More Deco's

Hi all. I received three deco books in the past weeks from groups I belong to. Funny how they seem to come in groups. Here are the scans of my creations ...they are off to the mail tomorrow, hopefully. I'm going to the Tom Petty concert tonight (YIPPEE!!) and I'm not sure how much energy I'll have tomorrow. I was spoiled with VIP tickets by my sweetie! I'm so lucky!!

This is a deco I just completed. The image is one I created in Photoshop.

Here's another deco. This one's a tag book and I had the pleasure of completing the last page.

And yes still another Deco page for a friends book. The background page is a finger painting page that my grandson Ethan did and I scanned. I love kids art it's so cool!

Here's Ethan's art page scan before I altered it.

Hope you enjoyed my latest additions!

Happy New Year Everyone. Long time no blog. The holidays kept me very busy with lots of Christmas gatherings with friends and family. Christmas was wonderful. I enjoyed all of our kids and grandsons coming over. We really are blessed.

I received a Silhouette Digital Die Cutter for Christmas and have been busy experimenting with it. I was able to create my grandson birthday card with it (sorry I forgot to scan it) and have created a few of my own designs. I plan to use the die cuts in different projects and to sell some of my creations at the local shop I currently sell items at.

Like everyone I have made New Year goals and naturally the top one is to take off the 4 lbs I gained over the holidays….ugh too many cocktails and cookies!

New Year Goals 2008
1. Take off the 4 lbs I gained over the holidays by March 2008
2. Pay more attention to my money
a. When checking out to make sure I’m charged correctly and receive the right change back. Don’t laugh I have been short changed and never realized it until I’m home.
b. Creating a budget and following it. That’s a tough one!
3. Art - Try something different –
a. Idea adding die cuts to art projects for swaps and gifts by utilizing the Silhouette
b. Try a new technique from one of my swap groups
c. Creating my own die cut designs
4. Year round make practical items for sale at the local craft shop and for next years holiday craft fair.
5. Eliminate clutter –
a. In my studio – discard unwanted materials. Reorganize keepers. Label items in bins for sale by season.
b. Unsubscribe to groups I have out grown, lost interest or just don’t have the time for.
6. Submit something for publication each quarter. March, Jun, Jul, Oct 2008 - I think I can, I think I can!

Here is one of my creations for my die cutter. I have yet to cut it and create on it. When I do I will post it. I'm hoping to make valentine's cards/booklets for family.

We are heading off Saturday morning for a relaxing week in Florida to visit family. I hope to spend a little time creating.

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.

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

Art from Junk?

I'm excited. It's going to be a warm and sunny weekend, 80's, and we are off to the beach tomorrow for the weekend. You guys know it's one of my favorite spots. It's so beautiful and our friends there are the simply the best! I came to the conclusion that I spend way too much time planning and thinking and planning and more planning when I work on my art pages. So my goal this week; in addition to getting projects ready for a craft sale in November; was to produce at least two pages daily for my sketch book. Without all the planning, just doing. I didn’t need to add the journaling, just go with the flow and just create. It was FUN! I forgot how much fun just going with the flow could be.

“HE” popped into my studio and watched my work in progress last night. “You just started and the pages are there before you know it!” - “Whoosh!” -“You can do that because you know what you’re making, right?” "becuase you've done it so many times it's all in your head>"….
Me - ”That’s right!” (LOL, I don’t have a clue what I doing and that was the point of it.)
His final comment before walking out of the room “You’re art (yes he actually calls it art) is created from just cut up stuff…look around it’s like a junk yard… and you create cool things from ...just junk.” Naturally I start to take offense at the junk yard comment and reply “I like my room…and the junk.” He assured me it’s a complement. I'll keep him!

So here's this weeks creations for my sketchbook. They will accompany me to the beach where I may add the journaling.

New Art for Swaps

Hi today I am posting different swap pieces I have made.
The first one is is for Clown themed Tipins - front and back.
Next is mini ATC's in autumn colors.
And my favorite is the doodle ATC's. I doodled the flowers and colored them with pencils and cut up strips of my earlier doodles to create the ground. I like doodling. I can do it anywhere... even while I work. Oops did I say that? Anyway, I hope you enjoy them.

New Sketchbook Page

The theme is "What I want to be when I grow up".

Oh phooey! Do I have to grow up? I really like to playing and growing up means less play time and no nap time.

When I grow up I want to be a COWGIRL or maybe a ROCK & ROLL STAR!! Well I got Mom's singing voice (very bad) not Dad's (he played in a local country band) so Rock& Roll star? Afraid not. I do like to slip on my cowgirl boots and play cowgirl...yee haw! Maybe I can become a sorceress and wield some magic?

My Sketchbook Challenge

Hello,

It's been some time since I actually posted some art! I have a new scanner, a birthday gift from "him" and I will try to catch up. As mentioned in my last blog I am working on a sketchbook with one of my favorite art groups and promised to post what I have done so far. The first page is "My Name" using words to describe me that spell my name. For example D=Dreamer, N=Naughty

Page 2 is "8 Things I Love" - I'm not happy with this page. (:-w

Next "My Life in Numbers" Yes, I jumped around in the list. That's where Naughty comes into play.

And my fourth post is "My Family Traits Tree"

I find this to be a bit of a challenge for me and not something that flows easily. Since I have been doodling a lot (will post some of them later) I think I will be adding more of that to my sketchbook.

Below is the di Vinci Code Tip in I made for a swap.

Sunny Saturday in August

I've been working on a few projects lately with my favorite art groups. I just complete background pages for a swap and sent them off. I had fun making shaving cream backgrounds I hadn't made those for a long time. I almost forgot how pretty they come out. We are working on sketchbooks. So far I have created five backgrounds and complete my first two pages. The theme is All about me (or a similar title I might pick- working on that now).

Page one we added words using our name to describe yourself. Mine are D=Dreamer, E= Easy-going, N=Naughty, I=Imaginative, S=Silly, and E=Encouraging

Page two is 8 things I love and page three I am working on now is What I want to be when I grow up. I like this topic and have some fun ideas for it. Page two wasn't easy for me because I had to think about myself too much. (:P

I am also working on da Vinci tip-ins. Just received the stamps I ordered for this one and I'm ready to play. Yippee!

I hope to get some of this scanned and posted . I still have to get out and purchase a new scanner...maybe this weekend.

Here's an nice art site I think you will enjoy http://www.aceotogo.typepad.com/

Enjoy!

It's been awhile...

It's been awhile since my last post. I've been very busy at the office and have taken on more responsibilities. Not complaining at all.

My scanner is broken and I need to get a new one. I want one like the one I have because it works so well. I didn't realize just how often I used it! I have made a few projects that won't make it to my blog because of it.

Shabby Chic Backgounds

I spent part of a rainy afternoon creating backgrounds. It's fun experimenting and just playing around. In one of my swap groups I found "shabby chic" background recipes (thanks Adrienne) and decided to try them before joining the swap. The first set is SHABBY GESSO CHIC, the second set is IRRESISTIBLE GESSO (the pink is just a test of the gesso as a resist) . I still want to sand the shabby gesso chic backgrounds to give them the finishing touch. Take a peek.
#1 SHABBY GESSO CHIC IN PINK AND PURPLE

#2 IRRESISTIBLE GESSO & GESSO RESIST

Wacky and Weird - Disjointed Figures ATCs

For one of my swap groups we are making ATC's - Disjointed Figures. The basic instructions are cut a sheet of book paper to ATC size and attached to the front of an ATC card. Next stamp a face onto a seperate sheet of paper and cut it out. Then cut out a silly dress shape from magazine paper of your choosing. Now assemble the strange looking person together onto the background text page. Add some excitement to the page using watercolor, pens,and stamps to create your Disjointed Figure.

These are Wacky and Weird and a lot of fun to create. I added watercolor wash to the text page and also to the stamped face. Cut out a cute little birdie and a dress. Added a tree stamp to the background and colored that. Once it was assembled I added arms and legs.

Altered Books Shrine #2 - Nature's Treasure

I started a new altered shrine books. This one is for one of my swap groups. I picked a black book and went through the usual process of cutting the shrine box and pasting the pages along the sides. The first page has the title TREASURES so I went with that a part of the title and cut the box just below it. I think it pretty cool like that. I added various paints to the inside going for orange shades. I plan to use birds and eggs as key elements in this book.
Next I added some stamped images to the inside - feathers and bees. Love the little black bees. Added a strip of paper on the left side of the book and a matching frame around the shrine box. I also added a small amount of paint to the cover and stamped more feathers. I like the black background so I didn't over do it.
Now it's time to dig through the papers and images and decide what to add. And what about the shrine box? I've gotta find something for that spot. To be continued...

6/20: Fihished the cover still have to work on the inside. Here's the cover below. It's a little dark...

6/27: I finished the book and have posted the final pages. Going with the Nautre theme I added clippings, images, fabric, buttons, pen bird tracks and inside the nook is a wire nest taht I made with eggs posted behind it (hard to see in the picture). The nook also has a 3-D fairy looking into the nest. For the final touch I added the title to the cover and side " NATURES TREASURE" I'm very happy with this one and will be a little sad when it flies away for the swap.

Watercolor wash on text

This is a card I made for a swap using a text sheet that I water colored a rainbow of colors and stamp an image of a girl with buterflies. I pasted the title jouful flying friends on to it. I really like the water color wash on text and plan to use it on more projects.

Altered book shrine "Summertime"

This is my very first altered book shrines I am working on. My theme is Summertime after the song "Summertime and the living is easy. Fish are jumping..."

I love listening to Rene Olstead sing the song...because I'm a beach girl I find it so inspiring.

Step one cutting the shrine box inside and glueing the pages to bind the side is done and now I started painting the cover and adding a stamped design. Next I started painting the inside.

Looks dark and scary in there but it's just the scan.

Now I've moved on to the inside adding images, sand (yes real beach sand..oh I can feel the warmth under my toes now...), text and shells.

I glued sand and real shells in the shrine box and wrote on the hand drawn wave "Summertime and the living is easy" ...here it is so far. hummm...I think it needs more.

I'll move on to the cover and think on the inside for a while. Added my Summertime title, images and what not. Take a look. What do you think? More to come on this.

6/20: I finished my Summertime ABS. I added more images and some bubbles. Now I'm happy with it!