Strathmore workshop do-over and a cupcake

I know I've mentioned before that I've been wanting to take a class with Pam Carriker forever and I was so excited about this Strathmore class and I've been disappointed. HOWEVER. I think the only way to give it a fair chance is to stick it out.

So, I posted a few pages that weren't horrible, but I made them horrible not very long after that. I thought I was following Pam's steps, but I actually skipped the charcoal step and when I tried to use charcoal after adding oil pastels and a gesso wash, the charcoal pencil was peeling away the gesso and a layer of matte medium I'd put on after the gesso. Naturally, I got mad first, but then when I had a similar thing happen with my Ugly Me page, I figured out that it's the oil pastel making that happen - it doesn't bond with the matte medium, or gesso, or anything, so when I try to use something over it that's scratchy like a pencil, everything peels right off down to the oil pastel layer. So I re-watched the Pam videos and she used charcoal THEN oil pastel, then gesso. Got it. Started over.
She's not horrible, but I don't love her, either. We'll see if I can make something good out of her.

This is me having a cupcake at Kelly's because she said once I got 30 blog followers, we were having cupcakes!!

Then she suggested having her mom and sister follow me just to get cupcakes, but we didn't have to resort to that. Thanks, Jess, for being number 30! It's kind of amazing to think there are 30 people who want to read my silly rambles. I hope I'm at least occasionally entertaining.