Dinner at the Studio, Yum!

Last night I cleaned and organized my studio. I even scrubbed the nice hardwood floor (thank God for Swiffer). Now that I have my small refrigerator in the studio (thanks to freecycle.com) I am able to store food and drinks. I made myself a big healthy salad for dinner and sat at my craft table with a nice glass of wine (in my cute Copola wine glass) and looked at a new book I recently bought. The book is called "The Art of Personal Imagery" by Corey Moorgat. This is a really cool book! I think every collage/mixed media artist should have it! The pictures are beautiful and the instructions are very straight forward and easy to follow. I'm going to try making a collage like the ones shown in this book. I'm so excited to get started!

Boo Hoo! I didn't Win, but...

I didn't win the Gilroy Garlic Festival poster contest but... I did get into the finals. This means that my piece will be on display at the festival and it will be entered into the "people's choice" contest. This is where the public will vote and the winner gets a $200.00 cash prize. Well, as my dear sweet granny would say... "it's better than a kick in the ass" or "a poke in the eye with a sharp stick"! So for my first entry attempt I guess this will have to do. And... I'm already thinking of ideas for my next year's entry!!! I'm thinking the judges want to see more GARLIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you happen to go to the Gilroy Garlic Festival this year, please stop by the poster entries booth and vote for ME!

Vintage Typewriter in the Studio

My friend Becky gave me a vintage typewriter! It is the cutest little fire engine red. I have to find out where to get a new ribbon for it. Does anyone know? The current ribbon is almost out of ink but it still works well enough to make the words look old. I'm so excited! Thanks Beck!

*Look to the left of the typewriter and you'll see an itty bitty canvas, on an itty bitty easel. I found it at an art store in Sacramento. I thought I'd try to make the world's smallest collage! LOL! Or as my granddaughter would say "a Barbie collage"! I haven't attempted it yet! I'd better get out my tweezers!

Happy Birthday Sister!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful sweet sister Allicia! It was so good to see her when I visited Salt Lake City. This is a picture of us at our Grandma's house. I hope you had a wonderful birthday sweetie! I wish I could have been there to celebrate with you. Us Aries girls must stick together!

*Note: if you look closely on the side of my nose (click on picture to enlarge) you can see my new nose piercing. I got it for my 48th birthday (April 1st). I wanted to do something fun and out of character so I decided to go for it! It's a little light blue crystal to match my eyes. Kinda cute huh?


Well I bet you guys didn't know that I am a woman of many talents! Not only am I an "Artist" but I am what I like to call a "faux hairdresser" aka... a wanna be/pretend hairdresser. I missed my original calling and never went beauty school. Then I met my best friend Becky who just so happens to be the best hairdresser on the planet! She gave me some lessons in hair cutting so now I can cut my husbands hair, son's hair and my son-in-law's hair. Here I am cutting (for the first time) my brother Cris' hair while I was visiting my sister in Salt Lake.

I didn't bring my cape or my hair cutting scissors so we wrapped him in a flowered sheet and I used my craft scissor. They're kind of dull from cutting paper but they worked! He had gone out that day and bought a Vidal Sassoon trimer so that helped.

Yikes, his hair is very straight and sticks out like a porcupine. It was kinda scary there for a minute. Good thing I had that glass of wine before hand to calm my nerves, lol!

It ended up turning out really cute! It also helps that he's so damn handsome (and single I might add)! Anyone? Anyone? He'd probably kill me if he saw this (JK)!

Hello there tall (6"3'), dark and handsome with a terrific new haircut! Ah yes, I am an artist in so many ways! Mwah ha ha ha!

Wine, Cheese and Collage!

My sister Elizabeth and I had a great time during my visit to Salt Lake City. One night at her house we drank some really good (cheap) wine and nibbled from this yummy cheese plate that she made. Then we started making collages around 10:00pm (we're both night owls).

Note: That's a collage candle on the window seal (background) that I made for her birthday last year. It has Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra on it (she's a big fan)!

We were just going to base coat our canvas' because it was getting kind of late but then we got on a roll and collaged until 5:00am! Yikes! Time flies when you're collaging and having fun with your sister! Here is her very first ever collage on canvas! Good job E~ (aka, Elizabeth)!

The feather on her collage came from her very talkative bird Pascal (below). It's spring so he's molting. He's an Amazon Parrot and he's quite the flirt! Sorry the picture's kind of dark.

My Visit to Salt Lake City

I had an awesome trip to Salt Lake City, Utah to visit my wonderful beautiful "baby (she hates it when we call her that) sister" Elizabeth (aka E~ just like Elvis... we used to think she was his love child, lol)! We had a great time eating out almost every day and night and shopping at cool boutiques and thrift stores in her little artsy town of Sugar House! We had just finished eating (above) at Mazza Restaurant where they have the best middle eastern food and Lebanese wine! My face is starting to turn red (red wine does that to me) and my teeth are looking slightly purple! lol!
On our way home we spotted this funky little thrift store (above) called Abode Paris Flea Market so we quickly pulled over! Skreech! We were in heaven! There's nothing like good food, good wine and good junk! That certainly makes for a GOOD DAY!
This is the street where my sister lives in Sugar House, Utah. The weather is very different from California that's for sure! It snowed twice while I was there and this is suppose to be spring!
This is my sister's cute house. She has a claw foot bathtub. I just love claw foot bathtubs! I think she should collage it! Darn, I should have gotten a picture of it! The red building next door is a cool, funky hair salon.

Garlic Festival Poster Contest

Here is my (first time) entry for the Gilroy Garlic Festival Poster Contest! I feel like I've already won something just by doing it and turning it in! Yay for me because I'm usually such a procrastinator! I didn't get time to do as much shading as I would have liked, but what the heck. There was a deadline so I had to turn it in as it was. I did some highlighting with gold and silver paint and Pearl Ex powders but they didn't really show up in this picture. Usually the entries that are chosen have been pretty conservative in the past so it will be interesting to see if mine gets in. I think this would look cool on a t-shirt, don't you?