Metal embossed doodles

I had a small group for the Metal Embossed Doodles class last weekend but it was great fun and so inspiring for me as usual. Since it was a smaller than usual class I was able to teach a few more techniques than I usually do for this workshop. So in the final creations they used some free-form designs and some molds. Here are a couple of the finished pieces.

Kim

Laurie

Have you been having a creative Fall so far?

My Fall schedule is up. Keep an eye on it for some additions in the next week or so.

Keep Creating!

Wendy

Piano Hinge Book workshop

I've probably said it before but I'll say it again, this is my favourite book to make. It's a little tricky and takes longer than you may think, as my students at last weekend workshop found out. Just when you think it looks like it's almost finished it's time to weave the skewer through the signatures to make the binding. It is tricky but well worth the effort. This is a real conversation piece. It was a fun group of women and they did an awesome job.

Donna

Kim

Linda

Sharon

I'm working on a few other book variations and hope to be able to add them to the Spring or Summer schedule. So if you're a book lover, keep you eye out for them. I never get tired of making book.

Wendy

First copper texturing jewelry workshop.

I was so pleased with the results from my students at my first copper texturing jewelry workshop. It's always a bit of a challenge to do a workshop for the first time and these women made it easy and all went very well. They each made a bracelet and pair of earrings. It was fun and inspiring to see the different designs and textures that were created. 

Joanne

Olive

Patrice

Wendy

This was so much fun that I'll be adding another date for it in April.

Happy Creating!

Wendy

One more metal embossing workshop...

This weekend, I had my last metal embossing workshop in the studio for the year. We mixed it up a bit again and had some doing the book and others doing the mirror. What great results were achieved by the end of the day! I never get tired of seeing the diversity of peoples creativity with the same medium.

Cecilia

Donna

Julie

Laurie

Miranda

Sandra

As usual I'm inspired by my students and have a few new ideas bouncing around inside my brain. 

That leaves one workshop left to do in the studio this year which is the Christmas Mega Tags next Sunday Nov. 24th.

Don't worry though the Winter Workshop schedule is already posted and ready for sign ups.

Happy Creating!

Wendy

Christmas Open House

It's that wonderful time of year again when I open the doors to my home and studio and let in some of my creative friends for you to meet, mingle and shop. This year I have 5 friends coming to show you their creative side. So there will be lots to help you with your Christmas shopping list.

Check out some of the lovelies that will be here on Sunday.

Graphic and colour pencil art by Sheila Cain-Sample

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Knitted socks and scarves by Sharon Michaelson.

Prints by Bruni

Clare's Old Farm House Soap

Gabry Road

And me Dragonfly Dreamers

I will have a purge table of items that need to go to a good home for a good price. .

Also you can be the first to view and sign up for the winter workshops.

If you'd like to get a reminder on your facebook page you can you can join the event page.

Hope to see you Sunday.

Happy Creating!

Wendy

A little studio update.

I don't think I will ever be finished setting up my studio. Well that probably goes for everything in my house and life. It's all about exploring new things or just changing it up a bit. With the studio I still have some things I want to set up a little better or organize some more. It's so hard to know how I want things until I use it for a while. As I moved in, their were some things that I knew how I wanted them displayed or put away but some things just came up as I needed them and they haven't found there best place yet. So it's a work in progress which just like me.

This week the Tin Man helped me with a few little projects. 

 We made this large bulletin board for my office corner. It's about 3.5 feet by 6 feet. I plan to use it as a business and inspirational board. It seems very plain right now so I'm thinking of putting some kind of boarder on with lace but I know once I start pinning thing up it will look better.  

And then he put this display shelf up for me. I like the idea of having a shelf so it's easy to change things up when the urge strikes me. I hate to commit to just a few holes in the wall for hanging thing and then having to find similar sized things when I want to make a change to it. 

So that's my small studio update for now. So are you a hang it and leave it kinda person or do you like to change things up regularly?

Happy Creating!

Wendy

Studio renos...

It's started, it's started!!! My studio renovation and move is under way.

I can't remember if I let you in on my big news for the year or not. I've been telling everybody that would listen all winter about it. The Tin Man is letting me out of the cave studio in the basement. I had a wonderfully large space but I wasn't happy in the basement and the Tin Man finally broke down and let me have the living room and dining room for my studio. It's a beautifully sunny space and nice and spacious. I was kind of slow at emptying the rooms but last week I finally sold the dining room set so the Tin Man surprised me this week by getting it underway. So far the carpets are ripped up and the walls are painted. The trim is being painted as I write and the flooring is waiting to be unloaded from the van. It's all happened so fast that my head is spinning. 

 Here is the paint finished but the trim isn't done yet. I was going to go for a white or off white but once I started looking at the colours at the paint shop it was so hard to decide so I went with Charrington Beige. It's was looking a little greenish to start with but it's better now that all the old green is gone and two coats are on. This is the Tin Man's new bike he's suppose to be using to get his knee back in shape from his surgery so he can play baseball soon. It will go in the basement once I make some room for it.

 Beige just seems so boring but I think once I get things in, it will be more fun. I wanted something neutral to go with anything I might want to hang on the walls. Check out my studio Pinterest board to see what my inspiration is. I got a little carried away with pinning old drawer cabinets but I think you'll get the idea and a girl can dream right!?

Well I better get back to work. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Keep Creating!

Wendy

Big changes for 2012

I have some big news for my studio for 2012. I'm moving my studio up from the basement to our living room/dining room area. Yes the Tin Man has finally broken down and allowed me to come out of the dungeon-I mean the basement. I have had my studio in the basement for many, many years and it's a wonderfully large area but it's the basement and feel like I'm in a cave. So needless to say I'm ecstatic about the move. It's going to be a lot of work and I'll try to keep you posted on the progress. Right now I'm trying to empty out the living/dining room to get started on painted, lighting and replacing the flooring. It's like down sizing without moving. How to find a place or purge some things to empty two rooms! Hence the picture of my bookshelf in the family room. I'm afraid I didn't think to take a before picture but trust me it looks a lot better than it did. I found these large 12"x12" cube shelf hard to display things in because I had so many little nicknacks. After getting some inspiration from Pinterest(come and follow me, but be warned it's addictive) I decided to make it more about us, I used lots of books since we are huge book lovers. And as you probably can guess I'm a big vintage and antiques lover so that's the themes I went with to fill up the bookshelf. I tried to put only things that have some meaning to us here. Well having said that the books don't necessarily have meaning so much as being symbolic of books and antiques. So this is what I've been playing around with for the last couple of weeks and yes you can imagine the mess the place has been in during this process.  Now I'd love to get your feedback on my end results...too cluttered, unbalanced, anything at all you can share would be great. Although I'm fairly happy with it I'm sure I'll keep tweaking it some.

Now to get pack up all those things I don't have room for any more!

Thanks for helping out.

Wendy