More new art..

Today I went to meet a friend, Lisa, we only met a couple

of months ago but we get along really well and are both

interested in art/mixed media/crafting. Lisa showed me

the secrets behind making a cute photo frame using

metal tape and diecuts. We had a good time chatting and

I got to make another new friend, her cute dog, Baron.

When I got home I added some alcohol inks to the metal tape,

still not sure about using these so maybe I need to practice more.

Here is the finished frame complete with a photo.

I had about 12 attempts at getting a photo of it, lighting

was bad everywhere I tried, there really is not a dark patch

at the bottom or a light patch in the top right corner.

Hmm maybe I need some help photographing objects in my house :)

Looking forward to having another craft day with Lisa.

Beeswax fun..

I have heard a lot lately about the craze for making beeswax
collages, so I signed up for a class which I took yesterday at
the Frenzy Stamper in Scottsdale.
The teacher was Mike Putman who is local to Phoenix, he was
assisted by his partner Lesley Fisher. The class was very
entertaining and everyone made completely different pieces
of art, mine is pictured above. I really like the end result
but was very wary of using the hot beeswax and iron,
luckily I had help with the ironing part. Now all I have to
do is find somewhere good to display this :)

Happy to be home...

We went to the airport Thursday evening to pick up Alex

from his trip to NOAC, (National Order of the Arrow Conference),

that was held at Indiana University. He had a fabulous time

and took advantage of the activities offered to him there,

even though he had very little sleep. We are so glad to have

him back home as we all missed him a great deal, and I know

that he missed his home and family too.

Today school is back in session, yay !! Alex is starting his

Junior year in high school and Daniel is going into 8th grade.

Next year I will have 2 high schoolers, aargghh !

Love those Creatologie kits !

If you do not know about these kits you need to go and look

at them. Carol Wingert puts together her special kits once a

month and does a fantastic job with them. You get the best

colour copied instructions that take you through all the steps

to create the project and you get more than enough supplies

to finish it and even change it up a little. I took my very first

book making class with Carol many years ago at a store in

Mesa called Memory Lane. I have taken quite a few of Carol's

classes since then and they are all fabulous. This kit I just

finished was from May this year, could not start it sooner as

we had our trip to England coming up. I love this travel journal

and will be using it when I go on the wonderful art cruise in

October with Tim Holtz & Wendy Vecchi, it is just the perfect

thing for me to take, thanks Carol !

Some more photos..

Here we are in front of the famous dinosaur in the entrance

of the Natural History Museum, lots of scary dinosaurs there !

Also a shot of a great stall at the Portobello Rd market.

We also went to :

The Science Museum

The London Dungeon

The Old Operating Theatre museum (very scary !)

Pollacks Toy Museum

Churchill Museum & Cabinet War Rooms

The London Eye

The London Eye River cruise

The London Duck Tour

Leicester Square

Oxford Circus

Westminster Abbey

Covent Garden

The London Transport Museum

Selfridges (celebrating its 100 year anniversary)

Hamleys (Alex & Daniel loved this store)

Harrods (Had delicious afternoon tea there, yum!)

Portobello Rd market

Carnaby St

2 Theatre shows, The 39 Steps & Wicked - both were excellent

The London Aquarium

The Movieum

The Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace

Lots of great Indian restaurants, mmm yummy !

Then after our week in London we headed to the airport

and flew up to Manchester, details coming soon.

Here is our summer home...

Yes, this is us at our summer residence :) and later on having

our afternoon tea at Harrods, well where else ?

Seriously though, this is the first time I have ever been standing outside Buckingham Palace and also the first time I have been to Harrods, hard to believe I know. We had fabulous weather the whole time we were in England and we really did see and do a lot, a list to follow of all the things we did and more photos coming soon.

Can you believe this ?

Neither could I at first, but yes the cost of using
the bathroom has increased since the days of my
childhood, used to be a penny, hence the term
"I have to go spend a penny", lol.
This was at the Ladies bathrooms in Waterloo train
station in London, they even had a change machine
there in case you did not have the correct change.

Anyway, we are now back home and getting back
to life here in the heat of Arizona. We had a great time
and did so much, I will put up more pictures, hopefully
in the next few days.