Made my day

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

***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.

Mythological Creatures Swap

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

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

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.

Happy 234th Marines!

Queen of Hearts follow-up

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.