{RED} Letter Day

Late yesterday afternoon a little brown truck (UPS) pulled up in front of my house. There was a box for me from my pal Deb. Inside the box was this:

*SQUEE* A {RED} Poloroid Pogo Printer!! I am telling you, there was a whole lot of happy in that box! I have been dying to have one of these, but as per usual, they are not available in Canada yet. *sigh* We're always last to the party. It was the same thing when I wanted to get a Flip-I had to make a special trip across the line to get one, which I did because, well... you know...I am my Gramps' girl when it comes to tools and techno stuff.
*geeks*

There was also this great carry case in the box, along with 80 sheets of paper, so I can print to my heart's content. I am *so* excited about using this little beauty to enhance my ROD journals with cool little photos.
I printed a couple pics just to see how it worked-one of my new tattoo and one of my beloved Indy. Both are now stuck down in my journal. Easy-peasy!

For those of you not in the know, the photos print out business card size, with a sticky adhesive backing, so you just print, peel and slap it down! Poloroid has cleverly built the ink right into the paper-think of it as the modern version of the 70's Poloroid technology.

The Pogo measures 4 1/2 inches long x 2 1/2 inches wide x 3/4 inches thick and weighs a mere 0.4 lbs. It's perfect for the journaller on the go! I can't wait to pop it in my bag with my camera and my ROD journal and head out for some art time at the local coffee shop. Just thinking about it makes me smile.

THANK YOU DEB!! I *LOVE* IT!!

Postcard from the West Coast

It reads:

"Longing to wander a vast expanse of sand, to walk barefoot out to forever and greet the ocean; to feel the sun on my back and a breeze on my face; to smell the salt in the air, to hear the cry of the gulls wheeling overhead and to enjoy the company of a good dog."

World MS Day 2010

Today is World MS Day. I thought I would take a moment to share with you a bit about the disease that claimed me as a member of its club. I don't usually post about this kind of stuff, simply because I don't believe it does me any good to dwell. I tend to cope with difficult things by sucking it up and moving foreword because that's just how I roll, but I hope you'll take a moment to read this post and perhaps think about those of us who deal with this unpredictable disease every day.

Some facts about Multiple Sclerosis:

-MS is unpredictable, affecting vision, hearing, memory, sensation, balance and mobility. Its effects are physical, emotional, financial, and last a lifetime. There is no cure.

-MS is not contagious nor is it hereditary. Children who have a parent with MS have only a 5% chance of developing the disease. Coincidentally, my husband's paternal grandmother had MS. I am sure he never dreamed that someday his wife would be diagnosed and the same disease would touch his life twice.

-Canada has one of the highest rates of Multiple Sclerosis in the world. An estimated 55,000-75,000 Canadians have MS. Every day, three more people in Canada are diagnosed. Women are more than three times as likely to develop MS as men.

-Most people are diagnosed in the prime of their lives-between ages of 15-40. I had my first attack 2 weeks after my 30th birthday. I was diagnosed in March 2008 at the age of 37 after a particularly severe attack.

-Multiple Sclerosis disease modifying drugs range in cost from $20,000 to $40,000 a year, and symptom-management drugs can cost up to $10,000 a year. These drugs are not a cure-they just (hopefully) lessen the length and severity of attacks. I give myself an injection daily. I've been through the wringer with treatment, trying to get into remission. I've even had to go through chemo, but that too was unsuccessful.

In the face of all this, you find out who loves you. It's one of the gifts of having a serious life-altering illness. I've been lovingly and unfailingly supported by so many special people. (You know who you are!) I am lucky. I have people who have my back.

I want you all to know that I don't spend a single second feeling sorry for myself. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I am still out there chasing my dreams. In 2010 alone, I've lived my Olympic dream, rubbed elbows with world class athletes, carried the Paralympic torch, been published, celebrated my 39th birthday and just 5 days ago, got inked for the first time. (And that's the just highlight reel.) MS has sadly underestimated my sheer force of will.

That said, you will indulge me for posting a link in case anyone is moved to take action and make a donation to the MS Society. Just know that if you do so, every single dollar counts. The MS Society has done so much to help and support my family and I. The work they do on behalf of MS patients is so important. They not only help us with every aspect of the day to day challenges, but they are striving for a cure.

MS was first identified in 1868. That's ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO YEARS AGO!!

Seriously, it's time to end MS.

Please donate now. Help end MS!

Wee Lass

So this is a piece of original artwork, by Cori Dantini that I loved so much I wanted it as a tattoo. It's called Wee Lass. (And yes, I've ordered the print too!) The other day, I emailed Cori and asked if I might have her permission to use her work and she kindly and enthusiastically said YES! (I always recommend asking the artist for permission-it's the right thing to do.) She is incredibly kind and asked me to send her a pic so she can see how it came out. (Cori, I *love* you-you ROCK!!)

So here's my leg before...

And this is Bill Gaspari at Adrenalin getting started on my tattoo. It was...interesting...Bill likes to play ear splitting acid rock while he works. Certainly not my thing, but if that helps him get into the groove to work, who am I to question? Next time I'm taking earplugs though!

Here's the stencil going on.

Let the inking begin! I have to tell you that for the first ten minutes, it's hurt like the dickens, but after that, my brain kind of forgot about it and it was just some minor annoyance going on in the background. I can do anything for ten minutes if I have to.

Partially inked.

The black outlining is finished.

The smeared red here is red ink, not blood, so no worries. This was when he was adding colour.

My son's girlfriend put the Loonie there for scale, after which I explained to her that that wasn't going to mean a darn thing to my American friends. *laughs*

The whole thing took a hour and a half, then I got bandaged up and that was that. It's going to take a few days to heal. Right now it just feels like razor burn, more annoying than anything.

This is what it looks like a day later, with the colour finished. I *love* it! THANK YOU CORI for your stunning art and THANK YOU BILL for your skill. I am thrilled with my one-of-a-kind ink. It means alot to me. And THANK YOU to my son for my Mother's Day Gift. xox

2. Get tattoo.

Psssst!

I'm going to be crossing another thing off my "40 Things To Do Before I'm 40" list by midnight tonight!

Want to know what it is? Check back tomorrow evening when I spill the beans!!

More Weekend Adventures

So getting back to Saturday and all the excitement,I caught the aquabus
after I left the Village to go meet my husband up at Granville Island for lunch. It's always so pleasant to travel that way.

See that grey curve in the center of the photo? Well that's our stadium where all the Olympic ceremonies were held. They've dismantled the inflatable roof and are preparing to replace it with a retractable one. It's so odd not to see the white marshmallow on top. It's also odd that the sky appears grey because it was clear blue skies, sunny and hot-22C on Saturday.

We had a lovely lunch, al fresco while we listened to someone playing bongos. The courtyard area of the market always has a busker or two to entertain you while you eat and watch the world go by on the waterway. This was my dessert-a chocolate mousse cake from my favourite bakery.

Being of soft heart and having great love for Indy, I couldn't very well eat dessert without offering him some too. His favourite is French vanilla gelato. That's two weekends in a row he's had gelato at Granville Island! Yes, he's spoiled, but only because he's such a sweet soul. We had plenty of people wanting to pet him and tell us how handsome he is. One guy who sat next to us studied Indy for a moment and then said "I think that's got to be the most beautiful Lab I've ever seen." *grins* Yes, we think so too!

This isn't the best photo because of the glass, but it's a paper tree I saw. It comes in a kit and you fit it together. I thought it was pretty cool. I didn't have a chance to go in and see who made it or how much it is, but next time I will make a point of checking it out. It's about 2 feet high.

After a bit of shopping, we went down to the dock to catch the aquabus back to the other end of the inlet. Indy's waiting patiently. He LOVES riding on the water. It took a bit for the boat to arrive and he was contemplating a swim while we waited. Labs are water crazy.

This was a bit of a surprise. Indy never jumps up like this anywhere and for some reason he decided he wanted to look out on that side of the boat. The guy petting him was from my hometown of Winnipeg and was out visiting for the weekend. I told him about the Village being open to the public now and he was keen to go check it out.

Here's some of the goodies I brought home. I found this cool roll of birdcage packing tape...

...turquoise Washi tape...

...dog themed mini postal tapes...

...this fun roll-a-dex (The one I have is old and tired.)
I use this to back up my email and snail mail addresses.

Here's the fun graphics on the side of the box. These same graphics are on the index cards.

On Sunday we went to the swap meet. I didn't find a thing there. (Actually, that's not true-I did, but the sellers were so unfriendly and unwilling to bargain with people that I decided my money was better spent elsewhere, thank you very much!) Afterwards we went to my fav antique mall and I took one look at these glasses and had to have them!

Aren't they just spectacular? I love that their art deco and aqua. There's a whole room of vintage kitchen stuff, sorted by colour. When you walk into the room, you're greeted by a riot of colour. There's a lemon yellow kitchen, a vintage tomato red kitchen, a Paris pink kitchen, a vintage aqua kitchen and an orange kitchen! I wish I'd taken my camera so I could show you-you can't imagine how pleasing to an artist's eye this whole room is. Next time I go, I will come back with photos, promise! I saw another set of glasses I'd like to have and if there still there the next time I visit, they are mine!

It's been a crazy busy weekend, I got a little too much sun, but I had a good time. My husband asked if I'd like to go visit my other fav antique mall next weekend. Are you kidding me?!?! Of course I would!

Party in the Village!

Saturday's trip to the Athletes' Village in downtown Vancouver was wonderful. I met up with Alison and Jennifer, two of my Event Services Athletes' Marshalls team. It was so great hanging out and exploring the wonders of the village together. We got to relive some of the best moments of our Games experiences and make new memories together.


When we arrived, we got into a special line for Blue Jackets and were given commemorative pins and a $25 gift certificate to London Drugs. (A Canadian drug store that carries almost everything-the "drug" part of the name is almost a misnomer.)

We got to tour through some of the buildings where they had Olympic and Paralympic displays and photo ops set up. We witnessed the handing over of the village to the City of Vancouver from VANOC. We heard Rick Hansen speak. He's always so inspiring. Afterwards, we went to take photos with the giant sparrows and the beaver from the Closing Ceremony. I had to hug the beaver, seeing as I'd already kissed the moose!

We toured one of the condos in the village where the Australian athletes stayed. The condo was amazing and we had a good time goofing around, taking photos. In the end, I think I shot over 200-I know I completely wore out a brand new set of batteries!

My husband had come into the city too, met with me briefly at the village and then walked Indy up to Granville Island. Once he got there, he called me and I hopped an aquabus and sailed up the inlet to meet them for lunch. (I'll post about that tomorrow!)

I thought I had had all my Olympic experiences and that my Olympic ROD journal was going to be completed soon. Now I have 200+ new photos to choose from and more memories to add! My journal runneth over! *grins*

**Mouse over the images in the slide show to read the captions.**

More Fun & GAMES!

Just when you thought my posts about the 2010 Olympics were over...*laughs* ...more news! Today seemed to cosmically be "Olympics day". This morning, I was cleaning out the closet in my bedroom. I put my winter clothes away and hung up the summer ones. I took down and carefully folded all the pieces of my blue uniform, packing them away for now. As I did so, I was thinking about all the wonderful memories I have from the Games.

This afternoon, I finally got my certificate for my participation in the Games. We've all kind of been wondering what had happened to them, as there seemed to be some confusion as to how we were getting them. Then *poof* it turned up in the magic mailbox today! Yay!

In addition to today's surprise, last week I got an invitation via email, for all the "Blue Jackets" to attend an event at the Athlete's Village on Saturday. I'm going and hoping to meet up with members of my team. (The Athletes' Marshalls.) It will be really great if we can catch up with one another. I'll share details when I've been gone and went. I am sure it's going to be a good time and I'll take my camera.

Then tonight, as I was getting dinner ready, my phone rang. It was someone from the MS Society asking me if I would agree to do an interview about being a Paralympic Torchbearer. I agreed to do the interview later tonight, by phone. The article will be appearing in Shared Voices, which is the MS Society's newsletter, I'm just not sure when, but when its available, I'll let you know.

I guess I will have more "stuff" to add to my Olympic ROD journal!

Learning Curve

Yesterday I took my box o'stuff and trooped outside to start spraying. First of all, putting the respirator mask on was a must, but all kinds of claustrophobia kicked in and for the first few moments, I couldn't breathe. I didn't like it much, but decided I really wasn't going to suffocate and got on with the spraying. The upside of wearing the mask is that I couldn't smell the fumes, at all as long as I had it on.

I chose to "make over" a few pieces of ugly scrapbook papers to start with, since I wouldn't be too heavily invested if they didn't turn out. It was a good choice, as I like what I have so far. The one shown above had moments of "whoops" or "eww" but I just let it dry and then went over the parts that I didn't care for. If anything, this process is pretty forgiving.

This one I sprayed sparingly. I want to do more acrylic paint on it than anything. My friend Penn gave me a chunk of rubber waste and it actually "prints" really well. If you look closely, you will see that this paper had crowns printed on it before I got spraying.

This one I used a scrapbook paper that was all cut work as a stencil. I think the high contrast is interesting. Underneath are printed scraps of text which shows through.

This was an embossed print, that looked like vintage tin ceiling tiles. Problem was, the colour of the original paper was fugly. So I lay the cut work paper and stenciled it over top, then lay the scalloped circle in the middle and sprayed over with red. I got an interesting layered effect.

The one downside is of course, the papers end up being pretty fumy. I hung mine outside on the clothes line all afternoon and I can still smell them. I think I am going to try some spray inks next time and see which I prefer.

On another note, Indy says thanks to everyone who has gone and voted for him! If you haven't, there's still plenty of time.

Click here to vote.

Tales from the Weekend

It's Monday! Usually there's no cause for celebration for the arrival of this particular day of the week, but in this case, it heralds the beginning of spray painting!

As you can see, I've spent the weekend hunting and gathering all the stuff I need to begin working on papers for the Stencilry class. You'll see first and foremost that I did indeed buy a respirator mask. I appreciate everyone encouraging me to do so but rest assured, I had no intention of breathing in any paint fumes. I can't breathe when we paint a room in the house with normal paint, (allergies) so there's no way I'd ever consider spray painting without a mask. $35 well spent, if you ask me, though I'm a bit concerned about the fact that the part that mashes up against your face to create an airtight seal is made of latex, to which I am sensitive. I will only be spraying for brief periods of time so if the mask bothers me, I will simply stop. There's always a trade off.

And now, some pics of my beloved Lab. Yesterday we went over to Vanier Park in Vancouver to take Indy to the beach to swim and to have a Mother's Day picnic. Isn't he handsome? If he looks a bit intense, it's because my son was standing behind me, holding a treat to get him to pose. He's a bit weird about the camera-he thinks it will steal his soul or something. *laughs*

He's wet in this photo, having just spent 2 hours fetching his water Kong and playing with Syrus, a chocolate Lab who is training to be a wheelchair assistance dog. They were adorable together-they'd race each other into the ocean to get the Kong and then swim back, each holding a part of it in their mouths.

After our picnic, we went to Granville Island, which is about a 15 minute walk down the seawall for gelato. Indy loves gelato, so he had French Vanilla.


He's licking every last bit off the plastic spoon.



I took this photo last week, but I wanted to share it. I often find Indy fast asleep on out bed. If you look closely, you'll see a green tennis ball tucked beneath his belly. I guess he hopped up there to play with it and got tuckered out. I can't tell you how dear he is-I just love him to bits.

***I entered Indy in a photo contest for Modern Dog Magazine. Please go here to vote for him. Thanks!***



I'll report back soon with some samples of my adventures with spray paint. It's overcast today, so I'm hoping I don't get rained out!

Pedal to the Metal

I'm at it again: I'm sewing another wee ROD journal...perhaps even two. Yes, I'll admit it's become an addiction. I find myself salvaging even the most mundane of scraps at this point. I've got a box that sits next to my desk and I tuck whatever ends up on my desk at the end of the day into it for later. Lots of good stuff ends up in that box and now it's getting used. It's the perfect project for a paper monger like me.

I got a sweet early Mother's Day gift from my husband-he gifted me with for Mary Ann Moss' Stencilry and Stitched & Stenciled classes. Right now she's got a super deal on-both classes for $65 US! How could you possibly go wrong? I signed up earlier in the week, after my husband told me to "Go for it!!" but I haven't started anything yet-I need to get some spray paint and a mask (safety first!) and a few other odds and ends before I dive into those classes. I'll be doing some shopping this weekend and with sunny skies scheduled for the next two weeks, you'd better believe I'm going to be arting up a storm!

If you haven't taken one of Mary Ann's online classes, I highly recommend it. She's a wonderful teacher-organized, through and extremely helpful and generous. Her classes are the best I've ever taken, to be honest. She's a gem.

One thing I've been enjoying about her classes is that there's a Yahoo Group for her students, so we can talk about what were working on, share ideas, trouble shoot (sewing machines can be testy at times!) and swap ephemera if we want. It's been wonderful getting to know other artists and everyone is very helpful and supportive of one another.

If you want to see some ROD journals in varying stages, you can pop on over to the class Flickr group and have a peek. There's tons of yummy eyecandy there.

Okay, back to sewing pages for me! Time to crank up the tunes!

Gifting

Remember this wee star ROD journal I made a couple weeks ago? Well the intended recipient just had it show up in her mailbox yesterday. See her reaction here. *grins*

Spoils of the Weekend

The weekend was given over to thinking about, looking at and and shopping for art and art related goodies. Sunday was the Got Craft? show in Vancouver and my pal Penn and I had made plans over a month ago to go together. Our friend Jennifer was vending there. Her table was a hot bed of activity!

We spent about an hour or more poking around and seeing all the wonderful things the vendors had to offer. It was like Etsy shopping, but in real life!

The photo above is of a pin wheel pin I made at the make and take table, hosted by Lilli and Henry, owners of the soon to open Spool of Thread Sewing Lounge. The are super nice and I am sure their store is going to be a bit hit. I am especially excited about the prospect of having access to mod style fabrics to purchase. Good times ahead!

I also met Penn's friend Natasha McHardy who does lovely screen print work. She's just launched her company, Penelope Brown. If you're not local, you can find her work for sale here.

One of the great things about the local craft fairs is that you can snag business cards and continue the shopping fun once you get home.
I walked away with business cards in every size, shape and colour. They were like wee pieces of art in their own right.

Penn and I went and did a little paper shopping afterward. Here's my pile. I managed to find some copper coloured button ribbon and had to have some.

LOVE this mod style botanical print on craft paper.

Circles, how I love them. I keep looking for cool circle papers.

This bird paper is interesting. I like the idea of small pieces of it, rather than a whole sheet. The colours are pretty understated.

These office stamps were a steal at my local dollar store-the tall ones were $1 each and the one in the middle was $1.29. All are self-inking. I am addicted to office supplies, truth be told.

This delightful little journal was a gift from Penn. It's an art project journal. It's got quotes about art plus pages where you fill in the name of the project you are working on, the date, the material you used and your notes. FUN!

It was good to get out for a bit this weekend, a nice distraction from the black cloud of illness that's been hanging over our heads. Sometimes, retail therapy and hanging out with friends is the best medicine!