What to do?

This weekend was unusual. I had Friday night to myself. That is soooooo foreign to me. My "child free" weekends start at 9am Sat. morning and end at 6pm Sunday. Whatever I want to do on my own gets crammed into that short time every other weekend.
So what did I do? Friea, Carmen and I spent some quality time together while I finished up some pages for a swap.

I was giving myself a hard time earlier in the week. It felt like nothing was inspiring and I wasn't feeling very motivated. Um, yeah.... I'd forgotten that I'd taken my newest Dover book to the copy machine and played around with enlarging some of the images that afternoon. What was that about lack of inspiration?
My students were finishing up on a portrait collage this week and I came across a few magazine images that I set aside. I'm beginning to understand that those little papers need to be glued down right away instead of getting filed to be forgotten.
The challenge was taking a lot of different colored rectangles and integrating them with the black and white photo copied image. Circles reigned supreme, (I'm addicted). Once all the papers were glued in place, I used my handy dandy Sharpie to draw lines and images similar to the ones in the pictures. In some cases, shapes that were cut off were continued and repeated.

To show what a true romantic I am, I went to bed with markers. I have 100 watt bulbs in my bedroom but they're the eco friendly ones. I feel like I'm in the dark. They do not give off the same amount of light. So what's better? Having to turn on more lamps to get enough light or go back to regular light bulbs? Or I can continue to feel my way around in the dim light...
In the end, I grabbed some markers and colored the collage. My idea of living on the edge that evening. The colors work. Reminds me of some 70's fabric we had at home back then although the green was darker.Saturday was busy. I spent the morning taking a class with Josie Ciricione at Frenzy Stamper. I've been wanting to take this class since last Spring and the dates finally fell into place. The images are collaged transparencies sandwiched between glass. The shapes were cut out of the book cover and the glass pieces were soldered into the cover. Ooh la la!

Of course there was time to shop. Here's some of the goodies I picked up:New Cuttlebug embossing plates, Maya Road chip board books, Tim Holtz unmounted stamps.

Sat. excursions included getting haircut, enjoying a veggie burrito and horchata at Mangoes, stopping by Mystic Paper and finishing off with a visit to Scrapbooks, Etc. When in the east valley, shop in the east valley.
This was a good idea! Now you can buy the individual letters and make up your own albums. I picked up this and the list book at Scrapbooks Etc.
Fun reading but I've only made it through the first couple of pages. The Chicklet has a cold and I've got a sore throat and I'm starting to croak like a frog when I talk. It's good to have something lighthearted to read in bed.

Marissa