French General Fun Day!!!

What a delightful day, I needed a relaxing craft day, away from home

Someone brought little delicious cupcakes. How cute on their French General plate

Kaari taught a few of us how to make these fun floppy flowers. Kaari is the sweetest most delightful person!

THEN...she had this machine...oh my goodnes! I LOVE it! She shared her vintage papers, I made these pins...then...I got to thinking....what if I PAINT a little nest, or one of my birds...and put it in her machine...Kaari said I could come back and make them Whoohoo, I'm so excited.
Its hard to see, but she had the best scissors, they all say French General on them... The flower above is mine...it still need to tatter it a bit

These are all samples

Her boards are to die for

look at that loooong panel of patchwork

Fabrics...Moda...they are dreamy

I LOVE this board
I'm soooo glad I went!!
I'm going to be connecting up with "Pink Saturday" with Beverly at
"How Sweet the Sound

French General Play Day!!

I've been prepping and preparing for this day! Its a day to be with other crafters and bring whatever we want to work on...I don't know about you, but I never know what it is I want to work on. Here's what I'm taking...I have 2 birds finished...so I'm taking a tea cup and a silver sugar bowl which means I'm taking quite a few pieces of lace, thread, glue, needles and a few embleshments What if I'm not in the mood for that...I prepared 3 boards to hold Tim Holtz birdcage. I'm hoping I can find something to hang from the holes...so, I had to bring wire, cutting tool, round nose pliers. Just for kicks, I threw in my cloth book I'm working on, I have the lace and thread and the glue. I also threw in a bunch of paper punched flowers to assemble. She is also showing how to make a vintage floral pin, I might decide to do that.lol. I have all these goodies loaded up in my vintage picnic basket. I do have my camera so I plan to take photos to share. I hope to have my own computer up and running so I can share my photos. Hope you all have a wonderful day!! oh, its suppose to get close to 90 today. Whoohoo to sunshine!

Poor Sweet Kitty

Update on our kitty. When we got him dry, we noticed he was still coated in oil. We went to the pet store. Nothing they had said it would help get the oil out of his fur. We mentioned our delema to our maintenance guy...he said "they used Dawn on the animals after the oil spill" So, we put on our gear again, sweatshirts, jeans, hopped in the shower, soaped him down. He loved it, (thank goodness). We got nice toasty towels to warm him up.. We have our furry kitty back!! Hes in a little bit of a bad mood, but that will pass after a good nights sleep.

Good News and Bad News, no pictures

I'll start out with one of my bad news... my office computer got the worse kind of virus. I'm an apt. manager, I kinda have to have a computer...I don't know whats going to happen, the rent checks are going to start coming in...ack!!! Good News!!! I just found out that the French General is going to have an open class on Thursday, I'M GOING!! Whoohoo. Bad news: Stacey had one of those sticky things hanging in her bathroom that catches knats, well.....our kitty smacked into it, he FRICKED out!!! it stuck to his tail, tummy, hindquarters... when we pulled it off it took off huge chunks of hair. Then he was all sticky. So I looked on the internet and it said oil...so oil we did...all over him, then we had to shampoo him, thankfull we have a large step in shower. So Stacey and I got on jeans and sweatshirs, grabbed our kitty, and held him while we shampood him. Soooooo sad. We started up a fire in the fireplace and he is licking his wounds. poor thing. Check in tomorrow and I'll let you know how he is doing

New addiction!! BIG SHOT

Where do I start?? Maybe it was Youtube that got me hooked, or going to new scrapbooking shops...Maybe it was the online class with Christy Tomleson, I'm not sure who is to blame...but it got me addicted...
It all started with pulling out my scrapbooking papers...no, I'm not a scrapbooker...at all, ohhh but I love the pretty papers. Painting is my thing...so when I can mix the two...oh, I'm in heaven!
Then I saw a birdcage...not just any birdcage...a Tim Holtz birdcage die...What did it take to make this beauty??? Yes...a BIGSHOT. I had to have IT.
So off to Amazon I went...and now I am the proud owner of this wonderful new toy!
I then spritzed, pounced, sprayed, my new cutouts. What is funny, I've had the dies for the flowers for a looooong time. I have a Wizard, it just doesnt do the trick like this. I am using my wizard for other uses, the company would probably cringe...I flatten my vintage silverware through it.
I wanted the bird to show up so I put it through to give it this design, then tinted it, then added Goldens pearl over top. I'll probably hang something in the holes at the bottom, but I got so excited I had to share. If you have one of these Bigshots, I would LOVE to hear what you do with yours.

Its all about Texture

I had textured some large boards over a year ago. I brought them with me, I cut it down into small sizes. They are so much easier to work with. This is 6 X 8

Altered Canvas

Sometimes I need something to kick me in gear. I took an online class with Christy Thomleson at Scarlet Lime. She does girls in paper. I like to "make it my own" so I've been playing with ideas, I'm working on more vases like in the previous post, then I thought it would be fun to try my teacup pincushion with my wool bird idea. Whats fun is you never know how the inks or water soluble pencils are going to work, or bleed, same with stamping, I like how it turned out.

Rainy Day Art

Ugh! It pouring, flood warnings...so what does one do...a bit of artwork. This vase was cut out
of scrapbook paper, inks, paints, texture paste and pen work

love using texture paste over a brass stencil

I used rubber stamps too, with stayson black and white. I painted the white flowers

Phone Skin

Ok, the picture is a bit blurry, I was excited and in a hurry to share
I got a big surprise from Stacey(my daughter)...oh yes, Stacey turned
29 yesterday.
She took one of my paintings and had a phone skin made from it, how fun is that!
What a wonderful person she is!!!

Spring Daffodils

Gone are the days of going for a drive around my little town where I was born. Lebanon Oregon.
In the spring we would always take a drive to see the new baby lambs in green fields spotted with beautiful yellow daffodils. These are pictures of a little spot in my office. I'm so happy with my $12 Typewriter from a Flea Market
I love the mug I picked up at Big Lots yesterday, I think you'll be seeing a lot more pictures of it.

Thank you Trader Joes with supplying me with a bit of Spring Memories.

Wool Birdies are BACK!

Hand painted vintage baby shoe

Not for long, I hope. I plan to take these to Seal Beach to sell in a shop. If not, I'll be listing them here.

I will be adding some flowers to the pitcher above.

Dont you just love this idea...Stacey came up with it,

And the vintage sugar bowl with vintage sheet music.
If you are new to my blog. These birds are my own designs. I hand dye the wool so each bird is one of a kind. I use vintage lace to make the pincushions. These birdies have been featured in Somerset Studio Life Magazines. I have sold them all over the world. I hope to get more finished so I can share them with you!

Daisies and a Silly Kitty

I took these lovely Daisies at the Beverly Hills Farmers Market. Did a little photoshopping with a background that I had made.

I got to giggling...this is the silliest kitty ever. He tucked his front legs underneath and stretched out the back ones. He slithered off the Laker blanket.

New Girl Mixed Media

I've been working on this girl for the last few days. Its one of those pieces that I could work on and work on, but at some point I need to call it "done" and move on to a new project.
I like how her face turned out...I had to laugh...I painted the face with no problem, but that bow in her hair gave me fits.

I ordered some new treasures, I'll use them on my next project.
I'll tell you, I am having so much fun getting back into "doing my thing"

New and Old Artwork

I made this using papers, paint, stamps, and a tree branch

Working on more interesting backgrounds

Not sure what I plan to put on the one up and down. the one up is just a 4X4

Stopped in at the sweet shop in So. Pasadena. It won the "cupcake war" not bad..but they weren't great.

I've shown these in the past, but it still amazes me that I did this painting on the old mansion.
While we were in Pasadena yesterday, I wanted to stop in and see how it was holding up. Its been 16 years ago that I restore the painted fresco around this whole house.



It saddens me that it sits there empty. The magnificent chandeliers are the only things left.
I used a cherry picker to get up there, here in the front it is 3 stories high. It was tricky.

I've been busy

I did one of these books before, it was published in Somerset...I did a couple new ones.
I'm really excited. There is a new shop in Seal Beach, I talked to her about selling my things in her shop. I thought I better get busy crafting...

The poppies are out in full bloom

The roses at the Santa Monica Farmers Market were beautiful

Cute pillow in Laguna Beach

Also had lunch in Laguna...at the Big Fish this fresh

Mahi Mahi Fish Taco...$3.00 Soooo good

Stacey had blackened Salmon

These were called Buffalo Califlower...sooo good

I asked this lady if I could take a picture of her pooch. Adorable

After gallivanting around...we had to get some gas...OUCH!!!

close to home we pay 3.79, it will go up 10 cents from morning to afternoon

I would have loved to see the person this bike belonged to, so much fun

Hope you enjoyed my weekend with me, again!!

The idea was to go to Dana Point today. There is a Whale Festival going on...what a joke,

then we died laughing when we actually thought about it...what??!! are the whales

going to come up to shore so we could see them, no, there were very expensive

boat trips out and about. I don't know if anybody ever even saw any. We passed on buying a t shirt that said Whale Festival.