What Have I Been Up To Lately You Ask???

Hey everyone! LOOOOOOOOOOONG TIME!!!

Geez, I've been gone so long I'll have to retrain myself on eBlogger! I've been traveling the last three weeks for my real job and I leave again mid-June for a week, then I'm done for a while! Well, until the fall, unless something else pops up. I have fun seeing everyone when I travel, but there's no place like home and no place like my studio! Happy to be grounded if even for a short while. 

BIG NEWS -- I HIT 200+ BLOG FOLLOWERS YESTERDAY!!! YAY! My goal was 200 by the end of June! Made it! And I'm approaching 600 YouTube followers on my channel too! OMG!!! Who knew there were that many crazy folk out there that would be interested in keeping up with my antics? So cool! Thanks so much everyone! I really appreciate it so much. 

In between all this craziness, I made an attempt to revamp my workspace (aka studio, if you want to go that far!). My good friend Ellen Smith Vargo had her studio set up so nicely using some IKEA pieces, that I went and got myself inspired and made a trip to IKEA and picked up a few pieces. OMG - love these! I got pieces from the Alex collection like Ellen used and they hold so much more than they appear to hold. I got two of the lower white drawer units and one of the tall drawer units. My hubby helped me put them together and lug them from the garage into the basement . I went to Michael's and got the white storage cubes sitting on top of the IKEA cabinets for 40% off, PLUS and additional 25% off my total order! Can't beat that with a stick! I still have a bit more to do. There are a couple shelf units off to the left of the pic you can't see that are almost empty. When they are I think I'll set up my refurbished sewing machine I got from www.overstock.com for $49, on top of my grandmother's old treadle machine cabinet and finally use it. Its amazing how much of my stuff was out of sight, out of mind! These storage pieces are so nice and I can see everything in each drawer! What a concept! I've use supplies I'd forgotten I had! 

Once I got back from traveling and was home long enough to use my new space, I went a wee bit crazy! Shocker, I know! I had some people who ordered some of my gelli notecards and envelopes weeks ago that I've finally gotten around to making for them and mailed them today! Here are the latest gelli notecards I made. I just love these things. Each one is completely different from the others. A few friends have these and keep asking for more. 

And the most fun thing I've done since I've been back home was to try the new Gelli Arts technique using clear shipping tape as a film transfer. So simple and fun, yet yields some really REALLY cool results. I've done a video on my interpretation of their technique, but please do be sure to watch the real thing from Gelli Arts. 

YUM!!! My favorite color combination -- orange and turquoise! The hot colors in these were made with the new fluorescent colors from Golden. OMG - If you haven't tried these yet and you love bright colors - these are a must have! You can see some of the shiny Perfect Pearls that were added to the back of the prints in the areas you have to leave blank -- please check out the videos and this will make more sense! 

 My favs on black background - they really pop!

I wanted to make a more stark set using black and white only, so I used the colored Perfect Pearls and some Lindy's Stamp Gang pigments to fill in the open bits. Completely different look and really cool!   

This set is the one from my video. Another fav - turquoise and purple popped with a bit o'orange! And I worked my favorite Pebeo color - Green/Blue, into this design for some extra shimmer and man, does it ever! LOVE! 

All together! 

NOW - what the hell am I going to do with these gorgeous bits you may ask? Well, I've asked myself that same question more than once. Since the pearl pigments are brushed on the back, I'm guessing that any medium or glue will muck that up in a minute. I had a stroke of genius (please do mark your calendars as this will probably not happen again in my lifetime!) -- I sprayed the back/sticky side of the middle set shown above with a matt finish sealer. I left them to dry last night and haven't been back to check on them, but they looked just fine as I crawled back upstairs. I think this might do the trick for using them in my art journal or in any project where I'd need to adhere them -- which pretty much is ANY project. I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out. 

One more thing I knocked out last week -- I finally had enough time to make my friend Lexi Erickson, one of my gelli journals. Lexi is a jewelry artist extraordinaire and wanted to use one as a sketch book. I made one especially for her using blank white and ivory Mi Tientes paper. It came out really nice. This will be mailed to Denver later this week. 

Lexi requested some muted greens and earth tones. I found this piece of handmade Batik from Artist Artifacts when my friends Jodi and Gail were at Art & Soul in Virginia Beach. Perfect. 

Close up of the beaded bits I added to the spine. The goddess seemed appropriate for Lexi, I added one of my handmade lampwork beads above the goddess, then just winged it as the beads talked to me for the rest. I love keys, so added one and above the key is a gorgeous handmade Raku bead I found at BeadFest Philadelphia the last time I was there. I've been hoarding them, but they color was perfect for this journal. The bobble on the top short piece has a sun icon on one side and the word 'create' on the other. 

The inside front cover. I was rifling thru my (HUGE) stack of gelli prints and found just the one to match the colors of this fabric perfectly. Imagine that! 

The blank pages for her sketching. Mi Tientes Ivory and White. I think these will serve her well, they have a nice tooth to them. 

 And the back inside cover, with a little distress added to the edges.

I also got some goodies packed up for one of my winners from my last giveaway and plan to get them boxed and shipped out tomorrow -- which reminds me -- I've never heard back from my second winner! If you are or if you know Karen A (aka Dizzy With Paper), please let her know to contact me so that I can mail her the stencils!

I was clunking around our basement preparing for the yard sale that never happened - long story! I found a box that had all my "funky" hats in it. I had to laugh, remembering wearing these during a very specific era of my life. My friends always tell me to share this story as much as possible, and I do agree for one reason - in hopes that it may find its way to the right person at the right time. So I posted another video the other evening -- no art this time -- just personal stuff on this one. I thought I should share a bit about my journey and a huge part of my life that will always influence me every day. Please feel free to share this video with anyone you think would benefit. 

So that's it for now. I'm hoping to resume a more normal schedule/life after the next couple weeks and will be able to post more regularly and make more videos. I'm trying to figure out exactly what I need to have in place to do UStream sessions. I think that would be fun. Will keep you posted on that. If you have any specifics or stream yourself, please let me know what you use for your set up. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer and would love some advice. I'm looking at flip cams now. I currently record on my laptop, but I think I need a separate camera. I want a separate camera anyway so I can get my hubs to drop that puppy from a ceiling mount to give you guys a better angle for my videos. I'm not sure I'll be able to handle watching the chats on the laptop and do my art at the same time without some sort of catastrophe!  That will be like rubbing my head and patting my belly at the same time! LOL  What the hell, I'll try anything once! So stand by for updates on that as well! 

Hope you are having a great day. Make it count!!! 

Patti