Love People, Feed Them Tasty Food

Love People, Feed Them Tasty Food.

Suresa Dundes had that on a bumper sticker on her car and it was the basic concept for an open house celebrating her life. Suresa, my sister-in-law, died in August after an 11 year battle with cancer.

Suresa and Michael on their wedding day. Michael is the oldest of my five siblings.

Suresa with her girls; Leah and Miriam (the one with the spoon). Clearly loving people and feeding them tasty food has been a life long practice.

Suresa, Michael, Leah, and her boyfriend Robert, Miriam, and her boyfriend Nick.

Miriam and Nick’s wedding celebration, moved up so Suresa could be there.

Rest in peace, Suresa.

Photo Album: Jake & Chelsea’s Wedding

My nephew, Jake, and his bride, Chelsea, just after their wedding.

Here’s a little album from this special occasion on the first of August.

I just have to say that it really doesn’t seem that long ago that Jake was a little toddler! Here he is, all grown up,  before the ceremony.

One of Jake’s cousins, my niece, Caitlin.

My sister, and Caitlin’s mom, Sarah.

Victoria, mother-of-the-groom, with friends, Sam, and best man, Stu.

My mom, Nancy, grandmother of the groom, being escorted to her seat by Jake’s younger brother, Sam.

My brother, Beau, father-of-the-groom, with his fiancee, Pamela.

Jake escorts his mom to her seat.

Here comes the bride!

I think Jake’s got hands like my dad, his grandpa David.

The minister forgot about the rings and almost completed the ceremony without them before several people reminded him and we all had a little laugh.

Family Faw (though a few people are hiding in this picture and one brother and his family didn’t make it out from NY).

Two of my nieces, Miriam and Caitlin, look like Amazon warriors next to their uncle Beau.

I think my mom looks beautiful with her eldest grandson.  The wedding was just a few days after her 80th birthday.

My niece, Leah.

Rem and I.

My sister Kathleen with her little sister Ariel.

Card I made for Chelsea & Jake.

Although the quality of some of the photos is not great, I want to share this event with you. Thank you to Dana for allowing me to share some of her photos as well.

Thanks for the visit.  Congratulations to the newlyweds.

 

 

 

 

 

A Special Day

Art Journal: Home

This is my latest page in my Art Journal: Home.  I bought the Autumn issue of Art Journaling by Somerset Studio and was inspired by a spread I saw by Darlene Maciuba-Koppel.  This is similar to inchies but these are a little bigger – a little less than 2 inches on each side.

Maciuba-Koppel wrote

Art Journaling is a gift I give to myself.  After a few pleasurable hours of choosing images, painting, cutting scraps of paper, and pasting, I feel a sense of calm envelope me.

I feel that too.  Her houses page was about creating and pursuing your passion.  Mine is about home and what home means to me . There as a little blurring of lines here because home is usually where I create and I including “creativity” as one of the words on my page.

I probably spent as much time seeking out words in magazines and searching through my paper and scraps for just the right bits and pieces as I did actually crafting the page. I was at Sea Ranch when I did most of the work on the page and I’d brought a nice selection of supplies with me to work with.

It isn’t obvious to the casual observer, but there are bits and pieces from maps, sheet music, dictionary pages, envelopes, postage stamps, old calendars, and greeting cards.  I know there are items from at least five different friends whom I think of when I look at these little houses.

As with the inchies, I find I really enjoy the tiny canvas of each small space occupied by each little house.  I have gone back to add little details several times, adding a window here, a doorknob there, coloring in the background or sticking a slender bit of washi tape onto the page.

I’ve had a wonderful 2-week vacation and much of it was spent at home (or at home-away-from-home: Sea Ranch).  I did a lot of cooking. After using up a package of corn husks we had 28 tamales.  Today we used the rest of the almost 10 lb. bag of prepared masa to make 22 queso fresco pupusas, tamale pie and a dozen tamale muffins, using masa in the bottom of each muffin, then tamale pie filling, grated cheddar and more masa for the top.  The freezer is well stocked. Rem and I baked treats for our neighbors as well.

A minor surgery before Christmas kept me from being as active as I could have been.  I’ve really enjoyed having no schedule and maybe a few too many mornings sleeping late and lounging around in my nightshirt and slippers.  It’s been good to relax at home; I’ve done lots of of crafting, reading, some blogging, and all of the cooking.

We’ve also spent some time cleaning out drawers and cupboards in the kitchen, sorting through kitchen tools we no longer use but that have been crowding our limited storage space. Rem donated several bags of items that we hope will be useful to someone else.  We planted bulbs in two boxes, inspired by an article in Martha Stewart on layering  bulbs for blooms throughout the spring: the late bloomers go on the bottom, mid-spring blooming are in the middle layer and the earliest bloomers are on the top.  Gravel on the bottom of the planter for good drainage and we hope to have a beautiful display of crocus, daffodils, tulips and iris all spring.  Something to beautify our home.

My toe is almost fully healed now and I took walks yesterday and today.  Tomorrow: back to work.

Thanks for the visit.

Cards with Friends

In January I got together with some friends from grade school and made Valentine’s.  We had such a great time together that we’ve made it into a regular event, calling it “Craft & Flash.”  Our last get-together was about a month ago.  Ladies: we need to schedule our next gathering.

I was making a stack of birthday cards and recycling old greeting cards, maps and calendars in the process, inspired by crafting while on vacation.

I’d saved a pretty card with rows of different colored butterflies on a glittery green background.  I’ve had it for a few years and recycled it into new cards.

An old calendar from Paper Source provided artwork for a bird card.  I love the artwork on my wall all year long – they’re beautiful calendars and beautiful resources for crafting cards.

Carefully cutting out the Blue Jay and adding a little glitter plus stamping a greeting on the inside and the card was done.

My friend Shook gave me some pretty place cards she’d bought and never used. I’m delighted to be the recipient when someone gives me something they think I might use in my crafting.  The cards add a nice detail when stamped with a message and glued inside the card.

For this one I used a scrap of the glittery green birthday card and some washi tape.  Another benefit of crafting with friends is expanded your supplies.  Everyone was generous and happy to share their goodies.

We had a variety of projects happening around the table. Creativity was flowing and I enjoyed seeing projects old and new.

Besides the production of birthday cards, an Art Journal was being expanded, tags and beautiful wrappings were being created for a series of birthday gifts, jewelry was being crafted and chocolate was being consumed.

All the best crafting events include chocolate.

As usual, the table was in creative chaos.

Or was that just my mess?

Glitter was spilled.

I got to try this ballpoint glue pen from Martha Stewart.  I will pick a few up next time I’m at Michael’s.  It is very fine, great for glitter and other detail work.  Like Dianne Dots.

The last time I was at Craft Gym at Once Around in Mill Valley, my  friend Margaret gave me the gift of a little shopping spree. Amongst the goodies I came home with was a package of cute paper embellishments. This butterfly is from that package.

More glitter and an adhesive jewel, a few stamped flowers and paper from both an old textbook and an old bus schedule complete this card.

I’ve made a few of these cards with an old map and a bicycle stamp, but for this one I got a bicycle cutout from another of the Craft and Flash ladies.  I spent awhile coloring it. I love this card!

We crafted and chatted and laughed and ate.  It was lovely.

The dogs were happy sitting in the sunshine.

Phoenicia made delicious chili, another great dish without a recipe.  If I recall correctly, it had beef, pork and sausage, and it was full of different veggies.  Write it down, Phoenicia!

One last card I did that afternoon was from a 5-minute collage I’d made. A little extra embellishment and another card done.

Sitting and chatting with my friends while crafting is the best therapy in the world for me.

It has been a very tough month since then with my brother spending more time in the hospital then out.  He was in ICU but is back in the regular ward and we expect him to be discharged in the next few days.  He has started dialysis and faces a host of challenges. The support and love we have all shared and received has helped make a really difficult situation survivable.

At first, spending long, anxious hours with other family members at the the hospital, I was too worried and upset to focus on anything more than mindless games on the computer.  Long days and nights of interrupted sleep meant I missed getting to the gym and I didn’t have the energy or inspiration to craft.

With some improvement in his condition, I’m returning to some of the things that have been on hold.  A trip to the library and new reading material I’m finally able to absorb.  I was able to spend time cooking together with Rem who has been a rock, taking good care of me.  And yes, pulling out the craft supplies and crafting.  I’m finishing up some cute cards and will share them soon.

Thank you for being here.

 

 

New Valentine’s Day Cards

I was busy at my craft desk this weekend making a bunch of Valentine’s. I really love making Valentine’s and, like last year, I’m not just doing one design over and over.

On Pinterest (of course), I saw some cute card that I wanted to CASE (Copy and Selectively Edit or Copy and Steal Everything or the PC variation Copy and Share Everything).

Before I started my first card, I punched a slew of 1.25 inch squares of paper and hearts with all three sizes of heart punches I have.  Most of the cards bases are 140 lb. cold press water color paper that I bought in a pad of 9 x 12 sheets.  So I cut a batch of cards at a time, trimming each sheet to 8.5 x 11 before cutting it in half and scoring it for finished cards that measure 4.25 x 5.5.

This card was inspired by this one.  My square punch is larger and I don’t have the beautiful “LOVE” stamp, but I’m happy with it.

Here is another variation on that idea.

Here is a simple patchwork of squares.

This is another pretty card using squares and hearts.  I loved how the little scalloped squares look and treated myself to a scalloped square punch.

These bird cards were inspired by Button Bird Art from Button Bird Designs.

I’ve made multiples of each card.  Not enough that I’m tired of each design and with variations in the paper, embellishments and greetings, they’re all unique.  I especially like these birds, so I made a whole flock.

I have lots of beautiful paper.  This card shows off a piece of it.

I think I’ll try a variation with a little heart under that turned-up corner.

Some cute stamps of vintage items are featured on these cards.

I also love these two bicycle cards but I don’t have a bicycle stamp.  Yet.

I’m really happy with the color scheme I’m using this year: red, black, white and turquoise.  I’m using silver ink and silver embossing powder with a heat gun for some of the greetings.  It’s a nice, finishing touch.

After creating the are for the front of the card, I always stamp and sign the back and stamp a greeting inside the card too.

Side note: I made it through my dental appointment today and though I feel pretty tired and a bit tender, I’m not too sore.  I’ll enjoy my busy weekend with friends all the more now that is behind me!

It is very satisfying seeing the finished cards all crowded together.

I’m off to a great start for my Valentine Production of 2014!

Thank you for your visit.

Day 9: Let the Beauty You Love, Be What You Do

Day 9: Let the beauty you love, be what you do.

My desk had become crazy messy with all the crafting I’m doing. My work space was shrinking as more supplies made their way to the desktop and the layers of paper, pens, glue sticks, scissors, brushes, embellishments, rubber stamps crept into the little empty place in the center.  Before I started crafting today, I spent 30 minutes putting away tools and supplies I wasn’t using and organizing (re-stacking) stuff I planned to use today.

As I sorted through the flotsam and jetsam, collecting little scraps and interesting bits, I saw that I was halfway to getting a spread assembled. I had a quote from Rumi scribbled on an envelope, a glittery bit of trim cut off an old calendar page but saved for it’s sparkling possibilities, a heart-shaped stencil with interesting paint smears and a pretty crescent moon that my sister let me snag from her collection of images.

I decided to use these in a page and knew I’d be using the beautiful image of a purple bottle I’ve been wanting to include.  It is too tall for my book,  but I love how it looks, so just made a little fold-out flap to include it.

The butterfly and heart scraps were leftovers from previous projects and with a few more scraps from the pile, a great photo from a magazine of a painting of Mt. Tam, some paint and a few more embellishments, my spread for Day 9 was just about done.

I got everything glued in place and carefully wrote out the quote from Rumi.

I had started with a small, paper key but liked this metal one better so I switched it out and added a little sparkly dot.  A heart charm dangles down from the flap.

Dianne Dots were the finishing touch.

I also made two more birthday cards to get my mom stocked up.

The bird came from the same old calendar as the little glittery border I used in my Art Journal.  Thanks, Shook!

Both of these cards used paper and embellishments that were already out on my desk.

If I took a picture of it now you probably wouldn’t believe that I’d cleaned it up, but I know that it is much better than it was.

Last year for Day 9 of 30 Days of Creativity I made these pretty Glass Tile Pendants.

The year before that I made a pair of Pink Glass Earrings.

Thanks for coming on by.