If Idle Hands are Bad, I'm Looking Good

It was another one of those weeks that just would not end. Having an overnight meeting in the middle of the week just makes five days last forever. I could not wait for Friday night to get home and organize my studio. A week of mail and art supplies had piled up, as well as a bunch of stuff from vacation. I can't work with a mess about me, so the first order of business was putting everything away (so I could get it back out. I know, I know.)

My first batch of supplies from Hannah Grey had arrived http://shop.hannahgrey.com, and I was ready to see what I could make with the stash. As a Design Team member I have 35 days to make something with each of the materials I receive. So, I used the HG blank tag book, collage sheets, Paris charms and ephemera to make this circa 1947 notebook from Paris Fashion Week. I imagined what kind of notes a young ingenue interning with Mlle. Coco Chanel might be taking, along with fabric swatches and sketches she might be keeping. The good news is you can buy all these supplies and more at http://www.hannahgrey.com.

I was hoping to work on my 28 original pages for the Arte du Blythe fat book I am hosting. I am 1/7th done, which is not much! I have some supplies and art gathered but realized with other deadlines looming, I needed to move on to something else.

As one of six artists asked to be in a Marie Antoinette 8 x 8 round robin, I realized I only had a few days left before I needed to mail my pages due to leaving for Art & Soul http://www.artandsoulretreat.com April 30. I'd had this wire dress from from Stampington sitting around and knew I wanted to use it. Thankfully, the muse kicked in and one of my pages is done, which is 50%, a lot better than 1/7th!

The multi-talented Lisa Kettell http://faerieenchantment.blogspot.com is hosting the Marie book with plans to either submit it for publication to L.K. Ludwig for her book on collaborations or for Lisa's own second book. Either way, the pressure was and is on. Every artist is so talented, and without slighting anyone, least of all Lisa, I must say that Debrina Pratt's http://whimsicalworldoffaeries.blogspot.com artwork makes me crazy with excitement! Knowing my Marie pages would be alongside hers was very intimidating. Debrina's style is just one in a million. I love her colors, her characters, even her use of fonts. See what I mean? I'm just crazy about her. But, baby Marie came out all right, so on to page two and the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say.