Crackled paint

This ATC was done with my own technique for crackled paint. Studio red undercoat with light brown overcoat (crackled)...Artistic Outpost stamps...

a mixed collage...

background: Claudine Hellmuth textured background techniques with studio paints

art doll done with french text glued to watercolor paper (arms and legs) scrap paper blouse, beehive skirt, painted face and small polka dotted bow. Stamped images at feet of figure as well as bees by figure. Collage birds from printed tissue paper...script reads: "she knew all about the birds and bees."

Deck of Art-the 2 of hearts.

I started a weekly challenge on PAO to create one ATC sized work of art on the backside of a predetermined playing card. My challenge was the 2 of hearts--theme: childhood. Here is my take on the subject. I love this stamp of the child. The background is a harlequin stamp in SU pale blue ink, collaged measuring tape and spelling lesson. I found the "Why?" in some of my stash and tinted it with distress old curduroy.....

An experiment with ink-jet transfer

I have been doing a lot of experimenting with transfer techniques lately and tried this 6 x 6 with ink jet images in color and black and white. I transferred parts of 6 images, color washed in watery titan buff, color washed again in Studio "dash of red", buffed with a paper towel to remove some color, smeared more with fingers, then added some distress black soot. I covered the central image with paper and sprayed gold webbing around edges, then doodled, stamped in black soot, and collaged a piece of joss paper.....I love it!

My PAO Doll

On the PAO website, we are trading dolls that are supposed to represent us as paper artists..Here is my version. She is made of a wood block, spoons, and forks. She has a fimo face, crocheted hair and little artistic elements in her hands. She is even wearing my ever present blue UGGS slippers!

My Matchbox House

I made this little house from a small matchbox using different architectural stamps from CS and the POPs from the new Artifacts kit.

The door opens and inside it says "home sweet home"

Bird ATCs

These are the ATCs I made for Luanne's bird swap. They are in different color combinations.

Peace and Tranquility

Another card I made for Feb OCAM using TJ color burst background and Artistic Outpost stamps....some of the nicest stamps I've bought in a long time.

Fortune Teller

This is a card I made using Technique Junkies block collage background techniques and stamps from Artistic Outpost.

Claudine inspired collage

Dani came for the weekend and we spent two days playing with Claudine's background techniques. I bought all of her new sutdio line paints and we had a great time trying out the paint techniques. Here is a 5 x 7 collage that I did on one of my glazed paint backgrounds. I have finished backgrounds in peeled paper, peeled paint, and textured. Can't wait to finish them.

This collage makes me think of my family when we all get together...hence, the title.

Claudine inspired ATC

Here is the second ATC I finished this morning.....will the rain ruin her new hairdo? Probably!

ATCs a la Claudine Hellmuth

I've been fascinated with Claudine's work lately and ordered her book, Beyond the Unexpected. These are some of my weekend attempts at rinse aid resist and a poppet. It was rather hard to make such a small poppet, but I think it worked.

A Valentine Tag

Instead of cards, I make my grandchildren tags for the holidays and birthdays. Here is one of the tags I made this year using stamps from http://www.artisticoutpost.com/.

The PAO board has a Feb challenge to do a layout that is outside your comfort zone...Well, this certainly qualifies! I used Basic Grey papers, covered grungeboard heart with paper, sanded and edged in Distress Brushed corduroy; covered flourish and letters I and U with pink ink and embossed in clear, then re-embossed with more clear and glitter. This is my DGD, Morgan, who lives in Florida.

The Grand Canyon

Denis and I visited Sedona, Arizona for a week in Oct. I've been working on finishing my Arizona album and this is my favorite layout. When I was at the canyon, I stood in one spot, held my camera steady and continued to take shots from left to right. I was able to piece the photos together for this panorama. I used extra photos of the canyon to cut the title letters from those photos.

Button Doll

This button doll is for another swap I'm doing at PAO...she's very girly and sweet and I'm pleased with the outcome.

Making Beads with Luanne...

Tonight, Luanne hosted a youtube video on making UTEE beads. It was fun, informative, and very well done....cudos, Luanne. Here are some of the beads that I made tonight....and YES, I need a LOT more practice!

New blog song....

Will.i.am and David Foster created this song, I believe, for the inauguration of Obama...The first time I heard it, I got chills and had to figure out how to get it on here...

A New Day in History....

Just finished watching the inauguration of Barack Obama and it brought tears to my eyes. I am hopeful and optomistic that he IS the answer to so many of the country's problems today. Only time will tell!

Color Pallette #1 Challenge

This is an ATC I made for a specific color pallette challenge. I needed to use robin's egg blue, magenta, leaf green, coffee, and vanilla. I made the background using a script stamp with coffee ink then made the polka dots in the other colors with a pencil eraser. The focal was stamped three times, once in each color ink: coffee, magenta, robin's egg blue and then reassembled. A small green bow was added to the girl's hair and the words: fairy princess. The ATCs are mounted on lightweight cardboard edged in coffee ink. I'm quite happy with the results!

BRRRRRRRRR

An Alberta Clipper had dipped down out of Canada and frozen my little corner of the world...Temp is currently 0 degrees with a wind chill of about 10-15 below zero. Even the dogs refuse to stay out for more than about a minute at a time. I'm bundled up in a velour sweatsuit and my bathrobe to keep my heiny warm. If I get back from antiquing with Klem early enough tomorrow, I think I'll take pictures of the icicles hanging from the eave outside my scraproom window. I've been working on the grandkids Valentine's tags off and on all day and kept looking at the long icicles...I should have gone out and taken the picture then, but I was way too cozy!

THX!

This is a card I made for Luly's brother, who is serving in Afghanistan. It's rather simple, but I like the added touch of the metallic muffler repair tape run through the cuttlebug.

What a mail day!

Today's mail was a bonanza! Orders from three stamps companies, SU order of inks and glossy paper, and Painted Desert paper that I bought from another CS member....I knew I went hog wild on buying stamps lately, but wow! I WENT HOG WILD! I worked from about 11am-3pm in prepping and cutting the stamps...there were that many! I love the customer service of redleadpaperworks stamp co. They sent me freebies...lots of them...all designed for Valentine's day..red and pink mailing tags, a heart charm, a pipe cleaner heart, a cellophane envie and a library pocket stamped in red...oh, and a piece of candy. The smaller stamps were bagged and tied with a red ribbon...it was just so nice and a touch of class. Another order came from Artistic Outpost and again, a freebie! An Ink Essentials opaque white pen. It doesn't take a lot to make me happy, but these little things make me want to continue to give these two companies my business.

You are invited to a Spring Tea Party.....

I got some new stamps today and played with this idea for an upcoming swap...I popped the bird up on foam strips so it has a 3-D element. AI background with a mask over teacup and stand...The words say: You are invited to attend a Spring Tea Party....to celebrate the earth. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.

I think I have Cabin Fever!!

It's snowed for 2 of the past three days and we have about 12 inches of new snow on the ground..my car sits out in the parking area with a flat tire and I refuse to let Hubbie change it as I'm afraid the car will slip on the ice and crush him. I need to take the greyhound, Jinx to the vet today for his leg injury when he slipped on the ice...dang fool keeps licking off the bandage and now it's a real mess. At least now I have real bandage and gauze...my emergency fix when he did it was to use a panty liner and tape....so I won't be embarrassed when I get him in to the vet's office.Bejond that, I got some more Painted Desert paper in the mail today so I'll continue working on my Arizona album and I also got two new stamps in the mail, so I'll play with those. I have to keep putting off going for the humidifier and ceiling light for my scrap room because of the weather....Meantime, I'm going blind and our hair is so dry from the lack of humidity it stands on end most of the time....I think I need to get out of this house and breath some fresh air!!

Look at me now!!!

The photo, I figured out on my own with a little help from the "help drop down menu"....I'll be sure to use this more in days to come...The music was a little harder for me and thanks to my good friend, Luly, and PAO's chatroom, she talked me through adding a playlist. Now, if I remember the names to more songs, I'll add them as I go along....WHEW, enough techie stuff for one day..I need to go play with some paper, ink, stamps, and doo-dads---where I know what I'm doing.

For Christmas, I made tags for each of my 5 grandchildren to put on the tree. At New Year's, I gave the tags to the moms to keep. I plan on making tags for the holidays instead of cards. Eventually, I will make tag books with the BIA for each of them to keep their tags in. this is Laura's tag...made with TH AI background, some embossing, a vintage clipart and some glitter.

It's 2009 and it's been a long time....

You'd think that since I'm retired I would have loads of time to blog...but I have not posted since early Nov. So much has happened in that time...Thanksgiving, Christmas, the re-union of Stu's little family, New Year....
My resolutions for this year are:
1. Learn to do digital layouts..even if I prefer paper, I want to know how to do this. I've signed up for the Jessica Sprague Digi 101 course and can plod along at my own speed.
2. Learn how to use my Canon Rebel SLR without having it set on automatic!
3. Get the couple hundred photos I have in a box on paper...I'm working on that...I've scrapped 40 pages in 3 days.
4. Play with my new BindItAll and melting pot...anxious for Luanne's tutorial on making beads on Jan 24th
5. Figure out how to personalize this blog and include photos.

If I can do these 5 things I will be a happy camper!