Good morning from sunny Saluda, North Carolina. What a beautiful day here in the mountains!
Last night I started a new project using the inspiration that I found in the newest book from C and T publishing, "Fabric Leftovers". With the awesome Moda fabric that I bought from Karen at Country Mercantile in Lowell, NC, I had a great start with color combinations. She sells these little packets of 5 or 6 pieces of Moda fabric, all color coordinated so of course I bought some not knowing what I would do with it. It spoke to me, what can I say? So after some cutting, tearing and shredding I pinned all the pieces to some muslin and started sewing it down. Along with that I added a transparency ink jet transfer of a crow. Love it! I guess it will be a book or something. Not quite sure. I'm still working on it and my plans are to add a little lace crown, some interesting words, some gingham red ribbon that I found in my stash and who knows what else might happen. It's just the beginning.
Having my new work table in the dining room in front of the window works! It's a mess in my DR but I needed to do it. Now I can walk through from the kitchen to the computer to the bedroom and look at what I am doing. How many projects can I get going at once? I am so excited to have this space. Claudine Hellmuth and Leslie Riley, both said in their books that having your creative space where you spend lots of time is the way to go. They were right!
Love it!. It's just the beginning. Thank you every one who encouraged me to find a place to play!!!!!!!!

I guess Susan was right! She "gently" reminded" me that it was time to do more on my blog. Yes, she was right but the words were just not flowing. OK, OK I will make myself write. Once I sit down and do it I am fine with it. But the whole thing with "strangers" reading it is very scary to me. So, now you all know my insecurities about writing. Sad but true. I will try and live up to my own expectations.


We will be closed on Thanksgiving (Nov23) but we will be open for business on Friday, Nov 24th at 10am and again on Sat. Nov 25th and again on Sunday, Nov 26th from 1pm till 4pm.

As we look forward to 2007 our plans are to take Random Arts on the road starting with the Myrtle Beach Quilting Party in January. In February we will be taking our store to the Creative Palette in St. Marys, Georgia. The Charlotte Quilt Guild host their annual quilt show in March at the Latin School and we will be there selling our assorted goods. In April we head to Chicago for Quilt Fest and we are very anxious to get back to our home town and enjoy some of great food that we sorely miss. May leads us to to ART and Soul in Hampton, Va. Go to their web site and register now for some of the best workshops with the best teachers in the country. We will be there for the weekend bringing our shop to all of you and maybe taking a few classes as well.
After Art and Soul, Michael DeMeng returns to Saluda to jump start his new book on Thursday, May 10th and 2 full days of workshops on May 11th and 12th. Michael is an assemblage artist from Missoula, Montana and he had such a great time in Saluda this past June that he chose to come back again in '07. On March 31st we will host
Janet Lasher, surface design artist from Charlote, NC. Please go to her web site and check it and email us to sign up.

Welcome to my new blog
Random Notes
with Jane Powell

It took me a while to get around to doing this but I finally decided that it was time to let you all see the "behind the scenes" part of Random Arts in Saluda, NC. The photo here on the right is one that was taken of me in April when the photographer from Mountain Traditions Magazine came here to do a shoot for their recent article on our shop. Hurrah for us! We were "published" and it was... wonderful.

Where We've Been

Anyway, that was in April and this is September. Jen and I just got back from Blowing Rock, NC where we went to be a vendor and sell our "assorted goods for creative mindfulness" to the participants at the "Believe in Yourself" retreat with Kristi Steiner and Susan Edmonson. It was an amazing retreat where 50 like-minded creative spirts ( the muses and the sprites) learned some altered forms of free motion quilting, coloring fabrics and trims, stamping on fabrics and the much discussed issue of " How do I break through my creative stumbling blocks?"

What to do now?

Kristi will be here on October 28th for an altered book workshop entitled "My Heart's Desire" or if you like, you can call it " My Soul Revealed". Not only does Kristi share her nurturing and sharing talents but she is going to "nudge" you into a creative space of journalling and tapping into your creativity... one step at a time. We still have room so email us to get in on Kristi's workshop. My personal thoughts on this is that we should have her here while we can because now that she teaches at Art and Fiber Fest, she may be out of our reach.... I hope not.

Time for Me

In this past week of time off for me, I found time to do a few creative things of my own. For the past year I have wanted to paint one wall in the master bedroom a deep rich brown. Maybe I was a little frightened at such a dark color but after thinking about it for a year ( and having already purchased the gallon of paint) I decided to PAINT THE WALL on a rainy Wednesday.
It is spectacular and it is the perfect color! I was so excited and it turned out just like I had hoped. Yes!

While browsing through a recent issue Bound & Lettered ,by John Neal Booksellers, I saw a project for a simple little flag book so I decided right then and there to create my own little flag book. Well, one thing led to another and after several hours of watercoloring the little pages, collaging them with magazine photos and words, and using the greatest wax pastels ever... NEO II by Carand'ache, I crafted my very own little flag book. And... it's awesome.

Speaking of the NEO II wax pastels, I used these in some journal pages that I did while I was in Blowing Rock. What fun! After watercoloring a plain white page in my journal, I added collage items, drew lines and added color with the NEO II wax pastels, then used the Glaze pens for journalling. These added punch! They are rich, vivid and dimensional. A must for all your creative journalling.

I just started doing some journal pages and that is HUGE for me but I successfully launched into this after following a suggestion from Kristi Steiner. She told me to go to Teesha Moore's web site and look at her ideas on journalling. Her suggestions were to start with water color, add collage then use the carandache wax pastels. Another big help for me was listening Meg Fowler when she told me to use quotes on my page if I didn't want to "really" journal. That jump started me to the pages I am displaying on my blog. Loved it! Had fun! What a blast! and... I will do it again and again and again.