I guess I have beaches on the brain—this photo of a set of sandy steps is from my time in Virginia Beach. I tweaked the exposure and temperature a bit, and adjusted the sepia levels so it looks a bit grittier. Here’s the original:

Nice, but not as atmospheric as the altered version. Funny how a few simple changes can turn a photo from something so-so into something I’d want to use in my artwork!

Happy Friday!

Well, my head is still full with stuff I learned…and a few things stood out for me, and I wanted to share them with you. So bear with me!

1) Save $ on baby wipes…get yourself an inky binky!

My inky binky...I'm saving on those baby wipes! (At least for crafting.)

I don’t know about you, but I go through about a million baby wipes during my craft time. Well, I used to. Now I use  an inexpensive, lightweight cotton towel and a water spritzer, like we did at Ranger U. Tim referred to it as an “inky binky” and we used them for everything from wiping off stamps to blotting ink to swiping away glitter to cleaning our craft sheets. Super handy…and this is an easier, less expensive (and more earth-friendly) way to keep tidy. Afterwards, you can just wash the towel and go again.

Tim says he gets his inky binkys at Wal-Mart. Since we don’t have Wal-Mart here, I’m using one of Anna’s cotton “monddoekjes” (or “mouth wipes”) from when she was a baby. I think you could use a tea towel or bar towel too—the key is that they’re lightweight and don’t shed a bunch of fluffies like terrycloth.

2) Don’t save your alcohol-inky felt pads

Yikes, these are flammable!

I was always in the habit of saving the felt pads from my alcohol ink applicator. I’d toss them into a plastic container, and when I went to alcohol ink something, I’d dig around for a pad that had some similar color on it. I thought I was being all thrifty and ecological, but it was pointed out that alcohol ink is flammable, so having a bunch of dried-up inky felt pads sitting in a plastic box on a table covered with paper next to a heat gun might not be such a swift idea. Apparently someone discovered this first-hand, which is a whole other story.

3) The earth is round…or, you can store your inkpads right side up!

I’ve been stamping for ages—and it just goes as gospel that you store your inkpads upside down so the ink stays at the top of the pad, right? Ah, no, actually. It seems that a long time ago, A Stamping Company That Shall Not Be Named developed an inkpad holder that—guess what—held the pads upside down, and it was their marketing that brainwashed taught us to always store inkpads this way.

It feels so wrong, somehow...

Anyway, I was super-surprised to hear the Ranger people mention that can store your pads right-side up. I was so surprised that I made sure to ask about it again, and was told that yes….an inkpad is like a sponge, and when you press the stamp onto the pad, it releases enough ink. “Is this for all inkpads, or just Ranger inkpads?” I persisted. All inkpads, they assured me. Well, they’re the experts! But seriously…I must have a very small life, because hearing this was like finding out the earth isn’t flat.

4) Cheap hand sanitizer cleans craft sheets!

This one I haven’t tried but I plan to, so I’ll share it anyway…you can clean your craft sheet with Blending Solution, since it removes ink, paint and all kinds of stuff. But that’s kind of a waste of your blending solution and kind of expensive, so you can also clean up with a cheap hand sanitizer. Cool!

Hope you enjoy the tips, and happy Wednesday!

In light of my recent visit to Ranger U, I’ve changed some things around with my Art Workshops by the Sea workshop. Not a whole lot…but now the focus of the 3-day class is going to be Ranger inks and techniques, plus Hot Off The Press stamps and Lazertran waterslide decal papers. We’re also going to do some painted backgrounds, and you’ll leave with samplers of all the cool new techniques you’ll learn.

Sooooo…here are the details on my 3-day workshop, “Mixed Media Techniques with Ranger Ink”—

We'll make a sampler book of techniques with Ranger inks, Distress supplies, alcohol inks and other cool stuff!

Explore, create and discover a wealth of mixed-media techniques! If you make art journals, ATCs, handmade cards or collages, this workshop will inspire you with a variety of versatile techniques.

You’ll stamp, ink, texturize and collage your way through the weekend, using Ranger’s alcohol inks, Distress Inks, sprays, paints and pens, plus Lazertran waterslide decal paper and the latest stamps from local company Hot Off The Press.

Our weekend will feature three areas: Creating a sampler portfolio of techniques from our Lab Time experiments; using Lazertran to integrate photos into your artwork and exploring texturizing techniques with found objects and stencils.

We'll also make a sampler of background painting techniques. Perfect for art journaling, cardmaking, collage, ATC's and more.

Student supply list:

• Apron to protect clothing

• Scissors, glue stick, double-sided tape

• Mod Podge or Gel Medium (either is fine)

• Acrylic paints (craft store variety are perfect): White/cream and 4-5 favorite colors

• 1” and ½”-wide brushes for paint and gel medium

• Two 5”x7” canvas panels (Fredrix is one brand)

• Gloves (optional)

I’ll bring all Ranger products (inks, paints, sprays, etc) and stamps to share. You’ll have a class kit with papers and other materials to work with.

Where and when:

• When: July 20-22, 2012

• Where: Florence, Oregon

• Cost: $299

• Organized by: Art Workshops by the Sea. Visit their website for more info, or to register.

I hope you can join me for this weekend—between all the fun techniques we’ll explore, and the beautiful Oregon coast, I’m sure we’ll all be inspired!

Ranger U…wowie.

What an experience. Three days of non-stop education, hands-on techniques and learning from some of the industry’s best: Tim Holtz, Claudine Hellmuth and Dyan Reaveley. We sprayed, inked, stamped, embossed, made melt art, painted and alcohol inked. We got messy, inky, glittery and very, very excited. And this event could not have been better organized—they made our time count as we whizzed through nearly 80 techniques, which are all tagged, bagged and labeled for reference—which means I could sit down Monday morning and plan out my next columns for Crafts Beautiful and Stamp & Scrap Arts, and plan a Mix Your Media workshop at Art & Soul and detail out my class for Art Workshops by the Sea. Yay!

Tim demonstrating...he led us through technique after technique, and made it manageable to process through nearly 80 techniques in three days.

Yea for color! Love love love these inkpads! (And now I know more about how to use them!)

Some tags from the session with the lovely Claudine Hellmuth, including gesso transfers, sticky-back canvas and her delicious new paints.

Ranger's newest signature artist, Dyan Reaveley, who makes stunning art journals. Her new line of ink sprays is divine!

One of Dyan's gorgeous art journals.

Hey, it's official—I'm a Certified Ranger Educator! (That ring of tags on my right hand holds just some of the techniques we learned!)

The graduates!

I'm all packed!

Tomorrow I’m headed to Ranger U—yay!!!!!

I can’t tell you how excited I am…three days of inky, painty, distress-y fun!

I've got my trusty apron...it's made from oilcloth so it's easy to wipe off any ink or paint.

I've got a brand-new notebook for taking notes (I LOVE shopping for notebooks!) plus my journal that goes everywhere with me.

Plus books and magazines for the plane ride (I read a lot!) and for my wild evenings.

And my first stop after Ranger U is Art Workshops by the Sea—in July, I’ll teach a three-day workshop called “Mixed Media Techniques with Ranger Ink” and can’t wait to share all the cool stuff I’ll learn.

Happy Wednesday and see you next week!

PS. One thing I won’t bring? This computer! I’ll post again next week when I’m back!

Workshop proposals for art retreats are due early—sometimes, almost a year in advance. For example, I sent off my class proposals for Art and Soul 2013 on Friday. And I’m teaching a 3-day weekend retreat at Art Workshops by the Sea on the Oregon Coast in July. I planned the workshop and wrote up a schedule for it way back in December.

There are a lot of logistics around scheduling and planning these kinds of things, so I totally understand why it has to be planned so far in advance. But I had a sinking feeling that the Art Workshops class just wasn’t strong enough. And knowing that I’m going to Ranger U this week, I thought it would be much more appealing if the workshop was based on the techniques I’ll learn there. I stemmed and stewed about it, not sure what I could do, until I thought—well, let’s just see what the organizer says. Is she okay with some changes? How disruptive is it, administratively? And does she think what I think is on track?

So I asked. And while this might not seem like much of an “a-ha!” moment, I realized that it is possible—and important—to take a pause and get a second opinion…before it’s too late. I mean, I can ask about changes three months in advance—but not three weeks, and definitely not three days. Sometimes it’s easy to get tunnel-vision when you work alone, and think things are set in stone when there just might be a chance to make some adjustments.

Lazertran techniques will still be a big part of the workshop—we'll combine them with Ranger products (plus more!).

And I think it made my relationship with the organizer stronger. She knows that I’m working toward the success of the event as well as the success of my classes, and the interests of the students, and that feels pretty good.

So…if you can make it to the Oregon Coast in July, and want to get the low-down on what I learn at Ranger U (plus some other stuff!) then please join me for a weekend of mixed-media techniques! Click here to find out more–just scroll down until you see “Mixed Media Techniques with Ranger Ink”. I’ll post up more project examples when I get back from Ranger U, so stay tuned!

Happy Monday! We’re celebrating Queen’s Day here in the Netherlands, where Amsterdam is awash in orange!

Trees are a favorite photo subject for me. I love the balance between change and permanence—how trees change appearance with the seasons but still seem so reliable, sturdy and immoveable. I also like taking photos of tree branches against the sky…whether that’s a newly-blossoming branch or a stark winter one. This is the latter, but that crisp blue sky just seems full of potential, doesn’t it?

Happy Friday!

And for most parents, a day “off” is generally filled with activities like cutting peanut butter sandwiches into tiny pieces, mopping said tiny pieces from the floor, and dealing with diapers. Yes, that’s my glamorous life, too.

Well, on Monday I took the day off. I’d been feeling so tired lately—lacking energy, craving unhealthy food, and being (if I can admit it) kind of cranky. Okay, really cranky. I had workshop proposals to design, emails to answer, expense reports to fill out, projects to photograph and dinner to prepare. It felt like there weren’t enough hours in the day, and I wondered (for the hundredth time) whether this tentative balance between work and motherhood was ever going to work.

I think I felt like 99% of all mothers.

So on Monday, Keith and I had a review meeting at Anna’s nursery, where they give us a progress report on her activities (a glowing report!) and then we went to the Amsterdam Museum and to lunch at a favorite cafe. A date! I wore a dress. And heels. And felt, for the first time in a long time, that I wasn’t rushing to fit this and that into timeslots determined by the length of a nap.

Should I have been beavering away at those workshop proposals and project photos and emails and the other items on my mile-long to-do list? No, actually not. I needed to have some breathing space between me and my work—my work work and my parenting work—to talk about politics, books, art, Costa Rica, the amazing displays at the museum, history, alternative transportation and food. Not what’s for dinner, where’s Choo-Choo the stuffed monkey, can I get this done during morning nap or afternoon nap, and all the usual topics that crowd my mind.

That day was a pretty big deal for me, and although we say “let’s do it regularly!” I know that can be hard to do. But when I came back that night to a full email in-box and a table full of half-completed projects, I felt refreshed and (unexpectedly) full of ideas, like that pause had somehow recharged me.

I’d suggest you, too, might need something like a day off, whether you’re a parent or not. We all get bogged down in the daily minutiae, and it can be so so so hard to justify taking time off. And while a whole day might seem like a lot, I think it’s safe to say that an hour or two break could also help. Breathing space. Re-energizing space. Stepping back space.

Here’s to time off and renewed creative energy—and a happy Wednesday!

Heat embossing, Distress Inks and Lazertran—one of the surprising techniques from this workshop!

Want to see an intro video on the class? Okay!

Lazertran Techniques for Stamping and Collage is an online class where I’ll teach you how to use Lazertran photo transfer paper with photos (of course) plus stamping techniques like embossing, Distress Inks, alcohol inks, Glimmer Mist, chalk and Pan Pastels. It’s perfect for handmade cards, ATC’s and art journals—or you can frame them or put them on a canvas.

Here are a few more examples from the class–

Interested? Then visit Creative Workshops to find out more and to sign up. And while the class officially launches today, you can sign up whenever suits your schedule! Hope to see you there!

PS. And no—this is not the same Lazertran class I taught in Virginia or Portland. Those are all different techniques!

Searching for sunshine on this rainy Friday morning…with gray skies and rain predicted until next Wednesday, which is as far in the future as I could bear to look! Photo taken—surprisingly—in January, at my parents’ house in Oregon.

Happy Friday!