ami's place blog

Another ATC set for October

I made these using a set of stamps from Close to My Heart. We both have such a grand time with Halloween and all of the Orange and Black decor. Our home is filled with pumpkin lights, lighted large pumpkins, and spiders. We are actually expecting trick or treaters this year as there are several two to four year old children in the neighborhood. Jon and I will go to our local mall earlier in the evening and be home in time for the 6:00 and on children showing up at the door. I do hope to get some cute pictures this year, also.

I will post the latest 365 pages here later today. Life is busy and great right now. My wonderful husband came home with a "Happy What the Heck Day" gift yesterday after work. He bought me a copy of PSE 10 at Costco. I have a dear friend coming up from Olympia to visit this weekend and she will be loading PSE 9 onto her laptop. As I am to help her figure out some of the basics, I will wait until Sunday or Monday to load my new software onto my desk top.

This past week I started taking the Blending and Beyond class over at GIS with Jana Morton. This is such a treat. She is teaching very well and the webinar with Debbie Hodges last night was a delight. These women love what they are doing and are so open in the sharing of it. I feel honored to have found this site and to be taking the classes that are offered. I am also studying Art Journaling 103 with Dina Wakely. So days are filled with fun.

 

October ATC

 
I was playing today with some of the items that I have collected from Deviant Scrap and really thought that I would end up with an ATC for September. The black cat won out and away I went. It was such fun developing a corner of a room that I think I will try for a school room corner for next month.

It has been busy here as I just finished uploading all 600+ photos from two family weddings to DVD's for the mother of the grooms and my sister-in-law Peggy. I am ready now to put together the travel journal and the week in the life pages. Busy month ahead.

WITL-Sunday

 

Yesterday Jon and I made a strawberry rhubarb crisp and today we delivered it to Jon's sister, Peg. She is in her third month of treatment for an aggressive cancer and she was very weak. It is so hard to see her this way as she is normally such an active person and yet she was still a joy to spend time with. We took Hilda, Jon and Peg's mom with us and stayed for several hours. Jon almost let Dave, his brother-in-law, give him the same haircut that he gave to Peg when her hair began to fall out. When we got home he said that he wished he had gone ahead with it in a show of solidarity. Peg will finish this round of chemo in October and we are all hoping that she will beat this and not have to go through this ordeal ever again. 

Today is also the last day of WITL. I will be putting the pages of photos and stories together over the next few weeks along with my 365 photos for July and the travel journal from our anniversary trip to the ocean. I'll be posting these as I finish them. It may be a few more days before I post again, but I will be back soon. Be sure to check out all of the others who took part in this week long adventure by linking to their sites through Ali Edwards blog.

WITL-Saturday

 

We were at Barnes & Noble today and I realized that I needed a few small journals for a new class at Big Picture Classes called Write Now.  These looked like just the right size and style. Two of them have lines and the paper is smooth and easy to write on.

WITL-Friday

 

Friday we attended the Bellevue Art Museum street fair. Each year we save all of our change in two different piggy banks and cash them in for this fair. It is an awesome art fair with three blocks or more of arts and crafts. I will need to make several scrapbook pages filled with the photos and then post them to give a good idea of the fun that filled our day. We live right on the bus line and so parking is no problem. Jon and I spent the entire day immersed in other peoples art and enjoying the whole scene. The sun was out and we were experiencing one of the first really nice days this summer.

WITL-Thurs.

 

Thursdays are the day of the week when my friend Nan comes to play. We are both taking part in Week In The Life this time.  She is a phenominal artist and I love having this day with her each week. Nan inspires me and makes me laugh. I share a love of alternative art with her and I stretch myself when I know that she will be viewing my work. Everyone should have a friend like Nan in their life.

WITL-Weds.

 

It is a chore to pick just one photo for each day when you are taking bunches of pictures. I settled on this one because this is the second time that we used our anniversary present from my mom. I am having issues with my hands as osteoarthritis takes it tole on my joints. To add to our the joy, Jon is trying to cook more as we love our time together in the kitchen. We eat almost entirely organic foods and are devoted vegetarians. So as one might imagine even though we live in the Great Pacific Northwest, our dining out choices are somewhat limited. We are also trying to watch our waist lines. They are so correct when they say that growing older is not for the timid.  And so when Mom came to visit and wanted to know what we wanted for our twenty-fifth we said a food processor. She took us the next day to Williams Sanoma and here it is. Thank you Mom. 

WITL-Tuesday

Here we are at a local restaurant celebrating our 25th Anniversary. It was a fine day to be included in our Week In The Life. I am having a great time documenting this week.

 

WITL-Monday

 
 

    This is my favorite of the many pictures taken yesterday for Week In The Life. I will be putting some sort of pages together for my 365 album when the week is finished, but thought I would post one or two each day. My mother is here from Florida and will be leaving tomorrow to spend a week with my brother and his wife. Having her here with us was such a pleasure this year. The week sped by much to quickly. Last night we went to dinner with Jon's mother and mine as Hilda, Jon's mother was celebrating her 88th birthday. The moms are the same age for the next five months until my mother, Edie, turns 89 toward the end of December. There are many more from the very full day that I will share later. So for now this is a beginning to my first year of WITL.

365 and OLW

Here are the pages in my 365 album by Becky Higgins, for July. I am doing only a few pages each month with my other work entered into the same album. These first two shots are of the July pages and then I took two more of the OLW page that is inbetween them. I love doing this album this way this year. It is filled with pages of different sizes and random things. It is a picture of my year of creating and recording our life. I finished a regular 365 album last year and it is an amazing album but I didn't want to commit to a picture every day this year.

This is the firstpage for July. The three little canveses for Jon's sister, Peg and at the bottom left a picture of the group of friends that used to meet for a Paper Salon each month.

This is the left hand page mostly pictures from a birthday celebration for our friend Vickey. The lower half is pictures from our visit to the zoo last month. The months often over-lap. 

This is the front of the July One Little Word page. 

This is the back of the OLW page which I chose to fill with pictures from the Paper Salon reunion. Also a bit of my recent journaling. 
 
  

It is such a delight to have this. I will be working on our Anniversary album next and it is a small chipboard album with 5x7 pages. It will also have much more text. I hope this gives an idea of the way this 365 album is progressing.

25

A wonderful neighbor and friend made a gift for Jon and me for our 25th Anniversary. We unwrapped it last evening and I had to show it here.

 I wasn't able to get a good picture without the shadows. It is a quilled number done in silver and white with small red hearts and just perfect. The piece in progress can be viewed on her blog, http://craftideasforall.blogspot.comor on facebook at Navanka Creations. Amrita and her sister do some beautiful work and teach also.

   

 

 

The two of us

Soon we will be leaving to head for the ocean in celebration of our 25th anniversary. I finished two journal pages recently that share my feelings for my husband and thought that I would share them here.

 
 

These were such fun to make. The papers were painted with watercolors and some sprays that I made with distress inks. I used some bubble wrap and different nets for the background.  Jon and I spend Sundays walking in this downtown park. To walk around once is one half mile and so we usually go around twice.

I am attempting to find a way to photograph my journal pages so that they are rectangular in the camera, but if anyone has a suggestion I would love to hear it. Each time I try they just don't come out quite right. I have slowed down a bit with the journaling for now as I am preparing for our trip. When we return I will be working on our travel journal and will share it soon after.  

 

A Day at Woodland Park Zoo

 

    This was the group of us on Saturday the 4th of June. It was the end of my birthday week and Matt, Kris and Ian wanted to take us to the zoo. We hadn't been in more than twenty years and were quite excited to see all of the changes. It was also the first really nice Saturday in quite some time and the place was packed. The kids had special memberships that Kris got from Costco. She gets some great deals working in their corporate offices. They were able to get us in for half price and Ian for only $8.50.

    The guys were all excited because of the dinosaur exhibit. We went to it first and it was quite fun. They move and make noise and even a few of them spit water or spray water. Jon had been wanting to see them for a long time and so this was the perfect time to do it. Then we wandered around the grounds. I was thrilled to have so many new things to take my photos of and so was Jon. When we got them downloaded at home we were very close to 300 pictures from the two cameras and that doesn't count the ones that the kids took with their cell phones.

We took a lunch break. Jon and I went to the cafateria and had a veggie sandwich and chips followed by an ice cream cone while the kids went to their car and had a picnic they had packed. They then joined us at the flamingo's and we spent the rest of the day walking around the Savanna. Both Jon and I feel that if we ever came into a large amount of money we would ear-mark it for the zoo to build a set of bleachers looking over the Savanna. It would have been so nice to sit and observe for an hour or more as there are so many animals there moving from one area to another.

All in all it was a beautiful day and a perfect end to a delightful birthday week. One filled with many art supply gifts, shoes, cake, lemon tart, hugs & kisses, and best of all Jon at home for the whole week, plus PSE 9 and cash money. I am more than a little spoiled on this 67th birthday.

3 Hearts

 

I started a workshop this past week with Christy Tomlinson called "She has 3 Hearts". It is an Art Journaling class and I am so thrilled. I recommend it to anyone who might want to try this form of art. She gives you so much information that I am still trying to find the time to watch all of the videos. What an encouraging experience. I have found the kinds of media I want to work with and from watching her and listening to her, I have discovered two of the types of art supplies that I don't want to use. Up until this point I really thought that I wanted to use them all, but have discovered that I really do enjoy water based media best of all. I like that it dries quickly and that I can write all over the page. I use some acrylics but with the discovery of liquid clear gesso, I will be using water media more freely. I started a couple of pages yesterday that I put a layer of the gesso on after the water color had dried and now I can wet them again and continue with more layers of color. What an amazing experience this is being.

We are still waiting to hear the next step for Peggy. She has had her surgery for the cancer postponed three times now and just yesterday we heard that the latest date is the 7th of June. It is tough for us to wait and so it must be simply awful for her.  Today we went to Whole Foods for some sencha green tea and matte' latte tea which I fixed for a gift we will take to her tomorrow. We then went to Teavana and got the other teas to add to the package along with a tea pot and filter.

The pages I am doing now are filled with yellow and red and orange. I think they are colors that really convey my frustration and anger about this whole situation. I hate that she has cancer and that everything is so immediate and mysterious at the same time. I don't deal with the medical field very well, but that is a whole long story for another time. For now I will try to keep those feelings on my pages and my heart filled with joy when I am with her.

Art Journaling

 

A bit here and a bit there. I am starting to enjoy the process of collage and art journaling. This is one of my small journals and there are several. Bellevue Art & Frame had a huge sale last month and Jon bought me six small journals, one portarait and the rest landscape, and two that are approximately 7"x 5" one of each orientation. I am having so much fun. I would agree with so many other people who's blogs I have read and work I have followed, you should have several journals to work on at a time. I was always so timid when I had just one and felt it must be presentable. Now I have one to show and a bunch more to have fun with. When one of those has a page I really like I can show it and so on. Liberation....

I am finally starting to be over the string of illnesses that have been part of my life since this past December. Now I would appreciate some sun filled days and walks in the park. I want to photograph and sketch and collage. It is as if this creative energy has replaced the depression of the past few months.

I started a collage today for a contest at Urban Scrapper. Brooke, the young owner, has a group of kits that she puts together each month from one company or designer. They usually have a few full size papers and some embellishments along with ribbon or buttons, etc. In March the kits were from the new line of Little Yellow Bicycle. If you buy one and enter a piece of art made with it you have an opportunity to win a gift certificate to the store. I made a travel journal that month. I entered it but didn't win, however, I now have a great journal to take with us on our trip to the ocean this summer. The collage is called "Dream of Paris". It is very retro. I will post a few pictures of the process when it is completed. I have until the first Saturday in June to enter it.

The Heartbreaker Pose

 

Sometimes this cat of ours poses with this look that just melts my heart. Tiny can be a tough guy but with this look you forget the last time he nipped at your hand.  Then again he resides with two affirmed cat lovers.

Rhubarb Dessert and stuff

 

We spent the first part of Saturday with Jon's sister and some of the family. I was difficult for me and somewhat surreal. Surrounded by a farmers market full of people when all I wanted was to be in a quiet secluded place to sit and share my feelings with Peggy and listen to hers. But instead we were in a farmers market in Issaquah, Washington with a crowd of people.  I will have to write more of this at a later time when I can do so without my blood pressure going up to high.

So back to the picture and sketch. I wear my camera when we are out but often forget it at home and so today I had to sketch the lovely rhubarb and strawberries that went into the dessert at the top of the page. It is a concoction of both fruits along with organic sugar both brown and regular and lots of oats and butter. Oh and a bit of cornstarch. It smells wonderful and with a scoop of Alden's organic vanilla bean ice cream, dessert will be completely grand.

We have been sick a lot in our home since the first of the year and I have been neglecting this blog and skimming by with my 365 album. I am so loving it that I am thinking of sharing it with you in a video format. Just have to figure out how to do that one. If not, I will put a few of the pages into photos and show them. This year I have joined all of my scrapping into this one album and I love the way it is coming together. The pages are different sizes and so are the journaling spots. It is filling a need I had and was unaware of.

I am still doing the one little word and found a quote the other day that will be a calligraphy project for the album, "If you want to DRAW you must shut your eyes and sing." Pablo Picasso 

Family Shock

On her way home from the doctor yesterday, my dear sister-in-law, Peggy called to say that the answer was CANCER....They aren't certain how bad or any of the details. Most likely female and surgery as soon as possible. I was waiting for Jon to get home so that we could drive up to his mother's home and give her the news. Peg requested this as I had also as Mom is almost 88 years old.

While I was waiting the imotions were pouring out of me. Peggy is the heart of the family. She is the only girl in a sea of four brothers. Her humor, her unconditional love and her acceptance make her the best sister a woman could ask for.

 

So this is the art journal page that I did while waiting for Jon. Peg's heart surrounded by all of the siblings and mom with her two sons and grandaughter  and towards the bottom myself, and Laura and mom as raising helping hands.

I just had to do something other than chant and this was it. Now we will get to the serious daimoku.

Peg goes in for surgery next week,to be followed by chemo and radiation. It will be aggressive and we will do everything that we can to be supportive to her, and us to the rest of the family also.

Sketching-in black and white

 

This lesson was all about using just the pencil, pen and brush without color. The following one will be with color. Karen G. just suggested in her newsletter to gather some photos and sketch from them. A great idea as I was running out of ideas. The teacher uses sea shells but here on the west coast all we have is drift wood and it isn't nearly so interesting. I'll see what I can find for this next time. For now I am loving just doing it again. Actually sitting and sketching. My One Little Word for the year is Draw and I am doing quite a bit of that.

China Cabinet

 

This cabinet shows up in the background of many of our pictures as it is visible from the living and dining rooms of our condo. One of the gals in an on line class that I am taking asked if I could post a full view and this is the best that I could come up with at the time. I hope you enjoy my patched together china cabinet.

The papers are from Designer Digitals, Katie Pertiet-Aged Perfection 4 and Lynng-Artfully Intense 3, the Journal Slip is from Scrap Artist- Linda GB, and I added an overlay from Cottage Arts-Multi Scrap Edge 10.

Veggie Month - Easy

 
Homemade Brown Rice Pudding with Raisins

Jon and I have been vegetarian for over twenty years and organic for over five of those years. We are fortunate to live in an area where we are close to ourlocal Coop, PCC, and Whole Foods andTrader Joe's. We are also very much into quick and easy cooking. I have found it easiest when buying and cooking for just two of us to vary our diets by region each week. We will have a Mediterranean week and then a Mexican week and an Oriental week and then an American week. This is the way we have been able to take advantage of larger sizes in some of the items that we buy.

 In a Mexican week we will get flour tortilla's, mexican cheeses, green onions, green peppers, greek sour cream, and one store specific item, the organic 3-bean dip and salsa (From Costco). That week we will have burritos and quesadillas and nachos etc.

Then on the Italian week we will have lasagna made with the no-boil noodles (from Trader Joe's)  and steamed fresh spinach or chard with a quick dash of vinegar, and quick pasta or risotto for another day. I have found that adding a tablespoon of dark chili powder to an organic marinara sauce gives it an intense and wonderful flavor. Many of the days we use left-overs from these meals and always we have lots of fresh veggies in or with most of our dishes and/or in a salad.

On the oriental week I will make a big pot of brown rice and we will have it with roasted veggies and in rice pudding and in Inari Sushi or with spinach and peanut sauce. All of these are made the quick and easy way. We seldom spend more than 30 minutes in the kitchen other than oven or rice cooker time.

When we have an American week we have garden burgers with oven roasted potatoes, and sometimes breakfast for dinner, omelets or quiche. We will have a sloppy joe night made with ground tvp, and or the occasional soup and toast evening.

It has taken a while but we have found a way to maintain a healthy vegetarian/organic diet with very little fuss. We love buying at our local farmer's markets in the summer months and will follow along with what is in season.

I would love to know how others have maintained there vegetarian diets in a quick and simple manner.

Y & T - another weeks layout

 

Another story recorded. This is such a love story. My valentine to my wonderful husband. I have been very blessed in my life and this twenty-five year adventure with Jon is one of the very bestof those blessings. I am having a marvelous time getting these stories told. Sometimes finding the pictures to go along with them is not easy but I have managed to find some hidden treasures also.

Y & T -another layout

 

This was a story that I really wanted to get on paper. It's strange. I am finding that so many of the stories of my life I have repeated on numerous occasions and yet have never written down. Now in this class with Ali, I am beginning to find the style and the words to begin to record them.

Sketch book pages

 

These are just a few of my attempts to start sketching again. I am loving the class with Alisa Burke. Her lessons thus far have just been about the materials. It is very refreshing to be drawing again, and draw is my word for this year. I've also been drawing on my ability to get things done and almost staying up to date with my Y&T class with Ali. Life is good. I must cut this short. Jon just got home and we try to walk each evening and catch up on our days.

Y&T - Things You Should Know - layout

 

This is a bit of my radical  history.  This class with Ali Edwards is bringing back so many wonderful memories. Many of these I haven't thought about in years. It was an amazing time in my life when I believed that a single person could make a difference. I still do believe this.

Art Journal

 

This is the cover I've done for one of my art journals. This one started last week for my word of the year "draw" and in anticipation of the sketch class with Alisa Burke that begins on the 7th of February. I've done a few pages in it but they are more collage than sketches or drawings. I hope to get back into sketching with this class. It used to be a wonderful part of my life and I was seldom without several sketch books going at any given time. Then life and illness got in the way and the sketch books were put aside. I am now intrigued by all of the art journals I am seeing on line and in Somerset magazines. The muse may be back. One can hope for it and I do.

Yesterday & Today

 

I've been taking another class with Ali Edwards. This is an exploration of Yesterday and Today. It has sparked a bunch of memories from my childhood. I have pictures because my mother was an avid picture taker. She had a camera with her almost always and on my ninth birthday I was given a Brownie camera of my own. It cost a lot to develop pictures then but we had a family friend who had a dark room set up in his basement and he would do all of our developing for a minimal amount. After I graduated from high school my parents were the victims of a huge fire and lost almost everything, but Mom had recently put a huge album together of most of our family photos and the ones in the middle of the pages were saved. She said that the lose of so many of them and all of the negatives were the only things that could not be replaced. I am very careful because of that and don't mind paying for an off site back-up. Prior to digital, I saved all of our negatives in a fire proof safe.

If you are able to take a class from Ali you really should give it a try. But then, I am a class nut. I think that I have taken so many classes at Big Picture Classes and Jessica Sprague and Get It Scrapped that I should be a genius, but it just lets me know how much more there is to learn and do. I love the whole process. Just when I feel confident with one thing another comes along.

This year I am attempting to keep an Art Journal. This will, I hope, loosen my work up and allow for some more fun and experimentation. I've done the cover and a few pages. More will be done when I start my sketch class next month.

OLW

 
This is the word that I have for 2011. Last year my word was "enjoy" and the year before it was "create". I started doing this, picking a word and being aware of it in my life, because of Ali Edwards blog posting about it. This is the first year that I will be making a project each month relating to the word. It is a part of a class at Big Picture Classes. I am taking it and also Yesterday and Today, another class being taught by Ali. Y&T is a three month journey. My word is already causing some changes in my environment. I am keeping an Art Journal and actually doing some work in it and I will be taking a sketch class taught be Alisa Burke starting next month. It seems like quite a lot to have on my plate but with a schedule I'm not feeling so scattered.

I have managed to put together a schedule that works for me and that also includes enough space for all of the regular stuff like my two miles plus of walking each day and the household chores. I am finally recovering from the pneumonia that kept me down for the past six weeks. It was both viral and bacterial and I ended up taking three different rounds of antibiotics. Not a good thing but needed. Now I am beginning to feel like a human again.

Picture the Holidays

I have started a class at Big Picture Classes with the above title. It is a way of taking prompted pictures each day during the season and even though we don't do the usual celebration, there is much to celebrate. Our family is Buddhist and the New Year is a big deal, add to this the fact that my wonderful husband and delightful daughter-in-law both celebrate birthdays on New Year's Eve. and we stay very busy. So here we go....the first two are from yesterday (the gingerbread that I made for the friends who came to chant and have tea). Today I have framed myself within my new kitchen mirror. A holiday gift from Jon (husband). I've wanted it for quite some time and now I can see the living room and the tv when at the sink. Not a window but next best.
 
 

That Sky

 

This is the sky that was in view on our early evening walk this week. As we came around the corner I could see that the sky was getting angry. We had just casually walked out of the house for a short walk and I forgot to take my camera. The minute we turned the corner I knew I had made a huge mistake and hurried around to get it. The sky was so grand, it made the roof tops appear as if on fire. We watched for several minutes while I took photos like a kid in a candy store.

Event Filled Week & Common Folk Shop

 

This is turning out to be a very event filled week.  We stopped by one of our favorite local stores this past Sunday and found that they are having quite the celebration starting this Saturday the 6^th of November. Common Folk will be hosting their Holiday Open House.  The picture above is of one of the displays in the store on Sunday. This shop is in our Crossroads Mall. The owner, Kathryn, and her staff cause you to feel as if you are going home, each time you enter the shop. They are an exceptional group of people. The only problem I have is that my wallet grows slimmer with each visit.

Saturday is also the late afternoon gathering at Urban Scrapper in Edmonds of the ACT trade group. This will be my first time trading cards with them and I am looking forward to their art and input about mine. I am a novice when it comes to ATC's. They have been around for a long time and I just wasn't comfortable working on such a small space. That is strange as I have been making cards for years, and large blank surfaces are also a challenge. Perhaps the challenge is really just getting myself into gear and creating.

Saturday is also International Digital Scrapbooking Day. I don’t know how much time I will spend on line but I am certain to sneak in a few hours over the course of the weekend.

I took so many pictures this past week that picking just seven for my 365 album was a difficult chore. I am also taking a class at Big Picture Classes called Great Photos with Any Camera. I have taken so many classes at this site (used to be BPS, for Big Picture Scrapbooking) but I think this is the first photography class. I have dreams of improving the quality of what I post on this blog. This year the 365 project has given me much more ease when it comes to having my camera with me most of the time and actually using it. Now to find out what I can do with this new and wonderful camera, my Canon G-11.

Memento Cards

I just finished taking a class dealing with pain and arthritis. One of the most valuable lessons for me was to try and take frequent breaks while working and rest for a moment. I tend to really push myself and then at the end of the day I am a ball of pain. So for the last few weeks I have been taking frequent breaks and getting a cup of tea and just stretching. What a huge difference this has made for me. When Jon comes home in the evening I am able to take a walk with him and enjoy the process of fixing and sharing dinner together.

Because of the difference this made for me, I decided to make a memento for each of the others in the class with me. One type for the women and one for the men. I thought they might be pleased and I know that making them was a great pleasure.

 

 

ATC's

I am excited to share the new ATC’s and a series of gift cards that I made this past week.

The ATC’s came about because of my dear friend Nan. She has asked me on several occasions to join her in making ATC’s and I resisted or was busy doing other things. Lately most of the stores that sell scrapping and card making supplies have closed. I do have access to a Michaels and a Joann Craft store, but they just don’t carry the items that I love to work with. For several months now I have been ordering by phone from Urban Scrapper in Edmonds, WA because Nan goes up once a month and brings back my order. All of this leads to now and my attempt to be a member of the little group of artists that gather at that store on the first Saturday of each month and have an ATC trade. So I made 15. Nan says that there are usually 9-12 artists at the trade and so 15 should cover it.

It was fun to do these. I stated by cutting cardboard into the size for a card. Each piece 2.5”x3.5” and then I tore a bit away from the top to show a bit of the wavy card in-between the flat layers.  Then I spent some time picking out the vintage pictures from my extensive supply. I have so many of them that I have copied onto label paper and cut out to have on hand as little stickers. After choosing 15 of them I got out my watercolor pencils and put a bit of color on the photos and went over them with a water brush. When they were dry I stuck them to the cards and added a copy of a foreign stamp and a small tag that I had aged with distress ink and printed, Girls just want to have
fun on each tag. These were attached with sparkly brads.

This first photo is of the tray with all 15 of the ATC's. I hope that you enjoy viewing these as much as I enjoyed making them.

Next Friday I will post the gift cards that I made. I have a few more to make and then the envelopes to add the calligraphy to and they will be ready to give away.

My dear friend, Sharin

My dear friend and fellow artist, Sharin has been staying very near us for the last few months. She was living in Arizona but needed treatment for her MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity) and also some fresh air.

She was a regular at the Saturday Market in a town very close to here and sold her lovely pottery. I hope she will find a new way to express her self artistically as her paintings were so beautiful. They had an ease to them as the lines and colors just flowed.

She is also a willing model for my camera and so I have been taking all sorts of photos of her since her arrival and it is easy to see that her health has improved. Here are two of the recent photos from the other day.

 

My little friend Navi

This little boy is such a delight to be around. Each day when his grandfather walks him around our neighborhood, I hurry to go outside and greet them. Navi always has such a great smile for me as a greeting.

He was visiting with his family the other day and his mother took this picture of the two of us.
Isn't he just the cutest kid?

Mom's Visit

My very young 87 year old mother.

Mom came to visit from Florida and had her eyebrow's tattooed. She is very adventurous.

A new place and many new challenges. Hopefully with a modicum of success.

New Pages

These are a few more of the scrap pages that were done while taking Nic Howard's BPS class Dimensional Details. So many of the pages that were shown by Nic and on the gallery for this class were amazing. Mine were so very different for me as I tend to be a graphic scrapper. It was fun and I would highly reccomend it for others. In fact all of the Big Picture Scrapbooking classes are well worth the money. They are all in pdf. form and the on-line access is forever. The message boards are easy to operate and are provide so much support that it is difficult when they are no longer available. My only suggestion would be for an on-going message board for folks that just want to connect, either before or after having taken a class.

Things here are good. I just had a root canal completed on a tooth that had been infected yesterday and am enjoying the first morning in some time with a face that is neither swollen or in pain. Makes the day seem much brighter.

Little Joy

Shyla 2

A few recent pages

Shyla LO 4-13

At the Ocean

The photo below is of my daughter-in-law at the ocean this past month. We all went to a cabin at Pacific Beach, WA for a few days prior to the memorial day weekend. I took this photo of Kris as she gazed whistfully at the ocean while having her first cup of morning coffee. She is such a great young woman and fun to go to the beach with as she always brings bubbles to blow and on this trip a huge dragon kite to fly. I think it was up in the air for over an hour as she and our grandson sat on a piece of driftwood and flew it for the longest time.

Kris...

Kris

Fall colors

This is a page of my two favorite fall photos. I think that fall is the most amazing visual treat of the year. Of course, right now all of the new life is blooming and turning the are vibrant shades of green, and if I were not here in the Pacific Northwest I would miss this. But Fall is by and far my special time of the year. The colors just pop and the morning and evenings are crisp. I can't leave the house without my camera in tow.

A few of my recent...

A few of my recent paper scrappings:

Photo Fun

I have been so very busy that posting has been a challenge. Today while walking my mile I met a neighbor for the first time who is also a paper crafter. I have been longing for someone to share my work with who also loves paper. This was such a treat. Of course, she wanted to check out my blog and I felt sad as I have been very busy creating and not posting the results. I have also been successfully keeping up with my "Project Life" posting a picture each day in the album. It is amazing to me that I have enjoyed it so very much.

I started a photo restoration class with Jessica Sprague this past week and have been immersed in finding the wonderful work that I am able to do with older photographs. It is sending the urge to me to redo the family history album. Perhaps to do another one digitally. The photos in the original are from the late 1800's through to my highschool graduation in 1962. Quite the array. I was blessed to have been born into a family that loves to take pictures, and has for several generations. The picture I am posting today was taken by my father when he and my mother and their friends went to Crater Lake in Oregon in 1951. I'll post the before and after as the difference is very dramatic. Then I haope to blog more regualrly after this. One

Tiny, our kitten

Tiny-AW

This picture of our kitten, Tiny, shows that he isn’t much of a kitten any more. He has been with us for three and a half months and yet it seems like he has always been here. He is a joy to be around. He plays hard and cuddles with intensity. His coat is beginning to have a nice sheen and his eyes are amazingly blue.

We adopted Tiny from our local cat shelter in Kirkland called, Meow. We had been stopping in when we were shopping across the lot at the food coop, PCC. Each time we arrived to go shopping I would ask Jon if we could just go and look.  After seventeen years of loyalty we lost our last kitty, KC, to illness over two years ago. I was so ready to have a cat in our home once again. We stopped by in early November of 2009 and looked at several cats. Tiny was in a cage with other young kittens and we were told that we couldn’t adopt him without taking another kitten also as they were all so young.  We knew that we couldn’t handle two in our small condo and so we didn’t adopt him then but instead brought a two year old cat home. Shasta just didn’t work out. She howled constantly at two or three in the morning. Jon has to leave very early for work and he has a very hard time sleeping. This being awakened in the morning two hours early just didn’t work out well and so we had to return her to the shelter.

This time I wanted to spend some time with Tiny. I was very attracted to his appearance and his small size. He was just under six months old and would be available to go alone in a week or two. The volunteers at the shelter were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to place him because he was a feral kitten. We talked and talked and were allowed to bring him home. For the first two weeks he lived in our full bathroom. There was room in there for his food and litter box. He hid behind the toilet most of the time and so we put a blanket there for him. Jon would go in and visit with him and rub his goatee on the little kitten’s head. He thought that it would make Tiny feel more comfortable. It must have because now when he wants attention he puts his little head under our chin as if waiting for the rubbing.

After such a short time with us it would be difficult to be around him and think that he was once such a frightened little cat. He does still hide from strangers but other than that he is so very loving. We are more than pleased to have this not so little kitten in our home and our lives.

Matt & Kris

This was for the Hybrid class at BPS with May Flaum.

New Class

For my class with Nic Howard at Big Picture Scrapbooking called Dimensional Details.

I think that the time...

I think that the time has come for me to keep using this blog. I finally have a book about blogging and will see if that doesn't help. I've been super busy with DYL and Go Hybrid and now the start in a week or two of my class with Nic Howard. I love all of this design theory and creating. The only missing part --- photos. My great friend Trudy may have solved this one, at least for the nature photos, as she has given me permission to play with her photos. I am so reved up and ready to start. I'll spend time this week end and hope to dazzle her with a few on Monday. So for now here are a few of my latest creations.

I've been busy taking "Design...

I've been busy taking "Desing Your Life" from Cathy Zielske and now "Go Hybrid" from May Flaum. Anyone else in either of these BPS classes?