Zentangles

Inspired by a friend (Hi, Betsy!), I finally gave Zentangling a try.  Now I'm not sure why I waited so long!

First, to practice, I made a sampler of the designs in the book. 

Then I jumped right into a full page design using one of my watchwords - "grace" - as in grace under pressure.

I'll be giving a class in this technique at Maggie's Place this summer.  Check Maggie's Calendar.

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Trumbull High School Spring Concert

Last night was my son's school's Spring Concert

I love how much he enjoys himself up there!

so serious

He even had a solo!

It was the same solo he had during their recent tour of France - he sang it in Notre Dame Cathedral!

The Men's Ensemble wondering - what shall we do with a drunken sailor?

I can't wait for the CD and DVD!

Button Farm Club Kit February 2012

Last weekend I finished my latest Button Farm Kit.  The kit came with a 7 Gypsies library drawer, lots of Tim Holtz goodies and the usual excellent instructions.  I supplemented with distress inks, distress stains and glimmer mist.  I also added some manilla ATCs, some kraft ATCs and some canvas ATCs and had lots of fun playing with tecniques.

If there's interest, we could start an ATC club at Maggie's Place and play with various techiques once a month or so - let me know if you are interested!

the box

There are 4 sections in the box, so I decided to dedicate a section each to my two sons, my sweetie and the puppy

the fronts of the cards about son #1

the fronts of the cards about son #2

the puppy cards!

and last but certainly not least - my sweetie!

Family Cookbook

This project has been several years in the making, but I finally collected all the family recipes and put them in one document.  I was originally going to accompany the recipes with photos of the dishes, but when my Dad scanned the family photos, I realized I could do something a lot more fun.  Using a We R Memory Keepers 8.5"x5.5" album, I paired the recipes with digital layouts using photos from my childhood, and photos of my folks.  I kept the layouts simple, background paper, the photos as large as they could be and still fit, basic journaling and maybe one embellishment.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Of course the first thing my Mom wanted to know was when her copy would be ready.  ;-)

Then I got the idea to put the whole thing on DVD.  I took my original word document and added the digital layouts to approximately every other page.  Then I created an altered CD cover complete with a table of contents.  Now everyone in the family has their own copy of the recipes and layouts.  And if anyone wants a hard copy, they can print the pages, fold them in half and put them in 5.5x8.5 page protectors and voila!

the DVD and the cookbook

the little boy on the right is my grandfather

Trouble With Big-Hole Bracelet

the stopper (right) won't catch when I try to screw it to the threads on the end of the bracelet (left)