An Artful Gathering

An Award From Amy

I received an award while I was on my Cabin Fever retreat - it's from friend and loosely related "family" Amy.  Go to Abundant Curiosities to see her most fun blog, she is forever "creating" stories, telling real stories about her childhood, talking about her family and -- well the list could go on and on!  As the award says, Amy is really my million dollar friend!

 

I am now supposed to send this award to four of my blogging friends and one new blogging friend - here goes!

Susan  at artfulmusings 

Diann at diannsartspot -

Autumn   at Autumn's Antics

Anita  at Take Joy

and the new blogger friend - Brenda at Memories and Treasures

Baked Potato Soup and Other Goodies

I've spent most of the day in my kitchen preparing Baked Potato Soup - yum yum yum is all I can say about this delicious soup.  While you might wonder, "why does it take all day?", actually it doesn't.  I've been doing other things also - a pot of white northern bean soup, a couple of dozen deviled eggs and a bit of rearranging some large bowls and pots.  Of course there was the loading of the dish washer and a trip outside to the garbage can.  I'm now finished and tired!  I'm especially tired since I no longer spend much time in my kitchen - lol.  Part of the food is going to a friend's home who will feed family & friends after a memorial service they're attending tomorrow. 

I want to show you more art that was created at the annual Cabin Fever Art Retreat last week.  I've just about shown everything but have a Christmas Book - project was created by my friend Jan, and the book in the picture was made by me ~

 

This was the most fun to create - inside pages consist of 3 heavy cardstock envelopes that we decorated with various Christmas images, stickers, and such.  And there area several "wish list" pages and several pages of "addresses" and several "party planner" pages.  I adore this book - this is the type thing I so enjoy decorating and I never know when enough is enough - what fun!!

After having made this particular Christmas book I decided to make these for my 3 girlie girls.  I've create pages that have "Wish List"  and also enough room that the younger girls can actually cut items out of magazines/catalogs and glue them in.  Will also have some pages for them to journal about various things that will be going on during the Christmas holidays - I've begun one of these and can't wait to get all of them done!

I have at least two more projects to share with you from our retreat but will wait until tomorrow!

More Art from the Cabin Fever Retreat

As I previously stated, each year the participants of this retreat each create at least two projects and then make kits of their projects so that each person attending gets to make one of their own.  All the art being shown unless otherwise noted is made by me.

This book project was created by Linda - it's an accordian that each person added their art to.  Each year someone always creates some type of book that is for holding each persons' art ~

 

 

Above is art that Linda and Ellen created to go into the accordian book.

Next is a recipe box project created by Liane - it is made with canvas boards and heavy cardboard bottom/sides.  The inside is filled with large tags that hold recipe cards.

 

Next we have a Bingo Card Hangie Danglie that I created:

 

I also created a Santa panel and a set of cards - the Santa panel is shown in a previous post.

Next is a Cabinet Card hangie danglie project presented by Sue.

   

This cabinet card really appealed to me - the lady just drew me in and I had to use it.  Normally I do not use a real cabinet card because I feel that the cards are so special - I normally scan them and print them out and attach to mat board.  But Sue provided each of us with real cabinet cards for this project, so I decided to do my very best for this lady - on the back in very old fashioned handwriting is the name:  Aunt Liz Landerschlauger, Grandfather Baltz (or Battz) sister.  When I read that it just warmed my heart and I knew I had to have this particular card.  It is going to hang in my bedroom!

Reporting In

I've been out of pocket for the past 2 weeks getting ready and then attending the Cabin Fever Retreat.  First I was getting my project kits together, then packing my art bag, and then a suitcase.  Then I dashed to the airport a couple of times to pick up some of the other Cabin Fever Retreat attendees - then there was some quick grocery shopping, grilling a huge amount of chicken, sausages, and burgers to take with us - yikes!!!  Got it all together and then it was time to begin our annual retreat - this is year number 8!!!  We had 9 great days at Green Oaks Farm in central Texas.  There were 7 attendees.  We each created projects and put together kits for those projects so that each attendee would have one.  We zipped down to Austin to Archiver's and a Tex Mex restaurant one day.  I will list the projects that we created:

1.  This was my fave project, a project created by Gloria Hanes and this is what I created from her project kit:

 

This is a gutted reader's digest book that signatures have been added to by using eyelets in the spine and on the signatures.  The "bells" are added to hold the signatures in place.  I may or may not add something to the front of the book - I did place a small metal handle on it with a black tassel (the plastic has not been removed yet).  Oh, the them of my book is Christmas.

 

This pic of the inside front cover and the beginning of the first signature - I added an oval picture frame with mica covering most of the opening.

 The right side is the beginning of the next signature - each of the 3 signatures were created by using a piece of watercolor paper (140 pound) almost the length of the book and about 4 inches in width, folded in half - two matboard pages were eyeletted to the watercolor paper forming a signature.

 

The Merry Christmas santa begins the next signature.

 

I love this page - the angels are beautiful!!  There is a small oval bracelet charm on the right sde with lots of gold wire attached to it.

 

The beginning of the last spread is an envelope ~

 

The inside back page has hinged in a "Santa's List" book.  The back is blank.  This is one of the coolest books I've made in a long long while.

Next is a Halloween book project created by Liane:

 

This book was created by Linda at

This was one of Jan's books - simple accordian fold.

OK, signing off for right now - chat again later.

Busy Weekend!

I began cleaning my art room Friday evening.  I managed to get the den area and computer area "de-junked".  On Saturday afternoon I began the art area by cleaning off the two "company" art tables.  Once they were clean I began loading one of them again.  I am cleaning my art room and packing for my annual Cabin Fever Art Retreat.  I gathered all the larger items I plan to bring since I will be driving this time - the Bind-It-All, Cuttlebug, 3-drawer container with inkpads, etc., watercolor pads and whatever else I could think of.  Then I began working on my worktable as it quickly gets piled high and sometimes I wind up with a 10inch or so space to work in.  I actually created "small piles" of paper, etc.  This morning I found myself back at my art table putting all those piles away - I did it and now I can see the top of my table.  After that was done I began to pack my art bag.  Oh my, that is one of the hardest things I have to do.  I will say that I cleaned out one of the Pampered Chef round kitchen storage thingys a few weeks ago and have begun using that as part of my art bag - I dont' know how this will work out for traveling via planes but it's great when I take it on a driving trip.  So I re-worked the p. chef turntable holder filling it with over half of the things I normally take along.  Now I'm working on the cardstock, stickers, images, rub-ons, etc. that I like to take too.  Hopefully by bedtime the art room will look neat once again and my art bag will be packed!!!  Here are a couple of simple "bo bo" type cards I made for one of my retreat projects ~

 

 

Oops!  I forgot - the maid comes tomorrow and that means that I have to set aside an hour later this evening to clean before the maid arrives - does anyone else do that?

Another Wednesday!

I've been working on Halloween card kits for my upcoming retreat and hope to have them finished tomorrow.  Perhaps I'll be able to post pics of them tomorrow - speaking of Halloween, I have Kris Hurst to thank for my new Halloween Banner ~ don't you just love it!