What did you do last week?

I helped Erin with her friend Joyanna's baby shower. I made her baby book and iced her cake. The theme of the baby shower was "Classic Pooh Bear" and so the cake was made to resemble a beehive. Erin made 60+ cupcakes and dyed coconut green to make them look like a lawn around the beehive.

Jo chose the fabric for her bookcloth and was lucky enough to find some with bees! I am easily amused at the overheard comments made by some of the guests...... "oh, she *made* the book?" "she wrote everything by hand?"

It must be baby week! don't we have two new grandbaby's expected amongst our members?

September

The start back looms! We have postponed our workshop with Lorraine Douglas which means that we are as usual for September 12th - a meeting with sewing the Broad Edge together and a program. Please bring your regular lettering gear, including some paper at least 8½ X 11 and at least one largish pen.....5 mm should do the trick, along with other smaller sizes. The Zig marker pack would work well for some of the work planned. See you all there!

Beat the heat?

If you are spending a bit of time at your computer trying the beat the heatwave, here are some interesting websites to spend a bit of time looking through.

http://members.shaw.ca/warmlandcalligraphers/ .......nice to see what others are doing

http://www.btinternet.com/~candeo/index.htm .......eye candy

http://thecalligraphypen.com/ .......lots of interesting articles here

What are you doing to beat the heat?! comments welcome!

Summer Luncheon at Fay's

At one point in the week, I saw a forecast of cloudy for Saturday. That would be ok, cloudy and warm, we could go with that. Then I saw it was going to rain the whole weekend - my husband's dream but not great for an outdoor luncheon! the weather network must have gotten us mixed up with back east somewhere, maybe Hamilton ;o) Finally, all the weather reports aligned and we were given a cloudless, hot, sunny day!

Thank you to Fay and Eileen for these photos. They are in no particular order as that would make me have to think and plan this!! Thank you to Jo for bringing the gazebo/shade which was well used. Too bad the thing didn't fold up as easily as it went up! Did you find out how to do it in the end Jo?

Thank you very much to Fay for sharing her home and garden with us for our summer get together! and Thanks to everyone who brought delicious things to share at lunch. Calligraphers do know how to eat well!

Eileen and Val

The sun shade protecting some from the incredible sunshine!

This might look very bright under the "gazebo" but I had to brighten it up before posting as you couldn't really see Joyce, Margot, Wilma and Frank very well!

Muriel looking fit and ready to travel!

Violet and Bev

Val sharing some birthday cards with Dorothy and Diana

Jo, fresh back from her trip which included a visit with Kay in Regina!

It has oft been said, "When I grow up, I want to be just like Joyce", great attitude! sharp dresser! but hmmmm, I think this was Diana's yellow purse, not Joyce's! even though it looks lovely with her summery outfit!!

Wilma and Frank enjoying some Cuban Rum Cake. You had to be there, if I do say so myself, it was pretty tasty!!

Violet, Bev and Jo enjoying some rays.

Dorothy, Fay and Muriel enjoying a giggle!

Dorothy and Nan in deep conversation :o)

Diana and Joyce looking very summery!

Val, Diana, Dorothy and Muriel

Jo, Rita, Fay, Nan, Joyce and Margot

Yes, we should have thought to take a photo of the table ladened with food! maybe next time. It was all very good, of course! did you doubt it?!
We hope Terry is feeling better and over the illness that kept him away from the lunch. We send our good thoughts to Jean and her son and hope that his condition improves daily. And, everyone else who missed it because of travel, we hope you are home safely and that you had a wonderful time whatever you were doing on Saturday afternoon. Hope you enjoy seeing our afternoon John. We haven't heard from you for awhile and wonder if you are recuperating ok.

Next up is our workshop with Lorraine Douglas in September. If you haven't registered, please do so in the next short while as I must open it up to non members very soon. We want this one to go!! Lorraine makes fabulous cards and will be sharing two days worth with us.

Remember the Broad Edge deadline approaches! better get those articles written and in the hands of the newsletter committee!

Happy Summer!

June meeting

Thank you Kathleen for the photos from the June meeting! I wasn't able to attend so didn't have anything to blog about....

It was a busy meeting with sewing the newsletters, galleria and the afternoon program. The following photos are some of the meandering books created from the May meeting program.






And then on to the afternoon program, led by Louise Menard. This was another book project to get you ready for your summer getaway perhaps? A scrapbook journal for a short trip? or it could be a card for someone special.
Louise unfolding the book......

Hope everyone has a great and creative summer! Remember to keep a journal if you go away; akim cursive is a great 'hand' to letter with, best of all because no one can read over your shoulder and understand what you have written! Fill up the book you made with Louise and bring it in October to show.

If you are planning on going to the Red Deer conference next summer, the early bird registration date is July 1st, 2009!

We have exhibition pieces due in the Fall. Margot would like to return the 2008 pieces and then start to collect new work for the upcoming dates on the exhibition calendar.

*Remember* the regular meeting days are actually a guild workshop in September. We used to take over the regular dates in November for our annual workshop so it was decided we could actually do it again just a different month. The registration form was included in the Summer newsletter. Mail in date is July 6th.

If you have any outstanding articles for the Broad Edge, I'm sure the committee would love to receive them earlier than their posted deadline of August 15th!

Hmmm shaping up to be a busy calligraphic summer!!

The next regular meeting is October 10th - Origami Tag Book with Janice Woodland. See the Summer issue of the Broad Edge for supplies required.

Lettering on the Dark Side

June third and fourth were a couple of record breaking temperature days here in the Fraser Valley. They just happened to coincide with our workshop with Connie Furgason-Card, now from Sydney, BC. Even though the classroom felt more like a sauna, spirits were still high and we had a wonderful time.

Finally!! someone who brings more to a workshop than I do........oh that was Connie's desk!!

We started by trying out the different colours of gouache on our own palettes. Testing them on the assortment of black papers that we had brought. There was a selection of Canson Mi Tientes, Canson Colorline, Strathmore Artagain and Strathmore Series 400. These were test sheets to slip into a small book we were making to keep as reference. We added notes as to what we were using, pen, paper, gouache, colour, gel pen, etc.

These photos were taken randomly throughout the two days and are in no particular order really.

We learned to be frugal! don't waste that brush full of pigment! spend it on a separate sheet of whatever paper you were using and then when you get a collection of these sheets, using your 'L' pieces of matte board, you can 'frame' certain spots to add to a broadside or a greeting card. Connie has many zip lock bags full of these gems and she showed us how she uses them on her work.
It is always interesting to walk around and see how others work in a workshop setting and look at all their supplies......finding out what you 'must' have!
Some of us work much tidier than others:
Connie had purchased some Mica Paints from Brenda at LOJ........lucky for us Country Lane just happened to have a few of them for sale just downstairs!! there was a run on them and I'm sure they could have sold more if they'd had the stock.....

Watch for our September newsletter for the reports on the workshop with lots of pictures of work by participants! A wonderful two days was had by all in spite of the extreme heat and we look forward to seeing more of Connie now that she is 'in the neighbourhood', well, one ferry ride away!

See you all at the meeting on the 13th! Fun program planned, stayed tuned for the blog report!

May meeting

This is what happens when you get busy doing other things! I completely forgot that I had not written about our May meeting. My apologies! Thanks to Kathleen we have photos! sadly, I haven't managed to get them in exactly the right order but I'm sure you will get the idea of what we did.

We made a meandering card with Violet. She demonstrated several ways to decorate our papers and the folds and cuts needed to make the card meander.

One of the techniques, using acrylic ink on wet paper, was to use saran wrap on the wet surface. You can scrunch it up or lie it flat to make different design impressions. Below is Violet demonstrating the technique and above is Violet and Jean possibly discussing the fact that you really don't need the super fantastic saran wrap as any dollar store plastic wrap will do.
Once the demonstration was done and the decorating underway, one step was to fold the pages correctly so that once it was decorated and then dry, you would know where to cut. Joyce, Val and Margot were at the folding stage here.....and the photo seems to be looking over Terry's shoulder!
This is the first part of the demo........spray your paper lightly on both sides with water. Everyone was busy taking notes!
Once you have dropped some colour onto the wet surface of the paper, you can tip and turn your paper to manipulate the colour a bit. Another way to spread it around a bit more is to spray your page again - lightly! you do want it to eventually dry so you can write on it and decorate it with coloured pencils, pen and ink, embossing, gel pens, rubber stamps, etc.
Margot was the lucky recipient of this card! Violet's birthday card for Margot.
Another example of Violet's lovely decorating!
A much smaller version of the meandering card.
Thank you Violet! a very enjoyable afternoon.

Homework for the June meeting is to complete yours!!