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.

Attention Cat and Dog People!

Check out this amazing site, just answer a trivia question (right or wrong) and these folks will donate free kibble to animal shelters.

Freekibble.com

I put their badge on my blog, if you have a site or blog please help these shelter animals by adding the badge to your page.

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.