June 2013 Meeting

Unfortunately, I was so completely/happily distracted with Kelly's baby that I completely forgot to take the minutes for our June meeting.  I think we had about 25-30 attending and 3 were newcomers!  Cecelia gave us a burst of updates for conference.  Next month we'll be stuffing Goodie/Welcome bags at Leslie's house with a potluck.
Kim showed us a book binding technique with lovely examples she freely passed around and great handouts to boot.  So sorry, especially to Kim, for not documenting this meeting with photos of her work. 

May 2013 Meeting

Our May meeting was a gathering of glass and china and some powerful glue in Tammi Jo's garage!  Sixteen of us went to work creating cupcake tiers and cake stands to use for our evening socials during conference.  It just goes to show that one man's trash can be another man's treasure.  Take a look at what we did!

Assembled and glued...

Drying with our fingers crossed...

Voila!!

We'll meet back at Mesa Hills Bible Church for our June meeting.

                         

April 2013 Meeting

Meeting Minutes 9 April 2013

21 Present

 Welcome and Announcements:

            We thought we might have to cancel our meeting due to the high wind/blizzard warnings, but we had a great turnout in spite of the bad weather.

            Cecelia reminded us that next month’s meeting would be in Tammi Jo’s garage as we assemble cupcake tiers for our conference socials.  June will be back at Mesa Hills with Kim showing us book/journal construction and July we’ll be stuffing goodie bags at Leslie’s with a potluck.

            Meiningers is having a 20% off sale this Saturday on in-store items only. 

            A community service project we can get involved with is writing letters to foster kids at summer camp.  More information will be posted in a future e-Digest or call Leslie for more information. 

Show & Tell:

            For the sake of giving more time to Pat, we skipped show and tell tonight. 

Presentation:

            Pat Musick graciously agreed to introduce some of us and reacquaint others of us to the graceful, round Uncial hand of the 6^th-9^th British centuries.  She began taking calligraphy classes at Reed College in Portland, OR and studied under Lloyd Reynolds.  She went on to master in Uncial and Insular Majuscules in the UK and will be one of our half week faculty members at conference this year.  She had a few handouts and several books on hand.  She demonstrated each letter starting with the “round” family and went around the room encouraging each of us individually.  (The Book of Kells is available for on-line viewing.)

Pat Musick demonstrating Uncial

Willing to work

March 2013 Meeting

Meeting Minutes 12 Mar 2013

26 Present

Welcome & Announcements:

            We had several new visitors, which was a boost to our egos!  We warmly welcomed them and went around the room introducing ourselves.  Cecelia gave a brief overview of what a typical meeting looks like and a few things we do each year.  We plan on having Yves Leterme come for a workshop next year.  Next month we’ll be learning Uncial from Pat Musik.  In May, we’ll be assembling the cupcake tiers in Tammi Jo’s garage.  In July we’ll be stuffing the goodie/messenger bags for conference, and in August we’ll be celebrating the end of conference with our annual picnic.

            Karen is our Librarian who faithfully brings a suitcase of books with her to each meeting.  If you have extra books on hand, the guild library would be a nice place to house them.  She also passed around the conference volunteer sign-up sheet. 

            Leslie let us know about SpringsPaper, a paper supply store that took the place of XPedx, on Academy and Maizeland.  She told us of another store she discovered that buys/sells/trades used scrap booking supplies.  Scrap4Less is on Academy and Austin Bluffs.  If you go to Archivers and are given 5 free sheets of brown cardstock, any of the darker shades of brown would be good as backings for the One Day Vendor booklets we’ll be assembling soon.

Show & Tell:

            Kim showed us 3 cupcake tiers she assembled from odds and ends she bought at Goodwill.  Glass or porcelain plates, bowls, and/or short candlesticks/salt and peppershakers are glued together with Liquid Nails.  Start collecting yours to make in May for conference.  Sherry and Jacqui had cards they made and Cecelia showed us some of the practice work she’s been doing to fulfill her ” 100 days of lettering”, a challenge to sit and practice something every single day.

Presentation:

            Cecelia gave a brief introduction to the folded pen by showing examples of past prototypes starting with the drafting tool, moving to the ruling writer, to Jim Chin’s butterfly, moth, and firefly pens, to what we have now which can be ordered from Paper and Ink.  Brody Neuenschwanderm has a 5-part video on YouTube from the International Exhibition of Calligraphy on making and using the ruling pen.  We had handouts of sample ruling pen lettering and Cecelia demonstrated angles and letterforms for us to practice.  It was a great meeting met with lots of enthusiasm.  Thanks, Cecelia!

Our guild hard at work

Cecelia demonstrating with a homemade ruling pen

Kim's Cupcake Tiers

February 2013 Meeting

Meeting Minutes 12 Feb 2013

27 present

Welcome & Announcements:

            We welcomed 3 new faces as each one explained how she found us!

            Angie is lettering about 250 wedding invitations for a friend and asked if anyone recommended a good printer in town. 

            Cecelia announced this year’s meeting themes through August.  March-Ruling Pen (Sherry passed a sheet around if anyone wanted to order nibs/pens from Paper & Ink.), April-Uncial, May-assemble cupcake tiers, June-conference decorations (if needed) or book making, July-stuffing Goodie Bags/Potluck, August-Annual Picnic & Celebration.

Show and Tell:

            Kimmi showed us the kinds of glassware we are encouraged to start collecting from area thrift stores to create the cupcake tiers we’ll use at conference.  Please keep to clear glass or white porcelain (with maybe a touch of turquoise/tan) candy dishes, candlesticks, salt and pepper shakers, etc.  We’ll assemble them in TJ’s garage for our May meeting.

Presentation:

            Leslie showed us how we could decorate the three/four sheets of 90# watercolor paper she gave each of us using troweling tools, sponges, brushes, wire, etc with water and walnut ink.  There were accent colors people brought in turquoise/blues.  Once we covered our paper with ink, we swirled and painted, spritzed and sprayed color, and created cover papers for the One Day Vendor fliers that will go in each Goodie Bag.  Thanks for all your help gals (and Jim!).  Those who finished early and brought their own paper were free to create while the papers were drying.

January 2013 Meeting

Meeting Minutes 8 Jan 2013

17 present

(We met last month at Cecelia’s for our annual Christmas Card Exchange.)

Welcome & Announcements:

**No nominations were sent in for this month’s elections.  No nominations were offered from the floor.  Since last year’s officers are willing to remain on this year, we unanimously voted to keep them.

**Cecelia gave a brief overview of ideas for a few of this year’s meetings to help everyone be involved in preparing for our conference in July.  We’ll use one month to create the paper used for the One Day Vendor list that will go into the goodie bag, one month assembling the cupcake tiers, and one month, July, stuffing the goodie bags at Leslie’s.  We fielded ideas for the other months.  We might use a fall meeting to get a head start on Christmas cards and perhaps highlight some calligraphers past and present.  We liked the round robin approach we used last year, and may review/teach a hand such as Uncial in one of those. 

**Our website is on hold temporarily, but the blog is still active.  Candy will post the link in the eDigest as a reminder to visit it.  Monthly minutes and photos are posted there.

Show & Tell:

**Theresa brought four gorgeous folios she recently bought at an estate sale.  They were Latin Gregorian chants used by a choir master and estimated to be from the 17^th or 18^th century.  They were lettered on velum in red and black on both sides and framed with red velvet surrounding the exterior space within the gold frames.  Such a treasure to be sure!

Presentation:  Favorite Tools

**We went around the room and almost everyone had something to share from metallic brushes to punches to bone folders to templates to watercolor travel kits to masking tape and favorite pens.  It was terrific to gather ideas for our next shopping spree!

November 2012 Meeting

Meeting Minutes 13 Nov 2012

20 present

Welcome & Announcements:

**We welcomed Tammy and her 2 children Mike and Samantha to our meeting. Samantha’s high school art teacher recently taught painting with Sumi ink and she found out about our guild through Sherry.  We also welcomed Mallory who had been a student in one of Cecelia’s classes. 

**We discussed the Christmas party to be held 6 pm on Dec 8^th at Cecelia’s.  Directions will be forthcoming in an eDigest.  Plan to bring an appetizer/finger food to share and 30 handmade cards.

**Kelly stood up to announce she and her husband are expecting their first child in April.  She looked so cute. 

Show & Tell:

**Kimmi was the only one to bring anything.  She had made cardholders out of a book of gnomes she had cut up.  She used an old lace skirt as an embellishment.  Very clever use of recycled materials. 

Presentation:  Italic Variation

**Candy had exemplars and showed us a few fanciful variations of Italic caps using a pointed pen and good ink jet paper.

**Deb shared some tips on making her whimsical letters by working ideas out in pencil.  She, too, had exemplars of other artists to spur our creativity.

**Karen was supposed to share what she learned from Denis Brown, but she was accosted in the parking lot at Kohl’ before coming to guild.  We missed her input.