Springtime Show and Tell!

I always feel a rising of optimism and hope at the first sighting of the blossoms on the beautiful tree outside my kitchen window. When you add to that a gorgeous "blue sky" day the possibilities immediately expand in my heart and mind! The blanket of "Northwest Grey" is slowly lifting and I am ready for the new life of Spring!
(Click on any image to enlarge!)



After being sick for a couple days it was a welcome burst of fun and energy to have my monthly art journal gang over for friendship, tea and "art gab"! We call our gathering "CAFE" which stands for "Creating Artistic Friendships and Encouragement". We were thrilled with the collage goodie bags Janeen brought us. Jaron gifted us with original ATCs! We love to bring little surprises to share with one another!

We really have no set agenda but to share our latest mixed media creations, whats happening in our art journals and experimenting with a monthly challenge! Karla Dornacher has been working on new illustrations. Her artistic gift and detailed drawings always amaze me! She gifted us with a lovely new magnet design that you can find in her Etsy shop and also shared her new mixed media work! We were all in awe of the personalized paint job she and daughter Michelle Allen did on their "Traveling Art Bags"! You can see more of this project here!



Paulette Insall shared her new inspired works with us. She has risked a new direction with her painting that is truly unique and intensely colorful! You can find prints of her work in her Etsy Shop!

Paulette also brought her newest purchases from mixed media artist Mystele Kirkeeng! Her original handpainted and embellished canvas bags were funky cool! I hear she is getting ready to restock her shop and I hope to add one of these to my ever growing art bag collection! Mystele also has a great series of videos on art journaling techniques!



Teri Owens always brings some fun new idea from her art journal. Our challenge this month was playing with creative embellishments for the edges of art journal pages. Teri used buttons and wire to create these cool techniques! She also knitted these sweet little cell phone mini bags!

I had a great time sharing how to make original trinkets and embellishments out of polymer clay and PearlEx powders! One thing for sure our time always flys when this group gathers!








CLEARANCE SALE ON EBAY!! If you'd like to take a peek, I am doing a little spring cleaning in the studio and have listed several collage lots and groups of inspirational items! You can see some of these items on the upper right sidebar here on my blog or in my ebay Store!