Have I ever mentioned ...

that my favorite part of Christmas is the lights?
Well it is...

The necklace Jill made

I LOVE it!!!!


Thank you Jill....

Christmas Morning

Some Christmas highlights

It has been a great Xmas. The 6 of us are going to meet up with my brothers down south for a dinner out. LE and Jon will head on home then fly to Seattle tomorrow. We went to the movies and saw Eregon, The dragon movie, in Santa Barbara came home and open presents while the ham cooked. Then we watched the DVD we gave each other. The Sat. Night Live early years was my favorite so far....and we ate more goodies.

I saw the Weinermobile Fri.

This is where the meat meets the bun....

Syd's World

My new computer has this fun program to make comic strips....cool huh?

I have a new computer

Christmas came early at my house! I can not believe it. I have been playing since we got it out of the box. It is a huge screen Mac. .....did I say I can't believe it? I can't. I still have some things to hook up...like my printer and scanner. But I have already made a comic strip. It has the photo booth that I have been hearing about....really fun...



Here is what else we have been up to. We went to Pasadena and saw some really fun Xmas lights and had a great meal at a restaurant that had fake snow on the roof. I don't remember the name but I want to go back. Best salad and cheese bread...It rained so I did not get good pics...we were in a group of about 20 new beetles. Kinda scary coming home. We had some big downpours....I did get to stop at the Folk Tree and The Collection on the way. This is the window from The Collection. Saw Shari's cool stuff.





I got my tree up and the heart decorated for the Friendship House in Santa Barbara.


I planned to go see LE today but she has bursitus and is laying low. I hope she has some improvement today.
I have to get back to my computer play....Thank you Earl.....

Ok Here you go PamGarrison, LE McCutcheon Teesha Moore Tara Ross Carol Kemp and
Katie Kendrick You have been tagged....

I have been tagged!

By Tracie Huskamp....a woman in good standing in the W.O.E. (women of Earl) She wants 6 weird thing I do....

1 I have a theme Halloween every year with a hot dog/sausage roast in the front yard.

2 I try to decorate a Xmas tree using things from around my house and current garage sales rather than get into my Xmas stash...which is huge.

3 On my wedding anniversary or my girls' anniversaries. I decorate the mantle with various odd couples among the cake toppers....like Rosie the maid from the Jetson's with the tinman from Wizard of Oz.....

4 I went to modeling school in San Francisco with Suzanne Somers....in the 60's.

5 I love to play computer adventure games like Myst...I am playing Rhem 2 now. It is a good thing that there are not too many of these games for a Mac...they suck time like a black hole...

6 I have a mini TV collection....among other collections way to numerous to mention...


Now what Tracie? Do I tag 6 more?

more of the party

This is more of the birthday party for Colleen, Cindy, Maren and Patti at Patti's ready-for-a-magazine-spread home in Carpinteria. Mary covered it pretty well on her blog.
This is the bird that Maren carved for Patti. It is so perfect for her "beach" house. And Maren just taught herself to carve! You would never know. She also carved an amazing horse that I didn't get a picture of.

Here is the table before we all started ravaging it all. We had homemade delicious candy and a felt ornament from Maren, bag full of goodie from Cindy including a finger flinger ( you try to guess what that is), a Viet Namese beaded bracelet from Colleen (from her recent trip there) and a glittery ornament from our missing Penny.

Here is Colleen diving into one of her gifts. She has on the birthday crown that we all contributed to and Cindy assembled.

In case you missed Mary's shot of us in our 3-D glasses. Here we are.
This is Cindy in her 50's outfit.


After our delicious gourmet mac and cheese and Waldorf salad Patti had prepared and gifts, it was time for the cupcakes Colleen made.

I could not even wait for the lighting and singing...


This one is for Barbara and Penny who were missing...especially Penny who may have a broken leg......I am hoping this is not so. But at this time I have no details.

Thanksgiving is over

We had a nice one. These guys were spared....

Earl and I went to Cortez CO to see Earl's family.
Best turkey ever....Virginia has never done a bad one.

...and there was pie....
The trip there we went thru Utah. I am always amazed at the things you see from your car. Every turn is a new breath taking view.
On the way back we went the AZ way and did some Route 66 side trips. Earl is planning on driving the whole thing in June with a group on New Beetles. There was a lot more going on than I would have thought on the road.
Colleen took care of the cats...Jill's too. She went to Mt. Shasta for Thanksgiving. She pulled in right before us Sun. night. But I am not sure what was going on with Captain Nimrod and Lois.....
I am trying to see if there are any subtle new expressions on their faces....I will never know...

Today I went to pick up Wendy from the kennel. She is snoozing in her bed again now.

This is on my mind

...so I will share. We had a lovely early Thanksgiving on the 18th with 2 of my brothers and most of brother Steve's family at a beautiful spot at the beach above Ventura. LE and Jon came up from LA. We did a little side celebrating of LE's 35th birthday (it was also my sister -in -law, Linda's birthday too) It is also the day my mother died. It has been 5 years. So I am sharing one of my favorite photos of my parents and me at the beach.


It was also the open of the Artist Guild of Santa Ynez Valley's show at the Elverhoj...which I missed...But art buddy, Ron took this pic for me.

Did I tell you ....

Captain Nimrod has a new girl friend? He like his women big....

Finally I am done with paperwork

...and I can look at my treasures from Queen of Arts. This is a wonderful wool bedrunner/shawl and pillows from Fran.






This is Mary's sweet winged heart pin.





This is Cindy K's fantastic glittered ornament and resin pins. She has made these pins for several show now. They are always a great hit. A few years ago she added the paper mache pieces. They too are always popular.





This is Mary's funky toadstool. this one was different than the others. She knew it would be the one I would pick. One of Cindy's glittery trees sits next to it.







This is a zip bag made from antique kimonos by Geoganne Alex. I love these vinyl covered pieces of art. She also make some beautiful bags that are made of woven kimono pieces.








This is one of Jackie's "canyon canaries" She is an amazing artist. Earl always wanted one of her amazing hand made miniature chuck wagons.





Of course there are a few more items but they might be view here and wreak a surprise....

I should be finishing up my paper work

....but I wanted to post some pic before it got any later....

This is some of our craziness from Halloween/Xmas. This is Elf Earl bar B Q-ing the traditional Halloween sausage and weenie roast.

This is Jill in her Elf/ nurse costume....

and LE trying to get what she want out of Santa...

I am overwhelmed...

The Queen of Arts Benefit Show and Sale at our new location, was amazing! Way beyond my expectations! Mary has some great pics of the event. I carried my camera in my pocket and never fired off a shot.... We ended up with 36 artists... I think most of them hit an all time high in sales...and 800 visitors. I am still doing the math on the donations to Domestic Violence Solutions. I will post that soon. I am so blessed with good friends and family that were right there to help when needed. Actually before I knew it needed to be done it was done. I met new artists that are not only great artists but wonderful women. Esther Bates the Elverhoj Museum director, did an amazing job keeping everything running smoothly. I really can not say enough about Esther or thank her enough. It was she who invited me to try this in the first place. She had the vision and she was right. There were so many customers that I knew....some I had not seen in years. It was fun to re-connect and to visit with new friends. The one thing I was worried about moving to a new location, was that we would not get to enjoy the community of artist's connection we had when the show was at my house...but we did not lose it thankfully! OK OK I am boring you all...but I am just filled to the brim with appreciation for everyone.

...and if that was not enough....Carol and my ATCs are on the poster for the European Paper Ltd. ATC show in Columbus, Ohio ....That is 2 people 30 miles apart out of a group of 4,000 ATCs...700 artists...absolutely amazing! And art buddy Bee Shay was the winner of the show...and... Mary Stanley was on the poster last year ( 20 miles away)! You can see my ATC in my post from Aug 13th ...it is the middle top one. I have sent a proposal to teach an ATC class in this style at Art Unraveled Art Retreat next Aug. Not sure I am excepted yet...but I did think that was another amazing fact.

I love this

Here is a quick peak at what I have been up to...

This is the journal I made in Traci Bautista's class at Violet's. Wish I had time to make more.


This is a house I am working on for Queen of Arts Show. I learned the technique from Pam.

This is our deflated Santa that we are using for Halloween...I know crazy...You should see the looks on the passer-bys....His mouth moves and he sings 3 Xmas carrols.

Christmas lights and pumpkins...or Nightmare....Xmas Halloween.