Rosie Kelly Book Workshop in Memphis

What a weekend! I picked up a new friend, Shirley Sawyer, at her home in Louisville and drove to Memphis to meet other friends for a fantastic weekend workshop presented by the Memphis Calligraphy Guild. Rosie Kelly of Chicago was the instructor. It was the second or third workshop I've enjoyed with Rosie over the years, the other(s) being paste paper workshops). Paste paper, another subject entirely, is a great page maker for these wonderful handmade artist books.

This photo is of the books I made in class plus the two collage pages we made early in day one of the workshop. More can be seen on my Letterlady's Letters blog at: http://letterladysletters.blogspot.com/ and my website at: www.picturetrail.com/letterlady in my handmade books album.

Shirley, Deb Warnat and her daughter Cassie, Donna Hacker and I stayed at Donna's daughter's lovely condo in a very nice Memphis suburb. It couldn't have been a better situation for fun, camaraderie and art. Some good eating came in to play too, including daily breakfast yogurt yumminess Donna made for each of us from a bed and breakfast recipe. Here's a photo of my morning treat.

Near Emily's, we spotted this sign. We loved it and hope it did the trick.

Where else would a group of people attend a calligraphy guild sanctioned workshop and be visited by a Canine police unit? This workshop was held at a police station community room, and the police officers were curious about our activity. (Maybe they were curious about our frequent mentioning of our 'stashes' - which in our case was pretty innocuous - our beautiful paper scraps that we were using for the collage elements in our books.) When we let them look around at our book projects we asked to see the beautiful dog this officer managed. No touching allowed, but Dobro (?) was a beautiful animal and enjoyed his visit. Had the officer given the word, those powerful jaws could have done unthinkable damage. (That's Rosie seated at her desk in the background.)

See other photos on my Letterlady's Letters blog and on my website.

My Little Bluejean Boy and My Studio

Here's my little guy - just turned one year old this month, but looking older in his blue jeans. I was trying to get him to take a nap because he was a little fussy and tired...and I had calligraphy to do. He didn't nap then, but the wedding calligraphy was completed in plenty of time and Jamma had a good time playing with her little man while his parents were away for the weekend.

Here's a photo of an addressed envelope set along with the invitation and dinner and dancing reception card from this wedding. Both the bride and her mother have sent me beautiful words of thanks, and I look forward to working with them on their very cool and out of the ordinary place card idea soon.

My studio is a part of my large family room, and my mess and tools are very accessible. This made good sense when I bought the house, but that was before our little Jace-treasure was part of our lives. Now I face the tasks of really cleaning and child-proofing my studio or moving it to the smaller, less accessible spare bedroom upstairs. Both ideas will involve a lot of planning, time and work, none of which I want to undertake right now. This shot was taken looking from the family room section into the messy studio on a 'good' day. It gets worse. Something is going to have to change, I know. Jace is so tempted by the tools on the desk/table just a toddler arm's reach behind the couch.

Decisions, decisions. Until then, I prefer to play with Jace every chance I get, and letter beautiful envelopes for weddings and other functions when he is not here. And Jace is coming over today!

Wedding Calligraphy Blog

I'm a full time calligrapher in the Louisville, KY area, but with the internet, e-mail and shipping and mail services, I have hand written and lettered invitations and envelopes for weddings across the nation. I can't believe that I have a few blogs and only last night started a wedding calligraphy blog. It's a work in progress that I will be adding to as I gather my envelope images. You can click on this link to visit that blog. If you know anyone getting married, they should book their calligrapher early and order extra envelopes. If they are running late, often they can get the envelopes early so they may be addressed in time.

I took my first calligraphy class when my youngest son was two (I am now a grandmother!), but even before then beautiful writing had been practically a lifelong interest. I stayed with the classes, joined guilds and taught classes for several years. All the while I was (and still am) training with some of the best calligraphers in the world. Visit my website to see many examples of my calligraphy in the 'wedding' and 'calligraphy' albums.

Thanks for visiting!

Jace's First Birthday Party

Today is Jace's first Birthday, but we celebrated on Sunday. Here are a few photos. I will add more later, so look back.

Here is the Smashcake; It was so cute. Adrienne and Co. created the cake using one of Jace's toys as a model for the monkey face on the top...perfect!



Perhaps disappointing his parents who were expecting a messy bunch of fun, Jamma was proud of her Jace-monkey for being so neat on his first few tentative pokes at the pretty confection. Finally he understood it was his and - it was good!



Daddy moved in to show him how it's done.


Pappy leaned in for a better look at his little man.


Mommy helped him open his presents.


Becky Korte and Sandy set the party table up very appropriately with stuffed monkeys, monkey party favors and chocolate and banana cupcakes.


Monkeys can also be princes, as designated on this first birthday by the princely "Number 1" crown.