and how was your weekend?

friday dan worked his magic and whipped up the best wood fired pizzas! love that he loves his job and that it will give him skills to last a lifetime.

saturday started off two days of creative bliss. I attended a workshop put on by the edmonton calligraphic society and taught by Betty Locke. Betty is a master calligrapher or as she says "elderly". when she was saying that I was young I really thought she was talking about my age. yeah, get your head out of the sand! anyway, here is a pic from the weekend. more later!

how's that list goin'?

every good intention sometimes needs an extension...

things I loved about the past two days....

spending tons of time with dan, eating, talking, listening....

what a guy!

so blessed that he is who he is and what he is? IS himself...

that is all I ever wanted...for him to just be real and he is...

we tried a new eatery. if your in town - Pad Thai on Whyte - yum!

we cut his hair and now it curls like crazy - love that!

we did some shopping and it was FUN and we spent gobs of money and he will turn heads even though that is not what it is about for him and I love that! what it is about is his style, his identity and not following the pack. kewl!

what I did not love about the past two days?

I forgot....

don't stop believing....

remember? journey!

so the snow is STILL falling. my body hurts from shoveling the damn stuff and my heart aches for sunshine. everyone is depressed. even the puppies. sparkle the wonder dog is unable to find his bunny friend. they are both white so you can understand his dilemma. sparky tip toes out slowly and max runs past him as fast as he can, relieves himself and runs back in faster. poor sparky hasn't even made it out the door and max is done! whimps!

yesterday was a very productive day considering the obstacles placed in front of me. we finished up the birthday cards.



baby announcements are waiting for photos and then signed, sealed and deliver!



my first completed "inspired" project is the "life is beautiful" with tena



my second completed "inspired" project is "puppet poppets" with claudine



and finally my "transformation" project with steph. LOVE her!



whew....today's list:

finish baby announcements
finish "inspired" travel journal
finish sample for stampers celebration
work on may surprise
pick up ink, photos, dan, storage containers and maybe a chai? a cookie? or not
shovel snow
finish up another project from "inspired"

mom decided not to have the eye procedure and no one was happier than ME. (insert trumpets sound)

and "GO!"

believe...

"believe in a thousand impossible things you've never believed before"

snow falling, cold frost, and trying very hard to see the beauty in it all. oh yes, she would say that I am lucky to live in a place where I can enjoy four seasons. val would say I am lucky for the trees along the trail. kissed with white flakes. kath would say "get your camera out and REALLY look at it. ya, me? not so much!

I spent the last few days getting back to the business of my body and how it hadn't moved much while I was away. did some yoga, did some running, some walking and it feels much better. I need to move. helps me clear my mind. helps me sleep. helps me open up new ideas and check them out. when everyone else is "om'ing" I'm busy playing in my head.

I have a new idea that I am excited about. I will share it with you soon. more details need to be ironed out. it will be fun and it will be good!

today:

*finish up april/may birthday cards for the family
*get started on those baby announcements
*finish up some samples for the classes next week
*finish one project from "inspired"
*work on "new" idea details

and

hold my mother's hand while the doctor makes a few small incisions and straightens out her tear ducts. (insert puking sound)

presenting "garage band art girlz"

these are my girls! my peeps, my table mates, my new friends. gosh! when you attend an event like inspired alone you just never know who you will meet. well as luck, karma or whatever you want to call it would have it - I sat down at the first table I saw and so the fun began.

we were sharing things from the get go. making sure everyone had what they needed. helping each other out. it was real good.
by the second class we were more relaxed and I guess making poppet puppets will do that to ya. here is Jenn (our drummer) with hers. Jenn forgot her camera and so I became her official photographer.



we get to our third class of the day and after another Jennifer (our keyboard player) froze and I yelled "and GO" we were off and there was ink, paint, paper stuff everywhere.



at this time the announcement came from Carla that we are "garage band". I LOVED it! we are SO garage band and so we became the " garage band art girlz" from that moment on. here is our lead singer Carla.



put your coat on - she is kewl!

here is Jennifer and I love that she lets her child get messy and play and create. love that!



another Jennifer (yup, 3 in my group) and she tried to tell us she couldn't sew and then passed all of us in christina's class. whatever! lol!



let's call her our bass player as she rocks with thread!

and Susan who I see as our back up singer. if we needed something, she had it. question about a product, she was your girl. full of knowledge and little tricks. unfortunately I spilled a whole bunch of her wonderful product! sorry Susan!



and a pic of us with Donna and Bill after they surprised us each with a white rose.



a photo of the apron, tote bag and name tag. loved the canvas name tags! of course I am a member of the canvas chicks! check out what we are up to with name tags!



and finally the last picture with donna on day three. love her! miss her! and am totally inspired by her.



more tomorrow! now go make something!

let's clear up a rumor.....

it seems that some people (laurie and anam) were under the impression that I was stalking cathy this weekend. no, no, no! she was rubbing elbows with ME every chance she could get. trying to say that we had the same taste. and wore the same style glasses. I mean REALLY! all she had to do was say "hey" and I would have talked to her. there I was washing my hands and she came out of the bathroom stall. what? she totally followed me in there! and again at the airport were she admitted that she was stalking me. I finally gave in and let her have her picture taken with me.



but seriously can I just say that she is one gorgeous lady. wow! she was exactly how I imagined her to be and MORE. it was one of the highlights of the event for me. thanks cathy and "hey!".

speaking of stalking! here a few other people I paid asked if I could have a picture with:



me & cd. one word "SWEET" and so creative. she was so much fun and was a great help when I was looking for donna.

I loved seeing ali again:



and I am sure you have seen this guy a time or two.



paolo is to ali as miguel is to me.

this special guest who took time with me as I was such a loser in the yo yo making department. she made a stem and leaf for me. another truly sweet and super talented lady.



now you know that I am not what you would call a scrapbooker and probably not what you would call a digital scrapbooker, but you do know that I am always open to trying new things. I sat down and had a wonderful chat with renee and she is such a kind soul. I loved the way she made it all sound so easy. I checked out her mini workshop class and came out of there confident that I could do the digi thing!



and if you recall that I mentioned hanging with one of NC's finest? no I did not start a drunken brawl or attack any celebrities. I was simply shopping at the marketplace when I ran into this beautiful lady.



we chatted for quite a while and I really enjoyed it. she, like I, not a scrapbooker. she, dabbles in quilting and crime prevention.

and last, but not least our end of day 2 photo:



I am off to bed to catch a few more zzzzz's and I ain't talking cathy. I haven't even begun to touch the surface of how much stuff I want to share with you about this weekend. you still need to hear all about the "garage band art girlz" and you will. THEY are well worth the wait. trust me on this one! ciao!

livin' la vida "inspired"

what an amazing weekend! SO many wonderful workshops and brilliant instructors. inspired. I am not sure I can even begin to explain how huge this event was. perhaps it is because I am in dire need of sleep as I stayed awake as much as possible because I did not want to miss a single second.

if you were there, then you know what I mean. donna chose instructors who challenged us, let us see inside their creative process and who encouraged us to find our own style. we played with the good ole stuff using new techniques and the new products in fun ways. all through the process we were encouraged to relax and have fun and feel free to stalk as many well known artists as possible. LOL!

here is peek at who I rubbed elbows with this weekend:

Tena who was losing her voice day 1, class 1. she encouraged us to look at her book as "an example" and make ours "ours". loved her techniques and speed and pace in class. perfect!



much to my delight claudine was on my shuttle and her class was fun, unique and SO cute! she shared exciting news about her new product line and as always helped us to succeed with our projects. I love her supportive style of teaching and her willingness to share her creative process. SO lucky to take a class with her for the second time.



now stephanie (and probably without her knowledge) could quite possibly be the reason the "garage band art girlz" came to life. we froze for a second and then "GO". creating pages without measuring, spritzing color, brushing paint, and before you knew it carla declared us GBAG's. I loved how stephanie let us play and encouraged us to be free and have fun. met up with her at the airport and we had some fun taking self portraits. hope you enjoy this one steph!



a fellow canuck, kal started us out by scribbling with pencil crayons and woo hooing at our proudest moments. I have always admired her work and love reading her blog everyday. she is such a talented artist with an amazing story about her childhood. she is honest, beautiful and possesses that true "bulletproof positive attitude" that she encouraged us to adopt.



and jennifer who had gobs of product stuffed into our bags. she spoiled us with all kinds of treasures and treats. I certainly felt challenged and even went for a little walk to get my head together. came back and with her support I pushed forward and am quite happy with what I have so far. still more embellishing to be done! she is very sweet, organized and has awesome taste in music!



christina who hosted ARTistry last year had us working with fabric, transparency transfers, flowers, beads and buttons. it was great seeing her again and I loved the project and will probably make more for gifts.



that is all for tonight. come back tomorrow when I share how I too was stalked! more pictures, more familiar faces, giggles and snorts and hanging out with one of North Carolina's finest.

and one last picture of donna and I after day one.



ciao!

over and OUT!

got my scissors, got my glue, got my crop-a-thing ama bob, photos, and got my CHOCOLATE (see this post)

I am off to INSPIRED. A one of a kind event being hosted by donna downey. and we might play with this again?



I will attending workshops taught by:

kal. she's canadian, eh? LOVE her! woot! (as she says)

claudine. can't wait to see her again! so sweet!



christina. go canucks!

stephanie. her journals are so....they rock!

tena. you know tena! she teaches in-store, on-line, writes books!

jennifer. who I just know is as sweet as she appears to be on-line.


you are probably thinking WOW! Yup! BUT! wait! there is a whole lot more:

special guests such as

ali. evolution girl!



cathy. you know potty mouth girl. want NEED to meet this woman!

and many more special guests...

I KNOW! you are falling off your chair, BUT! there are also all night workshops with MORE big names AND....more BIG names attending the classes!

AND?

I'm gonna be there! OMG!

AND?

I will REPRESENT!

hasta la vista babies!

cathy z what have you done to me?

do you read her blog? I do and pretty much laugh my ass off every time. this morning she posted a new official rule on self portraits. they MUST include a toilet. hmmm...you are probably thinking WTF? Me? I'm thinking go grab the camera and shoot. I am not a big fan of self portraits so if I can take the focus off of me and onto the white throne then why not!

the official self portrait avec Kurjata toilet:



the official self portrait avec the Starbucks toilet:



the official self portrait avec the Sears toilet:



oh yeah! while she was busy shopping for supplies I was in the bathroom taking pictures.

cathy z what have you done to me? I guess if I want to meet you in person next week at inspired I will look in the bathroom stall?

little sprinkles of art....everywhere

a lovely surprise from madonnart that she picked up for Laurie and I during her little hop, skip and jump to Italy! Oh yeah! the homeland! sigh...



an ATC from the beautiful kristina. popping yours in the mail today!



and a little something we are working on for our upcoming classes...shhhh...not quite finished!

my babies!

dan



max



and sparky aka sparkle



all from different fathers. go figure! lots of new babies all around us lately. love their little noises. love their smells. love babies! as for my babies?

dan will be graduating high school this year
max will be 12 in a couple of weeks
and sparky aka sparkle? HE will continue to hump the bunny behind the garage any chance he gets! those young ones always like to test the boundaries!