art@park

I'm packing the car for Art at Park tonight. The show is Saturday and Sunday only. I'm praying for cool, crisp autumn weather. I hope some of you have a chance to come and hang out! The show is taking place at English Landing Park at Park University.

Here are a few pieces that I'm bringing...

The material in this piece is from a shirt I found at Salvation Army! Who needs fabric stores?


This was one of those pieces that I kept adding to, but still didn't like it. Plop a bird in the middle and I guess it will suffice.


I can never have enough home images at my shows. Huh...birds again.


This piece was way different for me. It started out a boring titan buff color and then I added a pink wash. I painted a thick orange square, added some collage elements, rolled on some white paint with the brayer and used the tracing wheel to add some depth. I then penciled in the red house. It's simple, but sometimes those are the best.


I found this photo on ebay a few months ago and hadn't used it yet. It's a great picture of a newly married couple leaving the church following their ceremony. I love the blueish-grey background. I also used an antique recipe. I then stumbles across an idea when a string from a piece of fabric stuck to the piece. It lead me to the embroidery floss that sis in a basket unused on top of the bookcase in the "studio". I used an orange piece of floss and the color combo was great. I think this piece would make a sweet little wedding gift.

Back from Napa

What an awesome trip! Chris and I left on Thursday morning with three other couples for harvest season in Napa County and the surrounding towns. Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend any time in San Francisco, so we will certainly head back another time.

We stopped off at a wonderful little vineyard on our drive to Napa to sample some sparkling wines. Here is a view from the balcony area where we enjoyed the view and the cool, crisp weather.

On the first evening of our trip, we invited a chef into our rented home for an interactive dinner party. That's Lynnie in the green teaching Chris a thing or two about Beef Bourguignon. Lynnie was not only our chef, but became our full-time driver of our massive grey church van for the next few days.

Our drive from our home to the wineries each morning was more than brutal. Imagine the worst winding, narrow road and then multiply that by ten. It was hard in the morning for anyone that was hungover and a buzzkill in the evening on the way back. The coolness factor of the house more than made up for it though.

The boys enjoying the vino and reminiscing about the old days at the frat while the girls cook with Lynnie.

The hilltop modernist retreat in person. The house was spectacular with wild turkeys in the yard every morning. It sat on a hilltop/mountain and there was not even a single light for miles around us. It was the most quiet and peaceful place with a beautiful view of the bright, starry sky.

On Friday, we stopped off at numerous wineries including, but not necessarily in order...

Plumpjack...we sat in the courtyard area with a few bottles of wine until they politely asked us to leave at closing time. The weather was perfect and we hardly wanted to jump back in the church van.

Chimney Rock...where we stopped just for a bit after a brief rain shower.

Del Dotto...where they ask you to sign a waiver before entering their wine cave. They served the wine straight out of oak barrels from a "wine wang". No kidding. The tour and tasting ended in a room with a crystal ball with The Doors playing over the loud speaker. We had been warned about this winery at each of the other wineries that day. I now understand what they were talking about.





Joseph Phelps...an early morning and probably my least favorite. Very fancy and not too much my style. It was absolutely gorgeous though. The boys were more interested in the KU game via text message than anything else. Go 'Hawks.


Off to Domain Chandon for sparkling wine and an awesome leisurely lunch. The peach raviolo of dessert was awesome.




We also stopped at Elizabeth Spencer, ZD, Honig and Cakebread. I highly recommend the Honig Sauvignon Blanc...voted the best in the valley under $20. You should be able to find it at your local liquor store.

I'l try to post more pictures later because blogger is being a bit tricky right now. Check back!

Off to Napa

Greetings everyone and happy hump day. We are off to Napa tomorrow morning. I couldn't be more excited. We have a personal chef coming to our house tomorrow night for a cooking demo and wine pairing. The chef will change hats on Friday and Saturday when she becomes our chauffeur in our giant white church van that will tour wineries through Napa and Rutherford, California. At least we are being safe!

The good news is that my camera is now working. Afer getting drenched at Sunday's NASCAR race, I placed it in a sealed container of rice. It worked! Supposedly it works for small electronics like cell phones and cameras. So, now that the camera is working again...be sure to check back for pictures from our trip. OK...off to pack. Have a great weekend.

A-NASCAR-kind-of-life

Great weekend here. Dugout suite tickets to the Royals game on Friday night and NASCAR tickets for the race at the Kansas Speedway on Sunday. Too bad that it ABSOLUTELY POURED just over half way through the race. The rain was so blinding that Chris and I got lost in the parking lot for more than half an hour while we searched high and low for our car. It was still quite an experience. Those NASCAR fans are insane! I've never seen grown men flipping off an "opponent" at every chance. That's 267 laps around the track and a lot of finger flipping.

Needless to say, my camera no longer works due to the downpour. My phone is hanging on by a thread, but it's not looking so good. It works, but I can't see who is calling or who I'm dialing. Right now, both the phone and camera are in a sealed container of rice to absorb the moisture. Pray that the camera fixes itself before the trip to Napa on Thursday!

In the meantime, here is some more information about the place we are staying. I can't wait...
Napa PreFab

Happy Hump Day

By the time you are reading this, Hump Day is almost over or it already is. Sometimes coming up with titles to each blog entry is downright impossible. So...Happy Hump Day.

I am apparently the proud aunt of the next Lil' Kim or Snoop Dogg. Ellie looks like she could star in a rap video or the next American Idol.

Or maybe she will be the next Miss Body Builder USA. She just needs one of those really greasy tans and blinding white teeth.


A girlie post deserves some girlie art. A few pieces that I created a few weeks ago. They are 8x8's and didn't sell at Omaha, but I really love their colors and subjects.

Blogger Buzz

For those of you that use Blogger, you may have seen the message about Blogger Play today. If you didn't, please read about this nifty little program below. It allows you to view a web site that instantaneously uploads photos that are being uploaded to blogs in real time. Pretty cool...

Shortly after Blogger launched photo uploading two years ago, one of our engineers whipped up a web page that would show us the pictures that were being uploaded in real time. The result was fun, often beautiful, but above all, compelling. We couldn’t stop watching.

Over the years we’ve kept this photo scroller as part of the Blogger offices, on a monitor or projector, as an interesting (distracting?) slideshow, and a reminder of the diversity and vivaciousness of Blogger blogs. The fame of the scroller spread within Google, until one day we were asked, “so, when are you launching this?”

“Um...,” we replied. But we knew a good idea when we heard one. We got our UI people to come up with buttons and fadey effects and we got our engineers to make the whole thing fast and robust. A bit of work later, and now we can share it with all of you:
http://play.blogger.com/Blogger Play will show you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs.

You can click the image to be taken directly to the blog post it was uploaded to, or click “show info” to see an overlay with the post title, a snippet of the body, and some profile information about the blogger who uploaded it.

It's that time of year...

I love fall and everything that goes along with it! I love the colors, the crisp days and lazy football Sundays. The Plaza Art Fair kicked off this weekend it signifies to all of Kansas City that fall has arrived.

Chris and I volunteered on Friday and again on Sunday. I limited myself to buying one piece from Mark Traughber. He had some small pieces for just $33. I'm always a sucker for those small pieces that seem to find a place into my home or office with such ease.

I also loved Dolan Geiman, whose work is also featured on Etsy. Link back to his blog. I could use a few of his ideas for marketing! Bekah Ash is another artist I've now seen at several different shows. If I had the wall space for her large scale paintings on wood, I would have certainly purchased one by now. I'm absolutely in love with them! Lisa Lala looked like she had a fantastic show. She was the showcase artist and the t-shirts and banners sold out. It looked like all of her work had sold out too when I walked by on Sunday afternoon. I should have snatched up a piece a few years ago when she had her very first art fair. Her work is now double, but completely worth it.

This is an art fair, but not the Plaza Art Fair...I took this photo as we were packing up the Art on the Pointe Art Show in Omaha last weekend.

A picture of the pretty Nebraska landscape on our way home to Kansas.

Once a month we go to a cooking class that some one of Chris' parents friends do for Chris and his friends. They just moved in to an awesome Leawood home and literally own my dream kitchen. We made homemade peach salsa, brie in puff pastry with crackers, a celery and green apple salad, two kinds of pesto, chicken spiedini, fettuccine alfredo, pasta caprese, bananas foster with vanilla ice cream and roasted strawberries over shortcake drizzled in raspberry vodka! And LOTS of wine for a Monday. Holy cow...it was so good. I should get my act together and post the recipes here because everything was so easy. It's all butter, olive oil and garlic. So, so good.

Annie is a day ahead of lazy Sunday afternoons as she lounged on the top of the couch on Saturday night.

Crazy Week!

What a whirlwind of a week! The birth of a niece, trip to Chicago, art fair in Omaha, parents in town...Oy! No wonder I've had no time to post.

As you can see from the previous post, little Elliot is just precious. I will be posting more pictures as soon as she decides to start staying awake for a few minutes to get a good pics of her with her big, blue eyes. Em is doing well, but feeling a little run down and tired. Duh.

A quick trip to Chicago for a seminar and some time with Moe. I felt like a true Chicagoan as I walked to the hotel at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. I wasn't wearing sneakers with my dress pants, however. I kind of stuck out like a sore thumb.

Back to KC for some more time with Ellie and preparation for the Village Pointe show in Omaha. Omaha was fun. Chris and I had a blast, but Saturday was more than BRUTAL. The weather was 55 degrees, rainy and windy and I was not prepared. I wore 4 t-shirts, a fleece, a scarf and Chris bought me some gloves. Seemed that everyone was more interested in the Nebraska vs. USC game than anything else. I've never seen so much red in my life! Sunday was much better and I'm hoping to get a few commissions from the show.

The good thing is that I don't have to cram to get ready for Parkville in October!

Another thing to look forward to is our trip to Napa in early October. Chris has never been and we are going there with a lot of his buddies from college and their wives and girlfriends. It's going to be a blast.

We are staying in a home that has been featured in Dwell and HGTV. No big deal...

Introducing...

Elliot Grace Weaver.

She might just be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I could literally stare at her for days on end. I have to say that seeing such a miracle has been a truly humbling experience. I am one proud aunt!!!

Em was a champ! Elliot was born at 8:01 a.m. this morning. Weighing in at 8 pounds and 1 ounce and 18 inches long, she came a bit faster than any of us anticipated. We thought we would be at the hospital all day awaiting a mid-afternoon delivery. I got a call from Em at 6 a.m. and she said little Ellie would arrive very soon. Mom and I showered and got to the hospital in the nick of time.

We are so very happy to have this precious little miracle in our lives.

Randomness

Occasionally I order photos in huge lots on eBay. It's a complete crap shoot because I never know what will arrive in my mailbox. Here are some real winners...

I think this is the Soprano family in days gone by. I think they are trying to give Meadow lung cancer from the second hand smoke and get her drunk on red wine.

Did any of you catch one of the first few episodes of Flight of the Conchords when Bret wanted to make a hair helmet - a bike helmet with hair on it? I'm pretty sure they got that bit from the picture above. I mean, seriously, was this ever a hairstyle? I sure hope it never comes back.

This photo just caught my eye because I'm sure it is Nicole Kidman's long lost twin. Weird!

And this is Cindy Morrison's long lost twin. For those of you that know her, does it not look like Moe's mom from her hippie days? (Moe, send me a picture and I'll update this post with a Perez-esque comparison).

Happy Labor Day

Happy Labor Day everyone. I do love a long, three day weekend and this one was particularly good because I got to do so much and see so many people. Moe got into Kansas City Friday evening. We had dinner and drinks with Lisa, Kerri and Jenny. Then Em met us out for more drinks after that.


Well, Em wasn't drinking because, I'm not sure you can tell or not, she is expecting a baby. AT ANY MINUTE! This girl is having contractions every day. She is due on Thursday and I think it is better than all the Christmases you have in your life all rolled into one times 100. I'm SO excited to meet the little Weaver baby.

Em still joined Moe and I for breakfast along with our other friends and babies. Connor, Campbell, Thea and Madison all made an appearance. They were all so well behaved. First Watch didn't hate us at all.

Moe, Em and I went to get pedicures after breakfast and Em was the talk of the nail salon. She was like a mini-celeb. Everyone smiled and wanted to know how long she had, what she's having, etc. She had several contractions during the pedicure and I thought that Baby Weaver might arrive at Rose's Nails.

The rest of the weekend consisted of a very hot KU football game, fun times at Johnny's, some work in the "studio", a Thai food feast and much more. Such a fun weekend. I wish Moe was still around KC, but it makes seeing her a couple times a year that much better.

Back track a few days when I went to see my boyfriend Dave Matthews in concert. Dave didn't seem to mind that I brought my husband to his concert. Jenny and Andy and Brother went, too. It was a great concert. HE played quite a bit of his older music.

For some reason three giant hairy spiders decided to set up camp right outside of our back door. Chris said he wouldn't walk through the spiderweb for $100,000. Wuss.

We bought a new printer so I could try my hand at transferring images. I'm absolutely terrible at it. Practice makes perfect though, right. I got some paper jammed in it on the second try. The photo below was scanned in and then printed directly on antique sheet music. I thought it turned out pretty well and I'll continue to practice with actual transfers. I actually even joined a Yahoo Group. Nerd alert.

I just love the pictures of these six little girls holding hands on the playground. They just seem so innocent.

55 pieces and counting for Omaha. I hope to get 70, but will be happy with 60ish.