Gallo Organico

Paint Party Friday Night: Gratitude Journal

2012-01-27T22:00:00.000-08:00

I'm arriving at Paint Party Friday a little late - you can see the other participants at this link. But I'm really happy to have done this page because it finishes up my Gratitude Journal, which I started way back in June, 2010! The journal is very rustic - the pages are made out of plaster, and this page has also been collaged with an assortment of patterned papers. The Journal is called "Pieces of Me," and each page describes something for which I am grateful. Here's a sampling of some of the other pages:

I am so glad to have this journal finally completed! And it makes me interested in pulling out some more plaster to work with (although it's easiest to work with that medium when the weather is hot and dry, so I may have to wait). It reminds me of a friend in Southern California who only knits in the winter because her hands get too hat in the summer. Are there certain media that are "season-dependent" for you?
Thanks for stopping by!

Let's Talk Projects/Classes that Overstay their Welcome

2012-01-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

My first page - describing the purpose of my sketchbook and featuring one of my recent face paintings.

Last spring, I signed up for the Sketchbook Project (see this post for details). My theme was "In ten minutes," and I set it up as a smashbook, with prepared backgrounds that I could easily add to and thus create an interesting page in ten minutes or less. When I signed up for it, I thought it would be an easy project to complete. Plus, the deadline was not until the end of January. I started off with a lot of enthusiasm, but it soon languished on my desk with only the occasional entry. Now, with the deadline just a week away, I found the sketchbook and decided to finish it up. Some pages feature my thoughts about the day's events:

The page on the left chronicles some of the things I accomplished in getting healthy; the page on the right reflects on Sept. 11 - ten years later.

The page on the left is about our vacation to Seattle and the San Juan Islands. The page on the right talks about the upcoming soccer season for my son's team.
Others deal with how I'm feeling about things in my life.

A page about some of the struggles in raising the kids.
A few are just happy art.

As you can tell from the title of today's post, I think this was a project that overstayed its welcome. I should probably have realized that before I signed up for it. I'm best with short-term projects. I like online classes that are 3-4 weeks long; any longer, and I start to fade. I did fine at the "week in a life" and "photo-a-day for a month" photography projects, but I know I could never do Project 365. On the other hand, as I finished up my pages today, I found that I really enjoyed them. And, in looking at my completed pages, I was happy that so many incorporated actual drawing and sketching. These pages feel very different than my art journal pages, and they track the advice about making a sketchbook in the book, Painted Pages, which I'm slowly working through. So, although this does feel like a project that overstayed its welcome, I feel like I still got something out of it. And, in the end, I'm glad I did it. It also feels good to have it completed. I'll mail it off tomorrow.
So, let's talk about it. . . have you ever started a class or project that overstayed its welcome? Did you regret it? Or was there a benefit to it? Do you feel compelled to finish or do you just let it drift? I'll leave this post up for a couple days, as I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions!
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"Let's Talk" is a semi-regular series designed to inspire frank discussion and sharing of information on issues relating to photography, art and blogging.

What ever happened to smash books?

2012-01-24T20:55:00.000-08:00

Remember smashbooks? They were all the rage last spring and summer? They were the sketchbooks into which you could smash all kinds of ephemera from you daily life and add doodling and journaling to make an inspirational book.

Did you start one? Did you finish it? Is it still in progress? Want to know what I did with mine? Come back tomorrow, and you can read all about it!

Pastel Faces

2012-01-23T21:31:00.000-08:00

After taking a small break from the Faces 101 class to deal with my real work (grading 150 exams from the previous term mainly!), I found a little time today to play. These faces were made by laying down some pastels and then using a kneaded eraser to wipe away the lighter parts of the face, leaving the pastels to define the shadows. It was a fun (if challenging) assignment. Particularly because I love pastels. I like how this group of faces look together - sort of like a pair of characters (mother and son, up top) and a couple of guy friends hanging out together and enjoying a beer (the two in the bottom row). Or maybe a family (with mom and dad the faces on the right; then two sons, the older on the bottom row and younger one up top). What do you see in these faces?

New Music Monday: Instrumental and OLW Check-in

2012-01-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

For the last in my New Music Monday series, here's an awesome instrumental video from the band Laszlo, featuring the song, "Mr. Sunshine." Guaranteed to get your day off to a happy start!
If you like jazz instrumentals, I can also recommend two songs by Dakota Suite: "Namiko" and "Heart of Empty."
So, now it's feedback time (and be honest) - do you like this music feature? Should I continue with it? Or would you prefer I stick with art, photography and more about my life? If I do continue it, how often? Once a month seems about right to me. What do you think?
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Weekly OLW Check-In: Still working on organizing my craft space. Starting on some of the home purging/cleaning, too. This week I
1. Cleared out and reorganized the two drawers and cupboard in the bathroom where I keep craft stuff. I have an entire drawer full of tapes, glues and adhesives. Is that excessive?
2. Cleaned out and organized the cabinets, counter and drawers in the kids' bathroom. Felt like I was channeling Stacey from Havoc and Mayhem when I found things to throw out which had expired in the last century!
3. Cleaned out and organized the counter, cabinets and drawers in the master bath. Threw away 12 old tooth brushes!
4. Found someone who wanted the keyboard and convinced them to come pick it up.
5. Organized my chipboard and grungeboard.
6. Cleaned out and organized the completed paper-based art project bin, art projects to do bin, assemblage stuff bin and overflow ephemera box.
7. Mailed off about a dozen stamps to new homes!

Stamp Winners and a Peaceful Card

2012-01-22T13:00:00.000-08:00

When organizing today, I worked on clearing out the bin I call my "art projects to work on." It contains all kinds of bits and bobs and kits that I started but never completed. I came across a baggie of color copies I had made of some small collages. I'm sure my plan was to make some cards. So I did - I made nine quick cards simply by trimming the image, matting it and then putting it on a card base. I assume I'm not the only one with an "unfinished projects" bin, am I?
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And, I've drawn the stamp winners from Wednesday's give-away:
Cheri will be receiving the "happy stamps."
Melissa will be receiving the farm labels.
I have your addresses from Ginger's mail art exchange, but email if it's changed since then.
Congratulations girls! And everyone interested in stamps, please check back on the first of each month will I'll be giving away more new or gently used stamps.

Comfy Self Portrait

2012-01-20T22:00:00.000-08:00

Because everything is better when you wear Uggs. This is the first of 12 self portraits for the year, following along with the "In the Picture" challenge from Urban Muser (the first prompt is "a piece of me"). I'm off on a quick business trip, but I'll be back soon to pick the winners for the stamp give-away (go here to enter).

Paint Party Friday: Painting Stamped Images

2012-01-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a series of ATC's featuring elements from the periodic table (click on the ATC tag below for details and other examples). This one is Thallium, an extremely toxic substance known as "inheritance powder" because it was commonly used to poison people during the mid-1900's.
I used my twinkling H2O's to color in this stamped image. I've never been very good at using markers to color in stamped images (and refused to go down the copic marker rabbit hole of consumption), but I'm pretty happy with how these work. I think I'm just more comfortable with a paint brush in my hand than a marker. I also like using radiant pearls, but they take too long to dry. Linking up to paint party Friday and asking does anyone else use any type of paint to color stamped images?

Double Duty Stamps and Supplies

2012-01-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

I got a little creative time last weekend to finish up my ATC's for the "Elements" swap in which I'm participating. A friend is coordinating a group of a dozen stampers to make ATC's for all the elements in the periodic table (over the course of about a year). I've posted some of my other contributions here and here (or click on the ATC tag below). I made Rhenium, above, which is used to make jet engine parts and propellers. I was going to use game spinners for the propeller but didn't have enough and the ones I had were too big, so I used a pair of photo turns instead. I thought it was a nice, creative use of an embellishment!

I also completed Technetium, which is a silver grey radioactive transition metal used in X-rays. It's hard to tell in the picture, but this has a piece of plastic (stamped with the number and letters) stapled on top of a shiny silver paper stamped with the skeleton. It's supposed to look a bit like an x-ray. I didn't have an x-ray stamp, so I used a dancing skeleton from my Halloween stamp bin. It's nice to use my theme stamps in other ways.
{Tomorrow, I'll post Thallium as part of paint party Friday.}
I liked how my stamps and supplies performed "double duty" in these ATC's - makes me feel less bad about having such a large inventory. And I'm always looking for more ideas in this vein. Have you found a creative, non-traditional use for any of your stamps or supplies lately?

Stamp Give-Away

2012-01-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

I'm really not as crazy as my post yesterday might suggest - LOL! I do have a lot of stamps, but I'm happy to hear that are others with a similar addiction. In my defense, I have been collecting stamps for about 15 years, and I used to teach stamp classes (so got stamps for free or at a serious discount), and I have used almost all of the stamps I own at least once! But I do have two sets to give away to anyone who wants them . The first group, includes the image I used for the stamp above. I'm calling the group "happy stamps."

The second group is a Stampin' Up set featuring farm crate labels:

If you want either (or both), just let me know in the comments. I'll draw a name this weekend. Thanks for helping me get some room to buy more stamps. . .
Updated to add: Congratulations Cheri for winning the Happy Stamps and Melissa for winning the Farm Labels.

Confessions of a Stamp Hoarder

2012-01-16T22:00:00.000-08:00

I fear that I have too many stamps. The problem is that I love almost all of them and have trouble figuring out which ones I could give away. It started innocently enough. I bought a few wood mounted stamps (the first one I bought was a swirly heart). Then I joined Club Scrap, where I received two stamps a month and I bought others as well. After a while, I bought these plastic chest of drawers and filled them up:

Each chest has six drawers and most are filled with a double layer of wood mounted stamps, arranged by subject. That wouldn't be so bad, but my wood mounted stamps won't all fit in there. I've started to create bins arranged by subject, which I store on the top shelf of my clothes closet:

The two small plastic bins on the left have birthday stamps in one and Easter/4 Season sets in the other. The large rectangular orangish box is full of halloween stamps. The larger circular box in the corner is full of "people" stamps. The two plastic bins on the right have "kids/sports" in one and "birds, fish and seashore" in the other. The small wood box has "mail art" stamps, and the rectangular box with the rose print houses my Christmas stamps. The brown leather-like binder and the plastic file have acrylic stamps and cling mounted rubber. Here's what these look like up close:

Because, yes, at some point, I started buying unmounted stamps. These two containers wouldn't be too bad, but I have more:

I have five binders full of unmounted stamps! I store these in a cupboard in my bathroom. And, finally, for good measure, I have some wood mounted sentiment stamps:

I have three decent sized rectangular containers with stamps in a single layer.

So, there you have it. A full confession and accounting of my stamp collection (foam stamps not included; yes, I have those, too. Sigh). I didn't count my stamps, but, if I had to guess, I would think there's about 1500 wood mounted stamps (based on the fact that there's about 40 in each sentiment container and each row in the plastic drawers) and an equal number of unmounteds (based on about 20 stamps per page in a binder, ten pages per binder, five binders; plus the two storage continers in the closet). Am I insane? Is this worse than my paper hoarding, described here? How many stamps do you think you have? And do you remember the very first stamp you purchased?

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Check back tomorrow for a few stamp give-aways!

New Music Monday: The Women

2012-01-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

Last Monday, I shared some of the new music which is in circulation on my ipod right now. In looking at it, I realized that it didn't have that many women represented. So, this week, I thought I'd post some videos of my favorite current female recording artists. Up top, I posted "Simmer Down" by Nostaligia 77. In a totally different vein:

Here's "Rock On" by Love Inks (I wonder if she stamps?). I bought a few other songs from her: Skeleton Key, Too Wild, and In My Dreams. Next a live performance with David Letterman:

This is Feist performing "How Come You Never Go There?" She also has a totally cute Sesame Street video floating around on You Tube! Finally, a woman who has become pretty popular, but I like a couple of her new songs:

This is Florence + Machine performing "No Light, No Light." I also purchased her new song, "Shake It Out."
I hope you enjoy the music today! Got any favorites in this batch? Or any recommendations of your own?

And so it begins . . .

2012-01-14T21:25:00.000-08:00

My son takes such joy in playing soccer - in whatever venue it takes. This week, the regular high school season began, and I'm looking forward to a little of this:

And a lot of this:

It's going to be a tough season, as the boys moved up to a higher division after winning the championship last year. But, regardless of what happens, I'm looking forward to spending time with this boy:

I love you, son.
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Weekly OLW Check-In. Things slowed down, as I've been busy grading exams and helping the soccer team, but I did manage to:
1. Finish organizing and filing all my collage images - a big project that I'm glad to have done.
2. Reorganized/expanded my stamp storage and put away the big bag of stamps that had been accumulating for quite some time! I hope to show you what I've done pretty soon.

Paint Party Friday: Colorful Characters

2012-01-12T22:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who visited last week as part of Paint Party Friday! I tried to visit as many of the participants as possible, although blogger seemed to be eating many of my comments. I really enjoyed the link-up, and I'm back again this week with two more characters. For these, I wanted to make the faces more colorful (last week's all had fairly true flesh tones), and I really liked the results. In comparing with last week's faces (here and here), these seem to have more character and depth. I think it's a result of my growing confidence. I want to try something similar using acrylic paints, instead of watercolors.
It's funny, I've always said that I don't like working with watercolors. But what I should really say is that I don't like working with traditional watercolors. These paintings were done with twinkling H2O's and a water brush. I'm curious about what other water color and brush combinations people use and like - please share your recommendations in the comments.
And thanks for stopping by!

Scribble Faces

2012-01-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

Day 4 in the Faces 101 class called for "scribble faces." I sat in a local taqueria (waiting for my to go order) and quickly sketched the people around me. I really enjoyed doing these. The two on the left are both of my husband. He liked the top one well enough that he made it his profile picture on facebook! The more faces I draw, the easier they become, and I've gotten lots of good ideas for different styles of faces that I could start including in my art journals and collages. In the class we sometimes draw/paint faces from live models, sometimes draw/paint them while looking at a picture and sometimes draw/paint from our imagination. I'm not sure I have a preference yet. If you draw, paint or sketch, do you have a preference?

How Portrait Photography Helps My Drawing

2012-01-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

The scariest assignment so far in the faces class I'm taking has been this one because we're supposed to draw realistic faces. Which means there's a high degree of opportunity to fail. I'm pretty happy with these two portraits. Are they perfect? No. But, if you asked me last week if you thought I could draw anything this good, I would have said, "Heck no!" So, I'm pleased with my efforts. The portrait on the left is based on my mother-in-law's bridal portrait. The one on the right is based on this photographic portrait I took of a local activist:

It's my favorite of the two. I think that having spent time on improving my portrait photography is helping my attempts to draw faces. When photographing portraits, the key is to find enough light to have catchlights in the eyes and to have a natural expression. I think the same thing is true in drawn faces. I try to put "catchlights" in the eyes, and I have found that using a model with a good expression really helps me draw a more expressive face.
It's a happy coincidence that my efforts to improve in one art form have delivered dividends in another one. Has this every happened to you?

Ten on the Tenth: Twinchies

2012-01-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

I used my January vintage counterfeit kit to create some twinchies (2x2 inch squares) for an art exchange hosted at the Gingersnap Challenge blog. Got any favorites in this group? If you've never checked out the Gingersnap blog, you really should. The artists over there are wonderful, and they host all kinds of fabulous challenges. Today, being the tenth of the month, Shimelle hosts a ten on the tenth link-up. You click here to see what other ten on the tenth bloggers are up to.

New Music Monday

2012-01-08T22:00:00.001-08:00

When working with Henry to clean up the desk top in his room, we came across a few itunes gift cards. He said he didn't use them anymore and that I could have them. He gets all his music off of You Tube these days, but I decided to go old school and buy some new music. In particular, I decided to support some artists that are new to me and not widely established (at least in the U.S.) by buying their albums. First up, I bought "The Head and the Heart" by The Head and the Heart. You can check out the video for" Lost in My Mind" above. Next up:

I bought the album "Father, Son, Holy Ghost" by Girls. You can check out the video for the song "Honey Bunny" above. My next purchase:

I bought the album "Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes. This is a video of the song "Grown Ocean." Finally, I bought an album from a band not widely known in the U.S. (though I hear they're big in the U.K.):

They're called Elbow, and I bought the album "Build a Rocket Boys!" The video above is for the song "With Love."
I also bought several songs from The Decemberists and Trevor Hall. I love having new music on my ipod! Do you have any good new music to recommend? Do you fancy any of the ones featured here today?

Jan. Counterfeit Kit and OLW Check-in

2012-01-07T22:00:00.001-08:00

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog has a wonderful selection of kits from Cocoa Daisy to counterfeit this month. They're all warm and vintagey - right up my alley! I was inspired by both the sunshine and snowflakes kit:

and the amber snowflake kit:

to make my kit at the top of today's post. I wanted to keep it small and selected mainly 6x6 papers from my stash. I'm going to use the kit to work on a variety of projects. I want to enter the Gingersnap Creations Twinchie Art Exchange (vintage theme) and also create some altered wooden blocks, something like these made by Deb Turtle. I also used the kit to make the Tim Holtz birthday card I posted yesterday!
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In other news, I've been focusing on my one little word for 2012 ("Home") by starting a major cleaning and reorganization of my craft space (which also means reorganizing my clothes closet, since I store supplies in there). It will take me a while to complete, but this week I accomplished the following:
*Sorted through all my craft books, back issues of craft magazines and stamping catalogs. Gave away two books; recycled 24 old magazines and catalogs.
*Sorted through my scraps and threw away several pounds of scraps that were really too small to do much with and which just created clutter.
*Organized my jewelry (hint: old stampin' up stamp containers are a great way to store beaded necklaces because you see them but they're contained) and took six pieces of jewelry in for repair. I store my jewelry in my closet, too, so that's why it's part of this organization.
*Organized my bookshelf which holds crafting supplies, clearing enough space to store several albums on it, which meant that I could organize the upstairs bookshelves enough to hold all the other scrapbook albums.
*Created a system for storing my collage sheets and began to sort through and file my collection.
*Created a storage system for my pens, pastels, pencils and chalks.
*Organized my clothes closet and purged it of all the clothes which I don't wear (I threw out one shopping bag of clothes which were unwearable and filled four other shopping bags with clothes to donate). Sorted through my clothes drawers while I was at it!
*Purged a very full, somewhat musty, old large rolling crop bag. I either moved the contents to a better storage system or threw them away. Tossed the old bag, which was actually kindof smelly. Eeewww!
*Organized my photos to be scrapped (along with appropriate supplies) into three different utility bags: summer vacation 2011; sports photos 2010-11; miscellaneous 2011. It will make it easy to work on these when I get some scrapping time.
I still have a lot to do before the organization and purging is complete - dealing with my overflowing stamp collection is the biggest puzzle still to solve - but I feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm really, really happy with how it's going. After I finish with my craft space, I have lots of other home projects to do - organizing/purging the front closet; organizing/cleaning the laundry room; organizing the kids' closets; clearing out the back yard; etc. etc. I'm hoping to post an update on my blog now and again to track my progress, so I remember how much I've accomplished. Are you doing anything special to track progress on your one little word?

Happy Birthday Tim Holtz!

2012-01-06T21:48:00.000-08:00

Today, Saturday, Jan. 7, is Tim Holtz's birthday!
Linda Ledbetter of Studio L3 has set the Grungy Monday challenge this week as one to create a birthday card for Tim. Although I haven't participated in Grungy Monday for a while, I couldn't resist making a birthday card for Tim Holtz because he is such a wonderful, generous, creative person.
So, here's the card I made for him. Tim loves Disneyland (in fact, it seems to me that in some alternate universe Tim could be Walt Disney's illegitimate son). So, I made him a Disney card with a paper pieced Mickey Mouse from my stash. The bottle cap held by Mickey has been colored with alcohol inks and features an image from Tim's stamp line. The edges of the papers have all been distressed using the Tim Holtz distress tool and inked with distress inks. I feel very lucky to have met Tim and to have taken several classes with him. He really is a terrific person, and I hope he has a terrific birthday! If you want to join in the birthday party, go check out Linda's blog.

Captions in Paintings (+ Paint Party Friday)

2012-01-05T21:32:00.000-08:00

When I painted my series of watercolor faces for the "Faces 101" class I'm taking (you can see the other paintings here), I found myself compelled to add captions to them. The one on the left reads "She always blushed when she drank too much." The one on the right, simply "Pixie Cut." I found myself doing the same thing when I drew some faces in the next lesson. Except for this drawing, which I didn't caption:

Nothing came to me. So, now it's your turn. What caption or title would you add to this face? Or would you just let her be?
I'm linking up today to "Paint Party Friday," a blog challenging artists to paint and post at least once a week. You can see the current week's paintings at this link. My blog friend Gloria is a regular participant and planted the seed in my head. Thanks Gloria!

How many attempts does it take?

2012-01-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

In the current class I'm taking on drawing faces, we draw A LOT of faces. The goal is to draw 101 faces by the end of the week! In most assignments, we make between 8 and 10 from a particular technique. Which seems like a lot, except out of those 8-10, I will usually only get 3-5 which I actually like. One of yesterday's assignment was to draw faces using a ink dropper. I used a Distress Reinker (Vintage photo) to draw a variety of faces. I liked these three, but my other seven attempts will never reach the light of day or, I suppose I should say, the light of the blogosphere. In fact, at the end of class, I will throw them away (as well as my other failed attempts from various assignments).
Which got me to thinking about how many attempts at something it takes to create a "keeper." With the advent of digital photography, it's easy to take lots of attempts and delete the bad ones. I think I probably delete between 1/3 and 1/2 of the pictures I initially take. I don't think the question comes up in other paper crafting fields (I don't usually throw away cards or layouts, for instance). For my art journal pages, I don't throw away the ones I hate. I either gesso over them to start again or simply turn the page and try not to worry about it. On the other hand, I do have some mixed media canvases which I tossed (or gesso'd over) because they were, well, bad. LOL! What about you? How many attempts at a project does it take you before you create a keeper?

More Drawing. Less Stamping?

2012-01-03T22:00:00.000-08:00

One of the things I want to do with my artwork this year is to make it more "my own" - to include more of my original art (drawing, photography, etc.) and fewer images created by other people (through purchased collage sheets, clip art, stamped images, etc.).
So, I'm taking a class on drawing and painting faces. Here's some early attempts. What do you think? Do you have a favorite? I also plan to compose more photographs to use in my mixed media collage.
As for using fewer images from other people, I'm having a hard time purging my collection of images. Although I think I can (and will) do it. But I can't even bear the thought of getting rid of my stamps. Although I'm feeling pretty "done" with card making at the moment, I'm not yet ready to get rid of my stamps. It just doesn't feel like time.
I guess the question I keep rolling over in my mind is the extent to which I feel good using tools and images created by other to create my own art. Thoughts?

Starting the New Year Right

2012-01-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

New Year's Day in the United States feels a bit off this year because January 1 fell on a Sunday. So, a lot of the traditional new year events, such as the Rose Parade and football games got put off until Monday, January 2, which is also a holiday here. In many ways, the second seems like the start of the year. So, today I thought I'd share some of what I'm doing with my 2012 OLW ("home"). I've started to do a lot of cleaning and purging in my craft area and clothes closet (because I store a lot of my craft stuff in my clothes closet). It feels great to get organized and focused on where I want to be in my art. For Christmas, I received the book "Painted Pages" by Sarah Ahearn Bellemare, which Sian had featured in her Pass the Book blog activity and which really captured my imagination (even though my name never got pulled in the Pass the Book draw). I've been working my way through the exercises, and I used one of them to create the art journal page above which talks about approaching each new year as a journey. For me, this journey will actually take me deeper inside my home (my creative home, as well as my physical home). I've been thinking a lot about what I want to focus on in my art this year, and that has helped me in deciding what to keep and what to toss. I also found an assortment of projects that I want to finish. I'm looking forward to a very fun year creatively!
In my organizing, I came across three idea books which are really quite good (which is why I had not parted with them before) but a little dated and not really my style anymore. I am happy to send them to anyone who wants them. Preference given to people in the states to keep the cost of shipping down, but I'll send them abroad if no one here wants them. If more than one person wants them, I'll draw names. You can ask for one, two or all three. The books are:
Full Circle by Lil Davis Designs (about Circle Journals);
PaperKuts Power Book of Tips and Techniques and
Rebecca Sower's Scrapbooking Life's Little Treasures (has a lot of good journaling advice).
{UPDATED to add: I'm sending Full Circle off to Nancy and Life's Little Treasures off to Carrie in today's mail. Going media mail, so it may take a few extra days. Enjoy!}

2011 Intention: Final Pages

2012-01-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

In 2011, I set as my intention to be "fabulous at 50," and I created an art journal to document my progress month by month. Yesterday I sat down and finished my pages for the last two months of the year. My December page is up top, and it reads "In December, I was fabulous because I believed in myself." And here's my November page:

It reads "In November, I was fabulous because I buckled down and got some writing done for work." You can see the other pages from my journal by clicking on the 2011 intentions tag below.
All-in-all, I was happy with how I did at accomplishing my intention this year, as well as how well I did staying focused on my one little word ("health"). I got through many, but not all, of my resolutions. Next year, I'll continue to work on the ones I didn't complete.
So, how did you do on your 2011 intentions, resolutions and one little word?

Storytelling Sunday, The Picture: Happy New Year

2012-01-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

We got all dressed up last night and went out with our best friends to celebrate the coming of the New Year. We ate, we danced, we shot silly string at other revelers as we drove by.
Happy 2012!
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For other stories, visit Storytelling Sunday at Sian's blog.

Storytelling Sunday, The Words: One Last Christmas Tale

2011-12-31T16:48:00.000-08:00

Sian is starting a new year of Storytelling Sunday, with a twist. She's focusing on telling stories with photos (or words, if you prefer). She's also suggested starting the year with a New Year's story, but I have one last Christmas story I want to share. Because when I told it to my 16-year old son, it brought such a smile to his face that I didn't want to forget it before I wrote it down. So, I created this art journal page. It's simple, but Uncle Dave says that's okay.
The journaling reads: "Christmas, 1995. Henry was seven months old and waited and waited and waited for relatives to arrive so he could open presents. We piled his gifts around him on the couch. He opened the first one - Tigger slippers. He put them on. And promptly fell asleep!"
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To see more stories, click on this link.

2011 Highlights

2011-12-30T21:28:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, here are ten highlights from my year (like my blog, they are highlights of my art, with a little life thrown in).
1. Tim Holtz's Creative Blocks Class (and an untold follow-up story)

In July, I took a wonderful class with Tim Holtz. It was so much fun, and I love the project I made in the class. I wrote a glowing review, in which I mentioned how much I needed the class because my dog Gypsy was in the middle of a serious medical crisis and how wonderfully genuine Tim Holtz continues to be, despite his enormous success. What I haven't shared (until now) was that I received an email from Tim a few days later thanking me for my review and what I said about him and (very sweetly) inquiring about Gypsy and sending get well wishes because he is such a dog lover. The email meant sooo much to me and was definitely a highlight of the year.

2. Sian's Storytelling Sunday. I adored writing these stories and reading the ones posted by others. So glad to hear that she's continuing the tradition - with a twist - in 2012. Check back tomorrow for my first story of the year.

3. Watching this boy grow up. Henry turned 16 this year and is doing so well. It especially shone through during the time we were gone in England, and he stayed here by himself. He took good care of himself, his dog and our house. I'm really excited about the man he will become.

4. Cheryl Johnson's Photography Classes - The Twelve Days of Christmas class really helped me understand white balance and taught me to take pictures at night.

And her portrait class (Beautiful People) completely convinced me that I could take portraits.
5. Gypsy

She walked into our life, and like they say about many shelter dogs, it's not clear who rescued who. She has brought such joy to everyone in our family.

6. Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog. I am so glad that I found this blog. I have loved shopping my stash to put together "kits" and the using those kits in projects. The blog has tons of fantastic ideas for creating your own embellishments, sketches, and a really nice community feel to it.

7. Houston Memory Cards and Heritage/Genealogy Project. One of my goals for the year was to work on my heritage album and genealogy project, and I made substantial progress this year. Midway through the year, Sian came up with an idea she called "Captured in a Card." It was a way of capturing memories and illustrating them at the same time. I took the idea and used it to create a series of cards about the summer I spent in Houston a a child. I loved this project!

8. My 2011 Intention and OLW - I'm fabulous and healthy. And I've documented it all on my blog and in my art journals. I lost almost 30 pounds this year. I can run a mile in less than eight minutes, and I feel great about myself.

9. Meeting blog friends - Deb here in California and Jacky in London. So Awesome.

10. The Summertime Photo Scavenger Hunt. It was so much fun to run this hunt, and I can't believe the magical moment when this pirate walked off a ferryboat or when Deb and I saw this gentlemen:

All-in-all, it was a very good year here on Gallorganico. Thanks for being a part of it!

2012 Intention

2011-12-28T22:00:00.000-08:00

I blogged yesterday about my "One Little Word" for 2012: home. Just like last year, I have also chosen an intention on which to focus. My intention is "Don't give up before the miracle happens." My yoga instructor said this last month when we were getting into a particular twisting pose and we needed to hold it for a few seconds before everything slid into place. Although the position felt uncomfortable, I took a deep breath, relaxed into the pose and felt . . . fantastic. I was so glad that I didn't give up before I reached that state of repose. And I thought the idea behind that statement was something on which I could focus this year. Sticking with it, not giving up, trusting in myself that my effort would pay off. Since then, I googled the quote and found that it's actually part of the Twelve Step Recovery Program. And sometimes the butt of sarcastic jokes. But, I still like the quote and what it stands for.
So, it's my intention for 2012 - something to come back and remember and focus upon from time to time. Have you heard this quote before? What do you think of the quote?

2012 One Little Word: Home

2011-12-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

Ali Edwards popularized the idea of choosing "one little word" on which to focus each year. I've been playing along with the idea for several years now - starting with "open," continuing with "flow," and last year focusing on "health." For 2012, I've chosen the word "home." It means several things to me. I want to work on finding my creative home, tending the relationships that are the home for my heart; and fixing up my physical home. Last year (especially the second half) was busy. Too busy, really. I had a very full course load at work, traveled and did too much volunteer work.
This upcoming semester will be much better. I will only be teaching one morning a week! So, I'm planning to use my extra time to tend things here at home. It feels good, and it feels right.
Creatively, I see myself focusing more on my original art - drawing and photography, especially. I want to incorporate more of these things into my collage work. I also plan to continue working with plaster. I've signed up for a couple of classes that start in the next week. Faces 101 with Carla Sonheim runs from Jan. 2 - Jan. 6. It's all about drawing and painting the human face - I think the goal is to great 101 different faces! Creative Jump Start Summit 2012 with Nat Kalbach is a free class with a month's worth of creative inspiration. I'm not sure what to expect, but I'm looking forward to it. I also have two photography classes - a Photo Shop Elements class and a creative exposure class - that I bought and never started. So, those are on my agenda, as well. Do you have any creative classes on your agenda?
I'm looking forward to spending more quality time with my husband and children. There's so much going on in the kids' lives these days, and I realize how fleeting our time with them will be - they will be off to college before we know it. And, when they do leave, I want to make sure that my relationship with my husband is such that we are looking forward to many, many more years together.
Finally, there's a whole laundry list of things that need to be done around our house - from hardwood floors and fence repair to serious cleaning and purging of storage spaces and the back lot. I'm hoping for a lot of "before" and "after" pictures in that regard!
So, have you chose a "word" for 2012? And I'm curious if any of you took Ali Edwards' One Little Word class for 2011 and whether you would recommend it? Let me know!

Home for the Holidays (+ Family Jeopardy)

2011-12-26T17:36:00.000-08:00

My family and I headed to Southern California for Christmas to spend time with our extended families. My brother (above) lives in the house he inherited from our parents, where we all grew up. We had a wonderful time visiting with each other, eating and exchanging presents. Our dog Gypsy even got to play with her dog-cousin Patches.

The game of "Family Jeopardy," which I put together using this tutorial from Carrie and a fantastic template from the very generous Deb (thanks Deb!), was a definite highlight of Christmas Day. Our categories included "Pete or Carmen" (those were my parents); zodiac signs; May birthdays (there are six in our family); college/university (places we attended); high school days (significant events that happened during H.S.); significant years; the next generation (questions about the grandchildren generation); pets (that was a popular one); this and that; and favorite sports teams. I had people draw numbers, and they played in teams of two. This worked out well for us. And the winners were my sister-in-law and my niece:

We also fit in a movie outing (Mission Impossible), a trip to play Lazer Tag (surprisingly fun and perfect for a big group), and a shopping trip to spend gift cards. All-in-all, it was a very full and fun visit "home."
I put "Home" in quotes because, although I spent the first 17 years of my life in this house and all my brothers and sisters live nearby, at some point, I really began to think of the house where we live now as our "home." Perhaps because we've lived in our house for about 20 years and have raised our family there. Or because we have set down roots in the community and really feel like it's where we belong. I'm sure my kids consider it (and not my parents' old house) their "home."
But I wonder, 25 years from now, will they still consider it "home?" Or will they have created a new "home" someplace else?

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T07:43:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from my family

to you and yours! I treasure each of my readers and blog friends, and I wish you all a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

Christmas Around My House

2011-12-23T01:36:00.000-08:00

We decorated our tree.

Went with the family to San Francisco to check out the downtown window displays, have lunch and do a little shopping.

Went to Christmas tea with some friends.

And went to a gingerbread house decorating party. Tomorrow we'll leave bright and early to spend the weekend with our families. I put together a "Family Jeopardy" game, thanks to this fantastic tutorial from Carrie. I think it will be tons of fun.
Hope your holiday is shaping up well!

A Visit to the Tree Farm

2011-12-19T20:25:00.000-08:00

We took our annual trip to the tree farm to cut our tree. Although there were some happy moments to be had by the family:

There was also a lot of teen attitude (Henry had a cold and Clara really wanted to stay home):

It was a far cry from last year, as described in this post and pictured here:

But I trust that, in time, they will remember it fondly. And I hope that someday they will bring their kids to the same tree farm and tell them about all the fun they had coming. Because that's how traditions start, I think.

We Spread Our Dreams Beneath His Feet

2011-12-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

Blog-friend Sian posted today about the poem He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats. It reads:
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
I found the poem touched me, as a parent. Because I've been thinking a lot about how the children grow. And whether they will ever appreciate or understand or be touched by all the dreams we have for them.
Because last week, while helping my boy study for the art history part of his sculpture final exam, I realized that some of what we have done for him really did sink in. Even though at the time, he looked bored and annoyed that we were dragging him all around the world. Because he would rather be home with his friends or playing play-station than wandering around Paris or Budapest or Prague. But then, while discussing Frank Gehry, he said "I remember we walked by that dancing building all the time in Prague, and we saw the Disney Music Hall in L.A." And later, when explaining how Dale Chihuly had a "full ride scholarship" to Murano, he recalled our visit to that island near Venice and also the Chihuly sculpture he had seen in Seattle last summer. My boy, the soccer player, had something to say about Rodin, too, and Deborah Butterfield. Because we dragged him through those art museums and cities all around the world. Because we spread those dreams beneath his feet. And now, it seems, they've given him wings.

Music to Bake By

2011-12-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

School's out, and I'm celebrating by drinking a little wine, baking a few cookies and listening to some great tunes - let the holidays begin!
I'm going to my annual cookie exchange tomorrow. You can read more about it in this post. This year, I settled on "Cranberry Hootycreek Cookies," which are full of yummy oatmeal, dried cranberries, white chocolate chips and chopped pecans. Here's the recipe:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup softened butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts
(red & green m&m's to garnish)
Directions: Combine flour, baking soda and salt. Cream butter, then add sugars, eggs and vanilla. Mix in flour mixture and oats, then cranberries, chips and nuts. Drop by spoonfuls on parchment paper. Push a few M&M's on top of cookie. Bake at 350 degrees for ten minutes. Makes 3-4 dozen cookies.
Beverly is having a virtual cookie exchange, and I'm linking up to it. Grab yourself a festive beverage and go to this link to find more recipes. Although usually I drink champagne while baking (read the back story in this post), tonight I enjoyed a very nice Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
I also enjoyed some awesome music tonight. First up is Natural Born Lover by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings:

Followed by Jenny by Walk the Moon - the regular version and an acoustic version because I can't decide which is better (which do you like better?):

And, finally, anything by Ben L'Oncle Soul but especially Soul Man here's the English version, followed by the uber-cool French version (you can choose your favorite!):

Do you listen to music while you do Christmas baking? Do you have any other good music to share?

Christmas Cards from My Stash.

2011-12-14T19:07:00.000-08:00

I'm finally getting a break from work and have been getting in the Christmas spirit. I am thankful and excited about all the Christmas cards I have been receiving from all over the world! That's just one of the fun benefits of blogging, I think.

Each year, I send out two groups of Christmas cards. My talented, crafty friends who I know appreciate a handmade card get one of those. My noncrafty (but still wonderful) family and friends receive a photocard. I ordered my photo Christmas cards yesterday, and they should arrive by the end of the week. I also started addressing handmade cards for my crafty friends. And then I realized I didn't have enough!

I had been saving this post from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog about using your stash because I thought it would be a fun thing to do when I got a bit more time. So, I reviewed and started to go through my stash to find some things to make another dozen or so cards. And I had so much fun!

Most of these cards combined a variety of embellishments in my Christmas stash, including patterned paper, stickers, tags, paper piecings, felt fusion, etc. It was totally fun to mix and match things. I hope the recipients like their cards. How are you coming on sending and receiving cards?

Class Review: Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party

2011-12-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

ATC's Inspired by Prompt 6 in Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party class: Printables. These are for the element ATC swap and feature element 64 gadolinium, which is used in MRI's and the green phosphorous in color TV's.

I'm having such a hard time trying to review this class. On one hand, I really got a lot out of it (learning some new techniques and revisiting old ones to complete lots of pages), and I found it to be a good value for the money. On the other hand, I ended up vaguely dissatisfied at the end of it. Perhaps I would summarize my feelings this way - it was a great class until it wasn't anymore.

The class was scheduled to run from Oct. 17 until Nov. 25 - with 25 prompts plus some videos and other goodies - all for only $18 U.S. The problem is that somewhere along the line, the flow of the class fell apart. Near the end of the class, Shimelle hosted an online party which was open to the class participants, as well as other blog subscribers. The online party also had a strong Christmas focus as Shimelle was gearing up for her Journal Your Christmas class. For me, this led to a great deal of confusion about what to do and when the class was actually over. And then, Shimelle had a bit of a personal issue (finding herself having to move living quarters on short notice) and JYC started up. The upshot of all this was that class participants received the final class prompt yesterday (on Dec. 11). It contained a bonus pdf booklet of sketches and access to another class (both for free!). The whole experience ended up being very disjointed, in my opinion.

I loved the first 20 or so prompts. I found them inspirational and informational. And well worth the price of the class. If it had ended there, I would have given the class a solid A or A-. But, as a result of the confusion, I would give it a lower grade. The confusion frustrated me because I like organized, linear classes. I like to start a class, try hard to keep up and then finish it and call it done.

So, overall, I think I would give the class a B or B-. But I wonder if I'm being too harsh. I know a lot of you took the class, and I'm interested in what you think? Am I being too harsh? Did you experience it differently? And, for those of you who didn't take the class, I have a different question. When reviewing a class, how much weight should be given to the price of a class? Should a free or inexpensive class be judged differently than a more pricey class? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Class Review: 12 Days of Christmas 2011 (Cheryl Johnson)

2011-12-11T21:52:00.000-08:00

I just completed Cheryl Johnson's photography class "12 Days of Christmas 2011," and I would say it was a winner! CJ offers this class free each year to a large (but limited) group of students. If you get the chance to sign up for it next year, I would definitely say that it's worth your time.
CJ sends a new photography prompt each day from Dec. 1 - Dec. 12. The prompts are a nice combination of technical prompts (setting white balance, creating bokeh, shooting lights at night) and composition challenges (self-portrait, groups, outdoor pictures, etc.). There's a forum and (new this year) a facebook group. The forum was not overly crowded, so it was easy to examine each photograph that was posted (about 40 per prompt). A lot of the posted work was really inspiring, and I got lots of good ideas from the perusing the images there. Classmates were pretty good about commenting - most of my photos received feedback from 5-10 people. CJ patrolled the forum to answer any questions but didn't really offer much feedback on the images posted during the course. (Although it's possible she may add comments next week.)
Like most online classes, you get out of it what you put into it. I only completed 9 of the 12 challenges (I skipped a photoshop tutorial, a group portrait exercise and one on writing with light). But those nine prompts taught me a lot! I now really know how to use the white balance setting on my camera, and I learned how to take beautiful night pictures (like the one at the top of today's post; please click on it to enlarge and enjoy the details). As a result of this class, I have already taken some beautiful holiday pictures, and I know that the photographs I take during the rest of the month will be better because of what I learned during these twelve days! Overall grade: B+
Anyone else have thoughts on this class? How are your December classes going so far?

Ten on the Tenth: Where Will He Go to University?

2011-12-11T06:47:00.000-08:00

If you were to interview this boy about his college plans, he would tell you that they include a desire to try to play soccer at that level. Here's his current top 10 favorites (plus a few extras for good measure):
1. Santa Clara University
2. University of Washington
3. University of Oregon
4. University of California, San Diego
5. University California, Santa Cruz
6. University of California, Santa Barbara
7. California State University, Sonoma
8. Gonzaga University
9. University of Colorado, Boulder
10. Oregon State University
11. University of San Francisco
12. Seattle University
13. Holy Cross
Chosen for a combination of ability to play soccer, reputation, cost, collegiate environment, learning environment and location. He's just a junior, so he won't actually begin applying until next fall. But this is the year to start thinking and dreaming about where his future lies.
Anyone have any experience with these? Or any reactions?
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Offered as part of Shimelle's Ten on the Tenth Project. See more here.

A Little Weekend Pretty

2011-12-09T09:18:00.000-08:00

Still swamped at work. Still swamped with kids' volunteer work at school (Henry's soccer team and sports team photos for Clara's school). Won't get to really start thinking about Christmas until next week . . . at the earliest.
So, in the meantime, here's a little weekend pretty for you.
Enjoy.

Camera Geek Talk

2011-12-08T06:41:00.000-08:00

I'm enjoying Cheryl Johnson's Twelve Days of Christmas photography class and finding it somewhat manageable to squeeze into my hectic work schedule. The class is a nice mix of composition and technical assignments. I'm learning a lot, in particular, about shooting inside my house (something I do fairly rarely). I'm learning about setting my white balance, which is really crucial. I'm also learning about using some different camera settings. I have to admit that I get pretty stuck on using the "running man" setting and "aperture priority."
So, I'm curious. For those with DSLR camera, what settings do you use most? And why? Do you use the "p" setting (program) and, if so, what else do you set? Are you a manual kind of gal? If so, are there certain settings you go back to time and time again?

Storytelling Sunday: Connected Memories

2011-12-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

I woke up Friday already exhausted. It was going to be a very long day at the end of a very long week. I couldn't remember the last time I had a chance to stop and breathe and relax, to sit quietly and just be. I had to skip my Thursday morning workout because I was drowning in work assignment, family commitments and (most of all) volunteer work for my son's soccer team. I had driven the team to a soccer game on Thursday night, not getting home until after 10:00 p.m. And, on Friday morning, I rolled out of bed early because the soccer team had agreed to run a snack bar at a huge wrestling tournament hosted by the high school. I was in charge of opening the snack bar and overseeing it from 7:45 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. and then returning to oversee the closing shift from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. I had arranged for a delivery of tamales to sell at the snack bar, and at mid-morning, the tamale man arrived.
They smelled delicious - warm and savory and like my Grandmother's kitchen. I grabbed a couple of tamales and sat down in the sunshine to enjoy the taste of memory, mixed with chicken and masa and chili. And in that moment, so many memories came flooding back. Of the time I made tamales with my Abuelita in her kitchen in Texas. Of the many trips with my mom to neighborhood kitchens to pick up tamales for Christmas. Of sitting and sipping tequila with my father over a steaming plate of tamales on Christmas morning.
For me, tamales are inextricably bound up with Christmas memories and my Latino heritage. They connect me with my childhood and with the generations who have come before me. And, since my son's soccer team is almost entirely Latino, they also connect me with my present and my future. I took a deep breath, finished my tamales and returned to the snack bar. Thoughts of my past and my future swirling through my head.
At the end of the day, after my closing shift, I bought a dozen tamales, and passed them out to the students who had helped during the day and others I met as I walked across campus. Every person who took one smiled in anticipation, as if I had given them a gift.
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This story is offered as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday and is inspired by her Christmas Club storytelling project. The photograph above features a fork from my grandmother's silver plate table setting and a lace doily which she made. For more stories, go to this link.

Starting December Off Right

2011-12-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

This Christmas,
I will believe . . . in myself
I will be grateful for . . . happy moments with my children and husband
I will always remember . . . to breathe.

Journaling prompt from Shimelle. It will be a challenging month. I won't actually really start thinking about Christmas until the kids are out of school mid-month. But that's okay.

Photography prompt from Cheryl Johnson's 12 Days of Christmas, playing with White Balance. I shot it with my WB set to "shade." I'd never even realized that was an option because I hadn't realized there was a second page of WB options to scroll to on my camera menu!

December Self Portrait

2011-11-30T22:00:00.000-08:00

For the 12 Days of Christmas photography class I'm taking, the pre-class assignment was a festive self-portrait. Since I collect Nativity sets, I chose the first one I ever bought (a egg shaped one from El Salvador) and a ceramic angel made by my mom. I had intended to take one of me holding the angel holding the Nativity, but I liked this image much better. Although it's technically a self-portrait (that's my hand), I think it's a bit of a dodge not to include your face, so here's the other SP I took:

To take these, I hauled a full length mirror outside. This is a technique I've seen before, and I reallly wanted to try it. Since I was in a rush, I only got as far as the back deck. But I like the results, and some time I will take the mirror all the way out to the back field and beyond.
Got any good self portrait tips to share?

Gypsy's First Hair Cut

2011-11-29T22:00:00.000-08:00

Before and After:

What a difference!

It feels like we have a new dog. LOL! The groomer thinks she's probably a Maltese/Silky Terrier mix. Whatever she is, we love her a lot!

Comings and Goings

2011-11-29T06:37:00.000-08:00

I'm in the middle of a very busy time for me - the semester is ending soon. As a Professor, it means that examination time is coming. I've been writing up finals, scheduling review sessions, answering questions from panicky students, etc. As a parent, I am pushing my kids to finish their terms strong and will soon be helping them study for their final exams. On the other hand, this is my last week of actually teaching. So, I will not have to prepare four days a week and then perform in front of a classroom full of students (one of my classes has 100 students; the other 45). I have a much easier semester in the new year - just a practical skills class on alternative dispute resolution, which meets one day a week.
Also on the horizon is the start of my son's High School soccer season. I'm the "team parent," so I spend a lot of time helping the coaches organize the administrative side of things.
And, oh yes, Christmas. I am going to be starting Cheryl Johnson's 12 Days of Christmas photography class on Dec. 1. I am planning to resist the temptation of Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas and Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas.
I'm also hoping to do some art journaling during December, including some pages on which I draw. I found Carla Sonheim's great blog about drawing, and each Thursday she features a blob to use as the basis for a drawing. On Thanksgiving, she posted this one:

Her only instructions are to print, turn the paper around and around, draw, color. I haven't had a chance to get my paints out yet, but I did have a bit of fun sketching the bit of silliness on the top of today's post. What do you think?

Thanksgiving Blessings: Family

2011-11-27T12:47:00.000-08:00

Just back from a very full Thankgiving weekend, filled with family and fun! We started the weekend visiting with my side of the family. That's me with my two sisters (Tricia and Cordelia), flanked by two of my nieces.

And my brother, Pete, with his beautiful family.

My younger brother, Tom, and his new girlfriend.

Finally, me, my brother Tom, sister Tricia, brother Pete, brother Carlos (who hosted), and sister Cordelia. My brother Carlos lives in the house where we all grew up, and I'm sure my parents are smiling up in heaven, happy that we all still gather together to share the blessings of family.
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We then had an interlude of this:

Surrounded by one of our soccer families:

Henry's Juventus team (he's front row, left) played in a soccer tournament in San Diego. That was the main reason we traveled south for the holiday. The team went a disappointing 1-2 and failed to advance, but they did win their last game (of the tournament and the Club season) 4-2, and Henry scored a goal. Plus, they had a ton of fun hanging out together and Henry enjoyed a tour of U.C. San Diego (where they played all their games). He's going to apply there next year - probably to the Thurgood Marshall or Eleanor Roosevelt colleges.
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And then it was time to see Paul's side of the family, where we got to see his parents visiting with their newest great grandchild:

And, by the end, we were all dog tired (yes, Gypsy made the trip with us):

So, how was your weekend?

Thanksgiving Tutorial Repost: Altered Houses

2011-11-25T22:00:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I'm reposting a couple of tutorials. This one is on how to create an altered house. I developed for a blog hop I hosted a while ago. The starting point is a baggie filled with two pieces of mat board or card board (one square, one triangle), a variety of coordinating colored cardstock and patterned paper, a few images and a variety of embellishments. The rest of the tutorial describes what I did with these. Enjoy!

Welcome House Party guests and anyone else interested in altered houses! Several people asked for a tutorial on making altered houses, so I thought I would walk you through the creative process I used to make this house, which I call my Beach Shack. I hope you find the tutorial useful. I started with an envelope of supplies, which included the following:

I began by looking at the supplies to decide what kind of house they suggested and whether I wanted to go with it or change it entirely. I thought these supplies suggested a beachy, funpark kind of theme, and I liked that. [If I'm starting from scratch (without a bag of supplies), I usually start with a theme in mind and pull out supplies (images, paper, embellishments) which support that theme. Or, I might start with an image that calls to me and then choose supporting papers and embellishments.] The next thing I did was to think about any of my own supplies that I might want to add - things that had a similar feel and color scheme. I pulled out a few things, including paint, ink, brads and some 1940's pictures of women in swimsuits:

From here, I basically proceeded to follow the three steps that I outlined earlier in my collage tutorial: create a background; add an image; and add embellishments. You can find that tutorial here. It's truly not so different than what your probably do in making cards or scrapbook pages.
Step 1: Background. To create a background for my house, I considered a variety of different ways to use paper and paint to cover my house. I started with these three papers:

I liked this basic approach, but I really wanted my beach shack to have a rustic feel, so I tried out my two paint colors to see if either would work:

The brown seemed too drab. I liked the blue, so painted the bottom half of the house blue. I still wanted it more rustic, so I considered using either crackle paint on top of the blue or spritzing brown ink onto the blue.

Since my crackle paint was a little dried out (and also drab), I decided to spritz the bottom with brown ink. I also used brown ink to ink the edges of all the papers and the edge of the blue. Then I glued the papers in place, and my background was done:

Step 2: Images. I decided to use two images: the elephant from the envelope and a 1940's woman doing a handstand. I double-matted the elephant, single matted the woman, and placed them on the house:

Step 3: Embellishments. When it's time to decide on embellishments, I usually try a few different variations to see what I like before I glue anything down. I used a selection of things from the envelope and from my stash for my first pass:

I thought this looked pretty good, but thought it felt a little plain still. I wanted to add something else, and I realized I hadn't used any of the cool gingham ribbon from the envelope. I tried out the idea of putting some under the roof line or maybe some squares in the lower right corner of the house:

I decided I liked it along the roofline, but not so much on the house. I decided to put some yellow brads in the lower right instead. I adhered everything to end up with this:

I liked it pretty well, but I felt like it still needed one more element in the upper left hand corner of the house. I rooted around on my desk and found a cream-colored star button with orange polka dots. The orange pulled some orange out of the elephant picture. I adhered the star with yellow brads, and my beach shack was complete! [Just to be sure it was complete, I toyed with the idea of adding something else (small shells, a flag on top, flowers), but they all made it feel cluttered.]

A few things about the design that I think work well. The color scheme followed the gallon-quart-pint formula (where you use approximately 70% of your main color - blue; approximately 25% of your supporting color - brown; and approximately 5% of your third color - yellow) which often works for me. The vertical line of the brads reflect and balance the vertical image of the woman doing the handstand (she's a friend of my Aunt's, by the way), the star with the circular brads reflect and balance the picture of the elephant on the round ball. Like many of my collages (or scrapbook pages or cards), there's a background, a title (live simply) and then three embellishments (tickets, star and brads). Everything (color, images, embellies) supports the theme of a Beach Shack. I've never studied design, but I think this is why the house works for me to feel balanced and complete. Usually when I'm creating, I don't think consciously about any of these design principles, but I can look at the completed product and describe them (and I find it an interesting exercise). If I'm struggling with a project, then I usually try to think about design principles to find out what is or is not working.
I didn't use everything that came in the envelope or that I pulled out. Here's what I had left over (it's probably enough for another house - LOL!):

A few additional thoughts. There were other directions to go with the background and embellishments. For instance, I considered painting the roof brown or using a brown paper on the roof piece and then cutting some of the flowers out of the patterned paper to decorate it. I also thought about cutting out some of the compass designs and using those as part of the background on the house or cutting little triangular flags out of the yellow paper. Any of these could have worked. Second, if the theme suggested by the supplies in the envelope doesn't speak to you, feel free to substitute for any or all of the supplies. Third, just play with the embellishments until you find something you like. As Paul Gardner said, "A painting is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places." I love my beach shack. I think it's an interesting place to stop and spend a few moments. It might even be a fun place to have a house party . . .
I hope you found this tutorial useful. If so, I'd love feedback as to what was helpful. If not, polite suggestions as to what to add or delete are always welcome. Party on!

Thanksgiving Tutorial Repost: Collage ATC

2011-11-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

I'm reposting a few tutorials this Thanksgiving weekend - enjoy!!

Since I started blogging, I've had a couple of different requests from people for some information on "how to" collage. So, I'm posting this tutorial with a very simple 3-step method for making a collage. For my "canvas"or size, I chose to make ATC's. An ATC is a 2.5x3.5" piece of artwork. You can read more about ATC's in this blog post. You can choose any size of "canvas" on which to collage. I've collaged on dominoes, and you can see some of mine in this p hoto. Or you can go larger. I chose to work on two different themes for my collage ATC's - chosen from two of my favorite challenge blogs. The Scrappy Tree is looking for "steam punk" ATC's. Steam punk is a style that blends Victorian age images with explorers and marvelous machines. You can read about their ATC swap here. The Something Completely Different blog is featuring artwork associated with different letters this month, and this week's challenge, posted here, is to create something based on the letter "B." Once you've decided on your canvas and theme, you can start the three steps.

Step 1: Background

You can choose almost anything as a background: patterned paper, paint, cardstock, etc. I started with these four backgrounds - two patterned paper (map), one spritzed with glimmer mist and one painted background:

Step 2: Image

Since I was thinking "steam punk" and "the letter B," I chose two stamps that fit these themes: a Victorian Boy and a Victorian Hot Air Balloon. Both stamps are by Club Scrap:

I then cut the images out and placed them on the backgrounds:

I decided to mat a couple of the backgrounds to give them a little more weight. The boy on the yellow painted background wasn't really working for me, so I decided to mat him:

Better, but it still wasn't working for me. So, I decided to add more to the background. Since Steam Punk incorporates a lot of gears and clocks, I grabbed a Tim Holtz gears & clocks mask and masked the background with black ink. Much better!

Step 3: Embellishments

Now you'e ready to finish off your collage with a few well-chosen embellishments. Three is usually a good number to use. If you look at my finished Steam Punk Boys, you'll see that for the one on the left, I added a spinner to his hat (1), the title "punk" (2), and a pair of photo turns (3). Even though these are technically more than three embellishments (the title is four letters and there are two photo turns), the eye perceives them as three elements. For the finished collage on the right, I added a hat (1), a strip of words (2) and a pair of circles (3). My finished balloon collages are below. The one on the left has a yellow brad, a spinner and a title. The one on the right has a strip of tickets, a small Victorian conductor and a title.

There you have it! Three easy steps that can be followed to make a collage. If you go back and look at the photo of my collage dominoes or at any of the ATC's in my old post, you should be able to identify the background, the image and the embellishments. For those attending the house party, these steps can also apply to your house (I'll post more about that later). I also wanted to let you know that the house party is getting rather loud and noisy. The neighbors are threatening to call the cops. So I'm going to cut off sign-ups pretty soon. There's only room for a few more before we blow the doors off this joint!

Thanksgiving Tutorial Repost: Corner Stitching

2011-11-23T22:00:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving weekend, I'm reposting a few tutorials. Let's start with a simple technique you can use on a card or scrap book page. You can see a page with this technique(and read an interesting story) at this link. Let me know if you use this technique. Enjoy the tutorial!

This week's challenge over at the Gingersnap Creations blog is "stitching." You can see a variety of wonderful projects at this link. Since I'm sewing challenged, I decided to create this card with one of my favorite stitching techniques: corner lacing. When I want to use this technique, I start with a template like this one:

I use it to punch holes into the paper I will lace on. Then I pull waxed linen thread or other fiber in and out of the holes in alphabetical order. It's quite easy, and I love the effect it gives. Let me know if you give it a try; I'd love to see the results.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

2011-11-23T07:17:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow in the United States, we will celebrate Thanksgiving, but many people make a four day weekend of it. Some even start a day early and take off Wednesday as well. I have to work today, but I've been thinking about the holiday already. The Thanksgiving tradition celebrates a feast provided by Native Americans to early American settlers to help them through the rough winter.

These days, the holiday is usually celebrated with a large meal, shared with family, on Thursday (often featuring a turkey). Many people start their Christmas shopping on Friday, and stores open early (anywhere from midnight to 4 am) for "Black Friday" sales (so named because the amount of shopping is said to help the store's sales enough to turn their annual profits from the "red" into the "black.") There's a lot of American football on television.

I love the modern parts of Thanksgiving which emphasize sharing a meal with family and friends. And I love the traditional part of Thanksgiving which emphasizes the idea of community sharing. I'll be enjoying some family time this long weekend and so will be away from my blog. But, in the spirit of sharing, I'll be leaving reposts of tutorials I've done. I hope you enjoy them. I'd also love it if people would a favorite Thanksgiving memory in comments (or, for those of you who don't celebrate Thanksgiving, a favorite memory of community sharing).

Alice in Wonderland Cards

2011-11-20T15:23:00.000-08:00

Quite a while ago, a friend of mine gave me an Alice in Wonderland card kit. It had 8 card blanks and focal images, a good assortment of printed paper, lots of Wonderland charms, some ribbon and a whole bunch of tags. I kept the kit in my scrapbook bag and would work on them now and again at a crop or when I had a bit of time.

But today I decided that I wanted to finish them up and get them out of my project bag. I had three left to assemble and then (to really complete the project), I added sentiments to the ones that needed them and put away all the left-over bits!

Very happy to have them complete - another project done and out of my bag. Yea me!
I'd wanted to make them mostly birthday cards, but sometimes I couldn't find a birthday sentiment that would fit.
I have two bins with about 100 completed hand made cards in them, with all varieties of sentiments - birthdays, new babies, graduation, get well, sympathy, thank you, father's day, mother's day, st. patrick's day, etc. - plus plenty of blank ones. This is pared down from the four bins I had last year at this time! At Christmas time, I will bundle up packets to give to relatives as presents - mostly to my female relatives (because they appreciate them) to go along with gift cards (because I hate giving just a gift card without anything tangible). They seem to appreciate it! Would you appreciate a gift of handmade cards to send out? Have you ever given such a gift?
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Today I am grateful for: a son who can drive himself places and all those adults who volunteer to coach (and drive) my children.

Let's Talk Drawing and Sketching

2011-11-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

When I teach art journaling class, I encourage my students to draw on their pages. Nothing complex - simple shapes like hearts and houses. Maybe a bird. But that's as far as I've ever taken my drawing, so I think it's unfair to push others to places where I am not comfortable venturing myself. But I've been thinking a lot lately about drawing and sketching. (I even drew the self-portrait above). So, I thought I'd open up the topic. Do you draw in your art journals or other crafting?
If so, why? What draws you to it? And how did you learn? Do you have any great resources to suggest? Or blogs that feature drawing or sketching?
If not, why not? Is it lack of interest? Lack of ability? Fear?
Here's a few cool links I have found lately:
Carla Sonheim's blog is all about drawing, and she has a very cool book that I would like to buy. I found her through this post at Alisa Burke's blog;
Jean of Blue Birds Living in the Meadow draws and paints in her journals;
Gloria it totally free and folk-arty in her drawings and paintings, which feature Frida and other Latina inspirations;
Pippa learned how to draw doodle birds and has established a wonderful business around it
Laurie in her Lone Black Bird incarnation occasionally draws and sketches.
Carrie at Rosalind Revival shares her Grandmother's Journals in posts like this one;
One of my blog friends went to Africa this summer and drew all kinds of wonderful sketches in her travel journal, but I can't remember who that was? Let me know if it was you!
I'll leave this topic up for a few days, as I'd love some input! ("Let's Talk" is a semi-regular series designed to inspire frank discussion and sharing of information on issues relating to photography, art and blogging).
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Today I am grateful for: My work colleagues who are smart and interesting and, actually, a lot of fun.

Ho, Ho, Ho

2011-11-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

I recently found a baggie with 18 of these Santa images, which I stamped last year using one of the techniques from Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas series and some strips of vintage music paper. I even had a mock-up of something similar to the card on the left. Another unfinished project. . . sigh.
So, I found some appropriate red and green paper and whipped up these cards. Felt great to get that project out of the unfinished column!
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Today I am grateful for: those people who have confidence in me and, thus, inspire me to be better.

Fun with Tags

2011-11-16T22:26:00.000-08:00

I had a long day today and wanted to have a bit of creative fun to take the edge off the day. So, I pulled out the counterfeit kit I made yesterday and decided to make some tags that I could use on my vacation pages. I thought it would be a good way to use up some of the decorative brads I had and create some easy embellishments to go with pages about gardens, English countryside, villages, Cambridge and London. I made five sets of three tags each, and I really like them!
What do you do when you just have a bit of time and want to be creative?

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Today I am grateful for: pretty paper and sparkly embellishments.

Counterfeit Kit: November

2011-11-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

I haven't played along with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge in a while, but since I've been back in the scrapping mood, I decided to put together a kit for November. I plan to use it to scrap some more of my vacation pictures from our trip to England. I started with the "reveal" from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog, here.:

It's the Autumn Splendor kit from Scraptastic. I selected a variety of card stock in blues, greens, maroons and browns. The patterns tend toward florals because I'll be doing lots of gardens and countryside:

I added tags, journaling spots and alphas in coordinating colors:

And ribbon, brads and embellies in a travel theme:

I ended up really excited with my kit, and I wish I could just sneak away for a weekend with my kit, my photos, my trimmer and adhesive to see how far I can get.
And, if you're looking for some inspiration, check out the "tag you're it" challenge which the CKC blog just posted here. It's what really pushed me over the edge to pull together a kit.
Do you have any inspiring links to share?

My Cousin Keth

2011-11-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

My cousin Keth is a bit of a wild man/party animal. He also happens to be an aerospace engineer/rocket scientist. On weekends, he's having huge keg parties at his beach house, playing gigs or playing beach volleyball. During the week, he's flying to Florida to help NASA solve a problem. Only in California, I guess.

Keth's one of my Uncle Johnny's many offspring - I think he's the son of one of my cousins and so technically a second cousin. I feel a little bad not knowing for sure, but my Uncle Johnny had several wives and many, many children. And some of them moved out of Texas and over to Iowa. Keth is from that branch of the family.

But he walked back into our lives several years ago. He turned up in Southern California, on my brother Carlos' doorstep, and Carlos took him in. Because that's what the Ontiveros family does for family. And Carlos had a big old empty house. Keth didn't pay rent, but he did help Carlos on the many, many fixer-up projects that big old empty house so desperately needs. To be honest, I thought Keth was a drifter and was a bit skeptical of his motives. My bad. Turns out Keth is wonderful - smart, organized and quite able to take care of himself. He just needed a base of operations while he decided what job to take and where to live.

Keth usually drops by on holidays - at least for a quick "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Thanksgiving." And he always invites us to his various outrageous activities. Like when he and a group of his work friends dress up as "The Little Green Army Men" and compete in a flutag (a contest to see who can create a human-powered vehicle that will fly - off a pier - into the ocean!). Or when the same group decides to compete in a Soap Box Derby down a very steep hill in downtown Los Angeles. The soap box derby took place last May, and, since we were in town, we decided to go watch. A good time was had by all - but then it usually is when Cousin Keth is in the mix!

Is there a Cousin Keth in your family? Was there every a time in your when you were like him?

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Today I am grateful for: Parents who taught me and mine the importance of family.

Mail In/Mail Out and Pass the Book Recipient

2011-11-13T22:00:00.000-08:00

I'm afraid I've been quite derelict in acknowledging some wonderful goodies I've received in the mail. Ginger of Ginger's Life of Spice runs a wonderful mail art exchange, and, through that, I received a gorgeous package from Ruth with all kinds of goodies! Thank you Ruth! I've also recently (or not so recently!) received lovely pick-me-ups from Ginger and Amy. I love getting "good mail" and so will be reciprocating by sending out a few things in the near future. Here's what the outgoing looks like:

It's also time for me to "Pass the Book." The next recipient of Raw Art Journaling is Amy!

I will be sending it along shortly.

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Today I am grateful for: the moments of calm between the storms (quietly doing homework together or snuggled on the couch watching Hawaii 5-o).

Ghosts of Christmas Past (and last call for Pass the Book)

2011-11-12T17:54:00.000-08:00

Shimelle is hosting a Christmas Crafting Party for the end of the Pretty Paper Party, and one of her first challenges is to share a favorite Christmas project. Here's mine - the photo albums in which I scrap the photographs we get in Christmas cards. I've been doing it since 1988, and I'm up to Volume Three! The two kids on the upper right both have children of their own now, and the baby on the right hand side is a college graduate! It's so much fun to see how people grow over the years.
Shimelle also asked for people to share their previous Journal Your Christmas or December Daily albums. Here are mine:

I've done JYC three times. The first time I did it as an art journal with 5x7 cards, stored in a metal box (that's the one in the middle). You can see a slide show of the cards this link. The second time I did it, I created the album on the right - it has an expandable spine, and I placed Tim Holtz tags in between the journaling. You can see my blog post about it here. Last year, I took hipstamatic photos and made the album on the left hand side. You can see my blog post about its preparation by clicking this link and see the completed version at this one.
I completed one other challenge today, too:

The challenge was to cut an image out of patterned paper. I cut out the camera on the upper right hand corner of this title page for a mini-album I made today. It's a bit of a surprise, so I didn't want to photograph the completed project. While working on it, I experienced one of those really frustrating scrapper moments - I ran out of adhesive with just two pages left to complete! I took it as as sign from above that I should stop scrapping and switch to organizing and cleaning up. Which I did. I organized all the layouts I've been working on in their albums, put away a bunch of supplies and found my desk top! And then I found some more adhesive. Whew!
So, a very productive day. What about you?
Oh, I almost forgot. . . If you're interested in receiving the book, "Raw Art Journaling" as part of Pass the Book, go to this post and add a comment.
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Today I am grateful for: the sights and sounds of my coastal town which helped me enjoy my morning run - including friendly runners saying hi, some pelicans watching fisherman clean fish, and towers of crab pots.

Christmas Comings and Goings

2011-11-11T21:15:00.000-08:00

I finally finished scrapping my holiday pictures from 2010! They always seem to take forever. The page up top will be the last page in my 2010 album, and it was inspired by a Shimelle prompt to use some bling on a layout. I also did this layout of shopping downtown:

It incorporated two sketch suggestions from Shimelle's class.
All this has put me in mind to think about the upcoming holidays. There's three things I'm thinking about in particular, and I'm interested in your responses. First, are you making Christmas cards? Second, are you making any holiday gifts? Third, are you taking any holiday on-line classes (Journal Your Christmas, December Daily, etc.)?
As for me, I'm planning to not over commit this season. I'll make a few handmade cards for some of my crafty friends. Most of the people on my Christmas list will get a family photo card. I'm probably going to make some hand-made gifts, but I haven't figured that out just yet. I am not planning on doing JYC or December Daily, but I am doing "The 12 Days of Christmas" photo class. I'm not sure if Tim Holtz is doing the 12 Tags of Christmas this year, but, even if he does, I'll probably pass. What about you?
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Today I am grateful for: Those nights when all four of us are able to sit down together for dinner at the dinner table.

2011 Intentions: October 's Page

2011-11-10T21:55:00.000-08:00

This year I have been tracking my intention (to be fabulous at 50), my one little word (health) and a list of resolutions in three different art journals. You can click on the label "2011 intentions" below to learn more. I'm a little behind, but I'm catching up fast. Here's my October page, which is a little melancholy. To be truthful, October was a little tough around here - I had a lot of travel and was very busy with work and the kids. I didn't blog or create much, and my exercise routine fell off dramatically. But, I kept with it and now I'm definitely on the rebound. My journaling reads "In October, I was fabulous because I realized that treading water is better than drowning. I may not always be able to soar, but I believe in myself and have faith that things will get better as long as I don't give up."
So, am I right? Do you think you can be fabulous even when you're just barely keeping your head above water?

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Today I am grateful for: people who go out of their way to do the right thing.

Ten on the Tenth: Cards from Scraps

2011-11-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

I've been accumulating lots of scraps and ephemera odds and ends from the scrapbook pages I've been making for Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party class. So, I sat down to make some cards with them. These two Christmas cards came together very easily. But the rest of the scraps left me feeling uninspired. I did, however, find in my crafting bag a ziplock baggie full of photographs, matching card stock mats and card blanks to make a whole batch of photo cards. I have a vague recollection of putting this kit together for a crop once upon a time. So, I sat down with my paper trimmer and ATG gun and whipped up these cards in no time flat:

So happy to have them done! And extra happy to have them out of my bag!
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Today I am grateful for: Happy Surprises

Beyond Team Colors

2011-11-08T22:00:00.000-08:00

I am almost done scrapping my Christmas, 2010 pictures! Yea! I can't wait to finish them up and put away the holiday paper and embellies. But I thought I'd take a little break today and work on a prompt from Shimelle about scrapping on black cardstock. I scrap on black cardstock a lot, but I almost always pair it with orange. Because I live in Halloween-town. Not really - sometimes it just feels that way. Half Moon Bay is a self-proclaimed pumpkin capitol, and the High School colors are black and orange. The sports travel team colors are (almost invariably) black and orange. Plus, we follow the San Francisco Giants (whose colors are - you guessed it- black and orange). So, I took the challenge today to scrap on black cardstock, do a sports page and not do (primarily) black and orange. I pulled pictures from the soccer alumni game and paired black with deep teal. I love how this made the inevitable orange in the pictures really pop.
Once I finish my holiday pictures, I'm going to move on to working on a bunch of sports pictures. So, be prepared for lots of orange! Are their any team colors or recurring color pairings where you live?
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Today I am grateful for: a bright sunshiny day and a surprise day off!

Origami Takes Time

2011-11-07T22:00:00.002-08:00

A recent prompt from Shimelle in her Pretty Paper Party class suggested doing some origami and using it on a layout. Loved the idea, and I especially loved a folded circle border she did, which I believe she described as "easy peasy." Well, maybe for her! For me, it took quite a while to figure out. LOL! Luckily, I liked the results (I added some punched Christmas trees as well), and the embellishment was just the thing that I needed to finish up this layout from our visit to the Christmas tree farm (click on it to enlarge it and see more details):

The layout, without the origami borders and journaling square took me about ten minutes to put together. I spent about 45 minutes on the easy-peasy embellies! So, this layout ended up taking about an hour to make. I would guess that most of my layouts take about 30 minutes (now that I'm in the creative zone and am working mainly from a selected group of papers). What about you? How long does your typical layout take?
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Today I am grateful for: The fact that my schedule is lightening up a bit, and I am able to exercise more regularly.

Pass the Book: Raw Art Journaling

2011-11-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

I was the very lucky recipient of the book, Raw Art Journaling by Quinn McDonald. I received it from Melissa, who is hosting Pass the Book, Year 2. I have had the book for a while, so it is time to send it one its way. The book is a wonderful introduction to art journaling, and I think it would be particularly appealing to someone who is curious about what art journaling is all about and wants to know where to start. The book emphasizes making meaning with words and simple designs, so don't be scared away if you don't have a bunch of acrylic paint or pile of collage images! In the spirit of the book, I made this art journal page. My page was also influenced by two recent posts (here and here) by Dina Wakley at her blog, Ponderings, and it features a wonderful quote recently featured here by Deb of Paper Turtle.
If you would like a chance to check out Raw Art Journaling, simple leave a comment telling me so. In about a week, I'll pick the next recipient of the book and send it on to you. There is a bit of a catch. After you get a chance to read and digest the book, you need to offer it up and pass it to someone else! If you feel moved by the book, it would be nice if you posted a picture of how it inspired you. I'm sure anyone - a beginner, intermediate or experienced art journaler - would find something inspiring inside the pages.
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Today I am grateful for: All the creative inspiration I find in blogland.

Storytelling Sunday: The Summer of 1984

2011-11-06T07:15:00.000-08:00

In the summer of 1984, Los Angeles, California hosted the Olympic Games. It was also the summer after I graduated from law school and was set to take the Bar Exam, a three day pencil and paper marathon which law school graduates must pass before they can actually practice law. I knew that fate had consigned me to spend a couple of hours each day in a "bar exam review course" learning precisely what I would need to know to pass the exam and then lots of other hours studying and taking practice exams. I didn't know that my fate also include a summer filled with fun.
I suppose I could have lived with my parents and taken the review course somewhere near their home. But, for some reason which remains blurry in my memory, I decided to go live with my brother Petey and take the review course near him.
Perhaps the reason was because Petey had gotten me a job in his law firm. He worked in one of the most prestigious law firms in Los Angeles - not as an attorney, but in their mail room. When he learned I was thinking about getting a job, he made several copies of my resume (which was good but not really impressive enough to work at Munger, Tolles and Rickerhauser) and put one in each attorney's mail that day with a note that I was studying for the bar but was interested in working a bit that summer. One of the partners hired me to do some document review. To this day, when people see that I worked at that firm and then look at the rest of my resume, they sometimes ask how I managed to get that job. I reply with a sly smile, "I knew someone who worked in the mailroom." They don't believe me, but that's okay.
Petey's apartment was a rocking place, located one block from the beach. He and his friend John originally rented the two bedroom apartment, but when it got to be too expensive, they took in two more roommates to help share the rent. Shortly thereafter, they took in another renter, who was to sleep on the couch - he was an athlete in town to watch several of his friends compete in the Olympics. Which meant that my "official" bed was now a mattress under the stairwell. But that was okay.
Because it was a summer jam-packed with work and studying and countless hours of awesomeness. I remember the night before July 4 when we stayed up late, marinating ribs for the next day's BBQ, playing poker and drinking beer. And I'm pretty sure I won at poker that night! I also remember making chili for a chili contest and hours spent playing on the beach. Not to mention all the good times hanging out in the apartment, watching TV, talking politics and being part of a really vibrant life. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't pass the bar exam, what with all this living going on. But, I passed the exam, and that turned out okay, too.
Because each week day morning, Petey and I would climb into his little white pickup truck and drive to the office. I'd do some work, have lunch, often take a nap (I didn't bill those hours), do a bit more work, and then Petey would drive me across town to my bar review class. He'd come back and pick me up three hours later. Four nights a week, he'd add another two hour's worth of driving to his busy day just to help out his little sister. Because that's the kind of guy my big brother Petey is . . . salt-of-the-earth, kind, helpful and giving.
My big brother was born on November 13, 1959. If you look on the calendar, you'll see he was born on Friday the 13th, which is supposed to be unlucky. For all of us who know Pete, we know the opposite is true. We are very lucky to have him in our lives. His birthday is next Sunday, and I dedicate this Storytelling Sunday to him. Happy Birthday Petey! Thanks for everything.
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Today I am grateful for yoga, especially the new class added at my local exercise studio.

Memes: Scrapbook Starting Point and Other Favorites

2011-11-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

Look! I followed Shimelle's latest Scrapbook Starting Point post and made a one page layout with just one picture!
Just kidding! I made this companion page with 7 pictures:

To create this completed two page layout:

Because that's just the way I roll! Even though I inevitably change Shimelle's one page inspiration to a two page layout, I really like her starting point series, and it got me thinking about memes. Recently, when I asked how readers overcome a lack of creativity and blogging motivation, Helena mentioned using certain memes to get back on track, and I thought that was a really good insight. According to The Daily Meme, a meme is a question or list of questions posted weekly to which various people respond. In my blogging world, I think memes can be weekly, monthly or at some other regular interval and are not limited to answering a particular question or set of questions. Right now, there are two monthly memes in which I really like to participate: Shimelle's Ten on the Tenth and Sian's Storytelling Sunday (which will hopefully become weekly Christmas Club in December). Also, during November, I am participating in the Daily Gratitude meme, listing things for which I am grateful at the end of each blog post.
Do you have any favorite memes to share? Any that you host? Or are thinking about hosting? Leave links and ideas in comments please!
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Today I am grateful for: a renewed burst of creativity and using up very old supplies!

Working the Paper or Letting the Paper Work for You

2011-11-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

I'm still working on scrapping my Christmas pictures from last year, with a little help from Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party class. This prompt was about using kraft cardstock, paired with various shades of one color. I chose five different red patterned papers, plus red cardstock to use on this layout of my son Henry and his cousin Cristina (who loves him but refuses to call him by his name - she refers to him as "the boy"). I really like how it turned out. It's a bit different for me - it's a one page layout and is not as simple as my typical page. It also took a fairly long time to complete. I really had to work the paper to get it how I wanted it.
When I was done, I made this layout in about five minutes:

I scrapped the (few) pictures I took on Christmas Eve with Paul's family. And I like this layout, too! For this layout, I let the paper do the work for me because of the finished or complete nature of its pattern. I don't use papers like this very often, but maybe I will look for more of them in the future.
What about you? Do you work your papers or let your papers work for you?
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Today I am grateful for some new parents on the soccer team who are stepping up to help out and a goofy dog who makes me smile (as Paul says, "every circus needs a clown).

Remembering Simple Joys

2011-11-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a scrapbook page from our trip to the Tree Farm last Christmas. It looks a lot better if you click on it to see it larger and more clearly. It uses Club Scrap's Great Outdoors collection and inspiration came from Shimelle's prompt (in her Pretty Paper Party class) to cut out images from patterned paper, ink them and pop dot them. The journaling reads "It's wonderful to see the kids playing together happily, joyfully . . . It seems all too rare now that they've become teenagers. It's amazing what the outdoors, a tree swing and beautiful weather can accomplish. Even Paul got in on the fun. No wonder the tree farm is one of my favorite holiday traditions."
I love all the pictures on this page, and it was a good layout to do right now because Clara is being particularly challenging and driving her brother (and the rest of us) crazy. It's nothing outside the norm for a 13-year old girl, I'm sure, but that doesn't make things any more pleasant. Everyone tells me it will be alright - in 7 or 8 years! LOL! Any tips for surviving the teenage years with a spirited daughter???
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Today I am grateful for: Paul, recently retired and now working from home, is able to spend so much time helping Clara navigate through this stage of her life.

Halloween in My Community, 2011

2011-11-01T21:38:00.000-07:00

This is the first year where neither of the kids dressed up for Halloween, so the holiday snuck up on me a little. Paul and I went over to some friends' house in a neighboring community where Halloween is a BIG deal. All the adults dressed up:

The "1%"; Captain Kirk and a intergalactic conquest.

The "Girl with the Dragon Tatoo."

"Devil's Slide," which is the name of the stretch of highway just north of here, which slides into the ocean occasionally, causing all kinds of traffic problems. This was my favorite costume. Then we all went over to "The Witch's House," which is decorated with all kinds of pumpkins:

The neighbors next door were showing "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" on a wall in their garden:

And, another group of neighbors had set up a stand to give out "jello shots" (vodka-infused jello) in syringes to adults:

I think I'm going to like the post-kid Halloween stage!
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I'm adopting Deb's November Month of Gratitude idea, and I'll be listing things for which I am grateful each day in November. Today I am grateful for: having adult friends who know how to have a good time.

Inspiring Myself

2011-10-31T21:20:00.000-07:00

Now that I've finished scrapping my Seattle/kayaking vacation pictures, I decided to use the prompts from Shimelle's scrapbooking class to work on my Christmas pictures from last year. So, get ready for a bunch of holiday layouts! Today, Shimelle suggested finding one of your own layouts that you liked and using it as inspiration. I chose the layout above (from a previous vacation album). What I like most about the layout is the bold contrast of the colors and the way that bright blue print is featured prominently. I looked through my Christmas papers and found a bold green print that I loved. Unfortunately, I didn't have a full sheet of it. So, I adapted the idea and made the following layout:

I used a more subtle gingham print where I had used the blue flower print and then used the green print as an additional, smaller layer. I love how it turned out. As always, you can click on the picture to see a larger, clearer picture of the layout. The pictures are of my family's annual Christmas baking party. It's so much fun to get together with my brothers and sisters, and my kids love spending time with their cousins.

So, did you do Shimelle's Inspire Yourself challenge? If so, leave me a link. I love seeing the inspiration and what you did with it.

2011 Resolutions Catch-Up and Things Still Undone

2011-10-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

For 2011, I selected a "one little word" (health), an intention ("to be fabulous at 50"), and created a list of resolutions or goals. I've been tracking these in three separate art journals. I recently posted my September page in my intentions journal and you can click on the label "2011 intentions" below to see more pages. Today's art journal page is about my resolution to "organize, purge and don't buy supplies." I've been very good at not buying supplies this year - I quit the monthly scrapbooking club I've belonged to for ten years and have probably only shopped for crafting stuff three times. And I still have more supplies than I could ever use in my lifetime! I haven't been quite as good on the organizing and purging front, but I think I will be able to do a major clean our once my semester is over in early December.
When I look at the list of things still undone on my resolution list, I have to admit that two of them are things that I have been putting off for too many years: finish settling my parents' estate and create my own will and estate plan. I'm not sure why these are so hard for me to accomplish. I don't think they're technically hard or even that time consuming. But something else is keeping me from checking them off my list. Thoughts?
Which brings me a page from my one little word journal:

As good as I have been about getting healthy this year, there are three things that I have been avoiding: finding a doctor; getting a bunch of tests (you know, all those ones I should be getting every year); and going to the dentist. Not sure why I keep putting these off. I really want to do these before the end of the year. Any ideas for motivation?
All suggestions appreciated!

Let's Talk Arenas of Consumption

2011-10-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

Here's the last of my scrapbook pages from my vacation to the Seattle, Washington and the San Juan Islands. It was inspired by a prompt in Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party scrapbooking class that called for using a border punch. She mentioned that pulling out a tool like a border punch was a good way to try to get your money's worth out of it. I don't have any border punches, so I pulled out another punch instead.
The prompt did get me thinking about some of the recent popular tools in scrapbooking that I have avoided:
border punches;
copic markers;
texture folders;
die cut machines;
anything that requires sewing.
In each of these, I've congratulated myself on avoiding a large "arena of consumption" where I could easily find myself collecting one of everything in a given set (and then, too often, letting them gather dust).
There are, however, many arenas of consumption in which I dabble:
paint;
spray inks;
stencils;
ephemera;
paper.
Over time, I've tried to find my style so that I only dabble in those areas where I know I will use the products. I'm not perfect, but who is?
So, what arenas of consumption do you enjoy dabbling in? Are there some you now wish you avoided?
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"Let's Talk" is a semi-regular series to discuss interesting topics in scrapbooking, photography and paper crafting. I'll leave this up for a few days, in hopes of getting a good discussion. I use this label when I am sincerely interested in seeking people's opinions and input.

Converting a 1 page sketch to a 2 page layout

2011-10-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone for your nice comments on the scrapbook layouts I've been posting lately. Many of you have commented that you like how I fit so many pictures on a layout, and I really appreciate it. One of the reasons I scrap is because I like to have all my photographs in scrapbook albums, so I scrap A LOT of pictures. My style is also very linear and fairly spare, so I can put a lot of pictures on each page. I also almost always make two page layouts, and I usually have 7-9 pictures on the two page spread.
Today, I thought I'd share how I took Shimelle's Scrapbook Starting Point Sketch from this week and converted it to a two page layout. Her sketch is here, and it formed the basis for the page up top. I don't have any border punches, so I used a Heidi Grace chipboard border (Frost Blvd. line) instead. After following her cutting directions, I took the left over piece of blue patterned paper and put it on a matching piece of green cardstock for the right hand side of the layout:

I added more photos from my father-in-law's birthday party and used more of the chipboard for embellishments on both pages. Here's the finished two page layout:

The color scheme was inspired by a prompt in Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party class on using a neutral (I chose cream) with two brighter colors. So, there you have it - 9 pictures on 2 pages, plus room for embellishments and journaling. Do you usually make one or two page layouts? How many photos do you usually use?

A Last Taste of Summer (Scavenger Hunt Winners)

2011-10-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks for everyone's patience in waiting for the winners of the Summertime Scavenger Hunt. All-in-all, there were 23 people who participated. Here are some of people's favorites:
Amy's Rain

Sian's graffiti:

Yvonne's Castle:

Helena's Political Protest:

Karen's Someone Sketching:

Deb's Decorated Mailbox (A party inside):

Alison's Self Portrait (because she looks so fabulous!):

Mel's Wooden Bridges:

Jacky's graffiti:

An assortment from Debs (including a museum, cemetery, rooster and building made of glass):

Karen's Rain:

Jo's Stitched Together Forest:

The Mann Castle:

Ginger's montage (including her favorite, the flag):

Fiona's Building made of Metal:

Cindy's Hand Lettered Sign Giving Directions:

Irene's roadside memorial:

Miriam's fair (her whole flicker stream, here, is worth checking out):

Mary's Unicycle:

And, finally, my pirate:

Thank you to everyone who participated! I was thrilled by the response, and I will definitely do another one in January (but shorter and smaller) and a similar one next summer.
Now, on to the winners:
The Overachiever Category Prize goes to Mel! I'll be gifting her a Shimelle class.
The Snapshot/Team Category Winner is The Mann Family! They got all 21 pictures. I'll be sending her a gift card to get her photos developed and an album in which to put them.
There were three people in the photography category who got all 21 items: Yvonne; Jo and Marian. Alison found 20 and several people came in at 19. After a random draw from the top 3, the winner is: Yvonne! I'll be sending her a gift card to choose her favorite photo and have it enlarged onto an 8x8 "standout" from MPIX.
Finally, I put everyone else's name into a hat (Amy; Helena; Jo; Sian; Karen; Deb; Alison; Jacky; Ginger; Stacey; Fiona; Irene; Mariana; Laurie; Debs; Cindy; Mary B; and Karen) and pulled a random winner. The lucky girl is Stacey! I'll send you a gift certificate for some large format prints as well.
Winners, please email me at rinda1961@yahoo.com, so that I have your correct email address. Also, please include your mailing address. Thanks again to everyone for playing along!

How do you "use" an online class?

2011-10-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

Shimelle's current class, Pretty Paper Party, has been going on for a few days, and it has really helped me find my scrapbooking mojo and given me some nice blog content. As the class has proceeded, I've begun to think about how I "use" an online class and to wonder about how others do the same.

1. For me, I rarely follow the prompts precisely or follow a sketch exactly. Part of my issue is that I have a very distinct style - it's very linear and it incorporates a lot of photos. I almost always make two page layouts. This is very different from Shimelle's style, which tends heavily to pages with a single photo. Instead, I tend to use the prompts as a jumping off point or inspiration to create something. Today's layout, for instance, was prompted by a post about mixing polka-dots and stripes. I didn't do the mixing on this layout, but I did use her sketch to build the page on the left-hand side. The rest of the layout flowed very easily from that starting-point.

2. I also use classes as major motivation. I'm not sure why participating in a class gives me the freedom to set aside time to craft, but it does. And I'm really happy to be making progress.

3. For some classes, I use the class forum a lot to meet people and to discuss ideas. I haven't done that so much with this current class so far. But I really want to (and will this weekend) because it helps me connect with others and make new blog friends.

4. Some on line classes give great instruction via the PDF's or videos. I think that Shimelle's description of putting together a "kit" or "collection," for example, was fabulous!

5. Finally, I love using classes as blog fodder. Since my blog focuses on my art, it's nice to have new artwork to share. It's also nice to discuss the various prompts in the blogosphere with others who are taking the class.

So, I'm curious. How do you "use" an online class? And for those of you tired of the vacation photos and this kit/collection, take heart! I only have one more layout left to go!

2011 Intentions Catch-up: September Style

2011-10-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

During 2011, I chose a "one little word," an intention and a list of resolutions. I've been tracking these in three art journals throughout the year. If you click on the label "2011 intentions" below, you can see the pages I've created. I've fallen a bit behind in the project, but I'm catching up. My intention for the year is to be "fabulous at 50." My September journaling reads: "In September, I was fabulous because I embraced my curly girl self, I believe in the 'five minute face,' I love my jewelry wardrobe, and I know how to dress my body. In short, I have found my style - one I can live with - and I love it."
It's taken me quite a while to really embrace having a style. For most of my life, I just thought it was too much trouble and would take too much time to put the effort into looking nice. But I've watched lots of hours of "What Not to Wear" and I've gotten my body back into good shape (see the self-portrait in my art journal page). I purchased some new clothes at the end of the summer and purged the clothing which was outdated or didn't flatter me. I have realized that, at 50, a little make up really can go a long way to making me look better, and I've learned how to apply it in a quick and easy manner. I have a few key accessories - a great jewelry wardrobe of about a dozen pairs of earrings, 8 rings and 4 bracelets, plus a few scarves. So, now, I put in a little time every day before going out - it really doesn't take much. And you know what? I look fabulous!
What about you? Have you embraced a style? Are you willing to put in a little time and effort each day to make yourself look nice? Or do you let the world take you as your are?

Mixing Polka-dots and Stripes and Other Patterned Paper

2011-10-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

A recent prompt in Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party class involved mixing polka-dots and stripes. Easy-peasy! I'm a pattern mixer from way back when. I can actually identify the "when." It was when I bought Ali Edwards' book, "A Designer's Eye for Scrapbooking with Patterned Paper." I think the book might make my blog friend Amy break out in hives, but I found that it really transformed how I viewed my stash. For the layout above, I cut apart some polka dot paper and added it to the striped paper with the whale and also layered it onto the plain card on the left. (Remember, you can always click on a picture to enlarge it and see details). A few things I particularly liked about the layout was the extensive journaling, the use of ephemera, and (of course) the picture of the pirate. It's a fairly subtle mixing of patterns.
Want something bolder? Check this out:

I'm willing to admit that it's pretty bold. But I think it sill works. I don't feel like the pictures get lost in the patterns. And, since it comes from the kit I assembled for my vacation pictures, it "fits" with the surrounding layouts.
So, what's your comfort level in mixing patterns? Are you more like Amy or are you more like me?

Scrapping with Kits and Collections

2011-10-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

One of the recent prompts in Shimelle's current "Pretty Paper Party" is about putting together a kit or collection of patterned paper and then using it to create layouts. This approach makes some people, like my blog friend Jacky, very nervous. For me, this is second nature. I've been playing along with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog for quite a while, and they do this exercise every month. In fact, all the layouts I've been working on the last few days come from this kit, which I put together in response to a CKC prompt, to scrap my vacation pictures:

You can read more about the process at this link. I did add a few papers and embellishments that I found later and which were travel-related and themed for Washington state (yeah, I know the picture is upside down, but I can't help it!):

Check out yesterday's layouts (and today's and the next few days to see the collection in action).
I'm also quite comfortable creating blank layouts and filling them in later, like this:

Or this:

So, are you more like Jacky? Or more like me? If you're intrigued by the idea, I would definitely recommend checking out the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog and seeing other examples.

Confessions of a Paper Hoarder

2011-10-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

I have paper - lots of paper. So, I signed up for Shimelle's new class, "Pretty Paper Party," in the hopes that it would get me back in into the scrapping groove. And it has, which is a good thing, because in addition to lots of paper, I have lots of pictures to scrap. The layout above was inspired by one of her posts about using a pop of color with neutrals.

And this layout responds to a prompt about scrapping on a background of patterned paper. I believe that all the papers in this layout have a pattern (although I flipped one over for the yellow journaling block on the right hand side). Both of today's layouts feature pictures from our family vacation to the Pacific Northwest because I decided to work on finishing these up during the beginning of the class. You can always click on a picture of a layout to see more details.
So, now it's confession time. If you took all your paper and stacked it up, how tall would your stack be? All your paper - patterned, cardstock, 8.5x11, 12x12 - everything. I stand 5'5", and I think my stack would be just a smidge shorter than me! Is that awful? Or is that wonderful? How tall is your stack?

My Trip to D.C. (and what I'm reading)

2011-10-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

I don't think I mentioned that I traveled to my nation's capitol last week. Most of the time, I was stuck in a hotel working, but I did manage to get out a bit. One of my favorite things to do in Washington, D.C. is to visit the monuments at night. The newest monument honors Martin Luther King, Jr.

We went after dinner and had to wait a few minutes before we visited because President Obama was there for a private viewing! If my father were telling this story, it would be all about how he visited the monument with the President, but, truthfully, all we saw was his motorcade parked and then eventually driving away. The monument is stunning. A large carved sculpture with a wall full of quotations leading up to and away from it. I found it very moving, and I made this art journal page, featuring one of the quotes, to remember my visit.

You can read more about the Memorial at this link.
The plane ride is about six hours, and I put the time to good use doing some reading. I finished my current book group book, The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka. It was very good (I gave it four out of five stars). It's written in a lyrical, almost poetic way, in the first person plural. In a mere 130 pages, it manages to convey the experiences of a group of Japanese picture brides coming to America in the early 1900's up until the time of their internment during World War II. I also read The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. It was an interesting but overly ambitious novel about a family of women in Salem who can see the future and may or may not be related to witches. I ended up confused and a little frustrated at the end, but there were many aspects of it that I enjoyed. I gave it 3 out of 5 starts for being flawed but worth reading. I also gave 3 out of 5 stars to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, a nonfiction book about the woman whose cells were the first to be "grown" and used extensively for cell research. It was an important story to tell, but I don't think it was very well told. My biggest complaint was that the author spent too much time talking about herself and had a somewhat condescending view of the subjects. It also could have used an editor. Up next for my book group is The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Have you read anything good lately?

Getting Back on Track

2011-10-19T00:49:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I've blogged or done anything creative. I feel like I've been in a long pit stop and wasn't sure about how to get back out onto the track. Do you ever have that problem when you've been away from blogging or art-making? What do you do about it?
I've decided to start with baby steps. After enrolling in Shimelle's new class, I decided that the easiest thing to do was to make a few cards using her ideas. My card using paper strips didn't turn out so well, but I do like this one. And, you know what? After making the two cards, I scrapped four pages! I like them, and I'll share them tomorrow after I get a chance to photograph them.
And, I'm starting back with a really simple blog post. Baby steps. Because they work for me. What works for you?

Blog Amnesty and Quick Party Prize

2011-10-17T06:45:00.000-07:00

I have been terribly busy lately! As a result, I have made very little art. And, I've neglected my blog and blog visiting. Luckily, there's nothing bad going on around here. I'm just a bit overextended and terribly busy. So, I'm extending myself a bit of what my blog friend Mel calls "blog amnesty." I'm going to do a quick breeze through my reader and then clean it out to start from scratch. And I'm going to relieve myself of blog guilt for lack of posting.

Because I'm hoping there's a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm hoping to be getting back to making art. And blogging. And visiting. Because I still have a lot to share . . . some class reviews, the last taste of summer (and scavenger hunt prizes), some scrapbook pages, wonderful mail art received, and some new adventures in art.

And I have on more thing to share - a free pass to Shimelle's newest class "Pretty Paper Party." If you've never taken a Shimelle class or if you passed on signing up for this class and are now kind of regretting it, here's your chance to take the leap. Simple rule - the winner is the first person to comment who tells me that they are not already enrolled in the class. The class starts today, but I know we'll be able to catch up!

Ten on the Tenth: Memories of the Oakland Raiders

2011-10-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

Photo Credit: http://www.raider-dna.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/blanda-lamonica.jpg
This post may not make sense to many people outside the U.S. (and perhaps not even to many people outside my age and geographic demographic), but the recent passing of Al Davis, renegade owner of the Oakland Raiders American football team got me thinking. I wasn't a big fan of Mr. Davis, but I still had a strong reaction to news of his death. After wondering why, I realized something about myself that I didn't know before. I am a big sports fan, and the first team I ever followed was the Oakland Raiders. I hadn't realized before that the Raiders really mark the beginning of my life-long passion for sports. So, in conjunction with Shimelle's Ten on the Tenth posts, here are ten memories of the Oakland Raiders.
1. As a little girl, watching football with my father. It seemed important to him that I pick a favorite team, so I picked the Raiders. And I fell in love with the cast of characters, most of whom played in the late 60's and early 70's.
2. George Blanda, the Quarterback. Old, grey, distinguished. I think he reminded me of my dad.
3. George Blanda, the kicker. Yes, the same man. He'd throw for a touchdown and then kick the extra point. Or he'd kick a field goal. How cool is that? He continued as a kicker long after he stopped being a quarterback. Not surprisingly, he was the highest scorer in the NFL for a long time.
4. Daryle Lamonica, the mad bomber, quarterback following George Blanda. That's the two of them up top.

Photo credit: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_BJN9yiDLRQA/TLIN-SQrXqI/AAAAAAAAAPU/U_7bXKS-VMI/s1600/Football%2520NFL%2520-%2520Campioni%2520Fred%2520Biletnikoff.jpg
5. Fred Biletnikoff. Most awesome wide receiver. Ever.
6. Kenny "the Snake" Stabler. Quarterback after Lamonica. You can't make this stuff up.

Photo credit: http://product.images.fansedge.com/76-02/76-02907-J.jpg
7. Ray Guy. Revolutionized the role of punter. He looks like he weighed 110 pounds soaking wet, but boy could he make that ball fly!
8. Art Shell. First African American head coach in the NFL's modern era.
9. Jim Plunkett. Mexican American quarterback. And he went to Stanford. Talk about walking right through stereotypes.

10. Silver. Black. That pirate logo.
Where do passions begin? Are they with a person before birth? Or are they born and nurtured by experience? I don't know, but for me, one started sitting on the sticky Naugahyde couch next to my dad, watching a flickering black and white TV set. Thanks for the memories, dad, and for starting my life-long love of sports.

Coming out of the Shadows

2011-10-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

Hi Blog Friends,
I'm still here - just incredibly busy with real life!
I've been running a snackbar for a huge cross country (running) meet for the high school; taking team pictures for the middle school volleyball, cross country and flag football teams; attending meetings for school fundraisers; organizing an outing to a college soccer game for the high school team; arranging a dental appointment when my 16 year old told me he had a tooth about to fall out (turns out to be a baby tooth- at 16!); helping the 13 year old get ready for her big historical figure presentation (she dressed as Francis Scott Key); teaching full time; and watching my husband prepare to "retire" tomorrow (he's opening a consulting business).
Not much time for art (or blog visiting), but I did manage a shadow self-portrait. Can you tell what I'm doing?
Hope to come out of the shadows and into the light soon!

A Halloween Story - Storytelling Sunday

2011-10-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

It's October, and in America that means it's time for Halloween. I searched my brain for an appropriate tale to share this Storytelling Sunday. I considered a story from my childhood about running around our neighborhood collecting candy in a pillow case because a paper bag just could not hold all that candy (and the one family that gave out full size candy bars). Or a story from my adulthood about almost winning a costume contest at a Halloween Party when Paul and I dressed as Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein (realizing too late that we would have been a shoe-in for first place if I had been the monster and he had been the Bride). I considered a poignant story about watching the last elementary school costume parade of my children's lives or a funny story about trick-or-treating with out kids (which we do as kindof a rolling party, drinking wine and beer and visiting with friends along the way) and the year we stumbled upon an "eyeball" themed party.
Finally, I have settled upon a story about a Haunted House and the year Henry got his rodents mixed-up. The after-school program at the elementary school puts together a Haunted House each year. The students paint their faces as ghosts or zombies and build scenes of cemeteries and witch houses before dimming the lights and leading children through a variety of eerie vignettes. When Henry was in fourth grade (about 9 years old), I asked him what role he was going to play in the Haunted House, and he replied matter-of-factly "a hamster." I was confused and pressed him, asking for more details about what he would be doing, and he said "some zombies will be eating me." I was still confused, but he grew frustrated with my questions, and continued to insist that he was going to be a hamster.
On Halloween, I went to the Haunted House, waited in line, made my 25 cent donation, and followed the teacher through the door into the interior of the classroom, illuminated now by green strobe lights and eerie fluorescent blacklights. Our tour guide was dressed as a witch. She spoke in hushed tones and carried a flashlight, which she used to illuminate her face from just below her chin for maximum spooky effect. As we walked through the various scenes, with fog from dry ice blowing about us, I kept looking for my son, the hamster. We finally arrived at the last scene and there was Henry, laying on a table, has face painted green and a bowl with spaghetti arranged on his torso to look as if his belly had been opened and his intestines had poured out of his body. He was surrounded by "zombies" feasting on his internal organs and a fellow student dressed in a lab coat and fright wig. I listened as the teacher said, "And here is our final scene. It's the laboratory of the Mad Scientist. I guess he is done experimenting with that unfortunate human guinea pig."

What Fall Looks Like Around Here

2011-09-29T19:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a slice of Americana - the pumpkin farms have started to pop up all around my town. What does fall look like around you?
p.s. Scavenger Hunt winners coming soon! And Storytelling Sunday!

A Bit More About Busy Me

2011-09-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

The days are getting shorter, and my to-do list seems to be getting longer. So, while I try to find some time to tabulate the scavenger hunt results, here's a pretty fall sunset and a fun survey, which I found a Carrie's blog. I'd love to see your answers.
A. Age: 50
B. Bed size: Queen, shared with very tall husband, cat and dog!
C. Chore that you hate: Picking up other people's stuff
D. Dogs: Yes. But I admit it's an acquired taste.
E. Essential start to your day: Coffee (my husband makes it before he leaves in the morning)
F. Favorite color: Orange
G. Gold or Silver: Gold. I especially love rose gold and white gold.
H. Height: 5’5”
I. Instruments you play: None, although I always wanted to drum
J. Job title: Professor of law
K. Kids: Two teenagers.
L. Live: Northern California, twenty miles south of San Francisco (on the beach).
M. Mother’s name: Carmen
N. Nicknames: Rinda
O. Overnight hospital stays: None for me; spent two nights in hospital with Clara when she was one and a half.
P. Pet peeves: Drivers who don't use their turn signal
Q. Quote from a movie: “You should've bought a squirrel." Rat Race
R. Right or left handed: Right
S. Siblings: I'm one of six. I have three brothers and two sisters. I'm #3.
U. Underwear: Clean.
V. Vegetable you hate: okra (slimy, slimy, slimy)
W. What makes you run late: Being sucked into the computer vortex
X. X-Rays you’ve had: TMI
Y. Yummy food that you make: artichoke dip
Z. Zoo animal: river otters

Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt: The End

2011-09-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful day in San Francisco:

I followed some bees:

Until I found their hive:

Which meant that I have completed the summertime photography scavenger hunt! All 21 items! What about you? Did you play along? How many did you find?
If you played along this summer, please add a comment below. Let me know how many you found and what category you competed in (photography only, snapshot- photograph with team member, or overachiever - both categories). If you played along at all, please leave a comment even if you didn't find all (or even most) of the items, as I'll be drawing a random winner from all contestants. In addition, there will be at least one winner in each of the other categories. The winner will be the person who found and photographed the most items on the list. In the case of a tie, I'll flip a coin. Also, if you get a chance, please leave a link to your favorite photograph from the scavenger hunt list (or email me your favorite, if you don't have a blog). I'll create and post a list, so everyone can take a look.
I think that's it! I'll leave this post up all weekend, so you have time to finish up your posting and leave me a comment. If you have any questions, email me at rinda1961@yahoo.com
And a huge thanks to everyone for making this such a success!

Class Review: A Day with Mary Jo McGraw

2011-09-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned recently, this year's Scramp Camp featured the guest artist Mary Jo McGraw. She spent the day with us, teaching two actual classes (one on collage and one on coloring and card making) and the balance of the day hanging out with us answering questions about various techniques and products. The classes were fine. I made the canvas I posted about here and the cards posted above. I'd give the classes a solid B+ for giving good information and working with each student to create something that fit them individually. I have a recurring gripe about instructors not handing out written instructions, but that's a battle I seem destined to lose. Mary Jo also has lots of very strong opinions, and she's going to share them with you! Such candor may not be for everyone.
But . . . the amount of knowledge she possesses about products, stamping, art journaling, etc. is breath-taking! My favorite part of the day spent with her was when she taught us how to draw faces (see mine here) and answered questions about Ranger products and techniques. I wish I could have video-taped that portion of the day because it certainly rated a solid A for content and a willingness to share her secrets!
Speaking of classes, I signed up for Cheryl Johnson's next photography class, "Painting with Light: The Sequel." I'm really liking her mix of photography tips and photoshop lessons. Plus, for $30, it's hard to beat! Anyone else taking any classes now or in the near future?
P.S.
Just a little "squee" because I found out there's an observation bee hive at a children's museum about 1.5 miles from my work!
And a really big sigh of relief because I took Gypsy back to the vet today for a one month check-in, and my rock star vet Craig says that she's looking really good!!! We're continuing to decrease the amount of medication she's taking, and we're really beginning to think she's going to make a full recovery!