A Window Seat...

What at 'booktacular' day...

What a day yesterday at Friends and Company in Issaquah. The weekend “Booktacular” has come and gone and four classes created four beautiful books.  As you would expect Doris put on another wonderful event.  There were amazing books in each of the four workshops created especially for the event.  Sherry Wilson, Jean Mendel and Sandy Huff, Maria Loomis and I brought four fabulous projects for everyone. 

Sherry’s book was full of color and dolls, with a book that had angles everywhere you looked.  Jean and Sandy designed a wondererful  ‘garden’ themed book that opened in the center and was bound with rings.  Maria’s book was acetate and paper in beautiful shades of pink with lots of frills, very girly!  The book I designed was a bit different having used policy envelopes and the incredible papers of Graphic45. 

The new store has great lighting, loads of room for individual tables for everyone.  I can’t say enough about it!  Terrific classroom!  There were 19 people in each class with plenty of room for everyone to move about.  No crowding at all. 

Breakfast and lunch were served at the front of the store.  Folks could sit at a tables both inside and out.  At the new store there is a covered walkway with enough room to through a party!  I can see make and takes and many other things being done outside in better weather.  That is if we don’t talk the kettle corn guy into moving his stand right in front of the store!  J  Yum  yum, fresh kettle corn while you work!

It’s late and I am tired so I will sign off.  I hope you enjoyed the little video.  In the meantime sit back, relax and enjoy your window view.

It's Spring...

Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything on this blog.  That’s about to change...:)  Life took a few turns that I wasn’t expecting or necessarily prepared for either.  All seems to be back on track, except for this flu bug I have.  It seemed to me since I was house bound; literally, I should do some catching up on this blog, and my web both.

Classes have been slowing picking up since the first of the year.  I take that as a good sign and hope that things continue to progress in higher participation.  With the new Friends and Company (East) opening today that adds another store to my list of places I’ll be teaching.  I’m also teaching Saturday, March 28^th at the Paper Zone in Seattle.  It’s an exciting little album made with the new Everafter paper line from Cosmo Cricket. I’ll post a few pics!  This class runs the weekend of the Seattle Women’s show, so if you are going to the show why not stop at Paper Zone and take a fun class!  The class runs twice this day, once at 10am and again at 2pm.  Hope to see you there!

I am very excited about the Book Fest at Friends (East) the weekend of April 25^th and 26^th.  This will be Doris'  first big event at her brand new store.  I’ve been over a couple of times and the place is spectacular!  Loads of light and lots of products!  There are great new papers that you are not going to want to miss.  The Book Fest appears to be a sell out and no one has even seen the samples.  That speaks a lot about the events and Friends and the caliber of classes and instructors that Doris puts together.  I know I am honored once again to be lucky enough to teach at this event.  I’ve created something new and fun that I think you will certainly enjoy making.  I’ve chosen the papers from Graphic45 to work with.  They are fabulous!  What more can I say.  As soon as all the samples are in Doris’s hands I will photo them and get them posted, here and on the Friends blog.  I am hoping that with a sell out that this Fest will get another chance the following weekend. 

The Northwest Paper Chase starts today and it looks to be loads of fun.  I think there are 28 stores involved this year.  A few more than last and that’s a great sign.  Hopefully I will feel better and my friend Robin and I will do a bit of a road trip on Monday and check out some ‘other’ stores.  I know for one I will certainly need to be out of the house by then!  Shop on!

Enough for now!  I hope that your view today is the best yet!  It is after all the first day of spring and colors and blooms are just around the corner.  Sit back, relax and enjoy…

 

Happy Holidays....

It seems like forever since I’ve posted to this blog.  Life just gets in the way sometimes…Lots of things have been going on and it seems that time just gets away from me. A Presidential election and a family reunion; planning classes, trying to get samples made; craft shows to prepare for and the holidays to name just a few things.  So I thought I would take a moment and relax and enjoy the view!

One of the best things I did in this long absence was taking a trip with my sister to meet three of my cousins in Las Vegas.  We had not all been in the same place at the same time in more than 50 years!  My cousin Val and I have talked about doing this for years and it just seems we would never get around to doing it.  So early in the year during one or our many political conversations the ‘reunion’ came up again.  I suggested we go after the election and celebrate in Las Vegas.  Val thought that sounded great and the wheels were in motion.  I contacted everyone and we set the date.  My cousin Patty had a time share so we stayed in a brand new suite at the Hilton/Flamingo for four days.  We had so much fun loads of laughs and lots of tears.  We all grew up in different parts of the country but it is amazing how much alike we are!  I had just the best time!  The time went far too fast.  We are going to do it again next year and try to include some other cousins.  It looks like we will head to the center of the country this time. 

I was involved in a fat book swap that seemed like it would never be completed…lots of deadlines that everyone kept extending.  Boy life sure messes things up sometimes.  There were six of us in the swap and the theme was “four seasons”.  Each of us had to do one 6x6 page for each season plus a bio page for the book.  Here’s a peek at the pages that I did for the book.  I have not got everyone else’s pages yet.  When I do I will photo the completed book.  The pages are not mounted in these photos.  The 6x6 pages are mounted onto a black 7x7 background in the finished book.

I did the craft show at Friends and Company again this year.  My sister and I worked together and had two tables.  I made several kinds of flavored nuts and we also sold our To-Toe Bakers!  They are a cotton cooking bag for baking potatoes in the microwave.  Believe it or not the potatoes will be just like the oven baked kind.  We sold a great many of them!  The nuts too!  So, it was a good weekend.  Did a couple of other smaller craft shows in the area, they turned out okay considering the economy right now.

Then there has been my cold and all the snow.  My Christmas tree never got up.  My nephew was supposed to come over and assemble my tree and get the 2500 lights on it for me.  Instead, I got sick as heck and didn’t want to pass it around.  The cold has lasted more than 10 days…L   Then in the middle of that it decided to snow.  And snow it did.  We have not had cold or snow like this in a very long time.  It’s beautiful to look out at Alki Beach and Elliott Bay from my living room window.  The streets and the beach are covered in ice and snow.  The wind has been ferocious on some days with the waves coming way over the sea wall.  I’ve taken a few pictures and grabbed of few from the West Seattle Blog that others have taken in the area.  It’s been quite a site. 

I’d like to wish everyone a happy holiday season.  I hope that how ever you celebrate it is all that you wish.  Here’s to saying goodbye to this year and to looking forward to a happy and prosperous New Year for everyone.  In the meantime, sit back relax and enjoy your view…

An Art Ghoulery...

Its ghoulies and ghosties and long legged beasties this time of the year everywhere you look, except at my friends Don and James’s house!  They have an Art Ghoulery in their front yard.  It’s the most amazing site.  Some of the world’s finest art as you’ve never seen it before and will likely not see again!   But, truly you should see it! 

Each year they turn their yard into some Halloween spectacle with a grand theme.  They’ve had weddings and beach parties and even a slumber party to name just a few.  Their yard is transformed into whatever is needed to complete the theme.  There are skeletons galore, dressed in appropriate attire, and every imaginable prop!. 

These two spend weeks and months preparing for this time of year.  And then they invite all of their friends to join them in celebration.  The inside of the house is decorated with bugs and spiders and rats.  The staircase is lined with lighted skulls and upstairs you’ll find a ‘ghost’ carrying his candelabra in a darkened hallway.  The mirror in the bathroom in dripping in blood and a bowl of eyeballs is on the vanity!

Downstairs everyone is decorating some of the hundreds of sugar skulls they’ve molded.  The house is filled in nook and cranny with ones that have been decorated by themselves or family and friends.  Many have been donated to their collection and they proudly display them for all to see.

Then of course there is the food!  They cook for days and set a feast that is not to be missed.  James makes the best chicken mole in town!  There are cheese and crackers and ‘fingers’ to devour.  There are cake and sweets covered in spiders and bats!  This menu goes on and on.  I don’t know where they get the energy or the time to do all of this but I am sure glad they have it!  I wouldn’t miss it for the world.  Sit back, relax and enjoy the view from their window on the world of Halloween.

 

Trick or Treat...

That’s what yesterday all was about, trick or treat.  For those that joined us at Friends for the Oktoberfest it was all about the treats.  I will say there was a trick or two taught in each class though!  The fun part was the annual Trick or Treat in the Junction for all the kids.  There were many hundreds of them dressed in for terrific costumes as you will see.

This years Oktoberfest was another great chance for everyone to catch a couple of fabulous workshops, have a continental breakfast, get a ‘goody bag’, sit with friends over a sumptuous lunch, spend the afternoon in another workshop and then end the day with a drawing for a door prize!

The two morning workshops that everyone had to choose from was one taught by Jean Mendel and Sandy Huff and the other taught by me.  Jean and Sandy taught an open spine box that held a little book inside.  They used sheets of the incredible handmade Italian papers that you can find at Friends.  This paper is exquisite and affordable.  I know that several of those who chose this class stocked up on a few extra rolls for future boxes.  The patterns in these papers are to die for.

The afternoon workshops were taught by Rita Noble and Sarah Brighton.  Rita created a most clever little slide box covered in polymer clay.  It had a pull drawer and a cord for hanging.  I spoke with Kelly late last evening and she had hung hers already.  The creativity in this class was beyond beautiful.  They had geometric shapes and leaves and fish, pretty little fish.  They used PearlEx to color the black clay and added wire and beads for the finishing touches.  These boxes were amazing.

Sarah Brighton did a workshop of tag building.  The participants had tables of materials to choose from.  There were buttons, beads, sequins, yarn, collage sheets and row after row of papers.  They had three hours in which to create as many tags and they wished.  The tags be as simple as you wanted or and intricate and complicated as your imagination would take you.  She had loads of Halloween collage sheets with just some of the most fun items.  I was jealous!

My class was a beautiful book made with craft envelopes as its base.  The pages were covered and embellished.  I partnered with SEI for this workshop and used one of the newest lines in their catalog called Windsor.  This is by far the most beautiful paper collection I’ve ever worked with. Thank you SEI for creating this incredible line.

 Each student had 24 sheets of 8x8 paper, there were foils and shimmers and patterns and distressed as well as plain cardstock.  There were matching tags and small envelopes.  I added ribbons and brads and corner touches as well as gold and turquoise bling to make these papers pop just a little bit more!  I also added a beautiful brown ribbon that was recycled from a friends wedding this year.  It was made to be used in this book.  A nice little treat to add to the book.  I think I will make a book and give it to them!

In the three hours of this workshop the pages were flying around the table.  The book was held together with split rings.  I took the sample apart and everyone passed the pages to one another, giving them a sample to work from.  I also created a page layout cd of the class for each kit.  I had a few extra kits that I put together and they went flying out the door.  Nothing left!  In the sample I created I didn’t over embellish.  While I used a bit of everything I wanted each person to be able to make the book their own.  I left loads of room on the pages so that pictures could be added if they wished.  Room enough for notes too!  Every page had three holes punched and finished with eyelets so that the book could be handled without worry.  In the end everyone was still talking about what they planned to do with their books when they got home.  I hope that I get to see some of them!

The silly part of the day belonged to the throngs of kids that were all costumed and trick or treating the merchants in the Junction. There were tiny babies to adults all dressed up walking the four blocks and being loaded up with enough sugar to keep them going for months.  At 2PM there were dozens of ‘zombies’ dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.  This dance was going on all over the world in celebration of 25 years of his song/album.  They were a hoot; the practicing had gone on for weeks.   I wished they could have blocked the intersection for the five minutes this event took so that everyone was able to really see it!  Being tall I was able to get a couple of pictures holding my camera high above a few folks.

The Oktoberfest ended with everyone receiving a door prize.  They did a bit of shopping while showing off their projects to one another.  I saw beautiful Italian paper boxes, loads and loads of fun tags, clay boxes I wanted and many beautiful books.  I think everyone had a great time and it’s always good to hear this.  I look forward to whatever Friends has up its sleeve for its next special event.  Oh I do know the next BIG thing on the calendar is Claire Hampton! She will be here all the way from England again in January.  One sample is already in the store and the other will be there soon!  Sign up early, you won’t want to miss a workshop or a class that Claire teaches.  She is the senior educator for Hampton Art and is just the best!  In the meantime sit back relax and enjoy the view from your window seat.

Ranger U...

What can I say about Ranger U? It was just the best experience.  Three days of non-stop techniques, 23 incredibly talented artists and me!  I left New Jersey tired and wanting more.  I would do it again in heartbeat!

I arrived on Thursday late in the afternoon, got my own personal shuttle from Newark and had a lovely ride into TintonFalls.  I called my ‘roomie’ Aimee when I arrived and she met me in the lobby, went upstairs and dumped the bags and off across the street to grab some food and drink!  I had only exchanged a couple of e-mails with Aimee prior to Ranger U and it was fun getting to know her.   As we sat in came a couple of others, one who looked a bit familiar to me.  Since the only other person I would know besides Tim Holtz was Leandra Franich owner of Paper Artsy, I hoped I was right.  I had met her on a couple occasions and took an all day workshop with her in Las Vegas.  They looked a bit like us so I said, Rangerettes? They laughed and came on over to join us for dinner.  The time went fast and we were all tired and wanted to rest up for the days ahead, so off we went to dreamland.  Dreaming of ink and paint and powders and wax seemed to be pretty common.

We all arrived at Ranger early Friday morning greeted by several employees as we came in the door.  Off to our classroom where Tim, Suze Weinberg and Claudine Hellmuth awaited.  It didn’t take long for things to get started!  After all the formal and informal introductions we did a tour of the Ranger facility.  We saw how the day to day operation runs, how they stock and ship; where they ‘mix’ the magic ingredients to make some of our favorite products and we all got our own bottle of Stickles right off the ‘line’.  Just prior to the tour as we entered the warehouse we were all assigned a table that held some very large boxes.  They contained everything we would be working with for the weekend.  We labeled them and off we went.   Oh yes I forgot when we chose our seats we had our own denim apron and were handed our ‘back stage’ pass!

 

Tim gave us a quick overview of what the next three days held for us.  There would be no ‘slacking’, the days were filled with everything Ranger.  We each had a 3 ring binder that had all of the techniques we would learn over the next  few days. Without skipping a beat he introduced Suze Weinberg and we were off and running.  Suze taught ‘melt art’ with her line that Ranger produces.  We completed nine techniques using wax, and dyes, and perfect pearls and her famous melt pan.  I know that I learned more about melting than the witch from Oz.  I long ago gave away my melt pan for a door prize because I didn’t have a clue what to do with it.  Thankfully the one I was using in class was mine to keep…woo hoo!  Suze gave us each a 12x12 black frame that we created a tile collage on using our completed objects.  

We broke for lunch and what a great lunch too.  Deli sandwiches and salads!  No deli sandwiches like them here in Seattle I assure you.  We mingled and got to know someone other than our table mates.  A good time and we moved quickly though lunch and back to work.

The afternoon was spent with Claudine Hellmuth and her new line of paints.  Not knowing what was in our boxes we simply picked out the bag that was labeled, Day 1 Afternoon.   We had Gesso and Matte and Glossy Medium and nine jars of paint, all of us with a different color palette.  There were brushes and her new canvas as well. Claudine taught us ten separate techniques.  Each of these was completed on a shipping tag, the same way we would do Tim’s over the weekend.   After each technique was complete we had a label that would be placed on the back of the tag for quick reference.  Great to have the binder but the tags can hang on a ring right in front of me in my studio.  We got to paint on the new sticky back canvas in her line.  Great fun a loads of possibilities, even for me the non-painter!  Everyone received a ‘jewel’ case filled with dictionary pages, buttons and some ribbon.  We got to play with this and make a ‘home’ for our tags. We finished right after 5pm and went to the far end of the warehouse where Ranger had prepared a bbq just for us.  Alain and Justin (owners), their wives and kids and some of the other employees were there to talk with everyone.  The food was great and the wine tasty!  Loads of fun getting to know everyone, finding out where they traveled from and what they do.  We had stampers, scrappers, publishers, painters, storeowners, instructors, designers all together to complete our group of 24.  I felt very fortunate and quite honored to be among these folks.   It was late and I was tired, off to sleep I went.

Saturday and Sunday were non-stop.  Tim taught us 51 techniques.  That’s right, 51!  Hard to believe that you can complete so much in such a little amount of time.  Tim is a great teacher.  He paces himself well, makes sure that everyone ‘gets’ what he is trying to teach you then walks the room to see that you’ve gotten it right.  As we did with Claudine each of these techniques was completed on a shipping tag and finished with a label on the backside for easy reference.  Techniques were broken down by product/line.  We learned a lot of the science of the products which was really quite interesting.

 

We broke for lunch on Saturday and Mario had picked up these great Sicilian pizzas.  Can’t get them here either…L  Tim said we didn’t have to take an hour for lunch unless we really wanted to!  Who was he kidding, we ate pretty fast and got right back to the classroom.  When you’re on a roll you don’t want to stop.  Straight on through until 5pm and then we were done for the day.  Saturday found about 8 of us going to Redbank to have dinner and lots of great conversation about our impression of the last two days.  I was joined at dinner by Tanya (Belgium), Sue  (Spain), Jeanne (Utah), Aimeee (Ohio) and Michael (Arizona).  Just a great group of new friends!  We left  and went back to the hotel where we took over the lobby for a few more hours and were joined by Leandra and Lin (England).  I had said over dinner that we needed ‘graduation hats’ and there in the lobby we folded our paper hats and hatched the plan to get them decorated without the ‘teachers’ seeing them!  We actually managed to pull it off, God it was funny!  Its way late by this time and I needed sleep, but hey I stayed up to watch SNL and make a bracelet!

Sunday was a full day with Tim.  More techniques.  More tags. More ink and more mess!  Another quick lunch and back to work! The time went far too fast when suddenly we realized we were on technique number 50 and we had only one more to go… It was finished!  We were done!  A round of applause for the terrific education provided  to us by Suze, Claudine and Tim.  Another round of applause for the hospitality shown by everyone at Ranger and a special thanks to Mario and Patti who took such good care of everything!  We packed our things, broke for dinner and then came back for a Q&A. 

 

I can’t say enough about what a wonderful experience it was for me.  I learned so much and can’t wait to begin sharing these techniques in many upcoming classes.  My box arrived today and I have to rearrange my studio just to put things away!  I need an organizer!  I will remember this weekend always, meeting so many new friends, making plans and finding ways to stay in touch.    It was an experience of a lifetime, just the best.   Thank you ,Suze.  Thank you, Claudine.  Thank you, Tim and most of all thank you Ranger for creating such a wonderful program.

 

Next post I’ll tell you about Monday and my stop at  John BonJovi's house!  That’s another story…J  In the meantime sit back, relax and enjoy your view.

Fall into some new classes...

These last few days of changing weather have sure reminded me that fall is in the air.  The days are getting shorter and the nights are beginning to cool.  Neither one is such a bad thing.  I like this time of year, when the colors begin to change.  As much as I like sunny days I think I like the autumn season most of all.  I love watching the trees change colors and the leaves begin to cover the ground.  A trip up the pass might be in order before the end of the month to catch nature in transition.  I was giving all this a great deal of thought today as I created sample cards for an upcoming class.

Actually that is what I have been doing for the past three days, making class samples.  The calendar is updated on my website, www.specialeditionsstudio.com and the class descriptions and pictures are beginning to be posted.  Currently there are seven new classes on my website.  My brain is tired!  I forget how much it takes to put all these classes together.  Not just the assembly, but the idea itself.

I think my creative process is a bit different than some. I begin by figuring out the calendars for three, now four stores over a four month period of time.  Once I have all the dates secured and  coordinated, a daunting task in and of itself, I get to deciding what it is I might want to do for a given class.  Will it be cards, a book, a box or what?  This takes another day or so.  So, now I know what I’m going to be offering in the classes and what they will be called.  That’s it; I got dates and a titles!  What comes next is probably a bit backward for most.

I now write the descriptions for the classes themselves.  Mind you I’m writing descriptions for something I have not done anymore than imagine! This part of the process takes several days and maybe a week.  While the written descriptions might seem simple I assure you they are not!  By the time I have done this for twenty of so classes my head is about to explode!  I set the calendars up and hand them off along with the class descriptions to each of the stores and then I shut my brain off for several days.  It really needs a rest at this point.

This weekend was time to kick it in to gear once again, and get to the most important step, creating the samples themselves.

I’ve decided that I need to have all my class samples created by this Friday for the next two months calendar.  I need this for several reasons really.  Mainly I should be more organized.  Something I always say I will do better with but don’t always seem to accomplish.  Secondly, there is another big workshop at Friends and Company on October 25^th in which I was once again honored to be asked to teach.  That adds to the workload.  And last but not least in being accepted to Ranger U I want to go there with all my home work finished so that I can concentrate on learning new products and techniques that I will be able to add to future classes.

So getting seven classes completed I feel good.  That means I did everything three times for samples.  And, I also put kits together for each of them.  Everything is done and ready to put in my car to head off to class whenever it pops up on the calendar.

I hope to see many of you in some of these upcoming classes.  There are some really great cards coming, a fun book or two and maybe a surprise!  I’ve missed seeing many of you over the summer and hopefully that will change.  I hope you make room on your calendar to include a class of two.  It is such fun for me to teach these classes and I hope as much fun for you to be there.  Additionally it is one of the best ways to support your local craft store.  Remember you can’t get these classes at the big box stores!

Come join in the fun.  Make something new, learn a new technique, bring a friend along or meet some new ones.  In the meantime sit back relax and enjoy the view from your window seat.

 

Life just gets better...

It’s been a whirlwind of fun for me for the past few days.  I celebrated my 60^th birthday on Saturday.  Actually I began celebrating on Friday with a dinner party at my friends David and Lee’s house.  There was lots of food, drink and many friends to help me celebrate the big 60.  It was an evening of incredible weather and we stayed outside in the backyard until after midnight! I love parties!  I had a great time with everyone!  Then on Saturday Amy had another ‘play day’ at Friends and Company for me and more of my friends.  More food, more fun, loads of art and just another great time!  I am a spoiled girl!  I can’t thank them enough for making both parties so special.

Then it was off to TKU on Sunday morning at 5am!  Ack!  Doris and I headed south to Vancouver for the event.  Teri Bangart is a rep for a large number of major manufacturers and she puts on TKU each year, bringing in the companies she represents for workshops and a vendor show.  This is the third year I have attended this great event.  We did 8 classes in 8 hours!  One class right after the other, we stay in one room and the classes come to us!  I will take pictures of the projects I completed and get them up here in the next few days.  Such a great time talking with everyone about what’s new and what’s going on in their stores.

I spent Sunday night with an old friend while in Vancouver.  So, as you can imagine I stayed up too late and did a bit more celebrating!  It was fun to catch up though and as always we promise not to let so much time go by in the future without checking in on one another!

Home on Monday evening and then up at 5am to work at the polls for the primary elections.  That was a 15.5 hour day and I was a bit dead to the world by the time I got home on Tuesday night.  I think I am back on track now! 

Last time I wrote about some of the books that Claire Hampton and I made while she was here on vacation.  I did finally take the pictures and I’ve made a little slide show for you to enjoy.  I loved the piano hinge book that I made, with all the dark red paper and the black distressing.  I hope you enjoy it also.  The other book is the crown book that was made by a number of us at Friends on another play day.  I can’t wait to see the others again.  We all concentrated on what we were doing in our own books that I doubt we remember what the others looked like.  I continued to add buttons and buttons and more buttons to mine until I finally figured I had enough buttons!  Really I stopped because I would have had to make ‘special’ rings to close my book if I didn’t!  It was a very fun book to make and it might show up in a class soon.  The third book is made of envelopes and loads of papers.  Look for it soon!

My other news is just great also. I applied and was accepted to Ranger U for the October class.  It is a juried application and there are only 24 seats.  I feel fortunate to have been selected to attend.  It’s three intense days of training on all of the products from Ranger, taught by Tim Holtz, Suze Weinberg and Claudine Helmuth.  It is the first weekend in October at Ranger in Tinton FallsNew Jersey.  I am going to try to see if I can get a day or two on either side to maybe get to NYC.  We shall see.  In the meantime sit back relax and enjoy the view from your window seat.

 

Art and Laughter...

What a whirlwind I’ve enjoyed for the past two weeks.  My friend Claire Hampton came to Seattle for a holiday following CHA.  Originally it was to be a working holiday, with Claire teaching at several stores in the area.  Schedules changed and the classes didn’t happen on this trip, so it turned into a complete holiday for her and me.

We spent nearly all of the time together creating books and cards, laughing and singing.  We often sat around the table in my living room until very late into the night.  We did make it to my studio a couple ot times, where we could have worked!  What we did instead was haul materials to my place where we didn’t have to get out of our pajamas if that was our choice.  Believe it or not that happened on several days.  Today I will take it all back to my studio!  It was worth it though.

 

We made more than 150 cards, with Claire making nearly two to one of mine.  I generally make cards quite fast but I was no match for her speed.  I enjoyed creating cards with her.  It is just fun to sit with friends and create new art.  I like to see what happens when each of you is working with the same materials yet the results are very different.  It is what I love about teaching.  I get to watch the students work grow and evolve.  I encourage them to follow their muse and not mine if that is their choice.  I will try to photo the cards we made and get them in the slide show later.

 

I had given Claire a piano hinge book when I went to CHA in January.  She made me promise to teach her how to make this book when she came in the summer.  She not only made one but three piano hinge books.  Time ran short and I did not take pictures of her books and have asked her to take them for me so I can post them here.  Her books were spectacular, each of them. 

 

We spent a day at my friend Robin’s house making another book.  This one was made with a plastic envelope. This book was really quite fun,we liked it so much we went to the office supply store on the way home and bought some other plastic envelopes, with a different configuration and made two more books.  There were two ‘play days’ also, hosted by another friend.  Amy hosted one day at Lasting Memories in Lynnwood, where we made yet another book, this one with envelopes and papers from October Afternoon. She hosted another day at Friends where we were all treated to a ‘book’ kit.  Everyone who wanted got to make a crown book.  Mine is nearly done and I will post it later.  We had loads of fun that day, thanks to Amy.

 

We had a bbq with my friends here at home on the day Claire arrived.  They cooked steaks and made salads and desserts.  We drank wine and sat around and laughed for hours.  We did a lot of dining out during her stay and most of it was ‘up the hill’ at one of the local sushi restaurants.  Claire loves sushi!  I think we had it on nearly 9 occasions.  Good thing I also like it!    She even got sushi as a birthday gift from two people!   Oh yes and then there were the many trips to the french bakery for olive bread, but that''s another story!

 

Oh yes, Claire had her birthday on the last day with me.  So, we had another party.  Kelly Anable graciously hosted the party on her beautiful deck.  We had a pot luck, loads of food and a ‘green dragon’ cake for the birthday girl.  No it was not a new type of sushi, but a novelty cake she wanted for her dessert.  I’ve made a little slide show of the birthday party.  We did make a ‘flat Jamie’, Claire’s new beau and brought him to the party.  He is just everywhere.  You will see… 

 

The time went much too fast for me.  I so enjoyed having Claire in my home.  It is very quiet now after days of laughter.  I will see her again soon as she will be back in January to teach classes before we are off to CHA again.  Look for her classes at Friends, Art ‘n Soul and at Lasting Memories.  In the meantime, sit back, relax and enjoy the view …

 

Another Art Walk...

Westfest began with set-up on Thursday night right along side the West Seattle’s monthly Art Walk.  For those of you who don’t know what Westfest is, it is one of many annual neighborhood events and part of Seattle’s Seafair celebration.  It was really great to see so many people out for the Art Walk this month.  There was some concern about attendance with the streets being completely closed off for three blocks.  It didn’t seem to deter anyone, turned out to be a great night.

 

I was fortunate once again to find a great artist to hang at Shoofly Pie Company for the month of July.  My friend Jason Olcott is exhibiting his wonderful photographs, now until August 13^th.  Jason is the owner of A Thousand Words Photography. Take a moment and stop at Shoofly, grab something fabulous to eat and take a look of Jason’s work.

 

Jason’s been taking pictures since high school when he enrolled in a photography class.  You will see in is photographs a great deal of his passion for the out of doors.  It shows both in the subjects he chooses and the frames that he crafts. Growing up in eastern Washington the scenery afforded great opportunities for Jason and you will see that he has found a way to share his visions in ways that you would like to hang on your own walls. 

 

I love the frames that he builds using ‘found’ wood.  Jason uses old fences, barn wood or just anything that is suitable for building frames.  Not only does he take the photo, develop and make his own prints he does custom frame work for others also.  His only exception is having his matting done by Tom Sweeny at U Frame It in West Seattle.  Jason tells me it’s his attention to detail that keeps him with Tom.

 

I took a few photos of Jason’s reception on Thursday night.  I can tell you that I can not do his work justice but you can certainly see the fun everyone was having at Shoofly Pie Company.  Take time to stop in and see Jason’s photographs.

 

I’ve been busy in the studio tying to make class samples for the next classes coming up.  Take a moment to look at my calendar on Special Editions Studio and hopefully sign up for a class or two over the coming months.  I think there are some exciting classes you may choose from.  Grab a friend and make it a party!

 

I am also looking forward to my friend Claire Hampton arriving.  She is the senior educator for Hampton Art and lives in England.   She is here for CHA summer and will be taking a holiday and staying at my house for 10 days.  It’s going to be loads of laughs and lots of art.  In the meantime why not sit back and relax while enjoying the view from your window seat.