Love Letters

Check out these new Shakespeare Stamps!

London's graphic arts design house, hat trick design, has come up with a couple really beautiful stamp designs and the theme is Shakespeare.  I especially like the hand-lettered typography by Marion Deuchars.

I found the mention about these terrific stamps at Fast Co.'s website, which is loaded with interesting finds and articles.  In fact, Fast Company is one of the few magazines I read faithfully, cover to cover.   

 

Professional designers learn early to work within constraints: time, budget, materials, price. But the team at the London graphic arts firm hat-trick design has a special knack for a particularly daunting creative challenge: delivering big design on a tiny canvas.  I'm pretty sure they hit a home run on this one!

 

Mail Art Envelope

Thought I'd share the envelope I sent to France to participate in the "Mail Art Across the World" project... I was fairly pleased with the lettering until I accidently dropped a big blob of ink above the lettering.  Hence, the strip of torn paper from an old book.  

 

My husband was kind enough to mail the envelope for me, so unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to see the stamp that went on the envelope.  I wish I'd had the time to buy the stamp first, and make the envelope around the theme of the stamp, but I guess this will have to do.  

Mail Art Across the World

I stumbled upon a terrific calligraphy exchange while visiting my friend Jane's blog, and thankfully it's not too late to participate!!! Just go to this website: Mail Art Across the World for the details, and get your envelope in the mail quickly, the deadline is April 1st! (No fooling!)  There's also a gallery of the incredible entries from past seasons, definitely eye candy to inspire even the most timid among us! 

This is a chance to participate in a free calligraphy event, one without judges or fees to enter, and entries will be posted on the web.  The evelopes will travel around France, Hungary, Germany, Russia, and the Ukraine.  This is a terrific opportunity to participate in the celebration of both mail art and calligraphy!

from Celeste

Card for Miss Yvonne

 

 

From the very talented Heather Victoria Held

 

Card for Joan

Hey, wait a minute!  How did that picture of Bubba and his Pig get in there?!?

 

From Rena

 
It is so much fun to receive something like this in the mail, especially when most of the other pieces of mail are bills or advertisements... so while you're at it, why don't you make more than one beautiful envelope and send it to someone you've been thinking about?!?  

Don't you just love the color orange?!?

 I posted this earlier, in March, and just stumbled upon a terrific blog, called How About Orange?, so I had to add a link to this post... and here I thought I was one of only a few who like the color orange!  What's not to like, it's almost red, and since red is my favorite color, it's not too much of a stretch to like orange.  Be sure to check out Jessica's blog, it's loaded with cool projects, time-wasters (her words, not mine!), and overall great design!  

 

 

I'm DONE!!!

I just took my final exam and have now completed all requirements for completion of my BSN (Bachelor's of Science of Nursing)!!!  

                  Photo of me as Student Nurse, Bronson School of Nursing, Kalamazoo, MI, circa 1978

 It's only taken me 20 years to finish, but no matter that, it feels really great to set a goal and meet it.  

YEAH!!!!

I'm looking forward to going to a few of the Oscar nominated films, reading the Sunday paper in a leisurely fashion (on Sunday morning), spending time with my family and friends, knitting, reading for fun, riding my bike when it gets warm, and spending large amounts of time in my studio doing what I love most... making something!

 

In the two weeks leading up to finishing my school work, I taught a workshop for my calligraphy guild and I believe it was pretty much a hit!  I know I had fun and I'm pretty sure everyone else did, too!  Here's a few photos... 

  
       Miss Carolyn and Miss Ora   

 

  Student work: journal covers & painted tyvek

Student journal cover: Mick McG.

Student work: Margie B.

 

           Student work: Carolyn

Student work: Linda McV.

The students did really lovely work that I think they should all be very proud of and I learned a lot from the experience of teaching this workshop... I'd taught an abbreviated workshop once before, but this was more than twice as much time allotted and I'd do some things differently next time. I had a great time and felt really comfortable with my colleagues from the guild.  I sure hope everyone had a good time and learned a few things they might not have known prior to the workshop.  

 

 

Recent gift

This past Christmas was quite a holiday at our house... I had been moping around, getting more and more worked up because this was going to be my first holiday without both children at home, and I wasn't dealing with it very well.  Tim (my oldest) had recently graduated from ASU with a double major in Finance and in Accounting, and had started his first "career job" with KPMG in Denver this past November.  So there was no way he could come home so soon after starting a job, and there was no way I could leave my husband and daughter to go out there for Christmas; so I pouted, cried, moped around the house, and said bad things about the holidays in general.  

 

On Thursday night, December 23rd, I came home from a twelve hour shift in the ER tired and crabby and in a hurry to eat dinner and get to bed so I could turn around and work another twelve hour shift the next day.  And trust me, I crabbed about this, too!  I mean, really, who would want to work two twelve hour shifts the last two days before Christmas?!?  (Never mind that I had Christmas day off and the following three days after that, and I'd had four days off before the two shifts on the 23rd and 24th!  Talk about an ingrate!)

 

I came in the house with a pizza from our favorite, Buddy's, set down the pizza, and said I needed to use the restroom.  My husband greeted me and said "Good!  I wanted to show you something I did in the hallway!"  (We've been restoring our house for more than a year now, which means there's always something in the works, so this was pretty typical).  I walked into the living room and THERE WAS MY SON TIMMY!!!

 

He'd come home for Christmas with the help of my husband John, my ex-husband (Tim's dad) Rick, Tim's girlfriend Cait and her mom Shirley, and had been in the works since Thanksgiving.  It was a group effort to surprise me and I've never screamed so loudly or cried quite so hard as I did on that Thursday night.  

All this is leading up to my gift to Tim and Cait, for their new apartment in Denver... it is a collage I showed here quite a while ago, that I had framed professionally, and once I did that, I regretted offering to give it to the kids!  

It's not the best photo of the collage, but it's hard to shoot a photo and not get the flash in the way, which I did here, sorry!  Here's a scan of the collage before it was mounted and framed:

The framing is stellar and I have to thank my friend Jacqueline Sullivan for it.  Not only is Jacqueline a fabulous calligrapher but she is also a professional framer, and her work is just gorgeous.  I took the collage to Jacqueline in September or early October and said "Do your magic!", which is exactly what she did!  Tim and Cait love the collage and I'm thrilled that they do, and delighted to have been able to give them something so personal for their first home together.  

Moo to you and you and you!!!

I'm pretty sure I've oohed and aahhed over Moo cards in the past, and I'm going to do it again!  In case you weren't aware of them, Moo cards are the coolest thing to happen to business cards EVER!  

The first time I spied a Moo card, I was on a house tour and was in the home/condo/working space of a local photographer.  On her entry way console was a stack of tiny little cards with different photos of wedding scenes that caught my attention.  I HAD to have one!  The texture was delicious and the photo quality was superb, and on the back, in tiny little letters was all of this photographer's contact information.  STUNNING!!! Well, little did I know I was looking at my first Moo card! (I'm really sorry I don't still have it to show you!)

Here is an example, though, of someone else's cards with ribbons attached:

                                                            
 
 
 

Well, just in case you've never seen a Moo card, I'm going to tell you that you have!  My entire banner is made up of my Moo cards!!!  How cool is that?!??!  I wish you could feel the texture... ok, I know, I'm a bit of a texture nut, but these cards are really beautifully made... and it's SO much fun to pull out five or six cards, each with a different image, and let the recipient choose which one they want!  Inevitably, someone will ask me if they can have more than one, because they can't decide on just one!  

Moo cards are a wonderful way to showcase your talent or your passion, or both!  I've included them in cards and letters, I've used them as a gift tag so the recipient will know who it's from, and I've used them as a price tag/business card on my jewelry I sell.  

Probably what is the most fun, is uploading your own pictures and images and designing your own Moo cards.  I doubt anyone has ever had that much fun choosing a business card at a printer's shop or stationery store or even on line at some other boring site.  My last order was for 100 cards, using 20 different images (so five of each design), all for $19.99 plus shipping.  Is this beginning to sound like an ad for Moo cards?!?  Well, it sort of is... that's how much I love my Moo business cards.   

I hope you will visit Moo's site and give it a try.  I promise you won't be disappointed in the experience or in the final product.  And I hope you'll let me know if you order Moo cards of your own, I'd love to receive one in the mail and send you one of mine!  

xoxo, 

PS:  We have a kitty named Moo, and no, we didn't name him after the company!  My daughter Corey named him Moo for reasons I still don't understand, but have come to love anyway! (He is one silly little guy, always doing something funny!)

 
      

You've really got to check out this uber cool chick's site!!!

Howdy friends!  Many of you may already be familiar with Lisa Hoffman ... & for those of you aren't, boy, do I have a treat for you!!!  Lisa's posts regularly blow me away with information about people, books, events, current affairs, & more.  Her latest post is particularly interesting if you sew or if you just love handmade things... Lisa's previous post is about a TV show on the Sundance channel I'd never heard of, and once I started looking at the links Lisa provided, it was like I was Alice in Wonderland falling down that tunnel... an hour and a half later I had to stop and rethink what it was I was supposed to do that morning!  I had a blast and I didn't have to leave my studio or get out of my jammies!!! It's a wonderful mix of information from an incredibly cool lady, and every time I stop by, I can count on learning about something I might not have heard of otherwise.  On top of that, Lisa is an extremely friendly, welcoming host, and has become one of my favorite "virtual" internet friends. I hope you'll take a minute to visit Lisa and become a fan of her site, too!   

In other news, today is the twentieth anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall... over the next few days, in 1989, there was a celebration in the streets and people on both sides of the wall started chipping away at the wall, taking chunks of it; until at last, the freed people of Berlin, East and West, tumbled the giant divider of the people, literally and figuratively.  

From the site Berlin-life.com:

The version of the ‘Wall’ that started life in 1961, was in fact not a wall but a 96 miles barbed wire fence. However, after this incarnation proved too easy to scale, work started in 1962 on a second fence, parallel to the first but up to 100 yards further in. The area in between the two fences was demolished to create an empty space, which became widely known as "death strip" as it was here that many would-be escapers met their doom. The strip was covered with raked gravel, making it easy to spot footprints, it offered no cover, was mined and booby-trapped with tripwires and, most importantly, it offered a clear field of fire to the armed guards – who were instructed to shoot on sight.

In 1975 I was lucky enough to visit Berlin and gained access into East Berlin through the famed Checkpoint Charlie.  I was a very young teenager and it was a terrifying experience, (there were armed guards watching our every move) and one I've never forgotten.  But the city of Berlin was one of the most beautiful European cities I saw on that trip, very cosmopolitan, clean, and loaded with the obvious history. No one ever imagined the wall would be torn down and the city and country united.  Perhaps there is room then, for hope for the world today, that we might be able to find a way towards peace, too. 

I'm going to be very busy for the next week, studying for ACLS, which stands for Advanced Cardiac Life Support.  It is a provider course for health care professionals... I stupidly let my certification expire years ago.  In an effort to improve my job chances and make myself more marketable, I'm taking the class again next Saturday.  I've got a LOT of catching up to do!  So, I will not be doing much in my studio this week, but please be sure to check back!  

Now, GO MAKE SOMETHING!!!

Please Give the Lift of Life!

My older brother Larry is the proud owner of a donated liver as of yesterday evening, and what an amazing gift to receive!  At the same time, it's kind of hard to be really, really happy for Larry; knowing another family lost a loved one in order for there to be a liver available for transplant to Larry.  He is at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, where he has been on and off for months in various stages of illness, waiting. The available organs are assigned to the recipients based on how ill the recipient is, and in a kind of perverse manner, the recipient has to get "good and sick" before they move up on the transplant list... so it becomes a strange dance of watch and wait & numbers... liver enzymes, creatinine clearances, blood cell counts, just to name a few levels that are observed closely... the recipient can't get too sick, or they move down on the list or are removed entirely... and if they are too well, back down the list, again... you get the picture, right?  It's just a very complicated, convoluted procedure.  

I am so sorry for the donor family's loss and so grateful at the same time, that they were generous and compassionate enough not to bury a perfectly good liver, knowing it could afford someone else another chance at life!

This goofy drawing is a little something I put together for Larry, back in July, when he was very, very ill and understandably depressed.  I get to draw a nurse in a somewhat disparaging manner, since I belong to the "club"... not necessarily nurses with "cankles", but an older nurse for sure!

Larry was infected with Hepatitis C after undergoing an out-patient surgical procedure in an OR in Texas, where an anesthesia tech was stealing narcotics from the anesthesia carts in the OR, shooting up, and then using the same needle to draw up saline to put volume back into the vials of narcotics, so no one would suspect any meds were missing.  55 people altogether were infected, Larry being one of them.

So, please, let your loved ones know your wishes about organ donation... it is my fervent hope that more people will realize we won't be needing those organs once we "go", and someone out there may be desperate for a heart, a liver, a kidney, corneas, lungs, even skin for burn victims... it is such a wonderful way to do something generous & altruistic, and make the final act of our lives an incredibly wonderful thing.  

What a weekend!

WOW!!! I love, love, love Toronto! We had SUCH a great time with our friends Tony and Yvonne (Missy and Scooter)... we ate too much, drank a little too much, walked our ASSES off, and the boys both bought bicycles. It was our tenth anniversary (John's and mine), and it was lovely. Such a good time, but it is, admittedly, very nice to be home!

This is the CD tray notes (built on a template), for my dear friend David's piano CD... it's just a teaser, just a taste... the rest is going to be unveiled at a party on the night before Thanksgiving Day. Putting this all together was quite time intensive, but it might have been one of the most satisfying projects I've ever worked on. First of all, David is the sweetest man ever, and he'd never be difficult for me to work with... but how cool to have someone tell you, essentially, "i love your work, I'll love whatever you decide to do, you have free reign on this project"!!!!
I'm really, really happy with how it all came together; and I hope I get the chance to do this sort of work again!

Hope you are all doing well and taking good care of yourselves!