I met Shelly along the way . . .

Shelly Norris of Soul Fire Retreats
writing on Maya Stein's "Type-Rider"

Last year at Serendipity Retreat

in the Outer Banks

October, 2011

I met this sweet and amazing girl

name Shelly Norris!

She was a teacher right where

I lived in Virginia Beach!

She came at the suggestion of her

good friend and author

Susan Pease,

my cottage mate at Squam by the Sea

October 2010

(are you getting all these connections?)

Retreats are always about 

 bringing others together. 

It was her first retreat 

and

she was on fire! 

She took in the entire retreat experience

with such joy and excitedness

that her attitude

was infectious!

She returned this year to the Outer Banks

for Squam by the Sea

and it was so good to see her once again.

For now she has quit her teaching job,

and begun a journey,

a beautiful journey all her own

called

Soul Fire Retreats!

She will be holding her very first one

in Sandbridge, Virginia Beach

in February of 2013

and has plans to hold

many more in the future,

each retreat having different

venues to choose from.

I just wanted to encourage you to check out her video

on You Tube here!

I wish much success along the way

for Shelly is a beautiful soul

wide open with expectations!

It was important for me to share Shelly with you,
I am so grateful to have loving and creative friends
in this artistic life of mine.
If you are looking for nourishment, looking for
a new life "shift"
then this is the place to look.
Fall back in "love" with 
your truest self!
Art classes, fellowship and so much more!

www.soulfireretreats.com

Participating in a Card Swap!

"Trust the Process"

This year I participated in the "Inspirational Card Deck Swap" with

Jessica Brogan of  In Search of Dessert 

I had read about her first swap earlier this year

and when she decided to hold another swap this fall

I knew I wanted to participate this time.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jessica

at Squam by the Sea this year

in the Outer Banks,

how wonderful it is to connect with

new friends from our social media world

and actually have a conversation

in person!

Jessica inspires me in so many ways,

please check out her link above to

her beautiful blog,

she is doing amazing work over there!

The deadline to have our 52 cards

to Jessica is November 15th,

so I am very proud of myself

for having completed and mailed

them off to Jessica this week!

It all began when Hurricane Sandy

decided to do her number on the East Coast,

and on Monday last week, she pounced

on Virginia Beach!

My office was closed and I found myself with a day off.

 I spent the entire day beginning and working 

on the process!

(Kinda cool hearing wind and rain while creating)

The challenge was to  start with a deck of cards,

all 52 of them

and I started playing away.

First Layer was white gesso

I used Liquitex gesso . . . I love it for many things

(even covering up pages for journaling)

Decided the second layer would be a stencil

Robin's Egg is my favorite color

Starting to come to life

Something starting to happen here ...

Added lots of different dimensions

to the cards that I use in my own

collage pieces

I have learned along the way

More Card Detail

(bubble wrap, smudges, rollers, palette scraping, bottle caps) 

A Little rubber stamping too

Almost there!

Writing down 52

Inspirational Thoughts for my cards

I then decided to type them on the computer

in a favorite font

Print onto Tracing Paper

and use on my cards

(learned about tracing paper on a tutorial)

I wasn't sure if it would work in my printer

Added inspirational quotes with matte gel medium

This is my favorite one!

I used a fun metallic marker around

each quote

Added a heart from ephemera 

to each card

A thin layer of top coat

Then finished with black gesso

along the borders

My hubby would just pass by the kitchen table

day after day to see how they progressed

he didn't get it

but knew it was something I had to do!

Love my hubby!

I packaged them up pretty

and mailed them off at the end

of this week

after thoroughly drying.

Now I wait . . . 

later this year Jessica will mail back to me

with 52 new cards (including one of my own)

and I will have a deck of inspiration

to begin my new Creative Year with!

One for each week to ponder on!

What fun it was, it took a lot of time

but was worth every minute of it.

Thanks Jess for putting it all together for us,

now the work is on you!

This was a great artistic experience

just having returned from the Sea!