UPDATE

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

My art closet

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

UPDATED 3/16/10Something 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

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!

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

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

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.