I got a notification the other day, that I am a finalist in the Cloth, Paper, Scissors Mini Book Challenge. It's the first time I ever submitted anything to that particular magazine, so I am pretty excited! It's less than 4" wide x 5" tall, and all the pages were illustrated by me. I had so much fun developing my own fonts for this project.
Here is just a peek at the book I sent... Hopefully more later, they asked I send it in to them for publication consideration.
Kathy couldn't resist the sweet siren song of the Moon Pie Originals.... Here she is buying dessert before we go to lunch! 
We walked across the street to a yummy smelling barbecue place, and were not disappointed in where our noses had led us! Sticky Fingers Smokehouse had several interesting things on the menu that had us curious. Kathy's hubby tried the deep fried corn on the cob for us. He gave it thumbs up! I wondered how it didn't come out popped like pop-corn! All of us enjoyed our meal, the portion sizes were huge! I felt guilty about leaving alot on my plate, but in 100° + weather, it just wouldn't keep!
We walked outside and wilted, but bravely decided to walk to the gallery. (Because a kind local told us it was only a couple blocks away.) He failed to mention it was STRAIGHT UP HILL! He did mention an elevator, but the only one we found was a sealed little plexiglass booth with no air or electric and it looked like we would bake to death before reaching the top! It was an interesting walk among the impressive old homes, and we saw alot of wonderful architecture.
As we entered the cool air of the wonderful River Gallery, all of our senses were delighted! There was sparkling water and lemon, delicious smelling pumpkin appetizers, wondourous art for the eyes to behold and sculpture that begged to be touched! Hand created windchimes and drums were enchanting to listen to their different tones. All this, and we hadn't even gotten past the front room! 
After chatting with Anne a bit, and viewing the entire gallery twice, and making a purchase, we took our leave back out into the heat, and walked along the river. Beautiful breezes made it feel like it was only 100 instead of 103!
As we walked back to the car, we made one last stop for a mega box of Moon Pies! All in all, I think it was truly one of the most perfect days enjoying life and alot of the wonderful things it has to offer! 
By the way- did you know you can microwave a Moon Pie? Says so right on the wrapper. We did. Now we are sorry we didn't buy 2 mega boxes of them!
Many of you who have taken my classes know how much I am IN LOVE with my friend Aileens Color Mist sprays, and in how many ways I use them. I just thought I'd let yall know that she is having a SUPER sale right now! She's got tons of other cool cool stuff too- browse around- she's got so many cool ideas and how-to videos you'll find yourself bookmarking the page!
Fall in love with Fluid Acrylics! As we explore the allure of layers using both physical and optical color blends, you’ll discover the subtle differences between transparent, translucent, and opaque paints. While building your paint and collage story on canvas, you’ll learn sexy tricks to easily put your own marks, sketches and artwork into the painting. I’ll share how to see if something will work out before risking what you have already done. We will delight in bas-relief and appealing textures. We will explore the attraction of using wax oil crayons, oil based markers & stabilo pencils with Acrylic mediums. You’ll learn veiling techniques to help give your paintings a deeper charm and an aura of mystery. We’ll play with stencils, stamps, rub-ons and hot foils. We will focus on freeing our inner artists, and learn skills to rebuff the dreaded Artist Block. Secrets to successful compositions will be revealed. Our finished charismatic canvases will be rich with juicy colors, individual dreams and glamorous mysteries. We will adorn our art with final kisses of 3-D ephemera that will pull the viewer into our artful embrace.
On Friday April 29, 2011, we'll dive whole-heartedly into... Event Journals Extraordinaire!
Ever been so thrilled about an event that you want to create a spectacular journal to commemorate it in a special way? Excitedly gather your supplies and sit down to begin only to find your muse missing? Want to journal on the road, but the thought of packing supplies daunting? Stuck as to where to begin? THIS is the journal class for you! Plenty of tips, tricks and visual aids, before and after, sample pages, and ideas for journal prompts will be given. We will work on background techniques, and as you paint, Kari will discuss all things journal! Beyond just composition and color, she will show you her actual working travel journal kit, give you lists of what sorts of things to collect and include in your journal, as well as how to attach, insert and incorporate them! You will learn creative places to find images, quotes, ephemera and background materials. Your inspiration well will overflow with cool techniques that can be made with simple household materials, and multi-tasking mediums! During the day we will also discuss studio storage methods for our journaling treasures, with actual photo examples.
