WPS Art Show

The Art Show at Maddy's High School was really impressive and we had a great time :)

Mike and I were so proud of Maddy's contributions...

Maddy's pottery house blew up in the kiln so she redesigned it to look 'burned out' and called it "The Blitz" - how stinkin' creative! The art teacher said he'd never seen a student do that before :)

Some of the older students are pursuing Art as a career and had some amazing work on display. Here were some of our favorites...

I loved how they shared their journaling too...

 Great grand-daughter and great grand-mother :)

Thank you Windermere Preparatory for such a great Art department :)

More Inspiration Journaling...

I am loving my Inspiration Journal online classes with Donna Downey! (Link to Donna's site here!) Not only do I get to try new techniques every other week but I am also taking the opportunity to focus on my thoughts, goals and dreams through the process. Here are my second, third, fourth and fifth pages so far...

I'm so grateful for this class - now I'm back in the habit of doing something creative almost every day! It feels great and I'm feeling much more 'myself' these days. Thank you Donna Downey and my amazing classmates:)

Maddy's shelf

Maddy has done such a beautiful job of her desk shelf decorations for her bedroom...

 

 

So cute!!

Weekend Craftfest!

I had a great weekend with Madison making art for her bedroom. She made this absolutely beautiful tree and I added the word...inspire...

 

I was also inspired by how much I don't want to spend $180 on art work from PB Teen and I thought I'd have a go at this one myself...

 

 

We picked the word "dream" (since we have a stamp for that:)) and filled a canvas that we had painted white...

 

 

We painted the middle section with some more white, and brushed the dust off the cricut and used the letters as a stencil...

 

And for the third picture we used a deer stencil inspired by the fabulous Christy Tomlinson (Christy's blog here)! We arranged the final collection on the top of Maddy's desk. Look how fantastic it looks!!...

 

 

Cheaper, better and so much more rewarding than a trip to the mall. And great bonding time too. Such a lovely, craftsy day :)

The BIG 40!

Since Clare hasn't been very craftsy at all lately I was really happy to see that my fave artist in the whole world, Donna Downey, was coming to The Villages to teach a few classes. I signed up for the BIG 40!

6 x 8" art journal - Building Mixed-Media backgrounds - 5 hour workshop
Donna's website says about this class:

"WARNING: THIS WORKSHOP MAY LEAD TO INSOMNIA CAUSED BY IDEA OVERLOAD :)
Since I am now 40, I thought what better way to celebrate this new decade than by sharing my favorite top 40 tips, tricks and techniques for building better art journals and mixed-media backgrounds. Like all great things building a strong foundation or base for your ideas is important, mixed-media and art journaling are no different. This workshop is going to put all these ideas at your fingertips as you create your own personal reference book for mixed media backgrounds and techniques and fill the pages of your NEW art journal. Each student will receive and work in one of my newly released art journals. the journals heavyweight pages are perfect for layering, paints, inks, collages, PanPastels, paper, etc and I plan to do all that and more in this workshop! We will build over 40 techniques and pages worth of ideas using several different wet and dry mediums filling one incredible idea book that will surely get your mind spinning with ideas!"

It sold out really quickly at She Scrapbooks as expected...

I learned some fancy tricks...:)

And Donna was as delightful and inspirational as ever :)

Smokin' Donna...

It was so nice to get my craft on again and as always when I see Donna - I feel so inspired, Thank you, Donna :)

Christmas Gifts!!

I actually managed to finish the gifts for the family in time for Christmas! Now they have all been received I can share some of the things that I made :)

A pair of wine bottle lamps for Rita with personalized labels...

An embellished purse for Eileen...

A personalized advent calendar house for Jen, Rich and Mya...

Inspired by the fabulous Etta - "Curious Specimen" ornaments of Gregory and Declan...

And a personalized family wall hanging for Pete and family made from their favorite words and colors...

The responses were so great - I felt like a million dollars! It was really difficult to get them all done in time since we moved house and I started a new job after I had gotten started...but I'm so glad I stuck it out. Think I'll do it again next year. I may need to get started now ;)

Inspiration Journal class with Donna Downey!

On the way to a family event last week, I was able to stop by Charlotte, NC to see the amazing Donna Downey again and take one of her classes at her studio! (Donna's blog here!). The studio is absolutely beautiful and Donna is as gorgeous as ever :)...

The Inspiration Journal - Creating a Visual Diary class is a 3 hour mixed media/art journaling workshop. Donna's website describes it perfectly:

"A hands-on exploration of your inner artist as we work together creating your visual legacy. The inspiration journal has become the hallmark of my creative play and growth as an artist. This workshop promises to challenge you to look at yourself as a creative soul and will encourage artistic growth with each page you complete. "

I really enjoyed experimenting with new products and techniques and feel a whole lot better about 'letting go' now. The ladies I worked with were all so helpful and talented and it's so inspirational to work in a classroom surrounded by Donna's work...

Donna is a really fun instructor too - she always makes me giggle :)

I worked really hard and felt very proud of my 'war wounds' at the end of the day :).