pamgarrison

we had a lovely, relaxing weekend

Hope you did too. Here are our high- lights: My son making home- made Popsicles after picking oranges and lemons in the backyard. [So sad to see the little dimples in my son's hand disappearing. He knows how much I love them, and when I am playing with him, pouting about how fast he's growing, he puts his hand in my face and points to them saying, "look, my pimples are still there mom" which of course cracks me up. "Dimples honey, dimples." ] He was doing his part, making dessert, because my daughter decided that she wanted to cook dinner for us and another family. Great! All I had to do was set the table, which you can see is in progress here.

It was relaxing and mellow like a long summer day that turns into night.

The view from my seat after dessert (grilled fruit with ice cream- yum). Unfortunately, I didn't take any other photos, well except this one that is for Aunt Bonnie. Here's the after dinner entertainment. Very entertaining.

Not sure why my kids are dancing with their eyes closed. They must get that from their Dad's side, ha ha.

it's beginning to look a lot like

Christmas. Christmas? Yes, Christmas. In the heavy planning stages for this year's Silver Bella event, and must say I'm getting rather excited about it. It's going to be even bigger this year with exciting new teachers joining in on the fun. We've got Charlotte Lyons, Jennifer Paganelli, Rebecca Sower and Jenny  and Aaron of Everyday's a Holliday,  bringing their magic to the party as well as all the teachers from last year; Kim Kwan, Carolyn Peeler, Teresa McFayden and myself. Teresa's got lots of other exciting news for the attendees of this special paper arts event, so if you want to keep in the know, check out the Silver Bella blog or sign up for the Paper Bella newsletter here. I know the sneak peeks are coming soon, (thus, my getting Christmas crafts out to make my project samples). Don't you just love revisiting old Christmas goodies tucked away ?

Ah, Christmas. It'll be here before we know it. Hope to share in the celebration with you at Silver Bella! 

color love

This past Artfest, I took "Welcome to Color" taught by Tiphoni Moore. I have such a strange relationship with color. I love it, I love to mix them and match them, but I also love that non color look, sometimes in my art, but especially in my home. Anyway, in Tiphoni's class we brought 7 acrylic paint tubes :cold and warm of red yellow and blue, and then white. Tiphoni taught us how to mix colors to make (or try to make) any color we want. It was so fun to play and mix and create our own color palettes. Here's my journal page from class. I took notes in class and then glued down some of the colors from my wax paper palette.

Now that I'm home, I don't try to match colors to a magazine page like we did, but I do enjoy mixing colors willy nilly. Here's my palette from the other nights playtime.

And here is what I was playing on...the same boards from the other day...still in progress.

Here are close ups of the two closest to completion. It's been really fun not  knowing where these are going. Well, fun and then sometimes frustrating. The two on the left remained untouched from the other day because I didn't want to "ruin" them in the discovery phase.

Speaking of color palette's and the love of color, I received Teesha Moore's Art&Life issue #7.

Inside, Teesha created her own endpapers of sorts by making a gorgeous water color palette. Here's the inside of the first page.

and here is a bit of the back palette. Thanks Teesha, now I've got about 5 more watercolors on the must have list, ha ha. How about you, see some must haves?

I am honored to have some artwork in this issue, the innagural all-color issue. Here's the first spread. Teesha surprised me by including the back of one of my submitted pieces, that's what's on the right side, because it had some interesting color bleeding things  going on. I like the way her mind thinks, I certainly never would have thought of that page as anything, but I like the honest nature of it.

Above is the 2nd spread I did, an article on Moo cards in case anyone hasn't discovered them yet, and a little ode to color which seemed fitting for the issue. The paper is so smooth and feels great. Paper quality is so important, isn't it? If you want to check out Art&Life click here.

To answer a comment question, yep! Marie Antoinette project info coming soon, but the above's all the blogging I can fit into today. xo

flicker pretties

flicker pretties
Originally uploaded by pamg.

i'm not crazy, really

I swear I'm not. But let me back up a bit first...

I'm betting blogs and creative types everywhere have been talking about Martha's new line of goods at Michael's. (If you posted about the new products, or know someone that has, why don't you leave a link in the comments so everyone can see the assortment available- also, in all of my posts, I try to put in links when possible-for this one, you can click on Michael's and maybe order products- on the last post, you can click on Somerset Home to order the magazine directly.)As you can see, I'm a fan. I think some items are a bit pricey, but yet too pleasing to resist.  So, after opening up my purchases, I found myself admiring the hanging part of the  package. I am, and always have been, a sucker for  good packaging. Anyway, while doing said admiring, I came up with a use for the top of the package. I mixed them with some of my wallpaper scraps, (I'm telling you, I really believe no scrap is too small to save.)

and created doll hangers for a new collaborative I'm involved in (more on that in another post). Here they are (and in the top photo) hanging in one of those little doll clothes cases.

I love to use regular items, items that would be discarded by a reasonable person, to craft. The problem is, if one sees a possible use in such items as scraps of paper and packaging parts, there's a lot of stuff that gets saved.

Hmm, maybe I should rethink the title of my post and instead call it, "ok, i am crazy, really".

might i recommend???

...that you treat yourself to a copy of Somerset Life. It's really choc full of pretty visuals, good craft ideas and interesting articles. It is a bit pricier than their usual magazine, but I think that's because it's more like an art book. There aren't any ads except for Stampington products and publications, and the paper is nice and heavy. Of course, I happen to like the treatment of my banner project, so I'm admittedly biased. Here's a couple photos of my project, the original banner I made that my other banners stemmed from.

For those that wonder how I do the glittered letters, here is the post where I explain it.

In the magazine there are articles and artwork from:

Corey Amaro, Michelle Ward, Hanne Matthiesen, Anna Corba,  Connie Govea Stuart, Lisa Guerin, Danyel Montecinos (of Paris to the Moon), Shirley LaPorte,Kellene Giloff, Jenny Doh, and Rebecca Ittner, Sandra Evertson,Amanda Belle Nolan and Cher B. Lashley, Angela Cartwright, Cynthia Shaffer, Amy Hanna,  , Michelle Flores, Diane Michioka, Traci Batista, and Jami Petersen. Jana Holstein, Anita Byers, Linda Tong, Carolyn Westbrook and Melody Nunez

See? There's lots more than just my project to soak in. Hope you like it!

another monday already?

Hope you had a Happy Mother's Day. Here's one of my favorite vases filled with some of my favorite flowers, viburnum, ranaculous and tulips....can you see the writing on the flea marketed vase? It says "Property of Santa Monica Hospital" . Do you suppose FTD or some company like them used to deliver beautiful vases like these? I love Santa Monica, so I find the writing especially charming.

I am lucky to have lots of sweet little girls in my life. This is Kate, who had her first comunion this weekend.  I had fun making a little crown for her to wear,  her mom asked for something that no one else would have. Just a little lamp trim, vintage jewelry and wallpaper. Luckily, she  loved it, and got many compliments on it.

I've been a bad blogger, I know. Breaking my own request of good blogs: to post often. Been in a bit of a funk lately. I was so sad about the accident in the post below. And I have been tired. And I have been in pain. And I am most definitely tired of being in pain! I don't know how people live with chronic pain. They have my sympathies. The back does get a bit better everyday. I really appreciate all the well wishes and how you put up with my whining about it here. Enough already Pam! No more complaining about my back. As for the funk? I'm determined to will myself out of it this week. Time to start putting one foot in front of the other again. Got out some thin wood and started playing with paint. With no purpose in mind. I have no idea what these will become, if anything, but it was fun to mix colors. Love my son's feet here- cracks me up, because he is often underfoot when I'm making something. Of course, he had some paints and papers of his own to work on, but wanted to join me when I took a photo to share the progress. And yes, we still have no flooring. When my back went out so did all unesesary tasks, like picking out carpet. Gotta get to that soon. Here's to a more art-filled week, and more sharing on the blog. xo

a new week, a fresh start attitude

If you bought a paper pack through etsy, look for an envelope like this. (I am trying to make more for all that are upset about how quickly they go. Need to work on some good ol' fashioned art first though.) I've received some questions about the pens used, so I thought I'd answer them for all here... the blue pen is a Chartpak AD marker, the mustard and pink are Copic sketch pens and the olive green is a Marvy LePlume II. The light olive inside the olive letters is a Letraset Promarker. All can be found at a good art supply store, or online at dickblick.com. Thanks for the nice comments about the time put in, it's the fun part of shipping and handling for me!

Friday night we celebrated our son's birthday with special family friends. (The birthday boy is in front of big sis in the brown sweatshirt). The kids spent the entire time in the unheated pool even though it was actually very cold out- not the case in southern California today- hot hot hot. My friend Debbie, who's home we were at, had just returned from the hospital where she works as an OR nurse and had terrible news about a local family. There was a horrific accident on the freeway and the tragic outcome is that all three of their children (ages 2, 4, and 5) passed away. Needless to say, I am sick about it and have done nothing but pray for the parents, especially the mother who was in the car with them, all weekend. Dreamt about it all night, worried, and prayed some more. I thought that maybe you, if you are so inclined, could send loving thoughts and prayers their way too. I'm of the opinion that more prayers can do nothing but help. It sure does make you hug your loved ones tighter and appreciate the moments of life like the one captured above. It also makes my talking about wallpaper packs and envelopes seem rather unimportant. Thus, the post title reference to a fresh start attitude. Remembering what's really important, fresh perspective. Here's to a week where we all live savoring our blessings.

today's the day for artfiberfest

Today is the day to postmark your artfiberfest applications for any of you that wish to come along. I will be teaching two classes,  SewFAB(ric) journal  and Paper Portraits.  The photo above is the front cover of the SewFAB(ric) journal class sample. We'll be sewing the cover crazy quilt fashion and then we'll sew in watercolor paper so you'll go home with a finished journal ready to play in. Here are some more photos of the sample:

this is the back cover:

here's the inside of the front cover:

this is the back inside cover, you can see a bit of the water color paper sewn in.

and here are some Paper Portraits, samples for second class...

Artfiberfest is held October 17th-21st (new time of year) in Port Townsend Washington (new location). Care to join me? Then go on over to teeshamoore.com, click on artfiberfest, fill out the application and get it in the mail today! No need to send overnight or priority or anything like that, getting it postmarked today is what matters. Hope to see some of you there!