Hi blog friends! I haven't forgotten about you in the least! There's some catching up to do, for sure.
First...I want to say hi and thank you and welcome to all the wonderful folk who showed up at the Sinagua PTA craft bazaar last Saturday! You are the reason I keep coming coming back every year. Special thanks, as well, go out to all of you who've expressed interest in receiving announcements and taking classes in the coming year. I'll have a class schedule drawn up by Christmas, to be posted and sent out right after the holidays. What fun we have to look forward to! There's nothing more satisfying to me as an artist than to share the joy and passion I feel for creating!
I've been out of the studio for a little over a
week now, which is pretty normal after a show, BUT we've been
super-busy, nevertheless.
Goodness, it's SO not like me to go for over a week without posting an update to all my blog friends! Here's what's been going on. Snow has been going on, my friends! The night after the Sinagua show it began snowing. And snowing. And snowing. By Tuesday night when it stopped (as all you Flagstones know) 30 inches of heavy wet white stuff had piled up in the front yard. Which isn't unheard of in Flagstaff, but you can guess what we were doing for several days...This photo was taken from the end of the driveway after clearing the sidewalk. We had run out of places to put it all, piling snow completely up to the mailbox and half burying the apple tree in the front yard. Then the next day found us shoveling off the roof. We lost power and both satellite dishes off and on for a couple of days, but we heat with wood and managed to be quite cozy through it all. By yesterday a good half of the snow had melted or evaporated, just in time for it to snow again today. The forecast is for a ho-hum 6 inches by tomorrow morning, but the way it's coming down this afternoon...we'll see. Glad we haven't decorated the yard yet!
Following the last show of the season, studio time finds me more directed toward greeting cards, mail art, and playing along with Tim Holtz's Twelve Tags of Christmas. FYI - he's extended the deadline for the 12 Tags contest to Dec. 31st, if you'd like to play along.
This year's holiday card uses some of the techniques I picked up at the Raevn's Nest art retreat in Wisconsin last October, from Bernie Berlin's
"Secrets of the Burnt and Bound" class. Since we celebrate Christmas, Solstice AND Yule, the "Rising of the Sun" theme just fit perfectly for all our friends. The main panel is loaded with different media and fun techniques! Let's see...it's collaged, and stamped, and heat embossed, inked with 3 different dye pads, layered with foil tape, gesso, and twinkling H2O's, then distressed and wrapped with string before applying the medallion focal point. The medallion has a big glob of heavy body gel medium underneath it, which makes the finished card highly dimensional and puts just a little bit more magic into it. I used this same motif on a bound journal recently, and will probably be playing with it some more in the near future.
When I haven't been in the studio or shoveling snow, I've been indulging another of my passions - knitting - finishing up (well...and starting) holiday gifts. It happens every year; summer and fall find me getting ready for the fall and winter shows and all but ignoring my Christmas knitting list. So the needles come out and I start knitting madly the first week of December. I'll probably still be finishing up a project or two in the car on the way to the ancestral homestead in Central Arkansas...It wouldn't be Christmas if I wasn't! LOL! Fortunately for me, it's a two day drive, and I have plenty of time on the journey. I've even been known to buy yarn in Arkansas to knit up on the way home...So, yes, I'm a total knit-wit! Here are a couple of projects I've finished up recently.
The white hat is from a pattern I found last winter at our local yarn store, and the beret is one of those make-it-up as you go along projects. Both will be presented with a simple knit scarf (which have yet to be knit of course...). There's another hat done,
with a matching poncho, a child's sweater which only needs buttons to be finished, and a whole slew of socks and gloves to be started! Knitting needles, yarn, hot chocolate next to a cozy fire, idly watching the snow falling outside the front window...Life is so good.
One of the best things about December for me, though, is that it's the time I plan out classes for the coming year. Developing new projects and ideas, stepping out classes and designing lesson plans, taking input from from prospective students and writing proposals, I get so juiced up for the coming year! The winter/spring schedule will be published right after the holidays, and input from all of you is an integral part of the process, so if there's something you're itching to learn, please drop me a line, okay?
Oh, heads up to all my Flagstone friends! About Memories and More, our locally owned scrapbook store, is having an awesome "Coffee Club" class this Tuesday morning. I'm definitely punching a hole in my day get over there for it. For more info and a great photo visit Kirsten's blog here: About Memories and More.
Well, this has become a very long post (making up for lost time...), and the snow has stopped falling, soooo, I'm off to shovel the sidewalks again. Til next time, thanks for visiting, and come again soon!
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