Copic Certification

Last Monday, Debbie Bick and I went to the certification class put on by Copic. This is where you spend the entire day with the "pros" of copic markers, learning everything you ever wanted to know about the markers, and lots of techniques!

What a great day ... information and coloring all day long!!

This is Marianne Walker ... giving us some tips on depths and transparency ...

If you're into Copics, be sure to follow Marianne's blog

She's an amazing artist, and the blog is full of in depth tutorials.

Keep your eyes open for some Copic classes at Frenzy Stamper ... and .... Debbie will have the air gun system set up at the store very soon!

Greatest of intentions ...

I had ... to put the rest of the photos up of Terri's trip .... and then time escaped me ... once again .... but here's how the rest of the week played out ...

As you all know, once you start redecorating a house, it never stops where you thought it would ... it's like a big vine, it just keeps growing and getting bigger and bigger ... what started as the corner of the living room, managed to creep through the entire house. It became one big work in progress through the entire week

The individual photo frames all over the den became a wall display ...

Making space for the rest of the room to be decorated with this very cool collection of ceramic pieces ... these are just the candle holders .... you've really got to see the rest of the pieces to truly appreciate the entire collection ...

Toward the end of the week, we managed to put the finishing touches on the living room ....

Then it was into the master bedroom, we added this gorgeous beaded trim to the bottom of the drapes and liked it so much .... we got out distress inks, re-inkers and perfect pearls and went to work on the plain off white lamp shades ....

I've always loved my house, but ever since we moved into it 5 years ago, I've always wanted to add all the special little touches that we accomplished this week .... now, its perfect!! It truly was a special project, shared by special friends!!

But wait ... we weren't done ..... still had to finish up the alphabet canvases .... LOVE how these turned out!!!

And our last adventure was the Controlled Burn class at Frenzy Stamper with Julie Haymaker. If you've never experienced one of Julie's classes, you really should sign up for the next one ... she's an awesome teacher with some very cool and unique projects.

And we finished with a big high 5 ... for a class project well done and a week full of fun!!

the next day ....

... we pretty much decided to stay home, start a couple projects we had been planning. This is where we started .... a project we wanted to work on together, that we had been contemplating for about 3 or 4 years .... it started here ....

Progressed to this ...

We texturized the canvases with stucco and used lots of gorgeous colors .... Claudine Hellmuth's paints ... they're beautiful!!

We played with this project all week long .... scouring through every corner of my studio looking for the perfect embellishments ... making a list of the items we needed to find .....

But in the meantime we were also working on another project. We planned to redecorate my living room while Terri was here ... i had some basics, and collected a few things here and there, but, again, it was something we wanted to do together .... so we started with this ....

As the week progressed .... we hit a few antique stores ... and almost every Hobby Lobby in the city ... we are fortunate to have six of them now!! And we continually hit the jackpot .... oh do they have some great collections! It slowly started to take shape ....

But wait ... there a just a few more items we need to hunt down .....

Priceless ....

Such a satisfying week .... spent with a dear friend ... doing the things we enjoy ... just sharing the moments ..... here's where we began ....

Saturday morning started with a pedicure at the Alvadora Spa at the Royal Palms Resort. If you haven't ever experienced this place, you really should, especially this time of the year when the flowers are blooming everywhere!

We had a delicious lunch while we were getting our toes all prettied up for sandal weather, then wandered the grounds ...

Decided Greta should get married here, in the wedding garden ... well, in 15 years or so when she's old enough ..

Couldn't resist hanging out here for just a bit ...

And whats a trip to Scottsdale without going to Sprinkles?!

And then ... what stamp store has this awesome fountain right in front of it .... Frenzy Stamper, of course!! It wasn't too hard to spend alot of time and $$$ in there ...

Then we hit 7th Ave ... Melrose, Paris Envy, Rust and Roses, and lots of little antique stores ..

Day one was full .... and fun .......