Silhouette is having a SALE!!!

Silhouette is having a SALE!!! 

50% of eCut designs and more. 
EVERYTHING IS ON SALE...

You might want to stock up on some of Suzanne's gorgeous calligraphy words, or maybe her cards or images. I've included a few samples of cards I made using her designs. 

Hurry - I don't know how long the sale will last... (found out it's till March 17th)

Here's Suzanne's link on the Silhouette store.

http://www.silhouettedesignstore.com/?artist_id=230503&query_type=view-portfolio&page=products

Calgary Floods

What a mess. Haven't left my house in several days, luckily. I was watching the news last night and it was just devastating. So decided to go out to my ravine and check the river below. Noticed cars on the Deerfoot were almost at a standstill. I'm just a little north of Glenmore Trail that was supposed to be closed from 18th street to Blackfoot Trail. This shot is looking kinda north - north/east

Happy New Year

Hi there bloggers. I'm keeping this post real simple...

Here's wishing you and yours a very

HAPPY NEW YEAR

May 2012 be better than 2011, may it keep you healthy and safe and of course creative.

Scrapbooking dot com - About the artitst Suzanne Cannon

This an article by Judi Kauffman about Suzanne Cannon from Quietfire Design. Suzanne's rubber quotes and sentiments are what I use most on all my cards. Love her lettering.

A drawing student once asked me how she would know if something was art. I answered in a typical teacher fashion by saying she’d know it when she saw it. Suzanne Cannon’s rubber stamps are works of art. The first time I saw them I knew: Each letter, each curve, each tiny detail is evidence that a skilled human hand has created the calligraphy. This kind of artistry and mastery takes years of practice combined with a love of words. My instincts were confirmed when I called Suzanne in 2005 to interview her for a profile I'd been hired to write for a trade magazine. We became friends and finally met in person in January 2011.....

Read the whole article here. 

Papers & Pixels - online digital magazine

I just got my first edition of Papers & Pixels and was thoroughly thrilled with the information within this digital online magazine. I just finished reading it - cover to cover - and there was such a wealth of information, samples, freebies and good advertising. If they continue publishing it in this vein, I will be very happy I believe this is their fourth issue. There are a bunch of things I want to try from it.

BACK TO SCHOOL sale @ Quietfire Design

If anyone is interested and wants a bunch of great art supplies at fabulous prices check out the Quietfire BACK TO SCHOOL sale - I'm not talking about books and binders and stuff either... but wonderful brand name art supplies

Enjoy browsing. BIG GRIN

Bead Rollers

I keep meaning to do this blurb about the bead rollers and never got around to it. Chuck from http://www.xmission.com/~wa7jos/C-5/PaperBead/ sent me two more rollers, a smaller size and a larger size than the one he gave me a while back, and they are fabulous. I really love the small size and it even could handle the 140# Arches watercolor paper I was using.

And today I used it again to put curls on my rose petals... BIG GRIN that worked too.

He's selling them on his site in sets of 3 and I think they are totally worth it.

Tim Holtz Blog Candy

Did you see, Tim Holtz is giving away lots of blog candy on his BLOG for the next 12 days. He's doing his 12 Days of Christmas tags again. Today's tag is gorgeous. Lots of potential for off shoots. BIG GRIN.

I've entered my name and keeping my fingers crossed. Think I'll try a few too. Now to remember to check it EVERY day. Or I might have won and then missed the chance to collect my prize. That would be sooooo depressing.

I'm In LOVE!!!

I just had to share. I'm in LOVE... Most peop0le would think there's a guy involved. Sheesh - just give me art stuff...
Ok I mentioned last week I finally bought a Cricut Personal Cutting machine. And it works well with the one cartridge it came with. But I noticed a USB slot on the machine and started to google how to use it with my computer. Lots of info out there, but one that said you can download a free Vector program from Inkscapes which I did. Was playing with that for a bit. There will be a definite learning curve for that program.
But I also need to buy some software to download whatever I draw to my Cricut. Well I bought that yesterday evening from Craft Edge called Sure Cuts A Lot for $75.00 which was about $85 Canadian. (Michael's sells the Cricut computer program for $130.00, which I guess you can get a bit cheaper if you shop around, but I believe it's limited to access to only their cartridges). Tried it and it didn't work. Said I need to download firmware and stuff. I was tired and said "sheesh" and closed the machine.
Anyways, tried again this morning, and needless to say it worked. I was trying to cut using the "scissor" icon, so instead I used the drop down menu command and that worked. Forget about the firmware they were mentioning. My firmware was just fine on my machine.
OK so now I have all the True type fonts on my computer that I can cut including Dingbats and stuff. AND what's best is my machine would only cut 5.5" tall ovals (which were too narrow) from the "George & Basic Shapes" cartridge I had because I couldn't flip it. Now I can cut ovals that are 5.5"w and humungously tall. YES!!
I was also melding my letters (makes letters closer together for a more united word)
Then I said, now if only I could cut my calligraphic letters. So I did a large Italic "a", scanned it and opened it up in my vector program, saved it and imported it into my Sure Cuts A Lot program and cut. I can't believe I'm able to do that. BIG BIG GRIN
Ok I erased a few lines when I scanned it and the Cricut cut my thickness of lines instead of the outer and inner portions of the letter. So I need to work on figuring out how to only cut what I want. I'm not very savy on vector programs yet. Give me time. But it did cut it and it was recognizable if not perfect.
There might be some interference with my Adobe Photo Deluxe scanning program and the Sure Cuts A Lot program, because when both were open, I couldn't scan. So had to close down my machine, scan and then open the other program. Hey so I can live with a bit of conflict, which might not be there all the time. Will see if that problem persists.
Forgot to mention, the software overrides the commands on the Cricut machine. So even though you might say on you machine to cut a 2" letter, whatever the size letter is on your "mat" in the software program is what's going to be cut, as well as the position of where it is on your mat.

Fabulous Mail Day

What a fabulous mail day. You may remember a while back I was asked by the Tombow people to give them something for their office bulletin board, and I was dubious about sending anything. Then I thought better of it and did send them that Thank You card. Well I got a wonderful package in today's mail from them. A Tombow Mono Adhesive roller and 7 Tombows. What a great package. Thanks you to Karen Modica from Tombow. Here's the link if you didn't catch the card the first time round.

And in the same day I got my 10 VSN back issue magazines that I won last month. So I'm taking a brake from doing art and checking them out. BIG GRIN

Testing the scheduler...

This is a test to see how the scheduler works. First time round didn't work as anticipated. |BIG GRIN

Cochlear & Cappuccino machine

Weird. Normally I turn on my cappuccino machine in the morning, turn on my lights for my plants and work my way back to the kitchen to make my mochaccino. This time I was doing some dishes instead, and the light went off on my machine. I heard some kind of soft chiming sound and looked around, but couldn't figure out what it was. Next thing I know, the light on the machine comes back on and I hear that sound again, and it dawned on me my machine makes sounds other than the hissing and steaming sounds. Never realized it had more than just an on off light.

I forgot to mention at yesterdays dinner, I had turned my hearing aid thing to a focused (triangle shape) setting, so I have the noise slightly lessened in the background. Worked ok. I was able to catch most of what was said at the table which was a huge change for me. NICE!! And my back wasn't against a wall either, which is the prefered way of sitting for hearing impaired people. Lessens surrounding noises. It was also nice to under stand what the waitress said was the special of the day. I never could understand that and it used to frustrate me to no end.

OK that's it till later.

Technique Journal

A good friend just had a milestone birthday (I won't mention which) and I thought I'd make her something special. So I created this technique Journal, similar to one I have. It was a labour of love. I also made a box for it and finished off a card I had started in Betty Locke's class a while back. I wondered who I would be giving it to. Anyway, the paper I used to cover the cover was from the Paper's Transformed book by Julia Andrus "Radiant Batik" love that technique, so I included the instructions in the journal. I also included a whole section on the embossing paste series I had done a while back. Then some stuff from the Magenta class we all took, especially the pocket type card which I made from some hand made paper I did during a play day we had last year. And the recent origami tea bag type flower done with the nestabilites scalloped circle. And we had just attended a demo by Els the representative of the Peel Off's and she was showing her new line and some wonderful techniques. So I included them too. Now we have to have another play day so we can continue adding to our journals. BIG GRIN and it looks like we'll be doing that probably next week.

A friend of her's organized a surprise birthday party (and she was definitely surprised). We went to Alloy a classy type restaurant. Food was delicious, but NOT cheap. I had Ahi Tuna Tartar for an appetizer @ $9, Lobster Ravioli with scallops, shrimps and a mango cream sauce @ $32, and Creme Brulee @ $9, so with tax and tip which was included in the bill it was over $70 for lunch. That's not something I do very often, if ever. But I had things I definitely wouldn't make at home and they were done to perfection. We stayed for almost 3 hours, so was a ncie time. Then I went to work and got picked up later by another friend to go to our Guild's exec meeting. Got home at 9:45, and of course it was frigid outside and my heatings not working again. The guy is coming over today to hopefully fix the problem once and for all. Very frustrating when you can't rely on a new heating system working. Should have stayed with the old - totally reliable. No computer parts and over sensitive components that shut a system down.

Cochlear & Misc Art Stuff

Well I have 2 classes I've taught under my belt now, and I have to say, I think they went fantastically. It was such a pleasure to hear and interact with the students. Looking forward to the other classes I'll be teaching.

This past Friday I had another hearing test done - this one was sentence recognition and I got 93% on it. Needless to say I did super well BIG GRIN. And probably would have gotten a bit higher score if the person speaking on the test had a better voice. Also as I said one word in a sentence I knew right away I had said the wrong word. C'est la vie.

Now the results of the word and sentence recognition test were very good for the ego, but now they need to come up with a test that has noise in the background, like music, or traffic sounds or lots of conversations and then see what the results of sentence recognition or word recognition is. Would be interesting to see.

It was interesting this morning. I was peeling a red delicious apple, and lately they've been really tasting like sawdust. Not pleasant... But when I was peeling one this morning (my last one) I was hearing the crispness of it. A very interesting sound.

And as far as posting art lateley, haven't done much of that, but that's not saying I haven't been creating. I've been doing a ton of art, but not stuff I can post, since I'm making samples for classes I'm teaching, and a technique journal for a good friend who's birthday it will be in a few days. Thought I'd give her one of my journals where I've already put stuff in it - so she has no fear of continuing to put stuff in it. A new journal with blank pages can really freeze some people. I don't know how many times I've heard, "I've bought this gorgeous journal and still haven't put anything in it..." Anyway I did a Zutter coil book and put it into a hard bound cover decorated with a resist technique paper I made. It's oversized in thickness, so it has lots of room to grow and add lots of samples etc.

Cochlear & Misc Stuff

I can't believe a week has gone by. Days just disappear. Had the 2 days with Carl Rohrs, then work and a friend coming over the next day, work and a Quilling class the next, then Friday work and finally home, but too tired to do much of anything. Have been doing art all day today that is after I woke up late. BIG GRIN

The Carl Rohrs class was fabulous. It was just such a pleasure to hear EVERYTHING he said and to interact with the rest of the students/friends. I taped what he taught and am able to listen and understand that too. Took pics of the samples on the board so can link up the tape to those pics.
Usually I have finished products by the end of a class, but this time we were more into the experimenting and trying out different letter forming with both the pointed brush and a flat chisel edged brush. I'm familiar with both brushes doing tole art painting and a bit of calligraphy, but Carl definitely showed us all a lot of brand new moves which I've been trying to incorporate into some decorated envelopes I've been doing this week. We also got a wonderful book with about 100 pages full of samples. So I'll be practicing...
When I have two more minutes I'll upload some of the lettering I did.

But I did find time to make some cinnamon raisin danish for Monday's class, then a couple chocolate breads for Tuesday's class. Boy did they go over well - no left overs. I'm glad I cut off the ends before packing them so I had something to fill my sweet tooth when I got home.

And I heard the squeak of the hinges on my kitchen cupboards - not what I wanted to hear (just means I have to fix something I have no time to fix).
Had another ear appointment on Thursday and they did the "sound proof booth" test. I got over 85% correct. I missed 4 out of 55 words, like stump instead of stunt and add instead of at. Needless to say she was very impressed and thrilled. The first time I took the test when I had just the regular hearing aid, I didn't get one word. Just couldn't hear anything. So I can say, it's amazing.

I was talking to a friend who has a friend who just got switched on about a week ago and not a happy person. She doesn't like the noise. Doesn't like the mechanical sounds etc etc. She is at the point where she thinks of wanting to reverse the process. I can't fathom anyone that would want to do that. Yes it was a mechanical sound at the beginning, which has since mellowed out. And with anything that is new or different there are adjustments to be made. the success or failure of the device rests considerably on the ATTITUDE of the person. I went in with no expectations and was just so overwhelmed with the good results. I remember thinking I wasn't going to like all the noise. I had gotten really used to the QUIET of not hearing. But I can honestly say, I don't want to take my hearing aid off at all except when I go to bed. I hope she sticks with it and goes to the scheduled appointments where they put in different programs depending on your individual needs. It's a learning and adjusting curve that is huge at the beginning and then just tapers of. OK enough said.

Oh yeah, I made a delicious split pea soup with Kolbasa. Just had a bowl and am going down for another one.
I think that's all the news for now.

365 Day Alpha Jan 19 to 25th S to Y

Another week, another 7 Alpha squares. Just zipping along here even in frigid temps... Big Grin
Heating is still not fixed. The repair man is now supposed to come at around 1PM and of course the outside temps fell to -25 during the night so the inside temps went to a low of 51 degrees. Not funny.

Anyway on another note - creatively speaking: All were done with colored pencils this week
S - Both the sign and the road have the curve of the S shape.
T - The ribbon around a gift wrapped box
U - Had a few U's in mind but was in a mood for a calligraphic one instead.
V - Saw these lamps while waiting for a C-train and jotted them on my little scrap of paper.
W - Couldn't resist doing a W this way. Those bum cheeks are definitely an endowed w
X - I remember playing with Jacks when I was a kid.
Y - I again had a few ideas for the Y but wanted something a bit more graphic and so divided my paper into the 3 shapes splitting my paper evenly. When I was coloring it in, it just reminded me so much of a Martini glass, but I had already colored in the martini section with the yellows and oranges (not martini colors), so it ended up being a sunrise martini and I added the cherry.

Cochlear & Carl Rohrs Slide Show

Well I went to Carl Rohrs slide show last night - in FRIGID temperatures. Sheesh I don't know why I do that to myself, but it was well worth the discomfort. He had 3 trays worth and was talking the whole time. He was behind and to the left of me by a good 8 plus feet and I could hear and understand everything he was saying. WOW is all I can say. This is one of the reasons I went ahead with the implant surgery, I WANTED TO HEAR THE TEACHERS. I was yakking with my friends - it was just such a pleasant experience. Then two friends drove me home and I was sitting in the back seat with both of them in the front and we were actually having a 3 way conversation. There is such a big grin on my face thinking about that experience. I am soooo looking forward to hearing everything the teacher says on Monday, plus playing in class.

And on another note - my heating doesn't work AGAIN. I think this is the 3rd time since it was installed this summer. I'm starting to regret having changed a very dependable heating system that NEVER broke down in the 9.5 years I've been living in the house. I've got my heating pad keeping my feet warm and bundled into a bunch of thick sweaters. The repairman will be later this afternoon/evening. Hopefully it can be fixed and stays fixed this time.

So now I'm going to do a bit of creating finally.

Cochlear & a CD recording

Well I went out and bought my first CD album. Even when I wasn't hearing impaired I never bought a CD album, it was still tapes and records BIG GRIN.
Tom Jones - The Millennium Collection. Has some oldies but goodies on it and I remember going to one of his concert when he was in Montreal. Love his sound. Anyway, I've got this ear to ear grin on my face as I'm listening to it. Brings back memories, and I'm singing along here. Sheesh, who'd a thought I would enjoy it so much. I've never been musically oriented. If it was there, great, if it wasn't no big deal. Both my sisters barely can live without music. But now that I'm hearing it again -Green Green Grass of Home, What's New Pussycat, It's not Unusual, Delilah and a bunch of others, I think I'll pick up a few more.

The other thing I noticed today, I'm sitting in the LRT station, waiting for my train to come and I hear the clanging of the train bell and knew the train was coming waaaay before I saw it. Nice

My heating system broke down and I had the repair man in and he noticed these devices in my basement and asked me what they were for. They were sonic gadgets to keep mice out of my home. When I first moved in I had a mouse problem, but that's over 8 years ago and haven't had a problem since getting rid of them. These gadgets worked for 3 years approx, but I've had them a lot longer than that, but just never threw them out. Well he told me he was hearing sound from them. I wonder if there was sound when I first got them or if that's just an indication that they're old. Either way I CAN'T HEAR THAT SOUND... yet. So I guess there will be things I can't hear.

Cochlear - The Birds

Well another day and another sound. I went down to make my morning moccacchino and looked out the window and saw the birds in my lilac tree, patiently waiting for me to serve them breakfast... I don't normally do it on work days unless there's been a snowfall or extremely cold, but on days I'm not working, I'll put food in their feeder. So I made my coffee, cut up some dried bread and loaded up with some bird seed and went outside to put it in their feeder. I have to admit, In past days I thought I was hearing bird sounds, but I couldn't see them so I wasn't sure, thinking it was just some kind of humming chirping noises from my surroundings. But today I was positive it was birds chirping. Boy were they making a racket. Very anxious for their food I would imagine. Probably calling high and low to their friends, saying breakfast is here... since I hadn't fed them in several days.

I think I will really enjoy the spring, summer and fall this year, because I love spending time in my garden, set up with a big table, umbrella, my laptop, and art supplies around me, just doing my thing. After a while the birds are all around me too, and it will be nice to hear them sing.

Cochlear - gadgets

Wow I got a bunch of gadgets for my Cochlear. I can plug into the audio of a TV so no external sounds are heard. I was worried I might have the volume up too high for my neighbor... I guess I don't have to worry about that anymore. Got one to use with I-pods and computers and things. Got a microphone for when I go to a restaurant with a bunch of people. I can put this on a glass or something and attach to my hearing aid so I can hear the people around me better. Looking forward to trying this out. Also got a bunch of replacement parts.
Ditched 2 of the programs on my aid and replaced them with a triangulation sound area, so the sounds in the back of me are dimmed and the sound I should hear are more in front and up to my peripheral area, and as I move my triangle of hearing capabilities moves. Interesting. I also have one for when there is sound changes in volume, like watching TV and a commercial comes on a lot louder than the normal program. It will bring the sound down, level to what the normal program was. Apparently it only reacts with sound volume. Will try that out too soon.