Rebecca with a stunning print from some plants we got from around the condo
Katherine's first print EVER
We called our condo The Thighmaster because the living room was on the second story and there were two bedrooms on the third story. My bedroom was "the cupboard under the stairs" on the ground floor.
I highly recommend doing this kind of rental when you go to Leadership or Convention - it was less than half the cost of a hotel room, and we had a kitchen, all had our own bathrooms and bedrooms and could hang out together in the evenings and chill.The best of all worlds.
Here are some of my fave photos:
Debbi, Rebecca, Katherine & yours truly
Brenda Quintana
Selene Kempton, Brynn Thornburgh, Me, Tami White and Lori Mueller
hamming it up on the Tower of Terror
Bekka Prideaux and Brenda Quintana prior to Gelli printing madness
Sweet Pam Morgan
A beautiful Persian kitten being carried around Michael's in a pink basket by a cute little girl.
Seriously. How could I make that up?
(For pics of the event itself, see the live coverage in my previous blog post.)
I kept up with my Calendar Art journal while I was gone.
So much fun to do a little something each day that just fits the mood or events of the moment. It will be cool to watch February unfold since I started January so late.
I really do have a card for you today, I promise. I went back to Jennifer McGuire's awesome partial die-cutting technique with Butterfly Basics again, but this time I used the medium butterfly and only cut the top part, leaving the bottom attached to the cardstock.
This was one of my class cards. Finished it off with some in-color sequins and the adorable Stacked With Love Washi Tape. Trying hard not to buy a million rolls of this - but I love all things black and white.
Love how striking that little guy is popping off that bottom section. That's a great set of dies and we saw some cool things with it in Florida.
Now off to start to move back into my studio. It's less fun than it sounds :).
I saw a super cheesy commercial this morning for some insurance company where two people were happily swooshing things around on an imaginary floor to ceiling touch screen control center thingy.
Why is this presumed to be the technology of the future?
Thankfully, I telecommute now, but when I had to slog to an office every day, I"m just going to be honest - those places are FILTHY! People are filthy! Have you ever seen an office microwave? Ours always looked like someone had cooked several human heads in it. Or have you seen a coworker bring their salad into the BATHROOM and leave it on the sink while they go into a stall and proceed to talk to their mother whilst relieving themselves, and then leave without washing their hands?
I have, my friends. And MUCH, much worse.
The last thing in the WORLD I want is a giant, non-porous surface that is constantly being touched by these same people.
NO.
Can you say plague?
Touchscreens should be completely dedicated to one person only. Some things just aren't meant to be communal. Actually, most things aren't.
Keep your germs to yourselves, weird future people!
Okay - remember this card that I made with the new Artisan Embellishment Kit die cut, after turning it into a stencil? And remember in that post on December 11th I told you I'd be back the next day with the OTHER cool thing I did with it? And remember how it's now January 25th?
Whatever. You're too detail-oriented!
Anyhoo - here I am with the second half. So after I sprayed the stencil to make the positive rose design on that card, my stencil was covered in this gorgeous red-gold wet spray - so I MONOPRINTED with it!! Just pressed the wet stencil onto watercolor paper. I actually think I like this method best!
Then I tore my studio apart, threw my house into chaos and only now found the pile that that beautiful little print was in and FULFILLED MY MONTH OLD PROMISE TO SHOW YOU!
Cool eh? Then I smooshed my Encore gold ink pad onto one of the little hellos in the kit and then mounted it onto the Gold Soiree DSP and then onto Crumb Cake Cardstock.
It's so happy and bright. I find myself grudgingly liking gold these days - I never did before and now it's growing on me.
Unlike communal touchscreens. The toilet seats of the future.
Oh speaking of the future - here are a few more days from my Calendar Art Journal.
This one is just quick watercolor balloons with Koi watercolor, and strings drawn with a crow quill pen and Bombay India Ink in Turquoise. The sentiment - prepare for smirking - is the FRENCH version of the A Happy Thing Sale-A-Bration set - that's right - I'm a genius.
When you're done earning all your SAB freebies, you can start over and get them in French! Love it!
For the first time in about 8 months, I woke up to this message in my inbox.
Bliss.
Pure bliss. Especially since I will soon be at Leadership, which will be a non-stop week of 18 hour days including two full hours of access to the TOWER OF TERROR!!!!
At our Manager's reception, among other fantastic perks, we have private access to the Tower of Terror and the Rockin' Rollercoaster - no lines, nothing. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am. The TOT is my favorite ride on earth. Expect NUMEROUS pictures of me on this ride, because I plan on spending the entire reception on it! The rest of the time will be spent in classes, doing make & takes, and general shenanigans with my friends.
Now a day with no events in it, of course is not a day with no events. It's a day filled with events I don't get to do without guilt when things are scheduled - like ART. Cat patting. Hiking. Doodling around on the internet. Organizing. Napping. Yay for napping!!
I finally had time to take pictures of the second project from our Butterfly Basics class. I used an awesome technique that +Jennifer McGuire showed on her blog for partial die cutting. See her video here.
SUCH a cool technique and really easy to do. We had fun. I'll have one more card for you from this class before I head out and then check back for my live Leadership coverage starting Tuesday!
Now for some exciting news!
I WILL BE HAVING A RETREAT IN MAY!
Please clear your schedules!
There will be at least 8 classes and it will be a 3 day retreat - the first day will be exclusively for my team - and anyone who joins my team prior to the event is eligible.
The next two days will be open to the public, with two full days of mixed media classes and technique classes.
This retreat will take place in Central Texas, and I'll make it as convenient to a major airport as I can.
Registration dates will be announced, and registration is first come, first served. These classes will all include products to go home and play with, prizes and all the trimmings. So save the dates! What dates? ALL the dates - I don't have the date info yet so just save the whole month!
Speaking of dates, I'm carrying on with my calendar. Here are a few more days worth of experiments.
My maternal grandfather, who was a more disciplined person than you'll ever meet among his offspring, kept a diary / datebook that he wrote in every day.
(Were he here today, I am quite sure he would not approve of blogging as a substitute.)
Every year my mom would buy him the datebook, and every year he'd fill them up. I need to see if someone still has them. I'd love to read them. I'm quite certain there were no cat pictures in there, and not just because he didn't have a cat.
My paternal grandmother was a prolific painter. She'd paint on ANYTHING - pieces of wood - pieces of cardboard - any inanimate object.
I realized, after I started my most recent diversion, that there's a chance that I'm not a genius or an inventor, but in fact, quite perfectly settled between a few widely varied chromosomes.
My friend & co-worker Lori inspired me with this pin to embark on this project, which I ADORE.
It's the perfect mix of discipline and artistic chaos. I love it so, so much.
Here's what I did.
After my class last Saturday, I went to Staples and bought this calendar, after touching every calendar in the store - sooo many are wrong for this project. Lines in the squares, squares too small - words everywhere. This one was perfect. It has a very soft, leatherish cover that I like and I like the minimalist design on the front. Now that I found this on Amazon, I am pretty peeved that my Staples didn't have this gorgeous aqua one, but I'll get over it.
Now mind you, I didn't do this until the 17th, after my stamping class, so I was already part of the way through January. But never you mind. Better late than never.
I took my fave gesso - American Journey Gesso (it's my fave because you can watercolor on it - most gesso is made to prime for acrylic) and 1/5th of an old Amazon gift card that I use like a palette knife, and carefully spread gesso onto the square for January 19th - the day I started.
Then I just did a quick little painting on top with Golden Fluid Acrylics. It took me all of about three minutes. And I squealed. And I did it the next day. And I did it today. SO fun.
For the second day, I used the Indescribable Gift Stamp set, and stamped it in So Saffron on top of the gesso and then just did no-line watercolor over that with Strawberry Slush and Mellow Moss Ink. Again, just a few minutes.
It's so fun and so quick. If I keep it up, won't this be a cool visual diary at the end of the year?
Today, it rained, and so today's little painting is grey - I'll show you that soon.
If you want to do this - be sure and have some freezer paper on hand. Put that between the pages while you're working so that nothing bleeds through the pages before the gesso is dry. Also, on the second day, I taped off my square with 3M tape before starting and it made it easier and cleaner.
I like having the dates show, but you can certainly gesso over those.
I don't have a plan for this other than to take a break each day and do something in it. It's just minutes to do a square. I think I will just let each day dictate what I put there and not overthink it.
I'd definitely recommend a calendar that opens flat like this one.
I'd also recommend not leaving watercolor water on your desk for your cat to knock off, but that's a tale for another day.
So I'm unearthing things as I prepare to move back into my room. Some of it is drudgery. Some of it is hilarious and ridiculous (really? I saved one square inch of white cardstock?) Some of it is sweet.
Some of it is bittersweet.
I joined Stampin' Up! as a demonstrator in May of 2001. I remember this like it was yesterday - honestly. That first party I was "dragged" to by my friend Kris - I only went to be nice, with lots of internal eye rolling. I'm sure many of you got started the same way.
Then I squealed for 3 hours and spent like $400, and the rest is history.
But shortly after that, my life changed with the rest of the world on 9/11.
I remember what felt like years of silence in the months that followed that.
I don't know why I remember the silence, but it was like a lot of snow fell, and everything was quiet for a long, long time.
It was a long time before I remember laughing and having fun without a sense of guilt.
I was desperate to do something - anything - to make anyone feel better. Or to make myself feel better. Or to make it less quiet and sad everywhere. I felt like stamping had taken over my life at just the right moment.
So when SU came out with the God Bless America stamp shortly after 9/11, it was a huge creative relief. I probably made 300 cards with that stamp. It was just something I could do. It was a happy and sweet image with a simple message and it was just right. Here's an image of the stamp from an Etsy listing.
This was long before I was blogging and before I started my Splitcoast gallery, so these cards I made don't exist anywhere on the interwebz. But I loved them. That stamp may have actually started my mixed media fetish, because I remember loving using my watercolor crayons on this stamp to get the blue and the red together. I bought a few extras and cut them apart to use with ink, too.
Anyway - fast forward to convention 2008.
At this convention, they made a small number of the mag plates for some retired stamp sets available to demonstrators at Memento Mall. I knew what I wanted and was holding my breath as we waited in that long line. I found and grabbed the following: Architectural Elements, Botanicals, Branch (one of my faves ever), Citrus And Such, and...
I couldn't believe my good fortune when I found this flipping quickly through the bins in a big crowd of people trying to see them all. This one really meant a lot to me, and it felt like I was meant to have it. I'm sure everyone who got some of their favorites that day felt that way.
They all came with these.
There was something very cool about being able to get these plates and knowing that these images would never, ever be produced again. It all just clicked.
So I found these today and set them up where I can see them from my desk. And it's sweet.
Now, my room is still in chaos. I haven't started moving back in yet. I just finished my paper storage today. But I at least can work in the chaos now, which makes me happy.
While I was waiting for the spray paint to dry on the platform for my paper storage today, I did a little ARTING.
I decided to carry on in my art journal, using the A Happy Thing set again. I'm determined to make everyone want this beautiful set.
A video posted by Lydia Fiedler (@understand_blue) on
I like doing this because it shows you that at some points along the way, your stuff is really UGLY - but it improves if you keep at it.
I kept the same layout - notes on the left (I had to leave that big hog from the book untouched), and sketch on the right. What I love about this process is the end result doesn't have to be finished, really. It's just practice, so it doesn't have to be perfect.
You'll see that I used almost the identical colors I used here, but much paler and with a different result.
I stamped the bird first in So Saffron, and then just painted over him. Then I added some details back with a pen. I like wrapping up with actual drawing - you lose those skills if you don't use them, and I don't use them enough. The stamp makes it hard to get this part wrong. I left a lot of the text peeking through.
Sweet little birdie.
In case you're wondering about this magical book full of hogs that I'm using for a journal, it's called the Biggle Swine Book "Much old and new hog knowledge, arranged in alternate streaks of fat and lean."
Quite a hoot.
Back to the grindstone for today - I will spend my time outside work this week trying to put pieces of my room together. I can't wait to show you the finished space. I can't wait to BE in the finished space. The kitties are pretty excited too. They show their excitement by sleeping. All day.
So the remodel is still going. The weather has been very un-Texasy, and it ground progress to a halt for nearly two weeks, as the things that I needed to do involved painting and polyurethaning, which required a little warmth and dry air. Maddening.
However, the sun finally returned and I was able to finish sealing the top of my stamping desk and get that moved into my room on top of my funky orange Bisley filing cabinets. You can see here how much brighter the room is with the lighter top and with no backing on the desk to block the window. I still have to figure out a little platform to extend the windowsill for Maddie & Splotch to lounge on - the back of the old desk created a snug little box against the window that they loved to sleep on, so I have to recreate that for them. Shouldn't be too hard - you can see there is space behind the filing cabinets. We are also going to do a little catification on the wall on the right - a little vertical playground to let them run up the wall towards the ceiling and hang out on top of my IKEA bookcases. There is no remodel that doesn't take the furries' happiness into account!
The filing cabinets will hold my neutral cardstock in hanging folders on top - look at my pretty folders - they match my card catalog:
The bottom drawers will hold (just loose) - current DSP on the left, and on the right, current kits & accessories. This will make it so that when I'm prepping for classes, I don't accidentally include something that is retired.
Weather isn't the only setback during this remodel.
Yesterday, while painting my colored cardstock organizers from Stamp-n-Storage, this happened:
I mean REALLY!!!!
Luckily - the tops were already dry, and I'm using a high gloss lacquer spray paint, so I was able to remove all evidence of bird terrorism.
The units are now painted, and today, I'm painting a plywood base that I'm going to add casters to today, so my tower of paper units (four of these) will be up off the floor - away from dustbunnines and the reach of a mop - and I can roll them out to vacuum under etc. They will be very heavy when they're full of paper, so this will be awesome.
I've spent the beginning of every Saturday and Sunday at Home Depot and Lowe's. They're starting to wave and say hi when I show up now.
Before my stamping desk was in, I had to prep for two classes - that was nearly impossible on my teeny computer desk, which is barely bigger than my monitor and keyboard. That was a challenge, but I did it!I even have proof!
Here's one of the projects we did at my Butterfly Basics class - it's a faux tole technique.
Instead of shaping each piece, I left them flat, but elevated them off the card with two layers.
The rest of the card was easy - tone on tone stamping with Baked Brown Sugar, and a few accents with a white gel pen.
I've also been battling internet issues for weeks. Every day at about 6, my internet dies. They think that my line is spliced into someone else's.
It's maddening - especially since I use my internet for work, and I work for a company in California, so the last few hours of every work day are useless to me. GRR.
I'm on a texting basis with my AT&T tech now. Hopefully they will figure it out this coming week and life can get back to normal at some point.
So I'm a little late with my Season's Giving prizes, but here they are! If you are a winner, please click the email me button top right and send me an email with redemption instructions! Thanks for your patience and congratulations!!
The winner of Mystery Box #1 is....
The winner of Mystery Box #2 is....
The winner of the $75 shopping spree is...
And, because it took me so long, I'm throwing in an additional prize. You'll find out what it is when you get it!
The winner of the mystery prize is...
I loved reading all your comments - and thank you for sharing your pets, your recipes, your resolutions and some of your favorite projects - I've enjoyed them all and I read every one!
I hope you have a sunny & poop-free week. Actually I hope I do too!
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