Just a quick post for Blog Action Day. The premise: what difference would it make if thousands of bloggers blogged about the environmment.
We only have one mother earth. We must take care of her.
I have been wanting to congratulate Al Gore for his Nobel Peace Prize. We have him to thank for turning the tide of popular thought. Love you, Al. why don’t your run for President. We need you.
Now, tell me one thing you are doing to help save Mother Earth. I am going to give up bottled water.
After church, Mr C dropped me and my supplies off at the Contemporary Craft Museum. Wendy gave a slide show/lecture of her work, open to the public, at noon and the class began immediately after.
My brain is already percolating ideas for using the transfer methods we are learning.
After an introduction to all of the techniques and some show and tell of her samples, we got to work on our first technique – transferring images with Golden Gel medium. We did two different things — transferring directly to fabric and a process of layering the gel over an image to produce a gel decal. Here is a teaser of the images that I am turning in to decals. I didn’t take photos of the fabric in process.
Top image is a photocopy, the color image is from a magazine and the umbrella is a photocopy on special paperless paper, made for transferring images.
I also added paint to the gel to make a color decal:
More fun tomorrow.
I took this photo of the tiles in the restroom. I love them.
Yesterday was a lovely day. Not perfect, weather-wise, but a nice day to head out to the Hood River Fruit Loop for some apple and pear picking.
Before we left, the UPS guy brought me a package from one of my fave blogger friends, Dee. it contained not one, but two birthday cards, one silly and one sublime. She made me this beautiful table topper which she calls Very Gerrie Lime! Look how gorgeous it looks with my lime green bowl filled with fall gourds.
I love that leaf fabric.
Thank you, Dee!!
Then, Steph and M & M picked me up and we headed out to Hood River, the fruit mecca of Oregon. At the STASH meeting, Beth gave me a coupon for free apples and pears at the Mt. View Orchard so we had a destination and a purpose.
Here are M & M in the van on the way.
The scenery was beautiful.
Here are some pics from the orchard – all clickable to see larger.
During our lunch, this brown lab took a liking to Steph.
I bought one of these big sunflowers to hang on my fence for the birds.
Here are some of the Red Delicious Apples and Red D’Anjou Pears that I got for free. We picked 44 pounds of apples and pears which only cost us 25 cents a pound – what a bargain!
Last night Mr C took me to one of my fave restaurants, Caprials. I had grilled Romaine salad, grilled tuna on a butternut squash cakes and pound cake with pears — all yummy. I had to use some of my extra WW points, but it was worth it.
Today, I have been getting ready for my class with Wendy Huhn. I had to get some laser color prints made. I hope to have some fun images to share as I go through the next few days. I also am still uploading cds to my IPod. I got a thing for playing the Nano in my car. I love having all my music at my finger tips. Now, I have to figure out how to get it to work with our stereo system. I will have to go to Radio Shack and get a cable then I will be in business.
I have had a nice day. My STASH group met here today. We didn’t discuss our book. We had a few things for show and tell, but we did the most important thing — we talked a little, laughed a lot and had a great time catching up. I prepared a tortellini soup, pear, green bean and feta salad and an apple tart for dessert. I should have taken some photos before we consumed the goodies! And they were all WW recipes!!
This afternoon, I added the finishing touches to my last Round Robin collage piece. As I mentioned yesterday, I did two and it is a good thing because I noticed today that the first one I did was the wrong orientation on the page! Here it is. I used some of my Chinese Good Luck papers, and some motifs and a dragon that I printed. It also has an embroidered dragon, a red tassel and some old Chinese coins.
The other piece is my favorite. The first layer is torn tissue paper in 4 different colors. Next, I cut some curvy strips of a piece of art cloth which I glued down in a circular design. I then monoprinted a blue similar circular design. The final layer was copper foil. I painted glue with a brush and after it dried, I added the foil.
I decided that it needed a little more depth and detail so I stamped various designs using Tsukeniko inks.
I need to get these shipped off to Rita as she has been waiting a long time for her work to return.
The other activity that is occupying a lot of my time involves this:
I used some of my American Express points to acquire this shiny red IPod Nano. I am in the process of uploading all of our cd’s. I was complaining to my son-in-law, Jack, that I was having a problem managing all of my cd’s and he suggested that I upload them to an IPod and use it to play music in my car and on the home stereo. Brilliant!!
Tomorrow is the real Columbus Day and my birthday. It is my last year in my 60’s – eek! However, when I was shopping at Mill End’s yesterday, the clerk said – You aren’t 65, are you? Ha! I almost didn’t admit it, but I wanted the discount.
M & M are out of school and so we are going to go out to Hood River and hunt down apples and pears and pumpkins and have a birthday picnic. Doesn’t that sound perfect. Mr C will take me out to dinner in the evening. I am a lucky old broad.
Oh, you probably didn’t even miss me. I have been futzing around. I made this Weight Watcher’s zero points vegetable soup. I was down .8 pound today. On Sunday, I ran into Chico’s and grabbed an outfit a size smaller than I normally wear, and it fit!!!
I finished the curtains for our bedroom redo:
This was complicated by the fact that Penney’s did not have enough of the hooks at the store whee we bought the rod. So, on Sunday we drove across the river to another Penney’s, and they didn’t have them either. Every other color except Sienna Bronze. Then we went online to order them, only to find that they were back-ordered until the middle of November. I then called the Vancouver, WA store where they had them and would put them on hold. So yesterday, we drove out across the Columbia River and picked them up.
Here is the rug which we found. It has natural dyes and is silk and wool, loomed in India. I love it.
Now, we are waiting for the new track lights to get here so that we have reading lights over the bed.
I have also been working on my last round robin piece which is a collaged page for a journal. Since, I am the last and there were two pages left, I am doing two pages – just because I can. I will post photos tomorrow. I am waiting for some glue to dry so that I can foil one of the pieces.
Today, I took my camera out to photograph the glorious fall color. We have berries in just about every color you can think of. All photos are clickable to see a larger view.
The trees are wearing beautiful colors, too.
Someone was growing a great pumpkin.
And how often do you see toy horses hitched up on the street?
Actually, you can find them all around Portland. Go here to find out more about the horse project.
Today, I have been cooking and cleaning because the great ladies of STASH are coming.
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