Pictures of the start of day two on the making of my artist studio. On the first day they just removed the dry wall to make way for the outlets I wanted installed. The insulation was put in when we remodeled several years ago so that was one less thing they had to do. They are working on putting more support beams in to hold the new ceiling and framing for two skylights.
Can you say VERTIGO? We were in San Francisco for most of the weekend to help celebrate a cousin's 50th birthday. It was at the South Beach Yacht Club (very nice place) and we stayed at the Moscone Marriott. My brother-in-law also celebrated his 25th anniversary with the Marriott organization, so we went to the top floor bar to have a drink. The view was great but with floor to ceiling windows it was alittle hard to sit right next to the glass. It looked like something out of a batman movie.
My brother-in-law came out from Boston for a cousin's birthday party this weekend. We made a drive down to Monterey to kill some time and eat at my favorite restaurant, Red House Cafe. It was one of those beautiful sunny California days. There was a pod of whales playing off shore and some otters cracking shell fish in the cove. This will be one of the place my C.J. group will visit when they come out this summer.
I just finished designing my new class "Things with Wings". I decided to throw in a lot of different techniques. Water color with twinkling H2O and water color pencils. Heat and dry embossing and ink resisted. The two butterfly cards are more labor intensive than I usually do for my classes. I think the design for the class went so fast because I didn't want to look at all the boxes I still have to sort through. I have managed to get most of the hallway done and I'm now working on the boxes in the other rooms. :)
This is what happens when you clean out your garage. The husband moves things into the open space. Must be the law of attraction or the need to fill space syndrome. Our bee hive is in trouble. Doug called our local bee guild and had a mentor bee keeper to come over and check things out. The major problem was that our bees are starving. They had full boxes of honey but for some reason, once they seal off the chambers, they don't remove the wax to get to the honey. The second news was that we have two Queens in the hive. I think that means the hive was getting ready to swarm. Most of our neighbors are fine with us keeping bees but I know one of them would not find it funny or interesting to have 5,000 of my girls hanging out in his yard. They all know to call us if a swarm comes to visit. With all the chambers filled with honey, there was no place for the Queen to lay her eggs. Doug is exacting the honey from the combs to make more room for the baby bees and I think to free up some honey for the girls. It's best to do this in an enclosed room. The girls get very upset when you start to mess with their honey. During this time of year, I think it's all females in the hive.
I'm in search of paper or rubber stamps with the Spy vs Spy guys. Another invitation project I was asked to do has the theme of "Spys" 
I was asked to make some invitations for a office party. The theme is pirates and treasures. The invitations will go to all women, so I thought it would be fun if the invite came in a little pirate purse. They did ask that I make two samples so the committee could pick one. I really like the purse idea but just in case, I made a more conventional one too. I went to the bead store to look for a charm but all they had were dragons and skulls, which didn't look all that pirate-ish. I almost gave up when I saw some pearls. I then found some weird looking shells that look like mini oysters and then thought of the Captain Jack movie and his ship the black pearl. Since the invitations won't go through the mail, I didn't worry it's a little bumpy. Covering the holes in the black pearls has been a challenge. If you have any tips, let me know.
It's been non stop cleaning and sorting at my house. Now that the garage is cleaned out (and keeping my husband from moving things back into it) I have to tackle all the boxes that came into the house. Many of them have things for my Alley Cats Vintage Treasures booths. Purrcy loves boxes but didn't want his picture taken tonight. It's Lucy's birthday today, so she had the day off - no modeling. My hallway is filled with boxes so I've decided to work on two feet at a time. So far I've done 6 feet and sorted out 12 boxes. Tonight I worked a boxes of vintage sewing notions and sheet music. Some of the music is over 100 years old. It's a very slow process bagging fragile paper and I have to double check all the pages are together. 
