villa park hearts

Celebrating National Cheese Day with Memories from Paris

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Have you ever dreamed of traveling? Where was your first international destination? Before I was able to do so financially, I dreamt for years of going to Paris. What sealed it for me was after I saw the movie “Amelie”. A single girl living her life, accordion music, old architecture, popping in somewhere quickly to down a glass of wine. All of the streets to explore, all the food to try, the gorgeous language. I couldn’t wait to experience the people myself. It just seemed like the perfect city for me for my first European travel. I saved my money, (it took years) and I booked my ticket for October of 2014 for about 10 days. And, I went alone because I had to, to prove to myself that I could walk around this world and be safe and I was, that I could be autonomous, and do what I wanted when I wanted. It showed me how capable I am, how lovely human beings can be, how helpful and hilarious, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I won’t lie to you, I had a few crying jags. I was mentally exhausted after a week of thinking in English and working so hard for those thoughts to come out of my mouth in French so I cried. And then I went out and had one of the best meals of my stay.

My first venture out I got lost and picked a small bistro to get my bearings and eat something since I was starving. This sweet establishment had the kindest waitress that spoke English with me which I needed in that moment of jetlag and exhaustion. I really appreciated her thoughtfulness. She told me how much she loved her job because she got to meet people from all over the world, nice people like me. That touched my heart so much I still think about her and I hope she is doing well. I can’t find the name of this place which has driven me crazy all these years. However, I did think to snap a photo before I devored everything and this is what I ordered:

charcuterie, wine, and a respite

My first French meal, a nice charcuterie board with four cheeses, four meats, cornishon, baguette, greens, and yes, a slab of butter. That round cheese was super skunky and I had a hard time downing it. My red wine went very well with everything. Delicious.

After I left this cozy place, I wandered around trying to find my street and thoroughly enjoying the process. As I snapped photos I found a restaurant I made sure to remember for another meal during my stay. The calm din of French voices filled every corner on my walk. Peaceful, relaxing. People enjoying the night air with drinks and food and their friends. I thought, why don’t we do this in the US? These pics were taken somewhere on Rue Montorgueil.

From this angle you can see how shiny the stones are in their various patterns. When I turned around, this beautiful store window greeted me:

I think that is candied fruit on the middle half circles. Yum. I did not shop here. I wish I had.

The variety of cheeses made me say, “Wow”, out loud. I wish I had tried more kinds, but my focus was visiting museums and just enjoying whatever I came across. The entire city is an undiscovered treasure to me and I can go back again and again.

Eating in after a full day at the Louvre: leftover meats and cheese with a fresh baguette and Bordeaux. I gave up trying to eat the stinky one and let it go. I still feel a little guilty about wasting food in Paris, but when I remember how funky the smell was, I’m good. 😀

the glorious croque monsieur

After Mass at Notre Dame,I ordered this cheese covered glory with ‘un cafe’, grabbed a table outside and devoured this exquisite sandwich. I swear, I was the only person eating on the entire street. I’ve made these at home and there is nothing like melted, crunchy cheese on the outside of your American “grilled cheese”. Monsieur Croque, je taime. 🙂 Recipe here: Easy, Cheesy Croque Monsieur Recipe | Jacques Pepin

The author enjoying her first cheesy Croque Monsieur.

It has taken me nine years to share my Paris trip with anyone. In 2024, I promise myself I will spend time in the past looking at, creating art from, and remembering as many wonderful experiences as I can to share with you. I hope it gives you some dreams you would like to make come true, too. You can go anywhere and do anything you set your mind to. I’m living proof. Until next time, keep dreaming. xo

One of my last evenings in Paris at the Eiffel Tower. I didn’t know it was painted brown until I got close to it. The night time light show is insane.

Care Instructions for Spoonflower Fabric

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In this post I share my free PDF on care instructions. This document is updated every six months as fabric availability can change. I also include repeated information from a previous post.

What is Spoonflower?

Spoonflower is an on-demand, digital printing company that prints custom designs on fabric, wallpaper, and home decor. It is based in Durham, North Carolina and owned by Shutterfly. (Yay, Made in USA!) The Spoonflower community has hundreds of thousands of independent designers and artists from all over the world. We earn a commission from each sale from our shop, usually around 10% of the sale before taxes and shipping. So, when you buy from one of us, you are directly helping us with our creative businesses. Pretty cool, right?

For sewists and their projects, there are numerous kinds of fabrics that you can choose by the yard, fat quarter, or swatch. For those non-sewist, the home decor items are sewn in-house by Spoonflower employees. I have heard that some think Spoonflower’s prices are too high. I absolutely disagree. The quality of the fabrics and the labor time it takes to print and make your items is giving someone a decent living wage, right here in America. I am all about that. They are skilled at their work and deserve every penny they earn. If you want cheaper items and fabric somewhere else, be my guest. But, be warned. There is a lot of design theft and cheap, fly-by-night shops popping up all over the internet. They steal someone’s design they have no copyright to, offer it on products or fabrics, take your money, then disappear. And you just got robbed. Design theft is rampant right now and I will be doing a blog post about that soon so you know what to look out for. So, feel confident when you shop Spoonflower. Know it is a safe platform where you won’t be taken advantage of. I’m there, what more do you need? 🙂

I have found the quality of their fabrics, printing, and craftmanship to be exceptional and have always been very happy with my swatch proofs and purchased items. Another interesting thing to know is that digital printing has very little waste, unlike conventional textile manufacturing. There is less use of electricity, waste of fabric, and they inks they use are water-based.

One of the things I love so much about Spoonflower is that it gives me the ability to share my creativity with the world in a pattern that can then be available to all of you. That was always a Dream and I am making that dream come true by having my own shop on Spoonflower! I started it back in 2010 and I didn’t do much with it until two years ago. Some of my first designs were atrocious, but I have learned so much and absolutely love making fabric patterns with my art. So, if you are ready to dive in, here is my tutorial for finding my designs on Spoonflower for your projects and home. My shop is here: Angela’s Spoonflower Shop. Read my blog tutorial on shopping the platform. Let me know if I can adapt anything: Tips for Shopping Spoonflower

Save and Print this document for ease of use. Please feel free to pass it along, too. I am happy to share it.

Click here: Spoonflower Fabric Care Instructions Download

Sweets Designs; How I created my first Surface Pattern Design Collection

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VPH Design Part Three: My Surface Pattern Design Guide.

I love Christmas. I love the lights and shiny ornaments when they hang on the tree. I love it so much that I have had a little pink Christmas tree in my studio forever. I keep it up all year and it has my favorite ornaments from Old Fashioned Christmas, I buy one every year at my favorite store, Drees, in Olympia. I have candy and ice cream ornaments, shiny pine cones, a rooster, a purse. And more. Yes, I posted this pic yet again. I love my little tree so much:

Little Pink Christmas tree in my window, up all year! 2020

As I worked with my coach, Jeanetta, (see my previous post here), she had me create Mood Boards. Before my first meeting with her, I again, invested in myself, and bought Photoshop. I know it fairly well, but it had been some years since I used it regularly. I highly recommend investing in yourself, too, and get the yearly subscription. Adobe Lightroom is fantastic. I did not buy Adobe Illustrator, but did use the trial version and I can see why people like it. Photoshop has mood boards, too, so I stayed with that.

surface pattern design mood board how to
First ever mood board, Sweets. 2020

Having never made a mood board before, I found it quite challenging. I learned a few things: I don’t need to be so literal with the inspiration. I actually added two of my paintings into the board, which I did not need to do, I can choose furniture, nature, or really anything that would give the “mood” of what I am going for, and next time, I will work on a story and pick descriptive words to go with the “mood”; like happy, playful, fun, cheery, etc. I was concentrating so hard on the actual making of the board, I got a bit lost. All in all, though, it was fun to make and I can’t wait to make another one. I’ll just keep learning!

Here are the four motifs/icons/paintings I made for my first design, all in watercolor, inspired by the ornaments on my little pink Christmas tree:

Ice cream watercolor surface pattern design how to
Ice cream. 2020
Cupcake surface pattern design how to
Cupcake. 2020
Lollipop surface pattern design how to
Swirl pop. Actual lollipop I can’t bring myself to eat. 2020
Lollipop surface pattern design how to
No reference, Fantasy lollipop in red with hearts. 2020

I took pictures with my smart phone because I am currently without a scanner or printer. I played around with the icons in Photoshop; copying, rotating, etc. I couldn’t think of anything to do besides these tiles, which I thought were pretty cool:

Tile design pattern surface design vph sweets collection
Tiles of from my paintings in Photoshop 2020

I added hearts and stars. And cherries and then I didn’t know what else to do with them. I was ready for more help in our second session.

Jeanetta used the “share screen” option and I was able to watch her as she played around with the file in Photoshop. It was so cool! She suggesting “brightening up” the colors, as my photos were dark and what a difference that made. She duplicated, recolored, and turned and mirrored the icons into options I never thought of. It was pure play! Below is one orientation she came up with that I really like:

fabric pattern design how to vph sweets collection
Screenshot of Jeanetta’s guidance, rearranging my motifs in Photoshop

After another tutorial and tip sharing, she sent me on my way to practice for another week. This got me thinking about cake toppers and fun things that could be added to desserts. Jeanetta suggested I start saving images for more moodboards in one of my online accounts that I won’t mention and I won’t use anymore. (that’s a whole other blog post). Here is one image I just love:

Credit to Wilton.com

So I sketched and played with colored pencils. I drew and drew and I still felt stuck and frustrated. What was I doing wrong? Why was this so hard?

Next post: I’ll share some of the sketches, ideas, and struggles of the process as I rework the Sweets motif.

Forgiving the Past, How I Began My Dream of Surface Pattern Design

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VPH Design Part One: My Surface Pattern Design Guide.

Hey, #GenX. How’s 50 looking for ya? Hi, everyone else! I’m just getting my stride over here. Are you worrying about retirement, like me? Now, I know our pop, capitalist culture hates aging. As we enter our 50’s how are you feeling about that? I’m calling bullshit on feeling anything but glorious and empowered about it. We have never been smarter or more beautiful. Sure, there are body aches, menopause, gray hairs, and wrinkles, but, I love all of it. I love all my life wisdom. I love those I know who are aging with me. I love that you are not coloring your hair anymore. I love that there is a bit of a tummy appearing.

We are in the Age of #Corona. I’ve been in quarantine since early March. I have good and bad days. How are you doing? I feel like our government currently seems to hate us and I don’t have faith my pension and social security will be available to me. So, I’ve got a plan. A retirement plan. Let me tell you about it. First, some background:

Long, long ago in a city far, far away, I struggled in college with the course of study I “should” follow. I wanted to study art. My professor told me “Washes are your thing.” Black ink and water. Shadow and Light. At the time, I took it and put it in my heart. Then, I listened to well-meaning voices who told me I couldn’t make a living as an artist. Fear took hold. The ramifications of that time are still in my body and I, at 53 years old, am working to finally release them. I started to focus on Biology and I turned my back on visual art. I finished college and one of the first purchases my mother helped me buy was a set of #Pelikanwatercolors, markers, paper, and brushes. This was before my first job and I just needed these supplies to dream and practice with as I coped with transitioning from college to finding my way in the workplace. I was depressed and missing my friends so badly. The art supplies helped me so much during this time.

At the same time, I started a distant learning course for writing children’s literature. It was hard and I didn’t even try to make pictures to go with my writing at the time. Why? I was disassociated. Depressed. Still believing I couldn’t be successfully artistic. Sad. 🙁

With the compliment I got in college still hiding in my heart, I began to play and learned how to Watercolor. It is my first love. It can be tamed to a point, but has that exquisite, expressive quality. I love trying with it. What will happen if I…? I added too much water… Not enough? I haven’t stopped painting in between having gross jobs, moving cross country, making cards, working in theatre, and so many other things.

I found Sara Middas’ South of France book in the late 90’s and it lit me up! What a clever book. She lived in France for almost a year and just collected what she saw, what she ate, where she was and it is brilliant. This is the book that got me interested in surface pattern design. I want to make a book like hers, only, it will be about my neighborhood, what is around me. So, I started paying attention to where I was. Sketching, painting, note taking. That book idea is stuffed way in the back of my brain, dusty, forgotten. But I digress. I drew my first design idea, a mug and a plate with a blue pattern. (* I would insert it here, but I can’t find it…) I didn’t know what to do next. This was before the internet and I failed at finding resources or any kind of help at all. So, I gave up. On that. But, I kept painting. And dreaming.

Then three decades went by, like, how the hell did that happen? A marriage. A first home purchase. A divorce. A house lost. A new family. A second home purchase. Many jobs worked and in between, the surface design dream pops up now and then. And then, one day, I’m 50. 😳

I’m ignoring any voice that tells me no, or stop, or I’m too old. I’m not slowing down, I’m ramping up. I’m awesome. My life has given me experiences and knowledge that are valuable and I will be paid handsomely for being creative and ridiculously brilliant. My retirement plan is to remain artistic and earn with making and selling my art. Come on, my 50-somethings! Let’s manifest our dreams and lift each other up to create a beautiful, enjoyable next three decades. How is your self esteem? You deserve the best. What is your retirement plan?

Next post: I find someone to help me on my path.

surface pattern design marie antoinette
Watercolor, inspired by the movie “Marie Antoinette” by Sofia Coppola. 2017

She is…

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She is a very pretty girl. I think her life is perfect. But, it is not. She carries pain and wounds unseen by us. Disappointment sits beside her, gently whispering, “It doesn’t matter. It will never happen.” And she listens. She listens too much. And her heart breaks every day with every broken promise. So, the tears flow, down the crevices and dips of her cheeks, splashing on her hands and feet. And she is left with sorrow and glittered tears under her finger nails.

What now?

Sadness.

There is so much sadness. Tears and salt. Sniffles and streaks. The river begins in her eyes. It trickles at first. Then gains speed with her wails and weeping. The flood gates are opened and the rushing torrent knocks all around her off their feet. They are swept away by her sorrow. No one can stop it. The flood waters reach the highest point and no one is safe. It washes all of it away. There is nothing left…well, not nothing, just fish bait.

 

Lil’ Lit

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Small book. Tiny handwriting. What does it say?

Haiku and small poems about my daily bus ride to Olympia. Over the last 4 years I’ve logged thousands of miles up and down I-5 and hundreds and hundreds of trips.

Here are some in process photos of the making of “The Commute-Tacoma, Olympia”:

I took photos on the bus and had to make some design decisions.

Inspired by an artist book made with a clam shell, I decided to use this shape.

I cut up the most current schedule for my pages and box.

As I am making, all the while I’m thinking about the smells, sounds, rhythmic rocking, and views out the window that I see over and over again. How can I capture it within such a small work, and one I want to fit into a small box?

Things I want to highlight in words. I love words. I love to pepper my work with them.

How can I put this thing together? Do I want to make it permanent?

Now it is a flower, not a starfish. Still organic, not quite sure how it fits with the bus, yet.

 

This book was created for the 2017 Puget Sound Book Artists Exhibit, Northwest Musings. Come see this book and many other beauties through through July at the Collins Library, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma. <3

Carving Again

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I fell in love with printmaking at The Evergreen State College. The ink smell, cleaning “green” using cooking oil, the sound of the presses, hand-cranking them across damp paper, the inspiration of antiquated art-forms… Thanks, Colleen!

Rubber and Speed Ball.

Upclose and personal.

Custom card for someone very special.

Yes, insects appear. Everywhere.

Signature

hand carved clovers, positive and negative

 

Ocean Shores

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The coast is a special place to me. I grew up in high altitude where the plains meet the Rocky Mountains. There wasn’t a lot of standing water there. The ocean was this amazing, mysterious place that I saw maybe a few times when I was a child. It was vast and blue. Moving to Washington has been so great since I see water almost every day.

Here’s a link to one of the pieces I made of Ocean Shores, Washington. What did you do when you first saw Sharky’s? I think I hollered, “Whoa!!”

https://villaparkhearts.com/product/sharkys-ocean-shores-series/

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