More Tales from the Valley of the Sun

  Goodness! It's been two weeks since we got back from Kelly's classes in Phoenix, and I haven't told the rest of the story yet! *forehead smacking* How time flies. Soooo...here's part 2 of our excellent adventure in the valley of the sun.

  We arrived at Frenzy Stamper early on Saturday to crawl through Debbie's amazing little shop, and to go "oooh aaah" over all the new stuff she'd brought in since the last time we made the trip down. "Oh! Hey, did you see this?" we call across the store at one another. There's so much to see that it takes a whole weekend of early arrivals, lunch breaks, and slipping out of class to thoroughly explore the shop.

  This is Debbie, the heart and soul of Frenzy Stamper, and one of my favorite people. Doesn't she just radiate fun? (You can check out her blog here.) We found loads of new tools and toys to bring home, as always...stamps and tape (Kris has a tape thing going on lately), cut and dry foam, perforated faux postage paper to use with the template we bought last time, color spritzers (one of MY newest shticks) and loads of other cool stuff.

  The night before, we had taken another Kelly class, Metamorphosis, and today was for Rejuvenations, her first two-day class ever,  an art journal we built from the ground up and then collaged. A busy two-day project.

  Moseying over to our table, Kris and I were tickled to see that our friend, Barbara, had found a spot with us. Isn't that one of the great things about classes: the opportunity to reconnect with people you know, and  to make new friends with people you haven't met? We had a fabulous group to play among, and while I didn't get photos of everyone, here's Barbara, mitering the corners of her cover:

   Most of Saturday was spent constructing the book itself: covering and decorating the bookboard,  joining  covers to the spine, laying in endpapers, and then sewing in cardstock signatures. Here's a new friend, Renee, striking a pose while sewing pages into her journal:

   Kelly, demonstrating how to sew pages into our covers:

    This is the inside of Kris' finished cover, ready to sew:

  This cover was made by Jane Eileen, who went slightly off the reservation to produce this lovely cloth spined book with button and ribbon embellishments.

And here's my funky cover at the end of the day. Needless to say, a fun time was had by all... 

   I'm going to confess to something many of you might think is a little silly. In addition to watching for the first/last saguaro on the way down the hill... I believe in fortune cookies. There, I said it. At lunch on Saturday, everyone went together for carryout Chinese to bring back to the store. Kris and I had brought lunch from Trader Joe's that morning and stashed it in the fridge, so we diligently ate our  yummy T.J.'s salad and sandwiches at our work stations. Not like we were sacrificing anything, but  I just couldn't help but to whine a little about not having a fortune cookie of my own. Renee immediately jumped up and brought one to me. The Chinese place had given us one too many fortune cookies! A divine intervention! Here's what it said:

   Pretty deep fortune cookie, eh? Not quite sure what it means just yet, but this one's definitely going on the refrigerator. Maybe I'll turn it into a stamp...

   Saturday's adventure in bookbinding came to a happy close. Dinner in, shopping at Trader Joe's, hot tub. Aaaah...Although Flagstaff's demographic would definitely support a Trader Joe's, for some reason all we ever hear about them building up here is rumor. Someday. Soon, I hope. Meanwhile, we stock up anytime we're remotely near a TJ's.

  Sunday morning had us up bright and early, packing, figuring out what to take into the store and out of the heat, loading the car, checking out of the hotel. While Kris was loading the car I wandered the grounds shooting pictures of the fabulous flora. These are just a few of the beautiful things I found:

   When we left Flagstaff on Friday afternoon it was snowing, and it was divinely rejuvenating to spend some time in the warm, among these lush trees and shrubs. I love taking pictures of the flowers...does it show?

  With everything packed up, photographed, checked out, and bought, and with nothing else to do, we headed on down to Frenzy Stamper arriving almost an hour early to class. Debbie was kind enough to let us in for more shopping. Soon everyone else arrived, and we settled down for a day of collage in the books we'd made the day before.

  Things started out, well, nice and quiet, almost subdued, really. We were all being very good students, paying attention, following directions, and collaging our papers then, I'm not sure how, but at some point the wheels fell off the cart and we went OUT of control! Wild puns flying everywhere, howling laughter, hooting and singing and hollering. Artists GONE WILD! Barbara describes a part of our afternoon here in a way I never could. Oh my! I'm very proud to say that we may have set a new standard for fun at an art class...

  Here are some of the pages that came out of our day. This fabulous little girl page was made by Jennifer, a fun gal from another table. (The photo below is linked from her blog; the one I took didn't come out well due to lighting issues. The rest of her wonderful pages may be seen at her blog.)

  And this is one of Barbara's pages which I just LOVED:

   My book quickly took on a theme: "I am not lost. There's this map." Not sure why, but that's where the Muse took me...

  This next page will say something about my friend Ursa Major pointing to the North Star, and having my bearings... 

   I have my sea legs...

  And so on...

   It seems to be a book of metaphors and assets...

   And only the Muse knows quite where it's going to end up...

But it feels deep and profound.

  Hoping you all had a great Mother's Day among people you love. Kris and I went down to Sedona for an awesome hike and some photos.

  Studio time the last few days has been spent reproducing the canyon mail art piece in large format for Kris; all that remains is a second layer of black and the river, a couple of layers of glazing: it should be finished soon. The first few layers of paint have been applied to that book cover I'm working on, and I expect to wrap that up and start binding watercolor paper into it in the next day or so. Will post a heads up when they're done - I can't wait to show them to you!

  Thanks for visiting; come again soon.

Comments

[Kris (HTGRS)]

Love the flora shots! Everyone made such cool pages that day!

[Jennifer]

beautiful flower photos!! and thanks for sharing my journal page and linking to my blog!! it was a really fun weekend; I'm just sorry there wasn't more time during class for mingling and sharing inspiration across the tables.

[sharon]

Thank you for kudos on the photos, Jennifer (and Kris)! I just love that page of yours, Jennifer, and when my photo of it didn't come out well, well, let's say I was very, very happy to find a way to include it on my blog. Agreed about mingle time at classes! Kris and I have run into you at several venues, and have yet to spend the time we'd like getting to know you. Maybe If we did a "Chinese Fire Drill" during a class. Everybody jumps up from their place, leaving everything on the table, scrambles to a new seat, and spends the next half hour collaging a page in someone else's book, and chatting with a new set of people...bears pondering, maybe! Thanks for visiting!

[kelly]

Gorgeous photos!!!! :) LOVE the class recap!! :D

[sharon]

Thanks Kelly! I love shooting flora. Thanks for a great class! SOME people just have WAY too much fun. Then, as Kris would say, "We like too much!"