Art And Soul in VA

Ohh, I so wish I was going to Art And Soul this year in Hampton, VA. It's almost a week of classes and workshops in paper crafts, jewelry making, collage, painting and more. So far, Jean, Linda, Miriam, Julia, Orla, Amy, Kristen and more friends are going. I wish I was going to be with them.

When I went almost two years ago I really had a great time and did recharge my creative batteries and make some great art. I enjoyed getting away and it felt oh-so-luxurious to pack my bags with all my favorite crafty goodies and know I would be just making art for a few days. I can't go now because my tiny girl, Nora, is way more important at ten months than all those (tempting) crafty classes. The beads will wait.

Many folks are participating in a Charm Swap with other A&S attendees. These swaps are a big thing lately, I have friends who are participating in two or three at a time for charms, books, zines, you name it. I just don't allow myself to commit to these right now as they'd add stress to my day. I like the idea as I do work better under a deadline, so participating in a charm swap, for instance, would make me make some charms. But on the other hand, I get so little sleep as it is.

Jane does want to do a charm swap at the store, maybe we'll get that going later this year...

new 7gypsies stuff!

Oh, we got a box last week from our fabulous UPS guy, Robbie, that made us all so happy. It was the newest releases from 7gypsies. This is a scrapbook supplies company that really makes me happy. In the first place, they are a family business (I like that!) and in the second place we see so much potential in all their trinkets for jewelry and other adornments. There isn't a Mickey Mouse to be seen, its all just papers so lovely you want to make a skirt out of them, and nifty metal do-hickeys you want to add to books or put in earrings or these crystal doorknobs that look like fabulous BEADS to me!These books are great too, I know you could easily make this simple binding but for less than $6 you can have it done and have more time to decorate. I wonder if the gals at Panopolie got all the new items out yet? There are new papers, many new books, stamps and stickers, too.

I have been trying to make small books with photos of Nora and Cleo in them as I can. I don't think I will ever be able to make a big, all encompassing Year In The Life book as I just can't find the time or attention span to do it. But a book about yesterday's bath? Got it! I can do that. One about making granola? Sure. Basically if it's ten pages or less and I can print the pics in five minutes with no photo-shopping (we're all about journalistic integrity in our house-and lazy!)I can do it.

Anyhow, I will probably get a few of these new blank books to use for my mini-albums. As I said before, we get all excited when we see new items from this company. We see loads of paper craft and scrapbook stuff here but generally I don't love it and don't order it. Sometimes the paper quality is poor or the images are too same-old, same-old for me. For pete's sake, every Hallmark in the world has scrapbooking stuff, I want us to have something different.