Creative Block Help and Purrcy

What does it mean when your cat likes to sit on your art? Is it a good thing? Does it mean they like it or should it go the litter box route?

For this long weekend, I'm home sick again while my husband is down in Monterey spear fishing for halibut. Being home and very bored, I decided to make some backgrounds. I used twinkling H2O on water color paper, randomly brushing on color. I put them on the floor to dry. When Purrcy, my little shadow woke up from his nap, he decided to sit on everything I had done.

Happy Birthday Micehlle Zindorf

Today is Michelle Zindorf's birthday so I made this super size birthday card for her this morning. I usually make them 4x4 but for Zindrof I made it 6x6. I added a little party hat for some fun.

Another Zindorf inspired card

I haven't been able to do a whole lot of stamping lately. I saw this new Hero Arts stamp and thought I would do a quick card using a Zindorf type of scene. I know MZ would have added some shadows and highlights but I couldn't figure out where to put them so I left my image a little plain. I left space in the corner so I could add a sentiment later.
Marvy inks, masking and sponging.

Miss CJ back home

My Circle Journal (Ms. CJ) made it back home this month and I finally finished the spine to the journal. I think this is my favorite out of all the CJ rounds I've done with this group. Ms. CJ went to visit every one in the group with her own suitcase in tow and I must say she had a good time. I think she arrived at every one's house right when they were getting ready to go on vacation. Ms. CJ had some great adventures this past year!

Cornflakes - Card Swap

Once a month I get together with my card club the "Cornflakes" or just the "flakes" to the locals and we swap cards. It's always a fun time to catch up and talk stamping. We had additional excitement last night with a major flare up on Jan's (our host) propane grill. As the rest of us were happily chatting in the house, Jan was battling her grill which caught on fire (grease) and was trying to turn the hamburgers into charcoal. Jan came in all sweaty and said there was a little accident with the grill (I thought she was just having a hot flash) and there was going to be a menu change. Marcia (a practical mom of two teenagers) was busy carving off the burnt parts of the hamburgers, which really were tasty. It was lucky that Jan made big fat burgers that could take the intense heat, otherwise we would have had chip burgers. This was the ultimate "quick fire" challenge! :)

Flatfish Update.

This card just made me laugh when I saw it on Lydia Fiedler's blog "Understand Blue". It's her "sorry I'm late" birthday card. The embarrassed little red balloon is just too funny! See my blog roll for the link. Lydia is also the host for the Zindorf workshops happening in Austin next month as well as a new fur baby mommy. Visit her blog because I think she is the first person to have made a kitten sling - not shoot through the air but carry around with you type for her fur babies.
It's been a whirl wind of activity at my house and I haven't be able to blog anything or get any stamping done. Now that I'm the booking agent for Michelle Zindorf my mornings are spent answering emails, (having my computer crash in the middle of everything) ordering supplies, booking flights, and dealing with the back office stuff so Michelle can focus on what she does best - the making of inspired rubber stamp art.
I'm also researching why we on the West Coast can't have a good rubber stamp show. There are tons of them in the Mid-West or so I'm told, so it looks like I will have to fly out for a field trip next year and check them out. Yes, we are working on doing a stamp show here in San Jose that would make women flying in from all over, spend a whole week crafting and cry when it's all over. Anyone want to help?

Urban Bees or "the girls"

Many of you know that my husband and I are urban bee keepers. We have two hives and thought I would take a photo of the girls (99% of all bees are female) hard at work. They are working so well, we will have to process some honey out of the hives soon.- that's about 5 gallons. If you see a bee swarm in your yard or at work, please call you local bee guild (not the City) who in most cases can put you in contact with a guild member. If the swarm is found early enough (don't wait to call) they can be captured and move it to a better location or hive. Once the hive moves into a building or remote spot, they are very hard to remove without killing them.

Zindorf Inspired

Michelle Zindorf posted another great tutorial on her blog yesterday. I gave it a try. I didn't have much luck with stamping an image on the sand so I went for the real thing, two sand dollars, starfish and beach glass.

Stamp Zia - Zana Clark Workshop

Workshop alert! I'm in the process of booking Stamp Zia to fly out either the first weekend in December (yes, I know it's not the best time) or the third weekend in February 2009. Just wanted to see what date Stamp Zia fans would like and what projects to do. Visit Zana's website http://www.stampzia.com/artshopclasses.htm and let me know what you would be interested in.

Guess Who Cards

Having been home for the last 3 days with the flu, you can do silly things when making cards. I was making a set of the Japanese kokeshi doll cards for my card swap later this month, when I
thought my dolls have no faces like the Tilda stamps everyone is going wild over out here in CA. I'm not a big fan of Tilda who looks too much like a bad Cabbage Patch doll dream or Rainbow Bright on crack. I then thought it would be funny to make some cards with my faceless dolls, in the style of some other people on Split Coast Stampers and see if anyone could guess who I was thinking of. Too make it more fun, I will randomly pick a winner from all the correct answers and hand out some blog candy.

Zindorf Workshop - Dayton OH and Austin TX

The projects that everyone will be making at the workshops in Dayton OH and Austin TX with Michelle Zindorf. She will start you out easy with a simple card (in Michelle's world) and then start adding more color and difficulty as you go on to the other projects. The stamp set and brayer are included in the workshop fee, so you can go home and practice everything you've learned from Michelle.

Lydia from Texas will be hosting Michelle. Visit her blog which is too funny at www.understandblue.blogspot.com

Yu Ai Kai Card

Another card for the Senior Center on Thursday. I really liked how the Cuttlebug and silver metallic paper turned out but realized it had now stamping on it. I decided to stamp a small thank you on the inside of the card. This is a group that likes to make more "Thank You" cards. A generation that still hand write notes and uses snail mail.

Yu Ai Kai Card

This is one of the cards I will be doing at the Yu Ai Kai Senior Center on Thursday. I volunteer once a month to teach free card making classes to the members. I keep the cards simple and instructions brief, since we make four cards in an hour.

Late night work

I was up late last night working on getting some projects done. I took some time out and played with my new Cuttlebug embossing folders. These are a really bad knock off of the Zindorfian style. Speaking of Zindorf, I was working until 1:30 a.m. (CA time) this morning and I got an email from Michelle who gets up at 4:00 a.m. in Ohio to make the card and do the tutorial before she goes to work. I emailed back to say how strange it was that (I had talked to her early in the day on the phone) I still had not gone to bed and here she was already up designing the next card.

New Cuttlebug Card

These are the last two cards for my Halloween Cuttlebug class. I like to make them simple so people can make more when they get home. The Cuttlebug makes things so easy. I think the Pillsbury Dough boy's name is Poppin Fresh. There was a discussion with some 5 year old twins about the this. Should I change the head stone?

Sneak Peek at Dayton Zindorf Workshop

O.K. ladies this is a sneak peek at one of the projects Michelle Zindorf will be doing at her workshop in Dayton at Marco's Paper store. I also thought that you would like to see a photo of the staff from Marco's Paper. Yes, the tall person in the middle with great legs is Greg. He's a good sport and always gets dressed up for the trade show theme. This year it was "PJ Party".

Go to their website and see what Greg and the gang wore for the Wizard of OZ theme. http://marcopaper.com/convention.htm

Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

In the Beginning - The Sheldon Family

Grandpa Sheldon purchased 5 lots up in Mackinaw MI in the 1930's, one for each of his children. The family did a lot of camping up on the beach before Grandpa Sheldon purchased the lots. He built a little cabin you can just see in the background. Over the years, each of the Sheldon children built a cabin on their lot. Now all the grandchildren and great grand children are enjoying Mackinaw. The Sheldon reunion was held this past weekend in honor of Ells and Louise Sheldon.

Sheldon Family Reunion 2008

This photo shows the true spirit of the Sheldon Family reunion up in Mackinaw MI. They did a more serious pose, but I liked this one of everyone being silly. They had fun games, good food (my husband was in charge of the food committee) and as you can see reunion tee-shirts made.

Sunset at Mackinaw MI - Zindorf Moment

My husband just got back from his family reunion in Mackinaw MI. This is a photo taken in front of the cabin looking out over Lake Michigan. When I saw this photo (over a 1,000 were taken) I thought it looked just like something that would inspire Michelle Zindorf.

Halloween Card

This is one of my favorite cards to make. I would call it a quick card to make once you know all the steps. It's super messy - lots of sponging on of inks and masking off color.

Quick Halloween Cards.

Some close up shots of the quick Halloween cards I did for my card class this past week. I love to make Halloween cards that are silly and fun.

For my classes, I'm doing more quick cards than the really fancy over the top cards. Many people like to make cards but don't have the time to sit for hours to make just one.

Asian Gift Card Holder

This was a bonus card for the ladies that took my class today. When I woke up I decided I had time to make one more super quick card for them. I'm always asked to make something more "manly". I did both a girl and a boy. It's a take off on a card that Markie's Mom from SCS did but I changed the doll to be more "Japanesey". The boy card is a gift card holder, which you can't see in the photo. In class we were joking that this is the Japanese version of the bathroom signs we see here on doors. I think they are too funny.

Halloween Cuttlebug

Another card I will be doing for my Cuttlebug Halloween card class. Will update my blog when I get the date set for the class.

Halloween Card

I just love the new Cuttlebug embossing folders that have come in. They have a whole set of Halloween images, which are great. I made this card sample for my Cuttlebug Halloween card class next month.

Asian Card Class Samples

It's back to making cards for my classes now. Seem like ages since I sat down and made anything. I decided to do less traditional Asian cards for my Asian class - sounds silly doesn't it. The new Cuttlebug embossing folders came this week so I decided to work them into the class. The cards do take some time to make because of all the sponging on of colors and running things through the Cuttlebug.

Zindorfian News Flash

For all you "Zindorfian" fans, Michelle will be doing another workshop (date to be confirmed) in Longmont (I think that is correct city), Colorado. She will also be coming back to California when we can get the details nailed down. Michelle requested that on her next visit, we be somewhere near the beach. The scouting team is now looking into places down in Monterey or Carmel.

We all had a great time and working one on one with Michelle who was awesome.

"Zindorfian" fan club - day two

This is the start of day two for Michelle Zindorf's workshop here in California. The ladies in class coined a new term "Zindorfians - those who follow the way of Zindorf". :) Everyone is having a great time and learning a tons of stuff.

Zindrof Workshop - Day One

Here is a photo of the start of Michelle Zindorf's first workshop at my studio. The stress level is high right now learning how to use the brayer with soft touch. Stampers just have a hard time with that idea. There is going to be some sore arms at the end of class! If you ask how Michelle how she does it, seeing and doing it live makes a BIG difference. It's not as easy as it looks. Update: Michelle is awesome!!! There were happy faces from everyone in this morning's workshop.