2014 holiday recap

Doodling for this year's family card

Blue winter night settling in over the studio

Granddaughter Eliää practicing her twirls after The Nutcracker,

Kennedy Center Opera House

Studio holiday decor

Christmas lights on Guernsey

Westminster Abbey at dusk

Stage set for The Phantom of the Opera,

Her Majesty's Theatre, London

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

Hope your holidays are filled with family, friends, and the fullness of good spirit, 

and that your new year will be equally blessed!  

♥

studio workshop calendar in progress

Besides gathering stuff like tables and chairs for workshops in my new studio, 

I'm working on building a new website 

to host the calendar of upcoming workshops as they get scheduled.  

But just in case you're interested, here's an advance notice!

The first workshop will be Intro to Modern Calligraphy,
on Saturday, November 15, from 10 am to 1:30 pm.

Taught by Lindsay Ponta (@shrimpsaladcircus) 

and co-hosted by Rebecca Gallop (@dailysomething),
it will include several fabulous contributing sponsors,
such as Rifle Paper Co, Haley Tobias Events,
Anna Clair Photography, Laite Jewelry, Knot and Bow,
and Le Pain Quotidien.

I'm so excited to have these two energetic creative ladies 

christen my new studio in Fairfax Station!
Registration is already open.

(You may go to adailygathering.bigcartel.com to register). 

There are more dates to come in 2015, including 

a weekend painting class with Kate Thompson on May 16-17.

I hope I've whetted your appetite!

Please check back for further announcements.

prepping for creative workshops

Today the delightful Rebecca Gallop from A Daily Something

visited my new studio space to start planning

a creative workshop here in November.

Details coming in the next few weeks.

new painting studio in august ♥

Photo:  contemplating a day of quiet gratitude

This year I have been totally consumed with building my new painting studio from scratch.  

When the studio passed its final county inspection just over a week ago, 

after a year of record-winter weather delays, local county inspection delays, 

delivery delays, and general custom construction hiccups,

I was deliriously happy, or maybe just plain delirious ...

and more than a little exhausted.

But also so grateful to have a space all my own.

Photo:  early morning after hanging the chandelier crystals

Although there are still things on order, like track lighting and the remaining window screens, 

I am so happy to share with you a few photos of the blissfully quiet and empty

mostly-finished studio -- before the storm of moving in my supplies.

Photo:  back wall of windows facing the forest

Yes, there are a lot of windows in this painting studio!

After raising 4 children during 27+ household moves within and out of the US, 

and living in all kinds of houses and climates on several continents,

I knew I needed elegant simplicity, lots of light, and serene green views.

Photo:  studio powder room

The bead board walls in the small bathroom are made from the same wood planks 

as the raised wood ceiling in the studio.  Before the ceiling was whitewashed and the 

bathroom painted white, the wood planks looked very much like a Finnish church and sauna.

Over the small back balcony that allows me to step out among the old trees

hangs a huge old brass lantern, now rewired, found in Phoenix.

Old theatre lights from Ohio were rewired to light up the entry landing.

The side entry stairs look like a runway with the county-mandated lighting on each step.

The 1920's Deco farmhouse sink sat in its shipping crate in the middle 

of the floor while it waited installation as my work sink.

To match the wide-plank white oak floor and keep the look from being too heavy,

the library nook has sturdy white oak shelving.

Finally the protective film and shipping labels were removed from the windows,

allowing the sunlight to shine through.

After months of delays, it was an all-out push to finish the studio by the end of July.

We didn't quite make the deadline, but here we were late one night,

hanging crystals on the chandeliers that drift down the middle of the raised ceiling peak.

We figured out the formula, in case you want to try:

One studio chandelier, two hundred+ crystals, two people, two hours. :)

As my friends tell me, it will take its own good time to feel moved in.

The contractor will be back a few more times with back-ordered items.

I've been pushing and shoving my old green drawers and the drafting table 

and cupboards here and there to test what works.

Meanwhile, my middle son and his young family have been living with us

while he finishes his hospital rotations.

And my youngest son is getting married at the end of August, 

holding the ceremony at my oldest son's jazz bistro, The Beehive, in Boston.

Maybe I should have had the "studio opening" while it was still

completely empty, because I love it so much that way. :)

 However, the "studio opening" as such is not yet ready to be announced.

Plus, stay tuned for local classes and guest artists teaching in the studio soon.

And may you all have the blessing of a dream coming true!

StencilGirl and Eileen Hull Inspiration Team Blog Hop

Welcome to the last day of the week-long StencilGirl and Eileen Hull Blog Hop!

All this week members of both design teams have been sharing their creative projects 

using the wonderful products from the StencilGirl and Eileen Hull brand items.

Please click on ALL the blogs on the hop list at the end of this post

to see their inspiring projects and to leave comments for the grand prize drawing!

If you have been following all week, you are here at the last project.

But if you're starting here at the end, please go back and catch up on all the great fun earlier this week.

For my project, I made a cute little art journal with Eileen's fabulous

  Sizzix Mini Album die, a favorite of mine.

Click here to see the steps for constructing this quick and simple album, 

using wallpaper and baker's twine, made while I was enduring this last fast-paced month of construction in my new painting studio.

The journal pages in the mini album were cut from white Bristol paper 

with Eileen's album die to be the same size as the journal cover. 

On these pages, I used two StencilGirl stencils in layers:

the 6" square Leaves 6 Stencil and the larger Garden Swirl Stencil.

 

Happily, the 6" leaves stencil is just a little larger than the 5+1/2" die-cut page,

allowing the design to float gently off the edges.

Using a Copic marker (YG03), I filled in the leaves with quick strokes

to allow for some natural shading.

It's really easy to fit the Copic brush tip in the small areas of the stencil.

Then, keeping the stencil in place, I highlighted with more Copic markers 

(YG61, B00, and Y17) on the tips of the leaves.

Next, to add some depth to the overall leaf pattern, 

I laid the leafy areas of the Garden Swirl Stencil over top, 

outlining the stencil shapes with a Derwent Metallic colored pencil 

(Green 91- looks blue), then lightly coloring in where the stencil itself was solid.

Because this was to be a background for writing,

I faded the colored pencil more by slightly erasing it, leaving the faint metallic imprint.

I know, erasing is not much fun.  But if you listen to some blues guitar, you can better 

get in the rhythm of this little life challenge. :)

Now the pages were ready for doodling and writing encouraging reminders to myself as I slowly move into my new studio space.

I used a waterproof black pen to letter and the same Copics to fill in the doodled border.

You may have to enlarge the photos to better see the effect of the penciled stencil in the background.

To see another mini album made using Eileen's Craffiti barn wood and flower wreath stamps, which I sampled when they were first released, please click here.

GIVEAWAY

Such a great prize package awaits one lucky commenter on this blog hop.

Leave a comment on this blog to be entered to win.

All comments left for the entire week August 18-22 on all blogs in the hop

will be eligible for the grand giveaway prize.

One comment per blog post.

Comments will close Sunday, August 24, at midnight Central Time.

Winner will be announced on Tuesday, August 26.

Today's Blog Hop Order

StencilGirl Talk (see days 1-5)

Janet Joehlin

Maria McGuire

Beth Watson

Pam Keravuori (you are here)

eileen hull's mini-album die with sizzix

Although I still don't have access to my art supplies while my studio 

is in its last weeks of construction (the painters are re-scheduled for next week), 

I bit the bullet and went shopping for a little more . . . 

not too much more, though, since I do have stacks of stuff,

all of which I'll have to move!  :)   

But enough to start a really quick and really easy project,
using a few papers and scraps, some twine, a knob,
and Eileen Hull's new 

Mini Album die from her Cherished Collection for Sizzix.

Eileen's Scoreboards XL die will cut through matboard (or chipboard 

or thinner leather) to make a nice sturdy cover.  

The die is also scored along the fold lines, allowing for several depths of spine.  

Plus the die has an indented space to hold any small magnetic die shape with which  

to cut a window in the cover, if you wish.

After die-cutting my cover from matboard, 

I cut a piece of wallpaper large enough to wrap the outside of the cover, 

gluing the wallpaper around to the inside for finished edges.  

Wallpaper is a fun book cover because it is so pliable.  

For the end paper, I die-cut and trimmed down a piece of patterned card stock,

then glued it in place to secure (and hide) the wallpaper edges.  

The cover then folds easily along the pre-scored lines.  

Since I wanted a thicker album, I folded on the two end score lines to make a deeper spine.

Next, using the same die and a collection of patterned scrapbook papers and 

smooth white bristol paper, 

I die-cut the pages for the mini-album.  

To do this, start with papers cut to measure approx 6x12",  then fold each one in half 

and place the fold along the appropriate score line on the die

(depending on the size spine you've chosen).  

Be careful to place the fold just to one side of the score line, so the fold stays uncut.  

For this album, I die-cut 16 papers for 8 signatures of 2 pages each.

For neatness, I die-cut an extra page the same size as the album,

folding it to match the spine, and used it to enclose the signatures.

To attach the die-cut signatures to the album cover, 

I threaded lengths of thick baker's twine through each signature 

and tied them along the spine.  So easy and colorful!

And I can still untie and rearrange the pages as I fill them.

To decorate the cover, I collaged a few scraps of paper, 

punched a hole with my Crop-a-Dile, and inserted a Tim Holtz knob.

The inside title page is white bristol paper on which I lightly gel-transferred

some blue sky in a couple wispy layers, yellow numbers to simulate the sun,
plus some random areas of type, 

all torn a bit haphazardly from some handy Time magazine pages,

then wrote the month, drew a little bird,
 and added my initial on a Dennison label.

During these last few weeks of studio construction,

I hope to fill the pages of my new mini-album with quotes of encouragement

and thoughts of patience,

as I anticipate building my creative "nest" in my new space.

Hope you are enjoying a lovely month of June!

EDIT:  

This hot afternoon (25th) included some waiting time in the car, so I came prepared for a quick doodle in my new journal.  Here's my encouraging reminder for the rest of June, including a serendipitous water-drip emphasis from my Starbucks iced tea cup.

studio restart button

Around here, the big news today is that I finally pushed the restart button on my "new studio" construction project.  The contractor has been fired (not a simple thing to do) and the head of the company, who remembers my original vision from almost a year ago, has taken over the endlessly-lingering schedule.  With grace and energy, he acknowledged the problems and has promised speedy solutions.  Finally, I can stop butting heads on every single design and materials decision!  It's been tough trying not to be pushed into a conformist square hole at every step, first by the county, then by the weather, and then by the exigencies of standard modern construction.

Until today, progress has been mostly one step forward and two steps back for months.  The contractor made several arbitrary decisions that couldn't afford to be undone.  Fortunately, others have been resolved.  For example, ugly lighting boxes built out from the wood ceiling have been removed, recessed and hidden; boxy cladding has been removed from the beams; standard fake-wood molding has been removed from around the windows and the windows smoothed into the walls as originally requested.  The real-wood baseboard-molding battle has gone on for weeks as I insist on my simple but not standard stacking idea.

But I'm persevering with my thinking-in-three-dimensions exercise, even as I try to relax and unclench my jaw.  Maybe the "only-three-more-weeks" refrain I've heard since January will now be true.  Here's a little photo update:

Front south-facing wall with Palladian-style windows and west-side entry

Raised wooden ceiling (a little like a Finnish church) and exposed beams

Back north-facing wall of windows

Back wall opened to the spring forest

Another view of the forest from the back doors

Vintage deco sink for my painting work space

Books waiting to be transferred to my new space

Let's hope this is the end of being tied up by delays and steps backward.  If my studio is really finished and ready to start moving in by the promised three weeks, you'll be the first to know!