Eat, Pray, Love

There were eight of us that went to happy hour at the local pub and then to the movies to see Eat, Pray, Love. We did eat, pray and loved the movie. It was a blast and the movie was a good one for a bunch of ladies to go to.

Imagine my surprise when I showed up at the restaurant and they all brought me birthday gifts.

I just love the idea of using a cute canvas bag as gift wrap. This one was from my niece and it makes me laugh.

I had such an amazing time.

Lots of smiling and laughter and treats with good friends.

You can't beat that!

Give-a-Way

My friend Michelle is having a give-a-way on her new sight. You can read about it here. And check out her new web-site here. I love her stuff and the winners will win big so check it out!

Make a Wish

I have been painting in my studio today. I guess I have birthdays on the brain. My daughters birthday was last week and mine is next week. I was trying out some new Golden fluid acrylic colors on this one and I really like how cheery it is. I am going to hang it up in my studio in anticipation of next week.

Discovery Bay

This past week we went on vacation to Discovery Bay. It is located in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. The weather was beautiful, the view was amazing and it was very quiet. After raising four kids, my husband and I really enjoy quiet vacations. This is the view from our deck. I sat out there to read and enjoy the view. We did a little site seeing while we were there also.

One of the places we went was Friday Harbor. It was cute little town were we enjoyed a nice lunch and ice cream as we walked around the town.

One of the first things we did was to take a whale watching boat trip. It was foggy in the morning and we only saw some fins above the water. But by the afternoon we saw this guy and he put on a show for us. There were five others with him but they kept themselves pretty far away from our boat.

I have never seen whales before except at Seaworld so it was very exciting.

When you tour around the Puget Sound at some point you will use a ferry boat. We took quite a few during our stay. Heading home one night we saw the most beautiful sunset. It was a lovely ending to a day that started with the Victoria, BC customs officers searching our car for 40 minutes convinced that we had weapons on board. They had us backed up against the fence and even had us raise our shirts to make sure we weren't hiding any weapons there. It was rather alarming but in the end they let us go with stern looks. Good thing I had taken out my art journal supplies or they might have been suspicious of my sharp scissors.

Our last ferry ride was from Bainbridge Island to Seattle. I just love the Seattle skyline with the Space needle standing so tall.

Our reason for going to Seattle was to visit some friends. While we were there, I got to see the rooftop garden. This hummingbird sat so still for me to snap a few shots.

I have a few journal pages that I created while I was gone using scraps and bits of things from my days.

A few more journal pages

These are some pages from Teresa McFaden's Between the Lines art journal class that I am taking this month. I am using markers more this time and having a lot of fun.

I used a postcard add from a local store to add a tipout page and kept the words, "You'll like the sound of this" as part of that page.

This page was designed around things that were part of my day. A postmark from a card I got, hang tag from some pants, my drink cup from fast food were all put on the page. It is kind of fun to see what you can acquire in one day and design a page around it.

Two stories

Three years ago, I was watching the TV show Bones and at the end they played a song that I just loved. I was curious who the singer was and after much research found out she was a new artist. Her name is Susan Enan and she lived in Ireland. She didn't have a cd out yet but she did have a website. In the next two years she moved to New York and started singing in pubs and nightclubs. Finally about a year ago she put out her first cd. Then this year she decided to do house concerts. Anyone could contact her to come to their home and sing for them and their family and friends. She toured Europe and then began her US tour. It was so exciting that one of her stops was in Portland, OR which is close to me. I was able to buy some tickets and see her perform. The people hosting had a backyard barbecue and she sang just six feet in front of me. We were able to talk to her and ask questions. It was so great. I didn't know anyone there except my husband two friends we took but we all had one thing in common, we had heard her on Bones and have been following her ever since. She has such a beautiful voice. You can follow the link above to listen to her music and see the vlog she is doing on her travels.

I am praising God for a miracle today. We built our house 16 years ago and in the last year have been slowly replacing appliances. When we picked out our dishwasher, we took the mid-range model which wasn't very good new but 16 years later and after much use and abuse is a glorified water sprayer and not a good one at that. So, we bought a new one Saturday and it arrived today. When the delivery/installers arrived they took one look and said they couldn't install it because there wasn't a shutoff valve under our sink. There was one across the room but that wasn't good enough. I looked at them and said, "wait just a minute, my plumber is out in the garage". I ran out to the garage where we just happen to have some work being done on our plumbing. He popped his head in and said it would take him five minutes to fix the problem. We all looked at each other in unbelief that this was all coming together. The installers were amazed. One of them said what a good idea it was for me to have a plumber on site and waiting in the garage. I was just praising God for working it all out. Now I have a beautiful new dishwasher just waiting for it's first run. Whoo Hoo!

July Art

Thought I would share some of the things that I have been working on lately. I have mostly been busy de-cluttering around here but I have fit some painting in-between.

This painting is almost done. I am using the technique Michelle taught our art group last month. (Her paintings are amazing.) It brings me to the brink of tears and then success happens and I think wow, how did that happen. I have a love/hate relationship with this process. the last layer I got so frustrated that I took the black paint and through it all over the canvas. Then I saw the face appear. You can't plan this process at all. I can't seem to stop myself though. I already want to try another one.
I am in Teresa McFayden's Between the Lines journal class this month. She does one every July and this is the third year I have participated. I really love the color on these pages.

You can see the picture using my PoGo printer at the top of the right page. Everything in my garage is out on the lawn getting sorted and gone through.

Another page from the class.

I get the intense color using my concentrated watercolors by Dr. Ph. Martin.

Using a #2 pencil to journal about the day gave a subtle background to paint on.

The yellow chick appeared after laying down random watercolor. I dripped black paint on the page and it formed a perfect necklace for her.

I have heard of Zentangles but have never tried one. It is really relaxing and fun. This one is done in black ink.

I decided to try a Zentagle in color. I can't decide which one I like better.