more zetti style

This is an 8x8 tip in spread. It's a zetti self portrait. I'm finding a style that I'm getting into and liking. Heavily inspired by Teesha Moore, Pam Garrison, and Kelly Kilmer. I've realized that I can't work in pretty Art Journals for myself. Not yet anyway. I try and I try, but the journals that I do keep are all done in either black marker or pencil and are more "notes to self" . A sketchbook and to-do list joined together. And that that's what makes me happy so I'm sticking with it! but I'm going to try to do a "page", a postcard or a canvas at least once a week to keep practicing.

zetti banner

I'm on a roll, art wise. The muse seems to work in the mornings only. Afternoons are for cleaning, organizing and doing mindless work. This banner triangle (front and back shown) is for Tamara, for a tip in Round Robin that I'm in. Tam's "book" will actually be a banner. What a fabulous idea!. I am tentatively signed up for another Round Robin. I keep saying that I won't do any more, but I think that I need them so I keep working. Without the pressure, I don't think that I would ever make anything..... I just don't know......

Girlfriends

I went to my friend's cottage a few weeks ago and we made bunnies. Aren't they sweet?

My cousin's wedding

I try to keep my blog about my art, but we had lots of fun this weekend. My cousin J got married! She's the baby! She made me feel really old.....
Here are the bride and groom:My mom, myself, and my beautiful daughter:
My daddy dancing with my baby:I hope that your weekend was as magical as ours were!

I was not amused

Last weekend I needed to finish some sewing projects. I got up bright and early (6am) and began making some tote bags.
This is how I begin:
I cut out the bases and begin laying out fabrics and images that I might use (the images are all by DJ Petitt, by the way, you can buy them already printed on fabric in her etsy shop):Then I make the collages and sew together the top layer:Then all hell broke loose. VRMMMM -- the machine was making noise, but spinning it's wheels and not going anywhere. Didn't I just have this into the repair shop for the same reason??? YES!!! Grrr. I had to pack up the machine and take the subway to the repair shop. Then wait around for an hour while they look at it (actually, I went down the street to Bizzie Bs and sat in on Daniza's most excellent Stamp of the Month Demo, so the waiting wasn't a huge hardship, and I got to fill up on Gummy Bears.). So my repair guy says that he loosened up somehting for me. I travelled home and finished one tote bag just in time (kind of) to bring it to the birthday party that I was now over an hour late for. Grrr. Not a relaxing morning..... AND I'm pretty sure that the machine is still not fixed. The stitches look fine (great, in fact) but the wheel still seems stiff..... I'll keep you posted.....

a giggle of mermaids

What DO you call a group of mermaids. A school? A pod? A gaggle? A giggle?
Well, this bunch of mermaid ATCs are for my ATC trade tonight at Bizzy Bs -- the theme is Water. One of my favourite themes. I found some time to make ATCs. But now I'm behind on some other projects.... It never ends..... ahhhhh, summer.........
I used lots of little strips of blue scraps, Heather Bailey Ross (oops) mermaid fabric, tulle, and novelty fibers.

Frida Kahlo's Birthday

I did a small quilty trade on one of my Yahoo groups. This went to Liz in England. My sewing machine had broken (she is all fixed and home now) So I resurrected my old singer -- but the foot pedal was broken so I hand cranked the whole thing! Then I added lots of hand quilting and some beading (hard to see) and some sequins. I think that it represents what Frida means to me.

Michigan Vacation -- a very wordy post

I've been vacationing in Michigan this week. We like to choose somewhere that we haven't been before -- or that one of us hasn't been to :)
We started out on Monday(after a stop to visit my parents for a day) in Ann Arbor. We visited the very famous Hollanders (not just a paper shop) and my favourite store, Found. Then we hit some of my favourite US only stores -- Trader Joes, Target and Joanne's -- we stocked up on some yummy food for our hotel room (couldn't open our Trader Joe's wine though -- no corkscrew, lol). Then stocked up on some flip flops and some basic fabric (flannel for pjs).
On Tuesday night we headed to Kalamazoo and Portage to visit with Joanne Thieme Huffman!(here we are in Joanne's beautiful yard -- picture taken by Joanne's lovely daughter Becky!)

We had great fun ( Yummy restaurants!) and visited the Kalamazoo Institute of Art (Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit), a great fabric store and yarn shop -- and visited Hobby Lobby and Harbor Freight (just like our Princess Auto -- is it related???).
Joanne and I played making Suzi Blu sketches -- I think that I'm getting better. For those of you who complain about the big eyed, crooked head girls... well..... maybe someday I'll try to make them smaller and less crooked :)I'm just loving the little girl with the freckles in the bottom picture, lower left corner.

Joanne has the most adorable little pug dog named Cookie. She is the pretties little girly dog ever!!!! I am so lame that I forgot to take a picture.

On Thursday (after Joanne graciously put us up for 2 nights) (THANK YOU JOANNE!!!) the sun finally came out so Ray and I headed to the beach and camping. We travelled an hour west of Kalamazoo to the beach town of South Haven. What a lovely town!! Some very nice antique stores-- AND I found some most wonderful Keen shoes for $40!!! (They're about $140 here) (funny, I bought my last pair last summer in Burlington, Vermont). Oh, and if anyone finds a really cool vintage children's book in a restaurant called Capn Nemos in South Haven, that book is mine. I didn't mean to leave it on the table when I left......We camped in Van Buren State Park. It was a nice park -- we'll go back. BUT I got a sunburn. I had loaded on the sunscreen. But I was wearing a dress and was reading on the beach lying down, and I guess that my dress was hiked up a bit so I am totally burned on the backs of my upper legs. ouch ouch ouch. Not nice for the 7 hour ride home.

There were lots of bugs:Some fallen trees:The walk TO the beach was fine. The walk back to camp sucked. Ray said that it was good exercise. I said that if he carried me it would be GREAT exercise.Somebody made this cool driftwood beach "installation"
We were so happy to get to the border and find no line ups!!! BUT (there is always a but) we got a random border check -- but had very nice border checking people who were very patient with me while I rummaged through stuff to find receipts. Well, they knew that I was totally cheap when they said "Oh, you bought some wine" (we had declared no alcohol). I yelped (really, it was a yelp) "No, it's empty -- I just wanted my dollar back!" Then they said thank you have a nice day. Whew, no duty on the 6 pairS of flip flops. ( totally kidding here -- there would have been no duty)
Andy was a very happy puppy upon our return. We were very happy to learn that he was a pretty good boy while we were away. He only ate one flip flop. (are you understanding now why we purchase flip flops in bulk? -- It's because some of us here forget to put their flip flops in the flip flop basket when we leave the dog home alone in the house. not naming any names.....)

My Lucky Day

School is finished for the school year. Now the summer is filled with travel, friends and art. What more could I ask for? I found the clovers on a walk with Andy. One is 4 leaf, and one is 5 leaf. Lucky me!