Altered File Folders

The humble manila office folder never looked so good. I took a class from Maude May at Letters of Joy called Manila Folder Magic. Ever wonder where to put those little bits of important paper, tickets stubs, travel ephemera, recipes, etc.? We created custom folders using letter and legal manila folders, collage ephemera, stamps, fibers, eyelets and decorative paper. It was a blast, no over-analyzing the process, just collaged our way to happiness. Loved this project and have made two more since the class, two are in the pipeline and lots of grandiose ideas for even more elaborate ones with multiple pages and pockets.

This is the one I did in class, which was only 2 hours, so it was quick and dirty collage, which means no over-thinking the placement of ephemera, great way to get out of your box.

ArtFest 2011

ArtFest 2011 was great, loved my classes and soaked in all the exuberant art vibe that comes with this amazing event. Coming back is always kind of let down as you re-enter back into real life, job, laundry and myriad of chores large and small that make up the days, but ArtFest manges to help re-charge the creative batteries no less.

Took Michael deMeng for two classes, "Lonely Hearts" and "Pretty Vial Things". The heart box was just a little wooden box, distressed using Michael;s signature techniques, constructed the heart from Apoxy Clay, first time using that but liked since it air dries. Mine turned out very folk-arty and I love it.

My altered bottle for the next Michael class was a "Shoe Potion" (Jody doing something about shoes....shocking, I know!). More apoxie clay, DAP texture and Barbie doll shoes. The toughest part of this was finding the Barbie shoes, when I was a kid you could buy just the shoes separately, not so much now, had to schlep to 3 different stores in Bellingham, finally found a set of shoes and almost had to throw down in the Barbie Aisle with a 6 year old to get them.

This potion, ingested pre-shopping will guarantee you will find your favorite shoes, on sale and in your size.

The class with with Orly Avineri, "Deck of Roses". Working with a big pieces of watercolor paper she showed us some great techniques with liquid ink, distress ink pads, gesso (black and white) and varnish. These cards still need some pen work but I love them as the photographic images are of my own roses that I slave over every summer.

Here are some pics of Fort Worden, the venue for ArtFest.



Altered Stiletto & Mouse Adventure

New altered Stiletto for the ArtFest gallery, the theme is birds so lots of bright feathers. This shoe was made in memory of my sweet friend Sherri, many of the materials for this shoe were ones that were also used during the last retreat she hosted at her Sparrow's Nest Studio. Body of shoe was covered in altered paper towels and sprinkling of glitter. Heel was painted and then a random application of some Jones Tones foil.

In another shoe related story The Vermin (aka the Cats) have outdone themselves again in the mouse department.

We were sitting watching TV on Sunday and I had not seen the cats in the living room for a bit which usually means they are up to something so I went to find them. They were in the bedroom staring very intently into my closet at my shoes. The back door had been open and they had that "we have something cornered" look in their eyes. After shooing them out of the bedroom against bitter protest and shutting the door I looked around in the closet really good and could not see anything..... and then noticed that one of my brand new 3 inch heels had suddenly grown a long skinny tail. There was a BIG fat mouse tucked into the shoe, the shoe is a peep toe so his little face was peaking out the toe and his tail was hanging over the heel. I picked up the shoe VERY carefully because I did not want him to bolt and then be wandering the house for eternity.  Managed to get mouse, shoe and myself out to the back yard and let him go. I am sure he was pretty traumatized, what with being trapped in that leather prison with two cats breathing down his neck. We think Apollo caught him, and so I guess we have to stop calling Apollo "The Big Marshmallow" and start calling him the "Mighty Hunter".




Ice Queen Art Shoe

The latest shoe is finally done, as usual I started out with one idea (all white) and it morphed into something else, but I am pretty pleased with the result. The curved shapes were made by tracing portions of a french curve, lots of detail work involved with gluing on the silver trim. Plaid's new product, Extreme Glitter and then some Stickles gave the white accents and the blue body that extra sparkle I wanted. Rebuilding the heel's once they are cut off takes some time, you have to balance the shoe just right upside down and they glue on a few elements at a time, let them dry and then do some more. E-6000 is the best glue for non-porous items, once it's dry it's very sturdy. This one will be added to the items for sale on Etsy.

Christmas Eve is tomorrow, my best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season, whatever your faith happens to be. Our holly tree is in full glory right now, it's the only tree we have in the back yard and during the summer I mostly curse it. You really can't get anything to grow underneath it and trying to clean up or garden around it means risking getting lots of sharp holly leaves jammed into your person, but it completely redeems itself this time of year.

I made a quick trip to Jo-Ann's today to get some fabric and check out all the Christmas stuff that is always on sale and came across this great little addition to my holiday village for next year.....and it was 70% off! Now all I need is a Michael's one and I will have the beginnings of a Craft Store Village.

Surface Explorations Class now open!

The Surface Explorations Class at the Sparrow's Nest is now scheduled for January 22, 2011, Saturday, 10:00 to 4:00, a great way to get your creative juices going for the New Year.

Call Sherri Angie at 360-733-9031 or email her at sherangie@comcast.net to sign up. Class fee is $50.00 plus a $5.00 supply fee.

There has been quite a hiatus since my last post, as most of my friends know my father passed away on November 9. When I am ready I will be doing a blog post all about Dad, there are some great pictures I would like to share.

I did attend the Christmas Party for my calligraphy guild on Saturday, thank you Pam for once again being an awesome hostess! For the gift exchange we make a handmade or calligraphic letter of the alphabet, mine was made from craft metal, I embossed the letter "R", colored the metal with Pinata inks, painted the letter with some Extreme Glitter, added a couple of buttons and matted it.

I am working on a winter art shoe, all I can say is there will be much glitter. There will be no handmade Christmas cards this year, time did not allow but maybe a New Year Art Shoe postcard to my friends and family?



Surface Explorations Class

Still time to sign up for the Surface Explorations class on November 13 from 10:00am to 4:00p,. You will learn 15 techniques to enhance your jounalling, mixed media, scrapbook and paper crafts. You get a full day of hands on play with paint, molding paste, stencils, gesso, texture mediums & sprays just to name a few. Here are just a few samples....

Class fee is $50.00 with a $5.00 supply fee. Email sherangie@comcast.net or jody_mcnamara@comcast.net to sign up. Class will be held in Bellingham at the Sparrow's Nest Studio.

Cariboo and Buffalo

We have returned from our trip to see my folks in Dease Lake, B.C., which is about a 100 miles south of the B.C. and Yukon border. We normally take Highway 37 north but this time Gerry wanted a change of scenery so we took the Alaska Highway from Fort St. John to Watson Lake and then cut off onto Highway 37. It was a long drive, took us 2 1/2 days to get there but we did get to see some wildlife along the way, through Summit Pass we were so high we were above the clouds and there were Caribou (or Cariboo as the Canucks spell it) on the road, had to honk at them a couple of times to get them to move. Saw some Stone Sheep and 4 small herds of Buffalo, I guess someone brought some up back in the day and now they wander on their own. Gerry took a dip in the Liard Hot Springs, I don't do enclosed public bathing areas of ANY sort so I just took in the scenery, dousing myself in "people soup" is not my thing...yes, as a matter of fact I am a Princess, but I'm OK with that.

The Alaska Highway itself was not in the greatest shape, there was a fair amount of construction going on & lots of natural gas and oil drilling camps along the way. We had the camper with us, the RV parks were all closed so the stayed in Walmart parking lots there and back, I guess we can consider that training for our senior years when we have a big diesel pusher and do our "Tour of America, Courtesy of Walmart".

The cats fared very well, thanks to the excellent care they received from their Uncle Mike McMullen, I do owe him hugely for the messes I know he had to take care of. They are happy to have the regular wait staff/servants back and have been very clingy.

Spent the day in the studio today, getting more of my CD collection into iTunes, we listened to the entire contents of my iPod on the trip, 2500 miles and 1000 songs, need some fresh tunes. I don't mind country music (Gerry likes it), but I need to listen to something now where the wife comes back and dog doesn't die. Also played around with some new stencils and spray inks I had purchased before we left.

Encaustic Collage

The Sparrow's Nest retreat was great fun, many wonderful pieces of art were created and some who thought they were not artist's realized that they actually were. Huge kudo's to Sherri and Tracy, who worked incredibly hard to make that event the success that it was. My teaching portion was making encaustic collage pieces, I had so much fun with them that I came home and made some more! The technique is simple, you collage onto a hard surface, in this case I used panel board. Fortunately Gerry had been covering the inside of his shop walls with panel board and there were lots of end pieces left, he and our good friend Mike were kind enough to cut them into my desired sizes and now I have a huge stack for future encaustic projects.

After collaging you brush encaustic medium (refined beeswax already mixed with damar resin) over the collage and fuse the medium to meld the brush marks together. I put a thin layer of gel medium over the collage to prevent the paper from darkening too much. While the wax is still warm but not mushy you can make a toner transfer of an image of your choice. Finishing touches are buttons, rhinestones, glitter and foil tracings.

I have at least 40 more boards stacked up under the desk ready to be worked with so I foresee more of these coming in the future.

The final major home improvement project of the year has been completed, concreting in front of the shop, garage and pad where the camper sits. It was a major project, but looks great, Gerry says he can't wait to wash his cars on his nice new driveway instead of in the gravel and dirt. Behold the awesomeness of Gerry's New Manly Driveway.....

It is very nice not having all that dirt tracked into the garage and then into the house.

Felines are doing good, Dana had to go the V.E.T this morning to have her butt glands expressed, totally NOT fun. I told her the night before she was going in the Magic Box to the Special Kitty Spa for her Treatment, but she's not stupid and she knew darn well she was going in the Evil Kitty Carrier to the Bad Place, where the Not Nice Man with the Rubber Glove messes around with her Patootie. She was super ticked off when she got home, she kept hissing at me, her brother and imaginary things I could not see. There has been liberal application of cat treats to take the edge off.

Where's the Ark?

I think we will need to start building one, it may be really small and only have two poorly behaved cats and ourselves as passengers but at least we will be set to survive the downpour that has being going on for three days. Our new gutters are going up none to soon, I am trying not to look at the garden, the poor tomatos are in a very sad state. Gerry was supposed to take Precious to a car show today but she does not go out in the rain....cause she is made of sugar and might melt. This is just a quick post, the True Blood finale is on tonight, I can't wait to see if Eric is able to redeem himself. I am not a Twilight fan, a little too much teen angst for me, but I love Sookie and Company, Gerry thinks I might need an intervention.

Cats are still rotten, Apollo was chastised severely today for licking the butter out of the dish....while I was sitting there at the counter looking right at him. I did the right think and scraped that part off before Gerry buttered his toast in the morning, see what a good wife I am?

I finished off a new CD/DVD book tonite, lots of lovely gold on this one.

This is one of the classes I will be teaching so here is my not so subtle plea to sign up for it!

Classes for Fall

I will be teaching at the Sparrow's Nest Studio this fall and winter, there is a new "classes" tab at the top of this blog to click on for details, Layered Shrines, Surface Explorations and CD/DVD Memorabilia Books are the classes on the calender. The Sparrow's Nest also has many other wonderful classes by very talented teachers and a retreat on 9/24, still a couple of spots left!

Surface Exploration's is a new class, student's will come away with a sampler like this of many different techniques.

The wet weather has come, the garden is doing OK but some things are pooping out. Got enough red tomato's to can a bunch of salsa, I was fairly liberal with the Habanero and Serrano peppers so it will have some kick to it. The kitchen still smells like a mexican restaurant when you walk in. Dilly beans will be next, my friends and family love them and those who are real nice to me will get some for Christmas (heh!).

Prescious got 2nd place in her class at the Silver Reef Casino car show Gerry attended, we are so proud!

Layered Shrines and Devious Deer Mice

It's been a long time since the last post, there has been a lot going on, visits to and from family, the house, shop & studio exterior being painted and putting together new classes for the winter and spring. Summer finally came and now it seems to be going again. I will be teaching at the Sparrows Nest Studio in the winter and spring, I will post the blog link soon for the fall retreat information and class schedules, blog, facebook page and restreat details are being worked on as we speak. Mixed Media is my first love and my new classes will be focusing on that. One of the new classes will be Layered Shrines as wells as a class on Texturing, Stenciling, & Resist Techniques. Here are a couple samples of the Layered Shrines.

The garden is doing good, the sun needs to hold on long enough the for beans and tomatoes to mature so the fall canning extravaganza can commence. Catnip will most likely be cut and hung this weekend so the spoiled felines will have their fix this winter. Dahlia's were late but well worth it, I have several dinnerplate varieties and they never fail to impress.

Here is the catnip, about 3 feet tall, it will be dried, stripped and dispensed as needed or when they are bugging me and I want them to go sit in a corner and just get stoned.

 
Speaking of the resident felines for those who do not get my facebook feed I will pass along the story of Donald the Deer Mouse. The story must first be prefaced with the statement that neither Dana nor Apollo are hunters of anything larger than a Pounce treat or a small insect, unlike their dear late brother, Wolf, who successfully brought down humans and non-humans alike in his illustrious 16 years.
 
Anyhoo, I was awoken at 1:00 am a few days ago by frantic scrabbling and squeaking in the vicinity of the foot of the bed, after leaping out of bed, turning on the light (I am now blinded and do not have my glasses on) I vaguely see a rodent of some sort racing across the floor and disappear behind the dresser. Neither useless feline, I mean beloved companion animal, was quick enough to catch it before it went into deep hiding and they promptly went back to sleep, sensing the immediate fun and games were over. It appears one of them had actually caught something that was capable of moving under its own power, brought it in and left if for Mommy to deal with in the wee hours of the mornin'. Am I not the luckiest cat Mom EVER!?
 
Not really wanting to disassemble the bedroom at this un-godly hour I sort of go back to sleep, had strange dreams of herds of mice running, lemming fashion, across my prone body. Next day the great mouse hunt begins, furniture is moved, flashlight shone into every crevice and cranny, found enough dust bunnies to make Martha Stewart break down into a fit of hysteria, but no mouse. So now he's in the house, the cats have clearly lost interest and are of no help. So why not just put out a trap....because I have a soft spot for little critters and its was not his (or her) fault one of my defective cats dragged the poor little guy in. Hoping it would find a way out on its own or the smell of mummified mouse would eventually alert us to its location we went on with our lives. But...lo and behold 3 days later I am sitting in the recliner catching up on Mad Men when I see it scamper across the floor and disappear under the couch, both cats are still completely oblivious, their nap/butt-grooming/cat snack obviously of much higher importance. Great, I think, now I have to put Don Draper on hold to try and corner it, trap it,  and get it out of my house. That little sucker was quick, I mean, blink of an eye quick, and he's big, like bigger than an ordinary mouse and he's got a really long tail and big hind legs, so I figure he's a deer mouse and now we appeared to be involved in a relationship of sorts, so he needs a name...like Donald (Draper). He scoots into the laundry room and hides under the washer, I open the back door, wave my arms in a grand gesture and point to the beautiful, great outdoors, he runs by the back door, ignoring the beautiful, great outdoors, sees me and runs back under the washing machine. I construct an elaborate deer mouse tunnel from the laundry room to the beautiful, great outdoors from small pieces of furniture and boxes. He comes out, munching on a piece of kitty kibble he found under the washer (Martha is sooo dissapointed with my housekeeping skills), leisurely makes his way through the Funnel of Freedom, wanders out the back door and into the beautiful, great outdoors....I do the happy dance, I am smarter than a deer mouse.