up and down

Hey friends, just a quick post here.

As you may remember many years ago I started Hannah Grey Curiosities & Drygoods with my BFF Shoshanah. I ended up having to leave after a couple of years due to personal issues but I pitched in periodically to help Shosh with ideas and shows, etc.

Well, due to many things she has decided to close the website doors as of June 21 and is having a HUGE clearance sale. Please help her clear the decks for the next chapter and learn more about the future of HannahGrey by visiting her site!! Thanks!!

In other news, I just watched the premiere of this new show on Bravo... loved it and look forward to the rest of the season. Very cool!! Did you catch it??

paper goodness

As I have posted before, I am obsessed with the Remains of the Day journals I learned about in Mary Ann Moss's class. While on a hunt for various papers to use my BFF Shosh of Hannah Grey started selling off paper packs from the shop inventory and her own stash in an attempt to clear out some space in her studio. In addition her husband lost his job before Christmas after 10+ years at Adobe and she is just trying to make ends meet. Well, to get to the point, this is one of the pictures of the pack she pulled for me!! Fabulous stuff and all sorts of goodies for journals, ATCs, collages etc.

She still has stuff left and YOU can get one of her fab packs too. If you are interested, please check out her blog . She has more pictures posted and her packs are only $15 for a huge 2.5 gallon zippy stuffed to the brim + shipping in a priority box. This is good stuff!

In addition she is selling off all kinds of odds 'n ends that have been phased out of the shop; new rubber stamps, magazines (new CPS & SS for $5 a box! + shipping), and various doohickeys for a fraction of the price. Email her to get more info and pricing or if you are Facebook you can check out her stuff there.

Happy Birthday Hannah Grey

As many of you know I was one of the founders of Hannah Grey Curiosities & Drygoods. A bit over a year ago I decided I needed to leave to handle some person upheaval that was happening in my family but Shosh kept on and has been working really hard to keep HG going. I have continued to lend my moral support, do shows and work on the design team and as a consultant behind the scenes. It is exciting to me that Hannah Grey turns THREE today and to celebrate they are offering 25% off of orders of $15 or more TODAY ONLY and 10% thru the rest of the week. I hope you will run over and check out the cool art goodies that she sells.

Happy Birthday Hannah Grey!!

stuck in a rut

Do you ever go through those periods where you just feel like mush? I am stuck in a rut, I guess. I am plodding along doing the bare minimum as far as work and commitments and spending a lot of time accomplishing nothing. Nothing seems to inspire me or excite me. I have tried working in my journal, sitting in my studio and fiddling with stuff, working on design projects and all to no avail. My muse must have fled for the hills.

The closest I have come to igniting my inspiration was this past weekend when I helped Shosh set up a vendor booth at the Original Rubber Stamp show in San Jose. Mike and I stayed up til nearly 3 am working on displays and then we all got up at 7 am to get coffee and put final touches on the booth before the show opened at 9. Mike shot a couple of pix while we were setting up with my camera, so these aren't the finished product but pretty close. Overall the booth did very well and Shosh & Mike were pleased and excited. I hope I helped them to figure out the ins and outs of doing shows as I have TONS of them under my belt. They will also be vending at the fall stamp show and the ZNE show in August and I hope to be helping. To check out more on this fun show, visit Hannah Grey's blog.

Not much else to report right now. As I said I am trying to bust out of my artsy funk. Maybe I need to find just the right swap inspire me. I recently got my panels back from Karla & Beth's Birds & Bonnets swap which inspired me tremendously. I loved working with the images supplied by The Vintage Workshop.

But unfortunately I did not fare so well in Heather's journal swap as I never got anything back. Bummer. Ok, I am off to drink more coffee and look for some inspiration....

busy busy bee

Hi All. I have had a wonderful weekend free of many commitments and I am happy to report that I spent a good portion of it in my studio. (aka Pit of Despair, no the purging has not reached this portion of the house yet) I am pleased to say that I did quite a lot of art including most of my collages for Karla & Beth's Birds & Bonnets swap. I'll share a couple of them at the end of this post so you can see. It was a fun challenge using the provided images and incorporating them into the pieces.

I have also been working on some Hannah Grey Design Team samples. Shosh really challenged me with the things she gave me to create samples with. I have had a couple of failed projects with the Stewart Gill Gilding Chips.. but I have one drying now that will hopefully work out. The other things that I got that made me stop and think was a set of vintage doll pieces of 2 arms and 2 legs. I finally finished my piece which was a but out of the box for me and I am really pleased with it. It is a little shrine piece entitled "Layers of Me".. the base is a wooden house block from Cerri at Little Pink Studio and it has layers of vintage papers, a vintage doll house window and the doll pieces from Hannah Grey all attached with beeswax. It smells good too!

Finally, I have also been burning up the laptop with design work. Brian and I are putting the finishing touches on Cerri's website and I have been doing odds and ends in between web tweaks. One of the things I squeezed in was a new post card for sweet Vicki to take with her as a swap for Art & Soul. That is the eye candy up top of this post. I used a collaged piece she did and embellished it with some swirls and butterflies and other goodies. Can't wait to see them all printed up.. I love all the colors that she used in her collage.

Here are a couple of my swap collages:

I'm alive.. but sick.. again. I am so frustrated. I guess that is the price I pay for working at the school but its worth it to be involved in my daughter's education and formative life. I love her school environment and the people she is surrounded by and I am happy to be one of them.

In other news.. the organizing continues. We got some shelves up and I bought a few more to paint. Hopefully the weather will cooperate tomorrow so we can tackle those. I am excited about them because they will go in the bedroom and my dolls will live on them.

I haven't done much art this week but I have made a few tags for various RAKs and this one for a Hannah Grey design team project. I need to work on my things for that or I might get kicked off. LOL

That's about it for now. For those of you who have inquired, Hannah is doing MUCH better. Her stitches came out and all the scab is off now. She has bit of redness and a little line but I think she will heal up nicely and with minimal scarring. I think I will pick up a little cream for her to help. I am off to get some rest and hopefully will have some pages from my journal to share soon. We have been having a good time in the journal group but I need to take pix.

Spring indifference

It seems like there is a period each season where I feel indifferent to just about everything. During these times it is hard to focus (well always), hard to sit still and hard to get anything accomplished like blogging. I do think about blogging but somehow I just can't be bothered... Anyway, I am starting early today in hopes I can finish and publish this post!

I have finished up my cards for Heather's Spring Floral note card swap. Somewhere along the way I put the "floral" part our of my head and just went off any old way. Fortunately she saw them and said send them anyway.. yay. Here are two I haven't shared before.

I'm not sure how springy they are come to think of it but I am out of time so they will have to do.

The other day I had a wonderful mail day. I have bee doing a few more ATC swaps lately so its fun to see the new artwork in my mailbox. There are so many fun artists to swap with on Flickr. Thanks gals! I was super excited to get this package the other day from Shosh who was my partner in HannahGrey before I moved on to Portals and focusing more on my own art and family. She sent me a goodie package of new arrivals for HG...


Check out the new colors of German foils!! Wow, the pink is so shabby chic and perfect. The birdie punch is so cool and when Shosh saw it she said she knew I just HAD to have it. She also sent me the current issue of Somerset Life which has some art by our favorite shabby gal, Pam Garrison along with tons of other inspiring and fun projects for infusing some art and style into every day life. I keep picking it up and flipping through it. The little gal is a teeny ballerina. My Hannah immediately took off with it but she was very cute. I think if you click on the picture it will get bigger. THANKS again Shosh.

The same day that I got this great package from Shosh, I also received a very recognizeable envelope. Those of you who read Pam Garrison's blog will know that this is from her. Back at ArtFest, Pam spotted a book of wallpaper I had in her class. I SWEAR she has vintage wallpaper radar... well she came over and asked where I had gotten it. It was a a book of vintage small prints that I had hunted down when I was working on Hannah's doll house actually. Anyway, she exclaimed over it but refused my offer to help herself fearing she might take my favorites. We then decided to do a little swap ourselves after we returned. This is what she sent me!!

Needless to say I was thrilled and all I can do it just look at it and stroke the flocking. I don't have nearly the collection she has. Sh can probably open a store! But I will share some of my treasured pieces along with some other vintage bits I hope she will enjoy.

Ok, thats about it for now. I am being "paged" by the little. Time to get on with our day.