random art and soul pictures

my friend, Joanne

my studio in a box

happy art n soul gals

Sweet Maria from "Collage"

me on vendor night

day two of classes, Stephanie Rubanio, "bedazzled butterfly box"

Stephanie Rubanio. Leighanna Light and me


Mr. Sally Jean (Brad)

Leighanna and her cute laugh. me and leighanna.

Glenny gets a dual massage.

my finished piece. me and table mate Diane (who i know from Tinsel Trading Co.)


Joyce Vance shows her piece (thanks for the image!) these are the saw blades i broke.

me using the jeweler's saw and my image mounted and cutting process.

today's class was with Stephanie Rubanio. i just love this girl. so down to earth, sweet, generous and a great teacher. i am so glad i got to take this class! i bought a piece from her last year in Portland. Then i got to see her at Artfest and she actually remembered the piece i bought (impressive enough, since i can't remember anything!). then on vendor night at Arfest, she came over while i was giving chair massage and asked for a few minutes since she wasn't feeling well. it was a pleasure to have her as a teacher. i just thoroughly enjoyed this class. everyone left that class with a beautiful piece. i mean really, see from the piece i made - just incredible.

"Z" had an evening class and Jean went out to dinner with her roommate, so i was on my own tonight. i had intentions of going back to the room and making another shadow box, but that all changed when i sat down at a table with Leighanna Light and Christine Hendry (no blog that i know of)- but she's Albie Smith's daughter! she is also a fellow Charmster. Pretty soon, Mr. Sally Jean Alexander stopped by the table for a drink with us, soon to be followed by Sally Jean and then Stephanie Rubanio and Glenny. what a time we had! our bartender, Eddie, was pouring heavy handed so everyone was feeling pretty content. Leighanna has the greatest giggle and she always brings her fingers to her lips when she laughs, which is quite cute. She is also a massage therapist, so the both of us were giving out some shoulder rubs to our little party. (especially to Glenny, who looked exhausted). Glenny is also going to Bali for the retreat with Anahata, so that will be fun to spend some time with her there. i bartered with Stephanie for some more "nuts and bolts" used in her boxes for some massage on her shoulder, which is still bothering her. it was a fun evening, which you will gather from the photos.

***i am having some mail issues with AOL, so please bear with me, if you are trying to email me and the email is getting "bounced". i'm not sure what is going on. i'll look into it when i return home. you might try leaving a message for me on my blog just in case.

first class today with traci bunkers "uber portraits"

here's Denise (charmsters group) and Dede (from Artnest) being goofy with my muse, Yoyo. me with Yo-yo.

me, modeling my Uber portrait and Zhulia ("Z")

Yeah, it's happy hour! the drink line. not as long as Portland's line!

Traci Bunker showing us how to mount our pieces together. that's Darya Smith, from Georgia showing her way uber cool portrait of her dog, Allie.


my piece is starting to come together.

working on my quadrants.

my BTK (basic tool kit) and Traci helping out Darya.

Traci made these cute buttons for us.

my birthday buddy, Joanne who i met at Artiscape last year. i just love her!



this is Doris Arnt and Susan Lenart-Kazmer, instructors. i took this cute photo at breakfast.

on the road again

i'm feeling much better today i am happy to report. yesterday i could hardly speak as my voice just left. also i found it hard to speak, like someone was standing on my chest. the night before i had a terrible night of coughing, coughing, coughing. now i know how poor tucker felt when he had it. so i put a call into my sweet neighbor who is a doctor and told him i was leaving for Va. today and that i was sick and could he give me a script for a cough medicine to knock me out! i could just see me coughing all night in the hotel room. my roommates would shoot me! he also decided to put me on an antibotic, especially since my ears hurt so much and i am prone to ear infections. i was wondering though how would the driving part to Pennsylvania go (my first stop to pick up Jean. we are spending the night at her house and then doing the 5 hours to Va tomorrow) since i was still feeling a little coedine out! but it was fine.

i left NJ around noon after a visit to my dermatologist for my annual skin cancer screening appt. i 've had several episodes of skin cancer (not melanoma's but the very common basal cell kind), so i kind of know what to watch out for. if they are precancerous sites, then they can just freeze them off. i had a spot on my lip, nose and scalp froze today. the big spot on my arm that i had removed last fall was a spot that i had him look at. it was biopsied and when the results came back, i was told it had to be surgically removed, which i had done. So, it's important to be screened!

anyway, after i just gotten on the road, i realized i had forgotten some pictures at home for my class with Traci Bunkers, so i turned around and got them. then i made my way over to Jean's, which is about 3 hours from my house. we decided to meet up at our favorite antique store and see what bargains we could find. i got some great things.

cute little yo-yo doll

vintage glassware with caddy

little doll

vintage suitcase

cool Asian shirt from Goodwill. has wonderful bird motif on it.

tin types

tiny vintage harmonica - really cool!

another little doll

sterling silver sweater grabber. clip one on each side of sweater to keep sweater from opening

day 3, artfest, Funky Wallpaper People

well, i just love Anahata. she is such a sweet and warm person. she's a wonderful teacher and gives so much to her students. i i've taken classes before where i felt the teacher was holding back a little bit on things (you know like sharing a receipe, but withholding the secret ingredient). i've never feel that she holds back when teaching. she really wants to see her students succeed and get the most out of her class. when she is done with a class, she always reserves time at the end to discuss each piece created. she gives great input and sweetly finds a nice thing to say about everyone's work. she is the geniune article and that's why i am excited to share that i will be going to Bali, Indonesia in March 2009 to take more classes with Anahata. it's 4 days of workshops and 3 days of extra curricular activities like

1.a day trip to a local textile weaving factory with excursion to Ubud, the culture arts center of Bali- with lunch included.

2. Group snorkeling, beach excursion

3. A private one 1 hour massage

4. An evening of Traditional Balinese Dance Performance

5. Bali temple excursion

6. Hiking through Balinese Rice Patties

i'd like to go a day earlier and stay one day later, but we'll have to see about that!