Dispatch From LA

Of Lilies & Journals & Beehives

Here's what I've been doing:

Packing up my classroom for the summer, sheparding flocks of errant sheep back & forth across the school yard, eating peaches, sticking my nose deep into my blooming stargazer lilies and getting orange pollen all over my nose, going to the store WITH the pollen on my nose,  snuggling with my cat Buck who smells like a skunk, taking 2 hour naps,  watching So You Think You Can Dance and cheering like I'm at a concert.  WHILE.  I'm conducting all of that business.  My FULL TILT BOOGIERS have been stitching up some pretty awesome journals.

Sara made the one above.  I love the way she used baker's twine to sew her book together!

Gina made the one below.  It's big.  It's bright.  It's beautiful.  It's wow.   I'm going to get some blue waxed linen STAT!

If you want to be constantly filled with ideas, teach an online class.  The people who sign up for your class will amaze and delight you with their sheer creative SPUNK.  It's a buzzing bee hive of a class full of funny nice people.

Susan Elliot made this handsome journal.  Doesn't it look like some gunslinging outlaw woman might've carried it in her saddlebags and wrote on it at night around a campfire under the stars?

Michelle made this from an old record album while her cat Johnny nodded his approval.

Briana made this warm stunning journal.  The old leather albums have such charm!

There are more... Which, I'll be adding to a photo album on the sidebar.   

But for right now, I'm headed back outside to get some more orange pollen on my nose.

Budapest

Yes is the answer to the question.  Yes, I'm going to Budapest in August.   A river runs through it - the Danube!  I could hop aboard a river vessel and be ferried off to Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Croatia, Moldova, Romania, or the Ukraine.  That's a lot of places.  That's a BIG river.  I could meet a river king like my friend Maria José did when she was in Cambodia!  Except that I'm going to keep my tuckus in Budapest and not go to any of those places.  I'll just stay in Hungary the entire 2 weeks... along the banks of the mighty Danube sipping coffee, reading, writing, dreaming.  Returning to my apartment at night.  Leaning over the edge of the balcony.  Breathing in another world.

That's what I'll do.

But in this exact moment I'm in Los Angeles.  On my back patio.  Blogging on the laptop.  Peach juice all over the front of my shirt.

The sun is beginning to set.   I can hear mariachis drifting up the hill.  Someone is having a party.  I am officially developing summer brain.  School is out in 9 days.  I'm still completely absorbed in FULL TILT BOOGIE.  Creating an online class is like getting a jumbo jet off the ground.  Fraught with peril and excitement and combustible energy and big ideas and last minute changes and pure love.  A wild ride any way you slice it.

A Metallic Hibiscus

Brown Sugar is in the throes of a full scale bloomapalooza.  When the flowers open they are russet colored.

But after a few days her petals fade to gold.  A metallic hibiscus.  A person couldn't ask for more than that.

The piles continue to grow.   The weather is getting chillier each day.  Right now I have the heat on!   Misty cloudy colored days here in the city of angels.  Brrrrr... 

Ginny has some fabulous vintage photo albums in her Etsy shop right HERE. She & John just got back from a roadtrip that included plenty of stops in antique stores!

MY SISTER'S been on a voyage of discovery in Taos.  Go see for yourself.  One more thing.  One.  More.  Thing.

I've had my ticket since April.  My sister will join me for a week!  

 

Go on.  Guess where?  You can come if you want.  The hats above are NOT required.

Pink Globes

I'm back so soon!  With a bouquet of giant PINK globes.

Pam has been on a cleaning reorganization spree and is selling some of her surplus vintage photo albums HERE which you can use in FULL TILT BOOGIE.   She just listed these tonight.  Go HERE to see more.  I can't wait to see what she does with one of these albums in class.  I am standing by, ready to steal her ideas and copy whatever she does.  

There are 5 spots left in FTB at the 50% off rate.  Additionally, A couple of extremely big-hearted people have asked if they can DONATE a class to someone in need.  I think that is a beautiful thing.  I have decided in turn, to donate 100% of the proceeds from those gifts to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.  I'll list the donor names on the FTB registration page - down at the bottom.  I'm not yet prepared to begin collecting names for those "gift certificates", but in the coming days I will let you know how to apply.

UPDATE:  as of this morning I have no more slots available for 35 buckeroos

UPDATE #9876543980

If you've emailed in the last couple weeks and your question has gone unanswered please EMAIL AGAIN!  I'm deep in a cycle of forgetting/remembering.  A repeat email will do the trick.

It's Started!

Registration is officially OPEN for Full Tilt Boogie.  And.  My burmese honeysuckle is blooming.  

I've just been tidying up around here, pressing the curtains, sweeping the floor, polishing the windows, making the cocktails, taking off my apron, and waiting for my new batch of craft monkeys to get here!  

I've still got plenty of work ahead of me, loose ends that need tying, other things that require my attention.

50% of my attention is with the young punks at school and the other 50% is being poured into FTB.  I'm feeling a sense of wild delicious excitement ping pinging of the walls of Moss Cottage.  

I'm hoping to get back to regular broadcasting soon.  I'm especially eager to talk about this sweet little book I've been reading every day after lunch.  One of you recommended it!  But I can't remember who!  Dominic  ...It makes my heart feel big and squishy.  Yours will too.  Just wait.

Thanks for coming here.  Thanks for being encouraging & kind even when I've left the lights off and the back soon sign dangling on the door.  It means a lot.  Really & truly.  

Full Tilt Boogie

I'm still here!  Right smack dab in the middle of a visual journaling brouhaha!  Here is the big motherload of information about FULL TILT BOOGIE.  All the details you've been waiting for.  In the coming days I'll make a little sidebar icon for easier access.

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