Category Archives: Motivation

Tarte!

Good evening!

I wanted to share with you some more pics of the FABULOUS little shop that I had my jewelry class at on Sunday, Tarte!!

Right from the entry way, this little shop is a welcoming feast for the eyes!!

Sparkles, and baubles, and trinkets, oh my!!

I just love the feel of their scrumptious fabrics, and yummy goose down pillows!!

They even make keys look tres chic!!

This gives me so many ideas for fun and creative ways to display my own jewelry collection!!

I could just go home with one of EVERYTHING!!!

Who knew mannequins could be so inspirational??!!

I just DROOLED over this large antique-inspired sign!!

Hello, please wrap this up, I will TAKE IT!!! 😉

What a comfy looking reading spot!!

Every where you look in this store there is more couldn’t-you-just-pee-your-pants ADORABLENESS!! I know that might be hard to imagine, but just go with me on that!! 😉

Isn’t this the sweetest little boutique??? The only downside to it, is that I wish I was at least 3 times as large!! This place is a cross between Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Amelie, and Penelope all rolled into one!! This is probably mu number 1 FAVORITE little boutique for FABULOUS treasures, and inspirational ideas for my own GROWN-UP-GIRLY-WONDERLAND!!!

Poor Jason, he is not going to know what hit him!! I sure do LOVE THAT MAN!! 😉

“Nothing bad could ever happen [Tarte]”!!! 😉

I couldn’t have said it any better myself!!! 😉

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

A Charming Day!

Good evening!

I wanted to share with you the jewelry class I was fortunate to take yesterday! 😉 I spent the day up at the Tarte store up in Aurora, Oregon. The shop is ABSOLUTELY DIVINE!! I could LITERALLY purchase EVERY SINGLE THING in that store and decorate my house with it! EVERYTHING is my style to a T!!

The room that we had our craft class was EXACTLY the way that my craft room SHOULD be!! 😉 I have thought about how to describe it to you, and words just could not describe how girly glam this room was!!! The room was basically draped with an indoor tent for grown up girls, and there was a gigantic chandelier right in the center of the room, dripping in beads.

Here are a couple of pics:

This is a large parachute that they sewed tulle to. Isn’t that INGENIOUS?!?!?!?

Do you see what I mean?? You just couldn’t help but feel the girl glam vibe that was in that room! That was P-R-I-C-E-L-E-S-S!!

They had a place setting for every one of us women, there were 15 of us. These were just soooo charming, and I now want to work from a silver tray from now on! What do you think??

So chic!! 😉

The lovely, Terri Brush was our instructor, and the first thing we learned how to do was to design, etch and form copper bracelets – this is a good project for working your arm muscles!! There was SO MUCH POUNDING going on!!! WHEW!!! 😉

Next, we got to play with solder!! Using some old keys, we coated them in solder and played with some letter stamps! That was fun!! (Just in case you can’t read these, they say “Dream Big” and “Inspire”)

What came next were create mini collages to place inside of charms that we then got to solder!!! This was my FAVORITE part of the entire class!!

Here are the backsides of my charms, the previous picture was a view of the front of the charms! I literally could have done this all day!! They are short and sweet, and HIGHLY gratifying!!! 😉 I am planning on using these to make a couple of charm bracelets!!

and last but not least! I got to play some more with the letter stamps, and I decided to make one last charm for my bracelet! but, this one ended up being MY FAVORITE OF THEM ALL!!!  This is my sweetie’s and my initials, and the date of our wedding!! I LOVE that the letters and numbers are all catty-wompous! It just seems to make this one all the more charming!!!

They left us at each of the place settings, it is a, dare I say it, a charming box of chocolate!! It is decorated so chicely, that I have a feeling that this little package will NEVER be opened!! 😉

I have ALWAYS wanted to learn how to create these charms and I am soooo THANKFUL that I have finally acquired this skill!! Terri is a gem, and this class was really a fun way to learn all of these fun jewelry making techniques!! I would highly recommend this class to anyone fortunate enough to be able to take it!!

Have a FABULOUS evening! 😉

The Farmhouse Show!

Good evening!

Jason and I had such a GREAT time today!!! 😉 We headed out to Turner, Oregon to check the Farmhouse Show! I was very excited!! and Jason was hesitantly going along for the ride, with his book in hand in case he got bored, HOWEVER he ended up getting MORE INSPIRED than even I was, and that is saying a lot!!! He is now talking about building furniture, which you HAVE TO KNOW I LOVE!!!

First thing I want built is some small bookshelves that can be used on top of a pair of matching dressers that I have in craft room! I could SOOOO TOTALLY use the extra storage space!! But, I digress! I wanted to share some pics of some of the FABULOUS merchandise that was at the Farmhouse show!

I hope you enjoyed all of these pics!! These have really inspired me and have given me ideas on how I want my art studio/craft room to look!! I will keep you posted of my progress!!

As for tomorrow! I am off to my next craft class! I am going up to Tarte in Aurora to learn some metal smithing skills for making cuff bracelets and charms! I will post pics tomorrow! I can’t wait!!!

Until tomorrow,

Have a FABULOUS evening!! 😉

As Promised!

Good morning!

As my hubby and I finish up and get ready to head out for the day, I thought I would stop and take a moment to post those pics I had promised from last night’s belly dancing performers!

Yes, she is actually dancing on top of glass!! AMAZING! 😉

We really did have such a GREAT time last night!! The costumes were beautiful, the dancers varied and extremely talented, the music was energetic, and the room was just electric! I can’t wait until it is MY turn to get out there and show my MOVES, but first I had better get out there and keep practicing so that I can HAVE moves!! 😉

Have a FABULOUS day! 😉

A Wednesday of Art Class!

My Homemade Business Cards!!

Good evening!

I know tonight is Chunky Dunker’s night, so we can still chat in the comments section after I post – is that alright for everyone?? It so too difficult trying to come up with a health related topic when right now my life is revolving around art and being creative!! 😉 So from now on, Wednesday evenings will be the same kind of posts that I normally post, my life’s journey to creating my dream life, and Chunky Dunker’s will “meet” in the comments section!

On to my day!!!

I spent the day over at The Art Department, in downtown Salem. I was taking an art class being given by Sharon Geraci, who, BY THE WAY, is PHENOMENAL!! She is talented with a capital T!!

Here is part of the class description:

Rev up your collage experience with an expanded repertoire of materials and techniques. Work on wood or canvas as a support, with an assortment of gels, household materials, and alternative methods of attaching objects and materials.

DOESN’T THAT SOUND AWESOME???

There were six of us in class, not including, Sharon. There was Sandra, Marcia, Cheryl, Brigitta, Linda and myself. Everyone besides Sandra and myself had already taken classes from Sharon, so they already knew what to expect!! Here is my workspace:

Each student had an ENTIRE 8 FOOT TABLE TO THEMSELVES, which is a REALLY good thing because collage is a VERY W-I-D-E art form!!!

This class, was a collage techniques class, which was formatted much differently than the kind of collage class I took last Saturday. Not to say that one was better than the other, but to say that they were different. This class was much more educational in feel, with A LOT of demonstration time. After leaving the class you didn’t really walk away with a finished product per se, however you did walk away with a TON of samples, and a very clear and practical understanding on how A LOT of cool techniques worked!

That was VERY EXCITING!! The fact that I now know to do SO MUCH MORE in creating interesting and creative AND ARTISTIC collages!!! 😉

Here are some of the techniques we learned, and some pics from the samples that I had made:

We learned how to make acrylic skins, which is something that can be used to lay over the top of and enhance your collage design:

This one was inspired by the next collage that I am wanting to work on.

I wanted this skin to be a little more earth tone and nature-inspired. This one I actually used mica flakes (the little shimmery things)

This one is clear and is meant for the sole purpose of adding something sparkly to one of my next projects! This one utilizes the mica flakes again, and then who couldn’t use some glitter???

The next technique we learned was the foil technique!

This project was really cool because we got to try out a lot of different kinds of professional grade acrylics, and then we got to try out a heat sealing iron, and iron on foils, that was a lot of fun! I can see how THAT could be VERY ADDICTIVE!!! 😉

The next technique was called, for lack of a better term, TSqeegee Method of decorating paper!!

I just loved the blues and greens that I was able to create in this one, and I think the whites in this just really makes everything else pop!

Here is another blue-centric design (I had Jason on my mind a lot today, and blue is his FAVORITE color!! On this one, Marcia had just shared a technique that she found cool, which was using a painters comb to swirl loops – so I “borrowed” a variation on her technique to come up with this on water color paper! This one is my favorite, and there is NO WAY that I am going to cut or tear this one – I think this one is ready for it’s frame!

Here is another blue sample, using different sized combs – this is the one that I actually use in some of my later samples.

Then we learned a couple of more techniques for making backgrounds, and we got to play with making some of our own:

This one is a yet to be finished board, it is missing something that will tie it all together!! (Do you see any of my papers?)

This piece is a finished piece! I think the embossing really finished this one up for me! I LOVE It!! (Do you see any of my papers in this one??)

W learned SOOOO MUCH in this one day of lessons! WAAAY MORE than I have even itemized out here!! This is an art that I can see has ENDLESS possibilities! and I am JUST SO HAPPY to be able to be a part of it!!!

Thank you, Sharon, and all of my class mates for such a FUN day!!! I look forward to next time!!

Have a FABULOUS evening!!! 😉