Summer Time and the Living is eeeeaaaasy...

Becky's jumping, and the water is cold...

Here we are working from the remote home office on Squam Lake where the hardest decisions to make are whether to jump in the water off the dock or walk in gradually from the beach.

My brother-in-law has it a little harder as he plays single parent for a few days to his 5 year old, potty training 2 year old and a new chocolate lab puppy named Sancho.

Despite all this I am working on new and interesting projects. I just finished the manuscript and art for The Card Makers Workbook (april 2008) and we did our first photo shoot. I'm absolutely loving the shots we got and look forward to teasing you with the new cover once its ready to show off. Now I have to sit in front of the computer and finish the last 30 templates and icons that should be downloadable for the book.

Looks like I may have work as a columnist for one of my favorite magazines real soon as well.

More on all this very soon. Right now I need to go apply sunscreen on the wee ones!

Before...

This is a panorama stitch that Matt took of the new carriage house. if you look straight back, you can see little white rectangles along the back wall. Those were the windows in each of the 6 hours stalls. They used to wash the horses down by the mirror on the left hand side. What does this have to do with my creative work and this blog?? Well, besides taking up a ton of time checking and re-checking my drawings, this is the before picture of my studio! The studio will be on the back left corner of this floor. It will open up to the kitchen on the right side of the studio which will be perfect for art parties and the like.

Yesterday was my birthday and I FINALLY had a chance to go see the Joseph Cornell exhibit in Salem. WOW! It was wonderfully huge and although the lighting was a little dark and a little congested with visitors it still filled me with the desire to get some painting done.

I spent and hour pulling apart on of the old stable walls to use in my art on Friday. It felt good to be destructive. I wasn't sure that I wanted to save it but I did and after going to the Cornell exhibit, I'm glad I did. I think it will end up being both wooden boxes and surfaces to paint. Once the basement is done I'll be able to set up my compound miter saw and get busy constructing!

I really can't wait to try it out.

It will be nice to have a workshop again too. I feel like I've had my hands tied behind my back without all my tools. Did I mention that I'll have a sink in my studio too? and for my birthday, my very favorite "in-laws" have offered to get me an easel! Which I will love and adore but my favorite present was my order by post-it note to STAY IN BED MOM, and my breakfast in bed.

It's good to be the queen.

(at least for a day!)

Time Flies!

I can't believe I haven't blogged in over a month. My sincere appologies. I am still walking Tigger but we are looking for a middle schooler who can eventually take over. I do love walking him though.
School is coming to a close very quickly and it seems that there is some sort of a picnic planned for every day of the next two weeks!

The other big news is that we have finally closed on the carriage house we were planning on buying a couple streets away. We had a big Deconstructionist party and let the kids knock down walls (with safety goggles and masks on). I promise to post some of those pictures when I get them from Matt. We passed papers on June 1st and the entire upstairs was already demoed by yesterday the 4th! The guys on the crew are amazing and we are working on a house blog so that you can follow along with the progress if you're interested. More on that tomorrow.

I am just about done with The Card Maker's Workbook that I'm writing and I must say that I'm pretty happy with it. I'm also happy that the powers that be at Quarry books aren't making me change my whole entire artlog which I had completed before they remembered to tell me that they changed the procedure! YIKES! There are over 150 cards packed into this book and that would have been a lot of renumbering.

I also had a chance to hit the New York Stationery Show for the first time ever and I came across some really great products out there. It makes me want to open a store! I'm spending my time now considering setting up a Designer booth at CHA this year. We'll see how things go this summer and whether or not I can swing it.

Now I'm off to work on a new project and a demo tape...more to follow on that soon, hopefully!