?? This wide-open expansiveness is definitely one of the things I love most about Arizona; I'm so used to it now that going back to the Midwest feels a bit "closed-in" and claustrophobic to me now! (and I won't even talk about the Midwestern humidity; ick!! although the whole "dry-heat" thing really does make a difference, I swear!! LOL!!)

stamp de-construction project continued:

2011-07-12T19:50:00.005-07:00

so this is what I started with-- 12 wood-mounted stamps that cost $1 each (80 cents each after my coupon), and a foot-long set of Hampton Arts stamps (containing 7 words / phrases and 4 shapes), that cost $3 ($2.40 after my discount!): I un-mounted them from the wood blocks, got out the scissors, started cutting, and after about an hour, I ended up with this:

all together, I ended up with 12 large phrases / words, a circle, and about 40 small words that I can use however I want.

the photo above is the stamps in the foot long Hampton Arts set of acrylic stamps-- after my success with "taking apart" the rubber stamps, I decided to do the same thing to a few of these, too! I cut "life unscripted" out of the rectangular frame, and cut "just us" out of the tiny scalloped frame. That way, I can do things like this:

(of course, I wouldn't do this exact thing, but this shows how I can use the empty frames with other stamps.) My total for this project is something on the order of 50 word / phrase stamps, along with 3 empty frames. Not too bad, for a couple hours work! Now, I just need to use them on my scrapbook pages! ...so, I'm off to the craft studio-- I'll be back (hopefully soon) with a scrapbook layout!

Sheltie math: 1 + 1 = 2... sometimes three- or maybe more?

2011-07-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon we went for a drive to north Phoenix to visit Helene and Wally at Roseglen (Helene is the breeder we purchased both dogs from). Bisee and Prescott do pretty good in the car, although unlike some dogs, they're never overly thrilled about taking a car ride-- thankfully neither of them gets carsick, though!

It's kind of funny: Prescott always seems like such a "tough guy" at home, and I don't think he moved from that spot the entire time in the car! Bisbee is much more comfortable in the car, and was quite interested in the scenery for most of the trip. She only laid down a couple times, which is when I managed to snap this picture of both of them.

Wally and Helene were quite happy to see the dogs (she always likes to see how her dogs turn out), and we were glad to show them off. Bisbee made herself right at home once we go there; here she is sitting in Wally's lap, getting some skritches!! (traitor! she never hops into my lap like that!! ...just kidding about the traitor thing, but really, she never does hop right into my lap.)

This pic is Prescott (in the background) and one of Helene's dogs, Krista... Helene got a couple doggie treats, and that always gets Prescott's attention! In addition to showing off the dogs, we also wanted to introduce them to Krista-- Helene has her up for adoption, and we wanted to see how the dogs would get along together. Krista is four years old; Helene had her for breeding, but never got a litter of pups from her, so she's looking to find her a good home. We know having two dogs is fun, and figure three won't be much more work than two, so the thing to do was to find out how they would get along... she seems pretty mellow and easy-going, so should fit in pretty well.

Here she is with Tom-- he was holding her so I could get a decent picture (and this still isn't all that good-- she didn't stand still very long). And do you see Bisbee in the background, making herself right at home on their couch?? lol!! Bisbee and Prescott are both an inch or so "over-sized" so they can't be shown (Sheltie show standard is 13 - 16 inches tall), so it was a bit of an eye-opener to see a standard-size Sheltie-- she looks so much smaller than they do; it's amazing how much of a difference that inch makes! She's never seen stairs, or a cat, so there will be some training involved, but we know that two dogs is twice as fun as one, so three dogs should multiply the fun to six times as much, right?! (along with the hair, I'm sure... lol!!) We just need to decide for certain, then make arrangements to bring her home (which probably won't be for a month or so). We were joking with Helene that she should institute a "frequent buyer card: buy 4 Shelties and get the 5th one free!" (although I don't think we'll go that crazy... lol!!)

This picture is just for gratuitious cuteness: three of Helene's newest litter of puppies, from Bisbee's sister Kachina. (This is the second litter of puppies Helene's had this summer; she's been extra-busy this year so far!) They are sooo super-fluffy and cute at this age-- and nothing compares to that puppy breath! Puppies are tempting, to be sure, but stair training sounds like a piece of cake, compared to going through teething and potty-training again... :D

random photo catchup

2011-07-10T19:05:00.004-07:00

just a few random photos from last week... this one is a bit of dust storm aftermath... I thought it was so funny to see the dust covering the parking lot at work! just like a dusting of snow, except a dusting of dust won't melt or disappear, till it rains. Wednesday afternoon we headed to the doctor's office-- it was time for Bisbee's annual checkup. They don't mind the vet's office, and everyone at the vet's office loves to see them... I think part of the reason is they're so friendly and cute; who can resist that Sheltie smile?? (I might be biased, I suppose!!) Bisbee was a bit hesitant about the stethoscope though; Dr. Black said she was holding her breath while she was listening to her-- lol!! Anyway, Bisbee is perfectly healthy, if a lb or two over what she should be... so we'll be cutting back a bit. (Shelties are prone to getting overweight, so we keep a pretty close eye on their weights.) Dr. Brown and Dr. Villalba at Maricopa Wells have been great to all our pets, and all the staff are always very helpful and accomodating. They're even open late, and open 7 days a week!

These two pics are a couple "scrappy" purchases I made last week; I've been eying a tape dispenser like this for quite a while now, and used a 40% coupon to finally pick it up. It's like the industrial-type packing tape dispenser you'd use for shipping packages, only slimmed down, and it holds a double-sided tape roller for quick adhesive application for cards or layouts. It was a bit complicated to assemble and load the tape; Tom helped me out, though, so now it's ready to go!! (now, I just need some time to actually make a scrapbook layout!)

I also had a 20% off coupon for Michael's, so this "haul" was gotten for a song-- the wood stamps were all from the $1 bin (score!), and the foot-long strip of stamps was from the clearance bin-- double score!! They are all various words and phrases, and are a "project" in the making for me-- alot of scrapbook layouts right now use word stamps in the titles or journaling, and there are many "word and phrase" stamps are available, mostly thru online stores. A couple scrapbookers who do this very well are Ali Edwards (check out one of her layouts here) and Nichol Magouirk (check out one of her layouts here).

I've wanted to buy some of this type of stamps, but didn't want to wait for online ordering and shipping, so I decided the $1 stamps from Michael's could work for me. These phrases, as is, might not be all that useful, but my idea is to take them apart and use the individual components. "You make me so happy" for instance, won't be nearly as useful as the word "happy" on its own; then I'll also have the words "you, make, and me" to use however I want. So, my next task is to disassemble them all into the individual words, then use them on a layout or two!! (the rhinestone butterflies were also from the dollar bin; I don't have anything in mind for them, I just liked them-- lol!!)

(another post coming up soon; just have to edit the pics!)

haboob, or holy crap!

2011-07-05T20:25:00.004-07:00

the monsoon season is finally in full swing here in AZ! That's good, for the rain factor, and good, if you like extreme weather, but bad if you have to be in the middle of it. This evening, shortly after dinner, Tom said, "hey, come out here and look at this!" So, I did: "This" was a massive dust storm that we could see coming from miles away-- it was pretty impressive to watch, so we did watch it, for maybe, 10-15 minutes or so... it's kinda strange, to see something like this coming, and not know when exactly it will hit.

fyi, the photo above was edited in Picasa a bit to play up the shadows, so you can see the waves of dust coming through the storm front. A dust storm like this is called a "haboob" which is an Arabic word that is a type of intense duststorm. Find out more about them in the Phoenix area here: ADOT information page. (once you're on that page, click on the Gallery link for some pretty stunning aerial photographs.)

a few minutes after this, it was pretty much time to go inside-- right after this, the wind hit with a vengeance, and we had to duck for cover! The weather channel had an alert, saying the storm was moving 20-40 miles per hour, with gusts over 65 miles per hour-- crazy!

the screen above was during the Weather Channel's weather alert: what I thought was funny is the "visibility 0.1 mile, ceiling 0 feet" note there. Yup, I agree!! Pretty scary, for the half-hour or so that it took to blow through!! Tom said this is the worst one he remembers since he lived in Tucson when he was little... while it was memorable, I'm definitely not looking forward to being in the middle of another one of these anytime soon!

simplify!

2011-06-28T11:42:00.003-07:00

simple summer scrapping, as seen on write. click. scrapbook. Using the same general (but somewhat customizable) layout as a basis for scrapbook pages, to simplify the page design part of the process. This is a great idea! why limit it to just summer?? I definitely need to try this, as the page design part of things is one of the parts that slows me up considerably.

scrap page, and a HUGE thank you!!

2011-06-24T11:47:00.003-07:00

so, this is not the scrapbook page I was working on... the pages I was working on (or trying to, anyway) were from when we went to see Les Miserables for my birthday, and I just could not get them to work. (I was miserable, I guess!) I finally got frustrated with that, set it aside, and printed these photos, which I think I put in a blog post a couple weeks ago, actually. This is one of the beautiful things about not scrapping chronologically; I can work with the photos, topics, and materials that interest me, whenever I feel like it- it's a wonderful thing! Anyway, to the page: I believe this page is the first one that I've used kraft colored cardstock for the base, and I think I really like it! (fyi, kraft is a "popular" or "trendy" background right now in the scrapping world.) It works really well with the vintage-y feel of the patterned paper, and also the colors in the photos. The pattered paper is a couple years old, from a "garage sale" at the scrapbook store; they sold variety packs of papers for such good prices, I couldn't pass it up! I have used some of that variety pack previously, but it's always nice to use things from my "stash" of older materials.

The letter stickers were sort of a bust, and an annoyance, but since I bought them, I'm going to use them. I found them at one of our local Big Lots (a store that gets "lot ends" of things from other stores, and sells the stuff for cheap; they get some good scrapbooking stuff now and then) and grabbed three or four packages of letters in different colors. They were only $1 per pack, and are scratch-and-sniff! (haha! ...remember scratch-and-sniff stickers, from the 80s?? I had to get them partly for that reason.) Anyway- I had to fight with the stickers to remove them from their backing without ripping; it took me forever to get the letters I needed intact; and then, to top it off, after all that they barely stuck to the cardstock! I thought about adding more embellishments, like ribbon, rickrack, or buttons, but couldn't decide where to put them, so I decided not to agonize over that any longer and call it done. The memories are the important thing, not the page design, right? Right. Hopefully this is just the first in a string of successful (and completed!) pages.

So, now to the HUGE THANK YOU!!! to my mother, who, after reading my "Happy Birthday to Richard Scarry" blog post, sent me a package that contained magazines and books, like this one:

Some of the actual Richard Scarry books I remember reading as a child!! Thank you so much, Mom!! This is amazing, that you actually still have these, and thought enough to send them to me! This first pic is a book I remember spending a loooooot of time with; the pages are perforated, and the book included lots of different pictures to color, activities to do, and things to make using the illustrations. Lots of pages are missing, but some are still there, like the one below:

The writing on the side is mine (looks like I was going to give this to my 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Smith) but I don't know if that's really my coloring, there-- the neatness of the coloring doesn't quite match the writing style. Perhaps one of my older sisters helped me with the coloring? Mom?? any thoughts?? :D Here's an inside page of another one of the books... (I didn't get a pic of the cover, apparently, so I don't know the title right at the moment) The story is about a bunny going to the doctor for a checkup; I remember reading this one, too-- I knew just what it was the minute I took it out of the box. (it's so cute; the endpapers are covered with drawings of bandaids!) I just love Richard Scarry's illustrations, and will definitely be spending some time reading through these; and maybe even coloring in a picture or two!! Thank you again, Mom!!

then and now--

2011-06-18T12:30:00.003-07:00

Then, December 2008... we'd already had the saguaro for about a year here (not sure when exactly we bought it; I could look it up, but the receipt is upstairs). It was 5 ft tall when we bought it, and Tom is 5 ft 8 inches, so it's already grown maybe close to a foot, here? (This saguaro was "rescued" from the desert by the landscaping company, probably from a construction site-- they do that here: saguaro cactus flowers are the state wildflower, and saguaro cactus in the wild are protected, so permits must be obtained before moving or destroying them. Anyway, when we bought it, it was 5 feet tall, but had some "character" due to having been used for target practice- which is also illegal in AZ- at some point in its past.) Below is the Now pic, taken just this morning... Tom hasn't shrunk any, so that means the saguaro has grown quite a lot... we (okay, he) measured it last weekend with the tape measure, and it was 8 1/2 feet tall. !!!!! We had it moved from our first house to this one, and when the landscaping guys saw it, they asked if we watered it: Nope, not since it was planted and got settled in. Apparently, it just likes us!

...now if it would just bloom... which hopefully will be in another couple feet!! (for a few facts: saguaro are native only to the Sonoran Desert, take up to 75 years to develop a side arm, and their growth rate is dependent on the amount of precipitation they get. They can live as long as 200 years, and can get up to 50 feet tall. ...so ours has a ways to go, yet.)

...and then this happens!

2011-06-17T08:07:00.003-07:00

I had all these scrapbooking plans, right?? I printed my photos; I cleaned off my desk (by moving the crap to the other table... haha!) so I have a 12x12 space to work in; I have my paper trimmer ready to go; I have the layout ideas sketched out; I have my scrapping "mojo" at the ready... and then this happens:

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson: Larson's newest novel about living in Berlin during the first years of Hitler's reign, told from the point of view of two characters: William Dodd (America's first ambassador to Hitler's regime) and Dodd's daughter, Martha. Not a lighthearted summer read, I know, but I've become interested in how the people of Germany got "sucked into" the ideas that Hitler espoused, and how he went from being a failed artist and student to the leader of the Third Reich.

I put my name on the list for this book at the library about a month ago, as soon as I heard about it. When I did, I was probably about 15th out of 25 to 30 (? I don't remember exactly, but the list was long); I figured I had plenty of time to wait for it... but, yesterday, out of the blue, it was ready for me to pick up! So, for the next three weeks I will be immersed in 1930s Berlin... maybe less than that, if it's really good, although I can't stay up reading till 1 or 2 am anymore and still be wide awake for work at 5 am... :D

Then again, this book might be a dud, although I hope not. I really liked the other book by Larson that I read, though, which was The Devil in the White City. It was set during the time of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and was also two stories entertwined: the story of Daniel Burnham (the architect responsible for building the fair) and H. H. Holmes (a serial killer who killed somewhere between 27 and 200 people during the time of the fair). An odd combination, to be sure-- not light reading at all, but I found it very interesting.

Hopefully I can still sneak a bit of time in between chapters to exercise my scrapping mojo, and I'll definitely let you know how the book is!

random photo catch-up post (lots of pics)

2011-06-15T20:13:00.006-07:00

I finally did some photo editing from the past couple weeks... here you go! (they're not exactly in order, because Blogger loads them backwards, and I don't feel like dealing with moving them around.)

Prescott is already about 9 months old; where does the time go?!? He's filling out and starting to get his adult coat; I can't wait to see what he looks like when it all grows in! (he looks rather like Sedona in this pic, which is somewhat bittersweet.)

...contentment... oh, to have a life as simple as this!

this is Tom's "look of fear" for how he should tackle this burger... LOL! We had lunch at a local restaurant recently; this burger is Teakwoods' "Touch 'em All" burger, with three kinds of cheese, guacamole, bacon, and two kinds of peppers- he said it was delicious, and it actually made 3 meals altogether.

This is an average level of weekend traffic on the highway out of town. (keep scrolling, and you'll get why I took this shot.)

and this is what you can sometimes see next to the highway, if you're lucky! I love seeing the wild horses; it sort of makes me feel like I'm in "the Old West" when I see things like this.

Prescott and Bisbee, having a heckuva good time... when they really get going, the only thing to do is keep out of their way!

this was taken over Memorial Day weekend, making use of our new fire pit. Smores were made, marshmallows were roasted, cigars were smoked, and a good time was had by all.

Last Sunday we went here (Gammage Auditorium, at ASU... designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, by the way) to see this:

Les Miserables is touring for its 25th anniversary-- Tom and I have both seen it before; I saw it at least 10-15 years ago, and for Tom, it was closer to 20 years ago... they updated the staging for this tour, and of course, the music was wonderful. (I love this musical so much; I have the ultimate soundtrack, and pretty much know the songs word for word.)

altogether it was a pretty nice couple of weeks! And, I'm in the process of cleaning off some desk space in my craft room; once I print some photos (including some of the ones above), I'll be making some scrapbook layouts. (hopefully, that is!)

happy birthday to Richard Scarry!!

2011-06-05T11:34:00.003-07:00

I love Richard Scarry books; I remember spending lots of time poring over them as a child, looking at every last little detail of the pictures. (and there are tons of details in his artwork, that's for sure!) image borrowed from tonyphilmore2's photostream on flickr.

a little spring cleaning... and reading reminiscing

2011-06-02T09:58:00.005-07:00

spring cleaning on my blog layout, that is! not big changes, but I added a widget over there, to the right -----> that will hopefully help jog my memory. I've gotten back into reading fiction again recently, and want to track the books I read, so hopefully this widget will help me do it!

I read a LOT when I was little; Mom would take me to the library every Saturday morning, where I'd get an armful of at least 5-10 books. After our weekly trip to the grocery store, we'd go back home where I'd settle into the recliner with my books at my feet, set for an afternoon of paging thru whatever I brought home. I remember that dinosaurs, mythology, and all kinds of science books (insects, butterflies, birds, etc.) were at the top of my list; I probably read close to everything our small Carnegie library had in the children's department, then got an adult card so I could check books out upstairs in the adult section, too.

I read pretty fast-- Tom says that's skimming, not reading, which I kinda agree with-- but I'm always impatient to find out what happens next, and I can't wait to get there-- lol!! This way, I can read a book more than once, and not be bored! (I'm sort of joking about that, but I do have a selection of books I re-read regularly; they're my go-to favorites if there's nothing else around.)

I have been known to stay up pretty late reading, too... I was up till 1 am finishing one of my most recent ones; thank goodness it was a long weekend, so I could sleep in. But, you know how it is-- you get to that "point of no return" where you're too close to the end to want to stop.

the website I found for tracking my books (goodreads.com) looks like it has lots of useful stuff: it can track books you've read, keep track of your books-to-read list, and you can find reader reviews of books, to get recommendations.

Now I just need to remember to update my list! (and go to the library!!)

what?!? really?!? why yes, it IS another SB page!

2011-05-25T15:41:00.006-07:00

In fact, it is the second in the series of pages from my ArtFest trip. (yeah, I know, I need to blog about two of my classes yet... and now that I think about it, I never did blog about the Three Day for the Cure yet, either... bad blogger!! but, I have to go with the inspiration when it hits, you know??)

I think I've finally got over my expectation that I need to scrap chronologically... finally!! That's how I worked when I started scrapbooking, and it really felt "forced" after a while, you know? Somehow, it made the page layouts feel really boring: day 1 of a trip, day 2 of a trip, etc. Day one of my trip to ArtFest would have been: traveling to Seattle, driving to Fort Worden, and walking around the fort. It makes for a good story, but I just didn't think all those photos would "go together visually" on the same page. For instance, this page is titled "snippets" and is photos of different things I wanted to include in the SB layouts, but they were taken at different times during the trip. The finished page is below:

22222222222222 < <---------- Ariel the cat says hi!!

There are photos from the ferry trip on the first day (me, the skyline, and waiting for the ferry), the video game was from the ferry ride as well, the Tsunami evacuation route sign was from later that day, and the photo of my dorm space was from the last evening, when I had to pack everything up. Pics of different things, which is why I titled it snippets. The snippets theme is how I came up with the page border idea, too-- bits and pieces of the different paper patterns in the set that I'm using for all these photos. Again, sort of blending the styles of "art journaling" and scrapbooking / hiliting the photos. (...do you think it's working?? I think it is, at least for these photos!)

(as an aside: $1 a play!?! when did video games get so expensive? I was going to play a game of PacMan for nostalgia's sake, but not for that price!)

A closeup of some of the border details; some of the things are popped up with 3D foam tape, the strips were all cut by hand, so they don't all fit together perfectly, and I've doodled on some of it with my sparkle and glaze gel pens. I like it-- and that's what matters, right?? 2 pages down, and 4 or 5 more to go. (from this trip, that is... lol!!)

scrapping again--

2011-05-24T11:00:00.001-07:00

well, just a little scrapping, anyway! I'm finally working on scrapping the photos I took this spring when I went to ArtFest. (okay, not all of them: I think I took about 200 total, and most of them are never going make it off my computer due to "quality" issues with my photo taking skills.)

(and Tom, if you read this: I promise, the scrapbooking supplies WILL be picked up off the kitchen table by the time you get back from your business trip-- lol!!)

I had wanted to start working on these pages at the National Scrapbook Day crop, but didn't get around to it. I can never put a page together without some sort of sketch or idea to work off of, so I start out slow-- plus, I end up doing other projects in the middle of things, like deciding to totally re-do the way I store my cardstock and patterned paper, which led to this layout being incomplete for, oh, maybe about 2 weeks?? I think it's the Gemini in my personality coming thru; I can't do just one thing at a time, and am very easily distracted. (seriously: I can easily fall asleep if I watch TV without doing something else at the same time, like reading a book, playing a computer game, or surfing the internet.) Anyway, back to the layout-- see what I mean about being easily distracted? haha!

This page will be sort of a "title page" to all the ArtFest layouts:

I want these pages to feel sort of messy and chaotic, to go with the creative energy and excitement that was part of ArtFest-- hopefully I've captured it with the colors and patterns of the papers I chose to use. (but still have the photos, not all the other "stuff" be the focus-- it's a fine line!) I also added in some hand-done elements, like the "scribbled" circles (a new sparkly pink gel pen) on the background, and the dotted line on the border (pink acrylic paint pen). This is a way I can start to "blend" my art journaling artistic sense with my scrapbooking pages, too, hopefully. I'm not totally "in love" with this layout, but at least it's done and I'm on my way. I'm trying to work on letting go of my perfectionist tendencies, but it is hard: I especially don't love the title stickers (I think they're too small for the page design) but I don't want to go out and buy new ones just because these aren't "totally perfect" for it... (baby steps, right?? lol!!)

Below are a couple detail shots of the layout:

the flower is felt, for a bit of texture, and the edge on the purple paper was made with my new favorite border punch- lol; I only have two border punches total, but I really do like this one! The pattern it makes is like notebook paper ripped out of the spiral binding. It is this punch, which you can get at most local craft stores. (and they're not priced too bad, with a 40% off coupon, either!)

this is a detail shot of the focal point photo, which isn't a "great" photo or anything, but it's one I wanted on my page because it shows where I went. It's a photo of a map of the Olympic Penninsula; I used two circle punches to make the ring around Fort Worden, which is where the ArtFest retreat is held every year. The chipboard arrow (by the way, the shade of red doesn't quite "match" either, but I'm okay with that... lol-- I told you my perfectionism was bad!) is from a set of chipboard shapes I got at the local scrapbook store off the clearance table. Look for more arrows and circles coming soon, so I can use them up- lol! But, I do like a bit of chipboard, etc. to add a small amount of dimension to my pages. (I still want to be able to put my pages in page protectors when they're finished.)

So, stay tuned for more scrapbook pages coming soon, because I am spending Saturday the 28th at the Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage... yay!!

beauty shop for dogs (warning; lots of cute pet pictures ahead!)

2011-05-22T20:31:00.009-07:00

this first picture was from last weekend; I was laying down watching TV, and Ariel decided she wanted to lay down too... now if I could only get her to walk on it when my back hurts!

Prescott, being cute: he loves chewing; he demolishes rawhide chews very quickly which can upset his stomach, so most of the time he has to content himself with rope toys.

Bisbee, just being her happy self!

those were the before photos, by the way-- today, both of them went to the doggy beauty parlor for a day of beauty! well, three hours of beauty, anyway. We give them baths, but we don't have the skills (or the patience- lol!!) to do a good grooming, since their hair is sooo long. This is one of those things that's worth paying for, at least in our opinion, with long-haired dogs. The place we go to is here in town, so it's very convenient-- the Puppy Pet Stylist. Melissa (the owner) loves them (apparently they're very well-behaved; too bad they aren't always like that at home!!), and when I got there to pick them up, she said, "do I have to give them back??" Prescott was ready to come home-- they were pretty excited after not seeing me for a couple hours; maybe he thought I left them?? never!!

this is an after beauty shot. Their hair is so soft and silky after having a bath and blow-dry at he groomers; too bad it won't last! Butters approves, apparently (or maybe she just thinks they smell funny?!?)

Prescott didn't like the bandana, so I thought I'd see what Bisbee thought of it-- whaddya think: is there a future for her as Little Polka Dot Riding Hood?? (she is sooo patient, in letting us to do things like this to her!)

Ariel, on the other hand, wasn't too impressed with their new hairdos: well, I can't put it off any longer- I'm off to finish the laundry, now that I've given you an extra-large dose of cuteness!

I found her!

2011-05-15T21:11:00.003-07:00

Butters was upstairs in the office, enjoying the scenery thru the front window.

she loves bird watching-- it's like kitty TV.

random weekend pics

2011-05-15T17:52:00.006-07:00

busy as a...

(well, I haven't been, really-- the bees have been very busy in the prickly pear, though.)

Ariel, sunbathing ... I'm sure Butters was curled up somewhere napping, too, but I don't know where.

Prescott: what did I do? (I'm not sure, but probably something!!) Bisbee, relaxing on the tile till dinnertime.

these last two pics are of a card I made for a co-worker whose last day at work was Friday. It was sad to see her go, but we'll keep in touch.

closeup of the butterfly punches-- this card was very simply made with two different Martha Stewart punches: one makes the bigger butterfly, and the other makes the medium and the small ones.

(I love butterflies-- can you tell??)

I hope everyone had a good weekend, whether you spent it sunbathing, working, or relaxing!

transformation!

2011-05-13T18:23:00.002-07:00

remember this?? well, if you don't, this is what the backyard of our house looked like when we first saw it back in April, 2009. Kinda scary, isn't it?? The house was a foreclosure, and had been empty for almost a year-- from the inside, it looked like the previous owners weren't much for cleaning even when they lived there, either! (it wasn't as bad as some stories I've heard, but it did need a lot of cleaning.)

The backyard needed a lot of help, too... but over time, we decided what we wanted to do with it, planted cacti, and after the last few days of landscape work, it now looks like this:

pretty cool, huh?? grass, concrete curbing, a screened-in patio (no more flies or mosquitoes!), and a fire pit.

we have to keep the dogs off the grass for a couple weeks, till the sod roots, but I'm looking forward to them being able to lay out there, and not get covered with dirt!!

oh my gosh: what a difference a few tons of gravel, some sod, and concrete can make!! anyway, enjoy your weekend! We are going to the AZ Science Museum tomorow, to see the Body Worlds and the Brain exhibit- I'm sort of excited about it! Tom isn't exactly excited (like, not at all) but he said he'd go with me, so he'll do it. then again, it may be creepy to me, too-- but, at least we have a nice backyard to come home to!

Scrapping Saturday!!

2011-05-08T19:30:00.003-07:00

I spent all day yesterday, National Scrapbooking Day, in Phoenix at this lovely place: the newly opened Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage!! I was lucky enough to be one of the winners of a free 12-hour crop at this cute, cute, cute bungalow cottage yesterday, for their grand opening weekend. This was a great opportunity to get some pages scrapped, since I haven't scrapped for quite a while (sad to say it's been well over a year, since the last post I wrote about scrapping!) so I packed up my paper, printed out some photos, and headed into Phoenix. The proprieters are a very nice duo of women who had gone to scrapping retreats in San Diego, and decided to bring a similar weekend getaway idea to the Phoenix area. The house is available for weekend getaways, Friday afternoon till Sunday afternoon, or for 12-hour day crops. (You can even tack on a Thursday or Monday, to extend your weekend even more!)

This is the dining room with its beautiful built-in china hutch; it's now the tool center, containing a huge selection of stamps, ink pads, idea books, and tools, including a Cricut cutter and a computer with a wide-format printer. (That's Kathy there, one of the very nice owners.)

I took a little photo tour of some of the rest of the house, too, while I was taking a break to stretch my back. This is one of the super-cute bedrooms: pillow-top mattresses with 300-thread count sheets! So, if you get exhausted from all that scrapping and working, you can actually sleep, in comfort.

These two pictures are the upstairs bathroom-- it is gorgeous!! There's a second full bath on the first floor, which is just as gorgeous.

( I had a claw-foot tub like this in my very first apartment, but it didn't have a shower. ) This renovation is a great way to update a bathroom and still respect the architecture of the room; you can still enjoy the window in the room, and the shower head is beautiful.

These are a couple of my fellow scrappers-- we each got our very own 6-foot table with our very own Ott light! I've been to a number of all-day crops back in Illinois and Wisconsin, and lots of times we had to share one of these tables with someone-- that makes for some cramped quarters, for sure. (imagine sharing one of those tables in the middle of the room, so you couldn't even back the chair away from the table, either! not fun, especially since I tend to spread out when I work, as you can see below.)

Here's my workspace-- pretty messy, and the inspiration was coming rather slowly-- It actually took me a couple hours to get into a groove; this picture still shows the first page I was working on, and it was about 1:30 in the afternoon. In my defense, though, I did have to unpack and get set up, along with having to cut and crop my photos before getting to work. (The first finished page is below; it just needs the journaling printed out, which will be folded and tucked into the library pocket.)

This is the picture of us that was taken at our 7th anniversary brunch; I think it's one of the nicest pics of us, and wanted to showcase it.

This page was a fun one to do-- this pic of Tom was taken a few years ago when we were in Seattle for a long weekend. I bought the paper specifically with the idea of using it for this page; I loved the hearts and fun colors. (scrapbooking paper is somewhat addicting, but shopping for it can sometimes lead to pattern and color overload.)

The pics above and below are from a trip we took a few years ago at Christmastime-- we stopped at the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch , which was certainly a memorable experience! The ostriches were kind of scary to me, actually, and the lorikeets (pic below) really did feel a bit like a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds. I knew I wanted to play up the colors of those birds, which are really vibrant. (these pages took a couple hours to do, actually, because I kept thinking of more little details I wanted to add: I really need to work on my speed; plus, I am a bit picky-- it took me at least 1/2 hour to get the ribbon tied the way I wanted it on that first page.)

The pics below are from the same trip, taken when we took a day trip to Tombstone, but they're not quite finished yet. I finally got into my scrapping groove about 8 pm, but then had to start thinking about picking up, since the crop only went till 10 pm. I did already make a reservation for a weekend getaway, though; that way, I can work as long as my inspiration (and my caffeine supply) holds out!

Well, hopefully it won't be another year (or longer) before I show you a new scrapbooking layout, although I can't promise anything! And if you want to plan your own crafty getaway, for scrapping or other crafts, I highly recommend the Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage... maybe I'll even see you there! (I'll be the one with the paper scattered all over, looking for something I just set down and misplaced-- lol!!)

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T13:25:00.003-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, who was always happy with whatever I brought home for her, whether it was a boquet of dandelions, a pocket full of rocks, or an interesting looking plant, leaf, or bug. She let me keep an aquarium full of tadpoles on the dining room buffet or a mason jar of caterpillars on the kitchen counter, and even encouraged me to do these things as long as it led to me learning something new-- thanks for everything you've done for me ver the years, Mom!

(somewhat) random photos

2011-05-04T21:43:00.002-07:00

yes, I know this one is difficult to look at, but that's what I've been working on tonight-- cropping, editing, and printing pictures. Because, this Saturday (May 7th) is National Scrapbooking Day!! What does that have to do with the price of beans, you might ask? Well, it's because I won a drawing to attend a free all-day (10 am to 10 pm) crop at a brand new scrapbooking retreat in a renovated bungalow in downtown Phoenix (Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage)-- it looks really cute, from their website, by the way. Anyway, I need some photos to work on! (yes, you can laugh here, if you want: I have made a few pages here and there, like these pages from our trip to San Xavier Mission, but since using the digital camera regularly, I get them from the printer to the computer, and mostly they just stay there. ) I am looking forward to this event, though-- the place looks really nice, and it should be a lot of fun-- if I can just get the photos printed, that is!! (and, sad to say now that I looked up that post, those pages were made at the end of 2009-- what is really pathetic about that is I thought that I made those pages recently!! Time flies, I guess...)

by the way, the pics above are from ArtFest-- the dog on the left was a model in Carla Sonheim's class "The Art of Silliness" (I think he's cute!!) and the pic on the right was of our dinner guests, who made an appearance outside the dining hall every night. They seemed really tame; they didn't care about us snapping away with our cameras, at all!

this was a fun journal page I made in the last week or two-- the page itself is a brown paper lunch bag, and the figures came from some "child life insurance policy" junk mail we received. I snagged the envelope quick, before it hit the recycle bin. (see?!? anything can be art fodder!!)

I think I stamped the bag with some handmade stamps (one of my favorites, wine cork!!) and then went to town with the gel pens and some glitter, too, for good measure!

even more journal pages!

2011-05-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

a few more journal pages, both finished and not:

Yes, I can do a simple page! This one is done.

Another page full of random images that just seemed to "go together" somehow, even though they're really not related at all.

This page was scraped paint leftover from some other painting project; I attached a glassine envelope with decorative tape, and used it to store some of my ArtFest trades. The flag bunting strung across the top is also an ArtFest trade; I need to make some of those-- they are seriously cute!

This page isn't anything special in terms of its design or the elements I used. What did turn out kind of cool, though, is the texture I got when I painted the background. I painted the page with gesso and paint, then scraped across it with a piece of corugated cardboard, which gave it kind of a combed look. (totally by accident, but those are the kind of accidents I like!)

more journal pages--

2011-04-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

well, one journal page, anyway... I wanted to show you this one because it was such fun to do! It's another one where the image sort of "goes with" the idea I had... I swear, it doesn't really happen that often, even though it might seem so right now! This page is layered, with the background underneath a Hambly screenprinted transparency. I don't use transparencies very often, although I do like them; partly, it's because I never think about how to attach them. This one was attached at the top with staples. The pic below shows the underneath layer. I found the clock in a Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine (I think), and the eye was from another Teesha Moore collage sheet. And yes, I know the word "Time" is backwards; I printed them backwards to do an image transfer with, but deciced they'd work on this page the way they were. (and for the record, the clock is not the original image that was on this page-- I think it was a pair of scissors, or something, but I never really liked it, so I covered it up: again, it's my book, and I can do whatever I want!) Oh, yeah; in case your're wondering, there's a photocopied vintage tag tied to the transparency with ribbon.

The pic below is a close-up of the doodling on the transparency, done with a uniball Signo Mitsubishi white pen. During the ArtFest class I took from her, Lisa Engelbrecht sold some of her favorite pens, and this is one of them; I definitely agree! I'm always on "the quest" for the best white pen and the best black pen for journal page; I have tons of them that don't really measure up. (I always think of the Indiana Jones movie scene where Indy is picking which one is the real Holy Grail; a deep voice with an English accent plays in my head, saying "choose wisely," but I never seem to get it exactly right. This one, though, might be it, or at least close to it!) I have other Signo uniball pens that don't work nearly as well; this one has Japanese writing on, and the Mitsubishi seems to be different than the other ones. Unfortunately, the ink seems to run out pretty quick; then again, all this doodling might have something to do with it-- you think?? lol!

I do love my obsessive-compulsive doodled designs; I don't do it nearly often enough.

04/26/11 journal pages

2011-04-27T22:22:00.009-07:00

A couple recent journal pages for your viewing pleasure. I really don't have a particular artistic "style" for my work; the page style changes depending on my mood and what I want to convey or capture. I don't usually work with a particular image = page idea, either; mostly I collage pages just because I like the images, and write "whatever" on them at some later time. Every once in a while, though, I do find a particular image and idea that go together; both of these pages went like that. This one shows visually how maddening it can be to have tons of ideas floating around in my head! (maybe it goes with being a Gemini, or maybe it's still leftover ArtFest inspiration?? Nevertheless, sometimes I do wish I could turn it off- especially when I'm trying to get to sleep and my brain just won't shut up, already!) FYI, the larger page in the photo above (the one with the greenish background and the black stamped medallion pattern) was the background for this finished page. I didn't really think the colors of the paint "went" with the page design as I developed it, so I added some collage paper and color with Stabilo Woody watercolor crayons. Not that you can see much of the background on the finished page anyway, but I wanted to show you that they can change quite a bit from the way they first start out, which is totally okay-- it's my book, right? yes, it is!! :D Here's a closeup detail of the page above: this page might not be pretty, but I really didn't want it to be. I wanted it to be full of "stuff" and energy to get the point across. When I first started doing "art journaling" I was intimidated by the thought of doing the "wrong" thing on a page, or "screwing something up," and I thought the finished pages were supposed to be "pretty" or "artistic," but I've gotten over that. I know some people do have that sort of personal style, and that some people use their art journals as a sort of "practice" place to try out new techniques, color combinations, etc. for use in other artwork later, but mine isn't like that. For me, the act of painting, collaging and doodling is a bit like meditation-- my mind goes sort of blank when I'm "in the flow" with the art, without any thought of time passing or of the final product. Later, I'll use the page to write on if I have particular thoughts about something, or I do a bit of "what I did today" writing on them. Some pages don't ever get words on, and that's fine with me, too- the act of creating the artwork itself is sometimes enough for me. This page is another that started with a specific idea and image... the "skyscraper" on the left was originally an advertisement for a hanging light fixture. The phrase "urban sprawl" was in my head from a conversation I had with my mom, so I decided the light fixture looked rather like a high-rise building, and went from there. The other skyscrapers were cut from a magazine page and some vintage music. The "sun" with the vacant-eyed china doll sort of conveys the uban sprawl emptiness idea; even though it really is sort of creepy to me, it got the idea across so I went with it. a close-up of the doodled details on the urban sprawl page. I usually can't leave paper the way it is; I embellish it with doodles and patterns on top of the patterns that are already there. In this case, the white dots were added, along with the purple and pink details on the green paper. A few of the collaged papers on this page are from Teesha Moore collage sheets that I purchased at ArtFest; I love how she photocopies her designs and journal pages then uses those on her artwork and in her journals ---> journal pages on top of journal pages! I have just started scanning some of my own journal pages to print out, so I can do the same thing using my own artwork. The phrase "urban sprawl" refers to the Phoenix Valley of the Sun in general, and I do personally agree with that assessment... there are small pockets here and there with more of a "neighborhood" feel to them, but they're few and far between (at least in my opinion), and the "strip mall" feel does dominate the area overall. That's one of the reasons I like living in Maricopa; it's not really part of "the Valley" proper, so it has more of a separate, smaller-town feel to it (even though there are 30,000+ people). Living in Maricopa does lead to a large amount of driving, but at least it's driving through the desert / reservation land, which means views of mountains, cactus, and the possibility for wildflower and wild horse sightings; personally, I'll take that over traffic lights and 6-8 lanes of traffic one way, any day!

letters from home

2011-04-27T20:53:00.005-07:00

A couple more vintage postcards from my collection. I don't remember where I got these; I most likely purchased them when I was visiting my parents; maybe last summer?? I just can't quite believe I would have scored vintage postcards featuring scenes from home here in Arizona... (fyi, I did intend for this post to be a short one, but I just can't help doing internet research to make sure I know what I'm talking about, and I keep finding more interesting things I want to write about!)

The Apple River is definitely "home," because the Apple River Canyon State Park is just a couple miles from the town of Warren, where I grew up. This part of the state is absolutely beautiful, and the park, especially so. The glaciers missed the northwest corner of Illinois, so it's not flat; there are rolling hills, limestone bluffs, and hilly ravines throughout the area. In the early 1800s, there was a town named Millville (named after its two sawmills) where the park is now; it was even a stop on the Chicago-Galena stagecoach route. The town was destroyed during a flood in 1892, and none of it remains today. I have many fond memories of the park which include birdwatching, looking for wildflowers, picnicking, and fishing for smallmouth bass in the river. This is the reverse side- it was sent in May, 1903, and it reads: "Dear Brother-- We are coming to your place Sun. if it does not rain and if you folks will be home if not phone and tell me. Your sister Bernice" I hope it didn't rain and that they had a nice visit! This postcard is of another wonderfully scenic piece of the Midwest, the beautiful area called the "Wisconsin Dells" along the Wisconsin River in the south-central part of Wisconsin. The town of Wisconsin Dells, WI is now known as the "Waterpark Capital of the World" and definitely lives up to its name! Tom's family lives a few miles outside of the town proper; we visit them every August. (we try to stay out of town, though, to avoid the tourists!) The town, along with its neighbor Lake Delton, is packed all summer long with visitors to waterparks and resorts such as the Kalihari Resort, Noah's Ark (the largest waterpark in the US, with 49 waterslides and 2 wave pools), Mt. Olympus Resort and Waterpark (this waterpark includes a Greek temple and a Trojan Horse!!), to name just a few. Wisconsin Dells has approximately 2500 year-round residents, but over 5 million visitors annually! Anyway-- "the Dells" itself is a gorgeous stretch of the Wisconsin River, also boasting beautiful river bluffs, ravines, and gorges.

The natural beauty of the river and surrounding bluffs can be seen from the water by taking a tour on the Wisconsin Ducks, which are amphibious vehicles from World War II-- it's pretty cool! This postcard was from a photograph copyrighted by the H.H. Bennett studios. H. H. Bennett revolutionized photography by taking the world's first "action shot;" he took a photograph of a man jumping from one of the bluffs to "Stand Rock" in the year 1866! (to be perfectly honest, I didn't know this until very recently when we watched an episode of the History channel show Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy; I will definitely be visiting the Bennett photography studio when we go back this August! Larry the Cable Guy's show is very good, by the way-- it showcases quirky and unique things, people, and events all across the country.) One other fact worth mentioning about this postcard; it is from the Curt Teich company, the world's largest printer of view and advertising postcards. If you're interested in vintage postcards, esp. Curt Teich ones, then visit this website: the Lake County Discovery Museum website, or better yet, visit the museum itself in Wauconda, IL. In addition to being a very nice museum, it is known worldwide for housing the largest public collection of postcards and related materials, with over 365,00 postcards, and a large exhibit showing postcards and the postcard printing process through history. (And, I just figured out, using some of these links that this postcard was the first Colortone process postcard printed by the Teich company in the year 1949-- pretty amazing what some internet research can do for you!)

Happy Easter!! (late...)

2011-04-24T21:24:00.006-07:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! Ours was pretty low-key, and involved a nap on the couch during the afternoon, which is why I didn't get the scanner up and running till this evening. But, I really wanted to post this wonderful vintage easter postcard that I just found: from 1907... I love the snowdrops and the pussy willow branches! There was a pussy willow tree at the south end of our property, next to the garden, when I was growing up (Mom, is it still there??) Anyway, the pussy willows budding was one of the best sure signs of spring's arrival. I picked up this postcard yesterday at an antique mall in Mesa; I spent the day poking around it with my friend Shery- it was a lot of fun! She and I like the same type of paper ephemera and vintage photos, which is fun, but that can make shopping difficult, too, since we sometimes want to both purchase the same item! (thank goodness for scanners!) I had to get this Holy card, too... I just love the blue background, and the blue in Mary's robes. It was printed in Canada, and is written in French, but I forgot to get a scan of the back.

I don't purchase a lot of vintage photos, but I do buy a few when they "speak" to me. I tend to notice the ones with animals, or an outdoor/garden scene. These children with their calf is so cute, I couldn't leave it there! I love how she's holding onto the calf, instead of just standing next to it!

This one caught my eye, too-- I thought there were only two children with the horses, but zooming in on it showed me there were three. Below is a zoomed-in crop of the same pic:

Looks like the girls in back are next to the horses already hitched to the wagon, and the boy is next to a younger horse?? There was writing on the back, but I think it was in Swedish, which was no help to me...

This one, I've had for a while, but never got around to scanning before-- such a sweet photo!! I scanned a bunch more postcards, but need to edit them (crop and color-correct) before posting them... unfortunately, that will have to wait, though, because the alarm clock is ticking away the hours till 5 am! (ick!)

next artfest installment (be warned: it's a long post, and has LOTS of pics)

2011-04-23T21:43:00.008-07:00

Wednesday night was the Welcome meeting where Teesha and Tracy Moore spoke to welcome us all to ArtFest 2011, and to introduce all the instructors. They thanked us for attending, and talked bravery- thanking us for our bravery in attending, and being brave in our art. They also reminded us to be open to the experience of learning from the instructors, and each other. I don't remember much of the specifics, and I really wish I could-- it was a great welcome speech. I don't think of myself as particularly "brave" (quite the opposite, actually) so it was nice to get a reminder of the fact that putting myself out there to have this experience is an act of bravery, on a lot of different levels. (I never had a chance to meet Teesha or Tracy during the time I was up there, unfortunately; they're waay busy making sure everything goes okay for all of us.) For Teesha's viewpoint of ArtFest, you can read her blog post here. It was really interesting to read how the week went from her point of view, and what all has to be done to keep everything going smoothly.

After the Welcome gathering, I went with my roommates to another welcome meeting, a "Wine and Chocolate" party hosted in one of the neighboring dorm buildings. The two hostesses were veteran ArtFesters, and had a very lively party going; we mingled, chatted, signed their journals, and passed around trades. (more on trades in a later post, but the short story is: you can bring "trades" for trading with other people- charms, pins, collage goodies, Artist Trading Cards, small works of art-- you name it, anything can be a trade. I got plenty, and will show some of them once I take pics.)

My first class (on Thursday) was "Luscious Layered Canvas" taught by Roxanne Padgett. Layers of paint, stencils, and pattern on canvas that can then be used for whatever you want- below are a couple of her samples:

This class was a lot of fun, and I got some great ideas-- we started out making marks and patterns on our canvas with things as simple as crayon, gesso, or gluing down smaller pieces of paper. After that, we started in with building up our patterned layers using crayon rubbings, stencils, and stamps. Below is my table, partway through the morning: The pic below is three of my four pieces of fabric, partway through the process. There are probably 3 or four layers on them at this point... the colors I used are definitely more vivid and bright than I usually use; Roxanne's catchphrase is "fear no color!" Some of the stencils were made using manila file folder, and the stencil used to make the scroll-y pink pattern was a piece of die-cut scrapbook paper. (so many great tips, I tell you!! I just hope I remember them all!)

I'm glad I took the in-process pics-- the picture below is one of the fabrics from the pic above, turned to black & white on my computer... If I print it out, then voila! my very own printed paper! Doing this was a tip from one of my dorm-mates, I think... It makes for a really graphic patterned paper, that's for sure.

Below is one of my classmates, making a crayon rubbing on her canvas... we used chipboard letter stickers to make a rubbing plate, along with such mundane things as trivets, placemats, and manila file folder shapes... another great tip!

below is my table later on during the day when I was making my own stencils, and had more layers of color on my fabric. At this point, I was sort of hating a couple of my pieces; they just needed "something" but I wasn't sure what. Roxanne was very helpful, walking around seeing how all of use were doing, and she gave me some good advice. (notice, I was using the leftover paint to make a couple art journal pages, there-- I can't waste perfectly good paint and paper scraps!)

This is an overall shot of the room, as we were finishing up for the day... the building we were in was the USO building; it was quite spacious, and had plenty of light (it was sunny!), which made for a great workspace. We each had our own 6-foot table (and I still ran out of room, as usual- LOL!!) to spread out on, plus plenty of floor space to spread our canvases to dry.

below is a shot of all four of my pieces. A couple of them I still don't quite like; I started out thinking I would hate the piece that started out with black fabric but it turned out to be one of the ones I like best. Huh! just goes to show, you never know what direction your art will take you in. I learned TONS of things, though, and will definitely use this layering technique in my artwork. (part of the pattern on the top-right piece was made using a pizza cutter- just roll the wheel thru the paint, then roll it onto your surface: another memorable tip, and I have already found a pizza cutter at the thrift store, to do this myself!)

The art-making didn't stop once class was over, though! Dorm 202 had classrooms in the common areas on the first floor, so all evening long, there were plenty of people hanging out at the tables showing off their class projects, working on their projects (class or otherwise) or just chatting and socializing.

I hung out down here for a while, working on my art journal-- mind you, this was after I had already gone down to the beach with one of my roommates to roast marshmallows, make a smore, and do some socializing and trading with the people down there... I didn't get much sleep while I was at ArtFest: there was way too much to do, see, or talk about for sleeping! Next Artfest post coming up shortly... I need to take some pics of my class project, since I forgot my camera for part of the day during class (whoops!).

guess what...?? yes, it's random photo time!

2011-04-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

our latest mixed media group meeting was Wednesday night... ahem-- the CIA, I should say. (It's our new name, and I'm not used to it yet. CIA stands for "Collaborative of Inspired Artists" but it's more fun to say I'm a member of the CIA!!) Anyway. Josie Cirincione was our guest teacher (I totally didn't even think to take my copy of her first book to have her sign it); she taught us a project using metal foil tape. Such a fun project!! I've tried to use this material before, but had some problems with it-- she gave us plenty of tips and tricks, along with all the supplies and tools to make the finished project. Here's mine: I love the texture of the metal, and the aged/distressed look that rubbing it with black StazOn ink gives it. The picture below shows a closeup of the texture (I decided to cover the entire background with a dot pattern, which I really like the look of after I finally finished it, so it was definitely worth it...). The raised pattern was made by just using cereal box/thin chipboard underneath the metal tape- how cool is that?!?

And now for some journal pages... I hadn't done any journaling to speak of since way before Christmas, so I knew ArtFest would be a great opportunity to get my journaling mojo back. I took three of my journals with me (one of them by accident- it was small and in a box of paper- lol!), plus a boatload of supplies (you never know what you might want to work on or use, you know!) and it was a great opportunity-- my dorm building had a classroom in the first-floor common area, so people were always set up there in the evenings: working on class projects, working on their own projects, or just socializing and getting inspiration from everyone else. I was so inspired, I didn't want to go to bed till my body told me I absolutely had to: I stayed up till 11 pm the first night, 1 am the second, 1:30 am the third, and 11 pm the last night (only because I knew I had to get up to drive to the airport the next morning). I didn't always get much done (too much inspiration ---> not much energy for follow-through) but here are some pages I worked on both while I was there and since I've gotten home.

The right-hand page was leftover paint spread on with a credit card (well, technically a grocery store "saver" card- I keep all those random cards just for applying paint) during one of my classes- I didn't want to waste any of it, you know! I still need to look up that rubber stamping company Carmen's Veranda; I wrote it down just so I wouldn't forget the name! I also have the blog address of the woman who told me about it... must check out her blog, too... later, otherwise I'll never come back here to finish this post!

I had the backgrounds done on these two pages ages ago; I just used them to write on during/after class. The index card was from Roxanne Padgett's Lush Layered Canvas class, where she taught us a little about color theory and mixing. (I have never been able to mix a shade of orange that I actually like...it's a lot easier to buy it! ...although it doesn't look too bad from far away, here.)

Here, the left page was already collaged; I just added the words, and the pops of purple with one of my new Stabilo Woody watercolor crayons. I saw a set of 10 of them (the last one on the shelf) @ Akamai Art Supply in Port Townsend, and I snagged them (for a 10% off ArtFest discount, even!) before anyone else got them. Kelly had mentioned them before, and I knew if Kelly liked them, they must be good, because she only recommends art supplies she really likes- see the right sidebar of her blog for posts on her favorite materials. The Woodies (snicker!!) have a really nice, creamy quality to them, and I definitely want to pick up the rest of the colors. (I also used them in the fabric painting class I took on day 2 of ArtFest, which I will show you when I get those pics edited.) And I really love that lilac purple color, even though it's a lot more vivid than the colors I usually use.

So this pic is my newest tattoo: a memorial, close to my heart on my left shoulderblade. It's a permanent reminder of the beloved pets we no longer have in our lives. It's a bit of a departure from journaling, isn't it?!? Or, maybe it isn't, actually... for me, journaling is a visual/written meditation process, of a sort, that results in a page which gives me a reminder of what I was doing when I made the page, the reasons I chose the materials, colors, etc. The tattoo is a reminder to me as well, and since I designed it, maybe it's just a different kind of journaling. (I do need to go back for a bit of a touchup; he forgot to put the toenails on the dog paw, and the inner angel wing unfortunately needs a bit more shading. But it's definitely worth the discomfort to always have a visual reminder of Sedona, Pandora, Cleo and Phoebe with me.) FYI, both my tattoos were done by Tommy Gunn, at Subculture Tattoo in Glendale, AZ.

So, back to the "traditional" visual journaling, now, shall we? The page above has lots more gorgeous Stabilo woody crayons on it, over a light base coat of gesso. {As an aside, I gessoed on these latest pages a couple days ago before work... I had the urge, and needed to make the most of it at the time. Tom saw me in the garage (where my painting supplies are living at the moment), and asked "can't you do that later?" Well, yes, and no... technically, yes, there would be plenty of time after work to do it, but would I, is the question? probably not... so, I took advantage of the urge when it hit. I don't want to lose the ArtFest mojo to the grind of daily life; art vs. daily life is one of the hardest things for me to balance. I want to do more of the "5-15 minute" sort of creating, rather than feeling like I need an entire block of hours free in which to "do art."}

And now, to change it up with a couple cute pet pics! The photo above isn't the best quality, but I wanted to get a shot of Prescott cozying up to Bisbee while she's sacked out in the dog bed. they don't exactly cuddle or anything, but they do hang out together quite a lot. He's gotten bigger (he still seems a bit skinny; the fact that he still occasionally snacks on socks isn't helping that!), but his coat is starting to fill out, and that is making a huge difference in how he looks. That "puppy" phase went by so fast, it's kinda sad that it's gone already.

And here is Butters, relaxing against my gardening-book-ring-bound journal (?!?!? that can't be comfortable!!) It's because I laid out some fabric as a backdrop for the pictures I took; she loves laying on fabric for some reason, whether it's a bathtowel, dishtowel, shirt, or clean laundry. (!!!)

next time, I'll post more ArtFest pics... I promise!

ArtFest 2011 Installment #1

2011-04-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

My Christmas present this year was a trip to ArtFest 2011, an art retreat held every spring in Port Townsend, WA which is northwest of Seattle on the very tip of the Olympic Penninsula. I’ve wanted to attend ArtFest for years, and this was the year it finally all came together. I sent off my registration after Christmas, when spring was still a long ways away. It seemed like April would never get here, then all the sudden it was time to get ready to go! I scrambled around at the last minute (like usual, of course) putting together the supplies for my classes and making items to trade with the other attendees. I had to figure out how to fit all my art supplies, trades, my journals, and my journaling supplies in my luggage. Of course, I did need a few clothes and personal items as well, so I ended up doing some luggage juggling in order to get it all to fit. I really wasn’t thrilled at having to pack long pants and a jacket (!!) since it had already been up in the 90s here in AZ, but for ArtFest, I was willing to make sacrifices. (LOL!)

Wednesday morning, I got up at 3:45 am (ick!!), so I could catch my (early) flight to Seattle. I hadn’t slept much the night before, what with all the last minute packing and being excited about the trip… the flight was pretty uneventful, and even got into Seattle about 30 minutes early, which was nice.

In the airport, I got the rental car paperwork and met my carpooler Lydia, a fellow first-time ArtFest attendee. We headed out to find the Seattle ferry, which we did with only a few road construction headaches. (who does road construction in a tourist area without putting up detour signs, anyway?!?) Anyway, we finally found the ferry station (?? is that what you call it??), and below is what we saw:

There's the ferry, just pulling away from the dock-- darn it! But that did give us time to head into the local (and by "local" I mean right-next-to-the-parking-lot local) McDonald's for some badly needed caffeine while we waited for the ferry to make its way back. Once it did we all drove on; then Lydia and I hopped out of the car to go up to the observation deck.

Here is the obligatory "photo on the ferry" snapshot, LOL!! Just kidding-- it was pretty cool, since I've never been on a ferry before. It was pretty chilly, too, which is why we went back inside after this shot, but not before I snapped a pretty nice photo of the Seattle skyline.

There were plenty of other people taking pictures outside on deck, as well. It looked like lots of them were re-creating the "king of the world" scene from the movie Titanic, but we headed inside to hang out and watch the scenery for the half-hour ferry ride.

We checked out the vending machine snacks, and I thought about playing a video game or two when I saw this PacMan/Galaga game, but then I saw this:

A dollar?!? What the heck?!?!! I guess it's been a loooong time since the mid-1980s when I would hang out at the arcade after school and play video games for a quarter! Once the ferry landed on Bainbridge Island, we headed out on the highway across the island, across another bridge, and then up the eastern coast of the Olympic Penninsula. Lydia did a very good job of navigating (thank goodness, since I had no idea where I was going!), and we passed the time chatting about art-related and other things. Turns out we're both Geminis, and we have a lot of other things in common, as well- it's interesting how that kind of thing happens, isn't it?!? Once we found the town of Port Townsend, we stopped at the local grocery store for some art-making staples like paper towels and waxed paper (for my painting classes), along with other art-making staples like snacks, wine and chocolate. :D Lydia's friend Kim had been waiting for us at the Port Townsend ferry stop (wondering where the heck we were) but she finally found us at the grocery store and we followed her to the following mysterious destination:

Art supplies-- yay!! Akamai Art Supply was great- lots of fun. (and isn't that car the coolest?? I took a few more pics of it; it's covered with really nifty stencil designs.) The store didn't seem overly large, but it was definitely jam-packed with all sorts of fun stuff. Plus, we got an ArtFest discount; what could be better than that?!? Then we headed to Fort Worden to get our check-in information packets, and Lydia headed back to her bed and breakfast till the Orientation meeting that evening. I found my room, unloaded my stuff, and put on my running shoes to find the beach before it got too late. Here's one photo of the beach and the pier:

I walked down the beach a ways and out onto the pier; I have some more beach photos, but I think I'll finish up my post for now and save those pics for the next installment. The weather was very pleasant (although colder than I was used to in AZ, for sure) the entire time I was there, and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous, but I am sad/happy to say that I was so busy socializing and art-making that I didn't have any other opportunities to explore the area around the fort at all, so I am doubly glad I took the walk on the beach on Wednesday.

I'll post again after I edit more of the almost-200 photos I took. (thank goodness for digital cameras!!)

more random photos!

2011-03-05T22:51:00.004-07:00

it's hard work, being cute! Prescott relaxes on the couch after dinner. It's hard to believe, but he'll be 6 months old next week, already. Where does the time go?

I've been spending time at one of the local thrift stores, Savers, lately, and managed to find some new additions to my spring/summer wardrobe... I got four tee-shirts, two sleeveless shirts, a short-sleeved silk sweater, a pair of sandals and a scarf, all for about $20. The most expensive item was only $4.99, and most of the items were on sale for half off, including the silk sweater, which I snagged for only $2.00! It was a fun couple hours, and I definitely plan on doing it again.

(lucky) 7

2011-02-27T20:25:00.003-07:00

Seven years ago, I received a very intriguing e-mail from a man who shared my love of science fiction movies, and whose favorite actor was Hugh Grant. We started corresponding via e-mail, had some very long phone conversations, then decided to meet over lunch before going to the movies. During lunch we did lots of talking: among other things, we debated the merits of The Matrix vs. Star Wars as the best science-fiction movie series ever (...clearly, it's Star Wars!! LOL!) Approximately four hours later, we finally decided we'd better get to the movie theater before we missed the last showtime.

Now here we are, seven years later; we're still having lively debates about all manner of topics, and enjoying it just as much as we did during that first four-hour lunch. That e-mail was the start to an amazing journey... I'm very much looking forward to the next seven years with you, my Thomas!!

with much love, your Jenn

another random photo post

2011-01-02T20:18:00.004-07:00

I always have these grand plans for writing themed blog posts, but never get around to writing them... So, in order to get the photos out there and posted, I'm doing another "sort-of-random" photo post, starting with leftovers from my Christmas crafting-- a couple commissioned items. (it sounds so grandiose when I write it, but technically they were commissioned; I'm just not comfortable with the word.)

This is a comissioned stocking for a coworker's dog-- I love that he wanted a stocking for his dog!! Since the dog's name is Capone, Mike wanted the design to be sort of "gangsterish" to reflect that, and he's the one who actually gave me the fedora-hanging-on-the-cuff design idea.

I love how this little hat turned out; it totally reminds me of Frank Sinatra!! The only thing I didn't have is something to decorate the hatband with, unfortunately. I am keeping my eye out for a button with a pawprint design on it, and once I find one, I'll add it. Mike said Capone wasn't too excited about the stocking (he was more interested in the rawhide bone inside it!), but he liked it, which is important, since he's the buyer.

These finger puppets were for another co-worker. (well, not for him, but for his daughters.) I was a little leery about making such well-known characters- they're so recognizeable that I was concerned about getting them just "right." After futzing around with them for a looong time, I think there's something a little "off" about Spongebob's face, but then again, I'm my own worst critic. And I love how his friend Patrick turned out!! More importantly, the little girls loved them!

In other news, Prescott has been quite a troublemaker, getting into everything down at his level. Warning-- the following may be Too Much Information, but if you have dogs, you'll understand... He had a couple weeks of "digestive issues" that started with vomiting every time he ate, and moved down his digestive system to become bouts of diarrhea. I was very concerned, took him to the vet, and got him a round of antibiotics. Turns out, what he had a tough time digesting was a pair of my socks! The picture above is an example-- we were just flabbergasted when he vomited up the sock on the left (shown next to an intact one to illustrate that it's NOT all there!), then over the course of the next week or so, the rest of the sock made its way thru his system. We thought we were in the clear when we started seeing signs of the SECOND sock! I still don't understand how he could do it; it would have been soooo dry, sort of like eating a biscotti cookie without any coffee to moisten it! Anyway, he's all over it now, and I don't leave my socks on the floor anymore- LOL!

These are a couple photos from a fleeting moment of doggie togetherness in the kitchen this afternoon. Bisbee still doesn't know quite what to think of him, especially when he wants to snuggle up with her, but she lets him do it.

It doesn't last long, though-- these quick snaps were it, then just a couple minutes later they were off again, tearing around the kitchen and living room. Now if only Prescott would put some weight on... apparently socks are a good weight loss method, although I'm not trying it anytime soon- LOL!