Placemats

It's officially in my hands, it arrived in the mail today, the latest copy of GreenCraft magazine.  I submitted placemats that I made out of brown paper bags from Sprouts, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.  And they made it in the magazine. 
I am......excited right now!!!

Redescovering myself

Since the kids started school on Monday, and they are now both in school full day, I have found myself alone for several hours before I start work myself.  This was something I was looking forward to for many years, and it's here now, and it's been great, but also a little bit uncomfortable.  I can hear myself thinking, I can hear myself breathing, I realize I exist and I can get to know myself again.
Today I even went to church.  I am not a religious type, but there is a Catholic church in my neighborhood, only a 5 min walk from the kids' school.  It has a little Chapel and it's open from dawn to dusk.  The quietness inside is what appealed to me.  Sure my house is quite now too, but there are many distractions (the darn computer being one). 
I sat in one of the pews, the dim light inside and the sound of the ceiling fan were comforting.  I sat and daydreamed for some 30 min.  Then I came home, made lunch, and ate quietly by myself.  I liked the feeling of being by myself, with nothing that needed an immediate attention.  And I felt guilty about it at the same time.

I worked on my Book of Tea for a little bit too. 


And was doodling in the white space of the monoprints I made the other day.



And it's now time to go to work.

Monsoons!

We've had several storms in the last couple of weeks, but somehow I am never at the place where the storm is.  That changed on Saturday, when I stepped out to go to the airport to pick up my husband.
There was a warm but eerie glow on the front patio when I opened the door.  I looked up and the sky was heavenly.

But there was something brewing in the back.  I turned around and my house was engulfed in dark heavy clouds.



It poured hard.  I barely could drive at 35mph on the freeway.  Lightning was everywhere.  Maggie counted every time she'd see a bolt light up the sky.  Then she fell asleep in the car.
We waited a little bit at the airport as there where multiple delays, but husband got home safely and that's all that matters.

Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometime when life gives you an opportunity that you are petty certain it won't come again, you gotta go for it.  Even if that means that you have to take the risk of getting stuck at an airport with two little kids (which I didn't luckly).
So this is what happened:
Few weeks ago I found out that a friend that I grew up with in Macedonia, that I've known since I was about 8 yrs old, is in Seattle.  He was there for work and was staying only for a few weeks.  Being on the same continent with someone you grew up with, it's not something that happens to me every day.  I knew I had to make it happen especially since I work for the airline that calls Seattle its hub (Alaska Air).

I was off this Friday (yesterday) and noticed that I needed one person to oversleep and miss their 620am flight to give me enough seats for me and my kids.  I took the chance, and I got on the flight.  The last 3 open seats.

Seeing someone from my childhood, was almost like going home.  And it was even better that I can introduce my kids to an old friend.  This was special to me to show my kids to someone I knew when I was a kid.  My friend took us to the beach (who knew Seattle was a beach destination) where we all had a great time playing in the water, running, playing hide and seek and having a picnic on the grass.

I must have exhausted them, because when I took them to get something to eat at a nearby mall, they fell asleep on the table before they got food.

I wished the day had more than 24hrs to better catch up with my friend.  I changed my flight from 7pm to 9pm which gave us time for a cold beer to wrap up the day.  It wasn't 'Skopsko pivo' (Skopsko beer), but we opened it with a bottle opener from Skopje.  Good enough!
Cheers!!!!

School time

On Monday both of my kids will start school.  This is the first time that they will both be in school all day.  It will be quite a change for me.  Every morning after I drop them off to school, I will have a few hours alone, before I have to go to work myself.  And then I won't see them until their bed time when I come home from work. 
Right now, I am not sure how I feel about all that.  Excited to have some time to myself, and yet sad,  to be away from them most of the day.  But they are growing up, and I am growing up along.  I am not a mom to babies anymore, but to school age children. 

Kids

There are many reasons why people have kids.  As I grow older, trying to raise my kids to the best of my ability, I am becoming more convinced that in turn they are my guide into adulthood as much as I am their guide into childhood.  They make me be a better person.  They are capable of giving the best words of wisdom, true, unfiltered, raw words that you can't always get from adults.  I appreciate them and I hope they stay like this for a long time.

Marie-Claire and a birdie

I've been playing with some stamps I got last month.  These are a collection of stamps by Colette Copeland from Stampington.
I hand-stitched and added hearts with zentangle designs on shrinky dink plastic.

On the birdie, I added a new stitch I learned, french knots on stalks.  It's currently my favorite stitch.

Circus book

I've been warming up to work on some gelli printing at home, but I've been finding many excuses not to do it.  Including making my first book project. 
Occasionally I find myself not knowing where to start, what to do next.  This comes from overthinking, which I tell myself over and over again that 'overthinking kills creativity'. 
Anyway, I still didn't get to play with gelli printing at home, but this last week I started and finished a Circus Book.  Made with fabric, stamped fabric, shrinky dinks, stamps, embroidery, sewing machine.

May I present you the 'Circus Book'.

A hot Friday

The occasional tiredness I experience is also a result of allergies I have developed in the last few years.  Today I got the results from the allergy testing I did over the last month.  And it appears that no matter the season, there is something always blooming that I have severe allergies to.
Between January and June it's the trees that bloom around here (such as Arizona Ash, White Mulberry, Cottonwood, Mesquite, Juniper, Elm, Oak, Sycamore, Ecualyptus).
Between June to December it's the weeds (such as Desert Ragweed, Kochia, Marsh Elder, Common Sage, Lambs Quarter, Russian Thistle).
And then indoor are the dust mites, the trillions of them that live in the furniture and matress that feed off the dead skin we shed.
So there are some things that I can be more mindful about to keep myself less exposed to these 'enemies'.  Besides that, I can undergo an allergy treatment which require time and money, and this is the part that I have to decide if I should or can do.

The good news, well I can be plagued with something worse, but I am not.

It's going to be very hot today, 118 F, I am going to hide inside, hang out with my kids and make some art with them.  I started finishing some of the prints I made during my gelli printing workshop last week.  It's a good day to finish up some stuff.  Here is a quick look:




  

Pausing for a moment

I am learning to be able to tell myself to take a break, and that it's ok to take a break.  In the last couple of weeks working a few extra hours along with the heat and taking care of the kids/house, has left me exhausted.  I felt sick last night, and decided that working overtime till midnight wasn't worth it.
This morning I slept in till a bit past 8am and I feel recharged.
I wanted to share a picture of a plant that I nursed and just recently replanted it in some soil.  Maggie and I found a little snip of a plant on the parking lot at the grocery store.  I had it in a cup of water for the longest time, and it finally grew some roots.  I planted it in a pot, and added a little statue of mother with a baby, that Helen, my mother-in-law, gave me a few years ago.  The kids broke the bottom stand.  I couldn't bear to throw it away, it has a sweet poem on the back.  I kept it and it was a perfect addition to my pot and the plant.

Gelli printing

Today I took a monoprinting workshop.  Monoprinting on a gelli block.  I took only the gelli block to class, and other than admiring Colette Copeland's work, I stayed away from watching any videos or tutorials online.  I wanted to form my first impressions by doing the work, not by watching how it's done.
I was happy to have a wonderful teacher, MaryJo McGraw.  She was patient and full of good advice.  
Painting and drawing are the techniques that I am most afraid of, I feel the most uncomfortable because I am not sure what to do with it, or how to control it.  But here I am, challenging myself and it's OK.
Here is a peak of what I made in class.

Pumpkin fields

Tomorrow is an exciting day for me.  I signed up for a gelli printing workshop.  I don't get to take workshops too often, but when I do it's because I want to learn a technique that I can use in my art.  Drawing and painting don't come naturally to me, so I always look for something along those lines, but without the complexity of things looking realistic. 
In the mean time, I wanted to start something new, but I am sort of at a roadblock and wasn't sure what to start.  I needed to finish at least one or two more embroidery hoops-shrinky dink scenes, and I struggled with pulling all the elements together.
This is what I finished at last:

Tonto Natural Bridge

The hot heat is here and is around to stay for the next few months. I am not looking forward to it, although I admit I prefer it in lieu of shoveling snow and being cold.  To break the long summer and escape the heat, we occasionally take a day trip, going north to places like Payson, Prescott, Sedona, Flagstaff, Jerome etc.  They are charming towns.  I sometime wished I lived there, but then I remind myself of the conveniences I am accustomed to by living in a large city (such as many craft stores to choose from).
This past weekend we took a day trip to Payson, and visited the Tonto Natural Bridge.
Before we had kids, David and I went there and hiked up, under and across the bridge, carrying a big old 4x5 camera.  I don't know if he ever got any good pictures of it back then.  This time, he sort of had a project in mind for a submission to a magazine.  The photographs I am sharing here are not his, they are by the amateur me, and my two generations old Android phone camera. Enjoy!

 

Poppy fields and desert blooms

Because it's summer break and there is no school, the day is filled with entertaining two little people.  And then work, the one that pays me every two weeks.  It's all good, I am not complaining.  I am explaining why I haven't really been crafting and creating as many new things as I would like.
But I work well under pressure.  There is a few deadlines approaching for some submissions I'd like to send off so I've made it a priority that I take an hour or two in a day to come up with something new.
Here are the results:

The colorful things are zentangle designs on shrinky dink, that I colored, baked and then stitched on layers of fabric.  I used a few embroidery stitches for added texture.  I finished two (the ones above), and I have a  head full of ideas for two more.  So I am back in my craft room.