The first step....

Chenille cake by crazycakesMy dearest little Chloe turns two on Saturday. We're having a very small gathering, and of course I want to make her big day special, so I'm going to decorate the house up with *big* birthday style! It seems that whenever I start any sort of "project" whether it's planning a party, making a piece of art or decorating the house, I always start with a color palette. It seems that pink and blue/green are the colors of the moment and I haven't been able to keep my eyes away from them all spring. I decided to start getting together things that I had around the house in this gorgeous color combination, just to get my creative juices flowing. Here's what goodies I found.

Chloe and I were even decked out in the color combo for Easter:)

Tammy Gilley gave me this wonderful spring banner. Then I opened up my copy of Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic and of course I found loads more inspiration!

I thought you may like a peek inside my creative process....and some yummy eye candy too!

And my favorite...

I love this fake moss covered basket and finally decided what I wanted to put inside...glitter and chocolate. What could be better?! I tried my hand at making these glitter eggs that Martha had on the cover of her magazine last year. Here's a pic. They're gorgeous! Also saw some beautiful eggs with the same idea here, here and here recently. I remembered that I had bought some good size paper mache eggs at JoAnn fabrics that opened up. So I painted them, added some glitter and a few flowers and trim. When I found the polka dot foiled chocolates with peanut butter (yum!!) at Walgreens, I knew they'd be perfect for the inside. Viola!

I *heart* baskets!

I adore Easter baskets. Love everything about them. They're so fun and whimsical and absolutely enchanting. Martha has some fabulous ideas here.I found this old basket at an estate sale and I just love the colors. I added a little bit of this and that, old and new. It makes me smile:) The egg in the basket is by the wonderful Tammy Gilley. The eggs in the tree are from that amazing estate sale!

Have a lovely weekend!!!

New focus...

Piece I made for collaboration with Marilyn and Lilia.

I've been wanting to post about this for quite some time. Now that I'm back from ArtFest, it's what I'll be concentrating a lot of my energy on. This October in Cape Cod, Mass. I'll be teaching three classes with Lia Kent (aka ArtJunk Girl) at Just Be...Connected: A Gathering of Creative Bloggers. I'm really excited about meeting Lia and the host of the event, Melanie and all of the other fabulous bloggers that will gather there. I am also excited about being a teacher. I can't wait to learn from everyone. I will be teaching a class on making an altered portrait, one called "My Altered Life" about creating an inspiration book and one on creating an altered Book of Dreams. Should be a ton of fun!

Melanie has put together some amazing blogs surrounding this event. One is her Create a Connection blog. In April I will be hosting Dialog Day each Friday, where I talk about whatever is on my mind and (hopefully) create a dialog with others on a given topic. As you can imagine my first week is on my ArtFest experience. You can read it here. I discuss how an event like ArtFest, or any workshop, retreat, etc. affects your creative process. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

ArtFest part two: {the visual feast}

Inspiration Abound...... Before even getting to ArtFest, Cassondra and I headed to Maxine's on the outskirts of Seattle. Teesha had mentioned it on her blog and raved about it. It certainly was full of eye candy and inspiration! We had a great time:)

It was absolutely wonderland inside, full of color and texture and spring jubilation!


Cassondra and I loved these nests so much (below) that we went to the craft store and bought an empty nest and made our own versions during ArtFest. I will post a picture when I get mine back. Cassondra has to send it home to me, since I eventually ran out of room in my luggage:)

Here I am outside Maxine's with my head filled with fun ideas to create at ArtFest!!!!

The trading at ArtFest was a lot of fun. As you can see, my trunk went home as full of trades as it left. Only this time they were of every shape and variety. What wonderful goodies everyone made! I made a charm bracelet for some of the wonderful pieces I received. Others will go on necklaces or be displayed. I *heart* trading!!
Beyond all the classes (see last post) inspiration was all around throughout ArtFest in so many ways. The walls of 8x8" pieces by ArtFest artists were just stunning!

The "show and tell" displays of everyone's work on the last night was awe inspiring! So much fun to see all that was created over the three day event. The pieces below were created in Anahata Katkin's class Symbolic Icons, by the **wonderful** artist Karen O'Brien. Her amazing art can be seen here.

The *huge* pieces below were created in another of Anahata's classes, Funky Wall Paper People. The piece of the woman in the forefront is by Kelly Rae. She sold on vendor night and her work is just spectacular!

The artist tag on these say they were created by Kate Lyon, also in Anahata's class, Sumbolic Icons.

There was some amazingly creative pieces!! Not sure who created this one.

This metal beautiful metal concoction was created by Jeanie Pride.

After leaving ArtFest, Cassondra and I headed to the Fremont Market and Ballard area of Seattle. There we found some wonderful storefronts. This was from a store called Souvenir.

Here's the other side of the storefront.

Of course I found Anthropologie in downtown Seattle. It is a HUGE store filled with wonderful vingnettes of their clothing and accessories paired with "found" items. All of their display artists are local.

Even on the street, Seattle has so much visual interest. This public sculpture was in the Ballard neighborhood.
There is so much to process after leaving ArtFest. I love to come home from traveling with a new way of looking at the world and a fresh set of creative ideas. I hope these photos have sparked your creative imagination. For even more of my ArtFest photos, visit my Flickr ArtFest folder.

Been there, done that....

I'm back from ArtFest!!!! WOW...what a week:) I had so much fun. I'm sure I'll be posting about it for some time as I process my experience and continue to be inspired by all that I saw and did. My classes were terrific and meeting so many fellow bloggers and artists was a blast! Teesha and Tracy Moore did an outstanding job putting this even together. They deserve a standing ovation. Ok, so here's how it went...Cassondra, Ms Citrus Faire picked me up at the airport and we immediately hit it off. We had many amazing conversations over the weekend. What an inspiring artist and person she is. At the gathering on the first night I met one of my very favorite artists, Celine Navarro. I didn't get a chance to talk to her much, but she seemed so very sweet and full of creative energy. Next to Celine (on the right) is Staci of Bailey's Bliss. What a lovely person inside and out. She gave me the most wonderful beautiful earrings as a trade. I also met Hope of Paper Relics. Oh my gosh is she a sweetie! Holly was there (see a picture of us on her blog). She's absolutely fantastic!! Heather of Portals zine fame. She is so much fun! Dawn too...she's looking for submissions for an art journal book. Check it all out here! Oh there are so many bloggers I met. It was fantastic!!!

Before I get ahead of myself, I must say that Port Townsend, Washington is a beautiful place. It's at the tip of the peninsula and this was the view from the base out at the water. Gorgeous!!The beach below was full of dift wood. I had so much fun gathering rocks and sticks and other treasures. This was the gorgeous sunrise on the first day. WOW!

My first day of classes was with LK Ludwig. I have been a fan of her work for so long. Her love of using natural elements in her mixed media work is right up my alley. She had her own books there and she went through them as she showed us different techniques. It was amazing to see these in the flesh.Here's a sampling of the goodies that I made (below). She showed us a technique for creating an image of a natural element onto mesh. Also a very very easy water transfer technique that works amazingly well. Along with a cold water dye technique. We spent a good part of the day outside tromping through the woods looking for natural elements for our projects. It was a lot of fun!

My second day of classes was with Lynne Perrella. Boy did she knock the lid off my usual way of thinking about art and creating. I love that!!!

I created this "mess" (below) in her class and enjoyed every second of it. Totally not the way I usually create, but she really challenged us to let loose! It has a slit in the middle, because she showed us the neatest technique to fold this into a book. Too cool!

The third day of classes was with the lovely and amazing Pam Garrison. Love that girl! Here's us posing with the canvas piece I bought from her on vendor night.

Here's Pam showing us the tricks of the trade.

Me posing with the cover of the ledger book I altered and re-bound during class.

It was a great class to end the weekend with. Lots of friends, playing with different mediums and enjoying some good times:)

It was sad to see my very first ArtFest come to a close. I had looked forward to it for so very long. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget. After we left Port Townsend, Cassondra and I spent the day in Seattle. She then headed home to Oregon and I had yet another day in the city. I explored on my own and had a great time before heading home to a family that missed me dearly:) I am so inspired by this amazing opportunity. The artwork that I saw was absolutely fun, funky and fresh. So much talent! I will post many more pics of all the inspiration from my trip in my next post. Oh yea and I got tons of cool trades too. Lots more to share...stay tuned!