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!

Great Finds

This past weekend, I found some very interesting items at garage sales. I got two packages of cardstock, two packages of blank greeting cards (more cardmaking in my future, to be sure!), a large amount of postage stamps (some of those seen at right), and several books. Among the books were two books about movie stars and two song books (like music sheets but in book form).

I already read one of the movie star books, it is about silent movies, and has lots of interesting photos. It's fun going to garage sales; I never know what I'm going to find. It's also fun to think about what I'm going to make with the items that I found! (Now I just have to find a place to put all my new goodies!)

New Journal Page

I usually don't put my journal pages on my blog. There's nothing wrong with that, put I always put my journal pages on Flickr, so I don't want to have the same pictures posted everywhere.

Anyway, this is the first journal page I've done for a long time, so I thought I'd post it here, like a special occasion! The background was already painted with acrylics (I painted a bunch of backgrounds at the same time). I've been wanting to use this background, and I thought it looked sort of summery. It reminds me of lime- and banana-flavored popsicles!

I added some words around the picture; in case you can read them, here's what they say, starting on the top and going clockwise: "breeze softens velvety grasses", "luxurious green", "evening's face aglow", "luscious range of color greatness".

Missing My Art Journal

I've got to start posting earlier in the day....last night, when I was going to post, there were thunderstorms, and I couldn't do it! (Didn't want to get "zapped" or "fried"!)

Today I visited Kira's blog, and also looked at the journal pages on "Journal Junk" at Flickr. This places reminded me that I haven't done any pages in my art journal in a L-O-N-G time! I haven't had an art journal for very long, and I typically don't do much writing in it, mostly art, because it's relaxing and makes me feel good! As you can see, there are two more greeting cards pictured above, one of the reasons I haven't done any journal pages lately, LOL! In fact, I've made so many cards lately, I wasn't sure if I had psoted these two before, ha! (Well, you're probably so sick of see cards that they all look the same to you, anyway, LOL!)

What Would You Choose?

Anyone reading my posts is probably sick of seeing cards! Not to worry, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, I've just about run out of cards to post. Cardmaking is a favorite of mine, so there's sure to be more cards on this blog in the future!

Speaking of favorites, what art/craft project type would you like to do all the time? Pretend for one minute that you have to choose just one type of project to make for the rest of your "art life". I know, it's unrealistic! And who wants to choose, anyway? But if I had to choose right now, I'd choose cardmaking. The reasons I'd choose cardmaking are as follows: 1) I could make cards using many different techniques, 2) I could use tons of different materials, 3) I could vary the types and styles of cards I made, and 4) there's always a person and occasion to make a card for! So, if you had to choose only one project type to do, what would you choose?