Zach's yummy looking mail art 

Altered Art 101 ~ Class 2

In the 2nd class of Altered Art 101, we discussed mail art and everyone was given a chance to produce an altered postcard to mail to whomever they wanted to. My son who is in the class decided to create one for his dad. He figured that way, he'd be able to keep his first piece of mail art that way. You will see his chocolate collage in the above photo. If you look real close, you will see a beaver camouflaged among all the chocolate!

Hope to see lots of creative ATCs created in the upcoming Altered Art 101 classes I teach. 

Getting ready for classes

My foray into teaching altered art starts soon ~ November 6th. A couple days ago I went down to the library to decorate the main display case which was a lot of fun. Hopefully it'll spawn a lot of interest for Altered Art 101. I love what the library wrote as the age group for the sessions: 12-99 years. Wonder how many 99 year olds will attend ~ hehe. I want the 4 classes to be a real hands on experience for the people who take it. I don't want to give a bunch of instruction ~ I'd rather be a facilitator for their artist process. Wish me luck!

Some of our bottlecap creations 

What is GEMMS?

Saturday, September 10th, my friend Arlene and I plan to have a table at a local fall fair and sell some artsy bottlecap jewellery. We call our little venture General Eclectic Mixed Media Sistas ~ GEMMS for short. We pulled an all-nighter Friday and created a whole bunch of fun bottlecap stuff including necklaces, brooches, bracelettes, keychains, dog & cat tags and cellphone charms.

We're hoping that the event will be well attended since this is the first year that this nursery is holding this event. It'll be interesting to see if we are able to sell our goodies. Guess we'll keep any we don't sell for Christmas craft sales.

For a personal ATC swap 

Summer madness

Now that the summer's drawing to a close, I hope to get down to doing some more art here. Today I made a pointy hat for the Pointy Hat ART Posse, a local altered art group I'm in, and I've made a few odds and ends including the ATC pictured here and some bottlecap jewellery.

In November, I'm teaching Altered Art 101 at my local library. It's a class for ages 12-99. I wonder how many 99 year olds I'll have in the class. It will be a great experience I'm sure to do this. More about the class in following blogs.

Port Moody Submission 

ATC submission

So I've put together 9 ATCs to submit to a Port Moody (British Columbia) ATC exhibit. My stash of ATCs that I have of my own is dwindling down, but at least I will be getting these cards returned to me after the show. I'm pretty excited because this is the first time my ATCs are being exhibited.I did have some mail art shown at an art gallery in Victoria, BC last year, but that was just one postcard. If I can beat the procrastination bug, perhaps I can share more of my work. For now, I've got to re-stock my personal ATC collection. It's so hard to keep them when there's so many talented ATCers out there willing and ready to swap!

Question: What do you get when you cross Zetti-style with Raphael? Answer: These ATCs 

Zetti Royals is the title of my deco (June 2005) 

My first ever DECO

I decided that I wanted to create a Zetti-style deco ~ and having no idea of what to do, I thought I would procrastinate. Then, the other day, Arlene came over with her ready-to-swap deco. It's got a cool Zetti-vintagey feel to it. I loved the way she made the pages into pockets. Shamelessly, I stole the pocket idea off of her and she was gracious enough to show me how to construct the pockets. Well! I got inspired. That night, I started my deco and got carried away in my usual manner. (teehee) I'll post the cover of the deco for you to look at now and I'll post the rest of the book in my Yahoo Photo Album. Stay tuned!

Red 3/3 ATC swap 

Yellow 3/3 ATC swap 

Back to ART

I'm getting back into the groove again after a hiatus from art making. See the above photo for my Yellow Swap. That was an easy one because I only had to create 3. The upcoming Beatles swap hosted by Nicolette Anderson will take a little more planning ~ it's a 9/9. I'm also hope to drive into the world of art decos. Stay tuned for that. I don't a lot to say today, but felt guilty that I haven't been posting on here very much lately.

Forever Remembered ~ Forever Loved 

In Heaven

Dad passed away on Tuesday, May 17th at 3:30 p.m. The last three days of his life, he had his wife and all his children (as well as some grandchildren and great grandchildren) around him. He died peacefully, squeezing my mom's hand as he went. He will be forever remembered ~ forever loved.

Hackers!! Ugh!

I'm writing this blog from my local library as our home computer's been hit with a very damaging virus. I'm so upset! I hope my hubby can fix the problem.

What joy does it give these vandals to play with complete strangers' computers and mess up their lives by creating these viruses? Surely people who can write these programs could put their computer talents to GOOD use? Grrrrr! I'm not a happy camper at the moment.

Is this what we'll look like in our ever-fashionable pointy hats?