artisan workshop giveaway

silk screening! -----image by dancing kangaroo

I met Katy online.

I meet a lot of people online, but I actually only connect with a few of them. Katy signed up to come to the workshops.  I was really excited to meet her in person because she seems like my type of girl.

But life happened. Her husband had a business trip crop up during our workshop weekend. She can no longer attend the workshops. 

Katy is well within the time frame to receive a full refund for the workshops but she sent me an email asking if I knew of anyone who wanted to come but couldn't afford it. She wants to gift her registration to help someone else come.

Isn't that wonderful?  I wish there were more people in this world like Katy.  Being generous is something I aspire to be. Not everyone can be generous with monetary items. But anyone can be generous with their time and their words.

Today I am giving away Katy's registration. I get to be generous by proxy. 

If you are pinching pennies right now, but you would like to attend the workshops, please send me a private email. Explain your situation. I will be forwarding the emails to Katy and she can pick the person she feels most inspired to help.

Here's to good people. They make life beautiful.

Please send emails to secondsisterjewely@yahoo.com.

the workshops: letterpress

Ahhhhh. Letterpress.

For a person with papyrophilla (love of paper), it's the holy grail.  Ben and I bought our press a few years ago after taking a class in Los Angeles together.  It is one of the hobbies we share, and we have had a lot of fun figuring out the in and outs of our machine. We have a Challenge press which was probably manufactured in the 1950's.

Each student will get a set of Crane 100% cotton, 110lb flat cards and envelops. We are talking thick, gorgeous paper.  Here's an example of letterpress done on this paper:

Students will learn to mix their own ink color, properly ink a brayer and press their cards.

img source

I have designed some plates for students to use to press their cards.  Here are the choices:

Okay! Who's in?

If you haven't already, register now!

the workshops: screen printing

Register for classes today.

Okay! So! Screen printing! Oh my yes. It's so much fun and satisfying. Once you learn the basic concepts, you can create all sorts of custom projects.

Jennifer Dreshler-Vu will be teaching this class. I met Jennifer when she moved to Carlsbad. She is an over-all very creative, artsy girl, but she is a master at design. Her aesthetic is very clean and graphic. Her work always reminds me that less is more.

Students are asked to bring a couple items to screen print. This can be a t-shirt, tea towel, apron, pillow sham, or just a piece of fabric. Smooth, natural fibers work best.  Jennifer will also have some blank items with her students can purchase.

Don't forget your aprons! We are going to be getting messy.

You can see some of Jennifer's items for sale here.

hello

Well it seems I took a little impromptu blogging break last week.  Sometimes that happens. Life happens.

But let me just tell you a few things that are on my mind lately.

First, the Sugar Daddy and I have decided to try to eat mainly vegetarian meals. We aren't going totally  veggie. We still like a steak every now and then, but for many different reasons we want to cut out meat and eat a plant based diet.

This has proved very hard for meal planning! It is so much easier to come up with a menu when you start with a meat.   If any of you out there have a fabulous recipe that is vegetarian that you'd share with me, it would make me oh so happy. One thing though. It also has to be healthy. 

You see my problem? It's really hard to come up with healthy vegetarian options that my kids will eat.

Now, another thing.

The other day I watched as a boy said something mean to my Tommy Bean.  His eyes welled with tears and my heart cracked and broke into a million pieces. The boy that said the mean words isn't a bully. He's just a kid that was showing off.  But I started thinking about bullying and the new film that is out and the controversy surrounding it. I guess they have given the film an R rating because of language and people are up in arms about this because they want children to be able to see the movie to raise awareness about bullying.

Here's what I decided. I won't take my kid to see a movie with bad language, even if it does have a good message. I think those of us with younger kids need to do our own work in educating our kids about being cruel.  In fact, I think this is part of our obligation as parents. We don't need a film to teach these principals.

So when this boy said mean things to my son, I knelt down and looked him strait in the eyes (and fought back my own tears and anger) and told him to remember exactly how it felt and to try to never make anyone else feel that way.

Also, on Wednesday I'll be giving you the inside scoop on the screen printing class from Prospector Workshops. If you are thinking about coming, please get registered soon!

If you are coming from out of town for the workshops, please feel free to leave a message on the Facebook page if you are looking for someone to share lodging or car rentals. 

the workshops: silver smithing

I met Canela Lemoine a couple of years ago at Spark. We had an instant connection because a) she lives in the town where my husband grew up and b) she is also a self-taught silversmith with a love for cowboy boots and embroidery.

The thing about Canela is she is hard core. You would never know this by meeting her. She is soft spoken and cheery. But the truth is she works hard. Really hard. Her business is absolutely booming right now and she does all the work by herself, by hand. With six kids and a husband still in school.

Like I said, hard core.

I haven't been doing a whole lot of silver smithing lately and Canela is one of a very small handful of people that I know will teach silver smithing better than I ever could.  She is passionate about her work. She likes sharing this passion. She is patient and practiced at teaching (six kids remember?).

Her class will rocks your socks. No doubt about it.

Students will be making a wide (10mm) band. Canela will be teaching stamping, texure, soldering and finishing. Everyone will leave with a beautiful, personalized ring.

During our lunch breaks, Canela and I will be happy to answer questions about starting an at home business and balance of work and family life. 

If you are considering taking the Prospector Workshops, don't wait to register. We can only accept a limited number of students.

the workshops: pop art panels

Thank you to all of you who have already signed up for Prospector Artisan Workshops!

We are so excited to meet everyone and spend a fun couple of days together.

I will be sharing a little more about each class for the next few Wednesdays. I decided to start with mine because I know that some people will look at these paintings and feel like they need to be able to draw to participate in this project. I'm here to tell you, I did not hand sketch any of these portraits. They were made using a process of transferring different aspects of the image to the canvas.

I am really excited about these projects. I am a big fan of Shepard Fairey. I think he is the Andy Warhol of today. I developed a way to immulate his style with my own artistic twist.

This class is going to get messy, just the way I like it.  Students will learn several different techniques for creating texture and "aging" their canvas.  We will lightly cover topics like color theory and composition. But mostly we will be getting the paint on the canvas and probably our hands too.

I want to do these portraits of all of my children. I am looking for just the right photo of each child that shows their personality.

I'm really hoping other people love this style of art as much as I do. It is fun and light-hearted and anyone can do it.

Promise.

Register today!

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introducing: Prospector Artisan Workshops

If you have been a reader here for much time at all, you know I have a deep seated passion about using creativity.  I also have something inside me that pushes me to share this with others. 

I have been working on an idea now for some time. I wanted to put together some classes to introduce people to different mediums. I wanted to get people using their hands. Making things.  I wanted to inspire creativity.

Thus, Prospector Artisan Workshops was born. Why Prospector? Because finding what you really love, what makes you giddy and excited about life, sometimes takes a little exploration.  Sometimes you have to chip away for a while before you find gold. My goal is to make the chipping a whole lot of fun.

I am nervous and excited and more than anything, proud of the workshops we have to offer. They are diverse and relevant and most of all they are super great projects.  We will have four classes: letterpress, silversmithing, silk screening and pop art panels.

I hope you will consider joining me and the other Prospector teachers for a weekend of old school, hands-on arts and crafts.

Go here to register. Space is limited.