A Dilly of a Store . . . and Meet Lisa!

A very unassuming store front, Ye Olde Paint Box, bills itself as Collectables and More, is really filled with MORE. We discovered this little gem as we were driving through Longview, Washington on Friday afternoon. The store is located at 1203 California Way and Leanne Westerbur is the proprietor (she doesn't have a website at this time). Her store is the former location of a paint factory that her parents owned (and thus the creative name). We stumbled in, expecting to find a room or two of stuff. Well, there was stuff alright, but room upon room of stuff and most of it was at least 50% off. Yikes Almighty! I love a bargain, especially when I love the items on sale. Walk with me through the store . . .













Then, as we were about to leave, I discovered a door that said to keep it closed to keep the heat in. I asked Leanne if there was more stuff on the other side of the door and she gave a sly grin and said, "Oh, yes." It was a warehouse full of even more goodness!








And there, in the corner I saw her.

And of course, I had to have her.

Back home, I scattered some of my purchases around my studio. . . .

Today, when young Mister Emmett arrived, he was intrigued by my new doll. When I asked him what her name was, he didn't hesitate. Lisa. So please welcome Lisa to my dollhouse.

Trust the Process!

Last Thursday was the first session of our Visual Journaling Bonus Night (the class was to have been four sessions, ending a week ago, but the women staged a mini rebellion, asking if I would offer two more evenings of play . . .I consented). Joining in the fun were two additional women who have taken Visual Journaling classes with me in the past.

We started our evening with a writing exercise, which we then covered with paint and embellished with positive words and quotes.


Then the real fun began! Laura, a friend and a member of my Artist's Way Sacred Circle, had told me about a creativity-inspiring exercise called Abracadabra Collage Technique. The process is from Sally Jean Alexander's book, Pretty Little Things. The technique involves writing out about 20 techniques (each technique is written three times!) on pieces of paper (i.e., ink, drawing, paint, sand, smudge, magazine, texture, 3-D, pattern . . .) and then drawing one slip of paper at a time from a beautiful vessel. This process is repeated, randomly drawing a slip and then doing what the slip says. You have to work rather quickly to get through all of the slips of paper (we didn't quite get through all of them!), but we made a lovely mess and created some beautiful pages.








Thanks, Laura, for sharing this great exercise!

Dancin' Diva

What is it about red sparkly shoes? I don't know, but there's something about them that just make me swoon. Could it be remembrances of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz? Whatever the connection, I love them. So when grandchild #4, Gabriella, and I decided to walk over to Reruns for Kids, we were delighted to find a pair of the most divine pair of red glitter shoes imaginable - and they were just the right size for Ella!

The Artist's Way: Recovering a Sense of Compassion

We were a small group last night and although we missed our three AWOL ladies, the rest of us enjoyed an evening of storytelling. We used an idea I learned from Gretchin Lair of Scarlet Star Studios, where everyone cuts out images from a magazine, glues the images onto business cards, then we lay down our cards and create a story based upon the images. Here are our finished cards:

And because stories can be such fun, here is the story created by the women using the above images. The story is entitled More.

More of everything, more of life. Malcolm liked to be more silly than anyone else he knew. He began each day with wildly passionate dancing. And his parents were always there, happy to know Malcolm was a creative child sharing their fortune while eating macaroni and cheese. And his sister Abigail was very creative and could balance toilet paper on her violin while she played and Malcolm liked to retreat to his bedroom where he loved to crawl into his bed with his mother and sister not intruding. But Oliver the dog wanted to play, however, instead he pissed in the flowers. Malcolm’s mother would have none of that! The neighbor, Mrs. Jones, drank coffee and watched the strange fun wishing she was at the beach touching her toes with Malcolm’s Dad. She realized she would settle for fish on the BBQ and putting her feet up on the porch swing and dreaming of Earth, Wind, and Fire.

Last week, the ladies painted mandalas on record albums. However, we ran out of time and everyone was encouraged to finish their mandala at home. Two women finished theirs and brought them to share.

And finally, Sinatra the Alley Cat, made only one brief appearance, but did not stick around long enough for a photo. Maybe next week she'll join in . . .

Round Robin: Rotation 5

Alert! Alert! Laura, I know you are a faithful reader of my blog so read no more unless you want to see the pages of your altered board book!

Okay, warnings aside, I just finished my two pages in Laura's book. But first, a few photos of what came to me before I jumped in and started playing on my two pages. The cover of Laura's book is above, a very cool mixed media piece. The next few photos are what others have done in Laura's book.




And then I did my two pages (using collage sheets from ArtChix Studios) - the fabulous bird ladies!

Only one more rotation and then we'll be gathering to open our completed altered books together for the first time. I can hardly wait.