ANNOUNCEMENT

All Norah'S Art, my Ning classroom network will be closing July 31, 2015.

Before that happens, I want to offer all of my current online classes at a huge discount starting now!

All classes are discounted at least 50 percent. You can access class information by clicking on the page buttons above or by visiting my classroom network: All Norah'S Art.

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I have made a huge decision about my Ning classroom network. 

You may or may not know that Ning has and is changing their ways. 

I have had plenty notice of this and plenty of time to consider what I wanted to do. 

However, the decision has been very hard to make.

Big decisions are always hard for me and I typically swing back and forth from to-do or not-to-do.

Even though I have had many great ideas for new workshop offerings, I just haven't had the energy or I should say passion to go forth with them. 

I have finally realized that this decision hanging over my head is stifling my energy. 

So, once and for all, I made the decision to give up my Ning network at my annual renewal day of July 31, 2015. 

I decided to go out with a bang!

A bang of offering all the classes for the next several months for a huge discount. 

You will find all of the class descriptions and paypal buttons on the Main page of All Norah'S Art, as well as, here on my blog pages.

You can click on the class buttons in the top page heading or by clicking on the picture icon of each class in the right sidebar.  

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FACES IN COLLAGE

now $32.00

WIProgress of My Garden Lemons

My Garden Lemons

Audio about Signatures

While changing all the paypal buttons and making sure the classrooms were in order, I came across a bit of audio that I added at the end of one of my favorite classes, Faces In Collage.
I'm sharing this snip of audio today with you because it is something that I feel really strong about. 

(hopefully, the audio embed works)

If you are reading in a reader, you may need to click over to the blog to see and play the audio. 

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Recap of the New Class Fees.

A Diary of Faces - Part One    $35.00

A Diary of Faces - Part two    $35.00

Faces in Collage    $32.00

Faces in Technicolor    $25.00

Tree Castle Apron    $35.00

*Inktense Faces on Fabric (mini class) $20.00

**Norah'S Darker Skintones (mini class) $20.00

Faces:  All Norah'S    $32.00

*   Inktense Faces on Fabric is a part of the class, Tree Castle Apron.  

**   Norah'S Darker Skintones is a part of the class, Faces: All Norah'S.

Access to all class will end July 31, 2015

A New Art Apron from an Old Blouse

New Apron Back

The blouse before destruction

Destruction

Art aprons make me so hot and yet, I must wear one; otherwise, all of my clothes would carry the evidence.

So this weeks creative venture is to make a new art apron with very lightweight 100% cotton.
Of course the making has to be fun.
And I think you can decipher what I have done so far.
My plan is to bind the raw edges by hand stitching and embellishing with cloth fragments.
Inspiration is from Jude Hill. I am enjoying an online class with her called What If Diaries I.
♥

Important change announcement

My swing made with an old bedstead by my father who passed away in the early 1980s
for my mother who passed away in 1991.
The swing back is the headboard and the sides are from the footboard cut in half. 

I will be brief with this important information. 

As you may or may not know, Ning, the site where I host my online classes, has announced
changes.

In addition to various formatting changes, they announced a new pricing structure based on number of members. The formatting changes give me some concern as to the way I present my classes; however, I am more concerned about the new cost to me as the creator of allnorahsart.ning.

First, let me say, I love my class site and I am not moving from Ning.  I am committed to staying at least one more year to see how it all works out.

I'm sharing this for the following reasons:

To let you know

• all classes are still available and will be for at least one more year.
• I have purged all members who were not enrolled in a class.
• the home page is invisible and not accessible unless you are enrolled in a class.
• if you are interested in a class, click on the tab at the top or the class icon in the right sidebar of my blog for class information and paypal button.

Online CLASSES

A Diary Of Faces

Faces In Collage

Faces in Technicolor

Inktense Faces on Fabric

Tree Castle Apron

Faces in Darker Skintones

I look forward to new students, so if you have been holding back because of the Ning changes, know that nothing is changing for me for at least one year. 

♥

About my Arizona Company

The first thing we did before the to-do list was posted was to show and share in the sewing studio.  Kristin and the girls brought their aprons-in-progress for me to see and I was so thrilled with how they each made them so personalized with their own likes. Of course I showed off my aprons and my quilting projects too.

I thought we might have time to start the free motion stitching on the aprons (number 3 on the list) but we ran out of time.

They wanted to make charms for their ankle bracelets so we got started with that early Thursday morning so the charms would have time to set up hard.  They selected and strung their beads and then the next day we attached the charms. 


We had enough time to make memory wire bracelets too. 

On Saturday more family came for dinner and I spent the day in the kitchen.  I managed to get 2 food pictures.  Edamame Salad and Stuffed tomatoes.  Both were yum. We had 26 at the table and everyone enjoyed the get-together.

Everyone left Saturday night and I pretty much crashed all day Sunday.


Then Monday morning Kristin called to say they wanted to come back for a couple of hours.  We managed to have a little Inktense on Fabric class and when I looked at this picture this morning, it looked like they each painted self portraits.  Funny how that happens. 

We didn't get to "take a break to wash windows" but Mark (brother) and Andy (nephew) did that Saturday.  In other words, they came to play and I put them all to work.  


We did pretty good with the list.  I will tell you about number 6 in another post.  We didn't make the peanut butter cookies and didn't get back to the sewing studio to free motion.


They stopped back by this morning on their way back home to Arizona.  A good and fun time was had by all. I just wished they didn't live so far away.  I'm thinking my SIL and I could really get into some fun stuff together. 
♥ Sharon

ECourse is ready!!

Tree Castle Apron

a mixed media face painting and fabric collage project

If you love painting faces, you will love discovering one more medium to paint with and one more substrate to paint on.

This is a technique and project class. I will share technique demonstrations from both my art studio and sewing studio. You will be able to follow along the videos and fun patterns to fashion a beautiful apron that you will want to wear every time you are in your studio. Your apron will be a special, one of a kind, project adorned with funky tree castles, journaling and of course your princess will take center stage.

This project is all about function and beauty. When you wear it while creating, you will feel special and full of inspiration.

In this class I will demonstrate:

♦ A face painting technique on fabric with Inktense

♦ Altering fabric scraps with over painting and stamping

♦ Basic sewing and free motion stitching

♦ Stamping and journaling on fabric

Artist Level: all levels interested in adding fabric to the mix

Course Duration: Start date March 25th and ongoing

Course Fee: $75.00

You will need a sewing machine; however, if you love hand stitching, you can probably adapt with your own style.

To join this group, sign up at my Class site. After you have paid for the class, you will receive an invitation to enter the lecture hall.

I look forward to seeing you there.
♥ Sharon

Having trouble getting the Paypal button working at the Ning site.
It works here!

Dear Friend

Good Morning sleeping person,
I sure hope you are still sleeping because I can't. So I'm up at 5am (3am for you). I really really planned to stay in bed today but my brain just started up anyway weather my body wanted to or not and so I at least waited until 5:00 to sneak out.

I was thrilled to have a "good morning" from you waiting. I usually try to be real quiet ...no finger talking....this early because it even seems too loud for me so early but I wanted to write and not do what I sometimes do....think I will come back in just a short bit and answer back and then 5 days go by.

The paella tradition sounds great, mouth watering and amazing. Wish I could sample. I don't think I have ever had it (the real thing) here but I had the real thing when we went to Spain so many years. Oh my, what a memory that is. Our group went up into a little village that was near the coast. I remember the winding gravel road up the hills to get to it. We could see it from a distance because it shined like a jewel. They surely had white-washed every building just the day before our arrival and we arrived early in the morning when they were still mopping the streets. I swear they were. You know how the houses/buildings are right up next to the narrow streets and every balcony has beautiful flora cascading from it. We did various activities (very touristy) and then lunch was this wonderful, aromatic, amazing dish they called paella. This Texas girl had never had such a dish where chicken, fish, pork, shrimp, mussels, bones, shells and all were served up. Oh my!

I am so glad you told me about your new outfit and evening out. I have been wondering ever since the day before and thought I was going to have to ask. Sounds like it was perfect. I'm glad you know how to go out and take care of yourself with a new outfit and even jewelry for an outing rather than like me, making do with something from my closet only to get to the event and feel so utterly out of place, embarrassed, wanting to crawl into a hole or just melt away. I recently did something like that where there were all women and I will not talk about it except to say, all I could think about was that I truly am or could be a recluse and be OK with never having to go into a group like that again. Which is really how my DH feels and I sat there thinking that after nearly 50 years, I had turned into him.

But it sounds like one of those kismet things where you were just meant to be and meet these SF artists! It is amusing, not funny amusing and not a surprise that someone would pay you that compliment. It is true. Wasn't that a great time to get to actually talk about art with a new person. What a visual, you sitting there perched on a bar stool chatting away the night with art talk. I hope you will be able to meet up with them again. Do they have a web site? I'm curious about what kind of art. Are they both French? Did I just assume that?

I guess a belly full of paella and beer will put you to sleep no matter how bloody the movie is. Sounds like it was all good and also good that you had control of the off button. Will there be cooking again today? It is cold there now and did you have any snow? I think our weekend is suppose to be nice...maybe rain on Sunday. I have so much to do out in the yard but I'm afraid I won't get to it this weekend.

Yes I finished recording the class last night. I have been keeping up with the initial editing of the clips. So I plan to sit this weekend and do the final editing which means I will sit and watch it all from start to finish and make notes about supplies, as well as write the instructions for the sewing part. etc. Do you mind if I just make my to-do list here instead of on another piece of paper? OK, I knew you wouldn't.

1. Make final decision on the name of the class: I'm thinking just "Tree Castle Apron" with a sub-title of "a face painting, mixed media, fabric collage project" .....that's just all I can come up with and sometimes I think naming the class is the hardest part.
2. Final edit of all (or at least three-quarters) of the videos.
3. Final supply List
4. Class description
5. Record short promo and photograph close-ups to go with that...edit and post on blog, Viemo, Youtube and Ning.
6. Write the sewing directions to go with pattern PDFs
7. Take breaks while the videos are converting and get the studios back into order because I am ready for a burst of inspiration.
8. Set up Paypal button for class.
9. Get "lecture hall" ready for the class at Ning.
10. Start uploading the videos to Viemo. There are over 20! (This is a monster class)
11. Finish a bit of the stamping on the class apron sampling.
12. Photograph the apron. I was thinking it would be so cool to have a little runway show with the apron. It is so cool! I want to ask a couple or three of my friends to let me record them (or take still shots) modeling the apron. I could use that in my videos somewhere. OK this just added another 6 or 10 hours to my weekend. Will have to think about that.
13. Get the class listed on my Ning "main" page and ready for registration Tuesday.

Well, I think I will stop with that. I'm sure more things to-do will come to mind when I get started. And if I can possible manage, I will bless the floors here and put away the Christmas stockings and Christmas tree. I think I should get that done before March. Or not.

Going now to START.
Hey did you ever notice that "art" is in the word start? And also did you ever notice this.....SharonTomlinsonART = START.
Gonna be one of those days when my brain will not stop talking to me.
Have a great weekend.
xoxo ♥ sharon

A Gift from Donna

I hope this has happened to you before.

Out of the blue on a perfect day when I was feeling frazzled,

I received a package full of the most beautiful hand made,

sweet sweet hearts and flowers along with little bundles of vintage lace and tatting.

I'm thinking the tatting and doilies were made by Donna too.

I know you want to see them closer.

Oh my! This .....leaves me speechless.

Beautiful tag. I'm going to use is as a book mark in my inspiration journal.

She calls these little puffs "attic flowers".  Isn't that the coolest!

Donna doesn't have  blog but she does blog hop.

Thank you Donna for hopping past my blog and thank you from the bottom of my heart for sending me such a thoughtful gift.  

If you've been around my blog from the beginning, you might remember that I have a thing about using new possessions (ASAP) immediately. 

Otherwise, I might be tempted to hoard thinking they are too pretty to use etc etc.

Well, don't you think this little "attic flower" is the perfect embellishment for my Apron Princess.

Speaking of Apron Princess....my new class is almost ready to start registration.

Here is some more unofficial information about the class.

I plan to open for registration March 1st.

The cost will be $75.00

The class start date will be March 18th or 25th (not sure)

and

I will have an "official" class description with photos at the time registration opens.

It is going to be a fabulous class and you will love love love it!

Thank you Dear Donna and All of my 500 Dear Dear Followers for stopping by.

I love knowing that you find what I share interesting or helpful because you know how I love to show and share.    

♥ Sharon

Random catch-up

Yep, my apron has been hanging a lot lately. You might notice it is right there in a good spot with my to-do list just in case I should happen to put it on. Progress is slow but most of all I think the summer heat is getting to me. The oven ride home at five o'clock each day just cooks all the juice out of me. We are having 100 + degree days and I'm not usually one to whine about that but this year seems different.


I did have a great play date Saturday with my friend Susan. There was some serious concentration going on and we had oodles of fun but I must learn to stop and breathe or take brakes because she plum wore me out.


Cupcakes anyone?



Blogger is doing some new stuff. Have you noticed? Well, I guess moving the photos around and resizing them on the "compose" window isn't new but I'm just now giving it a try and while learning is frustrating, I think I will like it. Sorry for this crazy layout learning curve.

The other thing Blogger has done, Gloria Hallelujah, is the spam blocker filter they have added. I was to the point of moderating comments to stop that stupid spammer that visits me every day. You may not have noticed because I delete it as soon as it hits. Driving me bats!

I guess I'm all caught up for now so I will get back to this crazy-dull-boring-dang-desk-in-town.
I could be doing something so fun at that delightful-fun-inspiring-full-inviting-equipped-bright-desk-in-studio.
♥ Sharon