Balance

 A year ago, Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada.  Yeah, it's that beautiful.  

Calm the mind

2017 Christmas Cards

It all started with dressing up my vintage camper in her holiday attire.  This was a fun day.  I printed them out two by two.  Inside message, signatures, and logo all printed, what a time saver.

I use a Canon Pro-100 printer on all my print jobs.  I love it except when I have to replace the ink!  It has 8 inks and that shit's expensive...never have I understood the high cost of ink.  We should write letters to our congressman about that, maybe they'll do something about it, NOT.  Anyways, this is a great printer.

I love this paper cutter, accurate and quick.

I've had this tool for many years and I love it.  Scores nicely.  I've learned having the right tools always makes the project go smoother.  I make so many cards, this tool sure saves me time and the cards look so much better.  

I took a on-line class, more of a mini on-line class from one of my favorite artist, Stephanie Lee.  I learned a bit about encastic wax.  I decided to use the wax on my cards and the result was so cool.  I can't wait to use it on my paintings.

I added glitter and some gold glitter stars onto the wax.  I could of added more stuff, but I had over 80 cards to make and I was running out of time

I found these vintage labels and added my "Season's Greeting" and our return address.  Time saver!  I was able to print them directly onto blank label sheets.  Again, what a time saver.
Here's the website I got the template from ....   https://blog.worldlabel.com/2012/vintage-gummed-parcel-post-shipping-labels.html

Addressed and stamped ready to mail!

Camper Christmas Love!

Me & my 1960's vintage camper!  I love love love my camper.  We dressed her up for the holidays!  

I'm using this photo as the inspiration and the base of my Christmas card this year.

First Fridays

I hadn't been to a First Friday in a long time.  One First Friday was in the Phoenix Roosevelt area and the other was in the Grand Avenue area.  The Roosevelt area was a little disappointing from what I remember.  The whole area has changed, lots of buildings and traffic flow has changed.  Last time I was in the Roosevelt district the road was closed off so foot traffic was down the center of the street.  This time Roosevelt street was so busy with cars and kept the foot traffic on the sidewalks...way busy and crowded.  Not as many galleries as I remember.    The Grand Avenue area was fun but galleries were far apart.  Ended up at Third Space for drinks!  There was so much art, jewelry, exhibits, mixed media pieces, and painted art I wish I could of photographed it all.  I always love seeing such creative souls and definitely get inspiration and motivation to keep creating!

 I put a hummingbird feeder outside my office window and I have two beautiful tiny hummingbirds visit me all day long.  Finding this art piece was so perfect.

I like this way to display photos and art pieces.

Crochet covered tree, how cool is this.  A number of trees along Grand Avenue were covered in crocheted yarn.

Love the frog and owl print.  Artist unknown

Art exhibit along Roosevelt - Artist unknown

These are pieces were so neat and large.  I didn't find out who the artist was.  This was in a hair salon along Grand Avenue.

This of the bean in Chicago.  This piece is so neat, it's using pieces of paper to make the image.  Way cool in person to be able to see the details.

Details of the tags.  Amazing work

So creative!  This are large to small metal trays!  I'm in love with this shade of blue.

Random heart on the sidewalk to end the evening.

Sun day, pool day

It's always sunny and warm, today was not different but today I spent it in the pool.  The mermaid enjoyed the warmth and sunshine, too!  Tomorrow I'm spending most of my day in the studio.

Architectual beauties

While I'm in my hometown I drive pass these beauties.  They are magnificent, huge, unique and architectural beauties.

This house is just around the corner from my parent's house, when I see it I know it's time to make my turn onto my parent's street.  I don't know why I didn't take a shot of the whole house.  It's beautiful and such a home.  I always wonder who the family is that's so lucky to have breakfast in the white windowed room.

This is a magnificent house and so grand.  I've been in this house and I remember taking the stairs up to the highest floor and listening to T.Rex singing "Bang a gong".    I love this house.

What a front porch on this house!

I noticed many brick homes and this one I love the  design within a design.  I wonder if there was a time with brick was abundant because there are many that were built next to each other, almost like it was a new material to use on houses.

Look at all the details on this house. Columns, bay windows enclosed porch and the block style foundation.  Yep,  the stairway is purple!

 This house is a gorgeous yellow!  I just want to sit on the porch sipping my lemonade!

How grand it this house.  I wonder who's all lived in this house.  I passed this house so many times on my walk to high school and thought how amazing it would be to have a house this grand.  It sits at an angle and makes such a statement.

This house I drove passed a million times and it's so beautiful even in it's state.  I don't know if it's being renovated but I would have loved to gone in it.  It sits next to a beautifully restored house.

Next to this house!  What a house!  It's home to some kind of shelter for kids I think.  I didn't have time to ask for a tour...next time I'm in town I'll have to ask for a tour.

 This house has some neat angles and bay windows.  The porch says come sit with me.

 Now, this house was very interesting.  Colors and designs on all sides of the house gave it such character.  There were such large trees surrounding this house I wasn't able to get a photo of the intricate  details using paint colors and fish shingles.

This house was grand as it sat at an angle on this corner.  Once again a awesome porch and such details. Even the out buildings were a piece of architectual artwork.

 

There a so many more houses, this was just a sample along a few blocks on one street.  My parents live in a 1940's Bungalow style home.  Not sure why I don't have a photo of it.  It's a very cool house full of great architectural details.   I read that some of the houses were Four Square architecture style... made popular from mail order catologues.  There are also Bungalow, Queen Anne, and Vernacular architecture styles.  I think the Queen Anne style is what the large magnificent houses are.  A girl can dream of what it must be like to call one of this beauties their home.  (as I return to Arizona to my ranch style simple design home with no porch to sip my cold lemonade on a hot Arizona afternoon!)

Avery's 1st Birthday

I was asked to help with Avery's 1st Birthday Party.  Avery likes Minnie Mouse, that was the theme.  I made the banner in the background using a Minnie font and I found the banner template on Pinterest.  I searched Pinterest for cake ideas and boy are there ideas!  Tons of them!!

Here's the cake I made.  I used round ramekisns, which were the perfect size.  I cut the tops off to make it flat and I made it three layers, vanilla, chocolate, vanilla.  I frosted it with white buttercream frosting, which by the way is the best ever frosting ever!  Dropped some sprinkles on the top and the cake looked awesome, if I say so myself.

I was able to catch this great great close up photo of Avery!  She's adorable.

Setting eyes on her for the first time in person & I'm in love

I'm in love!

Meet Anaya

I'm in love with this cutie pie! 

With this sweet face!!

With these big eyes!

With this storyteller!

Tia Jobi loves you!

Way to go Christine!!

We went out to a local park to get the perfect sunset photos, but instead the sky was boring, well it was really wasn't - it was a beautiful blue color as usual in Arizona!

I took about 100 shots, but this one was the first one I took and it was perfect for her announcement/invitation!  She's an awesome young lady and as beautiful.

Another shot that was a close 2nd.

She's done!!!

While we were trying to get a sunset photo near the yellow flowers the bees and bugs started flying around and Christine was scared of the bugs!  She wouldn't stand still...the red balloon was probably attracting the bees...didn't have the heart to tell to let the balloon go and she would be fine....ha ha

 It was a really fun time!

Baby photo shoot!

I got to spend time with two babies with my camera in hand. 

Garrett is 6 months old and spending the evening with him was precious.  I got to get him after his nap and he cuddles so sweetly.  He smiles and smiles and smiles.  He makes the sweetest baby noises!  It was fun taking his picture.  In these photos, the green jumper he's wearing is his daddy's baby jumper and the ball was a toy his daddy had as a baby.  Isn't that sweet.  The rest of the evening with him was awesome.  He even gives kisses xoxox!

This sweet baby girl is Avery.  She was easy to photograph.  I crocheted the crown for her and it worked out great.  

The pink dress she's wearing is from her Grandmother, it was so cute and so cute on her.