Last Fall when I was in St. Paul, MN teaching at The Creative Connection 2011, several people asked me if I was going to be at Art Is You the following weekend since it was in my town of Petaluma. WHAT? What is Art Is You?!Once home, a friend and I scurried over to the event’s awesome trunk show that was open to the public. How did I NOT know about this incredible weekend of workshops? Turns out it was the first West Coast event for the organization, with annual retreats on the East Coast and in Australia. I’ve been asked teach at the event this year along side an incredibly impressive faculty teaching fabulous, FABULOUS classes!!

Art Is You is September 19-23, 2012 at the Sheraton Sonoma County in Petaluma, California. I will be teaching two different classes on Friday Sept. 21:

My all-day class will be Collage & Component Cabinets!! I’m SO excited about this class. I’m bringing everything but the scissors. Sign up for that one and we are going to spend the day customizing our own custom 6-drawer cabinets and filling and organizing them with lots and lots of collage components, many vintage, that I will be bringing for you. We’ll also be handcrafting components as well. You’ll be heading home with a fabulous mixed media treasure chest for all your collage and crafty projects.

My second class, the same evening, will be making Vintage-Style Sisal Bottle-Brush Trees. I pre-made these trees for my class at The Creative Connection but was unable to teach hands-on how to make them since I was unable haul all the the power tools in my luggage. But since I’ll be driving only minutes to the Art Is You event, I’ll be able to bring everything we need!I hope you’ll grab your friend(s), sister, mother, daughter, neighbor and sign up to make the trip for a wonderful weekend art retreat in the heart of the wine country. Plan a few extra days if possible to tour around. Petaluma is a wonderful old rivertown nestled only 45 minutes of San Francisco. I can’t WAIT to meet you!

REGISTRATION FOR ART IS YOU OPENS SOON AND CLASS SIZES ARE LIMITED!!

One of my most well received blog posts was one I shared back in 2008 of the napkin notes I used to tuck into my kids’s lunches when they were in elementary school. You can find that post with a collection of napkins and story HERE and a couple more napkins HERE. Today I came across a few more in a bag and thought you might enjoy them. I’m not much of an archivist, so these early morning doodles help remind me of some cute days gone by. If I remember right, I kept finding uneaten sammies in someone’s lunchbox…One day I found a misplaced half-made friendship bracelet when my daughter Jamie (-Ray) was on a pretty big roll knocking these ropes out for her friends. I was able to manipulate it through two stapled napkins without cutting it up.No doubt my kids, all now on high school, would be mortified to find a doodled love note from their mom in their backpacks. (So I might just have to get on that!! Ha!)