We are back to our home in Florida and to enjoying our life at the "resort".
I am not sure if it is the abundant sunshine,
the warm temps or our turquoise pool that makes me feel like this way
but I am trying to practice living in the moment so that I can really relish this resort living.

This weekend, when we weren't riding to the beach to check the big surf,
I was working on a new bracelet.
It is made on simple elastic thread and "e" beads
and strung with little felt beads.

Be sure to check the website for the pattern which should be available soon.

After making my bracelet
this is how my studio table looked on Sunday night.
Are Tracy and I the only ones who can fill up a large horizontal space in a matter of minutes?

We would like to thank all of the people that responded to our last blog,
with either an order or a few kind words.
Your support was very uplifting
and it helps us to continue doing all of the things we need to get done everyday.
Thanks for being a part of Artgirlz Nation!

We couldn't do it with out you.

Midge and I arrived in RI about 5 days ago. It has been heart warming to see all of our friends and family. We must be getting to be more Floridian than we think because we are looking at the New England country side like it is the hills of Worcestershire. We keep comparing the temperature to Florida and all of our friends add to this by asking us "is it this hot in Florida?"

It is good to be back at Artgirlz World Headquarters, around all of the creative energy that Tracy and Linda have been cooking up. The bad news is our business has been slowing over the past year and now it is getting so slow that we are constantly fighting off stress, worry and big questions about what the future holds.

"OH NO"

We have worked so hard over the past five years to build Artgirlz Nation and it is hard to think of letting it go. We have built our little company from our little investment in our basement. We learned all aspects of business as we went along, from how to design a fabulous trade show booth on a shoe string, to how to get, organize and print UPC codes. It has sometimes been stressful but often fun, invigorating and worthwhile. It has given us the opportunity to travel and meet new people from around the world. The greatest gift through all this has been the loving encouragement we have received from our customers.

I keep trying to find a space of comfort. I find myself worrying all of the time. I try to be grateful and know that there are others that have it so much harder than I do and be open to the idea that all is well in my happy little life. My self-will can't fix it but Powerball is $217,000,000 and I have a ticket.

While the wonders of Powerball and the quirky ups and downs of the universe do their thing, we are having a great sale...as we carve out some breathing room, ideas are still floating, diving, whirling around just waiting to come into being!

Any tips?

PaperArtsy Stamps are in the House!

We have had the pleasure of meeting Mark and Leandra about 5 years ago and have loved every minute that we've been able to spend with them on both sides of the pond. Picture above was in England in '07 I believe. We visited their lovely home in the middle of a field with 4 children and and their rubber stamp studio/production area! To watch Leandra work is most amazing. She is fast and produces wonderful mixes of materials. Mark's brain is filled with wonderful and abundant amounts of information about all of the techie things I always want to know about. They both make a mean rubber stamp from beginning to end. Sadly we haven't seen each other in a while but they are still rockin'!!!!

We finally put our collection of PaperArtsy Stamps (p. 3) up on the website. Rosie and Linda put some great PaperArtsy/Artgirlz Bundles together that will give you lots of creative options! They include two random mini stamps with lots of other materials for making ATC's, Inchies and a blank Book.
Because this stamp makes a great background visual texture we used it on all of these samples!
These surfaces were colored with Ranger Distress Ink sponged onto the paper.
PaperArtsy bubble stamp with Ranger Distress Ink
Random application of gesso with credit card
OR
"Splodger" as it is called in PaperArtsy world.

Simply add Artgirlz Charms to make one of a kind jewelry pieces!
Check out their website to see the whole collection of stamps and other goodies.
The PaperArtsy Blog is filled with visuals and great ideas!

ATC layered with inchie, Artgirlz and PaperArtsy Stamps

Check out their website to see the whole collection of stamps and other goodies.
The PaperArtsy Blog is filled with visuals and great ideas!

OK, now there are no excuses.
The boxes are empty and all of the important tools are unpacked
and in place (if I could only remember where).
So it is time to get to work.

I thought I would share with you a couple essential tools
that Tracy and I find helpful in our studio.

The first is a black board.
This is where we keep an on going list of all the current things needing attention.
If our schedule is crazy, it can be quite full.
We use it to keep our focus.
It helps us to stay on task
because we are constantly being drawn to some new creative idea
or off to something that needs to be taken care of at Artgirlz.


We even use them through out our homes.
Tracy has one in her kitchen that always has a loving reminder to focus on.
As you can see I have been worrying to much.

To make your own,
all you need is a wall and some black board paint.
You can find the paint in any hard ware store.
We like to use chalk pastels to write with because they offer such yummy colors.


The next tool is a felt wall.
I just installed mine last week.
I couldn't find old fashion paper gypsum board so I used ceiling tiles.
They were easier to install because they were smaller.
It is simple to do.
I just use dry wall screws and an electric drill to attach it to the studio wall.
I make sure I hit an occassional stud to give it strength and then
it is off to the fabric store to find felt to cover it. Look for felt that is 72" wide.


We use this felt wall to create on.
It is perfect for fabric projects because the fabric naturally sticks to the felt.
So you can put up different colors and textures
and stand back to get a better perspective.
Or paper projects
because it is now a giant bulletin board.
You can use pins to fill it full of things to inspire you.



Mine is filling up with a project I am doing for Bernina with my
aurora 440.

ARTGIRLZ CROWN KIT!
Royal Greetings from Artgirlz Nation!
We wanted to share the photos of these crowns made by Susan Kennedy from one of our Crown Kits! She made one for a friend that was turning 65 years old,
and who doesn't want a birthday crown at any age...
so, she made another one for the Birthday Girl's 4 year old Birthday grand daughter!!!
Nice work Susan! and Thanks for sending the pics!
I think that we have three kits left and they include beautiful hand painted paper!!
Midge and Al are heading for CHA tomorrow to see what's happening in the wholesale craft world...
Sue and I are heading for Atlanta early early...

Summer is full on here in Rhode Island...well, it has been very very rainy and it was 52 degrees this morning when I got up, but the tourists are here full on and the gardens are a bit out of control! I have actually gotten my butt up and into my sneakers every day this week. This lovely salt pond is at the end of our street and on the walking route! The Atlantic Ocean is just over the dunes in the distance! I don't think my iphone photo translates all of the beauty, but you can get an idea. Not a bad view to help the exercise program along!!

Sue and I decided to paint our room and move back into it after the Midge and Al left for Florida!
We went from School Bus Yellow to Pink. After spending 5 minutes looking at wall paper books, I thought I would just paint something. I started out with white on the pink, but it only showed up about 15 minutes a day if you happened to be in there at that special time. Then I went at it with color and I grew to hate it even more....so it took me more time to cover up my over sized flower garden than it did to do it in the first place! Some of the best ideas.....
Lots of weeding and pruning to take care of!

It has been a long, tiring
and emotional six weeks
but
Midge and I have made it to our new home in
Florida.


We are even unpacked
and ready to enjoy life here.

One of the first things I did in the stuio
was make a cloth tiki for our
good friend Linda.



I have been dying to carve a tiki after seeing them all over Cocoa.
But time, tools and skills stood in my way.
However, I came across
cloth tikis
while searching for tiki inspiration on the web.
Mimi Kirshner had made these great tikis in wool.
I was inspired.
So I set to work creating my own Artgirlz tiki.
Linda loved it.

Happy Solstice from Soggy Rhode Island! We have brief moments of sunshine all month, and one of them in all ways was a visit from Lesley Riley! What's not to love about that!! After taking a class at Pro Chemical she landed at Artgirlz World Headquarters. We had a great 24 hours talking family and business. I was very grateful for the opportunity to talk with another artist trying to figure out the next direction!! Miss Allison made it up from FLA in time for the visit and Linda got to meet one of her heroines!!! Good day!

Al has been around the Rhode Island Headquarters this week. We had to prepare for our class and continue slogging through the process of figuring out how to do our business when we are miles apart. That has been somewhat painful but coming along. Lots of pots on the Artgirlz stove...trying to make good decisions around the mix of ingredients...that would promote mental health, creative satisfaction and a profit!!! I keep telling her to get a grip but she just won't listen! Did I mention that we are both tripping off of our anti-depressants?#$@? Who knew???

Our class went well! We got to paint paper outside in the morning and proceeded to the secret underground location to continue working with paints, stamps, bubble wrap, stencils, gesso....etc.etc.etc. The folding and combining of the painted paper and the pages pulled the pieces together! We of course had a delicious lunch...rice salad, bean soup/stew...(stewp as Christy came up with!) Christy's ginger snaps and Linda's Mother's Blueberry Cake...It seemed like all brave attendees had a great time. We thank them for joining us. We missed Ellen, Sallianne and Jacqui...

Arty Goodies for the Garden

Greetings from rainy rainy cloudy Rhode Island!

Midge and Al have unpacked their Pod in Florida and Sue and I are moving things here and there, filling in empty spaces...picking up treasures at flea markets and garage sales. Al and I had to split up all of our fabric, beads, threads etc, so I have been trying to make sense out of the stuff left in my work space and trying to set it up so that things are easy to find and use. What a concept. We have been so busy with Artgirlz for the last five years that we really haven't had time to use all of the must have objects in our collection. I am hoping that will change a bit!

Last month on another rainy day, I brought the base of this old bird bath into the house with my collection of broken plates and tiles. It was very satisfying to break down the dishes and cover up the grey! What a great way to recycle old dishes and miscellaneous garden objects!

The base is finished and waiting in the green house for a great topper. Hasn't shown up yet!Linda is coming by today and we are going to get the goodies together for our book class next weekend. I am hoping that we will be able to work outside for a bit, but the weather map isn't looking good. But, staying in the moment, it will be fun working with papers today!

If you haven't seen the latest copy of Studios from Cloth Paper Scissors, you should check it out! There are stories and photos of a wide variety of work spaces and a couple of lovely shots of us doing a project in the garden!

It is a most beautiful day here in Little Rhody...my latest office area is on what was a screened in porch and was done over with windows and heat last fall...not too shabby. Windows all around. Can see the bees, the chicken coop and if I turn to the right, I can see and hear the pond and waterfall!!

So many things have happened since my last post! Allison, Linda and I went to Somers, NY a couple of weeks ago to do a quilt show. We had heard nothing but wonderful things about it, and it was as lovely as we had heard. We had a booth set up to sell Artgirlz Goodies, and we gave two presentations. They seemed to go well, but of course I thought of a million things that I would change if we were to do it again! The hard working women that put the show together were gracious and helpful. Hopefully we will get invited back! The quilts in the show were very good. The work was wonderful, thoughtful, creative, and inspiring!!

Midge and Allison spent last week packing up a POD with all of their stuff! It was amazing that all of that stuff came out of this house and we still have plenty of stuff left here. Now they are waiting for the POD to arrive in Florida and then they can unpack it into their new place....exhausting.

But, they are excited about getting set up! Sue and I moved furniture and rugs around last weekend to fill in the gaps! It is very strange in our quiet house!

We spent last week helping Cathy, George and Dan get ready for their plant sale. We stuck a lot of nicely painted price tag/tongue depressors into plants. Moved things around. Put up Signs. Weeded and cleaned up paths. Had lovely lunches and the Sale was a huge success! It was crazed for the first two hours. As things slowly calmed down, plants marched home with happy shoppers, pizza was served from the outdoor pizza oven and it seemed like hundreds of home made biscotti disappeared from the scene!!

SELF PORTRAITS!!

Allison in various mediums and colors!

The weather is seriously wonderful here on the coast of Rhode Island and it is hard to concentrate on work work. We have 10 yards of compost sitting outside just waiting to get spread around!!!
But, back to Artgirlz and the Nation. We had a wonderful Self-Portrait Class last weekend! It was very gratifying to see hands and spirits at work! We used fabrics, papers, the sewing machine, glue, gel medium, the scanner, and the camera through out the day. Christy was once again our competent lunch server and superior scone maker. Linda brought oatmeal cookies to help the energy levels up.
We started off the class by doing an exercise from "Mixed- Media self-portraits" by Cate Coulacos Prato. Kelli Perkins instructs how to do a portrait in a mirror with transparent paper and a marker (p. 51). Tape the paper to the mirror, close one eye and outline your face. It is quite an interesting spacial and visual exercise.

I love this image of Jackie with the crack in the face! She mixed paper and fabric and was having a great time with our Bernina and the Stitch Regulator!! What a better way to do needle doodling!!

Linda (above) first did a drawing, added color, rubber stamps and and outline of the original sketch. She painted up leaves and machine stitched plain and painted leaves for a hair do.
Friends Elaine (L) and Alayne (below) showed up a bit nervous about their Artgirlz Adventure but I think we managed to put them somewhat at ease and they just rocked!

We were lucky to have the two big cheeses from "Art Is You" join us. Ellen and Sallianne dove right into their projects and shared some of their visions for their most wonderful fall gathering in Connecticut! Sallianne added some wonderful words about the class on her blog... and below you can see two images of her work.

Ellen's smiling self!
I believe that a good time was had by all! We formulating plans for the next class in which we will work on book components and celebrate the Summer Solstice!!!

Does anyone have any self-portrait tips?
Bye Bye for Now!

COCOA BEACH...WARM BREEZES...FRESH OJ...SWIMMING POOL

Sue and I headed to Florida with Al to check out the Artgirlz Southern Headquarters and say Happy Birthday to Midge! It was very relaxing...reading, sudoku, hanging around the pool, jumping in the pool, eating, walking, biking, and generally enjoying the warm weather! It was all about palm trees, surf shops, fresh orange juice!

The girlz have been working hard on their new digs and it is almost ready to welcome their furniture! As it is, it is quite easy to move things between the porch and the dining area...modular living at its best!
They have reported that garage sales are excellent sources of furniture and odds and ends and that garbage picking is an endless source of creative supplies! Just walking around the neighborhood one finds palm tree parts, leaves and pods that are just begging to be wrapped, painted cut up and put back together.

Sunday morning we checked out the Cocoa Beach Farmers Market and came home with some delicious mangos, beautiful hydroponic lettuce, and oranges. Al bought some local organic honey as a gift and Sue and I brought fresh lemon grass and brought it home. We've stored it in the freezer for a refreshing addition to home made treats!

We arrived home last Monday to very rainy, windy, New England spring conditions!! And back to work building Artgirlz Nation!

PEAS ON EARTH!

With spring in full swing, it is all about the gardens! Raking leaves, digging, moving rocks, trees, shrubs, constructing new veggie gardens, planning, scheming...Sue and I planted peas a week or so ago, and Allison and I have been forming lovely large pea pods out of fabrics, felt, wool beads and threads...Ours happen to be green, but in this wild world we live in, I don't see anything wrong with blue, red, or yellow peas, or a combination for that matter!

Al made up some patchy fabrics from a variety of green cottons stitched onto a piece of batting.
A piece of green cotton was used for the backing. After cutting a pod shape out of the pieced cotton, the top edges are finished with a binding. Stitch along the bottom of the pod and add your peas. This particular pod has four 3.5cm and two 2cm "peas". The leaves are just shapes cut from patchy fabric and the tendrils are "tubes" filled with a piece of wire.

The pea above was put together with a sewing machine, embellishing machine and hand stitching! I used two layers of green felt for the pod to give it stability. The word "peas" and the leaves were needle felted with an embellishing machine. The machines are great to play with and don't use any thread, just 5-7 needles that punch fabrics together. The possibilities are endless!!!
On this side, I went over the letters with French knots.

The other side of the pod has needle felted leaf and pea shapes with a bit of hand embroidery. I used a Bernina decorative stitch around the top of the pod and to hold the piece together. The peas can be stitched or glued in place. Using Artgirlz wool felt beads, you can make pods of all sizes!!!

Check out our Peas on Earth Economic Recovery Package!!! ONLY five bucks...with goodies to make a little pea pod pin, and charms to help you through these tough times!

Have fun! I think that we are going to do a survey...have to figure out the details, but would love to hear from you!!!