Washington 2010 Trip: Artfest

Woohoo! I'm going to post about Artfest this year before June! I've decided to break the trip into 3 blogposts. This first one will be all about Artfest. The second post will be about our trip to Forks. And the last one will be about our day in Seattle.



Our dorm, #225:




My home-sweet-prison cell for four nights:



Yeah, it actually was kind of worse than last year, but my mom and I got to share a room and it was about two steps from my first class, so it really wasn't that bad.





I was greeted by my many wonderful friends...




...none of whom I took pictures of this year. Hello, Andria! Get your camera out, would you? I guess I'll just have to go back next year.

My first class was Tins Charming with Liesel Lund, a lovely, lovely person who I actually met last year and spent an evening together in the impromptu dance. We made fun jewelry pieces and other objet d'arts from cookie tins! I've collected so many cookie tins now that I'm ready to trip over them, so I better start working on some more fun things. Below is the necklace I made with just a few of the pieces I made on Thursday.





My second class, on Friday, was with Sunny Carvalho. We painted these lovely ladies with Genesis heat set oil paints, which I now have to have for myself.



My mom put it very succinctly just a couple of days into Artfest when she said that Artfest was so expensive because, after the money it costs to get to Port Townsend and pay for all of the supplies, you then leave wanting to buy more art supplies! So true. Sunny is a truly radiant person and I'm so glad I took her class. I knew, as soon as I looked at the classes available last August, that I was going to take Liesel and Sunny's classes and they did not disappoint. Here I am with Sunny wearing the hat that I bought from her. (I actually kind of tracked her down the evening after vendor night to buy it. Love it!)






The last class was with Karen Michel, and we painted and collaged and hammered and embellished these awesome house totems. The green one is my retirement home in Port Townsend. I only need about a million to buy it, so if you know anyone wanting to throw money at me...



And then it was adios! to Artfest 2010. I'll see you again next year!

I'm packed and ready to go...

Tomorrow I get to spend a lovely day at work, scurrying to finish my grading and making lesson plans for the substitute before I leave for Seattle. Woohoo!

Before I leave, I thought I'd show you my trades for the Fest.
Here are all of my trades ready to go:

I made two different tags. The one on the left is made with the backgrounds I had planned on using for my ATCs, but I didn't get around to doing. The one on the right is made from recycled cardboard and images from a Little Golden picture book I bought at the thrift store

With the tags, I've included bubble rings with images from fairy tales.

I made a bunch of these charms for the Artfest charm swap, and then I made a few more for my Artfest friends.

Well, I need to get to bed. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. See you all in a week!

The Best Places for Writing Inspiration=The Worst Places for Writing

There are 3 places where I get the most inspiration for my writing. These three places are not always the best for doing actual writing. One place could be quite dangerous if I pulled out my netbook and started getting down the perfect pieces of dialogue that come to mind. Another place is rather...humid. Soggy paper is not the best writing utensil. And the third place...well, it's really the timing with the third place rather than the location itself. So, in no particular order, here are my 3 best places for writing inspiration but the worst places for actual writing:

1. The Car: I really do come up with some of my best ideas for writing while I'm driving in the car. My characters have entire conversations in my head. Some people might call this schizophrenia; I call it amazing. Sometimes I'll pull out my digital voice recorder and try to get the basics down for the conversations. Other times I'll actually pull over, pull out my notebook, and start writing so I can get it all down just right. I try to do very little writing while I'm actually handling a car though. That probably wouldn't be much better than texting behind the wheel.

2. The Shower: It amazes me how often I can be stuck in my writing and then discover the answer while I'm shampooing my hair. I have actually, in the middle of writing, stopped to take a shower so I can get the ideas flowing. I've also started thinking about marketing dry erase markers for writers to use in the shower. I haven't tried it myself yet, but I will soon. So don't steal my idea! Please...

3. The Bed...just before I go to sleep: I actually do most of my writing while sitting on my bed. I do absolutely no writing at my writing desk in my studio. My bed is just so warm and comfy and ahhhhh. I do a lot of my writing just before bed time. Then I'll shut down, plug my netbook in, take my contacts out, and snuggle under my covers. After about 2 minutes, I'll have an epiphany about what I've been writing, and I have to turn on the bedside light, put my glasses on, and jot down the idea on the sticky-notes I keep on my night table. Then I'll take off my glasses, turn out the light, snuggle back down into my covers, and close my eyes. After another 2 minutes, something else will occur to me, and I do it all over again.

So, I ask you, dear reader, in what location do you get most of your inspiration for, well, anything?

Bucket List #55: Flamenco

In November, I started my list of 100 things I want to do during my lifetime. Learning to do this is #55 on my list. Okay, watch the video first, and then continue reading the post. The video is a little long (a whole 8+ minutes, which seems long in a world where we have the attention span of 10 seconds...okay, I'm really just talking about myself here) but it is totally worth it. Watch all of it. Please.

Now, here are some of the things I was thinking of as I watched the video myself:

1. I'm going to have to lose a lot more weight to fit into that dress.
2. I wonder if she waxes her armpits. Ouch.
3. Can I be a flamenco dancer with my big bosoms?
4. Hey! She has my shoes! (#56 on my list is to own a pair of red flamenco shoes.)
5. I love how her hands move. They're so graceful, so poetic. Can hands be poetic? If they can, hers are.
6. I'm fascinated by how her feet move. How does she do that?
7. Is the tattoo on her shoulder the source of all of her flamenco powers?
8. Where did she get her magic flamenco powers tattoo?
9. If I get a magic flamenco powers tattoo like hers, will I also magically be able to fit into that dress?
10. Should I use my flamenco powers for good or for eeeevil?!

So, if you could learn to dance any dance, what would it be? And would you use your dancing powers for good or for eeeevil?

Learning to fly

"When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly."

--Barbara Winter

Last Day of February...Finally

I don't know about the rest of you, but February has been a tough month for me. I'm grateful that it is finally over. Here's a quote that perfectly describes how I feel about this month in 2010.

The reason God made February short a few days was because he knew that by the time people came to the end of it, they would die if they had to stand one more blasted day.
--Katherine Paterson

Why I'm eating a bag of crazy bread

I checked my email during 3rd period today and noticed that I received a message from the college I applied to for grad school. It was an automated message telling me that the decision for my application had been made and that I could view it online.

I shouldn't have opened it.

It was the standard form letter: "All of our applicants are wonderful and thank you for applying, but you really weren't as wonderful as everyone else and, on top of that, we think you need a haircut." Okay, that wasn't exactly what was said, but just about.

At first I just cried, all the while trying to look like I wasn't crying because I didn't really want to sob wildly in front of my ESL kids. Then I moved on to wanting to go down to that there school and use all of the four letter words I know, such as "darn" and "heck", to give them a piece of my mind. But I am holding myself back, because I keep thinking of Great-great-grandpa Brigham looking down on me, shaking his head, as I yell profanities at the university that carries his name.

So, I went to Little Caesars and bought pizza for the boys and when they offered me a second bag of Crazy Bread for just 99 cents, I didn't even bat an eyelash. I am now drowning my sorrows in Crazy Bread. Yes, I just finished off an entire bag of grease-laden Crazy Breadsticks, and I washed it down with a caffeine-free diet Dr. Pepper (and I already want another one).

I'm trying really, really, really hard to believe that there is something out there for me that's bigger and better, something more suited to what I want to do with the rest of my life. And I keep telling myself that it's been nice to have something to occupy my mind in these last months other than the day-to-day mundane realities of teaching and mommying. And of course I tell myself that I would have regretted it if I had given up and not finished the process (which I truly did feel like doing on numerous occasions).

However, I'm really just hoping to have the ultimate revenge by writing the great American novel and then making a note in the acknowledgements that the university's rejection letter is what spurned me on to finish my ground-breaking work. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

Ha.