It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

Happy Autumn everyone!! My most beloved season is finally here!! YAY!! The weather has been absolutely gorgeous-cooler, but beautifully sunny. It makes me so happy to watch the turning of the leaves and the changing of the light.

It's been a busy time in the last week or so. I met with my new cohort, my 4th for the UBC Interprofessional Health Mentors Program on Monday night. This time my students are from medicine, nursing, OT and kinesiology. They are a lovely group of young women and I am excited to be working with them. My 3rd cohort has two more session and then they are done. Hard to believe we're at that point already!

We have been sticking pretty close to home as my husband is still recovering but we've managed to take Indy for a dip in the lake from time to time. He is never so happy as when he is swimming and retrieving. Now that the summer drought is over and we've had a decent amount of rain, the lake has been fairly high which makes for better swimming for him.

Thanksgiving is next weekend. I am going to be baking pies this weekend in preparation. Turkey is my favourite meal, so I am looking forward to it. Our best friends and our son will be joining us. This year has been really rough, but we still have plenty to be thankful for-we are all still alive and together and before the month is up, we will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. That's a pretty big deal. 

In case you missed it, there are zines available in my Etsy store-issues #3 & #4 of Manual Dexterity. Issue #3 is Hallowe'en/Autumn themed and includes my secret recipe for THE BEST pumpkin pie! You can find them here.

Happy Fall Y'all! 

Good Things!

Hello! Hello! I hope things are going well in your little corner of the world! It's been a very challenging summer. Last week, as if we didn't have enough excitement around here with health issues, mother nature decided to have a go. We got a major storm here on the west coast with 80km winds and rain. Trees went down all over the place-two went down across the street at the neighbour's and took out his fence and the rear window of a car parked across the street. In a matter of minutes, surrounding neighbours came with their chainsaws and handsaws to help. The trees were blocking the road (and the bus route) but they were able to dismantle the downed trees enough to clear the roadway. I live in an awesome neighbourhood!

We also lost power at noon on Saturday and it wasn't restored until late Monday night. We lost the contents of our fridge and deep freeze. It took us 3 hours to clean that up-you can't just put everything in a garbage bag and toss it out. Because of environmental measures here, you have to separate food from packaging. The packaging has to be rinsed and recycled and the food goes into the green recycling bins. Let's just say dealing with dead spoiled fish is not fun. YUCK! It was challenging restocking our fridge too-many of the local stores were also without power for days, so they lost all their perishables too. My fridge is still pretty empty, but I'm working on it. The good news is we got much needed rain and we are okay. We played alot of cribbage, burned candles and when it got dark, made our way around with flashlights. We were completely off the grid at home-no power, no lights, no hot water, no Internet. It was like indoor camping for 3 days.

Now that things are back to normal, I wanted to share that I've finally got copies of my latest zine, Manual Dexterity #4 available in my Etsy shop. I also had a few people ask me about Manual Dexterity #3, the Hallowe'en/Autumn issue I did a couple years ago. I managed to scare up a few copies (see what I did there?) so they are also available. I have limited copies, so if you want one, I suggest you act fast!

                  

I also really excited that my new advocacy business cards from MOO have arrived! For some time now I have been wanting to make some specific to the work I do as an advocate for NMO and MS. I finally got around to it. I've ordered business cards from Moo for years and have had nothing but exceptional service. Seriously, they exceed my expectations each and every time. I decided to order the rounded corners on my cards and to go with the standard business size this time, instead of the mini cards which I love so much. (And can't stop ordering!) They were in my mailbox this morning and they are GORGEOUS! I am going to be so proud to hand them out!

If you'd like to order some for your very own, you can do so here. By clicking the link, you will receive 10% off your first order. Can't beat that!

So..that's the latest news. I am looking forward to Autumn which will be here soon-I'm counting the days!

Sideways

So...it's been awhile since I posted. It's really a case of "Life is what happens when you're busy making plans." I had a NMO relapse and had to have a round of IV steroids in early June and then two weeks ago today, my husband suffered a major heart attack at work. Our lives have gone sideways, so we are kind of in a state of shock still and trying to recover from the scare. Fortunately he had immediate surgery and is recovering, though his heart rate is still wonky. I am trying to deal with what's immediately in front of me, in an attempt to try and keep my stress manageable.

I had just done this revamp of my blog header and template the day before all hell broke loose and then didn't get a chance to actually post. Since I had a sliver of time today, I thought I would do a quick update. Without further ado...

Teresa posted this really interesting book on her Instagram and I was so intrigued I had to run off to the book store to find it. It's really good and reminds me of a zine in so many ways. Fun stuff! I'd love to see more books done in this style. The aesthetics of it is so appealing and it feels like you are almost peeking into someone's mixed media journal in a way. If I was going to write a book, I'd like to do it this way. Someday...

Speaking of zines, I wrapped up the zine exchange I was hosting. I now have a beautiful box of inspiration. So much good stuff!

This was my contribution, the 4th edition of Manual Dexterity. My plan was to have a few copies available in my Etsy store, but with all the health stuff that came out of nowhere, I just haven't had the time. I will have copies for sale eventually and I'll post here to let anyone who is interested know. I just can't say exactly when that will happen right now.

I've been puttering in my 101 year old journal. Some days it's nice to sit down for half an hour and make something. I have just been flipping to a random page and going for it. Slowly but surely, the pages are filling up. I am so in love with this journal.

I have been enjoying exploring my new neighbourhood with Indy. This is part of the green belt one minute outside my door. I feel so lucky to just be able to pop into the woods any time I feel like it. We live in an area that, according to my best friend has a very high incidence of bear sightings, but so far, no luck. I am not afraid of bears-I took a bear aware course years ago, but I do have respect for them. I am always mindful that our paths could cross any time I am out and about and I will be prepared to act accordingly. I don't want any bears to come to any harm because of me.

On Father's Day, we went up to Whistler for the day because we felt the need to see things like this.

And swim in Lost Lake.

 And eat amazing food like this (The BEST fish taco)

And this from La Cantina, our favourite restaurant in the village. My son had never been before and is a foodie so it was fun watching him taste a bunch of different menu items.

My friend Amy very sweetly sent me this book when I was having trouble sourcing it locally. It just arrived this week, so as soon as the weather cools down a bit, I am going to dive into painting. Can't wait. It's so hot at the moment that I don't think my paints would stay open long enough for me to get them onto the canvas. By the way, the author, Tracy Verdugo is turning 50 and so she's giving away 22 spots in her upcoming online class. The details are here. I've been entering daily because I'd LOVE to have the opportunity to expand my painting knowledge. Paint for me is joy and I'm on a mission to invite more joy into my life. I have my *fingers crossed*!

Maureen made this gorgeous paracord bracelet and sent it to me. That was a good mail day-perfectly timed to lift my spirits. I love how chunky it is and how comfortably it wears. It has a really great magnetic clasp so I can manage to put it on and off myself. (This has become a big issue with my jewelery-with my hands so numb, working closures has become a major problem.) I really love this piece and have been wearing it pretty much non-stop. Maureen is a local BC artist-you should check her out!

I have also been super busy with advocacy work. It seems I just get one project done and another pops up. I have shared a big announcement on NMODiaries this week. I have a guest post up for the MS Society of Canada and I'm working on something else that I can't talk about right now. It's so great to be able to have opportunities to contribute and make a difference. I really do love advocacy work. It's the work of my heart.

So..as you can see, life has been rolling along, despite the major bumps and potholes. We are coping. I am going to try and post more regularly over the summer. 

Under the Weather

Yes, I am still alive. (Barely!) I came down with a very nasty throat infection 12 days ago and have been in bed ever since. Fortunately I have antibiotics now, so hopefully I'll be feeling better and have my voice back soon.

In between doctor's appointments, I managed to take Indy for a walk in the park yesterday. Walking around the lake was a challenge because I am feeling pretty wiped out, but Indy needed the exercise and I needed the fresh air after being stuck at the hospital all morning. The leaves were just beautiful. Maple leaves are always my favourite (for obvious reasons) and I love oak leaves too. There aren't as many oak trees in BC as there are in Manitoba, so when I see oak leaves, it's a sweet reminder of home.

Just before I came down with the plague, I had a fresh bust of inspiration to work on finishing issue #4 of Manual Dexterity, which has been in the works for some time. All the art is completed, (the image above is a wee peek!) now I just need to work on the written content. My goal is to have it completed before I have surgery on my wrist. Since I'm still waiting to hear when that's actually going to happen, chances are good I'm going to manage to get it finished! Zines are alot of work, but I really enjoy making them.

Gearing up for Thanksgiving this weekend. It's probably going to be pretty low key as I am not 100%, but there will be turkey, one way or another and I am determined to enjoy CranberryFest tomorrow!

Time Well Spent

I spent the day yesterday working on Gelli plate prints with Penn. The first day of Autumn was a windy and wet one, so it was the perfect day to be holed up in the studio with a good friend, creating.

As you can see in the photo on the left, I created quite the stack. There were thirty one 8 1/2 x 11 sheets and then about a dozen book pages that I used to clean my brayer off on in between prints. Nothing goes to waste! The print on the right was my most favourite of the day.

I also really love the one on the right. 

These ones are more subtle. They kind of remind me of Basic Grey, which is my favourite paper arts company.

I have also been working on Roben Marie Smith's You've Got Mail Art class. I haven't been doing the projects so much as working on technique right now. Don't get me wrong-the projects are great-I just want to focus on developing a looser style right now. I've been using what Roben Marie teaches to experiment in doing that.

These are four pieces where I just used card stock as my substraight:

I will probably take them to colour copy when I make copies of my gelli prints. I like to colour copy my originals so I can use them endlessly in future art projects.

I find these two particular ways of making art very relaxing. I just lay paint down and there's really no wrong way to do it. If I don't like something I've done, I simply paint over it. It's quite freeing.

Penn and I also spent some time looking at some zines from each other's collection. She just did a zine swap with her art group recently and I realized I really need to finish the zine I've been working on for some time now. I love making them, but they are a considerable amount of work. I tend to work on them in stages, so it takes months to put one together. I have the art created, I just need to decide what the content is going to be. (No mean feat!) My goal is to have Manual Dexterity 4 completed before I have hand surgery. I see the hand surgeon on Thursday and then I'll have a better idea if that's even possible. Here's hopin'!

It Never Gets Old!

Image Copyright Stampington LLC 2012

I came home the other night to an email from my friend Seth Apter. He wanted to let me know that an article he'd written about his 5x5 project was going to be published in the November/December issue of Somerset Studio. YAY!

Seth put a call out way back in the late winter/early spring for artwork. The only guidelines were that it had to  answer one of three questions Seth asked and measure 5x5 inches. I chose the question "Who has had the most impact on your creative life?" which was a no-brainer for me and I answered the question in zine form. I hand delivered my work to Seth when he was here in early May on his book tour for The Pulse of Mixed Media.

Seth's email also informed me that my work has been included in his soon-to-be-published article and not only that-it's also being used to promote the upcoming issue it appears in on Stampington's website! 

Image Copyright Stampington LLC 2012

That's the cover of the zine I made, featuring one of my mixed media photographs, Skydiving in the upper left hand corner. Cool! I can't wait to pick up this issue of Somerset!

Congratulations and thank you Seth for generously including me! 

You are the best!

Des Maisons

My friend Lisa Ryder and I are making wee houses to exchange with one another as part of a collaborative project she dreamed up. These are the ones I've made in the last couple of days as time allowed. I will also be adding a few houses that were a part of my Rue du Maison zines as well.

We have a plan for what we're going to do with them once we've received each other's-you'll have to wait to see though!

Cranberryfest 2011

Hello again! Well, another Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone. It was pretty busy! Saturday, my husband, Indy and I went to Fort Langley's annual Cranberryfest. This is my 5th year and I think that judging from the crush of people present, folks have finally caught on that the best little Autumn festival is happening there. Seriously, I have never seen so many people in attendance! I think it helped that the weather was perfect too.

We had a wonderful brekki-pancakes, cranberry sausage, breakfast sausage, juice and coffee for $5-can't beat that! The sausages, which were made by Freybe were so yummy! One of the cooks even gave us a spare sausage (for free!) for Indy. Indy was super happy about that!

After brekki, we toured around town looking at all the vendor's booths. Everyone comes from far and wide to get fresh cranberries for their holiday dinners. Langley is one of the largest exporters of cranberries in the world. A couple years ago, I actually took a tour of the bogs. It's incredible to see acres and acres of land turned scarlet with berries. These guys were scooping and filling bags for sale just as fast as they could. The lines were 10 people deep!

These are the sweet ladies who have a booth in front of the little white church every year. They have buckets galore filled with dahlias. You can pick 6 stems for $5. There are florists who have vendor's booths at the festival, but I always hike up the street to the church to buy my Thanksgiving bouquet. I'd much rather give my money to these to gals. They are just so lovely and their flowers are gorgeous. I love dahlias and they looked very cheery on our dinner table.

All around town are these huge pumpkins. I couldn't resist snapping pics to play with when I got home. I love how this one turned out. The pumpkins are really big and they bring them in on skiffs because they are so heavy. They have to move them with a forklift.

I also came across these gorgeous mushrooms, which were waiting for me like a gift, just as I stepped out of the car. They are 100% real, I promise you! This is the season when you see them and these ones were huge! You can't tell their scale from this photo, but they stood 7 inches high and the caps were as big as my palm.The only other time I've seen them this large was hiking the wilds of BC last autumn on Vancouver Island. I love photographing them.

In case you missed it the other day, Manual Dexterity #3 is now available. It's chock full of Autumn and Hallowe'en art, inspiration & goodies! There is also the second mini house zine in the Rue du Maison series, which I had so much fun making.You can find these two zines (and more!) here.

Zines A-Plenty!

 I've been quiet the last few days because I've been working on finishing zines! Yes, I've finally completed 71 Rue du Maison, the second in a series of limited edition mini house zines!

 12 full colour pages of artsy goodness!

 Each zine is lovingly (and painstakingly) made by me, using my own original design.

They are available in the Tattered Edge Mercantile right now! If you missed the first zine in this series, 78 Rue du Maison, and want to collect the whole set, I still have a couple copies left, but once they're gone, they're gone!

Now the really exciting part: in addition to finishing these mini house zines, I am also in the home stretch of completing issue #3 of Manual Dexterity! Yes, it's true! By this time next week, I should be posting that they are available for purchase! WOOHOO!!

If you'd like to order both new zines at the same time, just message me through Etsy and I will set a copy of 71 Rue du Maison aside for you until copies of Manual Dexterity are ready.

Thanks to everyone who has been supporting this small press adventure. It's so happy-making to be able to self-publish and have people embrace it!

 In other zine related news, got an email recently asking if I would be willing to donate copies of my zines to be a part of a brand new zine library at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. Copies of everything I've made so far are winging their way to Missouri right now. The university has a FB page as well as a blog. If you're a zine maker and would like to donate your zines to the library, you can get in touch via either of these links. Tell Jenn I sent ya!

This N' That

Yes, I am still breathing. I've been offline a fair bit the last while due to brutal migraines. Tomorrow I'm off to the hospital for three days of IV steroids, though thankfully, on an outpatient basis. I hate hospitals-I spend far too much of my life there. (However, I am deeply grateful for having access to universal health care.) Just for the record, MS sucks.

Anyway, enough about that. Let's talk about something else, shall we? See that tin up top? Well I ordered it from Etsy and it arrived late last week. I love red and I love old tins and this one was calling my name. It has wonderful raised embossed details and the bits of aqua in the design. Who doesn't love red and aqua?

 It measures 3 inches in diameter and is an inch deep. It's sitting on my desk till I decide what I will use it for. Maybe I will store my favourite old mother of pearl buttons in it...maybe I will fill it with small candies. Who knows? It doesn't really matter-I bought it "just because".

Awhile ago, I came across this local artist who made a bunch of ceramic heart magnets and hid them in plain sight all over Granville Island. I go there fairly often with my husband and Indy for lunch and to meander and shop. It's a favourite destination for locals and tourists alike.

Knowing that there were hearts stashed in unusual places, like Easter eggs, I kept my eyes peeled while we were there. It wasn't till we were leaving and sitting in traffic on the one road that leads in and out of the area, that I spotted something red out of the corner of my eye.

Across the street, on a pole, above a bench, I saw a red heart. I pointed it out to my husband and he jumped out of the car and dashed across the street to get it for me. He had to hop up on the bench to reach it and then run back to the car before traffic started moving again. (See? Sometimes it pays to be patient when you tied up in traffic! It also pays to have a husband who humours his crazy artist wife. *wink*)

It was so much fun that I decided that I should put some of my art out there in the world too. To that end, I've took some of my handmade (faux) Moo cards, mounted them on magnet sheets and cut them out.

I added a label on the back with my blog addy and indicated it is a free gift because my friend Carol found one of the ceramic hearts in the market and her husband was a bit concerned that she might inadvertently be shoplifting. She had to reassure him that it was a freebie left for anyone clever enough to find it. I don't want there to be any doubt, so thus the label. Here's a link to Carol's adventure finding her heart.

So I will take my magnets the next time I go to Granville Island and set them free. It will be fun to see if anyone emails me about finding them. I'll post here when they've been dispersed so that if you're local, you can join in the hunt. I have 10 made, so chances are good that you'll find one!

In other news, I also wanted to mention that there's this fabulous ezine called Inspired Ideas by Amy Powers that I've been meaning to post about. It's artsy/craftsy and incredibly inexpensive. If you need an infusion of delightful inspiration to shake off the long winter doldrums, I recommend getting yourself a copy. It's a mere $3.30! Can you believe it? That's 170 pages worth of good stuff for a pittance! You can subscribe to the spring issue here. 

You can also check out TWENTY past issues for free. You'll find them here. (Just click on the cover image and then click on the small arrow at the bottom right on the next screen to page through the zine.) I promise you, this is a wonderful ezine!

And if you'd like artsy zines to have and to hold, be sure to visit my Etsy shop
 (link on the sidebar--->)
where there are limited edition zines of all kinds for sale!

Eyecandy

1. ice blue winter heart, 2. Syncopation: all done, 3. side one, 4. pincushion mania 001, 5. selvedgewristlet2, 6. pods, 7. RotD Journal II, 8. january-17-2011, 9. Grunge Chic Journal - Teal, 10. paper wrapped spiral stratum ring, 11. Primarily Detail Journal page, 12. Harry's cushion, 13. inside my bag, 14. RotD Journal II, 15. DSC_0011, 16. above.

Oh my goodness do I love vintage aqua! I was going through my Flickr favourites and realized that there's a dirth of this hue in my collection. I figured I would share what's inspiring me of late.

I don't know about you, but I enjoy looking at other people's mosaics-it's a good way to discover other artists. It also lets you learn a bit about the person who posts it. You get a glimpse of what makes their world go 'round. 

See that pillow with the View Master reels on it? Well I had one of those toys, a red one when I was really little. My grandparents bought it for me and they would travel all over the US, a good part of the time with me in tow and buy reels for it. They'd get them at touristy places like Disney Land, Carlsbad Caverns and such. It was cool seeing where they had been and having reels to remember our trips together. I also had cartoon reels from various Disney movies. I wish I still had it. I'd love to have this pillow because reminds me of these good memories.

There's a story behind why I like each thing in this mosaic, but I'll just let you enjoy it for yourselves.

*EDIT: I tracked down that fabulous fabric via Etsy and bought myself some. YAY! It's called Ruby Star Rising. If you have to have it too, you can find it here. The shopkeeper, Francis is super nice and I've never ordered fabric all the way from Japan. Fun! What ever did we artists do before the internet?!

Speaking of eyecandy, over the weekend, I was busy in the studio working on zines of all sizes. We got some sneaux here on Saturday (highly unusual) and so it seemed prudent to just hole up and get creative. My mini zines have been flying out of my Etsy shop. Thank you! I am just finishing up some copies of Manual Dexterity Issue #2.

 I had a couple copies of issue #2 left over from the zine exchange which I posted for sale and they were snapped up, pretty much instantly and then I never had the chance to restock. I've finally gotten around to it now. (It's pretty labour intensive, so I needed to wait till .I had time to work on assembling them.) This will be the last run of issue #2-there are only a half dozen copies and once they're gone, they're gone! If you'd like one for your very own, please visit the Tattered Edge Mercantile. I'm now beginning work on issue #3!