Wednesday, November 7, 2012

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!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Participating in a Card Swap!

"Trust the Process"


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

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!