Educational Challenges

 "What's this?", you say. Ah, I am going to try to take a couple of classes at the Junior College near my home. It may be that I'll drop one. It is certainly physically challenging. I have found myself walking across campus at a quarter of the pace of the young folk walking slowly and it looks like a race between the tortoise and the hare when a young person late for class speeds by me. I also spend an extraordinary amount of time plotting how I am going to decrease the weight of any items I am pulling or carrying. Just even the smallest weight can make my neck flare. Still, where there's a will there may be a way. I may need a scooter, or perhaps a motorized bike?
I really do have a passion for art and since one can make art any way one wants at one's own pace it is a pastime that can fit my life and capture my curiosity.
I admire the students who are taking on course loads with work and family obligations, too. One class best improve with time. The teacher is abrasive, and deliberately so, and the students seem unfocused and less than friendly. The teacher is knowledgeable and has some students who have taken other classes from him so I'm hoping his personality grows on one over time.
The other class has a new teacher who is still developing the class. He has a lot of experience in the field and does seem to have good teaching skills. The students are passionate and friendly. I'm very optimistic.
My limitations are the main thing I'm concerned about; but, we'll see.
I'd love to take more but I must be realistic! I'm hoping there are years ahead to learn. In fact, I think that a life long objective of learning is a worthy goal and one I acquired from my parents. Neither finished high school when young but both took a lot of classes later in life and Mom even got her GED and some junior college classes to become a kindergarten teacher - kindergarten not a part of the regular education system back then, so she did not need a degree.
Finding a life that is possible and fulfilling after being stopped by disability is challenging. I'm not giving up, though. It's the glass half full thing!
Well, enough essay today.
Our winner for the Club Scrap Kit was 'weze" - Louise. Congratulations! Have fun with that!
Stay tuned, there will be one last prize that I will post around Labor Day to finish up a summer of fun give-aways for you dear readers.
Who knows, I may have something interesting to wind up 2012, too!

To end, I wanted to give you another look at Gren Bay since the 49'ers and Packers are meeting this weekend. Oops, technical difficulties in Blogger downloading photos, I'll keep trying.
 Hmmm, afer the tour of Lambeau Field I may have enough interest to at least watch a game. We'll see!

Been Playing Hookie from the Blog

 In fact, I have been busy and away. Fun to have my niece, Danielle visit; though, I did feel I needed to entertain her and did not get much else accomplished.

Then, I went off to Wisconsin for a Club Scrap Retreat. Now, I cannot tell you much, right now, about the retreat. In order for the October Retreat guests and those ordering the "Retreat in a Box" kit to have a lot of fun and excitement I needed to make a "Pinkie Swear" to not divulge any of the details. Let me say for now that it was very fun, extremely friendly and not quite what I expected. I did walk away with some new skills or, more rather, more confidence in my skills. Loved the "stuff", loved the techniques and would be happy to attend again.
Speaking of lack of details, the winner of the BPC class give away from my prior post is the second Gail who commented 
Gail said...

Great post! Thanks for the chance to win the BPC gift...I am hoping to take the Becky Higgins class to end out the year. I started with Twelve and also able to fit in the Art of Observation...now I'm just saving up for Beckys Project Life type class so a gift card would help a lot...Thanks!

July 31, 2012 6:22 AM .
All I know is that she is in the "Twelve" class with me at BPC right now. So, Ms. Gail, please send your e-mail address to me at poirierbrodekaren@gmail.com.

Yes, summer is still here and there are more giveaways to come. Since I've been speaking of Club Scrap I think the next prize should be a Club Scrap "Bold Blooms" Jr scrapbooking kit picture below. It's a $39 value. To enter, leave a comment on this post.

Here's the link for those who want to explore what one can purchase at Club Scrap. http://shop.clubscrap.com/storefront.php

Please feel free to explore the site and see what it's all about.

Just a few thoughts about my trip to Green Bay. It's a beautiful mid-western small city with an amazing phenomenon in the Green bay Packers. The tours of Lambeau Field and the Packer Hall of Fame were definite highlights of my trip. I am not a raving football fan either. It's just a very special piece of America and so very interesting. I took a boat trip down the Fox River and learned a lot about the history and industry of this city. I highly recommend that, too. 

Now, this photo above is a fun surprise. The children's garden at the small, but thoroughly beautiful, Botanical Garden has a kaleidoscope where you spin the bowl and see the lovely images change. I took some photos and was delighted by the results. I loved those gardens and would visit again!

The Regatta 220 at 465 Marina Way is a delightful place to eat. So, if you decide to attend the October Club Scrap retreat - I DO recommend that- you might want to check out Regatta220 for an alternate to steaks and burgers (they serve beef but it's not their specialty) and the Titletown Brewing Company is another spot with good pub food and beer. Take advantage of the Captain's Walk Winery visit that Club Scrap offers as an additional event for the early arrivals at the retreat. Well worth the extra $20. 

I'll say no more!

Some trends from CHA and a Winner and a new prize!

 Winner first - Petrii (Dawn Winslow), you are so lucky, you have been randomly picked for the journal prize and that's your second win this summer. Congratulations!
Yes, folks there will be more prizes through August. Comment on this post for a chance at a $25 gift certificate to Big Picture Classes.
Check them out at http://www.bigpictureclasses.com

I had hoped to post more when actually at the Craft and Hobby convention in Chicago earlier this month. It did not happen. CHA is fun but tiring, even though I used a scooter for getting around, I was exhausted. Life has been a whirlwind since I got home. Well, for me, it's been a lot. Better that than bored. A lazy day of doing almost nothing yesterday and I'm feeling quite refreshed.
It has been helpful to mull over the experience of CHA. Even though this was a smaller show, there was a lot of lovely product to take in and process.
Of course, the fall and winter seasons feature prominently in this shows collections with lots of Halloween, Christmas, Winter and Valentine designs.
Christmas was interesting in the choice of greens. While some traditional greens can be found, for example the Christmas themes from Webster's pages, SEI and Little Yellow Bicycle, in others the yellow-greens predominate. Not so much lime/chartreuse but moss/asparagus/olive tones that transition well from fall. (I know that olive green is technically a shade of yellow, but it does register as green to the eye.)
In patterns, there is pretty much something for everyone. Chevrons do remain a strong trend. I did notice a number of soft romantic designs and several collections featured small tile prints in brighter colors on a  white background.
Banners, particularly the rectangular ones with the V notch on the narrow end, were often seen.
Small journal cards that would work well with project life or layered designs showed up in most collections.
Mini books are another trend. Several seem to follow the idea of a combined Smash book/project life with themed printed pages and pocket pages that are bound with rings to make them customizable. Check out Simple Stories and Studio Calico for these.  I like this idea - covering chipboard with patterned paper is a mini book chore.
Feathers are a new trend. It may just follow the popular bird trend that still remains popular, a trend following art. This past year, Traci Bautista was a teacher in the Stathmore Artist Papers' free classes and she likes to use feathers in her work http://www.strathmoreartist.com/workshop-reg.html.We cannot forget Grace Lauer and her wonderful creation for Charity Wings that Elena Etcheverry wore at the last CHA. Grace fashioned her wings with masses of hand crafted feathers made of book paper on a wire base and she fringed the edges.

 If you like that look; but, are not as crafty as "Tish", you may purchase a similar ready made feather from Jenni Bowlin's collection.
Speaking of Jenni, she has some new punches for Fiskars that feature designs perfect for card making. These also work with the small embellie clusters which people are using in the trend of small photos and embellishments and lots of white space on designs. Card makers were definitely a consideration in most collections with scaled down 6x6 paper packs everywhere.
Lots of pretty stuff coming to your LSS in the next few months!
Please check out http://www.charitywings.org for info on the show and definitely watch their videos on you tube. So many generous companies that helped us raise money for A Place to Bark http://www.aplacetobark.com/. It was fun to explore their products with the featured designers.
I hope you are all watching Craft Wars on TLC. Cathy Filian and Steve Piacenza were the producers. Several crafters   at CHA gathered at a nearby bowling alley for a group viewing of the show. Cathy and Steve were there, as well as some folks who have competed on the show, most noticeably, Andrea and Lisa who were on the episode we watched. So fun! They did not let on at all that they had won. Even the regulars who had been watching the Cubs game came over and joined us and cheered Andrea and Lisa on. Too bad we do not get to see all the crafters compete in both challenges. I think some very good artists just need more time. That pop craft just is too fast for some. Thank goodness, we home crafters only rarely need to craft under time pressure (usually because we procrastinate, LOL!).
One of my personal highlights was getting my photo taken with Shimelle Laine. She was studying the booths intently and I think has some very informative posts on her blog.http://www.shimelle.com Thanks to Shimelle for being so gracious to stop for a fan photo.

At CHA

I promise the photos will follow, but using the hotel business center computer at the moment. There is a buzz in the air this CHA, so exciting. Charity Wings was setting up the booth today and I helped as I was able. The booth is so cute. Hope you all have bought a ticket and will be signing in to Live at CHA. Amazing interviews planned and absolutely fabulous prizes! Check it out at http://www.charitywings.org/.
While it has traditionally been the smaller show, I think there will be more than enough interesting new product here.
It's fun taking part. Charity Wings has an international cadre of volunteers this show with folk coming from Canada and Australia to help us out.
I'll try and get to the business center with news and reviews as I am able - though it will be busy.
Will draw my prize winner for the stamps when I get back.

Journal Give Away and a chance to win big with Charity Wings!

 Hi, dear readers!
You were wondering if I really still was giving things away, right? The answer is, "Yes".
I was thinking journal spots.

To that end I bundled together some great journal stamps, a flower stamp with a nice large center for journal notes or a sentiment, and a slightly used 2 inch circle punch (because that size makes great journal spots on scrap pages). I'm also including an arrow stamp since those are fun to tie in journal entries to photos. Just leave a comment on this post to be entered!

I did say something about winning BIG. As you know, I am a supporter of Charity Wings. Charity Wings is having a Live from CHA event. For $10 you may buy a ticket and a chance to win. There are over $4500 in craft products prizes available. Check it out at http://charitywingsnews.blogspot.com/.
I made a fun banner to celebrate the event. Hope you join us. The wonderful charity "A Place to Bark" is the beneficiary of this event's fund raising.

Inspiration

 I'm taking Nic Howard's class at Big Picture Classes for the second time. Her Dimensional Details clas is so inspiring. I'm also loving Shimelle Laine's blog posts and videos, too. Lots of layering; so, that, too, is inspiring.
Here are a couple of LO's I've just completed that use inspiration from both.

Love putting in texture, layers, little elements. the paint splashes and stamping were inspired by Shimelle and I loosely followed Nic's page design. Still, I do not think this is "scraplifted", more "inspired by".

Likewise the second layout where I've used Nic's ideas of curling edges and cutting out the middle, torn edge (my tag where she tore a paper layer), distressed photo edges and Shimelle's layering and transparency and tag combo, though my transparency was designed to be used like this.

It's fun to use inspiration techniques and page plans to jump start one's own creative process. Using more than one inspiration can be tricky, you cannot use everything from both. It's a nice way to work on one's own style though.

Documenting Travel with a Smash Book

In June, Cal and I took a trip to the Pacific Northwest to be there for Taylor's high school graduation and to visit Mom in Victoria, BC.

K & Co.'s Smash Book was the perfect way to keep a travel journal. I did not use chronological order but Smash books have provided some fun tools like self stick tabs that can help index pages for future reference. The glue stick and cute Washi tapes make it so easy to add ephemera and photos. I brought my Pivi printer to print out the photos I took with my Canon Elph and have added more photos taken with other cameras since returning home. The nice thing about the Smash book is that the lovely pages give it a finished scrapbook feel even when used as a casual collection and journaling device, making it fun to look through. I may make more formal scrap pages of some trip highlights later but for the purposes of keeping the memories the Smash book is sufficient.

I recommend a small tote if you plan to take along the tools I did but a Smash book with the large elastic strap where you can put extra pens and items can work for those who prefer travelling as lightly as possible.

My minimal items are above. The book itself, a Smash book glue/pen combo with an extra glue stick and extra pen some favorite accessories items from the Smash book line (these note pads are whimsical way to add notes to some of the dark patterned paper pages) and a couple of rolls of Washi tape.

 Some extras that I brought included a mixed media journal, watercolor pencils, some distress markers (Picket fence was great for writing on a black page) and Gelatos, and my Pivi printer (do not forget all your cords and chargers and extra film packs, too!) I had a couple of other Smash book accessories, like the page tabs, as well.
It is quite easy to use a Smash book and a lot more fun than I expected. Cal was very good at helping me collect ephemera along the way.
I'm sure there would be much that I would have failed to remember about the trip without this contemporaneous record. Let me know if you have done anything like this with a Smash book or if you have any tips for me or others.