Cupcakes

Just a quick post to share the fabulous cupcakes one of my good friends brought me for my birthday last week. They were almost too pretty to eat but in the end that did not stop me.

And of couse what are designer cupcakes without the right wine pairing?

Needless to say, it was a GOOD birthday.

New Year, new classes at Paper Zone!

Hello to 2010! The holidays have come and gone and we can now forge ahead into the New Year. My only resolution was not to make any resolutions the required a finite goal, but rather to just try and keep on doing the things that make me happy. Of course that includes continuing to teach at the Paper Zone in Bellingham, I am now scheduled to teach Sticky Note and Memo Pad Booklets on January  23rd, Shrink Plastic Charms on January 24th and CD & Memorabilia Pocket Book on January 31st. Registration info is here at Paper Zone.

Here is the Sticky Note and Memo Pad Booklet, a great gift that is quick and easy to make. They fit the standard 3 X 3 and 3 X 5 sticky note pads or regular note pads you get at any store.

I had posted a picture of the CD & Memorabilia book in December, here is one similar to what will be taught in the class.

In other news I finally finished the ATC's for the ArtFest ATC swap book, they have been sent off to Bee Shay the coordinator. The theme was Once Upon a Time and I love dragons so I found some cool clipart on the internet, printed it on a transparency, layered onto kraft paper that was crumpled and aged with distress ink, placed a frame around it and finished it with "Here Be Dragons" printed on colored vellum and some glitter glue.

We had to decorate the backs also...

The background paper was made using liquid watercolors in spray bottles, Adirondack sprays, stencils and glitter spray. There was as slight technical malfunction with the can of glitter spray at the time, the nozzle came off and the little tube thing stayed depressed and the can would not stop spraying...so there was a frantic exit from the studio, arms flailing as glitter sprayed everywhere, I am still cleaning it up 4 months after the incident, but it was VERY EXCITING and VERY GLITTER-Y for about 5 minutes.

January and February will be busy months, I will be taking a sequence of four classes in February at Whatcom Community College in web design so I can get a full web site going and a Etsy store.

I noticed today that some of my spring bulbs are up, they may be a little optimistic as the ten day forecast is talking about snow next week. The roses are showing no signs of buds, they are always my best indication spring is on the way. Bellingham does seem pretty tropical though after we drove up to northern British Columbia to spend Christmas with my folks. It is a 22 hour drive and temps were around -25 for most of our trip up and back. The roads were mostly black ice and we would get a complete white out when the big semi rigs would pass us, it was like being in an episode of Ice Road Truckers. We were driving our big Dodge truck and pulling a snowmobile so at least we didn't look too much like City Folk, though. Here is the road up. We did see one moose, two deer roadkills and two dogsleds (really!!).

And you know you are in the North when you see this sign...

We did have a wonderful Christmas with my folks, all snug and cozy in their log cabin, it was truly a White Christmas.

All the best to everyone and looking forward to 2010.

Chilly December

Sub-zero temperatures, snow, freezing rain...this is what we have had for the past couple of weeks. The positive side to this is all I want to do is hang out inside the studio with the heaters on, so some projects are actually getting done. My calligraphy guild had its annual Christmas party last weekend, we have a gift exchange where everyone brings a hand lettered piece, numbers are drawn and you get a lovely piece of calligraphy done by a guild member. A couple of posts ago there were pictures of some letters I had done, this is the one I took to the party to exchange, all gussied up with some machine stitching, rhinestones, and layering on fabric and paper.

I have just finished a elegant little CD & Memorabilia book, holds 5 CD's and a great presentation when you give someone music or photo CD's. This is a class I look forward to teaching in 2010.

The plate will be full after the New Year, I will be attending ArtFest again this year with my Art Posse (you know who you are!) so there are 32 ATC's due by Feb 15th and about 80+ trades to come up with and complete before March 23rd. I figure if I lock myself in the studio with the iPod on shuffle and a case of Merlot...I should have everything done by March, hopefully. I have many ideas, just need to get them from the brain in the real world, I foresee large piles of STUFF on every available surface, but it's important stuff as every artist knows, even if the spousal unit or non-arty friends don't see it that way.

As this is the holiday season I must of course share the obligatory Christmas pictures. Our Christmas lights did not make it up this year, the wind was blowing stink the weekend we had planned to put them up and I did not think it was really fair to make husband go up on the roof to swap out bulbs when it was blowing 60 mph. Here is a pic of lights from previous years, we tend to go the Tackiest House On the Block look, the neighbors may be blinded but its very pretty!

Yes, that is a giant penguin and polar bear, the power company LOVES us. My Christmas village is a staple every year, the cats love it too, there are usually a couple of times when I come home at lunch and the tiny Victorian people have been trampled beneath the paws of Catzilla.

I just noticed in the picture that the house on the left doesn't have a light on, oops...they must have not been able to pay the power bill because they blew all their cash on plum pudding and those highly over-priced Christmas Trees being hawked in the Town Square.

Of course no Christmas is complete without the usual Pet Humiliation pictures, here is one of Dana, from a couple of years ago after being stuffed unwillingly into the Santa outfit.

 And here is Wolf, Rest In Peace big guy, you're picture is on the tree, Momma misses you this year.

Happy Holidays to all, be safe and see you in 2010!

Bad Cats and Funky Letters

Winter has arrived in our little corner of Washington State, the garden has been buttoned up for the winter and all of the neighbor's leaves have come to live in my yard. The southwestly winds always blow all the fall leaves right into our lawn and front flowerbed. I know they are not from the only tree I have in the front yard, they are a totally different shape and size.  Short of conducting a full CSI investigation as to the exact source of the offenders and knocking on the neighbors doors demanding they take them back I am stuck with them and have a hot date next weekend with the rake. The neighbors already think I am a little nuts anyway and I am pretty sure they all call me "That Crazy Cat Lady Down The Street" behind my back. Case in point about 3 weeks ago I thought Apollo (studio cat #2) had made it out of the yard. I could not find him anywhere, searched the yard, studio and house completely, not even the lure of shaking the kittie kibble container got a response.

So now I am in full blown panic, scouring the neighborhood in the pitch black, shining my flashlight into everybody's yard, garage and porch within a 3 block radius, yelling the requisite "Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty". Nobody came out to see what the hell I was doing, probably because they were saying to themselves and their guests "Just ignore her, Crazy Cat Lady, she loses that damn animal all the time". After an hour the husband yelled at me across the street, "He's in the house!". Apparently he had been in there the whole time, sleeping off his latest cat nip hit somewhere,  and could not be bothered to wake up and assuage my heart palpitations. I staggered into the house relieved, but filthy from getting down on my hands and knees to peer under vehicles, into crawl spaces through assorted shrubbery.  All I got from him was a sleepy "Dude...whassup?" look, similar to this one....

 If you don't talk to you're cats about catnip, who will?

The studio had been completely gone through, a futon that was taking up was too much space removed to the attic in the garage. I have gone though every single art supply I own, things are looking far more organized. But of course that only lasts for about 5 minutes once I start working on a project...sigh! I was able to spend most of the day in it though, working on some fancy letter techniques I picked up at Letter's of Joy last may. Spoiler alert to members of RainWriters who may be reading this, one of these may be my Christmas Party exchange gift.

Picture is a little blurry, I will need to get a small tripod to make these shots of smaller pieces.

Happy Thanskgiving to all.

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.

Winding down to Fall

I am not quite sure where this summer has gone, I had many grandiose plans for all the things I wanted to see, do and get finished, but sadly most did not come to fruition. The tomatoes are ripening fast and I think I will have to book a day off work next week and spend it canning my salsa. I like it with some heat and always get compliments so that will definitely need to get done. Despite a few days of rain the garden is still going along, some things have been pulled out and I find myself looking forward to winter where all I need to do with it is look out the window of the studio and peruse it instead of constantly watering, weeding and fussing. Here is one of my African Daisies still going strong....

The Chinese Lantern plant pods are at their brightest orange now, I will be picking and drying them, they look wonderful piled in a bowl for some autumn color in the house.

The cats absolutely adore the garden and spend most of their time outside. We have a cat fence attached to our 6' cedar fence and they cannot get out of the yard. What is a cat fence you ask? It is a system of metal elbows attached to the existing fence with black mesh strung between, the elbows bend inward (like Alcatraz for kitties!) so they cannot climb over it. Here is a picture, if you look closely between the metal elbows you can see the mesh. It keeps the cats in the yard and I have peace of mind knowing they will not wander off, get hit by a car or attacked by dogs, etc.

August and September were full of fun events, I went to the Fair in Lynden, the first time I had actually made it out there. Never would I have imagined there were so many different kinds of chickens and rabbits, the 4-H barns were great fun. Had my mandatory Elephant Ear, chock full of greasy, cinnamon-y, sugary goodness. Here are a few of my favorite critters from the Fair.

September was my brother-in-laws wedding in Victoria, BC, the ultimate tourist trap. We stopped by the world famous Butchart gardens, took a zillion pictures, especially of the Dahlia's and roses. I have this new Canon camera that takes pretty good pictures, including good macro and I have been going a little crazy with it. There are tons of features on it, including stuff a pro would use but I figure I will need to take a class at the community college to learn all the bells and whistles as I am pretty much "technology challenged".

I'm teaching at Paper Zone!

I will be teaching my Shrink Plastic Charm class Sunday, September 20, 2009 at Paper Zone here in Bellingham, here is the link for the class calender. Call or stop by to sign up! http://www.paperzone.com/classes/calendar.cfm?Store=23

These charms are fun and easy to make, you can use them for wine charms, jewelry, luggage tags, key chains, embellishments and so much more. Here are a few samples:

In other news we had a great time at the Washington Renaissance Faire, even though it was in the 90's in the shade. Here I am with my best friend Caryn, melting in the heat, and some pics of the other fabulous faire folk in attendance.

We camped at the site they have for folks staying overnight, although our "camping" was pretty plush as we took our fully loaded camper, with air conditioning, hot and cold running water and refrigerator/freezer. The campground was basically a fallow corn field and so we had a great little spot backed up against the corn that was growing on the borders of the field. This is the last weekend for the Faire but they run it for 3 weekends in August every year so put it on your calender for next year! http://www.washingtonrenfaire.com/