ArtFest2009

a couple of photos...maybe I'll comment about them later. I have *lots* more to download and crop.

Circle Journal spoiler -- skip if you want a surprise....

The first 5 photos are the pieces I made for my facebook friends who responded to my Handmade Pay It Forward post. Will be sending these out before heading to ArtFest. The remaining photos are of the Mermaid circle journal started by Michelle Geller. The first three of those photos are her cover, sign in pages and explanation pages. The last two photos are the pages that I made for her book. Check her blog later for all the pages...I'm sure she'll post them all sometime after she receives it at Artfest next week.

"Legalize Frostitution" (bumper sticker at Cupcake Royale)

A beautiful cupcake. From Whole Foods. It tastes bleeh. Who would have thought that Whole Foods would make their frosting out of shortening? At leasts that's what it tastes like. Shortening, sugar and food colouring. Yuck.
Cupcake Royale Cupcakes. O.M.G. So, so, so good. The frosting is most definitely buttercream. And there are cream cheese based frostings too. Yum. The cupcakes were a little bit like cake mix texture (I think the denser texture seems more homemade, though I don't doubt that Cupcake Royale cupcakes are handcrafted without mixes). We took Elinor there yesterday for our first visit. We drove back into Seattle today for me to get my eyebrows threaded, pick up some art supplies for ARTFEST! and oh, while we're here let's go back to Cupcake Royale! I picked out the Salted Caramel again. And tried Coconut on White. C picked Chocolate Royale (cream cheese frosting) and Classic (chocolate buttercream frosting on white cake).


We had Fettucine Alfredo with plenty of asparagus and a big salad to contrast the cupcake consumption. And though the box says to eat the cupcakes the same day you buy them. We are having our second cupcake tomorrow. (probably).
Working on the spiritual paintings a bit. This is the first try with my new handcut Buddha stencil.

Balance and ArtFest

oh my goodness.
the piles of things i'm getting rid of in the studio!
it feels good to have these things in boxes to sell at the Art Garage Sale in June!
Getting more things off the to-do list.
Next week. Etsy!

I've been contemplating balance a great deal more lately. Trying to find a way to keep the house clean, teach LM how to be a bigger, smarter, faster dude. We're getting a schedule (more or less). I'm keeping the kitchen sink empty. I'm recycling lots and lots of papers, especially as soon as I collect the mail. We bought LM his baby gate today...and his "big boy" carseat. And a bubble machine...the library lady uses one at the end of each reading and E loves it. We met Nana for a few minutes after shopping in Bellevue and he giggled and giggled at the neck kissing. Love those baby giggles!

Looking forward to ArtFest in less than three weeks. Morning walks on the beach. 10 minutes in the shower! Yummy breakfast without cooking. Class. Meeting new artists, learning from the teacher and all the rest of the students in class. Lunch - again, no cooking, no decisions, no dishes! And back to class. Dinner and hopefully that great salad with the fresh dressing again and dessert and coffee and chats about how classes went. Then at night - Journal party, Vendor night, and Show & Tell. And late night laughter with wine in the dorms! I'm so going to miss my family...but, so need this time at Fort Worden! If mama is happy, everybody is happy...right?

I'm still working on my swaps. I do have about 20 done so far. Have an idea for the rest and hope to get a pile started at Sunday's Third Place Art Meeting. Hopefully I'll prep 50, so the fun part can take place with the art ladies.

Crossing things off the list.

I finished them! The front is toothy to represent "Do Not Enter" and the other side with the pocket is for holding a little spiral bound notebook and pen for family and friends to leave messages. For hanging on the outside of their bedroom door.

Here are two fronts and one back. And the next photo is the reverse of them. I couldn't decide which nephew would like which colours... so I wrapped them all and decided mom and dad could either open them before hand and label them, or the kids can get whichever they open. Made from my silk stash. I love stuffies now. So, I'm going to start sketching some new ideas. Maybe some sea monsters coming in honor of ArtFest.


Will mail them tomorrow!

Thank you Gayle for this Christmas gift! So, so good! (Corn bread mix.) And the packaging, so adorable.

celebrating life

Sometimes I feel like I'm missing bits and pieces. How are we supposed to fit it all in? So for Lent this year. So many things I'm planning. Here's my list of 40 things to accomplish. In no particular order:

1. Drink more water.
2. Exercise every day.
3. No library fines.
4. Limited games on facebook.
5. One check of facebook at night.
6. 100 ArtFest trades done.
7. One piece of art created for the ArtFest gallery.
8. 10 items posted to Etsy.
9. Complete commissioned PMC pieces.
10. Write up one new class to teach.
11. Plan an art weekend.
12. Finish nephews Christmas gifts.
13. Mail nephews Christmas gifts (I know...)
14. Purge three big bags of stuff from my studio.
15. Rake and prune the windblown tree bits from our yard.
16. No more drive through lattes.
17. Write one letter a week. (yes, handwritten, snail mail and cards count)
18. Frog the turtleneck sweater for LM and pick a new pattern for the yarn.
19. Organize hallway closets.
20. Put up artwork in LM's room.
21. Put up curtains in LM's room.
22. Earthquake strap the bookcases.
23. Buy babygate for stairwell.
24. Take more photos.
25. Print more photos.
26. Send more photos.
27. Pick 3 photos for framing in special frame.
28. Start clustering artwork in the living room.
29. Create more vignettes in the living room...
30. Dining room...
31. Kitchen...
32. Bathroom.
33. Get all office supply boxes out of garage, into Office.
34. Powerwash the deck.
35. Begin searching Craigslist for deck furniture.
36. Sell old washing machine.
37. Find a great place for white Christmas lights to live year round.
38. Swim.
39. More long walks as a family.
40. More heart and love art to reflect the love we live in.

Any similar plans?

54 pieces of art!

Some art! A sample of the 54 4 x 4 pages for the ArtFest Dorm 202 FatBook. Theme was the ArtFest theme for 2009 - Sea Monsters.
Started with khaki cardstock. Painted the backgrounds. Drew monsters. Crayoned 3-4 layers of colours. Painted back backgrounds. Painted petals. Wrote blog address and name on the petals. Attached a ticket to Art and petal with mini binder clips. Wrote "i come to the sea to breathe." with my favorite, favorite gel pens!

i've been on facebook

my goodness. now there is a place where you can spend hours!

in other news i finally figured out how to download photos again and have a few for you. no art yet, maybe tomorrow i'll make it to those. in the meantime, a few photos to share from the last few weeks.
From a recent trip to Cannon Beach
A series of photos on a foggy walk from the library one night:

january journal pages....

My goodness. We've been struggling with internet connectivity. Finally got it back -- and here are but a few of the January journal pages I've been working on. More to come later.

christmas eve

Corner of our home. I'm thrilled with the tree this year. I *slathered* this small tree with lights. It's been snowing and snowing. We've had no mail delivery for days now. What happened to the USPS motto of rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night...what are the words? Anyway, what's up with that? No mail? And um, we have equally important bills and Christmas cards to get out (and receive). Sigh.
This shot from when I finished wrapping the lights all around.
There's already another couple of inches of snow on top of this. The roads are so washboardy out there. We are traveling as little as possible.
Projects are being slowly completed about the house. Finished re-doing the couch pillows (my goodness but the ones that came with the couch were *hideous*), you can catch a glimpse of the new and improved ones in the photo of the ornamented tree up top. A couple of Santa hats for LM. Unraveling thrift store sweaters (mom has been helping a lot with that). Knitting Christmas gifts. Sewing Christmas gifts. Knocking the snow off all the trees and shrubs to keep the branches from breaking under all that weight. Reading lots of stories aloud. Drinking cup after cup of hot lattes (decaf). I so am going to be more on top of this handmade Holiday next year. :)
Very disappointed in Obama's choice of Rick Warren as invocation minister. He's the kind of guy who would have spoken against interracial marriage 40-50 years ago too. He's just not the compassionate guy I hope for in a pastor (or you know, a random human).

100 thankful things

so i've only seen this on sproutgirl's blog, however, she says it's floating around the blogworld (i'm sure it's true, maybe you've seen it elsewhere, and maybe one day i will too). i too am joining in that list! 100 is the norm, but others have detoured & done their own thing of course. you are inevitably supposed to tag, i'm not going to this time, but if you do it, please comment and link to your list, i love lists (who doesn't?)
~little man
~c
~my family
~my in-laws
~baby's first christmas photo cards i picked up this morning
~artfest
~flickr
~hymn sings
~npr
~podcasts
~trader joe's
~pcc
~the tolt pipeline
~paper (all kinds, beautiful scrapbooking designs, vintage ledger, wrapping...)
~yarn (all natural kinds, especially good deals at yard sales and thrift stores)
~estate sales
~filtered water
~my stainless steel water bottle
~steno pads
~painting
~michael's 40% off coupons
~ravelry
~ribbons
~our new washer & dryer (we're doing a lot of laundry around here these days)
~nov. 4, 2008
~berkeley's gourmet ghetto (especially the cheeseboard & cesar's)
~canoeing
~swimming
~glitter
~bird art
~nests & nesting
~christmas
~fresh snow fall
~the colour of autumn leaves
~the public library (within walking distance)
~good friends
~art days
~advent calendars
~recycling wool sweaters
~dyeing my own yarn
~Half Moon Bay
~friends vacation homes
~BBQing
~Third Place Books, Powell's & other awesome independent bookstores
~garage door opener
~canvas bags
~a winning lottery ticket ($50 4 years ago when we really needed $50, the ticket was a Christmas gift)
~little man's fuzzy head nestled just under my chin when he sleeps
~long walks/hikes with c, solving the world's problems, planning meals, just connecting
~a gas fireplace
~Winter Wineland
~white Christmas lights
~baby monitors
~staying up late making art
~sunsets
~sunrises
~the mist coming of the water
~concerts in the park
~bartering for stoles
~East Bay Depot for Creative Re-Use (oh, how I miss you!)

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

~king babar (and queen celeste - we need to find a queen celeste stuffie, E has two king babar stuffies, they need their mates)
~hanna andersson outlet
~lucy neatby knitting DVDs
~netflix
~6 hours of sleep in a row (i remember them fondly)
~old-fashioned popcorn with butter & salt
~our kitchen
~an outdoor bonfire
~tidepools
~golden paints
~eggnog latte with nutmeg
~my sewing machine
~creating stuffies
~clear containers
~a good haircut
~a good movie theatre seat
~nap on a thick patch of green grass
~hulu for my MSNBC fix
~Redmond Farmer's Market (San Mateo's I miss, especially the Kung Pao Tofu)
~handwritten letters and little goodie boxes
~bandanas as bibs
~morning pages (The Artist's Way - haven't practiced this for a while)
~self-serve mailing stations at the Post Office
~Pacific School of Religion
~Anne LaMott
~freshly painted walls
~the soft shade of the walls in our dining, living room, kitchen & entry way.
~small pieces of art nestled in the larger pieces
~mountain views
~Japanese dollar stores
~magazines (especially Martha Stewart, Oprah, Home Companion, Cloth, Paper, Scissors, Art Jewelry, Sunset, Dwell, any Somerset Studio)
~the silk scraps I picked up at East Bay Depot a couple of years ago

Still marching after all these years....

What a great day in Seattle (and around the country) when thousands and thousands of folks marched for Civil Rights. Yes, hard to believe, but in 2008 we are still marching for Civil Rights. We have an African American President elect and we are *still* marching for Basic Civil Rights. Dude. and another popular slang -- WTF? This is the front line of the thousands who marched. I couldn't begin to capture the enormity of it all, it was spectacular.
The park just kept filling up and filling up. We moved to the Westlake Center to stand above the crowd for a wee bit of space for little man, he was too excited about all the love and justice to sleep for the longest time, but that space and relative quiet did allow him to have a bit of a nap eventually.
I love this kid's sign. "When do I get to vote on your marriage?" She put her heart into that artwork.
Partly cloudy with a chance for justice and love. Dude it reigned in Seattle.

is it called frogging?

One of the random things that I wrote about a bit ago was wanting to recycle a wool sweater into yarn and to then re-knit into something that I would love. I'm gonna do it. Found this lovely sweater at a local thrift store and bought it to rip it and soak it and re-skein it and eventually re-knit it. It will become a sweater for little man and a couple of hats. Will post more photos as I really start taking it apart.

Had some time this morning to get a few pages in the baby book filled with paint. It's a multi-layer process.
He's got great balance I think for an almost 5 month old. He's so beautiful.

For some great journal making inspiration ">go here. And you can enter for a chance to win a fabulous handmade journal too.

a red cable sweater day.

Look at me go...four posts in November! I love being able to upload photos again. This is the vignette above my computer station in the studio.
The entry to the studio area. Needs a few more pieces of art. This was just an area where as I was unpacking in here I put up some of my art pieces where there were already nails in the wall. Will create my own cluster of art here one day.
Baby E looks so good in this red that I had to knit him a sweater. This is 18 month size from the Nature Knits book I borrowed from my SiL. Waiting for the pieces to block and then put together and knit the turtleneck part and it'll be done! Will post a photo of LM in it on Ravelry when he first wears it.

Kirkland Sunset and another meme

In the spirit of organization, I got around to answering Posie Gets Cozy One-Word-Answer meme.

Where is your mobile phone? Purse
Where is your significant other? Bed
Your hair colour? Umber
Your mother? Gardener
Your father? Puzzler
Your favourite thing? Paint
Your dream last night? Health
Your dream goal? Artist
The room you're in? Studio
Your hobby? Knitting
Your fear? Cancer
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Studio
Where were you last night? Studio
What you're not? Republican
One of your wish-list items? Jacuzzi
Where you grew up? World
The last thing you did? Rocked
What are you wearing? Sweats
Your TV? Off
Your pets? None
Your computer? Pandora
Your mood? Sickly
Missing someone? Yes
Your car? Wet
Something you're not wearing? Makeup
Favourite shop? DickBlick
Your summer? Baby
Love someone? Wholeheartedly
Your favourite colour? Crimson
When is the last time you laughed? NPR
When is the last time you cried? 12:30

Play along — it's fun! (and leave me a message if you play/ed)