Gone

January is but a memory. Where did it go? It was a busy month for me, but still seemed to fly by quicker than normal.

I've been having a ball playing with papercrafts/cards. Instant gratification and the feel and sight of pretty papers. Also created a cute pop-up invitation for a Stampin' Up Party I'm hosting in March. Love those free-standing pop-ups. Wouldn't they be neat design for a dinner party with the menu displayed?

Busy planning my painting convention get-aways. Just four "working" vacations this year (I work for Willow Wolfe and Princeton Brush at these shows), but I'm toying with the idea of an intense certification seminar with Willow in June. Still trying to strike a balance between decorative painting and the papercrafts, lol.

I did sign-up for and complete (well, still haven't speckled the piece, but that doesn't count, lol) an evening painting workshop at our local decorative painting shop. Seem to have found my mojo as then, this week, not only did I teach Willow's Cockatoo design to over a dozen of our guild members (with resounding success, I might add [smile]), but I started a gorgeous poppy designed by Peggy Harris and featured on the cover of one of the PaintWorks magazines last year. What made this particular painting even better was using a Lunar Blender from the 3750 Select series by Princeton. Can you tell I love this brush? It's my new favourite-can't-do-without-and-need-several-in-my-painting-kit-brush [grin]. Wet or dry application, I love, love, love what it can do. It's similar (but different) to the Loew Cornell Crescent Brush but the price point is much more justifiable to stock up, lol. You can see them on Willow's site .

My mother-in-law is still waxing poetic (read: she loves it!) about her album that I created for her 80th birthday. The family organized a party and invited all her friends and relatives and I appointed myself official photographer and snapped close to 400 photos. Then I went through the photos and made sure I had each person attending represented, printed those pics and added them to the album. We presented it to her the week after the event and she was almost in tears (I admonished her not to cry, lol). I will admit, it is a pretty neat little album and I did enjoy creating it. I am thrilled that she is so thrilled. It makes for great memories.

Well, I should try to update some more, but today a friend and I are having a Girls Only shopping day to the states (upper New York - probably Watertown). Looking forward to it.

~ Shelley