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!

New Journal

I signed up for an online class from Carla Sonheim here at Joggles.com, a nifty site for shopping and some very cool classes. I have taken Carla at a couple of ArtFest retreats and loved, loved, loved her as a teacher. The class is Rags to Stitches and a great project for me as I really did need to dust off the sewing machine that I received for Christmas a couple of years ago. I requested one from Santa with all sorts of big intentions, but only managed to make 2 napkins, 1 placemat that was unattractive enough to be re-purposed as a cat food catcher under the cats bowl and 1 extremely basic duvet cover for a foam mattress. I had acquired several books of fabric samples a garage sale and had tons of smaller pieces which were perfect for this project. Basically you sew fabric bits onto cardstock, embellish and sew in signatures. Ever since I lost my beloved Wolf kitty in January I was waiting til the loss wasn't quite so raw to make a journal for his pictures. After running one of my favorite pictures of him through some photo filtering software to give it a colored pencil sketch look I printed it onto some fabric to use as the focal image for the journal. Here is the finished product.

It was really great to get this project done, I will making more. The sewing maching got a good workout, there was no couture looking sewing involved on my part that is for sure but it was a fun journal to make. The inside pages are mix of cardstock and some Arches Text Wove. For the front I glued on some green trim that came with the D-rings already attached and hung some cat theme charms and the tag from his collar (sigh!). The second part of the class is making a scrap fabric purse, I will post pics of that when it is done.

My usual routine is to clean up the studio after I finish a project, as with most artists by the time you get to the finish line there is stuff piled everywhere and you are working in a tiny space on the desk. As I was tidying up (i.e. shoveling crap back into its allocated space) I thought of the magazines published lately that showcase peoples studio's. They always looks so very thoughtfully organized and clean as opposed to my typical pile's o' art stuff decor. So I think somebody should start a new magazine showcasing the studio's in their "natural habitat". There could be articles entitled, "Your Studio, Nuclear Fallout Zone or Hurricane Katrina?" or maybe "So How Long Has In Been Since You Lost That Favorite Stamp/Book/Inkpad/Piece of Ephemera?" Or has my husband so gently puts it "How On Earth Do You Find Anything In Here?". So I present to you in its glory the Blue Dahlia Studio, in a slightly cleaner state than usual.