A 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 …