The irises outside our front door just started blooming. They make me happy. The color is so rich and beautiful. Also, I updated my Inspired Images traveling moleskine blog, if you'd like to check out mine and Beth's latest collaborations. Thanks for looking!
Bill is out with some friends from work, so I've been spending the evening home alone, and much was accomplished! I finally finished entering my grades online, and I created a page for our memory book at school this year. Lots of laundry and listening to good music. Also, I completed 43 4"x4" pages for a "chunky book" project I'm involved in. I've been procrastinating working on this for a long time, so even though I enjoyed making them, it is a *relief* to have them finished. I hand carved a self-portrait print and printed it on each page with water-based printing ink. Embellishments are stamped flower designs, sequins on pop dots, and Strano ribbon. (if you like ribbon, you must check out that link - their stuff is to die for!) 
Looking forward to tomorrow. We're having breakfast with a friend from high school that I haven't seen in a long time, and in the afternoon my mom and sister are coming over from Des Moines. The four of us are going to look at a HOUSE Bill has been looking at on the internet for months. It is expensive, but I think it may be somewhere we would want to live for a long, long time. I'll decide after I see it in person, but it is an exciting prospect to be even thinking about buying our first house together. Mom and Bethany are staying overnight and then we're going to an all day employee scrapbooking crop at Reminisce. Well... I'm starting to get sleepy, and I think I might paint my nails before I go to bed, so off I go.
Just a couple deco pages I made last night using some Technique Tuesday stamps and acrylic paint. I think they're fun!
I'm not sure if the student who left this picture on my desk meant it to be a portrait of me or not, but... I'm definitely having moments when I feel like this. LOL. Only 6 1/2 school days left until summer! Ok, back to working on grades...
Altered frame gift for my mom for Mother's Day. Using a photo from our wedding day, Chatterbox paper, Foofala buttons, and a Heidi Swapp silhouette.
Altered 7 Gypsies clipboard frame for a class I'm teaching at Reminisce on June 27. I tried to get the example together early so that I will hopefully have a full class of 12. Last time when I made a mini-pet book, I only had 4 people come, and it really wasn't worth my prep time.
Amy tagged me, so I better get going on answering these!So, I have to give 5 answers for all these catagories. Hmmm... this is a lot of brain power so early in the morning!5 items in my fridge1. oranges2. Starbucks carmel frappucinos3. diet Squirt4. some 7-layer dip5. my B
rita water pitcher
5 Items in my closet1. my stash of fabric scraps from quilting projects (and a few unfinished quilting projects)2. my collection of purses and bags3. letters that my husband sent me during our college years4. boxes of papers and other old stuff waiting for a rainy day when I'll sort through them and decide what to keep and what to get rid of5. my new hooded sweatshirt (p.s. - that's not me in the picture)5 Items in my Purse1. tons of receipts waiting for me to balance my checkbook2. my cell phone3. my orange and yellow beaded coin purse4. a variety of hair clips and pens5. (actually this is on the outside of my purse) my little yarn pirate from the Modern Art Museum of Chicago's gift shop5 Items in My Car1. a dustbuster left over from our chalk experience this weekend2. a book that I've been planning to return since I received it at Christmas, but now I'll probably keep.3. cds by Jewel, Damien Rice, Joshua Radin, The Little Willies, & the Wicked musical soundtrack4. broken sunglasses5. a pile of packages waiting to go to the post office after schoolI tag:BethJudiTamand anyone else kind enough to read my blog who has not already been tagged. :)
If you'd like to see the rest of my photos from the Madonnari festival this weekend, check out them out here. Thanks for looking and for your comments!
Here are some of my favorite photos from yesterday's adventure in chalk painting with Wendy. The weather was SO beautiful and it was a little easier to work with the chalks and the surface than I had anticipated, and our design looks terriffic translated so large, and it was fun to meet all the artists and visitors. How's *that* for a run-on sentence!
Here I am drawing out some of the design, after we had put down a chalk grid to transfer our drawing to the larger scale. 
Our fancy chalks. Yum.
Visitors working on the giant Grant Wood "Stone City" reproduction. New people start working on squares on the hour - they're photographing it from the roof every hour. Should be really neat!
Wendy's shoes. Hee hee!
Portrait by the visiting artist from California. The skin tones are incredible!
Our neighbor, Cassidy, did a portrait of Frida Kahlo (yeah!) and she's a recent Luther grad, like me, and she knows my brother, Thor (she was roomates with one of his ex-girlfriends). Small world!
Our spot at the end of Saturday. I was trying to hold up the camera to get it all. Not the best picture.Anyway, this morning I'm awake and ready to get to work again (we're probably about 2/3 done already) but I'm incredibly sore. My whole body hurts. whoa. Legs from squatting, and back and neck from bending over our piece. Plus my hands are a little weary. I'm going to call in sick tomorrow to school. First of all, by then, I'll probably be so sore it will be tough to move, but also I need a day to finish up all my classwork for my artist's books class and get caught up on mail art projects and other things on my massive to do list. It will be a mental health day, really. I think I deserve one pseudo-sickday - I work hard all year (even if there are only a few weeks left of school).Will post more pictures after today. AND I got my first non-RR deco homer back yesterday, and it is AWESOME, so a post coming on that as soon as I scan pages.
So, I got out of bed about an hour and 20 minutes earlier than usual today, yet I still left my house for work at the same moment I do every morning. Go figure. I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep because of all the to-do lists circulating in my brain. At least I got a few things accomplished at home, including making these cookies to bring to school today. Here's a link to my latest art newsletter.
This afternoon Wendy came over after school and we made this rough sketch of the chalk picture that we're going to make during the art festival in Mt. Vernon, Iowa this weekend. She had the idea to combine some famous paintings into one large composition. I thought it was a great idea, so we settled on Klimt, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Monet. I wasn't sure at first if we could pull it together, but I really like this drawing, and I think it will translate to the large scale (6'x8') that we'll be beginning on Saturday. I'm a little nervous about being one of only 20 artists doing the work during the festival, mostly because I've never used the pastels we're using and I've certainly never made any piece of art this large, but overall I'm *excited*!
The irises outside our front door just started blooming. They make me happy. The color is so rich and beautiful. Also, I updated my Inspired Images traveling moleskine blog, if you'd like to check out mine and Beth's latest collaborations. Thanks for looking!
Only 1 1/2 more days of school - woo-hoo! Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to get the art room clean enough to check out for the summer! Worked on lots of mail art swaps last night. These are a couple atcs to go with the theme "Everything but the Bird".
We (my sister and mom and I) had a *great* time scrapbooking on Monday. All my sister's excellent pictures gave me good reason to covet her new digital camera. Look at what it can do! You can select one color (like yellow) and turn everything else black and white - while you're taking the picture! So cool.
She also captured lots of funny pictures of Cleo. 
Bill is out with some friends from work, so I've been spending the evening home alone, and much was accomplished! I finally finished entering my grades online, and I created a page for our memory book at school this year. Lots of laundry and listening to good music. Also, I completed 43 4"x4" pages for a "chunky book" project I'm involved in. I've been procrastinating working on this for a long time, so even though I enjoyed making them, it is a *relief* to have them finished. I hand carved a self-portrait print and printed it on each page with water-based printing ink. Embellishments are stamped flower designs, sequins on pop dots, and Strano ribbon. (if you like ribbon, you must check out that link - their stuff is to die for!) 
Looking forward to tomorrow. We're having breakfast with a friend from high school that I haven't seen in a long time, and in the afternoon my mom and sister are coming over from Des Moines. The four of us are going to look at a HOUSE Bill has been looking at on the internet for months. It is expensive, but I think it may be somewhere we would want to live for a long, long time. I'll decide after I see it in person, but it is an exciting prospect to be even thinking about buying our first house together. Mom and Bethany are staying overnight and then we're going to an all day employee scrapbooking crop at Reminisce. Well... I'm starting to get sleepy, and I think I might paint my nails before I go to bed, so off I go.
I'm not sure if the student who left this picture on my desk meant it to be a portrait of me or not, but... I'm definitely having moments when I feel like this. LOL. Only 6 1/2 school days left until summer! Ok, back to working on grades...
Altered frame gift for my mom for Mother's Day. Using a photo from our wedding day, Chatterbox paper, Foofala buttons, and a Heidi Swapp silhouette.
Altered 7 Gypsies clipboard frame for a class I'm teaching at Reminisce on June 27. I tried to get the example together early so that I will hopefully have a full class of 12. Last time when I made a mini-pet book, I only had 4 people come, and it really wasn't worth my prep time.
Tree deco cover - photo of a tree in Iowa City by me.
page by Tam
pages by Jessye and Annie
both pages by Cairnlae
pages by Victori and Trish
Wednesday afternoon we had the 6 baby Baby Shower. It was a blast. So many babies - so much minature cutie-pie goodness. One was only 4 days old!
Thanks to Nici for the good advice to decorate onsies for gifts. I bought a pack, lined them up, and individualized them with fabric paints. I like the way they came out, and the elephant cards aren't too shabby, either! It is actually easier to make gifts like this when you have to make them in bulk, because I had a system set up for cranking them out.
My last Artists Books class was on Tuesday. I finally finished my edition of 15 alphabet books just in time. It was a really great experience, especially being able to see the other students work and discuss my process with them. It made me want to take more bookmaking classes, and I'm even interested in enrolling in the Center for the Book program at the University of Iowa, but for now, I'm looking forward to having Tuesday nights free again. 
rita water pitcher
Another day of work on our chalk painting. It turned out great. I'm sore and dirty - but with a good feeling of accomplishment. It was such a fun weekend. Can't wait for next year - although I don't know if we could ever recreate this great weather again!
By the end of the day, I was ready to lay down instead of kneeling.
Our finished piece - these are hard to photograph!
Grant Wood's "Stone City" - a large community project
Here I am drawing out some of the design, after we had put down a chalk grid to transfer our drawing to the larger scale. 
Our fancy chalks. Yum.
Visitors working on the giant Grant Wood "Stone City" reproduction. New people start working on squares on the hour - they're photographing it from the roof every hour. Should be really neat!
Wendy's shoes. Hee hee!
Portrait by the visiting artist from California. The skin tones are incredible!
Our neighbor, Cassidy, did a portrait of Frida Kahlo (yeah!) and she's a recent Luther grad, like me, and she knows my brother, Thor (she was roomates with one of his ex-girlfriends). Small world!
Our spot at the end of Saturday. I was trying to hold up the camera to get it all. Not the best picture.
So, I got out of bed about an hour and 20 minutes earlier than usual today, yet I still left my house for work at the same moment I do every morning. Go figure. I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep because of all the to-do lists circulating in my brain. At least I got a few things accomplished at home, including making these cookies to bring to school today. Here's a link to my latest art newsletter.
This afternoon Wendy came over after school and we made this rough sketch of the chalk picture that we're going to make during the art festival in Mt. Vernon, Iowa this weekend. She had the idea to combine some famous paintings into one large composition. I thought it was a great idea, so we settled on Klimt, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Monet. I wasn't sure at first if we could pull it together, but I really like this drawing, and I think it will translate to the large scale (6'x8') that we'll be beginning on Saturday. I'm a little nervous about being one of only 20 artists doing the work during the festival, mostly because I've never used the pastels we're using and I've certainly never made any piece of art this large, but overall I'm *excited*!
