Yep, just let it snow! LOL!!!

Of all weekends....it snowed the night the Starving Artists Playground started! Last year...we had it the second weekend in October and we were eating on the back deck. NOT this year!!! And the temp dropped soooooo cold! The high for the weekend was 48 degrees!!!

We simply moved our meals to my garage. Yep, still pretty cold, so I fired up the kerosun and made a "campfire" circle around the heater!

Everyone brought their lawn chairs and folding chairs to help out. And that table is just loaded with all the gift bags and door prizes for the whole weekend - how fun is that?
But I decided that our snow was going to work to our advantage and actually came up with a new "technique" making snowflakes using our snow! Are you ready for this?

And may I point out - this is the advantage of the whole concept of a playshop. You don't really know what the "professor" is going to do until you walk into class as they have the "right" to change their final project right up to the last minute. So, I literally came up with this idea the day of my playshop....all due to the snow outside all over the back deck!

Here's a look at one of the snowflakes. I used Friendly Plastic and felt and mylar blossoms from Creative Impressions.

I simply laid 1/16" strips of rainbow Friendly Plastic in patterns on top of and underneath of the felt and mylar blossoms, used a heat gun to melt them together. (Note: you have to do this in layers as you cannot apply heat to mylar - it will melt!)

I also cut a tiny square of Friendly Plastic and softened it using the skillet method and draped it over a Creative Impressions brad, then used my needle tool to shape it to the brad to make the center flower for this flake:

Here's another flake that I put together:

Because we were using felt flowers....you can't really dip it into cold water to cool the plastic. So we took our snowflakes on our silpat sheets and laid them on top of the snow to cool.

Here's Rose, who flew in all the way from Wales just to play.....cooling down her snowflake. (I know - what on earth is she doing in a sleeveless shirt??? Does she not understand the concept of freezing weather? LOL!)

and here's one where we shaped spirals of Friendly Plastic around our needle tools and attached them using the water method.....this flake is about 6" across so it's quite large!

Now I suppose that you could dip your felt into cold water and allow it to dry....but we opted to take advantage of our snow and I think everyone enjoyed the idea that we made good use of the snow for a "new" way of cooling Friendly Plastic!

Yep - bring on that snow! Let the temps drop to below freezing. If nothing else, the weekend was filled with adaptive, creative artists who played for more than 48 hours straight!

Yesterday, I took Jana, Liz and Linda up to Estes Park to "hunt" for Elk. Just wait til you see how close Linda got to a 14 or 16 point buck! Closer than I cared to go! And yes, Rose, "hunt for Elk" is NOT a new term for "shopping" - although we did stop by to see Cheryl's new store!

Quite sadly we then took Liz back to DIA for her flight home to the UK. Liz, you were sorely missed last night - I wish you could have stayed forever. OK - just move in with me and we will play all day long! I'm qute certain your hubby can find work in Denver! LOL!!!

Today - another very small playgroup coming over to experiment with Jana, Linda and myself. I have declared this to be a jammie day - as in sweats and thick socks - no makeup.....we are just going to have fun!

Ah! Life is good!!!

Stay tuned for more photos and tales from our Starving Artist's Playground!!!