April's birthday!

Once again we celebrate a birthday, this time it is April's.  Between the 5 of us it seems as though we are always celebrating one birthday or another.  We met at Karen's and had fun watching April open her gifts.

 Sorry April!  this picture doesn't show the delight she takes in receiving these gifts, but she is like a little kid, opening her presents so gleefully.

 Some fun things from Pinky.  We all know how much April enjoys pens, can't have too many!

 Gifts from Jan including a silly card she made without benefit of Photoshop.

 A gorgeous watercolor painting made by Gwen.

 Pinky brought a pie from the pie shop.  It was peanut butter and oh so rich and delicious!  No candles so April had to fake blowing them out.

 These are gifts from Karen.  Lots of paper crafting items.
It was another fun get together.  We were all painfully aware of the absence of Mary, who passed away a year ago.  Next week we plan to meet at Pinky's.

Foxy Baby Shower Invitations

April's daughter Amber is expecting a baby boy around the first of June.  So guess who is giving Amber a baby shower?  Yep, you guessed it, April is!

Amber and April in Unalaska, where Amber lives and teaches school.

 Jan helped April create 30 invitations this week. 

Not a finished invitation, but close!

 Many tiny pieces were involved.  Jan set up an assembly line while April punched out the paper shapes with a specially designed paper punch from Stampin' Up company.

Rubber stamped images helped complete the design.  Turning out so cute!  
We were tired at the end of this session!  Next week we will celebrate April's birthday, but today, April 13th is her actual birthday so Happy Birthday, April!!

 

Paper Mache beginning

Met at April's to work on our first attempts at paper mache.

 Gwen used aluminum foil and wire to create her human like figure, and some little birds.

 April started with an empty plastic jug, wire and cardboard armature, then filling out with aluminum foil and tape.  She intends to make this into a coin bank for her soon to be born grandchild.

Jan made a dog shape out of paper and tape.

Pinky declined to work on this project and instead made some envelopes out of old magazine pages and calendars and then began work on a small mandala.

 

April had laid out a delectable array of enticing snacks of fruits and nuts and toppings.  Delicious and decadent!
Next week we plan to apply the paper/glue to our figures.  I'll post the results then.

Egg Decorating

We had a workshop at Karen's to decorate eggs.  She had a big bowl full of goose eggs for us.  Jan and April started using a tool to blow the eggs out first, since we were planning to collage on them.  We got two eggs done and decided it was going to take all day to blow them all out, so we just hard boiled the rest of them.

  Above shows two eggs that were first colored using alcohol inks, then had pieces of paper napkins collaged over the eggs.  I love that little fox image.

 We had a package of Jane Davenport mixed media collage napkins and everyone loved them and used them.

 Above shows Pinky's alcohol ink colored, pen doodled egg in progress.

 Three eggs.

 Another view, same eggs.

 April created this gem using one of the Jane Davenport napkin images.  Worked great!!

 Here are all the eggs.  It was a lot of fun!  Everyone inspired each other with their techniques.  
Next up, April has challenged us to try a paper mache project.   Till then, be well.

Mandala Workshop

We did a mandala drawing workshop this week at Gwen's house.  April was our fearless leader, drawing inspiration from Robin Robin Peterson Neumann's wonderful work.  I put in a link there for Robin's blog but I can't seem to make it visible unless you put your mouse over it.  But take a look at her blog, very inspirational.

 Above is Pinky's beginning.

 April's beginning, above.

 Gwen's beginning, above.

 The table with April's and Robin's work displayed for inspiration.

 Jan's beginning, above.

 This is as far as Gwen got during our session. 

 Pinky got this far.

 Jan finished hers the next day.  She used some small rubber stamp dog images.

 Jan's completed.

It was another fun day!

Happy Birthday, Karen and Gwen!

Celebrated several things on February 13th.  It was Karen and Gwen's birthday, plus almost Valentine's Day, plus Karen is living in her new home, plus we hadn't all been together since before Christmas so there were some Christmas gifts to give away.  Plus it was a beautiful sunny day!

It was exciting to see Karen in her new home, this was our first viewing.  The cabin went from this in August 2017:

                                                                          to this:

                                                                          from this:

to this:

and this:

 They got some free old barn boards from April's husband Bob.  The boards are beautiful used as cover boards on the wall.  They call them Bob Boards.

They also used the old rusty tin that was removed from the roof of the cabin, as wall siding as you can see in this picture, just below the barometer.  It is down the hallway too.  The hallway leads to the barn.

 

 Jan gave Gwen a quilt for her birthday.  Laurel Burch horse prints were used because Gwen loves her horses.  She has three of them.

 Karen is happy to be living next door to her daughter Keely, who is so generous to let her parents fix up and move into the little cabin adjacent to her house.  Keely has lots of farm animal pets, like this pig she named Hammy.  He gets to come into Karen's house and hang out.  The flowers were gifts to Karen from April.

 We had a fun day together.  Didn't get much creative work done but who cares?  It was wonderful to all be together again.

Calendar pages for 2018

Every year for the past several years our group has made calendars for each other.

April's pages

 We eventually evolved into making individual calendar pages, 12 from each member, and then trading.

April's

 We lay all of one person's pages out and then everyone else takes turns picking one. 

April's

 We keep going around the circle until they are all picked.

Jan's

 Then the next person lays hers all down on the table.

Gwen's. I see she used some tags from our recent tag painting workshop.

 And everyone takes turns picking one.

Gwen's

 And so on.

Gwen's

 Until everyone has traded their pages away.

Pinky's

Pinky's

 We all end up with 12 pages by the others.

Pinky's

 Then we take our pages home and make a calendar out of them.

Karen's

Karen's

Karen's

I just put one up on my refrigerator each month.  I love having a new piece of my friend's art work to enjoy each month!  Each page is so unique and interesting.