Here i am 7 years ago at the Seattle Art Car Blowout with Glittergirl.

Glittergirl in her former glory!

For a few years i enjoyed going to Seattle for the Art Car Blowout – my Glittergirl van was part of the festivities of the Freemont Fair.  It was a total blast.  Very talented artist Kelly Lyles and Don Ehlen organize the Art Car blowout and do a fantastic job of it.  The Fair and the art car blowout happens this weekend so i wanted to give you the heads up if you live in B.C. or Washington and you want to attend a fun event.  It’s full of free spirits and eccentrics, arts and crafts, food, parades and more!  I won’t be able to attend as it’s my birthday weekend and Father’s Day however i do hope some of you go!

If you’ve ever wanted to paint your car and participate in some fun events then check out some of the art car links that Kelly has here. The most magical things happen when you travel in an art car .

Chat to you tomorrow!

Love, Violette xox

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Yesterday my Mom, sister Linda and friends got together for an afternoon of shrink art fun!  Here are the results of the gathering! Above: Group shot of some of the shrinky dinks. We used the frost sheets to create our pieces.

Our friends Gina and Emma made a chicken and hello kitty charm which will become key fobs. The original size was 8 x 10.

My Mom had me draw two robots for her which she coloured in for over an hour.  The original size was half a page ( 4x 5) and they are now charm size.  Mom plans on sewing them into her scrapbook pages for her great grandsons whose parents love robots.

This is a grouping of shrinky dinks my sister Linda and I made.  I’m not sure if we’ll make a necklace out of them or not – they just might be used as charms in journal pages or as danglies off of a journal book . I had a problem at first – i printed the words and they ended coming out backwards once baked so then i had to draw the letters backwards so they would come out right! Live and learn eh?

Colouring in our pieces while chatting about our lives was such fun!

The shrink plastic shrinks to about 1/3 it’s size once you bake it. We used pencil crayons to colour in the designs which we inked in with sharpies.  On one of the pieces I painted the backside with acrylics but we liked the pencil crayon look better. Colouring in with pencil crayons is so therapeutic!

We were blessed with a sunny day so were happily creating in the backyard. In the photo: Gina, Mom, yours truly and Emma.  Linda is taking the photo.

Gina was so happy with the way her funky chicken came out that she took dozens of pictures of him all over the yard !

Giving the creative spirit running lady a hand!

In the Gunnera bush.

Frolicking amongst the flowers too!

Gina had a great camera and was being snap happy in the backyard – the photo she took of the Glittergirl door is one of my favourites!

All in all it was a fun day!  I encourage you to try shinky dinks – you can use them to make jewelry, key fobs, charms, Christmas ornaments and more.  It’s a great craft to do with children.  I plan on creating some shrink art crafts with my grandson Sam – he’ll most likely enjoy watching the shrink art magically curl up and shrink in the oven best of all!

See you tomorrow!

Love, Violette xo

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I thought i would share a few of the photos my Stepdad Reinhard (Ron) took of the Mother’s Day/birthday Celebration yesterday.  We were blessed with a gorgeous day, lots of relatives and a sparkling Magic cottage garden. Here’s the Fishpond i fixed up for Sam’s first fishpond experience.

My glittergirl van still lives on in the garden – well the door at least .

Here’s a picture of my Mom with her two daughters (the other daughter Linda is in N.Carolina). My big sister doesn’t like being on my blog so i often put a smiley face over her to obscure her face .

My daughter-in-law Kathryn is ready to have baby number 2 any day now!  Doesn’t she look awesome?  Little Sam has found a very comfy perch to sit on – hopefully baby brother won’t mind too much?

This was Sam’s first encounter with a fishpond!  His daddy, my son Ryan, taught him to say “Here fishy fishy” before he cast his line over the fishpond.

Lucky Sam – he was the happy recipient of several lovely prizes (mostly from his Auntie Jessy) . What a fun game this “fishpond” is!

Baby Cillian checking out the festivities from his blanket. He’s thinking “Next year it will be my turn to catch a fish!” He’s such an alert little guy!

My daughter Jessica, Cillian and son-in-law Nis.

Some of the party goers enjoying yummy food.

Bernie, Jessica and Ryan’s Dad with baby Cillian

Bernie and lovely partner Nathalie feeding Cillian. Bernie is a yoga instructor – can you tell by the way he’s sitting?

My Mom chatting with Mr. G as he has a rest on the newly painted swing.

Here we are having a fun swing together!  And of course the paparazzi was in full swing for this fun photo opportunity.

All in all we had a pretty magical day! I hope you Mothers out there were able to celebrate in your own special way too!

Thank you for letting me share a bit of our family celebration with you!

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This is the image i created for a Girl’s Conference I’m participating in at the end of May – i thought it was appropriate for Earth Day.  Let’s Love the Earth and of course Love ourselves!!!

We are having tons of fun over at the 21 Secrets Art Journaling Playground!  I am amazed by the beautiful and soulful pieces of art everyone is creating.  Leith graciously gave me permission to post her two art journal pages – society page and the shadow page.  Aren’t they amazing?  Thank you Leith.  I met Leith a number of years ago at the Seattle Art Car blowout when we both were in the art car parade.  That’s when my van Glittergirl was still around. Leith was such a sweet person – her car was pretty nifty too if i recall.  I was so excited when i saw that Leith signed up for 21 Secrets – you can still sign up – it’s not too late!

Today I’m working on a stuffy bunny for my grandson Sammy.  He will be having first Easter Egg hunt tomorrow (that’s when everyone is able to get together).  I started off sketching and then painted an eyeball, cut it out and THEN made a paper pattern.  There is often no rhyme or reason to how i begin a project – except for the part the sketching an idea part – it might begin on a scrap piece of paper or even a napkin.  Yesterday i had the idea of painting an eyeball – strange eh? That turquoise/greenish piece of fabric that you see is a baby wipe that was used in a project and ended up getting dyed a pretty colour.  I’m thinking of using it for the foliage on a stuffed carrot – we shall see.

Well I’m off – I hope you all have a Happy Easter (if you celebrate)!  I’ll see you on Monday!

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Here is a sketch i created of a flying heart – i love using this symbol in my work. I transferred the sketch to an apron using a piece of graphite paper.

Here is the finished piece – i used copic markers and fabric paints. I’m happy with the results.

Wouldn’t this apron be such fun to wear?

The square-ish Chickenlady briefcase

Detail

The other day i was talking to Shireen of Get Fresh! Webdesign about Branding – and she basically said everything about you – your website/blog, what you create, how you dress, your business card, brochures, letterhead etc. is your brand. So there i was at a Meetup gathering (with Nicci) wearing a dark grey top, blue jeans and carrying my book Journal Bliss and i-pad in a bag of all things! That sure as heck wasn’t very representative of who i am – maybe that day it was since i was not feeling too sparky.  Anyways it got me thinking that i should be using some kind of funky briefcase to hold my i-pad, biz cards and brochures when i go out to meetings.  I was on a mission to find and buy a case that i could paint.

The tale of the Chickenlady case

I went into my over-flowing studio and found this Chickenlady case that was half finished. My i-pad fit perfectly inside and so will some of my other funky art and products.  You may recall in the past that i had blogged about this case.  About 10 or 11 years ago before Glittergirl van was born i drove another blue, boring van. It was stolen outside of the magic cottage – the horror, the horror.  This case was in it.  Several months later the case was returned – the robbers had thrown it along with the contents of the other stolen vans into one van.  I COULDN’T EVEN GIVE IT AWAY!!!!!!!!!  Part of me was happy that the case was returned and part of me was upset….go figure.

The front of the case is painted (i think that I’ll give the Chickenlady some clothes this time) but the sides and back are still black.  I think I’ll paint the gypsy soul image on the back because I’m liking it so much and it makes me happy! I’ll videotape the process and post it on youtube.

Server problems

You may notice that many of the photos have disappeared from my blog – pre- December 23ish i think.  I’m having server problems so hopefully it will be rectified today…….grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr………….! If you have signed up for my newsletter and did not receive the Creative Playcards please e-mail me and I’ll send you the proper link now. And thank you so much for signing up!

Newsletter

I’ll be sending out my newsletter tomorrow if you would like to sign up. My newsletter subscribers will be getting discounts for some of the products in my store . 

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I came home yesterday to find the door of glittergirl (my van) propped up against the garage.  I guess the Auto shop teacher at the High School around the corner dropped it off with his helpers. You can see some images of it here .  Having to donate Glittergirl was a pretty traumatic event for me since i had wrapped up so much of my identity in her. Not very ZEN of me was it? Anyways now i have to find a place for the door……..any ideas?  There is no available wall space in the Magic Cottage but i do know that i want to keep it and one day if we sell the Magic Cottage and have a bigger home i’ll find a special place of honour for it .

If you haven’t already done so leave a comment on yesterday’s post to enter to win the December Holiday giveaway  Lots of swag to win and to inspire you! I am so enjoying reading about your fondest holiday memories!

Podcast with Sue Bleiweiss  – inteviewed by Rice Freeman Zachary

Check out the interview Sue Bleiweiss of the Sketchbook Project did with Rice Freeman Zachary - Rice is a wonderfully fun interviewer – like a modern day alchemist she brings out the best in everyone.  After listening to the interview and hearing what Sue has to say about the project you will want to sign up for sure.  There will be lots of fun, prizes and goodies to be had just by being a part of the project. Not only will you be able to win some artful swag sure to enrich your creative life but your sketching and creating skills will improve as you sketch along with us!

Crafty links:

Check out Traci Bautista’s blog where she shows you how to collage a birdhouse

Alisa Burke has a lovely Stitched Gift Wrap tutorial

Margot Potter has a free jewelry making project.

Enjoy being creative!  I’m off to Christmas shop if you can believe it! Wish me luck!

Have a fun, festive weekend!

Love Violette xoxo

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