Paint Party!

Saturday was a beautiful day for painting. Painting my house, that is. No more peach! I was up early taping all that lovely white trim that I wanted to keep.

This hallway has 8 freakin' doors!!

Girlfriends absolutely ROCK! Bridget, Kathy and Maureen worked so hard and had so much fun!

The peach was quite determined and required a coat of primer before we got to the lovely blue.

The color is weathered glass and it's everything I wanted. Lots more to do, but thanks to my amazing friends, the bulk of the painting is done!
I need to finish painting, do some heavy cleaning on the floors, get a dishwasher installed and install the new sink/vanity in the bathroom. In the meantime, carloads of stuff are going over every day. I'm hoping to actually start living there the first week of August!

I've got skillz

I spent a wonderful weekend in Tacoma at the Puget Sound Bead Festival with my mom and Aunt Susie. In addition to a ton of fabulous shopping, I took two classes and greatly expanded my jewelry making skills. I learned to solder with Stephen James and I learned mad metalworking skills from Linda Larsen. Hammering and torching and sawing, oh my! The pic above is the wearable journal pendant I made in Linda's class. Both classes were SOOOOO much fun. Now I have to buy a torch!

creating a home

Yikes, apologies in advance for the crummy pictures - the iphone camera doesn't like bad lighting!

Yes, I'm moving and I'm still putting things on the walls in the current place. I have an intense need to "see what it will look like". LOL! I bought some chipboard letters that are about a foot high and covered them with a patchwork of pretty scrapbook papers. Then I randomly brayered them with gesso to shabby them up a bit.

I finally got the keys to the new house yesterday, so I took the cat and a load of stuff over last night. Pistol was kinda freaked out, but he liked the back yard. I made this little altar of blessings on the mantle to start things off on the right note.

And I taped an impromptu welcome up in the hall.

And yeah, I totally tagged my house! This is in a corner of my studio space, the beginning of what will become my graffiti wall. It's my house, I can write on the walls if I want to!

painting again

What a relief to be painting again!
I tricked myself into overcoming my inertia by joining the Mixed Media Monday challenge. Once I decided to join the challenge, I put "paint something for the challenge" on my new TODO app on my iphone with a due date of today. I love my TODO app! Somehow actually writing things down makes a big difference in my accountability level for getting them done. One of the many amazing things I learned from Kelly Rae's Flying Lessons ecourse!

So the theme for MMM this week is "something borrowed". And my mortgage paperwork was completed on the new house this week. I'm "borrowing" money from the bank to buy the house, so I decided to paint something about the house. This piece is 9.5" by 13", painted on a found canvas, the inside of an old book cover that was on it's way to the garbage.

The other half of the doodle...

Here's the other half of that doodle:

The theme of this journal is Big Girl's Coloring Book and we were encouraged to play with our favorite color. Here's my full spread:

I like this a lot but sorta wish I'd kept the colors in the green/blue range. Next time.

Still stuck in creative inertia for the most part. My momentum is getting used up on house stuff (closing by July 8!) and on just enjoying the glorious loveliness of summer.

This I know

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more you have in life to celebrate.
--Oprah

Ash and I at Arbor Crest last Friday.

Tomorrow I'll be 40. I can't wait.

I've learned by now that there's A LOT that I don't know, but I have figured out a couple of things. I've been through some fire and I know my own strength (and my weakness). I know that life goes on and is filled with incredible sweetness. I know who I am and what I want and I'm getting better at saying no to what I don't want. I know that being kind, being thankful and being forgiving, to myself as well as to others, will take me to places and moments that are really worth seeing. And I know the true peace that comes from letting go of anxiety, jealousy, resentment, grudges and all that other negative junk. And knowing these things gives me so much confidence and optimism going forward.

I'm so blessed. I'm ready to celebrate.

inertia and momentum

half a doodle I'm working on for a circle journal page

Trying to find some balance between inertia and momentum this week. There's a lot to do and once I'm in the swing of doing, momentum carries me along. But when I stop, it's full stop and inertia makes it hard to get going again, both creatively and in other aspects of my life. I'm conscious of the need to pace myself, to enjoy the journey, to keep myself rested and refreshed along the way. I just wish the transition between action and stoppage was easier.

Here's a little something...

Here's a little something I've been working on. It's been a crazy week and things are pretty messy around here. I'm really looking forward to the (hopefully!) slower pace of the weekend and having some time to do some making.