What to do.....

We're sleeping in a little late today but I woke up around 6am. I have the evap on and I can open the doors and windows and get some sense of the outdoors while we're inside. Let's see how long I can keep it on before I need to turn on the air conditioner.

The Chicklet has to make a little detour to the orthodontist. She broke a band we need to get fixed. She's settling in with the braces and is back to eating like her normal self.

My school building is closed on Fridays. I finally got in there this week and cleared out my classroom to get the floors waxed. It's off limits for awhile. So I'm homebound with plenty to do but I get sluggish at home. Or is it overwhelmed and paralyzed? Yes, there's that much to do!
There's plenty more books to finish! The Chicklet's completed book. It's chillin'! She's already started to draw and write in it.
The bank releases the funds today and the landscaping crew returns Monday morning. Ray, the designer, and I were on the phone yesterday brainstorming. The front and the backyard designs have been completed but he and I are still throwing ideas around. He's as into this design as I am and I love that.

He came up with 2 ideas for the wall that will surround the courtyard patio. One was exactly what I had originally drawn in my designs but I thought it was so crazy, I never showed him that. Then he picked up on something from my design board and we both loved it! Collaboration-FABULOUS!

He's also my voice of reason. I suggested a screwbean idea. (As in a screwbean Mesquite tree). He gently told me why it wasn't a good idea. Wha! OK, but I'm insisting on some kind of agave/aloe/he says "yucca" that I fell in love with over two years ago at the Boyce Thompsom Arboretum that has blooms that look like bananas and spikes on the leaves that look like black polka dots that I also saw at the botanical garden and this girl must have her bananas and her polka dots! (Whew, getting into a bit of a frenzy there).
Speaking of "Frenzy," He's gonna start thinking I'm a stalker......Mr. Mike was at Frenzy Stamper last night working his collage beeswax magic. So I followed him there and took another class. Did I mention he's teaching at Mystic Paper tomorrow? I took that class a few weeks ago and I haven't shared those collages yet. Oops! I'm going to have to bug him to offer a beeswax workshop for those of us who have taken the class but don't have the set up. I'm hooked on this technique.

Above is project #1. It's not finished. I'm not thrilled with it...yet.
We did a quick project and worked on a flash card. The moth is a part of a photocopy, the green at the bottom is a piece of wax paper that I'd used when painting pages in Kelly Kilmer workshops. Everything is encased in a layer of pattern tissue and wax. I love this little piece.I picked up these boards at a local scrapbook store. They're 1/4" thick and 11 1/2" x 11 1/2", half as thin and a bit bigger than the boards Mike uses. I worked on two pieces at a time. As long as I pay for the extra supplies, Mr. Mike is cool with that. This one is going to hang in the Chicklet's Pink Palace. It still needs something. It'll come to me...
Last time I took his Beeswax and UTEE workshop. Here's the two pieces I worked on then. This time I brought my own images but I need to copy on card stock.The lines thru the Chicklet's face are from the stamping I did before adding the papers. Regular copy paper becomes transparent. Good to know!
I was curious to know how metallic papers work with the wax so I used some Christine Adolph paper for the background on this piece. Next was trying an experiment with plastic mesh from the produce section of the grocery store. No trash goes unnoticed by the Artologist!

If the Chicklet looks a little youger in these collages, she was. She was about 5 years old in these pics but they have very fond memories attached to them. My mom took the top pic and the bottom one was from a romp at the beach the Feb. we went home for my aunt's funeral. The beach has always been a place that feeds my soul.Marissa