Merci and Thanks

Made some thank you cards

for relatives on the other

side of the pond. The hut and palm are Claudia Rose stamps. Umbrella by A Muse. Glasses by Inkadinkado.

Twice in July? Oh My.

It's nigh time to make thank you cards- or in this case, "merci" cards to
send to all of Luke's wonderful relatives. What kind people they all were.
I don't know what made me go tropical when we went to the mountains
of France, but there you have it. I rather like the one with the sunglasses-
it has mountains at least! I promised also to show my France flea market
tiny treasures as well, I know, but that will be yet another post.
adieu!

JULY OH MY!

We're just back from vacationing in France for two weeks.
Here you see us in our room taking pictures of each other with the Paris skyline in the background. Our first room stank of moldy paint and had an airshaft as a window. No no, this would not do. Our second room was much better! We stayed only the weekend in Paris but it was jam packed with sights and sounds. Our favorite hang out place was Cafe Hugo on the Place des Vosges right near our hotel in the Marais district. And be still my heart, there was a bead store a mere 2 blocks from our hotel!
Here is a picture of the stash. I didn't go too crazy. From Paris we took the TGV to the Vosges Mountains where Luke was born.
More pics and my flea market stash to follow!

June and Bliss!

Oh what a blissful weekend- on so many fronts!

Friday was my last day of classes- buh-bye guys

see you next year!

It was also sign-up time for ARTBLISS- an East Coast

Art Retreat that will be happening this fall in

the Wash. DC area. And yes, I am one of the goonies

who stayed up until midnight in order to be one of the

first to sign up! As a result,I am enrolled for the

Melissa Manley Hard Candy class- yum- I SO want

to learn how to enamel and make my own beads.

And then... wait for it....wait for it... a class with

Deryn Mentock- double woo double hoo!

Icing on the cake is my hubbie accompanying me

to DC- so we get to play in the evenings!

I've also been busy making end-of-school-year

thank you gifts. This year, I decided to keep it

simple and make sets of Thank You Cards

boxed in clear plastic boxes. I had so much

fun playing with the mannequin. I've used her

a gazillion times before in cards but I never

tire of what you can do with her. This time around,

I made some patterned paper and dressed her

up with some rick-rack, brads and ribbon.

 ArtBliss- An East Coast Event! Woohoo!

Inspiration

Wow- It's been almost a month now since I've posted! Yikes! Good thing no one reads this! heh heh.

Inspiration is a funny thing. I've been stamping cards now for about 30 years. I still have some of my original stamp stash too believe it or not. Well, I decided to stop by Barnes and Nobles today to pick up a Cloth, Paper, Scissors, for no particular reason other than perhaps channel Forrest Gump. I was intrigued as well by the latest issue of Take Ten, which is a Stampington Publication of the rubber stamped ilk. I used to purchase magazines a lot more frequently but HELLO! has anyone noticed the price creep lately? Buy a few magazines and its tantamount to a second mortgage! But I digress...

So I select these two magazines and come home, make a nice cozy fire- yes in May- it's freezing on Long Island still! and begin a joyous romp through their pages. Mid-romp-I spy on page 46 a filmstrip stamp. I say to myself that I've not used that same stamp in about a gazillion years. It became the inspiration for my husband's birthday card. I used it along with the flying superhero by Teesha Moore and a Hot Potatoes Circle background stamp. I ran right upstairs and made it while my husband was out at the movies watching appropriately enough, Ironman 2 (speaking of superheroes). Yep, inspiration is a funny thing. Bam out of nowhere- it bit me.

OMG! It's been so long- this is why I didn't want to start a blog- I KNEW I wouldn't be faithful to it! What do I have to blog about? Well, I'll start with my husband getting the

"Going the Extra Mile" award at the Veteran's Administration. He's such a good guy!

I took the camera outside and decided to photograph the crocus in full bloom. I love this time of year! I finished taking my "Art for Academics" art class and my chickie was the final project. I liked the way he turned out! Finally, I made a wedding good luck card for Katie, my "spin" class teacher. There, that sums up 2 months in a few sentences, doesn't it? I should be tweeting I'm so succinct!

I just finished up taking an after-school art course called something like "Art Methods to Use in the Content Area". What a blast! There ended up being a tribe of 12 women from various local area schools who taught in various content areas. I was one of 2 science teachers there. We had a lot of fun and a picked up a few interesting project ideas for future class projects. There were a few "ringers" in the class- Art teachers! who did amazing work and provided inspiration. Pictured is the last project we did called "glue-tage". It entailed building up layers of manila paper on cardboard then rolling paint over it and print making from that. Lots of messy fun was had! A woman by the name of Julia Healy was the instructor. She was a bundle of high voltage triple A energy! I so enjoyed my after school Wednesdays there. Mmmmm a good cup of coffee, lots of sharpie markers and a fun group of creative women- what a way to end a Wednesday! These free classes are one of the NICE things that happen with our tax dollars...

God Bless Ivan Baranov 1925-2010

The great Russian Bear has passed on.

God bless Ivan Baranov. Who among other things, was a French Foreign Legion Soldier, Butcher, Air France Chef and Chief Custodian. What an interesting life he led. But first and foremost, he was an artist. Thanks dad, for giving me my first set of jewelry making tools and all of those copper blanks! Ivan passed on March 5th.

Oh Yay for Free Time!

As I had mentioned, I had an unexpected snow day on Friday. As I didn't believe we'd be off, I didn't take home my usual work. Oh what to do, what to do with no schoolwork to do or papers to grade on a 3 day weekend? Hmmm. I bit the bullet and made charm bracelet inventory instead. What a sacrifice, I know, I know. I store them in these nifty little egg cartons, which stack nicely. I now have 2.5 of these babies full of bracelets. Some of the charms are from members of a group I used to be in called the Charmsters. Others are reconstructed and deconstructed thrift shop and estate sale finds. The bracelet bases- the links- are all vintage necklaces that have been repurposed. I tried to photograph some of these individually, but as per usual, the photos came out blurry. Grrr- I must gain expertise in this area!

Snow Day (again!)

We woke up to another Long Island winter wonderland. In case you didn't know this already, we Long Islanders are big baby fraidy cats. We shriek at the first flake. We roll up the sidewalk and lock the doors. Then we come out and shovel that sidewalk. This morning, I shoveled a lovely 14 inches off of our driveway and my husband did all of our walks. Having felt the flush of exercise, I came in to rubber stamp Easter cards. To follow are some of my efforts. There once was a great company called Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers. She had to close her operations due to health issues. Before she did, she held a blow-out sale of her rubber stamps. RBBB specialized in vintage images and the two I used this year I've not used in a while. The girl is holding a basket of chicks and the lid lifts to reveal them. The bunny holding the baby bunny doesn't do anything, except look cute as all heck, I think.

This was my Valentine's gift! I was so shocked. I mentioned in passing to my husband that I discovered a bead shop on Long Island that I wanted to go check out. (The island, as big as it is, has paltry resources for cool crafting stuff outside of the big box stores). Lo and behold I get this very cool tool, which I have NO idea how to use and a gift certificate from the store. How adorable is my husband? I was so touched! Well, I think I'll go read up on this tool and find out how to use the darn thing! Any suggestions and how to's would be most appreciated. Happy Valentine's Day to all of my cyberfriends!

Remember when these lunchbox handbags were all the rage? I was in high school then and I had a collaged lunchbox pocketbook empire. We called them "decopaged" back in the day. I sold them like hotcakes. I was always crafting. Although I didn't know it was called that. I just made stuff. Often. Always. I wish I had kept one but I am not a big saver of memorabilia. My husband is outraged that I did not save my high school yearbook. I'm lucky I have my current driver's license.

::: Number Charms | Raw Brass | 4 sets of #1 thru #10, a total of 44 pieces for $4.00

So love these brass numbers by

Ornamentia.com!

More Valentine's

I decided to redo my Charmster's Valentine's Day Charm Swap Necklace.

There were 50 charms originally. I decided that it looked too Carnivale.

So I edited the charms, shortened the necklace and added a ribbon tie.

V day redeux

Here are some more V. day cards.

2010 Valentine Cards

With the help of some new online friends, I've attempted once again to photograph my work. For those who may already know, I am terrible at this! I don't know why. I rather like to blame the camera, but that's cowardly, I know. So take a gander at some of the 2010 Valentine cards I've made.