fun around Lisa's magic house

Lisa has kindly had me stay at her house for more than  a "few" days. She's got shows coming up, things going on - so i know it's not always convenient to have a guest more than a few days, so bless her! we've been having so much fun. We are very compatible, which is great considering we've only met online. We have found that we like the same clothes, have the same similar decor style, pick up the same things at antique stores/thrift store, find almost exact items in our closets, etc. We've been  painting, thrifting, grabbing Baskins Robbins ice cream (my favorite!) and more. 

On the outside, Lisa's magic house is encased in sweet smelling roses. Talk about "stop and smell the roses". My favorite is a purple rose that she has growing in her back yard. It is luscious and aromatic. Yum!

 

 

 

 

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 One day we spent antiquing and thrifting. it was such a fun day. for dinner, we decided that we'd wear outfits from the thrift store. it was really fun and we looked great!

 

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doing a little painting together:

 

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Lisa cooked a special dinner for moi- Quiche for Keesh- yum!

Caine's Arcade

I'm here at Lisa Loria's in Rancho Cucamonga, Ca. Lisa and I met on facebook and then i invited her to come to New Jersey to teach a class.Then when she heard i was heading west this spring, she kindly invited me to stay with her.

Our first venture out was to go to Caine's arcade in East LA. We both felt inspired by his story and it was on top of the list to go see and show our support. Excitedly along for the ride, was Emily, Lisa's daughter. 

 If you don't know Caine already, he is the 9 year old who created a cardboard arcade at his father's auto parts shop. A young man, a film maker, stopped by the shoppe for car part and discovered the arcade. He was so intrigued that he did a short film on Caine and his arcade, which has gone viral. A fund was created for Caine  and so far has earned $192k!

Caine and his family just returned from San Francisco, where he was invited to the Exploratorium to run his arcade for "Make it: trash". 

 

 

 

 

 

here's the video that started it all (feel free to be inspired or shed a tear):

Flagstaff to LA

 Before leaving Flagstaff, I headed downtown to take a few pictures. It was still very early, so not many places were open. I walked to Heritage Square and saw a cool educational project called "The clothesline project". It is to talk about intimate violence aka physical abuse. Survivors of abuse design tshirts to be hung on these lines. Designing the tshirts is healing for the survivors and acts as a way to reach out to other victims. I found many of the tshirts to be extremely powerful.

 

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Scenery along the way. Gas skyrocketed once I hit the Arizona/California border where it was $4.99 a gallon! yikes.

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i arrived at Lisa's where she had beautiful fresh flowers from her garden picked and displayed in cool vintage vases all over the house. I was greeted by her enthusiastic daughter, Emelie, who took me on a tour and gave me a little scrapbook gift that Lisa and her made for me to use for my trip. I also met their 3 fur babies, Lilly, Dusty and Sophie, plus their newest bird, Koro.

 

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These are pics from Lisa's studio and of some of her art. Her house is very magical and so much cool art! find out more about Lisa on her blog. She's a very talented and cool lady!

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When Lisa and I started planning my stop over with her, we decided we wanted to go to Caine's Arcade. So this morning, Lisa, Emilie and I headed to East LA for a visit. It was so cool to see his little arcade and to purchase our "fun passes". We were there for about an hour chatting with his dad, Caine and other like minded spirits who also wanted to show their support. We found out that last week his arcade was packed up and that a semi truck arrived to haul it to San Francisco, where Caine was invited to the Exploratorium to set up his arcade. pretty cool, huh?