A Ramble, EDM, and More Used Books

Yesterday dawned sunny and clear. My friend, Nancy, and I had a play date planned. I drove to her house and she drove to Ann Arbor from there. We rambled around in a couple of thrift shops that were new to us and made a few good finds. Here is what I found:

I really can't wait to get back to making repurposed journals and these books will make great covers.

My little girls will love these little purses.

Actually, on the drive to the second thrift shop, we stopped at Trader Joe's to browse. I cannot resist this store. I seldom get to it and when I do, I tend to make up for lost time. I bought two bottles of wine for the hubster, some triple ginger snap cookies, trail mix, and a Harvest Blends mix of orzo, garbanzo beans and quinoa. It was really hard to resist the wonderful array of specialty chocolates, but this time I was good.

By the time we finished browsing the second thrift shop (mostly clothes), we were quite hungry, so Nancy drove us to a lovely, arty vegetarian restaurant, Seva, where we enjoyed the portabella burger and sweet potato fries (they call them yam fries). It was a yummy lunch and the company was fun as usual.

When we were ready to head home, we got back to Nancy's and played a bit with some of her art supplies. She gave me a little sketch book to mess around in and when I opened it, I found a lovely colored pencil sketch of a tree that I told her I didn't remember seeing on her blog. She humored me and has posted it. You can see it here.

Just after 5 I headed home where I quickly threw together a stew/soup of hot Italian sausage, navy beans, tomatoes, onion, garlic and parsley. I served it with Tortilla scoops just in time for the Tiger game. It was tied 1-1 at the end of the ninth; the Tigers won in overtime. Go Tigers!!!

I did a quick sketch for EDM 214, but drew it in ink and wish I'd used pencil instead. In this case it would have been better so I could show the shine on the needle. I am sure there is a way to do this with ink, but at this point it is beyond me.

This afternoon I am driving to Mason to sit in the bookstore/coffee shop and watch a video lesson on using colored pencil. I can't watch it at home as it uses more bandwidth than I am allowed. This is such an inconvenience!

Before I get started on the arty side of my day, I need to run the vacuum and sweep the kitchen floor. Then I hope to get started on a rework of the Adirondack chairs. I may make a reverse stencil of the chairs and work around it with pan pastels to make the sky, lake and sand. Whatever I decide to do, I will share it with you tomorrow.

Tracy - I need your addy so I can send you the Inktense pencils you won.

xoxo