Holiday Greetings Card

Since Wednesday Stamper has an open theme this week, I thought I'd post a holiday card I made. This card is an unusual color for the Christmas season, pink (one of my favorites, could you guess?). It has ornaments cut from old wrapping paper over pink print paper, with a stamped strip on the left and a stamped greeting. The strip was stamped with lime green ink and colored with glitter glues.

I hope that you are continuing to enjoy the holiday season! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Christmas Tree ATC

I missed last week's TMTA challenge, so I wanted be sure to do this week's challenge! The theme is "under your Christmas tree".

My ATC has "peace" under my Christmas tree - the 1969 Christmas Seals show children joining hands around a Christmas tree, and below, there is a stamped dove and Christmas message. Decorative ribbon and button stars provide added embellishment. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all!!!

Busy Holidays!

There's a lot to do at this time of year, so I haven't been posting to my blog as much as I would like. I've been spending quite a bit of time baking, which is one of my favorite things to do for the holidays. Mostly, I've been baking cookies and breads.

I thought I'd post something to make my blog look "Christmasy", so here's a Christmas card that I made. This one was very easy to complete: three "Madonna & Child" postage stamps and two red heart brads layered on red print paper over holly print paper. The stamps and red paper are both outlined with gold dimensional paint. I like to make use of those postage stamps I'm always saving! :)

Santa Claus Fest!

I made this ATC especially for Santa Claus Fest, take a look! I added 4 different holly-print papers around the edges of a tape transfer of Santa with children. The ATC is embellished with a brad holding a decorated vellum tag (I drew the holly on it) and the word "Merry" on torn paper and paper ribbon. Santa Claus Fest is great! :)

Faith ATC

Seems like I haven't done a Wednesday Stamper challenge for a while, I'm not sure how long it's been! This week's challenge is "words", a good one for me, since I like using word stamps. I made an ATC with background text and "faith"stamped on tissue paper, "wonder" and "love" stamped and torn, plus a gold glitter-embossed dove over gold mesh ribbon.

Hat ATCs

Right now, my favorite art challenge blog is the "Think Monday, Think ATC" blog. Even if I'm not able to participate in the challenge every week, I still love to go over there and check out the challenges. This week's TMTA challenge must have been especially inspiring, since I made two ATCs this time!

The challenge is to use any type of headwear in on an ATC. For both of mine, I chose a hat. "The Girl in the Little Green Hat" starts with a white cardstock base stamped all over with pine boughs. Torn speckled paper, mesh paper and two square studs adorn the corners. The hat is cut from green paper, and her fur collar rests on torn mulberry paper. "The Lady in Red" is on red cardstock with torn music sheet over wrinkled and ink-rubbed Tyvek, with photo anchors and heart brads in the corners. Her hat is cut from red paper, and her outfit, earings and lips are colored with Glaze pen. Both ladies are lightly tinted with colored pencils, and both names come from old song titles.

Home ATC

Since I haven't had the opportunity to participate in the TMTA challenge for a couple weeks (seems like forever!), I'm glad to be able to do it this time. Houses are the theme this week. My "Home Sweet Home" ATC is made up of pastel cardstocks, music sheet, tiny images of children, outlined with a black marker and topped off with a heart brad. Of course, the song on the music sheet is "Home Sweet Home"! So much of my artwork ends up with a "cute" style, I guess that's just me! Thanks for looking! :)

My Muses

It seems like a long time since I got to do a challenge, so I decided to take a challenge break! The new GPP Street Team Crusade (no. 14) is called "Imaginary Friends". It asks the question, "Who or what is your muse?"

I think that my muses must be angels, because they turn up so often in my art. Whether they are vintage-style, cute or elegant, angels show up in many of my creations, as ornaments or wall decorations, on cards, altered books, wearables - everywhere!

Here is a children's board book that I turned into an angel altered book. The all-gold angel is on the front cover, and the all-silver angel is on the back cover. (Of course, all the inside pages have angels on them as well!) Thanks for looking! (HI Michelle!) :)

Halloween Inchies

Since today is October 31, I thought I'd post this picture of Halloween inchies. I made these for a Halloween inchies swap, so they have gone to their new owners, but I still have the picture! The backgrounds are acrylic-painted cardstock (either orange or turquoise), Halloween images and words, plus stars punched from either the orange or turquoise painted cardstock. Happy Halloween! :)

Friends ATC

While waiting today, I found a few minutes to make a friends-themed ATC for this week's Think Monday Think ATCs challenge. The image is from Renoir's painting, "Reading". The flowered print behind and in front of the girls is from a wallpaper border, and the crochet is cut from an old handkerchief. poetry words and two heart brads top it all off. Have a great day! :)

More Inchies?!

Here are the last of my color swap inchies, violet. On purple cardstock, I layered various purple/violet paper scraps, images, words, and my choice of embellishments. These embellishments range from marker and glitter glue to jewels, buttons, or plastic doodads. In the swaps, we are asked to make each one different, in case someone has to get two from the same person. I don't mind doing that at all. Sure, it would be easier to embellish them all the same, but it's fun and interesting to decorate them in different ways! :)

Inchie Habit

These are the indigo inchies for a swap. Indigo was by far the hardest color I had to make: I knew they had to be dark, but how dark, and should they be violet-blue or not? Finally, I had to stop asking myself these questions and just do it! The cardstock has various printed papers added to it, and most of the images are from postage stamps. The embellishments include mini buttons or mini confetti stars (iridescent or silver) or glitter glue (which doesn't show up much). Thanks for looking, hugs! :)

Inchie Parade

Here is my inchie parade for today. These are a set of blue inchies for a swap. The bases are blue cardstock with assorted blue papers. Some of them have glitter glue (which doesn't show up), and the edges are colored. And I just noticed I forgot the words on the center one (with the shield)! All the images on this set are from postage stamps. Postage stamps have perfect-size images for inchies. I rarely use the stamps as-is, I usually cut out images from them or cut parts off.

Inchie Explosion!

I just finished scanning 4 sets of inchies that I've completed in the last few days. (While I had the time, I've been trying to get ahead on some swaps.) I've only been making inchies since the spring, and already I've made 401 of them. This includes inchies that I created, even the ones that have been traded. They added up pretty fast, since I started out making 27 inchies in my first sets. (The reason I started by making that many is I have some heavy cardstock in 3" x 9" strips, which makes 27 inchies on each strip!) Pictured here are the yellow inchies I made for a swap. They are made with two layers of cardstock; the top layer was rubbed with a yellow dye ink pad. The backgrounds have additional torn paper strips, marker or glitter glue. All have yellow images and descriptive words, some even have mini buttons or jewels!

Stamped Heart Inchies

Today I whipped up some quick inchies. They wouldn't have been so easy to make, except the design was already stamped and colored, and the backgrounds were already made. This is one of my favorite stamps, with a dozen hearts on it. The hearts are really too big for inchies, so I had to place them diagonally. The design was clear embossed on white cardstock, colored with Twinkling H2Os, then the hearts were cut out. The hearts were applied on "mosaic" cardstock (cardstock with square and rectangles of paper scraps glued to it). I was inspired to make these by the inchie challenge at Wednesday Stamper. I have created many inchies, but I hadn't made any with rubber stamps until now!

Masked Lady ATC

This week's challenge from "Think Monday, Think ATCs" is masks, in honor of Halloween, but the ATC doesn't need to be Halloween-themed. I chose to give my ATC a "party" look. I added a mask and glitter glue to a black/white vintage costumed woman image, with a song line and sequin stars over red cardstock wrapped with 3 kinds of fibers. The words from the song are: "hot time in the old town to night". Unfortunately, the glitter glue doesnt show up very well on the scan.

Spooky ATC Art

After finishing some projects that I wanted to get done, I went over to the GPP Street Team blog to check out Michelle' new challenge. Crusade No. 13 is a "Get Gothic" challenge, to show spooky (Halloween) art or decor. I decided to make an ATC. On black cardstock, I applied parts of a Halloween napkin (haunted house, tombstones, web), a vintage woman image, and found poetry, with scrim (a loosely-woven linen fabric) on the back. It's hard for me to do gothic or spooky (everything I make seems to come out "sweet" or "charming", Maybe it's my personality, LOL! Thanks for looking! :)

Happy October!

To start off the month of October, I thought I'd post a picture of a Halloween card that I made. I figured, why wait until Halloween day, why not post something for the holiday today? The bat card is made of cardstock, with glitter glue eyes and trim, punched cardstock stars. I enjoy the fun parts of Halloween, like decorations, costumes, giving candy/cards, nothing too gruesome or scary.

It's great to remember wearing costumes and going trick-or-treating as a kid. It was fun and exciting, I always came home with lots of candy. I still have that sweet tooth! Although some of my candy choices are more sophisticated now, I still love cotton candy! ;)

Sew What?

Recently I got a compact (small) sewing machine from a yard sale. I don't particularly plan on doing any clothing or household sewing. Then why do I want a sewing machine? To sew on art and crafts, or course! I like to sew on greeting cards, tags, and and other paper creations. Since I recently started making ATCs, I'm looking forward to sewing on them, as well. Here is what my mew used sewing machine looks like.

Fish ATC

This is my entry for the Wednesday Stamper challenge - better late than never, I always say! As you may notice, the theme is fish. I didn't have any fish stamps, so I used other stamps for the background and added the fish afterwards. Stamped green paper is layered on tan cardstock. The ATC is embellished with a strip of scrim (airy, linen-like fabric) under the fish and two spiral clips on opposite corners. It's a wonder you can see the stamping under all that, but thanks for looking! :)

Gold Gothic Arch

I decided to try the gothic arches challenge this week; the theme is gold. I created an arch ATC on cardstock layered with gold flower print paper, gold cardstock, gold mesh ribbon, wrinkly gold handmade paper, music sheet, angel image and gold brads. I like the ATC-size arch; it's not too big, but there is still space to put on plenty of stuff!

TMTA Challenge

The TMTA challenge theme this week is Coca Cola. It might have been kind of difficult to use a Coca Cola theme on an ATC, but I happened to have a picture of Coca Cola bottles just lying around! :) My ATC has four bottle images and red/white polka dot paper layered on red cardstock, with white corrugated paper, red flower punches and white mini brads on two corners. Fun, and not too complicated! Have a great day! :)

Blog Inspiration

I wasn't going to post today (thought I had nothing to write), but I got a bit of inspiration from a couple of blogs that I visit regularly.

First, I visited Nance; in her post for yesterday, she showed a piece of her art work with a quote about patience. This made me think, because I haven't been having much patience lately, least of all with myself. I've been having some back pain, and I've been impatient to find out what's going on with that. Now I'm impatient for the therapy to start working, and I've only had one therapy session so far (insert sheepish grin here)! Also, I've been impatient with myself to get important projects done, not wanting to give myself time to think and play, and if I do stop to think and play, then I feel guilty! Well, I know better than that, I just needed to be reminded! Thanks for the internet butt-kick, Nance! ;)

Next, I visited Kira; her post today was about choosing an art journal, describing the different types of journals, papers inside, etc. I agree with her, heavier papers are easier to work on with a variety of media. (I hate excessive paper warping!) My two "gathering" journals (one for art/craft ideas, one for inspiring images) are both 9" x 11", spiral-bound. The idea one has medium-weight pages that are blank on half, with writing lines on the other half. The inspiration journal has very heavy pages, which is great when I decide to remove something - I can just peel it off and cover the place with something else! My art journal is spiral-bound, 5 1/4" x 8 1/2", with strange, thin pages. I had it lying around, and thought the pages were too thin, so I'm painting both sides of the pages with acrylics before decorating (I have a description of this process in a previous post, you can find it here). The colorful backgrounds shown here are waiting to be decorated. :)

Inchies for a swap

I made this set of inchies for a private swap with a friend, I put them in the mail today. The background is printed lightweight cardstock, two layers ( one layer as backing). The images were cut out from a large sticker sheet. For embellishment, I added words (they are song titles) and white pearl dimensional paint. I'm really hooked on inchies - they are SO small, but lots of fun to make! :)

Slide Mount ATC

This week's TMTA challenge is using slide mount(s) on an ATC. My red slide mount framing an old cowboy imageis layered w/red plaid paper, black mulberry paper, metal gun charm, square metal brads and thin jute over tan cardstock. Since I missed last week's challenge (the theme was men), this one would that theme as well! :) Thanks for looking!!!

Fun Mail!

Today I received a wonderful ATC in a swap with Alice K. Her ATC has some beautiful purply-blue tones and metallics, with plums and a leaf attached with a brad. Very elegant! And not only did Alice send the ATC, she also included some awesome extra goodies, seen in the second photo. I always say, one can never have too much ephemera! (Of course, I also saved the great Finland postage stamps from Alice's envelope!) Thanks, Alice!

Good Old Junk

Yesterday and today, I found some cool stuff at yard sales: some 1960's magazines, rubber doll face, plastic doll head and hands, mini buttons, and paper doilies, among other things. Those doll parts will come in handy for mixed media projects! Great images in the old magazines, and I read some of the articles, too! Check out these stylish hairdos from a 1960's magazine. :)

I'm looking forward to making some more inchies for swaps, and also some ATCs, but first I have a must-do project I need to finish. I'm going to try to get as much done on it as I can this weekend. Need to go to the dentist for some fillings on Monday - arghhh!

Wednesday Stamper Sampler

I'm too tired to do what I think of as a "proper" post today, but I had to write just this one thing:
My entry for the Wednesday Stamper "blue" challenge was chosen for the sampler! To see the actual post of my blue project, go here.

Obsessed With Pink

Crusade No. 12 for the GPP Street Team is called "Crush On You". The challenge is to tell about one or more things that you have a crush on, are obsessed or infatuated with (in a good way, of course)!

One of my current obsessions is the color pink. Although I do have a few pink clothing items (my favorites being pink pajamas and slippers), I love pink in my art and small items around me. Here's some evidence: The luggage tag is canvas, colored with pink fabric marker and stenciled with black fabric marker. The handbag was woven with flat ribbon-style yarns. (For a recent pink-influenced art journal page, see this post.) I've used pink-printed business cards and brochures , I even have a pink/black carry-on bag. (No, I don't have pink luggage yet - my red luggage is getting worn, so I can buy pink the next time!)

Fun & Games

This week's Inspire Me Thursday challenge is "Fun & Games". My interpretation of that theme is this greeting card. A real playing card is surrounded by collage paper, pre-printed vellum words and the occasional hot-fix rhinestone! Thanks for looking! :)

Blue Theme

This project was created for the Wednesday Stamper Challenge for this week, which is "Blue" - can you tell? Dress and dress form were stamped on blue tissue, woman's head on blue paper, cut-out text, punched paper flowers with rhinestone centers layered on sewn scrapbook paper scraps. Now I can't decide if i want to put this piece on a greeting card or in my art journal!

I don't do as much stamping lately as I'd like, I think maybe it might be because I am in a hurry! When I want to create, I want to do it NOW, I grab stuff and start making art. It takes a long time to bring out my stamping supplies: all the inks, stamps, papers, etc. (Maybe I'm getting lazy, LOL!) :)

ATC with Metal

When I checked out the new challenge on "Think Monday Think ATCs", it was another one that I thought I'd like to try. The challenge is to use metal somewhere on your ATC. My ATC has several metals included. A black/white collage sheet image and the words "Stay a little longer" attached with silver brads are layered with a tarnished metal heart clip on a piece of crinkled metal foil over a gray cardstock background edged with black ink. It was tons of fun to make, a great creative challenge! :)

Quick Journal Page

Another post today? Yes! I quickly made this art journal page for Kira's Sunday Journal Challenge. It didn't print quite like I wanted. I was going to print in black and white, but I don't have much colored ink left, so it came out black/white/pink. As pink is a favorite of mine (note this blog as one example), I decided to go with it! It's called "The Princess of Pink", and all the Princess' parts are cut from Kira's challenge images. The two corner designs were challenge images, as well. The background is one of my pre-painted acrylic ones, ready for my every whim. Thanks for the images and inspiration, Kira! ;)

Music ATC

Lately I've been finding so many great websites or blogs with artistic challenges. I feel that it's good to do challenges, to stretch my imagination and renew my creativity. Plus, sometimes ideas spawn other ideas!

This ATC was inspired by this week's "Think Monday Think ATCs" challenge, music. A torn music sheet is layered on mauve print cardstock. "Allegro" is layered on a paper scrap at the top and a French horn layered over lavered hand made paper and black mesh paper at the bottom. The card is edged with mauve and plum metallic inks.

I haven't made very many ATCs to date. Since I had so much fun making this one, perhaps there should be more ATCs in my future! Thanks for looking, have a great day! :)

Make Some Noise!

After my last post (Crusade No. 5 from the GPP Street Team), I received a comment from Michelle Ward telling me to get some music on my blog. That is actually her Crusade No. 11, "Make Some Noise", or add music to your blog. I've been fighting this one, this challenge is not really in my comfort zone - which I guess is why I should do it!

First, a little explanation: I don't hate music; on the contrary, I love it. . . . but I tend to pick and choose my musical moments carefully. I get "classic" migraine headaches, during which I'm sensitive to sounds, lights and smells. Even during non-migraine times, I seem to be a little more sensitive to those things than the average person (I don't know why).

Anyway, at the bottom of the page is the music video, "Michelle" on acoustic guitar, dedicated to Michelle Ward, of course!

Evidence of Everyday

On Michelle Ward's GPP Street Team blog, I came across her crusades. Michelle posts "crusades", challenges in which readers can participate. Although she's on about Crusade No. 11 now, I found a lot of her older crusades that I'd like to try. I think they will make good subjects for future blog posts, so you will be seeing more of those here!

This is Crusade No. 5, called "Kiss and Tell". Participants are supposed to show/tell about "Evidence of your Everyday", things you use/wear, things you love/have saved, etc.

Evidence of my Everyday can be seen here: Right now, my favorite health/granola bars are all the ones from Kashi. The little charms next to the bar are a record and a "Princess" phone - I've had that little phone charm since I was 5 or 6 yrs. old, and I really loved it as a kid (the record is old, but I got it more recently, in someone's box of cast-off buttons). The flowered fabric below is a favorite casual summer shirt. The black/gray plaid fabric is a comfortable, fleecy (though drab) winter shirt - it gives me a warm, comforting feeling when I'm cold or sick. The little round circles are sterling silver ear hoops, which I wear everyday when I'm not matching outfits or getting dressed up.

I'm not sure if this post fits in my creative-themed blog, but it probably says a whole lot about me! :)

Watercolor Experiment

Today I came across the "Inspire Me Thursday" challenge, which was watercolors, so I did this experimental project. (I don't know if these Thursday challenges have to be created on Thursdays, but I did it anyway!)

I used heavy watercolor paper (I think it was 140 lb.). First, I drew the design with a clear Sakura Glaze pen, which was kind of hard to do, since I could see what I was drawing with the clear ink! After the design was dry, I colored the paper with watercolor pencils and went over the whole thing with a wet brush. While still damp, I drew around the designs with a brown w/c pencil, to make them stand out more, went over with a wet brush again. What I wanted to know was would the Glaze pen work as a resist, and the answer was yes! Glaze pens come in a variety of colors, and they dry clear and shiny, almost like embossing. Well, I challenged myself, I found out something, and it was fun! Thanks, IMT!

Little Bits of Special

I have enjoyed several "little bits of special" these past few days. First, I found some nice items at garage sales yesterday and today. Art books are good for inspiration, and yesterday I found two. Art text books contain images from different art eras and time periods, which I find helpful if I need to draw or create in an unfamiliar style.

One of today's great finds was a Cuisinart Mini-Prep food processor. They work great to condition polymer clay - sure beats all of that hand-kneading! Also, blending clay colors is much quicker in a processor; plus, you can stop at any time during the blending process, if you want your clay mottled or marbled.

Another item I'm looking forward to using is a "kitchen carousel", but I'm going to put it to work holding my pencils, markers and paintbrushes.

Not to mention that I picked up a copy of "Artful Blogging" at the store, a little something for my leisurely browsing pleasure!

And, saving the best for last, I received some inchies in the mail from a swap that I participated in! To top it all off, the swap hostess even included a few extra little goodies!

Since I didn't get any pictures of my garage sale goodies (a picture of a mini processor would be boring anyway), I posted a picture of some spiritual book pages. The background is blended-color tissue with words (love, hope, joy, peace, faith) stamped on it. The images are a church and an angel, surrounded by Bible verses. Well, I'd better go fill up that "artist's carousel" ;)

An Artful Day

Yesterday was an artful day for me, meaning that I accomplished a lot artwise. I finished up 29 inchies, made the two ATCs you see here, started an art journal page and did some materials testing for a future project.

That's not to say that I only worked on art yesterday. I also completed some ordinary (read "not-so-fun") duties, as well. We won't get into those!

There were off-and-on thunderstorms yesterday, so I stayed away from the computer, otherwise I wouldn't have had so much art time. That means today is a writing and computer tasks day, so I won't be immersed in art today - at least not unless I get a huge amount done! Well, we'll see about that! Wishing you artful days in your future :)

Painted Pages Revisited

After receiving a comment on my recent post about painting journal page backgrounds (Thanks, Jeanne!), I thought I'd show some more pictures of painted pages. The post and comment can be read here.

The magenta/blue background shown here was painted by dabbing a generous amount of acrylic paint on the background first, then scraping it across with a credit card. The yellow orange background was painted by dabbing some of the paint on and scraping, then adding more paint and repeating. The page shown on the earlier post was when I running out of paints from the little pots, so I had to keep dabbing the paint on the page, scraping it, then more dabbing and scraping, trying to fill the page while using up the little bits of paint. In other words, there are lots of different ways to do this simple background technique. Every background page will look unique. This means that if you find a look that you really like and want to repeat it, you might want to write down how you did it!

Red AB Pages

It's been hot, so I thought a red project would be perfect for my hot summer theme today! This is a two-page spread in a red-themed altered board book. I filled the pages with red items and pictures of red items. Red iron-on metallic thread from Kreinik spells out the words "Seeing Red", and also is swirled throughout the two-page spread.

Time Lost, Altered Book Pages

It seems like these are the "lazy days of summer" - to me, anyway! I do the things I have to do, but sometimes it's hard to get many of the other things on my list done.

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time taking apart a book of images. I cut out the pages and individual images I liked and disposed of the rest. It took a lot longer than I thought!

The picture here is a two-page spread in a rose-themed altered book. A niche is cut into the center of the left page, and it holds "real" three-dimensional silk roses in a halved container. The right page sports a large Texas-shaped puzzle piece, also yellow rose and Texas postage stamps. The embellishment on both pages is Kreinik's iron-on metallic thread.

Artful Blogging Party

I was very late to ArtsyMama's Artful Blogging Party, but I went anyway, I viewed a ton of artful blogs with great tutorials and other interesting information! (Since I was late, I didn't get to post a tutorial for the party, but my earlier post below has my non-tutorial for making acrylic paint backgrounds, if you'd like to look.) If you didn't get to the party, or you'd like to go back and check out some of the links again, here is the permanent link to the party page:

Messy, But Fun!

Yesterday I painted a bunch of background pages in my art journal. The page here is the last one, when I was trying to use up the colors from a little set of paint pots!

Here is a non-tutorial for how I paint my art journal backgrounds: 1) Cover work surface and place scrap paper under page to be painted (I'm very messy!); 2) Dab or squirt acrylic paints on the page (do this randomly or in a pattern); 3) Scrape paint across page with old credit card or gift card (you can also use a chunk of heavy cardboard); 4) Rub excess paint off card onto scrap paper or another surface to be painted; 5) Repeat scraping, if necessary. TIPs: If there was enough paint to cover the whole page, more paint can be added and scraped at any time. You can also dab a little paint, scrape it, dab a little more, etc., untill you get the look you want. I tend to use lots of paint, so my work area gets super-messy, LOL!

While I was being creatively messy, I thought I'd also paint some cardstock pieces with the excess paint from the background pages. I'm going to use the painted cardstock pieces for inchies. I also alcohol-inked some cardstock for future inchie projects, and laminated some tissue to an altered book. I like to do a load of messy steps all at once!