Hello snarky peeps. I'm back. Somewhat.
It's been over a month since I've blogged. We took our annual vacation to
the beach towards the end of May, and while we were driving down, one of my sisters
called to say that my Dad was being moved into hospice care.
I've mentioned this a few times before, but my Dad had Dementia. We knew
this was going to be happening, as his health really started taking a nose dive in March.
The day we left the beach, my sister called again to let us know that his health was
failing, and that he had stopped eating and drinking the Thursday before. On May 30th,
my Dad passed away peacefully in his sleep. The amazing staff at the
VA hospital/Alzheimer's Unit in Manteno, Illinois has taken such good care of my Dad
for the past year, and I'm so grateful for all they've done to make him feel safe and comfortable.
Needless to say, we flew home later that day, and I stayed for almost two weeks
with my Mom, for the memorial service, and just to make sure she was ok.
As weird as this sounds, she did well, perhaps because she had already been living
on her own for the past year.
I know he's in a better place now, with his family and friends who've gone
before him, laughing and joking and dancing. I miss him so much.
And now that I've made you cry, I want to make you smile.
One of the things that I inherited from my Dad was his arty gene. He played drums
in a jazz trio at one point in his life. (I play air drums like nobody's business) He loved to dance.
(I love to dance too. I'm no good at it, but I still dance. (wink)) He also liked to draw and doodle.
That more than anything keeps him close to my heart, since I'm an artsy fartsy gal.
And speaking of Arty,
it's time for the next challenge at the SISTERHOOD OF SNARKY STAMPERS.
A is for ARTY
We want to see your mixed media creations!
I just started to come back to my craft room, from lack of mojo, and really
I just wasn't ready to come back to it. In early May, I started an art journal page
for week 5 of the One Badass Art Journal class I signed up for.
(yes, it's finished now, 19 weeks of arty goodness, but I'm slowly catching up)
This week's class was taught by Cristin Stevenson, and it was fun to finish this
page finally. The main tutorial was to use a transfer technique using a printed
picture and matte medium to transfer it.
It was an epic failure for me. The lady above was not the image I tried
transferring. Luckily, I had foresight to print out a backup image, you know,
in case it didn't work, which it didn't for me.
first layers: gesso; stencils spritzed using black and turquoise sprays; torn up library
card applied with matte medium. The library cards are a gift from Mimi!
(Check me out. I actually used one! LOL!)
This was the image I tried to transfer.
And this is how it turned out. Epic failure.
At this point I covered it up with gesso, dried, and glued the other image to my
page using matte medium.
This was as far as I got before I came back to it last week.
added paint and moon phases, using a toilet paper tube to trace the circles!
Ta-dah!
used a chevron stamp and bubble wrap for the next layer
found a cool quote to use and wrote it on
added some doodling around the moon phases and it was done!
So now it's your turn to get inky/messy/painty and have fun! We'd love to see what you
come up with. Just add your project at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers so we
can admire it! Need more ideas? Then do yourself a favor and check out what my Sisters and
our Guest Designer, Toni Maddox, have created for your viewing pleasure.
You won't be disappointed!
This page is dedicated to my Dad.
I love you to the moon and back,
to infinity and beyond,
for ever and ever.
