My art journal calendar filled up fast this summer with lots of activities with friends and family, creativity, travel, reading and sketching. (June above)
It may be awhile till my next post. I'm off to Mexico with Cynthia and Robin. We're bringing our journals and art supplies. My next posts will include photos and journal pages from our trip.
Port Townsend, Washington holds a special place in my heart. I've traveled here to Fort Worden for ArtFest many times. This weekend, I shared this favorite corner of the world with my book group friends to celebrate one member's 60th birthday.
We stayed in Col. P.W. Phisterer's Officer's Row house, built in 1904.
The sky became as important as the landscape with ever changing cloud formations and colors.
a spectacular sunset Friday night.
walks on the beach...
views of Mt Baker in the distance and Whidbey Island...
a little bit of heaven on earth to share with you.
My creative muse is back. Yeah!!!! It seems like I always leave the preparations for our Portland Art Collective December Show to the last minute. It's much better to be organized and have a plan. I've taken my sketches over several years and used them to make buttons and magnets.
These little 3x4½ inches notebooks, I covered with copies of my sketches. They fit great in handbags for keeping lists or jotting down information for future reference (something I have to do to remember my thoughts).
Tuesday, we sketched outside St. Honoré Boulangerie in Lake Oswego. The morning never warmed up. We sat with our hands wrapped around coffee cups, talking and sketching a little. Lake View Village and the town of Lake Oswego offer wonderful sidewalk gardens, flowered pots, downtown art, a variety of restaurants and shops. 
It's hard to see the weather change to rain and darker days. I really appreciated our summer in July and August. These flowers bring a little bit of sunshine into my life today.
This weekend, I completed a Mary Ann Moss- style travel journal for an upcoming trip to Mexico. Several months ago, I took her "Remains of the Day" shabby journal online class.
Here's what the journal cover looks like opened all the way. The tie is made of Dupioni silk, free-motion stitched with black thread.
For this journal, I wanted to add more pockets for postcards, photos and other ephemera that I collect on the road. One of Mary Ann's ideas that I really like is using security envelopes with windows. Every part of this journal is made from fabric or paper scraps from my studio.
For some of the pockets, I used UPS label envelopes with a glued back and clear front.
For other pockets, I sewed decorative-collaged paper on each end and across the bottom. On this page, three pockets await to be filled. Now, I'm ready for Mexico!
Z'anne Bakke's beautiful "The Archeologist's Find" necklace is the Portland Art Collective's September giveaway. For more information about the necklace with turquoise nuggets, copper and coral beads, read Z'anne's blog story Here. To win this gorgeous necklace, leave a comment on the Portland Art Collective blog Here . Good luck!!!
For the past month, I've been taking Stephanie Lee's online class called Homesteader's Metalsmithing. She's offering another class starting September 8th. I highly recommend her course- good quality videos and PDF files. We learned how to make soldered bezels, patina them and add resin.
I flooded the key above with solder, stamped the word 'Dream', added patina and a soldered link and beads.
The butterfly is a brass stamped image that I added to a solder-flooded piece of metal, added patina and eyelets. All will be made into jewelry that I'll sell at our Portland Art Collective Art Show December 3rd and 4th at Multnomah Art Center. With fall here and school starting, I feel like getting back to work to create items for our show. I like this homesteader's metalsmithing.