The Frog Palace

Thank you cards

2012-01-19T08:54:00.002-06:00

This past Sunday, I attended a baby shower for a coworker. As we were packing up to leave, she was going to throw away the wrapping paper. I asked if I could have it, and said I'd make thank you cards out of it for her. I used the solid color paper for backgrounds, then layered a piece of cardstock and then images from the patterned papers.
I also added some of my button collection.

I love the images on baby wrapping paper.

I used two different stamps for the sentiment.

My favorite paper was the metallic blue, but it showed my double stick tape through it, which is why I added the cardstock. I love extra piece of paper, though, it really pulls the cards together.

I may not have a lot on here because my Yahoo group decided we'd take a break in December, and I haven't heard of any interest for a swap yet. I also haven't signed up for any swaps lately.

Vintage Stocking Swap

2011-12-16T14:24:00.004-06:00

I received my gifts from Lynn, my partner in the Vintage Stocking Swap. Here's what the box looked like when I opened it:
Full of exciting gifts, here's what they turned out to be:

ATCs she had made, some craft items, clear Christmas stamps, vintage pictures/photos and a cool owl pendant.

A snowman lamp, light up snowman, cute hot air balloon ornament, peppermint bark, a reindeer bag full of mints, and the stocking she made for me.

A tree cookie cutter and cooking book.

Vintage linens and a crocheted washcloth.

And a bunch of bath supplies.

Thank you so much Lynn. To see what I sent/made for her, go here.

Steampunk Charms

2011-12-15T14:51:00.002-06:00

Remember this post? Well, here's what I got in return:
I see some of the names are hard to read, so starting in the upper left hand corner, going across and then starting in the lower left hand corner and going across, here's who I got charms from:
Shelly R, Lisa Jacob, Susan Laura, and Shelly R.
Donnalee, Mags, Deanna Cosgrove, and Stacey Bond.

And there's more. Once again starting at the top left hand corner going across, and then starting at the bottom left hand corner and going across:
"Dr Amy" Spraitzer, "Dr Amy" Spraitzer, M.C. Sparks, and "Dr Amy" Spraitzer.
Claudine Criner, Valerie Brinchek, Debbie Warrick, and "Dr Amy" Spraitzer.

Thank you ladies for your lovely charms.

Vintage Stocking Swap

2011-12-13T13:35:00.004-06:00

I signed up for a Vintage Stocking Swap. We were to make a stocking and fill it with goodies. My partner was Lynn of Life on the Wiennee Ranch. Check out her blog.
Here's my stocking:
I hand stitched it all, I had a ton of fun making it. The background is from a vintage kitchen towel, the doily was found at an antique mall along with the top trim. The beige circle in the middle of the doily is a vintage clip on earring. I also added a piece of ribbon to hang it, after I scanned it.

The bundled trim, is what I used on the top of the stocking.

The doily is the one on the stocking.

I sent my partner the doll.

I also sent her the owl on the bell. My original thought was to send the whole bell, but as I was wrapping it, I found it was glued on crapily and it popped off, I thought it was cuter without the bell anyway.

I sent her these vintage paper Valentines, she said she collected them.

I sent her everything in this picture.

The striped towel is what I used for the background on the stocking.

I have such a horrible time of taking pictures of everything I send in swaps, so I'm sure there's more than I have listed here. I also included some chocolate. My partner said she sent my package yesterday, so I will post when I get it.

I had so much fun with this swap.

The 12 Days of Christmas...Sorta

2011-12-12T18:14:00.002-06:00

My mom asked me to help her make a 12 Days of Christmas artwork for my grandmother. She decided all pieces would be 5"x7", that they would have to have fabric and some kind of sewing on them, and that we would make up the 12 days with things that went along with the song. After making the 1st day, and seeing my 2nd day, she decided she didn't have time. I didn't hear about this until I was halfway through day 4, and then I was just inspired to keep going.
So, here's day 2:
Two shining balls.

It's scrapbook paper for the background, the tree is made from green leather, and the balls are foil candy wrappers. They're kinda hard to see, but there's two sewn snowflakes by the top of the tree.

The next 4 pieces were all created by sewing my elements on to some decorative fabric, which was backed with some quilt batting. I then finished it off by adding something to hang it and using a vintage kitchen towel as the backing and then sewed around the edges. All the sewing is by hand.
4 vintage trims.
I love the two background pieces on this one, the bigger piece, wasn't quite big enough so I had to add the other one. The 3 white pieces I found at garage sales, the red and white one I got in a swap, read about it here. I found some ric rac to use as the hanger for this one.

Day 8:

8 butterflies a fluttering.

The three pewter colored butterflies are charms from necklaces, the silver one and one in a heart are buttons, the orange one is a piece of plastic, the pink/blue one is foam, and the last one is a pin. I used a piece of pink ribbon for the hanger.

Day 10:

10 flowers blooming.

The flowers, with the exception of the two white ones, are all from vintage hankies. The white ones are from vintage trim. I used a piece of vintage pink seam binding for the hanger.

Day 12:

12 buttons gleaming.

All the buttons are vintage mother of pearl buttons. The fabric is a satiny fabric, I don't know why it looks like that in the scan. I used a vintage beige seam binding for the hanger.

I was planning to do day 6 and then go back and do the odd days for myself, but I ran out of steam. Maybe some day.

Steampunk Charms

2011-12-04T11:59:00.003-06:00

I joined a steampunk charm swap in one of my Yahoo groups. I'm not entirely sure how to make steampunk charms, but I love charms. I was also trying to make them out of stuff I had. Not such a great idea. I understand steampunk to be metal, lace, keys, gears, stuff like that. Unfortunately, I don't have a drill, and I don't have a lot of metal elements. I do have a lot of bullet casings, but like I said no drill. So, here's what I came up with:
The metal tags I got at a garage sale last year. On the other side they say "Crawford County Iowa, a number and 1980 dog tax". The keys were brads that I snipped off the poky parts, glued them onto the tag, and then wrapped them with some coppe wire I found in a clock.
Personally, I think they're great. I asked the hostess if she thought they would work. She replied back "I think they are fine if that's how you would like them to be". That didn't sound too promising to me.

The last picture is my 2nd attempt, but I thought people might not think of them as steampunk, so I went the easy way out. The background is green leather, I just glued some images to them.

Here's my 2nd attempt:

I thought it would be cool to make a steampunk costume. I traced a dress form chipboard piece onto some green leather, freehanding the arms, and cut it out. I then added the black lace on the bottom, and the brass pieces to the arms (they're actually tiny clay beads cut in half). I then added the gold top piece (some packaging), and the 'belt' (some of that is copper colored German trim, some of it is silver trim colored with alcohol inks, and one piece is some copper colored pearls). I think they're really cute, but I was afraid people wouldn't see them as steampunk.

So, now I have 8 of those little dresses. Anyone fancy a trade?

Button Floozies Ornament Swap

2011-12-02T14:07:00.002-06:00

In my last post, I showed you what I made for the Button Floozies Ornament swap. Now I get to show you what I got in return:
This cute little stocking came from Terri Wilkerson, it also came with all the fun goodies in the picture. I love the stocking idea, and the buttons are soo cute. I'm getting to be a big fan of the low color Christmas decorations (I just made a low color stocking for another swap I'm in).

This cute tag is from Susie A. I love how she decided to use a dress form, very cute.

And this little beauty is from Joni Reinhart. I love the idea. I would have never thought of making a little person. I also love the sparkly button.

Come back tomorrow for a post on some steampunk charms I made for a swap, I'll also have something for trade if anyone's interested.

Christmas Button Floozies Swap

2011-11-29T10:44:00.003-06:00

Because I love buttons so much, I'm following the blog Button Floozies. They've have two swaps so far, the second being the Christmas Ornament swap.
Here's the definition of a button ornament from the site: Definition of a button ornament:
A Christmas ornament made to hang on a tree or to be a small shelf or table accent, that is decorated with buttons. The buttons do not necessarily need to be the only decoration element of the ornament -- but it should be a main or special element of the decoration. Your ornament should be handmade.
I had no idea what to make, then I saw an ornament my mother had made awhile ago in the shape of a heart with buttons on it. That was my starting point. I decided to do a round ornament instead, I first wanted it to look like a wreath, but after sewing buttons in a circle, it needed something else, so I added another button in the middle. Here's how they turned out:
All the buttons are vintage, except for a few on the red wreath, I didn't have quite enough red buttons. We only needed to make 3, as we were in groups of 4, but I made an extra for me, and one for my stocking swap partner (more on that later). I kept the green one for me. I have heard from one person, that they've received their ornament, and I figure others will be getting them soon.
Go here for the ornaments I received. And go here, to see what other people made and received.

I've also decided I need to join more swaps where I can sew. Between this swap, the pennant swap and the stocking swap (mentioned above), I love hand sewing, it's so peaceful to do while watching TV. After I mail and get word from my stocking swap partner, I will show that. But, I will mention, I LOVE how it turned out (so much so, that I've thought about keeping it and making another one for her. But, I won't).

Maybe I just need to sit down and sew more for fun.

I learned today(12/4), that I put in the top bid for a button tree at a local fundraiser I will post about that tomorrow on my other blog here.

Pretty Pennants

2011-11-14T09:00:00.004-06:00

Apparently I don't have just one post on how I did these, so here it is. I signed up to do a Pretty Pennants swap for my The Sum of All ATCs Yahoo group. We had a pattern to follow, and we had free range otherwise to make them however we wanted with some type of hanger. I originally planned to make mine out of vintage hankies, but since the pattern was from an 8.5"x11" sheet of paper they were too small.
So, I decided to use a vintage scarf I had. I cut out 3 pennants and glued them to some quilt batting.

My original thought was to sew on the vintage buttons at the top, one of these has 4 hole buttons. Then I added the crocheted circly piece and the green button.

I was going to sew ric rac to the edges, but couldn't find any vintage pieces for a price I was willing to pay. The trim I ended up using I got at a garage sale. I had the hardest time figuring out how to finish them.

I finally just decided to sew around the edges. I decided to add ribbon to the corners for the hanger. The ribbon also just happened to match pretty well in color.

This is my back, this one's a little messier than the ones I mailed out, because I figured out the ribbon thing after sewing the back on. The ones that I mailed out have the ribbon in between the felt and the front. I also added a little tag on the back with my information on it.

These turned out to be made with mostly vintage items. Everything on the front: the scarf, circly thing, buttons, and trim all came from garage sales. The ribbon I got in a swap. I used new quilt batting, felt and thread.

I've been meaning to do some kind of sewing with my vintage stuff, and this is a great start. I have more vintage pieces I hope to sew with in the future.

Pretty Pennants

2011-11-14T08:22:00.002-06:00

Remember this post? I made these great vintage pennants for a Pretty Pennants swap for a Yahoo group. Here's mine again,
And here are the two I received:

This one's from Barbara DeLisle's, I love the stitching on this one. Such a beautiful ues of the little touches of color and beads.

This one's by Iris B (no blog). I love the way she embellished the paper with glitter and gemstones.

Merry Moos

2011-11-01T16:16:00.002-05:00

I signed up for a swap called Merry Moos on TheSumOfAllATCs Yahoo group. A Moo is a card that 1"x3". These were supposed to be Christmas themed and have a way to be hung.
Since I collect snowmen, when I think about Christmas, snowmen are the first thing to come to mind (I hope no one in the swap minds). I took some holiday paper, cut it to size, and glued it to cardstock with the patterned paper on the outside for a thicker card. I added these little plastic icicles to the bottom. I stamped a snowman on some snowflake paper. I cut the poky pieces of the backs of some star brads and glued them on the top. There is a white eyelet with some white raffia for the hanging portion. The last Moo with the diamond dangles is mine because I ran out of the icicles by the time I got to mine. You can also see I ran out of the raffia and had to use some silver cording.

For the backs I just typed up the name of the swap, the hostess, my name and my email. Then I printed it out and glued it to the back.

I kept putting these off, because I kept thinking 'They're not due until November, I have plenty of time'. Then today I got an email reminding me of when they are due, and realized It's November. I decided I needed to get them done.

What are you all working on?

Question

2011-10-31T10:55:00.001-05:00

So, I'm hating blog with embedded comments. You know those ones that when you click on the post, or post a comment, it goes to a page with the post and then the box for the comments at the end. For some reason, when I go to post a comment, after I type in my comment, I've had to copy my comment, because when I click on Google Account, it goes to a page saying my current account is not authorized to view this page, click here to log into another account. So, I log back in with my google account, and then I see my comment with my avatar picture and the word verification. After typing the word verification, and pushing publish I go back to the page about not being authorized to view that page. I log in again with my google account, and finally my comment is published.

Is anyone else having this trouble, and would anyone know how to fix it? It's becoming annoying, and I want to leave comments a little more quicker. Now, I'm not having any problems with the blogs that when you click to post a comment, it takes you to a full page of comments, or the little pop up page.

Any help would be great.

Fall Cards

2011-10-30T12:28:00.002-05:00

This month, the theme for my CollageATCs Yahoo group was Fall. I generally don't make mine until I get the other group members and then I can get inspiration from them. Well, I've had my craft stuff all other my floor for awhile, so I figured I'd just go for it. Here they are:
I got ideas for the two on the left from the cards found below. For the third card, I found the brown sparkly leaf on my floor and based everything off that. Everything but the leaf was from the collage pack.

This card inspired the brown card above. I thought about doing a pennant like theme with the leaves being the pennants. All the leaves are from the packet, and the word is from some stickers I bought. Unfortunately my word stickers must be kinda old because I am having the worst time getting the sticker to stay. I found the above pennant card in the 2011 January/February issue of Papercrafts magazine.

The sunflower card was inspired by this one. I like how I paired the golden colors together. The sunflower is the only piece from the packet. I also found the bird card in the 2011 Jaunary/February issue of Papercrafts. In the magazine, it's a color challenge, but I loved the sketch for the card, so I just went from there.

Next month's theme is buttons.

Button swap

2011-10-21T14:27:00.004-05:00

I signed up to do a button swap through the blog, Button Floozies. My partner was Victoria of Things I learn from Bear. We had to decorate an Altoids tin and fill it with buttons and send it off to our partner. Here's what I sent her:
The top is decorated with some metallic papers. Starting in the lower left hand corner and going diagonally up, here are the embellishments: a metallic fabric flower with a faux pearl flower in the middle; a coppery/fabricy flower with faux pearl beads in the middle; and a flower pin that I trimmed the back off of.

My favorite thing to do lately is cover things in dictionary paper, so that's what I did with the sides and the bottom of the tin.

I just looked through my pictures and realized I never took a picture of the buttons I sent Victoria, oops.

Here's what I got from Victoria:

A beautiful button necklace with a nice orange flower, and my Altoids tin. I believe she decorated it with popourri, it smells so nice.

And here are the buttons I got

These are my favorite buttons:

I love the green ones, cause they're green, love the sparkly ones cause they're sparkly. The big one in the front is my favorite, its some kind of plastic that's been worn on the light parts. The bigger metal one is really heavy.

Thank you Victoria.

Check out other tins and buttons from this swap here.

Grandma's Birthday

2011-10-21T14:15:00.006-05:00

This past Saturday(10/15) was my grandma's 95th birthday, here's what I made for her:

The layout for this card I got from an issue of Papercrafts magazine. I layered patterned paper that I cut with decorative edged scissors on the card. The green flower is a chipboard shape from my Secret Santa, it has a sticker that says "Time to make a wish" on it. There are 3 paper flowers with beads in the center as well.
Here's her present:
I started with a white wooden frame. I painted it blue, and then added dictionary pages to it. I then spritzed it with a shimmery yellow spray. The buttons on the side, the glass heart and the button in the middle all match in color. The "9" and "5" are chipboard shapes that were painted a moss green. The flower was also misted with the shimmery yellow spray.

New projects

2011-10-03T08:24:00.002-05:00

What have I been doing lately? Or what have I realized I need to get done, now that it's October?
I signed up for a Pretty Pennants swap on one of my Yahoo groups, and realized it needed to be in the hostesses hands by Oct 15th. Last time I posted it, I hadn't quite decided on the edges.
I tried doing some embroidery that waved sort of like ric rac, but it did not look good. Then I remembered these nice tiny trims I got a t a yard sale and attached them.
And once again, blogger has deleted one of them, the third one has little tiny flowers for the trim. Now I need to figure out how to finish the back, take care of the fraying on the top edge and figure out a way to hang them. I have a piece of quilt batting on the backs of them to give them more support, but I still need to actually finish the back and add my information. I think I might just add eyelets for the hanging part. I also realized how empty the top third now looks, but I think the front is actually done.

Next up, I have to do one more ATC for my Yahoo group for last month, the theme was Kawaii, and I have to say it's really not inspiring me.

You totally can't tell that that blob is a cat, I embellished the flower that's on his head.
Here are my other member's cards:

I also have to finish my Altoids box for a button swap I'm doing, and put together the fall packets for my Yahoo group. Sometimes procrastination is not good at all.

What projects are you all working on?

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday

2011-09-21T07:28:00.003-05:00

I haven't participated in this for a long time, mostly because I don't generally have anything neat to show you. Today, I do:
I joined a Pretty Pennants swap on a Yahoo group I'm in. I was orignally going to make my pennants with vintage hankies, but they weren't big enough. By that time, I'd already got myself so excited about fabric, I just had to find some. I chose this vintage green scarf, I affixed it to a piece of quilt batting with spray adhesive and went to work.
There is a row of vintage buttons with old thread in them at the top. The middle piece is from a doily I picked up from a garage sale and the button is also vintage. I couldn't find the right thread in my stash, so they are all sewn on with some cord from some tags.
I think I might add some decorative stitching and some beads or buttons hanging off the end. I'm supposed to have a way to hang it as well, and finish the back (which is just the batting and stitches right now), but I'm not sure how.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

What's on your Workdesk? Go over to Julia's to see some more workdesks.

Buttons!!!

2011-09-06T15:45:00.004-05:00

Here is my collection of buttons:
This table is about 4 feet long by 2 1/2 feet wide.

These are two color buttons

These are mostly shank buttons.

These are my purple buttons

These are my hearts and a few with anchors imprinted on the front.

These are white shell ones, and ones with printed words on them.

These are my metallic buttons.

These are the red ones.

These are brown ones, balloons, and some round ones.

Here are my white ones and some of my orange ones.

Here are my orange and some of my yellow ones.

Here's a better look at my yellow ones, and some more of my shank ones.

Here are my blue ones.

And my pink ones.

And my green ones.

Here's a better shot of the new/old ones I got a few weeks ago.

These are interesting, they're edges are cut sorta like gears.

The colors are a little off because these were taken at night on a dark table, they're mostly bright colors.

Any ideas on what I should do with my buttons?

Buttons

2011-08-19T20:38:00.002-05:00

I have too many buttons, and I try not to buy more, but last weekend I went to a flea market and broke down and bought some.
Here are my metal ones, the one with the green circle in the middle is missing some of the clear stones around the edge, so I got it free.
OK, this is not a button, but it's a cute little dog pin I picked up

My favorite in this picture is the one that looks like a die, and the green one with the leaf and the wooden one next to it with the red flowers.

Here's a close-up of my favorite ones

Last weekend, we went up to our timeshare in Okoboji, IA. While there, other than going to the flea market, I picked up some nice beach glass. I just don't know what to do with it now.

And, to see some really cool chalk drawings, go to my other blog, here.

Chinese papercuts

2011-08-07T09:20:00.004-05:00

I found these gorgeous Chinese paper cuts at a garage sale this weekend.
There were two packages for fifty cents, I was curious as to what they were, and figured if they weren't anything exciting, I could always sell them online.

Inside the packagaes were these very delicate paper cuts.

They're either cut from rice paper or tissue paper, I don't know the difference, and then painted.

What you see in the pictures are the paper cuts sitting on rectangular papers. They are gorgeous.

Anyone got any ideas of what to do with them? Or want any? Let me know.

Bird Song Tag Book

2011-07-25T15:54:00.005-05:00

Do you all remember when I made these? Well, I got my tag book in the mail today, and the tags I got are great. First is the cover made by Karla Nathan. I was perusing her book covers and loved the one she made, she said it's a scanned bird picture printed out onto a book page, and I love the tiny bird in cage charm on the bottom. Here's the front:
The back is a nice piece of wallpaper, here it is:

The first tag is made by Debbie. It's cute that Debbie's seems to focus more on the girl, but still has the bird element on it. I also love the velvet trim and the cute pink bling at the bottom. Here's the front:

And the back:

The second tag I have is unsigned, so if you know the artist, please let me know. I love the little crocheted flower on the bottom. Also, I don't know if you can tell that much, but there's a very nice layering of blue glitter all over the tag. Here's the front:

And the back:

The third tag is made by Glenda Bledsoe (no blog). On the back, it says she took the picture of the hummingbird, I'm amazed it sat still long enough for her to capture it. I also love the flower punches. Here's the front:

And the back:

The fourth tag is made by Alveen. I love the 3D birdhouse with the pearl trim and the paper flowers at the bottom. Here's the front:

And the back:

The fifth tag is made by R Flowers (no blog). I love the punches on this one as well. Here's the front:

I really like the little jewel butterfly on the back, here it is:

The sixth tag is made by Karla Nathan as well. That bird with the blue head looks like he's a little annoyed at something. I love the egg and the bling on the top. Here's the front:

And the back:

And the last tag is made by Regina (no blog), here's the front:

I love the layered eggs on the back, here they are:

Thank you ladies for making these, I love my book. Thank you also to Karla for hosting. I have always thought about joining one of Karla's tag book swaps, but always figured my style of art wasn't good enough, but I think I will join again in the future.

The other day, I was at work and someone donated a gorgeous book of bird images, I bought it today, now I can make a lot more bird tags.

I've been making bugs!

2011-06-29T15:42:00.002-05:00

I bought a bag of pom poms at a garage sale last week, and wasn't sure what to do with them. After remembering a caterpillar I made with a bug kit, I decided to do more. Here's what I have.
The red and white one is the one I made from the kit. They still need eyes and some kind of antenna, but I think they are way too cute. I'm thinking of making the really small ones into pins and adding them to my Etsy store. Unfortunately I have no idea what to do with the rest, any ideas?

If you'd like to see some more bugs (and what I got in my True Colors swap), head on over to my other blog.

Birdsong Tag Swap

2011-06-21T19:27:00.003-05:00

I joined Karla's Birdsong Tag Swap last week, here are my tags:
They are made out of chipboard thickness file folders. I bought them at a garage sale, the backgrounds are blue (you can see the backs in the next picture). I first covered the background with some green tissue paper. The trim on the bottom, I had bought at a garage sale and painted it with watercolors. I then added the turquoise tickets onto the trim. The bird images are stamped onto white cardstock and painted with watercolors. The leaf trim I got in a swap. The flowers are rub-ons with gems added as centers. The flower petals at the top have been painted with watercolors as well.
Here you can see the material I used for the tags. It's chipboard thickness, blue and glossy. I added a dictionary definition of bird (there is a sparrow and blackbird definition as well, because I ran out of birds). The bird picture is also out of a dictionary. I put the information from the swap on the back (name, hostess, date, my name, and my website). I realized after labeling them all, I had accidentally put my other website on them, oh well.

I made 9 tags, even though the swap only calls for 7, I found out I could get 3 tags from each file folder, so I did. I don't know what I'll do with the other 2 tags.

All the tags are similar, yet a little different. There's 3 different bird images, silver and gold leaf trim, the birds are different colors, the flowers are different colors and have different gems in their centers.

It's been awhile since I've done anything creative, so this felt extremely nice. I looked at some pictures on other people's websites, as well as the flickr album, and tried to use as many cool embellishments and trims. I don't feel mine are near as elaborate, but I'm happy with them, and I hope those that receive them are as well.

Captured Dragon

2011-06-16T22:48:00.004-05:00

I've been seeing these captured fairy bottles around lately, so I thought I'd make one myself, with a little twist.

I signed up for a True Colors swap, where we send our partner things in their favorite color. My partner's color was dark green, and she also liked dragons. So, I made a captured dragon bottle.

The dragon was originally a pendant, I cut off the loop at the top of his wings, and glued him to the lid of the bottle. I glued green rocks and crushed shells to the bottom. I added some gold plants to the background with some gems in front of them. Unfortunately after I glued the jar shut, some of the gems decided to come unglued, I hope she doesn't mind.

On the outside there is copper German foil on the bottom. On the top to cover the closure of the jar, I glued a ribbon, and some copper and green gems.

On the bottom, I glued dictionary pages (My new favorite decorating item), with the definition for dragon from a different dictionary. Sorry, the picture is so blurry, I couldn't get a good focused close-up.

Here's a close-up of the dragon. His wings go up to almost a point behind his head. He's holding a clear orb in his claws, and his tail goes down behind him.
I know it's not a great picture and you really can't see him that well.

I had so much fun making this. I will definitely be making more captured whatever bottles. I'm totally looking for tiny jar when I'm garage saleing. Hopefully, I'll add some to my etsy shop soon.

If you want to see the other items I sent my partner, go here, to my other blog.

Butterfly Fairy

2011-05-22T09:08:00.004-05:00

OK, last post (don't get used to this many posts).
I started this project when I was doing my Gypsy ATCs, she became a piece of her own. I started out creating the dress by cutting out a dress, and then painting the top with Pearl Ex Turquoise powder mixed with mod podge so it wouldn't rub off. I added the blue filmy fabric for her dress, and then the blue ribbon around the waist and the black gems from the collage packet. The head was also from the packet and once I added that she was too big for an ATC, so I just continued making her, just to see where she went. The butterfly wings are from a butterfly stamp that I cut in half and then colored with chalk. Her hair is yarn I received from my friend, Loretta. She is mounted on a chipboard tag covered with purple mulberry paper. On the tag is a row of blue German scrap stars, and a blue edging piece layered with the same blue ribbon as her dress and some black 'pearls' to tie into the dress.
She ended up without arms or legs because nothing looked good. Now, I'm not sure what to do with her.

Any ideas?

Showing my art

2011-05-22T08:55:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I had some of my art pieces on display at the library. I don't have a picture of the whole table, but I do have pictures of parts of the table in succession.
This first one shows some embroidery pieces on the right, they are both in process. I think the dragon piece is done, but I don't know what to do with it. The bag still needs some decorative work done on it. Next you can see the ATCs I've kept for myself, the Outside of the Box challenge is propped up on a piece done with the Serendipity technique.
And moving right along to the left, there are more ATCs, on the top you can see a tile I decorated, 3 altered metal boxes, a framed tile made with UTEE, a frame that illustrates a William Wordsworth poem I did in high school. You can also see the bottle from the previous post and the fairy that will be in the next post.

And finishing up here, you can see a couple altered books (one done by my mother for a birthday), and the piece that won me the Hall of Fame fibers award at my senior art show in high school, a purple rosette to take to state at the county fair, and a blue ribbon at state fair (not that I'm bragging or anything). There's also business cards in the foreground. And in the background, you can see a tiny bit of a blue altered board book I was working on.

I'll see if I can find close-ups on some of these pieces in the coming days.

I showed all of this for 5 hours at the library, people could just come in and look at things as they pleased. I was part of a program called Celebrating Lifelong Creativity, along with a group that put together airplanes, a watercolor artist, a group that wrote pieces, a local senior services group, a knitting group and a paper cutting artist.

Gypsy ATCs

2011-05-22T08:49:00.002-05:00

For April in my CollageATCs group, the theme was gypsy. I had a horribly hard time with this theme. Finally I looked through the clip art on my computer and found some images that were supposed to be gypsies anyway, so I printed them out and added to them.
Starting on the top left I added purple mulberry paper and then covered it in glitter, the piece from the package is the trim on the right side. For the girl in the middle, I colored her dress and the pieces from the package are the brown sequins and the black gems in the middle of them. For the lady on the right, I cut her out, added her to a background and then colored here with chalk and added the pink beads, feather and gems all from the package. For the lady on the bottom, I cut her out, glued her to a piece of mulberry paper, colored her with chalk and added the red gems and red flower from the packet.
I think they turned out pretty good.

Altered Bottle

2011-05-22T08:34:00.002-05:00

First let me warn you, I'm going to have at least 3 posts on here soon, I have 3 different things to post and since I am so bad at arranging pictures, I figured it was easier to do them separately.
So, first things first, this is about the close-up picture I posted the other day.
It started out as a plain brown bottle measuring 7.5 " tall by 3" wide by 2" deep. It looked like this:
Then I decided to apply dictionary pages to it:

And it sat covered in paper for a couple months.

Next I painted it with a watered down moss green acrylic paint, and brushed Pearl Ex turqouise powder over the top and sealed it with Mod Podge. I then hot glued crushed shells to the top around the lip of it. Next I hot glued a piece of lace around it and added a couple buttons.

Here's what it looks like now:

And the back:

It looks more blue in the pictures, in real life it looks more aqua colored.

Surprise

2011-05-20T12:04:00.001-05:00

Just a sneak peak of something I finished today that I REALLY like.
Unfortunately I have to go to work now, so I'll put the pictures of the whole thing up later along with my Gypsy ATCs.

Stay tuned!

Day 9 - Easter

2011-04-24T07:31:00.001-05:00

Day 9 was from Monique (she's not a blogger)
She made us beautiful pins. I'm planning on wearing mine today, I just have to find something nice to put it on.

Thank you to Amy for hosting this swap. I would love to do another in the future. It was a lot of fun!

Day 8

2011-04-23T07:25:00.002-05:00

There was no Day 7, as that person got sick.
Here's Day 8 from Sarah at Mama Bubbles.Very cute card, the chick is a piece of fabric.
And here is what's inside, a cute chick 'basket'. It is very cute, I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with it, but it's definitely going with my Easter decorations.

Tomorrow's the last day.

Day 6

2011-04-21T07:55:00.003-05:00

Wanda of The Rat's Pajamas created Day 6 for us:
Inside was a cute little basket made from beads and safety pins, and in the basket was a Lindt chocolate bunny.

Thank you Wanda!

Day 5

2011-04-20T09:13:00.001-05:00

Day 5 was from Michelle at The Tattered Quilt Cottage, here's the outer packaging:
And inside was this cute ornament(?). I don't know exactly what it is, but it's really cute.

Thank you Michelle!

Day 4

2011-04-19T07:18:00.002-05:00

Here's today's package And inside a "captured chick" created by Kim of the Crafty Triathlete. I love this, I believe it's supposed to be like the captured fairies but it's a chick instead. I've always wanted a captured fairy and this piece is way cute.

Sorry about the bad photo, I just realized you can't really see what's in there, but it's a chenille chick with a sign that says Joy, it's got a speckled egg and it's sitting on a wooden spool in some shredded pink paper.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. This is posted nice and early cause I have to work at 8AM.

Day 3

2011-04-18T12:41:00.002-05:00

Day 3 was Amy from Crafting by Candlelight. I love the little bag it's in. And inside was this cute 3-cornered bag, I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet.

So far for the items I'm not sure what I'm doing with, I'm just putting them together in the bag Amy made for Day 1.

I've noticed I do that with a lot of my swaps, if I don't know what to do with the items, I have a tendency to leave them in the container they came in. Sometimes I just do that cause I don't want to separate them.

Day 2

2011-04-17T11:42:00.001-05:00

Day 2 was me: I made an Egg ornament

I basically picked out some brightly colored paper, cut it into strips with decorative scissors and then used mod podge to glue to to some chipboard egg shapes. The flowers are Prima flowers with a jewel, or some had buttons in the middle.

Day One

2011-04-16T09:00:00.002-05:00

Originally, our Day One person was Victoria, but she dropped out, so Amy from Crafting by Candlelight added a few things. She said the bag is handmade And here's what was in the bag:

A set of spring-y clothespins, and an egg. I'm thinking of covering the egg in book pages.

Tomorrow is me, so I'm not that excited about it. I'm trying so hard not to open these packages, I did hide them in a paper bag, so I don't have to see them all piled up on the floor, but it's so hard.

9 Days of Easter Swap

2011-04-14T13:34:00.004-05:00

I signed up for a 9 Days of Easter Swap, hosted by Amy of Crafting by Candlelight. It was originally a 12 Days of Easter Swap (like a 12 days of Christmas), but only 9 people signed up. We were supposed to make 9 of the same or similar items to send to Amy and then she would put gifts 1-9 from different people in a box and send them to us. Unfortunately, #1 dropped out and #7 got sick, so Amy added something for #1, and #7 seven might still send us something. I bought myself something at Walmart yesterday and decided to wrap it with the extra tissue paper Amy sent us and add it for #7. Here is what the pile of gifts looks like: I'm going to open one gift a day starting on Saturday and TRY to post it each day. I will take pictures of the item wrapped, and unwrapped and then tell you who it was from with a link to their blog if they have one. I will also tell you how I made my gift when it comes up. I'm having such a hard time not opening them now, I know one person couldn't wait, and they said we have some awesome gifts to open, that doesn't help me. I also signed up for 3 other Easter/Spring swaps, I received one box yesterday, to see what was in it, go to my other blog, The Life of Me, I will be posting the other boxes when they come in. I haven't decided if I'm waiting until Easter to open them or not. I do have an Easter basket that I gathered for myself, plus this swap, plus I might be getting together with my mom's side of the family on Easter, that's a lot to do on Easter, so I might just open them when I get them. What do you think?

Bugs

2011-04-04T13:29:00.003-05:00

I know, it's been awhile, I have such a hard time getting myself motivated to do art lately. I did finish some things for a swap on Friday, but it's a surprise swap, so I'll post those later. Here are my cards for the March swap in my CollageATCs yahoo! group The theme was bugs. The tulip picture is from the back of an Our Iowa magazine. The green background is from some memory makers packaging. The bird is from a piece of scrapbook paper. The layers on the last background as well as the blue piece are all scraps from my floor.

I should have those swap items up next week or so, the swap was for a 9 days of Easter swap. So, I'll get 9 packages back from the hostess and will open them up the 9 days before Easter, I'll do a post each day, so stay tuned.

January Snow ATCs

2011-02-20T10:42:00.002-06:00

WOW! I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted on here.
Anyways, here are the ATCs I did for my collage group for January, the theme was snow:
Starting in the top left hand corner: All the paper on the backgrounds are from a winter set of cardstock I got for Christmas in 2009. In the top photo I used the snowman and the giant snowflake at the top. I used some new blue staples to fasten the snowman onto the card, and a white spiral paperclip from my supply swap. On the right hand photo I used all the snowflakes. The reason the picture is so blurry is because of the brad I added to the middle of the silver snowflake.
In the left hand photo on the bottom I used all the images.
In the right hand photo on the bottom I used the snowman and the snowflake images. The crown is a metal piece.

All the cards are backed with chipboard that I received in my supply swap.

I'm doing horribly on being creative lately. I joined the One Heart One World blog event with my other blog, and I decided to give away garage sale finds. Since this year we were to send our prize out within 3 days of the end of the event, I didn't sign up with this blog because I prefer to make my prize. And I didn't even think about the event until it started.

Some art

2011-01-16T07:35:00.002-06:00

Here's what I've done in artwork lately:
My collageatcs group did Vintage for December, and I had to use some of my new items laying around.
Starting at the top and going left to right: I used some 'packing tape' I bought at Micheal's for the background and then layered a piece of book on it and then the boy on the turkey from our package.
Next I took some patterned blue paper, colored the lady with chalk, glued her down. I also colored in a black strip on the edge and added the string of pearls. The pearl clusters in her hair are also something I bought at Micheal's. The string of pearls, and the lady were in the package.

On the next card, I layered a vintage dictionary page for a background, and then added the poufy wallpaper, which was in our package, I thought it looked a little dull, so I colored in some areas with black gel pen. The lady was also from the package and she's colored with chalks.

Starting on the bottom and going left to right: I used an old Bingo card for the background, rubbed some red distress ink from my supply swap on it, the beige card and the fish were in the package. The crown is also from my supply swap.

Lastly, the background wallpaper was in the package, I added a light blue paper and layered the Remember quote, which was also in the package.

I decopaged some tiny wooden bowls for a friend for Christmas, I've been reading on other blogs of people doing this and I decided to try it. I learned to use a thinner paper and use my hands a lot. They turned out pretty cute, and my friend loved them.

I'm still waiting on my stocking swap. I contacted the swap hostess and she was infuriated, and said she'd send me something, that was over 2 weeks ago.

I did sign up for a Valentine's Day swap, where you send things to each other. The hostess said she had the perfect person in mind for me and they would not flake out.

Swaps and thoughts

2010-12-22T17:45:00.003-06:00

I joined two swaps this holiday season, one was a supply swap, the other a stocking swap.
I received my supply swap on December 11th, I was overjoyed it came so early.
In our packages we were to include:
1. 20 6" x 6" sheets of patterned paper
2. 5 charms or metal embellishments
3. an alphabet
4. 10 diecuts or punched shapes
5. 10 stamped images in black ink on white cardstock
6. a bling
7. 10 fibers/trims/ribbons
8. 5 small (1" or smaller) or 3 medium (1'" - 2") or a large (over 2") flower(s)
9. 3 journaling spots
10. a pocket or small envelope
11. A surprise.
I thought it was a great swap to join, it always seems other people's stuff is better than your own.
So, here's what I got from my partner:
You can see the pile or metal charms, and the flowers (way more than 5), there's a distress ink pad there, and a cupcake stamp, also 4 journaling spots, a rub-on alphabet, and the bling (self-adhesive crystals in the shape of a bird in a tree.

Here's a close-up of the metal embellishments (way more than 5), there's a key, some metal charms with words, the black things are roses, a butterfly, some photo corners, wings, a heart, a crown, and a blingy thing.

Here's a close-up of the flowers.

In this picture you can see some bottlecaps, the envelope (or more than one), some manila tags, the fibers, the diecuts, some chipboard (in, I believe, ATC size). I'm extremely giddy about using the chipboard, awhile ago, I ordered ATC sized chipboard through Etsy and decided it's great to use as a backing for my ATCs.

Here you can see a bunch of lunch bags, a chipboard book in the shape of a crown, a set of patterned paper (way more than 20), and the stamped images.

Here is some more chipboard, the card she gave me and a Christmas tag she made (also one of the requirements.

We were supposed to make a Christmas tag with a rubon on it, I love her tag, especially the jingle bell at the top, and whatever set of rub-on's she used.

And the last thing in my package was a set of white things. Each of these groups were in their own little container.

Also, if you noticed there's pink tissue paper as the background in each of these photos, that was included as well, and I'm also very tickled about it.

My other swap, the stocking swap, we were supposed to read each other's blogs and spend $10-$15 before shipping with a stocking on stuff our partner would like. These were supposed to be mailed by December 11th. I haven't seen mine yet. I waited a week before contacting the hostess about it. I tried emailing my partner during the swap with a question and never got an email back. I'm starting to believe I'm never getting a package back.

That annoys me and makes me wonder if I should bother getting in to swaps where we send directly to our partner. I'm also out the money I spent on her, her gifts and the over $10.00 in shipping. I'm not naming names, but I did just read one of her blogs that she posted yesterday, so she's still somewhere in the world.

On a positive note today, I got a mini Stampin' Up catalog in my mail, sent to me by Alicia, who is a Stampin' Up demonstrator in CA. I follow her blog and I'm sure I'm now in her Stampin' Up website database, but that meant a ton to me. Thank you Alicia.

Hope everyone's having a good holiday and Merry Christmas

Christmas swaps

2010-12-10T12:11:00.002-06:00

I know it's been awhile, but here are a few things I made for some swaps I joined. The first was a card to go with a stocking swap. We were supposed to fill a stocking up with $15-$20 in gifts and send it out to our partner. Here's the card I made for my partner:
It's a red cardstock background. I layered a green patterned paper on top of it, and then added some glitzy buttons. The reindeer were from a pair of earrings I bought at a garage sale this summer. The snowflake stickers are from a set I bought at a garage sale as well. The "Happy", "Holidays" and snowflake buttons were purchased at Hobby Lobby.
This next one is a card I included with a supply swap.

Once again, it's a red cardstock background with a piece of green patterned paper layered on it. The snowglobe is actually a bubble and came in a sticker set with the "Let it Snow" sticker on top, I bought them at a garage sale this summer. The snowflake buttons I bought at Hobby Lobby.
This tag was one of the requirements in the supply swap. We were supposed to make a Christmas tag with a rub-on.

I started with a white cardstock background and then rubbed green and red inkpads over it. I took an old book page and rubbed red and green inkpads on that as well. The tree and "Merry Christmas" stamps are from a set of clear stamps that I bought at Jo Ann Fabrics, the jewels came with them. The red bow was in my stash.

I have also signed up to do a snowman swap that's due on Decemeber 19th.

I'm trying to not get too messy with my creations lately as I sliced my finger open washing a glass on Tuesday and had to get 7 stitches. If you want to see a picture (it's just the stitches, nothing gory), and read a little more about it head on over to my other blog here.

Happy WOYWW

2010-11-24T11:51:00.004-06:00

Hello all,
I'm back participating in WOYWW this week. I finally finished my cards for my Halloween swap for my CollageATCs yahoo group, exteremely late, I know. But, I was the hostess and as we weren't doing anything for December, and everyone's busy with other things, nobody seemed too bothered. And here they are:
Starting in the upper left hand corner: I used the orange vellum and the 'Trick or Treat' bag. I had the Lisa Frank jack-o-lantern sticker, and the sunglasses used to be a pin.
I used the orange vellum and the jack-o-lantern punch. I thought it would be neat/creepy to have a set of eyes peering out from a leaf pile. All the leaves are diecuts I bought at a garage sale this summer.
I used everything but the background. The black bat and moon are buttons, the smaller buttons are from a plastic bag, and the house is a punch. I used gold spray webbing on the background.
I used the tiny 'Boo' piece, it's from a plastic bag. I thought the old couple looked kinda creepy.
In this set, starting in the upper left hand corner: I used the orange vellum ghost and the foam witch's hat. The ghost is glued onto a piece of lined cardboard and then onto an old book page. The trim on the top and bottom is some green leather.
I used the candy corn paper, and the candy corn stickers. The background is another piece of old book page. The lady is a stamped image given to me by a friend.
I used the black tissue paper covering the spider. I started out with this flourescent yellow plastic spider, I tried to color it black with a sharpie marker, but that didn't work. Then I remembered this technique I read about on a blog of covering something with tissue paper, so I did that with some Mod Podge, and then added the gold pearl powder to it, I covered it with more Mod Podge, so it wouldn't rub off. This is my favorite of the group. I still have to paint the hourglass red, but I love it the way it is now.
The last one, I used the web and the spider.

If you don't know what WOYWW is, head over to Julia's and check it out.

Altered Tin Swap

2010-11-02T14:04:00.000-05:00

Last time I posted on here (it was a awhile ago), I posted the tin I decorated for an Altered Tin Swap for one of my Yahoo! groups. This is the tin I got in return, today, November 2nd (I'll come back to that).
Here's a view of the front, and the opening is on the left, a tiny bit backward if you ask me.
Here's a view of the back:

And here's a view of the inside:

It's very pretty, but I guess I hoped for a little more, it's all paper and glitter. Don't get me wrong, I do like, it's just a little different, but then that's why I join swaps, to get a great variety of art.

Now back to the part of receiving it today, November 2nd. Originally, we were supposed to mail these to a hostess and then she would swap them out and send them back to us. She decided it would be easier for us to just mail them to our partner, I thought it was a good idea too. The original date to get to her was October 15th, since it was changed to mailing directly to our partners, I interpreted that to mean, our partner should have it by the 15th of October.

I get my emails through a list email, as we usually get a ton of emails from the group. I saw on the list that my partner posted she had mailed hers late, maybe around the 20th of October. Now, she didn't email me to tell me that, our partners were not secret, so that wouldn't be a problem.

I kept checking my mailbox hoping it would be there. Today, I looked and it was, and the mailed date was October 27th. She had to go to the post office to get it mailed to me, so I know the date is true.

Here's my question to you all, if you're going to be late sending something to someone, wouldn't you email them?

Also, would this be unacceptable for you in a swap? For the item to be mailed 12 after it was supposed to be in someone's hands?

If I was hosting the swap, and I was waiting on an item, they'd be booted out of the swap. The package would be returned to sender once I got it. I know it wasn't a swap where you send it to a hostess, but still.

I'm annoyed about the fact that it was sent so late and that she didn't inform me about the fact she was going to send it late.

Happy Woyww, check out Julia's Blog for more snooping.

I would love any and all comments.

What's On Your Workspace Wednesday

2010-10-13T10:07:00.002-05:00

OK, I'm late, and this picture is not actually on my workspace this week, but I needed to take the pictures before the sun was completely gone on Monday, and I had to mail it yesterday.
So WOYWW? it's an altered Altoid tin I did for a swap.
Quite a few years ago, my mother and I went to a class on using UTEE on Altoid tins, our instructor had already burned off the paint on her stove. We've found the best way to burn off the paint (though it could be different now), was to hold it over a gas flame on a stove set to high. Unfortunately, neither of us has a gas stove anymore, so I thought I'd try a candle, same principle right? Well, either Altoids has changed the way they paint their boxes or candles just don't give off enough heat, or I was impatient, or everything together, it didn't actually burn the paint off, so I finally gave up, and just added the UTEE over the top.
This is the front of the tin, after building up my UTEE layer, I added black, gold, silver, and copper embossing powders. I then added this leftover sticker backing I had laying on my floor, some leaf punches and some melted tinsel to it:
And here is the inside:
I also did the UTEE layering and then added terra cotta, butterscotch and hunter green embossing powders. Then I added the plastic leaves, the twigs from my yard, the pumpkin, an acorn stamped image, and the copper leaf to it.

I also added some left over stamped bookpages from my last ATC project and a piece of orange vellum, on which I wrote happy Fall, to the inside of the lid. Of course I did that later Monday night, and didn't get a picture of it.

If you want to know what WOYWW is, go on over to Julia's to find out.

Also, don't forget to go here for my Halloween giveaway, it ends on the 20th.

What's On My Workspace Wednesday

2010-09-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

For September in my CollageATCs Yahoo Group, our swap theme was Fall, here are my cards for the swap:
Starting in the bottom left hand corner and going clockwise:
The background paper is from when I did some distress spraying and masking, you can't see much of that paper, due to the yellow handmade paper I added to it. On top of that are 4 leaf images that I colored and a clear leaf sticker, all of those came in the packet.
Upper left: background paper is from distress spraying and masking, you can see a 3 leaf branch and a 4. I added leaf die cuts and a brown button with a yellow gem in the middle. The button and gem were in the packet.
Upper right: I stamped leaf images on an old book page and colored them in with markers. You can't tell from the picture, but the red maple leaf is dimensional, the stamped image was in the packet and I put some foam tape under it. There's also a little bug sticker on the large leaf, which was also included in the packet.
Bottom right: the background is a bunch of sequin leaves that were in the packet, and then there's a dog playing in leaves sticker that was also in the packet.
Here's my other set of cards, starting in the bottom left corner and going clockwise:
Bottom left: once again the background paper is when I did some distress spraying and masking. I added the punched grass and a stamped tree. The items from the packet are the leaf punches on the tree and the sunflower button in the corner.
Top left: Again, I stamped leaf images onto old book paper, items from the packet are the acorn and the smiling apple.
Top right: background is pre-cut wallpaper, I added the grass punch, and the items from the packet are all the leaves and pinecone, as well as the scarecrow sticker.
Bottom right: background is a red card. I included some colored tinsel in the packet and was curious to see what it would do if heated, the "hair" on the leaf man is the result. I added some eyes and the metal piece for the smile. Items from the packet are the tinsel hair, the silk leaf for the head, and the metal for the smile.
I hope you like my cards, next week I will have an altered tin for my other yahoo group.

If you don't know what WOYWW is hop on over to Julia's to find out.

I love getting comments, don't forget to go here for my Halloween giveaway.

What's On Your Workspace Wednesday

2010-09-21T19:22:00.004-05:00

So, what's on my workspace today?

My cards for the Roy G Biv swap in one of my Yahoo! groups. Here is a complete picture of all of them, the colors are about right on in this picture. In the other pictures, they came out kinda dull, so if you want to see the actual colors refer back to this top picture.
Here's a close-up of Red: All the cards are 4x4 inches square, I started out with a piece of cardstock in each color. For red, I covered the background with some metallicky (new word) red paper flowers, then I layered a 3x3 inch square piece of mulberry paper and then a picture of Red Poppies off of a seed packet.

Here's a close-up of Orange. Once again, I started with an Orange square, then I added a 3x3 inch square piece of orange corrugated cardboard, then I layered a 2x4 inch piece of orange joss paper, and then added a fabric orange lizard on top, I finished it off with orange German scrap.

Here's a close-up of Yellow. I started with the yellow cardstock, then covered it with a piece of yellow flowered wrapping paper. I finished it off with a trio of flowers button in the upper right hand corner, and a "vacation" button in the lower left hand corner.

Here's a close-up of Green. I started out with the green 4x4 inche cardstock and layered a piece of green mulberry paper on it, then I added a blueish green swirl from a piece of paste paper. The "K" in the corner is foam, the stars are from some Christmas ribbon, and there's green German scrap for the edging.

Here's Blue: I started with the blue cardstock and layered a piece of 3x3 inch blue mulberry paper, and then added blue fabric butterflies and a blue butterfly rub on.

Here's Indigo:I started with a navy square, and added the indigo mulberry paper, and another square of indigo mulberry paper, then I colored the bluejay image in with colored pencils and glued it on top.

Here's Violet: I started with the violet square and added a 3x3 inch square of violet mulberry paper, and then the foam dolphin and foam witches hat. The spiderweb is sparkly, and the heart is a button.

A couple weeks ago, Chrissie said she wanted to see the desk I created my cards on, well here it is:

That's right, I create on my floor. I do have a table I set up to create on, but it's full of stuff (does that happen to anyone else?), so I end up on the floor. This week, I used the floor, the back of an artists' canvas and the back of a piece of cardboard to mod podge on. Someday, I'll have a house and an actual room and table to create in/on. But, for now, I have a closet that houses my supplies, and the floor to work on.

At least I've cleared out enough room to be able to shove the table back into the closet between creating times.

If you have no idea what WOYWW is, jump over to Julia's and check it out.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway, it's here.

Also, I will be sure to participate next week, as I have to make Fall cards for the Yahoo! group I host.

Halloween Giveaway

2010-09-20T08:36:00.002-05:00

I think it's time for a giveaway, so here's what's up for grabs: Cellophane Halloween Bags
3 Cupcake Boxes
100 Mini Cupcake Liners
A tiny Halloween Bag
A Bobble Head Witch

The witch had a broom in her left hand, but it was broken when I got it.

I won the Halloween bags, cupcake boxes and cupcake liners in a giveaway, but I have no use for them, so I thought I'd pass them on to someone who celebrates Halloween (or at least more than me). I'm also planning on sending some Halloween stamped images your way as well.

Rules:
Leave a comment on THIS post by October 19th.
Open to everyone.

I will pick a winner by October 20th, hopefully that will give the package enough time to get to you before Halloween.

Enjoy!

Stuck

2010-09-15T22:58:00.002-05:00

I'm having a very hard time being creative lately. I have a swap due on the 2oth, that I really need to get started on, but all I really want to do is lie on my couch and watch movies.
I had a really long post planned out, but now I don't remember it that well, so this may be a little choppy.
I've noticed lately that I'm not really happy unless I'm working, hanging out with friends, hanging out with my boyfriend, or garage saleing. I know I've spent so much more money this summer going to garage sales, but I find myself looking forward to them each week, and being pretty bummed out, if there aren't any in my neighborhood, it's not so much what I spend, but I've found it's so much fun, just going around and looking, the thrill of the hunt, I guess. I think one thing that would make it more fun (I know this actually), is to have someone to go with. There have been a couple times this summer where I went with a friend (who lives about 45 min away, so that doesn't happen very much), or my boyfriend (who works 7 days a week, 12 hr night shifts, so unless he's not majorly tired on Sat mornings, that doesn't happen either), go with me, and it's been so much more fun sharing the experience with someone, especially someone who knows what I'm interested in.
I went to some antique shops with my mom this summer, and it is definitely not more fun with her, I found myself waiting on her, and it seems she doesn't really know what I'm into anymore, or she wouldn't find it cute when I buy something just because it's neat.
I honestly wish I had more close friends to hang out with. I don't have a lot of those, I have my friend, Loretta, who lives 45 minutes away, so it's not very efficient for her to come and hang out all the time, I have my boyfriend, who works way too much, and pretty much sleeps on all his off time, and I have a friend who lives about 40 minutes away and works full-time during the day, so also not efficient for her to come hang out.
I've tried somewhat suggesting to people at my library job that we hang out, but it's almost like people don't want to hang out outside of work.

I lost my store job just last week, she finally closed up, so I now I have my evenings free, which is very strange, after working there for about 2 years?. But that also means, I need to find another job to fill in the time and the money I'll be missing. And that thoroughly depresses me, I've gone through this process so many times already.

I just bought some stuff online, that I really shouldn't have bought, but I found out about them last week and bought some in a store and they make me feel really good, so I decided the personal investment would be worth it (we'll see how I feel when I get the credit card bill at the end of the month).

I have plenty of time to create, I just can't get motivated to do it. I have decided I will jump in my craft closet tomorrow, because like I said I have a swap due on the 20th, that means, it better be in the mail by Fri. I think part of my reason is, that my closet it so messy and there's not a lot of space in there. I do have a space cleared out for my tiny table (probably about 3 ft by 2 ft), but it's only big enough to shove the table back in when I'm done, so I don't have to fold it up again.

I'm in a funk, I really wish I had something exciting to do, or someone exciting to hang out with, or something really interesting to eat.

I'm looking forward to next weekend, Fri, I'm hanging out with a friend, there's an antique show that my mother promised we'd go to (though I wouldn't be surprised if she says at the last minute she's too busy) on Sat, and on Sun, our local art center is having their annual art festival, which my mother, my aunt and I are planning to go to.
I'm worried I might be a little too excited for it, and be let down, again. On my birthday in July, my mother and I took a day trip to a town about an hour away from here to shop and eat at a tea room. I was really excited. The day started out with my mother not following the directions we were given, so she got a little lost and then very panicky which in turn put me in a bad mood, then I couldn't find anything to buy, and the stores weren't that exciting, and the food at the tea room wasn't that great either.
I don't think it helped that I didn't get any actual presents for my birthday, well, not any material things. My mom took me on our trip and bought my lunch (though I think that was kinda her birthday present also, as hers is the day after mine), my parents were supposed to get me a new mattress, but my mom decided she was too tired to go mattress shopping after our day out (haven't seen a new mattress or any present from them since), and my boyfriend took me to a car show, which was great, but sometimes you want something you can hold in your hand, my brother did send me a nice gift certificate for Amazon, and I have been slowly spending it (which is new for me, I generally spend those things fast), but since I only have so much, it's hard to pick out what I want to spend it on. I did buy a few craft books on a spur of the moment one day, but that was disappointing as I don't really look at craft books, they're good books, but I don't look at craft books.

I don't know what will get me out of my funk, but I just wanted to let everyone know what was going on.

I had plans to work on my swap last night, take pictures and post for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday today, but didn't feel like it last night, and didn't realize it was Wed until about 10 this morning, and by that time I knew I'd be somewhere in the later hundred's if I participated, and it seems less and less people visit them all. Which I know is hard when there's that many, I don't get to a lot of them any more either.

Guess I better sign off as I have to get up to go to work in the morning

What's on your Workdesk Wednesday

2010-09-07T22:41:00.003-05:00

Hello everyone, I'm back to creating (that's what happens when you enter swaps and deadlines come up). These cards are some I created for the yahoo! group I host (collageATCs), August's theme was Artists Choice, where everyone made their own cards instead of my sending out a packet of stuff. If you'd like to see a bit of what I put in the packets, head over to my other blog.
Last month I received a great packet of stamped images and mulberry paper from one of the members in my group as part of a Christmas in July swap, this month I used some of those papers.
I really love the orange one below, the elephant is from a set of earrings I bought at a garage sale this summer.

If you have no idea what WOYWW is, head on over to Julia's blog, to snoop around other people's desks.

I love reading your comments.

Beware of the Birds

2010-08-18T07:14:00.003-05:00

Hi all, I'm a little late today, I was thinking tomorrow was Wednesday. I went on a mini vacation this weekend, got back on Monday and went to work for a few hours, then yesterday I was working all day, so my time's a little off.
So, what's on my workspace today? The finished result of those little Maya Road bird pages. Sorry, about the blurry pictures, I didn't realize they were so blurry when I was taking them.
I thought a swirly would look nice about where the wing would be, only I didn't have a scrolly stamp, I did, however have a chipboard swirl, which I traced around in black and then colored the shape in in brown. You can't see it, but you can still see the words through the brown, and it's a little sparkly due to being colored over the 'glimmer' mist. I also added a piece of lace for the tail, and a very light gem for the eye.

I also mod podged over the flat parts, so the brown ink kinda spread out over the bird, and you can't quite see the sparkly mist anymore. Here's a close-up (which is also blurry). The back is painted green and has the Yahoo! group name, swap name, hostess name, my name and date. I thought they turned out rather well.

In that first photo you can see a snippet of another chipboard book I'm working on. It's a squareish shape covered with green tissue paper and some brown SU ink swiped over the top.

Go check out Julia and see other people's workspaces today. I love your comments.

What's on Your Workspace Wednesday

2010-08-10T16:41:00.003-05:00

If you're looking for Pink Saturday, go here. Sorry, folks, I gave the wrong blog address to Beverly.
It's Wednesday again (OK, not quite), and here's what I've done in my artsy space since last week. I hope the picture's ok, when I woke up this morning, I had no power, so I had to open up my shades and take the picture.
I have been trying to get a shift off at work, and this is my thank you card to my co-worker for filling my shift.
I love using old book pages in my work lately, so I layered one onto a piece of green cardstock (why green? I have no idea). I searched through my papers and finally found this woman, and then added the buttons in the corners (I'm trying to use my buttons as well, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate them). The one on the bottom is brown, the one on the top is green, if you can't tell.

If you don't know what WOYWW is, hop on over to Julia's blog to see. I love comments.

What's on Your Work Space Wednesday

2010-08-04T09:08:00.003-05:00

Welcome to What's on your Workspace Wednesday, my 2nd week. I finished my charms the other day (so I'm kinda cheating, but I knew I wouldn't have anything out for today) and found out the bird book isn't due until the 20th, so that will be another week. If you don't know what this is, hop over to Julia's blog.

I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do, I started by laying buttons on the charms, because I originally thought I should do something with buttons, because I have a lot, but they covered up the holes, so that didn't work. Then I thought of putting book pages on the green backgrounds, so that's what I decided one. I have a math book, so I started leafing through that and found some problems, cut them out and stuck them on.

For the other side I chose a bunch of nice words. If you can't read them here they are: bravely, confess, confidence, duty, estates, feel, proprietor, purchase, question, relieved, smile, sold, trumpery, value, wages. I tried to find money words because of the problems on the first side.

So that's what I ended up with, I hope the other ladies in the swap like them.

Thanks for stopping by, and check out my other blog for my first week participating over there. I love comments.

Artsy Garage Saleing

2010-08-01T19:02:00.003-05:00

A few things in today's post, first of all, my garage saleing finds from yesterday, which all ended up being art related.
This is a plastic storage container with 4 drawers that I plan to use for storage, got it for $1.00

Brads, and stickers. The top brads were $.50, the silver colored ones have gems on the heads of them, got them for $.10, the purple ones were $.10, and the little smiley face stickers were $.10

A couple of Christmas cross stitch patterns for $.25 each. I don't know who will be receiving them, but I've found cross stitch is fun to do while watching TV, and maybe (no guarantees) I can get some presents done early.

The full picture of my finds. The background is a wool sweater I bought for my friend, Loretta, who's been looking for wool sweaters to felt, found it for $.50. The leafy garland, I bought to pick off the leaves and make something fall-y out of, found that for $.10 The cross stitch patterns and brads are above.

Second, I have the winner of my birthday giveaway on my other blog, Weink's Wonders. The winner is Linda M of Random Creativity.

What's on Your Workspace Wednesday

2010-07-27T16:29:00.006-05:00

So, I'm editing this to go along with the What's on Your Workspace Wednesday, I've wanted to participate for awhile, but since I haven't been creating for awhile, I didn't have anything to show, well, this week I do (maybe I just want a lot of comments).
I signed up for a couple swaps in a yahoo group, and I've been putting them off because "they're not due until August", I realized the other day, August is less than a week away YIKES!
One of the swaps I'm signed up for is a charm necklace swap, I've done 3 charm swaps already: a couple bracelets and a chipboard house with charms dangling off the bottom. I was thinking I had to make 26 charms for this swap, which is a lot of charms if you think about it. I was reading the rules today and realized it was only 15, that was a huge sigh of relief. I haven't exactly decided what I'm doing yet, but here are my bases:

They are pieces of faux shell that I covered with a mossy colored tissue paper. They had 2 holes in them, they were called spacers. I had started by covering only one hole up, but that looked stupid, so I went back and covered everything both sides with the tissue paper. I'm thinking about layering something else (don't know what) and then adding a varnish to the top of it.
The next swap I signed up for is a chipboard bird book swap. We were sent a book with cover and 5 pages, I have to decorate the 5 pages and send them back, so then I have my own cover with 5 pages from other people. Here's what I have so far:
I covered the pages with old book pages and then sprayed them with my homemade glimmer mists of gold and pink. I did discover while ripping off the excess paper, that the pearl ex powders that I mixed with water to make my sprays come off on my hands, so I'll have to put some modge podge over the top when I'm done. The back side has been painted with a very light green. I'm thinking of stamping some kind of image, but wonder if that will be too busy with the text.

And my last project, is something I just started for fun. Here it is:
It's a tree. I took a 12x12 canvas board, painted it black and then added the same mossy colored tissue paper as on the charms above and then painted it with my new water colors. I don't paint very well, but trees are pretty easy. I don't know what's coming next with this project, but it may be put on the back burner while I finish my swaps, I have about 2 weeks to finish them.

Any suggestions for my projects?

Who wants to win something?

2010-07-15T16:24:00.003-05:00

I'm doing a giveaway in honor of my birthday (which was July 2nd), here's what I have for the giveaway so far: A box of four light blue Christmas ornaments, two tins full of things, a small painted picture in frame, an old book, a tiny birdhouse, a set of 'turqouise' jewelry (2 clip on earrings and a pin), a butterfly pin, a small plastic box and two tiny jugs.

Here's the inside of that book.

A close-up on the tinier items, and what's in one of the tins. There's buttons, minitiature animals and some beads.

Also, a bag of jewelry misc, there's pins, watchbands, and other stuff.

Also, some of the buttons in this jar.

Most of this stuff is vintage, and I will be adding more things I find at garage sales.

The giveaway will be open until the end of July. I will draw a name on July 31st, and post it on August 1st.

All you have to do is post a comment on this post. If you post a comment on other upcoming posts, that will give you an extra entry. If you post about this giveaway on your blog that will give you an extra entry. I will be checking blogs, if you comment to tell me you posted about it.

So, you have a maximum of 3 entries.

This is the same giveaway posted on my other blog.

I'm in an Etsy Treasury

2010-07-08T21:13:00.001-05:00

How cool is that? I've never been in a treasury before. Here it is, and since I'm not as knowledgeable and don't know how to put the picture in here, you will have to go see it. It is my caged butterfly ACEO. The theme of the treasury is caged, it was created by Fernwistleglen, check out her Etsy shop by clicking on her name.

I'm so excited.

Giveaway!!!

2010-07-06T17:59:00.002-05:00

Check out my other blog for a giveaway. Lasts through the end of the month. Go here.

Fun in July swap

2010-07-01T16:19:00.005-05:00

And now they're really out of order, so bear with me. In my collage ATCs group we had a gift swap for July. My partner was Judy G, and my package arrived yesterday, I was tempted to wait until tomorrow to open it, but after I royally messed up a cake I was baking for my coworkers, I decided I deserved a little pick-me-up.
These are a pack of water colors, all closed up they came looked like the green bundle below.

There was an extra little gift in the box for my birthday (tomorrow), and I wasn't going to open it until then, but then my plans got rearranged, so I decided I needed to open it today.

Way inside the package, were these cute paper earrings that I'm guessing Judy made. Very cute.

And here are the earrings inside a frog box I found inside my present.

And here is the really cute frog box. I LOVE IT!!!

There were quite a few things in my package. A lot of paper, here is the mulberry bunch.

And here is the rest of it. The blue sparkly piece at the top there, is actually a piece of mesh fabric.

This was in the bag with the items in the next picture. It reads "Pearl Ex (mix with mat medium). I've never used pearl ex, and I don't think I have any mat medium, but I guess I better get some, so I can see what effect this gives.

These are the Pearl Ex. The blue one is actually #686 Turquoise, and the pearly one is #674 Interference Gold. The little "pills", I'm not quite sure about them. At first I thought they were those little creatures you see at stores that you drop in water and they grow.

This is a ball of turquoise fiber, the color is massively wrong on this picture.

Then there was this little package, and it was in the picture at the top of the page.

Here are some stamps. The three circly ones are those little stampers that have their ink with them.

I'm not really sure what these are but the box says Tria Inks Six-Pack 6 Pantone by Letraset colour inks. Tria Inks in 298 Pantone colours, Blender and Extender. Create custom mixes & tints. Use in Tria Brushpen, Letrajet Airmarker, refill Tria Markers.... Looks fun to play with.

She also sent a ton of stamped images and punched pieces. I didn't want to get them all out of the bags but there's frogs, butterflies, people, animals, birds, trees, and a lot more. Can't wait to use them.

And here's the card she made. I think it's tea bag folding but I'm not sure.

And here's the little box that my frog box was in.

Outside of the box challenge

2010-06-29T16:35:00.003-05:00

I finally finished my Outside of the Box challenge this morning. Apparently, I'm more of a work at night person. So here's the finished product. I really like it. So, as stated in my previous post, I had this great idea, I was going to wrap it in this bright orange flowery fabric print I had, so I sprayed it with adhesive and added the fabric, but it didn't look good, so I took it off.
Then I had a sticky box I had to do something with, I figured if I painted it, it would dry and not be sticky, so I painted it with black acrylic paint, sprayed it with my new glimmer mist, and then sponged it with blue lumiere paint. That's what I had in my previous post.
I haven't done much more to the outside. I did add a cute little metal bracket thing last night, and then realized this morning it wouldn't open, because the metal was too stiff, so I pried that off and had to fix my boo-boo. I added the blue star german scrap to the top and the rose pin on the bottom.

Now onto the inside.

On the right side, I added a piece of cardstock that's been painted with red Lumiere paint. On the bottom is some coraly looking plastic pieces, and some crushed shells glued on the bottom. I'm thinking it needs something else on the bottom, but I'm not sure what that is, and I have a tendency to add too much stuff sometimes. I figured, I'd walk away and see what I thought later.

I was going to leave the left side alone, but the black paint just looked so dark. I added some vintage book paper that I got somewhere, I'm not even sure what language that is. I brushed some Modge Podge over the top to seal it, I might add something on this side as well, but once again I don't want to go over the top.

So, there you have it. Like I said, I like it, and that's all that matters right? I was trying to go for a somewhat underwater feel (mostly because I'm working on Sea cards for my collage group this month, those pictures will be up later in the week), but not in blues and greens, as those are my two favorite colors to work with.

Hope you all like it. One day late isn't that bad, is it? Especially since my mind still thinks I have until tomorrow to finish it.

Thank you to Lisa for this great idea, and also for mailing me the soap and box after I found out my Target didn't have it. Go over to her website to check out what others did with the box.

An art challenge

2010-06-25T09:06:00.003-05:00

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY IN ONE WEEK!!!!!

EDIT: I still haven't finished my box yet, I could blame it on the fact I thought it wasn't supposed to be done until the end of June, or the fact that I was planning on working on it this weekend, but had a change (and extension) in my working hours, and ended up relaxing on the couch both days after getting done. I WILL work on it tonight and tomorrow until I get it done. I know I just need to get into my craft room (which I couldn't do today, because the pest control had to come, and he had to walk around my apartment without tripping over things) and stare until I get it done.

Aside from that, I'm participating in Lisa's Outside of the Box challenge. She sent me a soap box to do whatever with. Now, my first idea was to cover it in fabric. So, I sprayed adhesive on to the box and wrapped my fabric around it and then added a ribbon, well it looked bad, so I took it all off. My only problem was, now it was tacky, so I got out some black paint and painted over it. Then I used my new glimmer mist and sprayed that over it, after it dried, it was a tiny bit to glimmery for me, so I took a sponge and sponged on some blue metallic paint, now I don't know what to do with it.

I've already seen some peeks of other's boxes, and realized I have to have it done by Monday, I was thinking I had until Wednesday. Oh well, I do have tomorrow and Sunday around my work schedule to figure it out.

I was thinking of maybe making it into an art doll, but at this point I don't know.

Here's what the outside looks like:

And the inside:

Hopefully it will look a lot better than this in a couple days.

Check out my other blog, for my thoughts on what I'm doing next week.

Adhesives

2010-06-21T18:07:00.002-05:00

Got a question for people who glue stuff. Now I use a few adhesives, my favorite is my Tombo double stick tape, but (as I have learned) you can't use that for everything. I've taken to using glue dots for ribbon and smaller things that my tape doesn't stick to. I also use my E6000 glue for 3D elements, anything that's too heavy for the glue dots. Every once in awhile, I'll use my UHU glue stick to glue on some small things, or old book pages that just come off onto my double-stick tape.
I've also been using some spray adhesive for larger areas, or for vellum, as I've decided I can see everything else through the vellum. Now, I use a pizza box to spray my adhesive in, because you know if you use the spray adhesive, it seems to get on EVERYTHING within in spraying distance. My question is (I do have one), what do you do to get it off your hands? I have been trying to use other adhesives instead of the spray lately because I haven't found a way NOT to get it on my hands when picking up the piece I just sprayed. And I haven't found a way to get it off my hands once it's on there. Since it never seems to dry, I just get more crap stuck to little parts of my hands and then within a few days it goes away (after numerous washing of my hands). I could wear gloves, but I like to get down and dirty when I'm creating, I love the ink stains I get on my hands (not so much my clothes, which happens quite a bit).

So, anyone have any suggestions? I can't be the only one who uses spray adhesive. How do you guys either avoid getting it on yourselves or get it off once it's on your hands?

GIVEAWAY

2010-06-19T23:22:00.003-05:00

So, in a little less than 2 weeks is my birthday (July 2nd), and I will be doing a giveaway. I will put a post on this blog as well as The Life of Me. It will mostly be vintagey items that I've picked up from garage sales. I already have some things lined up to put in the giveaway, just go to my other blog and click on the tag: giveaway alert, and it will post all my posts with items I will be giving away.

And I hope to have some art up soon. I had a very dry spell in May, I couldn't even get motivated enough to participate in my own group's swap. This month I have an Underwater swap with the collageatcs Yahoo! group, as well as Tarnished and Tattered's Outside the Box Art challenge, click on the picture in my sidebar to learn more about it. I had a great idea, but that didn't work out, and I've started on my 2nd idea, which looks pretty good now, but I'm not sure where to go with it.

Treasured Tin Swap

2010-06-10T13:20:00.003-05:00

I received my Treasured Tin from Wanda. I was so excited to see it on the front porch when I arrived home from work (especially when I heard she had received hers yesterday). Pardon the pictures for being out of order, I still haven't figured out how to put them in order, also if they're dark I'm sorry, I tried lightening them, but it's pouring outside, so not so much natural light today.
In this picture, there is some Glimmer Mist (I have been wanting some of this for awhile), a frog punch, some paper flowers, a doily looking thing, a blue marker and some neutral/brown buttons.

Here is a variety of flower soft and glitter in blues and greens. Blue/green and any variation of that is my favorite color. Most things in the tin were in that color range. Very cool to open the tin and see.

Here we have punches out of various paper in hears and circly things, plus some gem flowers at the top.

Here there is some buttons, and some binder clips. I'm very excited about the binder clips, as I read about people using them, but have never used them myself.

Here we have glitter butterfly stickers, some painted oval metal frames and a pad of green patterned paper.

Here are some great frog stickers, you should know by now I love frogs. I do already have a sheet of the middle stickers, but you can never have too many frogs.

Some vintage photographs. Very excited about these, as I can never find them around here.

Paper flowers, not quite sure of the brand, but very much looking forward to using them.

These seem to be layered stickers. I haven't looked at them that much yet.

Some trims, ric rac and lace.

The view of the tin when I opened it.

The top of the tin, I didn't realize it was so blurry, I'll try to take a better picture.

I am so happy I participated in this swap, I love all the things Wanda sent me, this also makes me excited to participate in another swap like this.

Stuff I've been up to

2010-06-08T11:35:00.003-05:00

So, lately I've been going to garage sales and looking to find some things for the Treasured Tin swap that I'm in.
I bought this tin at our local antique mall, and thought it would work great for the swap. Of course about a week or so ago I thought maye it was a little small, so I emailed the hostess and asked, and she said I could always include more things in my mailing box, so I did. Plus it was my swap partner, Wanda's, birthday on friday and I wanted to include some extra things for that.

So here's some of what I sent her. You can see the tin in the corner, there's a couple boxes of gum with some witty sayings on them for those days when she's had it with people. The bag is full of some bookmarks I bought at a garage sale this weekend, read more about them here, there's another smaller tin near the top filled with some frames (can't be too descriptive as I mailed this all off yesterday and I'm not sure if she'll read this), and there's a vintage piece of fabric on top. I will go into more detail when I've heard that she's received the package.

This is another sneak peek for her: some lace, buttons, books and other things.

I must apologize for not posting much lately, as I said above I have been focusing on this swap, plus I've been doing a lot of garage saleing read about my great finds here, here, here and here.

My weekend

2010-05-20T13:47:00.002-05:00

Sunday, Sharon (my mother) and I went to a scrapbooking store about 30 minutes south of here. Here's what I bought:
Some stickers, the small ones on top, are shades of green alphabet, I thought a perfect size for ATC's. The next ones are some really cute sentiments. Then there are some chipboard stickers that made me think of Hawaii, hoping they'll help get me started on my Hawaii scrapbook. The last ones were just cute, they're a bunch of pet stickers.

On the bottom is a cut-out of a cruise ship, then a tiny Hawaii license plate and some coral stickers, I was hoping to use these in my Hawaii scrapbook as well. The butterfly stamps have spring words cute into them, and I thought they were cute.

There's a packet of Maya Road chipboard pieces, it includes 2 types of dress forms, scissors, needles, spools, hangers and sewing machines. I don't know what I'll do with them, but I love chipboard and shapes. The top is a packet of blue rub-on letters, another perfect size for ATCs. I decided to buy some yellow distress ink, I was thinking of blue or green, but I have SU ink pads in those colors, and I figured they'd work just as well. The bottom piece is a couple of butterfly notecards, those I bought to include in a swap I'm in. I'll let you know more about it in the future.

These is another sheet of rub-on's, they were 75% off, the main reason I bought them, plus rub-on's are fun to use.

Here are the papers I bought, they're all 12x12, in various patterns and shades of blues and greens. I believe those are my favorite colors. I don't know what I'll do with these, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.

When we were paying, my mother filled up one of those cards where you spend so much and then get X amount off your next purchase. It was $10 off her next purchase. She told me, she'd give it to me and then I could pay her off, how nice of her was that?

And she hasn't let me forget it either. Yesterday, I brought home a brownie from the library, because my supervisor had baked them, after eating it and saying how nice it was that I brought it to her, she asks where her $10 is. It sure makes me not to want to do anything nice for her.

Yesterday I went to our local antique mall to look for a vintage tin, for the Vintage Tin Swap I'm participating in. I did find 3 very cute tins, and I don't know which one I'm going to use yet, so I didn't want to ruin the surprise by putting a picture up. I'm so happy I found some, ever since I heard about the idea of this swap, I've been going to garage sales (I usually don't by myself, but because I wanted to participate in this swap and I also want to see if there's anything I can't keep my hands off, I've found some of those deals, see this post) to find the perfect one, and I haven't found any yet, I even went to the Salvation Army store Tuesday looking for one. Now I have 3 to choose from.

Stuck!

2010-05-14T19:05:00.003-05:00

I'm having a hard time creating anything lately.
And I really should be creating something. I thought maybe it was because I was limiting myself to the supplies I have, as I'm a little short on $$$ (working on paying off an $1100 loan from my parents that covered a medical bill from Feb), but I do go into JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby and get stuff from their clearance, and JoAnn's $1.00 bins. I have also bought some stuff on skybluepink.com, not that long ago. But I really haven't done anything with them.
I love reading all my art blogs everyday, I'm thinking I should participate in some challenges, there are tons floating all over the internet, I like the simple sketch ones, but that reminds me of Stampin' Up nights my mom and I used to go to. Our demonstrator would have the project and all the ingredients laid out, and it seemed like everyone except me, followed the project to a T. I've never been like that, I hate doing exactly what everyone else does. And the funny thing is, people would always say how cool and different mine was.
I was thinking of taking a glue book class from Mary Green, it sounds pretty fun and you get access to a whole bunch of images. And I've noticed being (ok it's online but still) with other crafty people always helps me get into the creating spirit. I would need to decide about that pretty quick, as it would start on Sunday.
I am participating in the Treasured Tin Swap through Dreams Intertwined, but that doesn't include a lot of creating, we're supposed to find a vintage tin and fill it up with goodies our partner would enjoy and then send it to them. I will be adding the button to my sidebar very soon.
It seems lately, the only time I make something is for my collageatc's yahoo group, and that's once a month. This month, we're doing a Scavenger Hunt, which means I send them a list of things to find in their stash (they're not allowed to buy anything) and use those. I haven't started even looking for elements yet. My crafty closet is so messy, I know it will become a daunting task at sorting stuff and getting rid of it, because there's not a lot of room for organizing in there.
I'm thinking I should do that and do another giveaway soon. There is a currently a multi-blog giveaway going on at Twice Remembered Cottage, that anyone can join until the 29th of May, but then I'd have to get myself organized. So, that probably won't be happening.
I have been trying to visit more garage sales this season, cause it's always fun to go to those, and it's a nice cheaper way to get supplies.

Any suggestions on what to get me going creatively?

Fabric ATCs

2010-05-04T13:13:00.002-05:00

For my CollageATCs group, April was fabric month. I had originally envisioned everyone sewing at least one ATC, but by the time I remembered to send an email, I already had one packet back from someone.
I decided I would just go ahead and sew all of mine. I took 10 pieces of the largest fabric from my packet and used them as backgrounds. I ended up blanket stitching around the fabric, with a piece of quilt batting in the middle, and then gluing a piece of paper on as a backing.
Starting in the lower bottom left corner and going clockwise. I used the background piece from my packet, sewing the blanket stitch in brown thread and then sewing the buttons on with a turqouise thread. The buttons are from numerous mixed button bags from Hobby Lobby. I used the background mosaic looking fabric and the two butterflies from my packet. I used a light green thread for the blanket stitch around the outside and a variegated yellow thread for the chain stitch to attach them to the fabric. Marilyn was part of a napkin, but I liked the image so much, I included it in the packet. I chose a piece of pink matboard as the background and glued a piece of black lace to that, and then put Marilyn on top of that. I colored her hair with chalk.

Starting in the lower left hand corner and going clockwise. The background fabric was stitched onto the the quilt batting with a simple running stitch. The dragonfly is a sticker. The golden butterfly and the background fabrics were from the packet. I attached the golden butterfly with orange thread and a chain stitch. The background geometric fabric was from the packet. I attached the plastic snowflake with some light blue silk thread. The background flowers and the red shirt were both from the packet. I had bought a packet of die cut people at a garage sale and thought that would be perfect for this piece, I couldn't decide on what to use for the skirt, so I ended up using a piece of blue paper. The cat is a button. Everything except the dragonfly is from the packet. I attached the wavy red fabric with a chain stitch in blue thread following the waves in the fabric. I attached the gold butterfly with pink and orange thread and a chain stitch.

Starting in the lower left hand corner and going clockwise. I thought this quartet looked like they were singing happy birthday in a restaurant, so I added the "Happy Birthday" sentiment to a piece of fabric in the packet and the birthday cake button. The background is also from the packet. The butterfly and background are both from the packet. I attached the butterfly with a chain stitch in green thread. The background is from the packet. The bat is a button, and the flower is from a note someone sent me. The background and the butterfly are both from the packet. The butterfly is attached with a chain stitch in variegated yellow thread.

Goodies in the mail

2010-05-04T12:54:00.002-05:00

In March I won Susan's 30 day anniversary 50 followers giveaway. I received my package in the mail yesterday. I was walking home from work and saw this white box on my porch, I was thinking, "Now what could that be". When I saw the return address, I knew what it was. Here is what I won:
The items are, starting in the bottom left hand corner and going clockwise: a fleece humane society blanket, 2 note pads, a picture frame, an art calendar, a card from Susan, and some art she made.

Here there is: candy corn stickers, 20 white cards, CD labels, Jolee's Bridal dimensional stickers, Home Organization & Storage book, haunted house diecut, Birthday Girl and Graduation bookmarks, and a photo album.

In this picture: decorative tags, a party invitation, halloween, and friends bookmarks, white ribbon, another bookmark, tea candles, more tags, and some printed twist ties.

Here there is decorative paper on the bottom row and some vellum, and alphabet stickers on the top.

Thank you so much for the wonderful goodie packet Susan.

Brightest card I've ever made

2010-04-16T10:18:00.005-05:00

I think this wins as the brightest card I've ever made. But, I'm trying to brighten someone's day, and if you got this in the mail, how could you not be happy? Plus, it's an unexpected thing, so that always makes a person happier, right? Well, as long as it's not a bill.

I'm unsure if you can read the stamp in the bottom, it says "A Friend is a Keepsake of the Heart". I'm still trying to figure out focus, but, this time I used my camera phone, which I believe came out better than the actual camera. I also used the Auto Contrast button in Picasa and the Sharpen Button. Those helped a lot, but I'm still learning.

Since I don't make a lot of cards, I thought I'd try using a sketch, and since I was making it with a sketch, I thought maybe I'd try a challenge sketch. So, here's the sketch from Crafty Sentiments, and I just found out that you're supposed to use blue, which I did. I actually tweaked the sketch a little bit, so I hope that works out OK. I used one strip on the side, instead of two, and I flipped it 90 degrees, and then added my text on the bottom, or kitty-cornered from the diagonal piece.

So, here are the challenges I'm entering this in:

Crafty Sentiments - Sketch
Stampin' When I Can - Stickers, the heart is a sticker
Stacey's Stamping Stage - Colors: Only Orange, Green Galore, Yo Yo Yellow, and Pixie Pink, or something close to them, I hope mine are close enough.
PaperPlay Challenges - Stickers, once again, the heart

Book Sale Finds

2010-04-16T09:17:00.003-05:00

One great thing about working at the library is when we have books donated, I get to look at them before they are moved back to the donation room. And last weekend we had one of our semi-annual book sales, so I was really looking at the books we had coming in.
Somehow I have managed to screw up the order of these pictures, so bear with me. I also want to apologize if any of the photos are blurry, they always look so in focus on my camera and then I open them on the computer and they're blurry, I haven't figured out how to fix this yet. If anyone can help, I'd really appreciate it.
This book below, I got for $10 which I thought was a pretty good deal. Inside it I found a bunch or 4 and 5 leaf clovers. But I have no idea what to do with them, anyone got any suggestions? I've never seen tiny 4 leaf clovers, let alone big ones and 5 leaf clovers as well, I'm so glad someone found them and decided to press them and then happened to forget them and I got to have them.
The inside of this book has tons of information on household items. The copywright dates are 1948 and 1950. I had originally planned to use pages for artwork, but I think I just want to keep it.

Here's the front of the book, it's called The Everyday Reference Library.

This book, was a plain white book, inside I found it to be 365 Days of Nature and Discovery. Looks like a great book to alter, or use some of the pages inside. I paid $2.50 for it.Here's what a few of the pages look like:

Here's the front of it:

This book is the Autobiography of Santa Claus. My mom collects Santa's, and though I figure she'll never read this book, I thought it might be a nice addition to her collection. Now, as long as I don't lose it before Christmas, that would be great. This book was $.50

This is the inside of Nature in America, it also had a lot of fun pictures in it. This book was $.50

And here's the cover of it:

I bought this book because I'm trying to cook from scratch more, and I thought this might be a nice easy book to start with. This book was $.50

This book, I decided to buy for my father, who's a big MASH fan. This book was $4.00

This is the inside of a book called Ghost Towns of the West, also had a bunch of really cool pictures. Plus, I always liked looking at abandoned buildings. This book was $2.50

Here is the cover for that book:

I spent $20.50 on all these books, which I think is a great deal, considering they were all probably about $20 each or more new. Plus, I get to support the library, win-win solution for all.

WINNER!!!

2010-04-09T13:14:00.002-05:00

Paper Giveaway Winner
So, I put the 5 names in a bowl, and my guinea pig started chewing on one, and that one turned out to be Nancy.

So, Nancy, please email me your address, so I can get this bundle out to you.

Paper Giveaway pictures

2010-03-20T08:36:00.002-05:00

OK, as of now, only Susan wants all this paper. Which I'm sure is totally OK with her. But, here are some pictures of what you will win:
There's plain and patterned cardstock, lots of miscellaneous little pieces, a lot of this is from paper packs where I didn't like a certain pattern.

There's handmade paper, stamped images, paste paper, napkins.

A Butterick pattern, with only one piece missing, a printing of a digital file of art dolls, book pages, misc. promotional cards.

Promotional pieces from an art college, origami paper, calendar pages, some pieces of fabric, plus some sequins.

But, if no one else wants it all, I will gladly just send it all to Susan. Please tell your friends, pass the word.

Like I said before you have until April 5th to enter, then I will use the random number generator, or if there's only a small amount of entries, I'll just pull a name out of a hat. Anyone can enter, just leave a comment on this entry, or the orginal one to enter.

Good Luck!

Almost Done

2010-03-17T12:45:00.002-05:00

I think I'm almost done with this piece. I was at a standstill after posting the last pictures of this piece, so I showed it to my mother and she suggested dividing it up into segments. We both liked the 3 segments over 4 segments. I think the paper I used for the divisions works well as it has the blue of the background and the black that makes the divisions stand out. I also added the "seahorse" in the bottom left hand corner. This image was taken out of some promotional material book from an art college. There's also some blue sand at the bottom of the left hand corner segment, and the new swirl in the right segment. I am kinda bummed that it didn't come out cleaner, but now it's too late for that. I'm trying to add more texture because the piece is way too flat for my tastes, but I don't want to add too much. I like the subtle texture of the layered paper, but I'm not totally satisfied.
What do other people think? Any comments are appreciated.

UPDATE

2010-03-16T17:56:00.000-05:00

I updated my blog candy post. Check it out here.

My art closet

2010-03-15T08:26:00.003-05:00

I figured I'd take a picture of my art closet so you all could see what a small space I have to work in. I'm standing in the doorway looking in. Around the corner on the left is a tupperware with all my supplies. And on the floor there is a tiny workspace, the closet is right at the top of my stairs, on the other side of the wall on the left is my stairs. Luckily I have a hallway I can work in. I do have more pictures I'll post later.
And here is what I've done on that One World One Heart art piece, I didn't successfully make it in finishing it this weekend, helping my dad set up his new computer, grocery shopping, and a little slacking off got in the way. But, this is what I do have done, and I'm not sure if I'm doing more or not. I love it the way it is right now.

In the corner are some shells I collected when my dad and I went to Florida quite a few years back. The scrolly things are cut out of some paper I got in a DCWV 12x12 stack of paper. I cut all the blue and green and black scrolls out by hand (my special tiny papercutting scissors really came in handy for that. The seahorse is a creations imaginations sticker. I sprayed adhesive on the scrolls and glued them down and then coated the whole thing except the large seashell with modge podge. I really like how it turned out. Here's a close-up of the scrolls:

I think the scrolls need a tiny bit of defining, and I may incorporate a few more sea things into the piece (I have a yogurt container of sand on my kitchen table). Any suggestions or comments?

More Blog Candy

2010-03-14T12:27:00.003-05:00

UPDATED 3/16/10 Something Sweet is giving away a card, paper, images, and some flowers. Ends April 3rd.
Imagination Crafts is giving away a set of inkidinks, a set of new silkies and a set of flowers. Ends March 19th.
From My Craft Room is giving away paper, stamps, a monogram stamper kit, stickles, charms, paper roses, pearls, rhinestones, ribbons and buttons. Ends March 25th.
All the Things I love is giving away stamps, paper, rhinestones, pearls, charms, roses and flowers, flat-backed gems, flowers and brads, ribbon, pearl and gem brads, Xyron tape, cards, and a quilted bag. Ends March 19th.
Crafting Life's Pieces is giving away papers, bling-it's, pearls and crystals, stickles, butterflies, flowers, buttons, brads, charms and embellishments, lace and ribbon. Ends March 29th.
Lazy Cats Cards is giving away papers, labels, a punch, stamps, a die set, beads, stickers and embellishments. Ends March 17th.

Found some more blog candy:
Robin's Egg Blues is giving away: lace, roses, feathers, basically everything you see in the above picture. Ends March 26th.

Crafty Fox Cards is giving away: flowers, markers, clear stamps, papers, and chocolate. Ends March 20th.

More experimentation

2010-03-13T12:04:00.002-06:00

OK, so now my project is blueish green. I decided I wanted to be able to see the book pages, but I didn't want them to be creamish white, so I tried to mix some greenish paint with water, and then noticed it was oil paint and they didn't mix very well, so I added some Moss Green acrylic paint and some Blue Pearl acrylic pain and mixed it, the pearl blue kinda took over. Then when I put it on my piece, since I still had the oil paint on the brush, some of that got on there. I have decided I don't like this oil paint.
SOOOO, I'm giving it away. It's 1 fluis ounce of Genesis Artist Colors Phthalo Green 06. All you have to do is post a comment on this post, and you'll be entered. I will send this anywhere. You'll have until the end of this month, March 31st to enter. This is totally separate from my paper giveaway, to enter that one go here.
Good Luck!!!

Too Much Paper!

2010-03-12T18:43:00.002-06:00

OK, well I have decided I am not allowed to buy paper until I use up some of the too much I have. I'm still in the process of cleaning out my craft closet (I actually have enough room to sit cross legged, or legs stretched out over the messy area and create), and I tackled my paper stash yesterday. I'll have to take a picture of my closet, so you all know how small it is and what my very menial organization is. Anyway, I have a dresser from my younger years where I store my paper, fabric, stickers and stamps. My patterned paper drawer was a mess, every time I use paper, I generally just throw it back in the drawer. Yesterday I sorted and actually organized it, now I have my 12x12 papers in a nice stack and a very tiny sliver of room and then my 8.5x11 papers next to them, and an overflowing box on the floor with scraps of paper. Anyways, all the paper I decided I didn't need, or didn't particularly like, went into a box, and I'm going to do a giveaway for someone else to have fun with it.
This will be for people in the US only, I'm sorry, but with my giveaways for One World One Heart, all my winners happened to be outside of the US, and I realized how much money it costs to send stuff over the ocean. I do hope to do a giveaway in the future of something smaller to go across the ocean, just not now, sorry.
So, to win you need to do one of the following:
1. Post a comment here
OR
2. Put a link on your blog.

You can do both, but since I'm a big fan of not tipping the pot, you will only get one entry.
This will end on April 5th, that gives you over 3 weeks to enter. I'll try to get some pictures up.

And since I'm talking about blog candy, here's a few more I've tripped over in the past week or so:

Marianne's Craftroom is giving away paper, brads, stamps, acrylic blocks, chocolate, flowers and stickers. Ends on April 2nd.

Stamps, Paper, Scissors and Donkey Smiles is giving away: pearls, stamps, flowers, paper and ribbons. Ends on April 1st.

Mme. Designs is giving away: stamps, ribbons, flowers and paper. Ends March 21st.

French Charming is doing 5 different Queen themed giveaways: Queens Boudoir, Crafting Queen/Sewing Queen, Junk Queen, Beauty Queen, and Royal Queen of Crowns. These end on March 31st.

Fun stuff

2010-03-12T09:45:00.003-06:00

I was going to do a whole blog post on my great mail days last week, but it's been overcast and now I've put away the things I got. I did a trade with Susan for some german scrap and papers, I had some old art slides I bought, and didn't know what to use them for so we did a swap. I also bought a lot of really cool stuff from skyblupink (a great online craft store), bought a kitchen sink pack, maps, a $12 surprise pack, some mixed minis Tim Holtz grungeboard, and a wisdom of the ages, (for the links, you'll have to scroll down on the pages to find the items, but you'll find them, you can always push ctrl and F on your keyboard and type in what you're looking for on PC's) you can't buy anything from that store and be disappointed, they have lots of cool stuff and great prices. And then I also received my prize from the Pinkstar Creations giveaway, that one I got a picture of:
There's some recipe cards at the top there, a keychain ring, some corkboard pieces, some chipboard tags (giant size), a bag of buttons, some sticky gems, and a bag of (I'm guessing?) Prima flowers. A very nice surprise gift.
And I'm finally getting started on the handmade gift I gave away in the One World One Heart Giveaway from Feb, I'm sorry to say life and other things got in the way. I bought myself some Modge Podge the other day specifically for this product, I'd read how lots of people would use it and loved it, but no one warned me about the smell, OK it's not a really bad smell, but you do notice it. Anyway, I started by painting a 12x12 canvas board black (it's really the only darker color I have, I need some paint):

Then I used the modge podge to layer pages from an old math book (it's just what I grabbed), now I'm not really sure what else I'm doing, but I'm not working this weekend (SHH...some people have problems with that, see here), so I figure I really need to work on this, and hopefully get it in the mail on Monday, anyone have any suggestions?

A close-up of the book pages:

Bright colors for spring

2010-03-01T08:10:00.003-06:00

My CollageATC's Yahoo group's theme for February was neon, I was very happy about that, I'm so sick of drab boring colors. Here are my cards for that swap:
The left one here, the background is a piece of paper I was given that's glued onto some cardstock, then I sewed the yellow trim onto the bottom and added the two lighter colored leaves (those are punches that were in the packet), the darker leaf is a foam punch I had. The flowers are some fake ones from my stash, the pom poms were in the packet and the other flower has a square brad for the center. The card on the right, I glued the orange paper I was given to card stock and then sewed the green trim down, the butterfly, and both flowers are buttons from my stash and the sun is another piece provided.
The card on the left, I glued yellow paper that was provided onto some cardstock and added the palm tree and butterfly sequins from my stash, the orange circle and pink star were provided. For the card on the right, the background paper is some handmade paper I purchased, the orange leaves are from my stash and the green leaves were provided. The dog house is a button from my stash. The green circle, yellow button and sequins were all provided.

The card on the left I sewed the pink, purple, tie dye and green felt that were provided in the packet together and then glued them onto a piece of blue handmade paper that I bought. For the card on the right, I used a piece of paper from my stash and added the blue trim, green tissue paper, yellow foam (that the frog punch is mounted on), the frog punch, the blue/green fabric (that the leaf is mounted on) and the leaf that were all provided.

The card on the right has a background from a paper stack I got for Christmas, the blue foil corners are from Hershey macademia nut kisses (which you can only find in Hawaii), I then added the pink punch, the green and yellow paper, the purple circle (which is under the blue circle), wrapped a green plastic circle in more foil, then added the two buttons on top. The punch, circle paper, purple circle, plastic piece and buttons were all provided. For the card on the right, I used the blue handmade paper that I bought, enhanced the design on it with a white paint marker, added the plastic circle that was provided and then a white button on top.

The card on the left everything I used was provided. I had a hard time getting the squares to stick to the background paper, as the pink stripes have some kind of crystals on them, and finally ended up using glue dots.

The card on the right, the background paper is some handmade paper I bought, then I sewed the green, pink and orange beads onto it.

Also, found some more blog candy for you guy's: Jacque's Joie De Vivre is giving away
1. 1 roll of 1/2 inch scor tape
2. 1 ladybug box with chocolates
3. 1 lady bug Tilda stamp
4. 1 pack of white Magnolia cherry blossoms.
All you have to do is add a comment to her post and spread the word. The giveaway ends on March 4th at noon.

Blog Candy

2010-02-27T11:06:00.003-06:00

Alright kids, I have been perusing a lot of blogs lately and have stumbled onto quite a few blog candy giveaways. I don't have pictures for all of them, but I will let you know what you can win for the ones I don't have pictures for.
This is Robin's Egg Blues huge giveaway. Closes the 28th, that's tomorrow, so better hurry up.

This one is Pink Star Creations, and it will close tomorrow as well.

This one is 2 Bags Full, she's going on vacation and plans to bring fun surprises back, it closes on March 1st.

This one is Jacque's Joie De Vivre, she gets to play with Flower Soft and is giving some away. It ends on February 28th.

This one is Brynwood Needleworks, she is getting to 300 posts and wants to celebrate, it ends on February 28th.

OK, that's all the pictures I have, but there are still more.

Sweeet Designs by Cheryl is celebrating her first Blogiversary and giving away:

1. Sugar Nellies

2. 1 dino stamp set from QKD

3. 2 Magnolias

4. 1 Sugar Plums

5. 2 stamping bella sentiments

6. 1 High Hopes

7. 4 flower clusters

8. pack of brads, gems and flower brads

9. Flowers, buttons, charms, heart brads, ducky eyelets, silver eyelets.

Her giveaway ends on March 1st.

PartiCraft LTD is giving away unmounted stamp sets, shrink plastic, polished pigments from luminarte, mounted stamp collage-able and stained glass stamp, lots of Tim Holtz stuff and sparkly/glittery things, it closes when they hit 600 followers and they already have 553.

Scappin' til the cows come home is giving away stamps, tags, ribbon and a whole lot of bling. This giveaway closes on March 5th.

A Latte Inkin' Fun is giving away stamps, paper lace and paper, her giveaway ends on February 28th.

Prima is giving away 2 prize baskets worth up to $100 they will be drawing 2 winners, one from the US and one international. It closes on February 28th.

The Paper Affair is giving away buttons and lacy things and flowers, it closes on February 28th.

True's Gift's from the Heart has a big giveaway of buttons, paper, chocolate, stamps, flowers, ribbons, and anything else she can squeeze into the box. It closes on February 28th.

Dar's Crafty creations is giving away ribbons, and tape and chipboard and more. This one closes on March 1st.

Go, enjoy, maybe we'll all win something.

Need to clean

2010-02-19T19:58:00.001-06:00

Check out this post on my other blog, and let me know if you have any suggestions. I would just copy and paste it, but as I haven't really figured out how to do that lately in Blogger, I'm just going to send you over there. Thanks

It's over.

2010-02-14T10:42:00.004-06:00

I want to thank everyone who participated in my One World, One Heart Giveaway. As of 12:00AM this morning, the comments were closed, as I wasn't up at that time, anything posted after that was not included in my drawing. I picked out of the people that had an active blog only (active meaning posted in 2010) and counted them up and then put that number into the random number generator. I came up with #56 which was Micki for the surprise/paper package, #172 which was Jules for the supply package and #115 which was martha brown for the handmade/altered item.
I have posted here on this post and on my One World, One Heart post as well as posted on their blogs that they won. If they do not get back to me by Feb 18th, I will draw someone else for their prizes.
Looks like I will be working on those prizes today and throughout the week, as I haven't even started on them (SHHH!!! Don't tell).

Also want to say thank you to Twinkietinydog, as I won a nice picture book from her and also thank you to Kathy, as I won a cute little bear from her.
Once again, thank you everyone for participating.

January's Black & White

2010-02-13T12:34:00.002-06:00

OMG, I'm behind again, seems to be the story of my life sometimes. Anyways, for my collageATCs group, the theme for January was black and white, now a lot of people in the group decided to only use the colors black and white and they turned out gorgeous, but by the time I put my cards together I was plenty sick of white and gray, so I added colors.
The top two cards here, I was given the background on the first one and decided to add a bunch of brightly colored buttons to it. On the right I was given the background and the piano keys, I thought for sure it needed to be a music themed card, so I added the music sheet and the lyre(I'm not really sure what this instrument is), they're both from a box I received a Christmas gift in.
The left card I was given the soccer ball, this little girl was on that same Christmas box and she looked like she was playing soccer, so I made her play soccer, it's just her and markers. On the right I was given the background and the black things in front of the flower pot. I received that flower pot in a gift exchange through my collageATCs group, and you can't tell from the picture but those black things are velvety feeling.
The right card I was given the photocopied money and the currency quote at the bottom of the card. The background (that you can't really see) is a bunch of bright colored circles, I was orgically going to put another piece of paper with circles onto it, but when it didn't look very good on the background, I took it off and it left behind the black, which I thought was pretty cool and did that to the whole card.
The left card I was given the snowman on the top, the tiny snowman in the bottom right corner, and the googly eyes. I collect snowmen, so I have a few snowman stamps, I felt I needed a nice snowman party on this card, after I layed them on it, it needed something more, so I added the snowflake ribbon and the googly eyes.

The left card I was given everything on the card, the presents on the side are a ribbon, and the snowflake is a domed resin sticker.
The card on the right I was given the owl and the beads hanging down from him. The background paper is from a big 12x12 stack of paper I got for Christmas.

The card on the left I was given all the elements, I just felt they needed a little color, which I added with markers.

The card on the right I was given the teacups and the cup quote. I was originally going to color in the cups with pink and green to go with the background, but after I glued them down, I liked the simplicity of them and left them alone.

This month's theme is neon. I usually wait until the end of the month to my cards, because then I have everyone else's cards to get inspiration off of.

Tax question

2010-02-05T18:27:00.002-06:00

Here's a question for all the people in the US that sell stuff on Etsy: do I have to worry about the income I make from etsy on my taxes? My dad usually helps me with all my tax questions and has said in the past that I don't have to worry about my profit from Etsy, but I was on Etsy today reading this article and it says I have to file a form for my profits on etsy. I know I've made barely over $100 with both of my stores combined, and I sure don't do it full time, so it's not like I'm really investing a lot in it (I know, I should be doing more).

Any comments would (hopefully) be helpful.

Made my day

2010-01-28T14:39:00.002-06:00

Sandy left this comment on my blog today:

"I can handle bright and cheery colours - we've got snow squalls at the moment and it feels like forever since it's been warm.

I'm a Central College Pella Iowa alumni but it's been a couple of decades. Please enter me in your draw and thanks for entering in mine. I love meeting new people and reading their blogs. It's like permissible evesdropping."

I love her last sentence, I thought that was pretty funny today.

UGH! I'm supposed to be making cards for my yahoo! groups latest swap, Black & White, but I'm having the hardest time getting motivated. What gets everyone going when they have to make stuff but can't get motivated?

I find sometimes, if I just open my closet door (yes, my creating space is a closet, very sad), and get everything out for my swap, then it comes to me. Sometimes when I'm creating packets for my yahoo! group, I can see certain cards I'm going to make. Like for this one, theres a piece of white paper with black and white circles all over it, recently I bought myself a bag of mixed buttons (big weakness there) because they had all these bright and happy colors, I think one of the cards will have these buttons in the circles.

One World One Heart

2010-01-25T22:56:00.004-06:00

***EDIT*** Comments on this post are now closed as of 12:00AM this morning. Any posted after that will not count. Winner of the surprise/paper package is Micki, Winner of the box of supplies is Jules, and Winner of the handmade/altered item is martha brown. Please contact me ASAP, and I will get those items out to you.

Welcome everyone to white, windy Iowa. I hope you brought your warm clothing, because you'll need it. Take a look around my blog and make yourself at home.

So, as I'm sitting here in very cold Iowa (I was informed not so long ago that we have a Blizzard Warning going on until tomorrow morning), I found I could hope on a magic carpet ride to greener pastures. I follow the blog of one of the ladies in my collageATCs Yahoo! Group, and found out about this event called a One World One Heart Blog event. It's a way to get more people to check out your blog and one of them will win something.

I've been meaning to do a give-away for awhile now, so while reading other people's blogs, I thought I'd hope on the magic carpet.

The rules are that you have to have an active blog and leave a comment on THIS POST ONLY in between now (11:00 PM Jan 25, 2010) and midnight (that's 12:00 AM) February 14th. I will be using a random number generator to pick the winner. Make sure you leave me your email address or your blog address, so I can contact you if you're the winner. The winner will need to reply back to me by February 18th at noon (12:00 PM), if I haven't heard from them by then, I will pick a new winner.

I'm not sure what I'm giving away but it will be something in bright cheery colors. I'm going to at least have a package of handmade paper (I bought some this past week, and they are gorgeous). If I get past 100 comments I will add more.
***EDIT*** I have over 100 comments, so I'm doing a second giveaway. My craft closet is a giant mess, and I'm going to attempt to clean it out. Soooo, I will be giving away a box (probably the $10 flat rate Priority Mail box) full of supplies, like papers, gently used stamps, stickers, fibers, fabric, maybe even some things to alter/create with, beads. Whatever I decide I can live without. Doesn't that sound like some thing fun? But I have to get over 100 comments on this post, I have 59 right now, and I'm in the process of visiting all the blogs on Lisa's list (I'm at 200 of 700 last I checked), so most likely it will happen.
***EDIT AGAIN*** Now I have over 200 comments, so I'm doing a third giveaway (can you see a pattern here, I'm planning on doing an extra giveaway for every 100 comments I get, and I'm pretty close to 300). This one will be a piece that I make/alter. I honestly have no idea what it will be, but as I'm planning on not having a lot to do tomorrow (except shoveling snow), I will be working on art all (or most) of the day.

Now, if you've stuck with me that long, here's a little information about me.
Right now it is very cold and snowy in Iowa, We had a big snowstorm at the beginning of December (over a foot) and that snow is still here. I'm getting very sick of gray and white.
I'm in between school and a full-time job, though I have 3 part-time jobs right now that I'm happy with. And between the 3 of them I still have time to hang out with my boyfriend and create art.
If you look at previous posts on this blog, you will notice I am mainly a paper artist. I own/host a group on Yahoo! that does collage art ATCs. ATCs are Artist Trading Cards, they are the size of business cards and usually created according to a theme.
I am trying to branch myself out into other art, but I seem to be stuck in a rut.
I have quite a few sewing projects that I'm in the middle of. Someday I hope to finish them and maybe sell some embroidery pieces in the future.
I also have another blog, The Life of Me where I talk about pretty much everything except my art. I have three other blogs as well, but I've found more exciting things in my life than posting pictures of good looking guys and good looking cars, though I'm still interested in the good looking cars.

And at this point in time, my guinea pig is sitting on my lap, licking my fingers and "talking" telling me it's time to go to bed.

Check out my other blog, for another OHOW post and giveaway

Mythological Creatures Swap

2009-12-20T08:26:00.001-06:00

So, last month for my collageATCs group, we did mythological creatures. It was fun to see everyone's interpretation of the theme, here are my cards:

I like tags, can't you tell. In the left picture I used all the fairies , the card is just paper with layered paper at the bottom using some decorative scissors I got for Christmas last year. The tags are ones I had in my stash, the one on the left is chipboard the other two are just plain paper. They're all attached with jeweled brads.

The card on the right I used the mermaid. I took a manila colored tag and pressed it into Stampin Up Classic Stamp pads of Ballet Blue and Green Galore. The background is when I did a bunch of backgrounds with some spray mists and added random stamps to them.

Lots of times in the swap items, I send out items that have white around the image, seems to happen a lot with stickers, and that white stuff drives me nuts, I always have to trim it off.

The card on the left I used the cupid, you can kinda tell from the picture, that he's stuck on something, he was a window cling on some clear plastic, other people had used the cupid, and he had a hard time being stuck down, so I decided to just leave him on the plastic (as he was pretty well stuck to that), and I added the love tag with a jeweled brad and the rose in the bottom corner.
The card on the right I used the witch and the frame she's in. The frame was around another item that looked like a bunny with wings and antenna, it was a stamp my mom bought in Mexico. The background is from when I was making backgrounds one time and painted it with metallic paints and then added stamps, the gold piece is just a piece of vellum.

The card on the left I used the fairy, it's a stamp I bought through Stampin' Up, and in the stamped image, she had some kind of fairy dust trailing along behind her, so I added blue glitter glue and some ancient gold embossing powder, that you can't really see in the picture. Someone else in the group used a mermaid stamp that had her hands outstretched with a shell in it. I thought the plastic lyre would fit perfectly with the music paper in the background.
The card on the right I used the dragon image, I had the Asian character stamp, and stamped it in the ancient gold embossing powder, then glued the dragon onto a tag and lightly covered it with gold paint.

The card on the left I used the kokopelli, I just added the sun punch and the sun stamp, both from previous swaps.
The card on the right I used the mermaid. She was stamped in black on white paper and had a comb in one hand and a mirror in the other, I didn't like those so I took them out. Her hair is colored with some orange glitter glue, her body is colored with chalk as well as her tail. Her shells are colored with some aqua paint (that took way too long to dry) that I picked up on clearance at Hobby Lobby. I had the water paper in a paper stack, and added the sand (from our back porch waiting for winter) and the tiny shells that I acquired on a vacation.

The card on the left I used the angel image, you can't tell very well from the picture, but I stamped another angel on top of the one I had and embossed the halo and wings with the ancient gold embossing powder. The background is a gold patterned piece of paper with mica flakes glued on top.
The card on the right I used the phoenix and the feathers. A phoenix is a bird that rises from the ashes, so I cut a flame out of a metallic piece of paper I received from one of the members of by group and added the orange glitter glue to it and some extra flames. I really liked this one.

Chunky House Swap

2009-12-02T11:11:00.000-06:00

In one of my Yahoo! Groups, I signed up to do a Chunky House and Charm Swap. It entails decorating a chipboard house and creating 5 charms to go with it. Here is my (almost) finished house:
I chose an underwater theme. The background is covered with pieces of ripped book pages and then painted with a mixture of Pearl Emerald Green and Pearl Blue Lumiere paints. After painting it, it took me so long to actually do the rest of the house. I finally sat down on Sunday and started on it. The bottom is covered with small spiral shells someone sent me. I painted seaweed in (I'm guessing, as I don't have the paint here in front of me) Pearl Purple Lumiere paint. The shell and starfish sticker in the corner came from a sticker sheet I bought at Hobby Lobby. The mermaid is a stamped image that someone from my CollageATCs group sent me for our Mythological Creatures swap, I colored it with chalks and added some "shells" to cover her up. The gold fish is actually a clear plastic fish that I painted the back with gold pain. I then added "under the sea" with green and blue glitter glue.

Since deciding on this theme, I envisioned adding a shell on the back that opened up with the information from the swap printed inside. I first painted the back with white craft pain and then added a thinned out mix of the same blue and green paints as the front. In real life it looks a lot more green than blue. I added some sand (from the pail on the back porch for winter sidewalks) to the bottom. I searched Microsoft Word clip art for shells and found the one I used, all I did was print it out, glue it on some blue cardstock that I folded in half. When it's opened I have the name of the swap, the hostess' name, the name of the piece, the date and my name printed in it. I also added the purple startfish button to the corner and a sparkly dolphin sticker on the top.

To me, the back is way too flat, but I'm not sure what else to add to it.

Other than the flatness of the back (which I'm planning on changing), I love this project. I still have to figure out what to do for my five charms, but I'm sure they'll come out just as cute.

It's Christmas time

2009-11-12T16:28:00.000-06:00

UGH! I need someone to show me how to use my camera, I've had it almost 3 years and I still can't figure out how to get it to zoom in and focus on things. I hope these pictures are at least clear enough to see what they are.
I am in a swap to make 2 sets of 6 charms that are Christmas themed. I knew right away that I wanted to do a snow man, and mom had some Sculpey clay that she bought a long time ago, so I used some of that. Originally they had red scarves on, but they darkened quite a bit when I baked them. The white also was not so white when it came out of the oven. So, I bought some paint and retouched the white, the carrot noses and put a coat of green over the red scarves. I still need to repaint the eyes and mouth, but otherwise I'm done with them. They are so cute, I had to make an extra one for myself.
I couldn't figure out what I wanted to make for my second set, I considered just making one set, but I like how the bracelets look when they're more full. Then I thought doing an ornament might be nice, but I couldn't figure out what to make it out of. I finally decided to needle felt some, but I didn't have the right colors, the only solid colors of roving I have are orange and a nice summery green, not so nice for Christmas.
I went to a local quilting shop and bought some little bags of red and green for $1.00 each. When I opened them up today, I realized there's a lot in those little bags, they will last awhile. I was going to try and wet felt the ball, but I couldn't figure that out, so I settled on needle felting. I did 3 each of red and green and put tiny circles of the alternating color on each. I think they're very cute as well.

I hope everyone in the swap likes them as well.

I am also in a swap where we decorate 5 chipboard shapes, I received Santa hats, and all I could think about was a regular Santa hat: red with white fur, I knew people wouldn't want that. I thought I'd use some red foil, my friend Loretta gave me, and put white paper on the "furry parts", and then put a vintage Santa image on the red foil and spray some gold webbing over the top. After gluing on the red foil, I had some ripped book pages out for another project and thought those might work for the "fuzzy parts", so I glued them on. The hats look really cute, I'll try and get some pictures up soon. I'm having a hard time finding a Santa image I like though.

Another swap I'm in, I have to decorate a chipboard house and make 5 charms to hang from the bottom of it. I did a birthday ATC for a member in my collageatcs group of a mermaid underwater, and thought that would be perfect. I glued ripped book pages onto the house and painted it with blue and green paints. I'm looking for a mermaid image I like, but I'm going to put some seaweed looking plastic along with some tiny shells I have and some sand. I think it will turn out very cute. I will also get pictures of that up when I get it done.

2009-11-10T12:44:00.001-06:00

Happy 234th Marines!

Queen of Hearts follow-up

2009-11-02T06:56:00.000-06:00

This is what I finally ended up submitting for my Queen of Hearts swap. I figured out my other cards just didn't quite have enough embellishment, and now that I go back and look at them, they sort of do look like a beginner made them. I think if I put a little more into them, they can look better.
For this card, I already had the background, a texured gold piece of paper, I rubbed my mellow moss and Green Galore Stampin Up classic ink pads over it. I have quite a few old books, so I took pages of one, ripped them and then rubbed the edges with really rust su pad. I stamped the face on a piece of fabric and colored it with chalk. The crown is a foam stamp, that I used in a almost dried up Colorboxpetal point pigment option pad called Alchemy, the color I used is Goldrush. I'm really disappointed this stamp pad dried up, I think the top got loosened sometime, but it's a gorgeous ink pad, I plan to buy another one some day. I added the pink heart and clear circle gems as a little embellishment to the crown. When I laid the head and crown on the book page, they seemed to be hanging in air, so I cut a little piece of red doily heart, flipped it over to the back where it looked pinkish and glued everything down. For the Q, I used a sticker, only I didn't have enough "Q"'s for 6 cards, so I had to change some "O"'s as well with black permanent marker. The heart is a shell charm from Hobby Lobby.
I think these cards came out much nicer, though I still really like the others. I've noticed with some of my artwork, I seem to fall into a rut and don't put near as much into them as I should. People in the new group I joined won't be taking that, so it's a good push to keep going in my art.
I already signed up for more swaps in this group, and have a couple ideas for them.
1. A Christmas Chipboard book with 5 pages. Each person has a different shape (I got a Santa Hat). Once we get them all decorated and back to the hostess, she will string them all together to form a garland that we can hang up.
All I could think about at first when I saw the hat was to decorate it like a normal hat, but now I'm thinking of adding some red foil to the bigger part and adding some kind of vintage Santa photo, then adding some white fur stuff to the top of the hat (I bought some neat stuff at a sale this weekend), embellishing the Santa photo and then covering the whole thing with some gold webbing I bought.
2. A House Chipboard piece and 6 charms to go with it. We will get the charms back on the bottom of the house from 6 different artists, plus a different artist for the house.
I have no idea what I'm doing for this one. I'm hoping people will post pictures and I can get some inspiration from those. The only thought I have is to cover it with book pages.
3. Christmas Charm Swap. Each person will make at least one set of 6 charms that are Christmas themed (but not religious). The hostess will swap out the charms and put them on a charm bracelet.
I have already made some polymer clay snowman charms and they are cute. Only problem is they darkened a bit in the baking, so I need to buy some white paint to paint over them. I think it'd be cool if it were iridescent or pearly. I signed up for 2 sets of 6 charms, but I honestly have no idea what I'm doing with the second set.
I love these charm bracelet swaps. It's so much fun to make the charms and see what everyone else makes. I rarely wear charm bracelets because I get caught on stuff, but I sure am displaying them.
4. Glittered Mucha Swap. We make 4 ATC's with Mucha girls (an artist) and decorate them, making sure there is some glitter on all of them.
I haven't started these either. I haven't even thought of what I'm going to do. But, they sound like fun.
5. Fabric Book. This isn't a swap, every week we get a set of instructions to do a page for the book. This lasts six weeks and in the end we have a little fabric book.
I bought the fabric, but am thinking of waiting for all the instructions to come out, and adding some quilt batting in between the pages so they're a little bulkier and sturdier.
6. Altered Filled Matchbox. You decorate a slide out matchbox and include some 3D items in it.
I haven't officially signed up for this one yet, I want to make sure I can do it first. But I think it would be really fun. I also have to find a matchbox. I don't use matches for anything, my stove is electric, and if I light candles I have one of those flame things where you just push a button.

I am looking forward to do all of these. Unfortunately I never get started on them. I started a new job at the library, so I get up early to go to that, but I have about 4.5 hours between jobs that I certainly could be working on them.

That hurts

2009-10-08T13:30:00.001-05:00

For some reason Blogger won't load the insert picture thing, so, remember this post about my Queen of Hearts cards? You have to scroll down to the bottom. I received an email today from the hostess of the swap saying she didn't think my cards were good enough. As much time and effort and thought that I put into those cards, you'd think they'd be good enough.
It never feels good when someone tells you your work isn't good enough. I did this to someone in my group awhile back and now I guess it's karma coming back at me. I still judge people's art, but I generally do it in my own head now. I know most people put lots of time and effort into things they make and I think it's rude when someone says they don't like someone else's work. There are certain people's work I don't think are up to par with mine, but I still want to trade with them and encourage them to do art.

The hostess of this swap said she could send my cards back to me and have me add more to them, fix them herself, or send them back unswapped after the swap was done. I'd like to know what other people in the swap think. She said they seemed like "beginner's" cards, and that my cards showed very little effort in construction. Personally, I think she should swap them out anyway, but I'm bias. I told her she could go ahead and send them back to me and I'd make up another set. But, that leads me doubt myself, what if this other set she doesn't like either. It sounds more like she doesn't like my style. I am mostly a collage artist, meaning I find objects and put them together until they look finished.

Holiday cards

2009-10-05T10:12:00.000-05:00

Here are the cards I made yesterday. This first one has a felt stocking with wooden stars in the corner.
This one has a small felt snowman with wooden stars.

This one has a bigger felt snowman with a wooden star and candy canes.

This one hasa felt Santa with a sleigh.

This one has a paper Santa with a plastic Rudolph

This one has a felt Rudolph with a plastic gingerbread man.

This one has a paper tree with a plastic star on top and a plastic sled.

Anyone have ideas on prices? I'm planning on sending them with white, red or green envelopes according to the color of the cardstock in the background and in a plastic sleeve.

I also have a couple white snowflakes on black and a card with a felt penguin that needs a little touching up. I'll post those tomorrow. If you're interested in any of these, I can put them under reserve.

Weathering some cards

2009-10-04T12:40:00.001-05:00

I'm behind again, I know it. Here are my September ATC's for my CollageATCs Yahoo! group:

In the left one I used the moon and the "fog". It's actually cotton batting. The moon, bat (which you can't really see), ghost, tree and pumpkin are all buttons from a button mix bag I picked up at Hobby Lobby (I love buttons). The other pumpkin is a sequin I had lying around. The grass is from sushi, a friend of mine had some sushi one time, and the green paper wrapped around it was so cool, I asked if I could have it.
In the right one I used the cloud and the start of the rainbow. It's supposed to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and if I could have cut the button in half right, it would have looked like a pot of gold. The rainbow is colored with markers, the "gold" above the button is a sequin, the pot is just paper, and the flowers are al stickers, I had a hard time getting those little flowers to stick, they kept coming off.

The card on the left I used the small white snowflake, the iridescent snowflake and the face. The face was a plaster face one of my group members made and sent to me. The other white snowflake and the rest of the snowman as well as the hat are all buttons from a button bag.
The card on the right I used the sun at the top colored with markers, and the sun punch that is pretty much covered by the yellow gem. The yellow strip is a background I made with reinkers, and the bottom strip is from a magazine.

The card on the left I used the white flower background, which was a punch sent along by one of my members; the green sun, that's a stamp of mine and is affixed on a chipboard tag; and the foam lightening bolt that's being used for a stem. The leaf is a sequin and the grass is more from the sushi.
The card on the right I used the 2 tornado pictures, the one on the left was the ISU gymnastics teams keychain schedule. I saw them and knew they wanted to used in art. The other one is some clip art sent in by one of my group members. The green circle on the top is a sticker that came with the energize word, they are on a piece of black paper.

The card on the left I used the two cloud pictures, one is a stamp and one is a sticker; and the umbrella punch the ladybug is using. The bottom piece is from a magazine and I just layered some leaf stickers and the lady bug sticker on top. The rain is colored with markers.
The card on the right, I used the lightening, which is clip art sent in by a member; and the cloud, which is part of the stamped image the cloud in the previous card came from. The tree is a sticker and the grass is some more from that sushi.

The card on the left I used the star which is a button and the snow which is some kind of clear crystals a member sent me. The tree is a tiny plastic "stained glass" ornament, and the other snow is just paper.
The card on the right I used the yellow stars, the yellow sun and the snowflake. The sky paper was something I did awhile ago, it's sorta marbled using ink. The mermaid is a poufy sticker, the snowflake in her hand is a brad. The sun is glued onto two buttons.

I decided to make some Holiday cards and try to sell them on Etsy. They came out really well. I plan to scan them tomorrow and then add them here for people to see. But I will be adding one a day on Etsy until I have them all listed. I'm thinking about $7.00 per card. They're regular sized cards with layered paper and some embellishments. I'd love feedback on price. I'll get them posted tomorrow, so you guys can use your expertise in what you think I should price them as.

I also made some birthday cards for my cousin and grandma. I'm trying to make more cards to get in the mood of making more stuff for etsy as well as use up some of my supplies. I wanna do more embellishment on boxes too. I already got some stuff for a Christmas present for my friend Loretta where I'm going to be embellishing something with orange/copper colors. I think it will come out nice. I want more useful things as well. I know cards are nice, but once you get them most people just throw them away. People need more useful things. Any ideas on what I can do for useful things?

More ATCs

2009-09-16T17:22:00.000-05:00

I was at the post office today, mailing the beauties below and these beauties, and this guy in front of me had a piece of clothing in a plastic bag. He gets up to the window and tells the mail person he wants to mail this to this address and have it there by Saturday, the mail person told him his options, but said he needed to put it into a box first and then come back up to the window. It was like the guy just thought the mail person would do it all for him. I bet mail people have a few stories to tell.

Anyways, like I said I was going to mail these pieces below. They are from two different swaps in the new group I'm in.
The first is a Ladies Vintage Wallet, we had to make a wallet out of paper and decorate it in Victorian style, and because Blogger spit out my pictures backwards, the first picture is of the inside of the 'wallet'.
I took a piece of white paper and distressed it with a Mellow Moss inkpad from Stampin' Up, then I took a script stamp and stamped all over it. I took some gold printed vellum roses and glued them onto the 'wallet'. I also added the pink lady, the stamps, the nostalgia tag, and the ceramic square.

The next picture is the outside of the 'wallet'.

The outside is distressed with the mellow moss ink and the script stamp as well as adding some gold mesh rectangles. On the front, I cut out the "Life's Journey" from a piece of packaging, and then pieced together the "MY" with clear stickers onto a neutral background and affixed it to the wallet. I piled three mini shells beath it. On the back I added the green button and the two paper beads (I'm not really sure if that's what they are, I got them a long while back from someone), I also added the blimp on green paper and the green doll dress.

This next picture is of the whole wallet with tags, ATC's, calling card and Victorian letter all tied up together and ready to be sent. To see the tags and ATC's, go here.

This next picture is of the cards I did for the Queen of Hearts swap. We were supposed to do our artist's rendition of a queen of hearts card. My first set had nothing to do with the queen of hearts except for the fact that you could tell I used a queen of hearts background. I decided that didn't fit the theme, so I tried again. I remembered I had some American Doll paper dolls and thought if I could find 6 regal outfits I could use them as my 'queens'. I originally was going to just mount the head and shoulders of each doll as that was all that would fit, then I thought it would be cuter if I scanned the whole doll and shrunk them to ATC size. So I scanned them onto photoshop and then used GIMP (free program, if you don't have or want to pay for photoshop) and shrank them to the correct size. I glued them onto actual playing cards that I had covered the faces of. I stamped the "Q" and a heart in the correct places and they were done. I'm very happy with how they came out.

Flying Away

2009-09-15T07:33:00.000-05:00

I am so behind. I totally meant to update on the 6th or 7th, but I was dealing with relationship issues, then I was dealing with cleaning my apartment last week, and this week has just begun.
Anyways, here are my cards from my CollageATCs Yahoo Group August's Flying Things Swap:
In the lower left hand corner I used the bluebird with the red ribbon (it was a stamped image that I colored. In the upper left hand corner I used the bat button, it may be a little hard to see as it's a black button on a black background. In the upper right hand corner, I used the toucan image. In the lower right hand corner I used the UFO, the dinosaur, and the little brown image, it's actually a bear in an airplane.

On the left side I used the two ladybugs, the red one's an eraser, and the bee. I wanted to create something really cool with the bee, as I have been reading this blog lately (and she loves bees, so I wanted to be noticed by her), but I couldn't wrap my mind around something really neat, and I was the last one to make these, I wanted to get them done Friday night, so I could swap everything out and get it in the mail on the 5th. In the upper right hand corner I used the balloons and the kite. I've had that image of the boy hanging around awhile and decided this was the perfect time to use him, I embellished the image with actual string for the balloons and a wire for the kite. In the lower right hand corner I used the 3 lady bug images, enhancing their spots with brads, and the tiny silver bug.

In the lower left corner I used the green ladybug, the green butterfly, the blue dragonfly (inside the butterfly) and the white foam bug (who's been stamped with swirls in green). The green butterfly started out as a hairclip, but I couldn't think of something really cool to do with it. Upper left corner, I used the airplane and the kite flyer. Upper right corner, I used the dragonfly (on a sunglasses lense), the blue butterfly gem and the butterfly ribbon. Lower right corner, I used the owl, the bee and the bug.

I totally planned to have wicked cool cards, but since I was working at the bookstore from the 18th of Aug through the end, I was just so tired at the end of the day. I know, I had from the 1st through the 18th, but it was a pretty busy month, my brother came back on his way to Okoboji, among other things.

Don't get me wrong, I love my cards, I wouldn't have used them for the swap if I didn't, I just wanted them to be better.

Quick Post

2009-08-28T18:13:00.000-05:00

I will be doing a post on some of the items I've been making for the Yahoo! group I joined not so long ago, I've just been so busy with work lately that my few hours of free time are spent relaxing and falling asleep.