HAPPY NEW YEAR!

All of us at S and B are wishing you a very Happy New Year!  We will be meeting again on Friday, January 4 at April's and will be bringing our finished calendar pages to share.

Get together at April's

We haven't been able to get together as often as we'd like, but this week 3 of us gathered at April's for a few hours.  We really missed seeing Mary and Pinky! And Lyla too!   We have been working on the round robin calendars but decided to wait until they are finished and will photograph them then and show you.  They are coming along great!  Wonderful months to enjoy next year.  Karen was working on a month for April, you can glimpse her efforts in progress above.

April was working on some Christmas tags.  She is using some paint chips that she collected from the paint store.  Many uses for those freebies!

Jan was doing some hand stitching on a small needle felted piece.

April has also been working on some hand drawn designs on card stock ornaments.  She said they are pretty slow going but they sure are pretty!

Above are some of the little ornamental gift tubes that Jan made.  She posted a tutorial on them a couple of weeks ago, they are ready to fill and pass out for Christmas.

We probably won't be getting together until after Christmas but hopefully one of us will post something for you all to peek at.  In the mean time, all of us wish all of you the most

Merry Christmas! 
Be well, stay safe, and keep in touch.

Zentangle?

I think these people had the head start on Zentangle.  I just found this to be so beautiful.  It is a bride from India on her wedding day.  They decorate their hands like this with henna.  It is a dye that eventually wears off.  Some people dye their hair with it or do temporary tatoos with it.  I just thought this was so neat and wanted to share it with you.

We weren't able to get together this week as April's schedule was different, Jan's car wasn't ready, Karen was having some problems with her dental work, Pinky went with her husband for a medical appt. in Longview, and I stayed home and worked on some calendar pages for Jan and Karen.  I have Lyla's to do and will be done.

Have fun getting ready for Christmas!  

Turkey Canning 101

Hey My Friends...Had to share a couple pictures of what Jessi, Matt, Kit, and I did on Saturday.  Matt deep fried the turkey for Pink and did two more...one for us and one for them to can.  Saturday we let the birdies simmer for quite awhile till the meat just came off the bones really easy.  We got the jars all washed and ready to go, removed all the bones from the turkey and stuffed the jars...leaving 1/2" at the top.  We pressure canned them for a little over an hour and had to let the canner cool down in between.  So...to make things more fun, we played games in between the work.  It really was a great day and we came out with about 72 1/2 pints of turkey to use later...soups, sandwiches, tacos...whatever you choose.

Treat box idea

Hello, since we didn't get together this week due to Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share this project I have been working on.  I got the idea from the magazine Stampers Sampler, the current edition, page 64.  I will explain how I made them.  The photo above shows several stages at once in the process. 

1. take an empty toilet paper roll, paint the inside with your color choice, I used red.  I also painted an inch or so of the outside top and bottom so no plain cardboard shows after the decorative paper is
applied. 

2. Glue decorative paper around the outside of the roll, then glue one end closed.  

3. Glue a holiday scene on the front, over the decorative paper, making sure they are in the correct position, with the closed end at the bottom.  (I found free Christmas scene downloads from Lisa Brawner's blog, http://www.alteredartfun.blogspot.com/ .  (mouse over the link, I see it doesn't show on our blog because of the dark background)  She is very generously allowing free downloads of the images she has gathered.  Thanks Lisa!  Your images are great!)

4. Glue other ephemera of your choice to the holder.  I used old lace and stamps and bows.

5. I used a hole punch to make holes on each side of the top of the roll to attach a hanging string.  I might use ribbon or wire in my next ones.  I will fill these with candy or some small gift and give them away.  They could be used as tree ornaments or hung from a door knob or anywhere. 

I hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial.  Now I better get back to decorating my rolls.  I knew I was saving those rolls for something!!
Hope you all had a thankful Thanksgiving and are buying handmade gifts for Christmas, if you aren't making your own. 

Pinky's Birthday Bash...

We started the Birthday Bash at Stephanie's Cabin in Astoria.

We all made it and ordered our breakfast.  Of course, we do a lot of yacking while eating, so it takes us awhile to get through it.

 Jan must have said something pretty funny...We're probably talking about men's underwear again...

 It's getting serious now...time to open Pinky's presents.  Here, she is opening Jan's present to her.  I am hoping Jan will have taken a picture of it.  It was a beautiful wall hanging...one of her "doolybobbers"...not sure if I spelled that right.  Pinky was thrilled.  There was a little bag that was filled with goodies for card making and a huge pack of glue.

 Here Pinky is opening a card from Karen.  Karen gave her the neatest stamp that had a heart and a "P" on it.  It would be perfect for the back of her cards as Pinky usually puts a "p" on the back of each one.  Karen found her lots of card making supplies too.  I think she won't have to buy anything for quite awhile.  Karen brought Lyla's present, too.  Lyla loves to cut out tiny things from the computer, magazines and where ever she finds them.  She gave Pinky several envelopes of those and some beautiful hand made post cards.

Below is one of the post cards that Lyla made for Pinky.,,very cool.

Next is the sisters, Pinky and Mary, with Pinky holding one of the gifts Mary gave her.

We started our shopping in Dots and Doodles in Astoria.  It is a great art store and non of us got out of there without spending a goodly amount.  It seems like there is always something new to spend money on.

From Dots and Doodles, we headed to Joannes and again...no one came out empty handed...Our last stop was at the Goodwill in Warrenton.  It just seemed to be everyone's day as we all found great things.  We had to step it up a bit at this point as April had to go get her student and return to Jewell.  We had left our cars at Stephanie's Cabin.  April dropped us off there, we all exchanged hugs, wished the birthday girl one more Happy Birthday, and headed for home.  I think that was one of the fastest days I can ever remember!

It is always fun to celebrate birthdays in this group.

We drew names for Christmas earlier at Stephanie's and stashed those away in our memories...good luck with that...

We won't meet next week as it is Thanksgiving, so by the way...Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

See you in two weeks.

Switching To Thursdays...

With our switch to Thursdays, we get to have time with April during her work week.  We are all so happy about that.

We met at April's this week and did our first trade on our calendars.  I hope I can keep these straight as I tell you who did what...

Karen couldn't be with us today as she had a previous appointment, but looking forward on Pinky's Birthday Bash to have everyone together again.  We are thinking the Thursdays will work out great unless April has her schedule changed.

Below are the pages we all did for each other.

April did the following two for Lyla in Redmond, Oregon.  In the first one, she used some of the lettering skills she has learned in some of her online art classes.  April...you might have to do one of these for each of us...Her second is a fun Christmas page.

 These two pages are the ones Karen did for Pinky.  We were sorry she couldn't join us on Thursday.  It's always fun to see the results of our calendar trades.  These two pages were so neat to see in person.  Take a close look at all the goodies Karen puts into her work.

 Jan did the next two for Karen's calendar.  The top one she used alcohol inks.  They coming in amazingly bright colors.  I think we all have fun working with them.  The Raven was so neat.  I'm thinking we are all partial to ravens...

 The next two are the ones that Mary did for April's calendar.  April loves purple.  The beach scene for August is a vintage look at coastal life.

 Pinky and I won't see you next Thursday.  S and B will be at Karen's house.  Have fun!

Due to a blunder on my part, no pictures were taken at our last time together at Karen's.  I simply worked on envelopes made of old calendar pages and forgot to take pictures.  Jan rode her bike, so didn't have her camera on her either, so...no photos of the day.  We all worked away on projects...Jan on her rug, Pinky and Karen on cards.  Karen made us yummy coffee and great homemade muffins.  What a nice way to start the morning, especially since I didn't eat my breakfast.  You might say this was not a together day for me.  We did have a good time with non stop talking and laughing...as usual.  What a great group of friends.

We did decide to do calendars again this year.  We each get a calendar and have some blank pages in it.  We rotate the calendars around to each other every two weeks, each one doing 2-3 pages.  They turn out so neat.  I am looking at mine from last year right now and love it!  Jan did the page and it is for Halloween...Boo!

Below are some items Pinky and I made in a class we took on Friday at the Picture Attic in Long Beach, WA.  Most are favors you can use by a place setting or party.  They were very fun to work on.

 These are the five items we both made.  It was about a two hour class.

 This little purse can hold a gift card or small gift or goodies.

 This little favor can hold a little gift or candies.

 This is actually two Hershey candies wrapped in holiday paper and tied...very easy and cute.

 This is a post it holder for in your purse.  It comes with it's own pen.

This little fella is a jack in the box type favor.  When you open it, it pops open and has a star burst candy inside.

All of these would make really cute favors for a tea or holiday dinner or party...very fun!

Next week we will be at Pinky's.  It was originally supposed to be at my house, but my husband is sick with the flue, so we switched...no germs at Pink's.

Gang's All Here!

We all went to the Vernonia Quilt Fair.  It was a lot of fun, the quilts were beautiful, the lunch was delicious.  We had hoped to find more garage sales but there were only a couple.  Still, we had a blast together, as always!

I thought I would show a few more photos of the masking fluid workshop we had earlier this week.  Above is Mary's cat, she is still applying the fluid using a toothpick.

Now she is beginning to paint it after the masking fluid is all applied and dried.

Now the painting is finished and dried and she is beginning to remove the masking fluid.  It is very easy to remove, just rolls right off.

After all the dried masking fluid is removed, she drew around all the white areas that were left behind with a fine black marker to enhance the white.  Notice the little mouse in the kitty paws?
Hope you enjoyed the almost tutorial.  Thanks to April for sharing the technique with us!  I loved it! 

Monday At Mary's...Long Beach Peninsula

What a great day it was!  April had promised us that we would have a workshop on a new painting technique that she has learned.  She thought we would all get done and then move on to other projects.  We all had so much fun with this one that we all made at least two pictures.  

We used a product that is like a rubber cement type texture and dries to be totally removable.  The process kind of reminds me of a batik process because you are putting on the product, letting it dry, painting around it, removing it when all is dry, and outlining the white parts that are left.  It is a very interesting finished picture and very fun to do.  I know I didn't explain this like April would and maybe she will come on here and add some notes to make it clear.  Anyway...very fun! 

On This first picture below are Lyla's flags that we just received from Redmond.  She did such a wonderful job on them.  L-R went to Mary, Jan, Pinky, April, April, and Karen.  I can't wait to add mine (Fox) to my string upstairs in the craft room.  Thank you, Lyla!

Here...Jan is using a pizza cutter and dipping it in the product and covering her outline on her picture.

 Pinky is drawing freehand the crow/raven on to her watercolor paper.

 Here she is erasing any pencil lines that are still visible.  She used Twinkling H2o paints that sparkle.

Karen's painting is dry and the product is removed.  You can see the white outline that is left.  Karen will then go over the outline with a fine point sharpie pen.

 Mary's cat still has the product on.  You can see the gray lines.  She will rub those lines and the product will come off leaving a white outline like Karen's above.

 April's heart is actually all done.  She has removed all the product and outlined in black...beautiful!

 Mary's second picture is a sunflower.  You can see she is about halfway done outlining in black.  She also used the Twinklin H2o paints for a sparkling finish.

Pinky is starting another picture with a lot of detail.  The other girls had left, but I got to see it all painted and forgot to take a picture!  It was beautiful.

 Karen did two...the raven and the bear.  Both turned out fantastic.  She, also, used a metallic type paint for effect.

 Jan's second project was this colorful pup that resembles a Laurel Burch painting.  I think she had lots of fun working on this project.

 Jan's first painting was this woman.  Everyone just loved this one.  It was perfect!  Note the neat jagged look of the white part...so neat.

This is a close up of Pinky's Raven all done and the white outlined.  We all loved this technique and really want to do some more of these.  We were talking about it and thought it would be good to keep the originals and make copies to put on cards, etc.

I think we were all happy with our results.

Friday we are all going to meet at April's and go to the Vernonia Quilt Show, have lunch and look at quilts, visit the craft room and try not to buy toooo much, and hit some garage sales in Vernonia.  Yes...most of us are addicted to garage sales.  We even drug Karen into it!  We are hooked!

Due to April's new job, she won't get to be with us as much.  That will seem so strange.  She is hoping to join us once in awhile on inservice days at school and maybe be able to join us in the afternoon once in awhile.

Not sure what we are doing next week yet...Jan has to be gone and April will be working, but hopefully Karen, Pinky, and I will be able to get together...sooooo see you next week!