Painting Small Cuties

Just signed up for this workshop with Suzi Blu and I am sooooooo excited!!!! What fun!!  Stay tuned for Angelo and Dana paintings!! :)

Oh, and in other news, I am now over 5,000 page views on this blog!! Yes, really!! How exciting!!  Do you think it's time for a give-away to celebrate?  If you do, comment below and tell me if it should be a belly dance DVD or a set of collaged cards.

Have a great day!! :)

Our Neighborhood Park Part 1

These photos are from the Earth Day celebration in April at the park a few turns from here.  It was really nice to be able to go to this family friendly event with our whole family for free and that the focus was right up our alley.  Angelo enjoyed crafting with the Girl Scouts, and I was especially proud when, after painting with the paint they'd provided, he asked if they had any water colors.  That's my little mixed-media artist! :)

(I found that picture CD!  Catch up post 1 complete! :)

Fun Collage Project

This looks like such a fun project!  Traci's book, Collage Unleashed, was one of the first books I got when I decided to look further into visual arts, and found it so exciting!  The crayon cupcakes mentioned here, the corrosponding wax abstracts, and some monoprints in my stash were inspired by her book and so was the above dyed paper towel.  Maybe they'll end up on a journal cover! :) (My Naturopath Dr. recommended journaling, as did a medium I saw in August.  Something I did a lot more of in the past and obviously should do now...)

Please let me know if you try this project!  You can comment below or email me.  (I'm tricking those darn bots and directing you to my website for my email address.  Much less spam that way. :)

Have a great weekend!

Visits to the Naturopath

I went to the Naturopath here in our neighborhood.  Before the first visit, it took about 2 hours to fill out the paperwork.  The process was actually really cathartic- like a therapy session that allowed me to tell my entire story regarding my physical, emotional and spiritual self.

After the free 30 minute consultation, I was feeling hopeful that some of my current issues would be resolved more thoroughly than I anticipated and at the same time a little concerned that I would have to radically change my diet again and only be able to eat rice.   (Not the case regarding the second, fortunately.)

It was one of those "block out 3 hours for the evaluation" and it took 4 things.  That's not a bad thing, though.  IMO, a much better approach than checking in with someone who has allotted 3 minutes for you and rushes to prescribe a pill or surgery.

After the seemingly magical evaluation that involved a computer, an electric probe, and accupressure points on my hand, I was surprised to find out some of the things I was sensitive and reacting to- cats, formaldehyde (hello anatomy and neurology lab- you were more than just creepy!), carragean.  At the same time, I was not really surprised since many of the things I already knew I reacted to and avoided-mold/dust, gluten. Or things I cut out just because I knew they were "bad"- msg, aspartame.  Now I know they are specifically "bad" for me.

After a chiropractic evaluation and adjustment, some manual accupressure point checks, lots of questions regarding my whole self, he came up with a plan that I can really get on board with.  One thing I was really impressed with was the homeopathic remedy he prescribed.  The profile described me to a T.  Very interesting, a little spooky and very confidence-building.

Though kind of overwhelming, I'm glad this route addresses the root cause of the issues and not just the symptoms or a disease.  And that the solutions don't come with a list of crazy side-effects.

Hmm... and I thought I was going in for a detoxifying foot bath...

Has anyone else had experience seeing a Naturopath?  I'd be really interested in hearing about your process.

Paper Cloth

 Image Copyright 2011 Narah Kimberly A. Minardi All Rights Reserved

 Image Copyright 2011 Narah Kimberly A. Minardi All Rights Reserved

 Image Copyright 2011 Narah Kimberly A. Minardi All Rights Reserved

Image Copyright 2011 Narah Kimberly A. Minardi All Rights Reserved

This is paper cloth.  Kelli Perkins, author of "Stitch Alchemy" developed this method of gluing tissue paper, bits of paper to fabric; adding paint, ink and stitch to cloth.  The end product can then be stitched up into a bag or pillow or hopefully a tiny dress.  That's the plan I have for at least some of this paper cloth I made.  After eyeing it for years, finally this book made it into my collection thanks to a damaged book sale.  Wow, is it inspiring!  Kelli's method of explaining is totally meshing with how I'm operating right now;  not so many recipes and explicit directions, but plenty of examples and suggestions.  If you are brand new to mixed media and don't know how some of the materials work or where to get them and want more concrete directions, this may not be the book to start with, but definitely add it to your list for later on.  If you know some basics and want major inspiration, I highly recommend it right now!

(BTW, the "ingredients" in my paper cloth are: muslin, watered down tacky glue, pattern tissue, antique book pages, other book pages, Eco paint [tomato red= pink and pumpkin] mixed with gel medium, scraped Ranger Rainbow ink, sprayed mica ink, gesso stamped with a plastic bottle cap and machine stitching. So fun to play with!!!) 

We Are Fish in a Sea of Spirit

Hoping you find these images inspiring!  I know I'm not the only one who loves Mermaids and Fairies, so I hope you enjoy these! :)

 Image copyright 2011 Narah Kimberly A. Minardi. All Rights Reserved

Listed here in my Etsy store.

Copyright 2011 Narah Kimberly A. Minardi. All Rights Reserved.

Listed here in my Etsy store.


You can *heart* my store and favorite your favorites on Etsy.  So, if you like them, please do! :)

Once I find the right picture CD, I have some catch up posts to do.  Used my Cannon film camera for a while since my digital camera card was broken.  

Hope you had a Happy Independence Day!

Zombie Shrine

My camera really didn't want to take pictures of this art I created this morning.  Perhaps it was scared. ;)
So, I took some video on my phone.  This way you get to see some of the angles that would be hard to get with a still picture too.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.  Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but I had fun!! :)

The ATC shrine is from Retro Cafe.  Oh, the number of alterables on my wish list from there!
The mini zombies are from Tiny Things Are Cute.  So much fun stuff in miniature! Who knew?! :)

This was just for fun, though the zombie sisters are on my altered Halloween collage sheet.  :)

Do you love Halloween as much as I do?  Do you have any projects in mind for the impending Hallow-day? :)