NO RULES Meeting - February 10, 2009

Last Sunday my friends Pam, Carolyn, Teresa and I met for our monthly NO RULES meeting. This is a mixed media art group. We showed off our puzzles, started our jounal project, made plans for our doll exchange, talked about our mini art quilt exchange and made ATC's. I'll talk about the puzzle now and the other projects as they come up.
We started the puzzle project last year and it was Christmas gifts to each other. We had 12 piece wooden puzzles that we chose a theme for and passed out pieces to each member and then embellished the pieces. One of our members, Judy, sadly has sinced dropped out of the group. We then put our puzzles back together again and had wonderful pictures that each member of the group contributed to and they are keepsakes for life.

This is my puzzle and my theme was beaches. Some of the pictures have real sand from different parts of the country - so cool! The pictue in the lower right is of my son and myself sitting by the sand dunes on Cape Cod about 30 years ago. We were living there at the time. It's one of my favorite pics. The picture on the lower left is a beach in Tortola which was one of my husband's and my favorite Caribbean Islands we visited on a cruise 2 years ago. I added the sparkly pink flamingo mostly because I love pink and sparkly! I still need to paint and decorate the frame but I love this project and it means so much to me.

This is Pam Rowe's puzzle. Her theme was mid-life reflections. One of the pieces I made for her is the one in the upper right hand corner with the cupcakes. Life is ALL about the cupcakes!! (Maybe not all but it helps.)

This is Carolyn Tolan's puzzle. Her theme was doors. One of the pieces I made for her is the bottom center with The Doors rock group. That was my husband's brilliant idea. But my other piece is the big brown door with a pretty handmade wreath that I put on upside down - could not believe it!

This is Terea Balasz's puzzle. Her theme was hearts. One of the pieces I made was the one with the big puffy hearts which Teresa tells me she uses as a handle to lift the puzzle out of its frame. And the other piece is right above it with sparkly hearts all over it - love the sparkle!

And the last one is Judy Brown's. Her theme was dolls. She is a beautiful doll maker and taught me a lot about making dolls. We'll miss having her in our group and hope she can return in the future.
Well that is all for today. I should be working on my challenge doll for one of my doll clubs but she is almost finished. The new doll club that Pam and I and another friend Rosemarie started in Akron is having its second meeting this Sunday. I'm really looking forward to it. It is very exciting to be starting a new doll club and to see how it will grow, I'll write about that later also.