ArtFest, part 2

I finally finished editing all *489* photos from my ArtFest weekend! Yowza! Many of them will be on my flickr account later. I really have to upload my TurboTax and finished filing my taxes now that I've cleared all of that off of our laptop.
I'm such a fan of a good patina. Any hints for this result?
and this! how did you get these bottle caps so funky but clean looking? love them.
I do love well placed glitter, don't you? The mandalas...so beautiful. I have a mandala colouring book that a friend gifted me with years ago. I love it. I've done a few hand drawn mandalas in my time...the projects from this class have *truly* inspired me to make some *large* ones. I'm thinking ocean-y ones for the baby's room. And I'm really drawn to some of the pink tones for the studio wall.
Love so much about Fort Worden.
Dianne Trautmann...fabulous journaler. Love this piece with the portion of tree as wings. Very talented.
Also by Dianne.
Loved this book too. Cannot really imagine "giving up" a day of classes to take a two day class though. Love the cut-out shape (I've always been partial to shrines and doorways).

Oh, the colour combinations I have yet to try. So taking this class next year. And playing with more colours and going to Daniel Smith to load up on new colours, new papers, new brushes.
aren't they all wonderful?
don't you want to touch them all and look at them closer?
This box was stuffed full to leave at the Art Asylum. I brought back about half as much stuff...the cylinder tin is full of my journaling pens and pencils, I didn't take them out for the photograph. Saw some great pieces of art with bits and bobs from my cast offs! I hate when that happens, makes it so hard to get rid of stuff! Why didn't I think of that use?
It looks so peaceful and beautiful, right? Oh the secrets of an artists filled dorm...full of creative energy that cannot be contained.

more later, after the taxes are *done*

ArtFest, part 1

My second year. Excellent! As much as I loved meeting Sara(h) as a roomie last year. I *loved* having a private room this year. We again had a very social dorm. Wonderful to have show and tell each night, plus adding to and looking through different journals. *so*much*fun*

I've only edited 150 of my photos so far. I'll post a few of them now. And take a computer break. (still working on my taxes - eeck!)

Photos are in a bit of random order.
Early morning walk on Saturday morning. A bit chilly, great for waking up and stretching out (those mattresses - oy!) So many more Saturday morning photos will be on my flickr by Saturday. I'll crop and edit in batches between working on those taxes.

Favorite bumpersticker of the weekend.

I didn't actually think to take a photo before I dumped my stuff in my room. So I took a picture of the room across the hall that was wide open and empty at the moment.

My view from my spot at the journaling party on Thursday night. I'm going to try to remember to bring a camp chair as Tiphoni did this year...brilliant!

View from midway up the stairs at the end of the beach walk.

The view out my window. Really nice.

Kristie! Thanks for all the great adventures last week!

Excellent journal pages, Dianne!

Wednesday night's opening ceremony, I was sitting about midway in the auditorium - 600 people! So much better than last years teacher meeting chaos!

Post trading frenzy! This was all from Wednesday night dinner! I nearly ran out of trades first night!

A sweet person left similar notes throughout the campus!

Example from my first class, Perching Pixies. I believe that in my sleep deprived state, I *threw*away* my class work! Ack. I worked *so* hard on sawing out my little pixies!

more to come.
blessings.

when we saw pirates

The coolest thing about the Woodinville Fool's Day event that we witnessed. We missed the parade, I imagine that was pretty good. The booths, miserable, with the exception of a woman who made real soap (not the melt and pour stuff) and a couple who made wonderful glass and driftwood sculptures.

Puppy love I've been making lately. Been inspired to make some art that would be wonderful for the nursery. Not sure if the puppy's are a good idea though...just how early will our little man start asking for one?

Blocked and ready for the nursery! Lots of leftover yarn. I'm going to make a hat and use the remaining wool in the scrap blanket (coming along nicely).
ArtFest in 2 days!! I've pawed through my boxes a bit and found some of the supplies, hoping for the kindness of classmates on some of the tools because I don't want to buy second sets just because I cannot find mine. See you there! (now back to trade making)

A little more about my fabulous denomination.

a blessed weekend

Saturday's sky was *gorgeous* - would have been the perfect day for our Easter Egg Hunt. (pictures follow, it was on Sunday between services, and it rained *a*lot* before, during and after church, so we had the egg hunt inside, for the most part, though we did have some eggs in rain proof outside areas too.
I love these sculptures on one of our favorite walks.


A tradition at our church is for the youth to colour a butterfly during service and then placing the colourful butterflies full of love and transformation onto another cross at the end of service. It's great, all the children who've grown up in the church line up to be included too, college kids home for the weekend too!
A very talented, musical church. Who doesn't love a children's choir. Precious. In front of them, the flower filled cross.

I spied 4 eggs in this photo. You?

Baby's first hat. Our little pumpkin.

I think I'll do an F, fish to complete the pyramid.
A requested closer up shot. Though, you can click on any of these photos for a closer up shot of any photo.

Gotta get back to making trades for ArtFest!

an afternoon by the fire....

...and i got it done! cleaned out the photos, freed up some space and
we have photos again! yippee.

Scrap Happy Blanket. As seen on looseends flickr site. I loved the look. And decided this would be the perfect scrap knitting project for me. Her specs were 350 stitches, size 9 needles. As I do the long tail cast on I decided that the 334 stitches I got to were enough. I love this project. If you have any little bits of yarn you'd like to share with our little guy, I'd really appreciate it. I'm hoping to have it completed by the time he's in his big boy bed. (smiles)

Inspired by the felted blocks in Nature Babies. Made from the silk tie remnants -- perfect for a little boy I'm thinking. They haven't been stuffed yet. I'm trying to decide, bells inside or no. Comments? Any suggestions for the E block. (No elephants in our household, it's too associative with the party for me to have in the house)
I love, love this! And have been wanting to knit it for ages. Finally ordered the yarn (Eco wool, is *so*soft*) Planned for his christening blanket. I'm on round 103 for those of you in the know....I think it's nearly done (with the knitting, this is clearly really about the blocking).

Yeah, photographs!!
Artfest is fast approaching. Gotta get more trades done, so the knitting will be a bit slower for a while. Though my goal is to get the Hemlock Ring done before I head out so that I can block it and it'll dry while I'm away.

no pictures, frustration

our laptop is *full*
neither of us is computer savvy
i've been trying to delete unused stuff in hopes that i'll be able to download my full camera to insert new photos here.

i'm quite certain the computer is full due to my enourmous files of photos,
however, i *cannot* for the life of me figure out how to get those photos out of 'my documents' and onto the stack of writable CDs that i have ready for them.

sigh.

new photos of new projects as soon as i figure this out.
those photos include:
silk baby blocks
scrap toddler blanket, knit
hemlock ring blanket for baby
more daily collages

blessings.

Hi, How are you? What's your Middle Name?

Exile's Return tagged me for this middle name meme. Here are the rules:
1. You have to post the rules before you give your answers.
2. You must list one fact about yourself beginning with each letter of your middle name. (If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name or your mother's maiden name).
3. At the end of your blog post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name. (Be sure to leave them a comment telling them they've been tagged.)

Quickly, quickly this is what came to mind -

Eclectic~all over the place with interests, beliefs, opinions
Loving
Insired by nature, God, friends & family
Zebra (isn't that always the Z word?)
Artist
Baby Mama
Ephemera Collector
Tone Deaf~maybe not completely, however, I don't sing well, just often
Hiker

I tag (even though some may have already been tagged and at least one of you, i think, doesn't do memes, no worries, i just feel like meeting the request to list y'all here):
Cordelia Knits
Gwen
Tara
Wende
Two Moms
Dispatch from LA
Kristie
Dawn

More later, including some photos some of you are requesting of latest projects.
In the meantime - so much going on: house hunting, house offer, bidding, inspection, follow-up, posting new things on etsy, applying for shows, meeting with the artists, church auction planning, baby necessity research (crib, stroller, car seat - yes; glider, video monitor, changing table - no, for now, any suggestions to the contrary?)

be back soon with some photos and more news

all you need is ....

What a great time I had making these. They are off, on their way to join others to be made into banners and returned to the many artists who worked on different words. All meant to bring an abundance of those words to our lives, our studios, our homes. I loved playing with the fancy stitches on my little machine.

Had a great day at Freshy's. Met some fabulous artists. Got to see another part of Seattle. At the end of the day we went to a great packaging store and I bought a bunch of fun stuff - paper, oh how I love me some paper!
So, so good! And so easy to make. That's it. water, oil, egg, mix - stir, pour, bake, cut and eat. Yum.

Homemade Brigade Art Show

If you're in the neighbourhood, stop by. A new venue. I'm excited about meeting more artists, and getting to know another coffeehouse. I love coffeehouses. Thanks Tara for the invite.

Fluffy clouds and blue sky today

Added a couple more layers to soften up the contrast a bit. Now it just needs framing.
What a gorgeous day today! We went to the Kirkland waterfront. Which has usually left me feeling freeked out because this part of downtown Kirkland is eerily like touristy coastal Southern California (so *not* in any good way). However, we took a different route today and were mostly able to stay away from the chaos and overspending of the trendy shops downtown.

Super good Thai Chicken salad. I so need to make this myself in the future.
Yesterday we walked along the water by us. I love a changing sky. The pink eye is gone, gone, gone -- yippee, that was creepy. Our house is so clean though, making sure that no one else was going to get it. Disinfected everything as I touched it. If we weren't living out of boxes still, I'd invite you all over to see.