These BLOGS Make My Little Heart Sing

I dance just like Little Lucy when I read the blogs listed below.

There are more blogs I follow than magazines I read, which has been a reversal for me that happened in the Great Purge of 2014. When my husband and I married last year, I moved my things slowly, as I was moving into a 1700 square foot house which was going to now hold 2 kids, the hubs, 3 dogs and a cat (who finally had the good sense to bail on the situation last year).  Therefore I don't buy stuff for our house anymore, and am still in the process of purging things as 2014 has not ended.  These events led to all the magazine giveaways, non-renewals and lots of recycling. Good God, I had to have less paper in my life!  Reading blogs was the perfect way to get the visuals I longed for, and to find something else I did not even know existed from reading magazines: connection.

Here I Give You the 2 Blogs I Have Followed the Longest:

A Photo I took of Pam's Stitching at Silver Bella

http://www.pamgarrison.com/ - Pam Garrison is an artist who photographs her lifestyle and art so well, you would think you are looking at a printed publication. She got me into succulents, does a variety of mediums making her blog fresh and evolving.  Along with art journaling, embroidery (which is not your mama's stitching), painting, Project Life, baking, DIY projects with her kids, her travels, the art courses she teaches, she takes on new adventures all the time. Recently, she started weaving on small looms, and shows people her beginning products (whether good or bad, but let's face it, everything she does is good) and how the work evolves.  I love her willingness to pick up something and let the reader follow along with her as she takes an art class (right now it is Sketchbookery).  I have taken a live class from her, and would recommend it, not just for the class itself, but to see her visual journals and stitching in person.  There needs to be a museum for this work.  Plus, she is a nice soul.

Crazed I am about succulents 

http://dispatchfromla.typepad.com/ - Mary Ann Moss.  This is the longest blog I have continued to follow every single week.  The first blog I started to leave comments on, and the first blogger who thanked me and replied.  I have emails saved from this woman, you know for prosperity.  Interesting, never standing still, the documentation of her trips, her breathtaking photography, the journals and books she makes - Ahhh!  I adore her! I have taken almost all of her online art courses, and fell in love with her style from the first one I took. She describes herself as a guerrilla sewer in one e-course, code for 'I'm not a perfectionist, people!' Thus, I finally understood there were people in the world like myself, who don't want to measure and line things up.   Enjoying the process is more fun to me, and I like getting better with repetition. 

Before Mary Ann takes one of her glorious trips, she makes a book for the trip. When she went to Paris, I got so inspired by her posts, I made a book in advance for the day I get to go.  One of the jewelry artists' I was representing at the time, Vandi Hodges, took a trip to Paris and supplied me with all the ephemera for this book.  I even made a little book for Lucy. I sent Mary Ann pictures, and she generously, sent me a whole itinerary of things she did and places to check out when I go there. Don't you love that?

I still don't have the patience to bind my books.  I use rings and ribbons - works for me.

I even marbleized my own paper (on Whole foods grocery sacks).

Now the coolest part of this story is these two artists are now good friends.  Maybe they were friends when I first found them, but they didn't talk about that fact on their blogs.  In the past several years, they have started renting homes in Palm Springs and doing art retreats with each other and Mary Ann's sister. Gosh, I want friends like this!  I often wonder is there enough time left in my life to get all the art I want to do done?  And for whatever reason, these two women seem to embody this principle. They are always experimenting, writing, taking pictures and making art.

If you like creativity, these are my two muses.  Enjoy your day and please share with me who inspires you!  I might get the opportunity to interview them.