Friday, September 30, 2011

Progressing

I'm progressing on my studio. I've got a lot of stuff in the eBay pile and some things in the living room still but I'm making progress.

Organization is the key!

Today is cleaning day. I'm going to sort and get most of this organized so I can work.
Here's my room right now.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Website being updated

If you are looking for www.kimparkinson.com it's currently being updated. I decided to add some features (calendar, guest book, etc.) so it needed to be converted.

You should be able to see the improved site tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

All About Halloween class starts today!

I have teamed up with Bethany Kartchner and Jennifer Priest and we are bringing you some fantastic projects in a brand new class called All About Halloween!

Anyone can take this class, it's online at My Creative Classroom.  Class starts today but you can work at it at your own pace.  We'll take sign ups through October 7th.  Here's a little about the class:


Trick or Treat! Do you love spooky ghosts? Goody bags filled with candy corn? Funny spiders and spectacularly scary mini-albums and layouts?

If so, All About Halloween is for you! In this jam-packed course, taught by three amazing teachers: Kim Parkinson, Bethany Kartchner and Jennifer Priest, we'll be creating everything you need this spooky season from cute Halloween cards and goody bags to whimsical home decor to fun layouts and mini-albums to document all the precious memories. If you need inspiration this season, look no further. You are in for an entire bag of treats! No tricks!

· Week One with Kim Parkinson: Fabulous gift bags and cards using alcohol inks, distress inks and embossed metal. We'll explore ways to highlight certain areas of a design using watercolor effects with UTEE.

· Week Two with Kim Parkinson: Create a spooky coffin mini book made from cardstock. It even has an easy stitched pamphlet inside! We'll discuss embossing on metal or pliable aluminum. If you do not have access to embossable metals, no worries! Kim will give suggestions on using other household items for embossing.

· Week Three with Bethany Kartchner: BOO! This week is all about spooky ghosts. You'll meet Zeke, Spooky and a whole gaggle of adorable ghosties. We'll create not just one, but three different home decor projects based on these transparent haunts using Creative Paperclay and supplies found at your local craft store.

· Week Four with Bethany Kartchner: Silly spiders are all the rage as we further explore sculpting with Creative Paperclay. Four unique projects involving our eight-legged friends are on the docket including a Halloween wreath with a spider named Jimmy, napkin holders and Miss Samantha, the most fashionable spider in the whole arachnid kingdom. Eeek!

· Week Five with Jennifer Priest: We'll explore innovative ways to create spooky effects on three unique scrapbook pages using googly eyes, paint, ink, and more. We'll also experiment with color and quirky embellishments for a mix of "scary" pages and whimsical, child-focused pages.

· Week Six with Jennifer Priest: Memory preserving continues as Jennifer shares several versions of mini-albums to lock up all of your spooky memories using leftover decorations to create up-cycled embellishments. To top it all off, we'll create custom "spooky" woven ribbon binding using the Bind It All machine.

If you are a new scrapbooker or crafter, don't worry! We will be covering all the basics along with more advanced techniques in video demonstrations, narrated presentations, downloadable pdf tutorials, forums and a student gallery. If you aren't sure about how you'll view course materials, please read our FAQs.

The first lesson will open in a few hours.  Here is a close up of the cards and gift bags we'll be making: 

I hope to 'see' you in the classroom!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Art Bar is here...

It's taken a lot of manuevering and lots of help from Bev, hubby and my Father but I've got the Art bar in my house!  Not all the stools are here and it's no where near ready for classes but it's here!  I thought some of you might like to see my before and after and what the bar looks like now...


This is before I even touched my room.  You can see, there's stuff everywhere.  I know the photo is tight but it gives you a general idea of what I'm working with.

After some clean up yesterday, it was looking clean but still like I had a ton of work to do...


OK, OK.  I confess.  It was really only this little area that was cleaned up.  The colorful cart went to my son's room so that he could use it for legos. 

I have two tables in my room but this is the one I usually 'worked' on.  (when I could find it...)


Yah, I know.  It's hard to see.  It's been covered in stuff like that for probably 6 months or better.

I took to top off of it, and repurposed the cabinet part.  Now the cabinet is in my kitchen where a bakers rack used to be.  The baker's rack was nice but it always left everything out in the open, for all to see.  Now everything is neatly contained in the cabinet.  All I need now is a small shelf above it to hang some utensils.


Nice and clean looking!  A white-wash of paint and it'll work out beautifully! 

So, here it is... the Art Bar has made it to the house. 


Now to sort and clean and get all the stuff around the room, into the bar...  I'm in for a busy week...




Friday, September 23, 2011

Life...

Things have changed a lot since my last post.  These past few Summer months haven't been all rosey for me.  Sure, I've had some great times but life's thrown me a few curve balls this Summer.  Without going into too much detail, I've had some personal issues, health concerns and some career setbacks.  Let me catch you up on where my career is heading...

First, let me say that I STILL have a job with My Creative Classroom.  Not only do I teach classes online there but I'm also their Marketing person.  It's a great place to learn and a great place to work (even better since I do it all from my home!!) 

But as far as in person teaching goes...

I'm on my own.  Basically.  The Scrapbook Cupboard will be closing it's doors forever on September 30th (if not before).  I've already taught my last class there.  I've been with Bev and the Scrapbook Cupboard for 7 years.  It's like loosing a ton of friends all at once.  I know that many will follow me and many will keep in touch but it's not the same as seeing them at the Cupboard.  This is a sad chapter for me, like missing a piece of me. 

I started at the Cupboard teaching a Circle Journal class.  That didn't actually run for a few years after it was introduced.  My running class was a sketch series that we called "Map it Out".  I had three 'regular' students.  Melissa, Stacy and Susan.  They stuck with me for maybe a year or so.  In that year, I tried other classes but not many ran or if they did, they had small attendance.  That was when the Scrapbook Cupboard was all about Scrapbooking. 

About 2 years after I started, we started to move into mixed media, stamping, cardmaking and other paper crafts.  That's where I really fell in love.  I liked scrapbooking but I LOVED getting dirty with paints, inks and all those other goodies.  From then on, I went on to aquire my certifications.  Ranger's Inks, Silhouette, Ten Seconds Studio, Copic 1, Copic Intermediate and even some silly ones like the Tombow one I got at CHA this past Summer. (it wasn't really a certification as it was a class on it).  Why so many certifications?  To better myself so I could teach my students new ways to use their supplies. And I love teaching.  I really do.  I think I've got a natural ability to help others and I'm creative enough to come up with a project I'm confident enough to teach.  All important traits to being a better teacher.

I've even been on some design teams, like Kandi and Dreamweaver.  Both of which, I'm sad to say, I didn't put in as much as I should have.  Designing for the sake of designing isn't for me.  I design with ONE goal in mind... to teach it.  And really, I've always had the store and it's stuff to deal with.

So, you might be thinking, "What about another store?"  I have decided NOT to tie myself to any one store.  I was going to.  I was all set to start moving my classes over to one store but (thankfully) I found out that wasn't going to work.  And now, this frees me up to be able to work in other stores and venues.  I've already got some of that in the works!

For now, I've made arrangements for my ATC club to meet at a local community center.  These will occur once a month and we'll enjoy each other's company and create some beautiful art to share. 

As for some of my other classes, well... I bought a large bar-like table that I can teach off of right here at my house.  I'll continue some of my classes here and use the community center for the larger classes. I started my own website... www.kimparkinson.com that I'm going to showcase class dates, times, prices and photos.  You'll be able to view the class, chose one and pay for it all online when it's finally implemented.  Very cool and very easy!  I'll be working on that within the next week and hope to have it all up and ready soon with classes started after October 16th.

I need to be better with my blog now, so you can expect more frequent updates.  At least several times a week. I'm ready for the challenge and I hope you are all ready for me too!

School's out ...for Summer?

Last night the Governor of Massachusetts cancelled all school until May 4th.  He did this on March 25th.  That is about 6 weeks of no sc...