Christmas craft fair projects

I’ve been very busy creating things for our office Christmas craft fair. The photos below show some of my project for the fair:
Embellished jean jacket
Small canvas frames – Christmas theme and Pink Piggy
Christmas Magnetics
Magnetic Bookmarks
I have several larger Christmas canvas count downs too. Right now they are in a local shop
Sorry the photos are small.

Zentangles anyone?

Here's three "Zantangles" I created in a note book at the beach

Last of the Sudoku 4

This is my contribution to the final ATC from a Sudoku challenge I work on with 5 others. The background was crated by Tamisha and Sheryl added the X charm. My contribution is the Crow #10. This gets passed on to the next players until we each had our time. In the end we each end up with a completed piece.

Art from the weekend

Over the weekend I picked up Spackle. I wasn’t sure how to use it so I inquired with my friends at Art-venture. One suggestion was to use it to create a raise stencil image.

Using a border image and the Spackle and a touch of paste and viola – it adds a nice touch to your art piece. I used it on a calendar (using the Oct image from one of my art groups Art Exercise). I also added it to the gesso canvas I made previously. I liked making the calendar and decide to make another one (without the Spackle) to use as a hostess gift for an upcoming swap.

My next Spackle project will be to create a textured background.

New Art Excercises

I have a few projects to share with you from my art groups. One group offers up three or four “Creative Art Exercises” each month. This month it is #1 Gesso, #2 Shades of Autumn, and #3 Make something with the image provided. I have complete exercises #1 & #2 combining the two to create an ATC.

Autumn-Nature ATC
Steps:
1. The small multi-hued square is made from gesso mixed with varies shades of tube watercolor pounced onto the cardstock with bubble wrap.

2. I cut the gesso strip into 1 inch squares and bound them with gold wire and attached it to a wine color square to the back.
3. This was placed on a Gold background I stamped with a leaf motif. I added a strip of green mulberry paper running down the side.
4. A small bird sticker was placed on the bottom.

Tip-in for October 07- Children
Funny and playful things come to mind. My first thought was the nursery rhyme “Old woman who lives in a shoe”. I also found a funny little poem about kids that I used on the backside. “Cleaning house with children at home is like trying to staple Jello to a tree!" So keeping them in mind I went to work…here’s the results.

So many to choose from

I spent the evening on my laptop poking my head in my art groups and checking out some of my art friends blogs from these groups. Before I knew it hours had passed and I found so many interesting and inspiring sites I felt like a kid in a "art" candy shop. I believe I could spend a good part of my day doing this!

I made a point of opening a second window to my blog so when I came across something that inspired me I added it to my blog site. I even found some art challenge groups like 4x4 Friday and Fluffy Fatbottom Twisted Tuesday.

You should have a look, check them out. There's plenty of excitement and wonderful art to be found in these links. Be very careful though because it can be addictive.

Is Summer still here?

What a warm and wonderful Thursday - 81 in Connecticut and it is October. Since last posting I have worked on several projects. Halloween ghost cards for the grandson’s and my friends daughter Maddie – naturally they aren’t very scary because they are still so young.

Glittery Ghost Card

IF YOU ARE PART OF THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS AND YOU DON’T WANT TO PEEK STOP HERE!
I am working on a swap for the 12 days of Christmas and have signed up twice. So I have been busy creating 2 sets of 12 gifts and I’m having fun. For one of the sets I made magnetic bookmarks. I liked them and made an extra to keep for my own. I try to make an extra of whatever swap project I am working on for myself or to give to someone else.

magnetic bookmarks

I received in some awesome Black & White ATC's from one of the swaps. They are so cool and I should scan them and post them for all to see the beautiful work my artsy friends did! Anyway, while perusing through them I thought it would be nice to make an ATC holder for them. So, I found an old card holder template and modified it into an ATC template. Played around with it and ended up making several to store my ATC’s in.
ATC holder

I like them so much I decided to make them for the 2nd set of 12 Days of Christmas Swap.
Because I like to recycle when I can I used old calendars that have a nice glossy coat. The blank side was coated using direct to paper - I used black and brown StaysOn ink and a lighter brown distressed in. The look reminds me of animal print. That became the outside the inside ended up with the floral print form the calendar. They’re cool and they keep the art organized.
ATC holder