It's Here At Last (Well, Almost)

Keys4Art2012

It's that time of year again, when my great friend Elena opens her home (and her heart) to her lucky art pals, for a week of creativity, friendship, great food, and unending fun.  Three years ago we started out as virtual strangers, knowing one another only through online groups.  Elena brought us together, and now we are ready to begin our third annual get together in the Florida Keys.  The group has grown, and now two of my best local art friends are part of the excitement.  Teri started coming last year, and for Pat, this is her first time.  We are on the same flight, and will be heading south early tomorrow morning.  Woo Hoo!

 

We've always made little gifts to bring for everyone, and this year we decided keep it simple and alleviate stress.  So instead we've all made postcards for everyone, highlighting where we come from (and we come from all over the US and Canada).  I'm sure all my fellow travelers are way too busy packing (and some are already on the road) to look, so here is what I've done:

Since I live in the Bronx, which often has a bad reputation, I focused on things that defy the stereotypes.....the unexpected Bronx.

The front is a photo collage (done the old school way, cut and paste, no Photoshop skills for me!)

 The back explains what is on the front, features me in the stamp, and contains all my info.  This is an extra; the ones I'm giving out are all addressed to the recipients.



 

Nothing much left to do but wait.  I am more than ready.  And the overstuffed suitcase that weighs in at 45 pounds is mostly full of art supplies.  I think maybe 2 of those pounds represent clothing. 

 

 

Click HERE to see what happened in the Keys in 2011 (that will take you to the first of MANY posts).

And HERE for the first Keys4Art, in 2010.

 

Charms, Trays, And Girls Gone Wild

Keys4Art2011

Day 5

Day 5; it's Saturday, after our long day at The Paper Niche lots of people were sleeping in, but this is the day we set aside for working on projects without "outside" teachers, so all is good.  Everyone has the painter's trays from 7 Gypsies and we have loads of stuff we all brought to share to go into the little compartments.  This is how my tray looked, obviously unfinished, when it was time to pack up:

The pirate's treasure chest in the upper right hand corner was actually one of the gifts Val brought, and with a lot of glue and a little patience, I managed to fit it in that compartment, partially opened, so I could fill it with goodies.  The piece with the skull (left side, one up from the bottom) was inside the treasure chest, but it fit well in this section, and I just had to add some more sand to the edges to fill in.  Those colorful flip flops (I brought enough for everyone) are from Oriental Trading and are erasers!  

When I got home, I put the tray on my work table and have been adding to it bit by bit.  It is still not finished, but we're getting there.

Here are a couple of not so clear (sorry!) closeups so you can see just how dimensional that treasure chest is:

Here are some snaps of other finished trays.  The first is Elena's, the second is Val's (photo swiped directly from her blog), and the last.....I don't know.  Artist, identify yourself!

Aren't they fabulous?!!

The other activity we set aside for Saturday was charm making.  There are some members of this group, who shall remain nameless, who have all but issued death threats on Val and I for coming up with this idea.  Who knew that charm making, something I find so relaxing, could cause otherwise reasonable women to get so emotional?  Then again, I have a friend here in NY, who breaks out into a cold sweat at the mere mention of the words "jump ring."

Val demonstrated several techniques; she even had 7 melt pots shipped to Elena's so we could make UTEE charms.  Again, I raided her blog for this photo:



Gorgeous!  We poured black UTEE into memory frames and added the metallic color with rub n buff.  Since the surface is slick, you could also color them with alchol inks, stazon ink,  and if memory serves, perfect pearls works too.

Here is Val hard at work turning bullet shells into charms. 

For my part, I demonstrated three of the easiest charms I could think of, and even the charm haters seemed to be won over.  I hope.  I really don't want to have to keep looking over my shoulder.  A certain someone from the great northwest seems to have some good tracking skills.  Anyway, the first is a bottlecap charm, made simple by using images that were self adhesive and sized just for bottle caps.  The cool technique I added (inspired by my good friend Pat) was a band of ballchain to really finish them off.  This is the sample I brought:

The next easy easy one was inspired by the great Wendy Vecchi.  With a teeny 5/16" punch and some glossy accents, you can use Tim's little memo charms to make this:

Last of all, for those who own no metal whatsoever, a circle of sturdy chipboard, some scraps of paper, clear embossing powder and a glaze pen are all you need to create this modern looking charm:

Later that night we all headed to The Marlin, a local restaurant (and the place that provided almost all of our food for the week) for our farewell dinner.  There was a DJ, there was alcohol, and (some would say unfortunately) there were cameras.  LOL!  Gina may think that what happens in Key Largo, stays in Key Largo, but we know better.  It winds up on facebook, twitter, countless blogs, and probably youtube.  Let the festivities begin:

Naturally, at one point a conga line appeared.



This is NOT what you think.  Gina is not trying to earn her airfare home.  She was actually drumming up some tips for the DJ.  I speak the truth.

But Daisy sure got into the spirit of things:

Gina makes new friends wherever she goes:

Happy faces, all around:

And there was some very serious vocalizing:

We settled down long enough for this group photo.  Or maybe we just collapsed.

Here's The Marlin's owner/cook Manny, followed by some of the seemingly endless platters of food that kept appearing at our table:

I do hope Elena realizes that she's stuck with us forever now.  Keys4Art2012, here we come!



Blue Hands 4-Ever (Or So It Seems)

Keys4Art2011 -- Day 4

The Paper Niche

Plantation, Florida

Today was the first (and last) day that I wasn't the only one up at the crack of dawn.  We had to leave Elena's early to make the 2+ hour drive to The Paper Niche, an awesome scrapbook store in Plantation Florida (that's near Ft. Lauderdale for those of you who like to know such things).

We piled into three cars, and after enduring rush hour traffic, we arrived, anxious to begin our class with Beatriz Guzman.  Bea is one of the most enthusiastic and cheerful people I've ever met, and you just knew that there is nothing she loves better than teaching and sharing what she knows.  Bea had designed a special class for us; we'd be creating a large canvas album to commemorate our retreat, and our class kits were overflowing with supplies.

First we had to dye our canvas pages and album cover, since they'd need drying time.

                            Mixing up the blue....paint, water, glossy Mod Podge, Glimmer Mist and glitter



Each person got a plastic paint tray for dunking our canvas.

Which resulted in this:

And when I tell you that I've just today seen the last of the blue go down the drain, I'm not kidding. I think I almost gave my manicurist a stroke.   But well worth it.  Maybe not to the manicurist, but to me, for  sure.

Here are some of the pages that Bea created for the sample album:



We embellished the blue backgrounds with stencils, masks, stamping and more.  And there were certainly enough things in the class kit to complete pages, but I chose not to.  I have not decided what I'm going to put in this book, so I mainly concentrated on the backgrounds, and will add photos and embellishments at home.

There were times when everyone was so into their own zones that the room got very quiet.



My cover:

This was one of my favorite techniques.  We made a "shell soup," mixing adhesives with small shells in a bucket.  I know there was something else in there, but don't remember what.  Anyway, we each scooped out a cup of the soup to use as we liked.  I put some on my cover, above, and some on an inner page:

I decided to use my mermaid page as a sign in.

Here are a couple of my backgrounds.  Lots left to do in this book.

On the day she arrived in Key Largo, Lill had her birthday.  On the 14th, Sarah would turn 40.  Unbeknownst (oh, don't you just love that word!) to them, we all made tags to go into a special wire receipt holder that Elena purchased for each of them.  We surprised them both with a cake and the gifts while at The Paper Niche.

Bea showed us a great method for blending inks with a white chalk ink pad. 



Do you remember the embossing technique Tim demonstrated during the 2009 12 Tags of Christmas....the one where chipboard letters were covered with metal?  Bea made this frame for Elena using self adhesive metal tape from the home improvement store:

o

And then she showed us how she did it:

Then there was the art doll collage she made after taking Christy Tomlinson's She Art class:

And we all made one too....cut to fit the plastic sleeves that came with our canvas albums.  Here's mine:

Check out the clock in this group photo.  That's not A.M. folks!  We spent the entire day at the store, making art, going shopping (oh yeah!), eating (we had two meals while there; well, some of us had three), and just having a wonderful time.

(Back row:  Val, Daisy, Lill, me, Sarah, Jen, Julie, Linda, Jacquie.  Front row: Gina, Elena, Teri, Beatriz, Sue, Tracy, Marita)

Tomorrow: charms, painter's trays, and some scandalous behavior at The Marlin restaurant.  But I might not actually be able to post tomorrow's Keys events tomorrow,  as I am going to be downtown all day learning wax techniques from Claudine Hellmuth!!  Oh yeah, I know I'm one lucky duck.