Tiny Tot

Say what you will but this little guy's getting teeth.  Drooling like crazy, chewing on everything from his fingers to his toes.
Admit it, he's adorable.

Stampaway: Whimsical Assemblage

What do you get when you squeeze 33 women in a room with assorted paints?

Concentration...quiet...

followed by murmurs then chatter...

Then come the wet wipes to remove some of that wet paint...from the assemblage as well as hands, arms, elbows, shirt sleeves...

Only a few gals finished their projects or even came close, but I think everyone loved the Ranger Dimensional Pearls for accents.

The kit included several items for embellishing such as Coffee Break's chipboard pennants.  Then for whimsy I packed wooden triangles, flowers, discs, & assorted shapes & sizes of beads from Ready to Decorate.  They're the same people who manufacture my DIY Bangles. 

I had photocopied some of my own backgrounds so the ladies could stamp an image of a face and then add a masonite crown.  The crowns were a huge hit.

So thanks to Mike at Coffee Break for designing those elevated box kits, and to Vijay and Kelly for the wooden beads & shapes, and to everyone for coming to play with me again!!  You were all fabulous.

Stampaway: Art Journal of Techniques

Many of you know that I began teaching classes at a tiny stamp store in SC called The Stamp House.  The entire store, including the storage/stocking area was 300 sq ft.  Hard to imagine for someone with a 500 sq ft studio, but it was true.  Audrey would display the cards and artwork I made and for months afterward tourists as well as locals would ask how to replicate them and then buy the necessary supplies.  So she rented an empty retail space across the parking lot from her store and we began to offer classes.
Over the years as I continue to travel and teach I'm still fanatical about creating backgrounds, and my classes for those techniques continue to draw a wide variety of students.  This year's class in Cincinnati was no different.

We played with inks of course, Ranger's Dimensional Pearls (still a favorite of mine), and lots of goodies from Clearsnap, such as their Smooch and Smooch Spritz, their stylus tools & tips and their Magic Stamp (Penscore for those of us who are older than dirt).

I love showing others how to add new things to their creativity like needlepoint rounds and dry wall tape, but some of those old tried & true tools like the Magic Stamp delight as much today as they did a decade ago.

We had a lot of fun in this class, with lots of laughter.  No surprise there.  If you were in attendance, thank you ever so much for coming to play with me.  And if you missed it, look for my name on next year's schedule and sign up to see what all the fuss is about.

Stampaway 2010: Wednesday night's class

Stampaway began with my Shadow Box Collage class at Stamp Your Art Out on Wednesday night.

Our glass-topped specimen boxes were 8" x 6" x 2" this year and housed 3 chipboard houses/towers from Coffee Break Design.  The ladies brought their own ink pads but I also provided Ranger's line of Acrylic paints by Claudine Hellmuth.  This meant the combination of color was truly unique to each gal in the class.

To save time I'd precut and pre-scored all the scrapbook paper to fit the boxes.  Once those were secured we moved on to the assembly of the houses and then the addition of color and ephemera.  I'd packed foreign text, grungeboard pieces, metal doodads, miniature puzzle pieces and charms.  The magic happened as each one was assembled.  I'd love to tell you no two were alike, and yet 2 different gals both used the chipboard numbers 14 included in the kit by Mike Meador of Coffee Break.  Did I mention 14 is my favorite number?  Too cool!

Notice that Tammy's assemblage matches her ensemble, as it does every year.

If you don't see yourself holding your specimen box it's because my shaky hands blurred the photos, so my apologies to those of you not featured here.

A huge thank you to everyone who came to play with me at the store on a Wednesday night!  You girls rock!!

More photos from CHA & Chicago

Thought you might like to see a few more things that caught my eye at the Summer CHA Show.  Now you know I don't want to do a scrapbook page, but just look at this from a collage perspective...love all those dimensional flowers.  And these too...

And here's one from close up so you can really see the details...

I was truly drawn to this dress form and thought something along these lines might be fabulous in my studio!

In the Ranger booth you won't believe this, but I never once stopped to see Tim's demo.  Gasp!  Egad!!  How is that possible???  It's because they flew in Dyan Reaveley from the UK to demo and I was drawn to her like a magnet.  Wish I'd taken more photos but I did bring home a tag from every day.  Can't wait for you to come see them all.

I adore her downloadable collage sheets.  Now I just have to convert US dollars to British pounds...
Here's a sample of her tags from the demo:

These were made using some of Claudine's new stamps.  Gotta have those stamps, which won't ship until September.  Killing me...

And just so you don't think I spent all my time inside, here are some photos we took last Friday while strolling through Millenium Park in downtown Chicago.

The kids came in swimsuits and others were out there in their clothes.  They must have been locals because the adults brought towels.  All those tiny tots were just squealing about how cold the water was, but they stayed in it anyway.

And the best part of the afternoon began with a bag of freshly made Caramel Crisp popcorn from Garrett's.  We sat and listened to the Symphony's rehearsal while we snacked.  I could've stayed forever.  Loved it, loved it, loved it.

And just in case you're interested, baby Jackson has changed so much I no longer recognize him!  I'm not kidding.  He's now a solid chunk; no squishy bits to be found anywhere.  How did that happen???

I get to baby sit on Saturday.  Mimi Linda is going to get all the sugar.  And hopefully new photos!

I still haven't unpacked those 6 suitcases.  Gotta get a move on.  I fly to Nashville on Sunday and then on to Cincinnati a week from tomorrow.  YIKES!!

CHA Chicago

Summer CHA in Chicago has come and gone, and I've survived another whirlwind trip.  The temperatures most of the week were in the 80's; a nice respite from the 100+ I left behind in NC.

The Maya Road booth was full of fabulous samples as always.

7 Gypsies also had some wonderful eye candy.  New display cases to showcase your artwork.  Remind you of the class I taught years ago that I called Collage in Miniature?  Sure looks like it to me.

Claudine Hellmuth has a new line of rubber stamps.  Bold images are foam stamp sets and outline images are clear.  Flowers, houses, abstract shapes.  I loved them all!!!

She was using the foam stamps with her line of paints, which I loved.  But I can also see quick, fabulous art using bold colors of ink.  And if you offset the outline image over the top of the bold images, you get that retro off-register look.  Loved it bunches!!

Stamper's Anonymous who also carries the Darcie's line has acrylic frame kits that scream for layered art.  If you're attending Stampaway, check them out early in the show!

There was so much more, including my workshop and my mini classes for Clearsnap.  I didn't take a single photo, so I should be shot.  But they did have someone filming my two mini classes in their booth, along with a quick how-to technique segment between the classes.  As soon as I know where you can find them, I'll post and let you know.

I've got six suitcases to unpack so check back later.  Lots of show and tell still to come...