Fun at April's

Page spread from Karen's folded paper journal.
 
This week we got together at April's.  She baked up a pineapple upside down cake to share with us.  Wow, that was delicious!  Thanks April!

Cover on Jan's folded paper journal using one of her hand cut stencil/masks.

April's completed shell angel.  This will make a great ornament for her Christmas tree this year.  Only about 284 days till Christmas!

Here is Mary's shell angel, beautifully framed.  Nice work ladies!  Thanks to Sharon, Mary's friend, for donating the shells and beads and idea.  It was a fun challenge!

April has been enjoying some doodling on decorative card stock using her Signo Uniball gel pens purchased at Jet Pens, where they have great prices.  We all love the white gel pens, they are the best for writing over just about anything.  These will be great additions to her card making.

This is April's folded paper journal, as she works in it.

Karen was busy making Easter cards.

Pinky continued making the iris folding cards.

She is becoming quite expert at it!

Mary brought some knitting to work on.  This will be a wash cloth.  Pretty colors!

Jan too was knitting, beginning a new hat.

April has a unique characteristic:  She collects dead birds.  Yes, you read it right, she collects dead birds.  She doesn't kill them!  No, she only collects fresh ones that she finds dead.  Here she is holding a bagged Gray Jay she found on her deck.  Evidently it hit the window too hard.  She looks like the cat who bagged the canary!

What does she do with them, you might ask?  That is what we all ask her, anyway.  She has great plans for them although she hasn't fully decided just what those plans are as yet.  In the meantime she keeps them in her freezer.  Here you can see two Varied Thrush, one Stellar Jay, one Western Tanager, a Red Shafted Flicker and one Evening Grosbeak.  We tease her mercilessly about this hobby of hers.

When Jan came across this picture in a Smithsonian magazine she couldn't help but alter it a bit before giving it to April.

We love her anyway.  

That's it for this week.  Be sure and return in two weeks for our next exciting adventure in art!  Happy Spring break!! 

A Painting We Will Go.....On Karen's Deck!

What a fun day!  Monday, Jan brought all kinds of beautiful colors in spray bottles and shared them with us. April gave us each a little watercolor tablet and we went to town.  There was lots going on...some of us were just spraying paint, others were using stencils, others were laying down items and spraying over the top...each doing their own thing.  It was so fun!  Yes, we had paint from one end of the table to the other.  Someone even got a little on the deck...wonder who...

The pictures below are of various things we all did.  Forgive me, but I really lost track of what was who's.  I think you will just enjoy looking at them.

There are three different colored stencils used on these pages...

 The red was really a big splash and fun to use.

 Jan is telling us about her paints and giving us some suggestions...

 April gave us each a neat little water color pad to do some painting on.  Thank you, April.

 Jan brought lots of spray bottles with her with various colors.  She even did purple and teal for April .

 Karen put her flags up in her studio.  Doesn't she have the most wonderful view to create by?

 We are ready to dive in and get creative.  Once we got going...there was no stopping us.

 There's that red splash again...what fun!

 We all agreed the one on the right looks like a perfect tree...

 Oooooh...More red splash.  Blowing on it produced such a neat effect.

 There was one blue spray bottle and one purple that made circles when we sprayed...love it!

 Below is where we dried our papers in the sun.  Worked great...

 No denying these are April's...tell tale sign is the teal and purple, leaves and dragon flies...

 Can you see the bird on this one?

When I was putting the pics on, I had a bit of trouble at first and duplicated two...sorry.

The red ink Jan provided came out in a big splash, but was fun to work with...

We are meeting at April's next week.  Jan won't be with us and we will miss her, but must charge ahead!  I think it is a free for all day unless April has something in mind.  We all are supposed to be working on ATCs made out of the paper we did this week.  That should be so fun to do.  We will exchange them on Jan's birthday bash...coming sooooon.  See you next week!

Making Bird Seed Hanging Cakes For Our Fine Feathered Friends...

I am ashamed...I was having so much fun making these things that I didn't take any pictures. I am hoping Jan will come along behind me and post any that she took. It was a fun day here at my house (Mary's).

We all mixed up bird seed, gelatin, a little corn syrup, & water and put them into cookie cutters that are open on both ends. It was fun because they all were different shapes, so each of us took home one of a kind bird treats.

I am enclosing a picture of mine when I turned them out to dry this morning. Now, they have to dry 72 hours before hanging them out for the birdies. This was a very fun project!

Oh, and yes...a little elf left me a beaded wooden sewing spool with an angel on it...thank you, Jan!

Karen's To Pinky...Tin Trade...

The little tin that Pinky received from Karen was decorated with a bird carrying a purse. As the others, it contained many little goodies to use on future projects. All of these tins turned out wonderful.

Nita Gives us a Work Shop in Squash Books...

What a great day! We started with April's ATCs and each had our pick. Nita Parker came today to give us a workshop in Squash Books. We all did a variety of versions and had such a great time. To top it off, we were blessed by the presence of Grosbeaks out April's window...beautiful! Tuesdays are the best!