The Stencils Are Here

Ok, so maybe I've toyed with you just a wee bit about these stencils. They are my very first design effort. Me, with my rudimentary 'puter skills, has somehow managed to design a set of stencils, creating vector files in Illustrator, doing screen drawing, etc, etc. Believe me, the process had its moments.

I found an amazing manufacturer who produced the most lovely clean crisp images I could ever imagine. These are the stencils I always dreamed about. Seriously, I know that sounds ridiculous, but I reallyreally like stencils.

I took them to Artfest and my friends Misty and lk debuted them in their classes. Geez, what a dream come true, talk about instant promo. And then Vendor Night hit. My table was swarmed with people. It was a feeding frenzy. I stood there completely overwhelmed, deer in headlights. You would have thought I had never sold anything in my life. But I was mainly gratified at the support - people liked them!!! What an amazing thrill.

Now they are available for purchase on a secondary blog called Stencil Girl Products.  There will be more stencils coming along with rubber stamps that are the inverse of the stencils. Plus some other things that I have up my sleeve. To check out the stencils, get prices, buy them, etc, etc, just
CLICK here.

Artfest Day 2


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Leaving on a Jet Place

I'd love to be able to sing, "All my backs are packed I'm ready to go, " but alas that isn't true. I have clothes and supplies strewn all over the house, little piles of 'must-have-with-me' stuff, mainly my comfort things, like the Aveda Balance Oil that I sniff when I get nervous or my favorite L'Occitane hand cream. I am a real dork like that, I have ritualistic travel needs. Yesterday I made sure my fave soothing/healing meditations were loaded onto my iPhone. Sounds like I'm a bit nuts, huh, but Artfest is such an amazing feast for the senses, I want to be able to fully enjoy the experience. And that means I want to be calm, cool and collected (right....) and hopefully be able to sleep every night. At my age, when I am prone to wandering the house aimlessly at 2 or 3 am, I need all the holistic aid I can muster, tee, hee.

Anyhoo, I did organize and ship my vending stuff, yippee. Here is a pic:

There is more that I am carrying with me, but this stuff is kinda heavy, so I sent it on ahead.

And, for the plane, I have so many projects, reading things, podcasts, etc. Crazy. Lately I've been on a doodle binge of sorts, prompted by my friend Carolyn, who showed me her Foamcore Doodles, done with an Identi-pen. I loved hers so much I had to run right out and get some Identi-pens for myself. They are the ultimate easy doodle pen by the way, two tips, so all you really need to carry is one pen. Here is one I just finished:

Wowza, I love the contrast between the glossy foamcore and the deep intensity of the pen. I've been using scraps of foamcore, 5" squares, so this is small and easy to carry.

Music for Smilin' Fridays

There are certain songs that I adore and they never fail to make me smile. Here are a few of them:
What a Wonderful World how can you not adore Louis Armstrong. And I just learned about this girl but I already love her happy sound The Cricket's Orchestra, Meaghan Smith is cute as a button and her voice is kind of old fashioned yet hip.  But my latest obsession is this version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World Swoon, swoon.

And, on a totally different topic, any perfectionists among us - ok, I plead from sometimes suffering from it myself, most of us Type A's go thru this, ugh, what a plague, talk about a good quality gone bad. Anyhoo, Robert Genn has a brilliant newsletter about Perfectionism with respect to Painting. You can read it here. And, if you don't get his email newsletter, consider signing up. Good stuff.

I am finishing up my Artfest Vending stuff. You might say I'm in a frenzy. Can you say 300 stencils? Aaaaacckkkk, all arriving today, need packaging, etc, etc. Once I get back from AF, I will put them on etsy, so you can all check them out. I've been playing with my samples for a few weeks and have to say (somewhat modestly, blush, blush) they are pretty cool.

They call me 'the pusher'

Catnip, that is. Jasper mellows out.


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OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version - Official

All right, I know that over 8 million peeps have already seen this, but I hadn't. So maybe you haven't either? Anyhoo, its pretty cool.
Good song too.

Meaghan Smith - A Little Love

I really like this girl! Her new CD is released today, yippee.

Paint chart madness

It seemed like fun when we first started, but believe me, it gets old hand painting paint charts.


There is a certain satisfaction seeing them all done though. And this is only half of them.

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Japanese way of folding T-shirts!

An oldie but a goodie. Too bad John did the laundry yesterday; we could practice!!

Art Journaling

I adore art journaling, absolutely worship folks like Teesha and Judy and Kim who work on their journals regularly.

I buy all the journaling books and mags. Swoon and swoon more.

I own all the supplies. Swoon.

Yet I never seem to get it together.

Between managing all my other commitments, it seems that Art Journaling always falls by the wayside. It sounds ridiculous to say that I have too much 'other' art going on to journal, but that is basically what happens.









I do keep a written journal, one that is next to my bed, just plain old hand writing.....thoughts and dreams and sketches....I am sporadic
at best and will sometimes go months without entries, how sad is that.
But there was something about those Teesha YouTube videos that sucked me right back in. She made it look so easy!

I made her "Amazing 16 page Journal." I am now in the embellishment phase, sort of randomly working on pages. I did put some writing down on part of one page (below). Its my plan to finish all the collage and then carry this to Artfest with me. I will be able to do writing, doodling, etc. around all my collage parts. And I won't have to carry too many supplies (just the journal and a black pen) which is cool.

I am hopeful this is a habit I may be able to manage moving forward? And maybe I will become an Art Journal person after all.

One could only hope, huh?

New Eyes

I am seeing things with new eyes.
Returned home late on Saturday night and yesterday was amazing. Even cleaning my house felt special as I was spellbound by shadows cast by the pendant lights above our kitchen island. The cats' fur seems softer, their faces sweeter. And John, dear as ever, is even more so.
Life is very very good, blissful indeed.
I am holding this creative energy like a humming bird, sheltered gently within in my hands.....