Thursday

Sorry it's been a few days, I've been under the weather, but I think I'm better now! This is the last day of my challenge to myself, which was to do art, SOMETHING! - everyday in July. I accomplished this challenge, even if all I did was spend some time with my journal on some days. Here is what I have been working on the last 2 days:


I was inspired to make some inchies, and put them on a Thank You card. They were all cut from the same background paper. For some reason, I had a really hard time finding embellishments! Strange! We'll see what I do for today, my last challenge day!

TTFN

Some Journal Pages

The big machines are back -just when it was getting nice and quiet around here! At least I have a nice art room to go to to get away from it all! I've been working on my new journal page, among other things, so here are the last two pages, the red one is complete, but I switched to silver pen instead of white, not realizing it was going to virtually disappear!




This is my current page -the middle triangle is actually a page that I folded, and I'm writing on the other side of the flap it formed. I'm debating whether I will write on the white part at the right - I kind of like the look of the mist, which didn't show up well in the scan. I must be feeling pretty powerful right now, with losing weight, and I just got a personal trainer at my gym!

TTFN

It's been a busy several days! It's been difficult to get to my art room much less my blog, but here's what I've been doing: A couple more ATCs




A thank you card for a man:



And one last postcard in pink, red and orange:



It's been very wet here, lots of rain and thunderstorms. I hope all of you are happy and dry!

TTFN

Monday

Quick post, DD's visit was wonderful, we had a great time, but even so I was able to work in my art room. DH's birthday was on Saturday, and I made him a card. Here it is:

Very "Tim Holtz" style! DH loves to curl, hence the curler at the bottom of the tag.

I worked in my journal yesterday and today, so that's Sunday and Monday covered! See you tomorrow!

Friday ATCs

I have been in my art room the past two days, but had to wait until today to post otherwise I wouldn't have had much to show! I was inspired by this background technique by Wanda Hentges and thought I would try it, although I didn't do it exactly the way she said to. Hers look much better! The technique involved using gesso as a resist, which didn't turn out too badly, but I couldn't get the spray right, too much water, not enough gesso, must try again! Also I brayered over the page before I cut it up into ATC pieces. Here's what I came up with, some of these may not be quite finished (I often go back and look again, and the right thing pops into my head).




The last two are my favs, although the angel one needs something. . .I think a few of the others do too, maybe some sort of embellishments. Some of them have my raised dots on them, but it's hard to see.

My DD is coming to visit this weekend, so I probably won't post again until Monday. See you then!

Wednesday

Today's post will be a short one, but that doesn't mean I haven't been in my art room! It was such a mess from all the things I've been doing, I had to clean it up again today, or I wouldn't have any room to play. I've been finishing off the postcards, and yes, I did add to the two I said I would. I wonder if they are the same ones you chose for me to do more to? I also made one more for my DD, but until she gets it, its a secret! So, here are the two I added to, it's subtle, but was just what they needed. You'll have to scroll down a few posts for the "before":

TTFN!

Monday -Postcards + a challenge

I combined my Postcard color challenge with "Mixed Media Monday" challenge, which was "let's have tea", and came up with Postcards # 6 and 7. I did use all three colors (red, orange & pink) in each one.



The teacups are from PSX (I think) and the "steam" curly is from Paper Artsy. The words are unknown. TTFN!

Saturday and Sunday

I have been working on my new color postcards, and finally found a window of opportunity to get to the computer while dh was doing his laundry (isn't that nice!!) He has been playing a Sherlock Holmes game on the computer for the last 2 days, it's been hard to get to it!

Anyway , here are the first 5 postcards, although I have a feeling 2 of them aren't quite done yet. Remember, the colors were red, orange and pink. The orange kind of looks like yellow in these scans, but it's orange. The 3 little stamps are from a Tim Holtz cube, the collage image is from Altered Pages, the diamond stamps are from Quietfire, the swirlys are from Paper Artsy.






That's it for today, I'll do some more tomorrow, and hopefully be able to sneak onto the computer at some point in a lull in the game!

My Busy Day

We have had a lot of excitement here lately, because the street in front of our house is being torn up to replace water lines. Lots of noise, banging, holes in the grass, but thankfully we don't live across the street. . .

The hole in our lawn . .

Enough distractions. I stayed away all morning, and worked on my classroom stuff all afternoon. It's creative too, really!




OK, so the evening was in my Art Room. The new colors for this month for my Color postcard Group is . . .Red/Orange/Pink. I KNOW! What a combination! I will do my best. Thought black would look good in there too. So I did get a start on these. Tomorrow and over the next few days i can scan these when the paint has all dried.

The orange looks yellow in this photo

These will look better when I am able to scan them - you'll see!

Update on the AB - yesterday I used Matte Gel Medium on the edges to hold it together -don't do it! It did hold things together, but it's very heavy and plastic-y, and when I pulled some of it off it took the paint with it. I know Beth Cote said what to use, I'll just have to look it up! Luckily the page is not ruined however, just not as nice as i want it to be. I think I might put a border around the whole thing, either black or deep purple. I'll keep you posted!

Thursday-almost didn't make it!

I almost didn't make into my art room today. I worked all morning on my classroom sewing, making little cloths and a pouch for objects, then out to lunch with Mom, then to the gym, home, dinner, bath, thinking of excuses not to go into the Art Room - can't think of what to do - maybe missing one day won't hurt - I'm sure you know all the excuses!! But I did go, and I started by filling up the hole in my AB with lavender. One of my children at school gave me some lavender bath salts she had made. Bath salts with bits of real lavender. I tried some in my bath, then stopped sprinkling when I realized I couldn't use little bits that could jam up the jets in the tub!! So what I did instead was pick out a bunch of those bits and put them in my fragrance niche. Smells very nice!



Then I needed to glue all those pages together. I decided to try Matte Gel Medium and painted it all around the edges, then clamped it together to dry. I will report tomorrow to tell you if it worked.



The last thing I did was some Thank You cards. I had told myself I needed to make a bunch of these to keep handy next year. I always need Thank You cards! I really liked the Moo card I made yesterday, so I adapted it to a Thank You card, and made 3 of them.



That's it! At least I DID make into the art room! Now I'm off to watch So You Think YouCan Dance!

Wednesday ATC's (and some Moos)

Well, I spent this afternoon making ATC's from all the backgrounds I made yesterday. I was completely uninspired, so I did the gold edges first. I had been flipping through an ATC book last night, so I tried to remember some of the ideas, and then everything just flowed! So here they are:

"Going Crazy"

"Ooh La La"

"Paris"

"Golden Tile"

"Secrets"

"Scheherazade"

All images (Secrets, Scheherazade, Going Crazy and Ooh La La) are from Altered Pages.

The next thing to make was the new Moo Challenge at Make a Moo or Two
The theme was Black and White, and I did make 2!

See you tomorrow!

Monday and Tuesday

Got new batteries! Now I can show you what I was doing yesterday:

I cut a one inch square niche because I thought a page about fragrance should have a smell. My thoughts are to put some lavender buds in here.

I painted the hole. I'm going to put a netting over the hole to hold in the lavender and so the smell can escape. I hope it works!

And this is what I did today:

I played with my stencil! This is the same stencil I used for the crayon rubbing 4X4.

I used it on my new journal page. the 4 outside pieces looked like birds when i started tracing around them, so I gave them eyes! I love how this turned out. Like the Bandanna technique by Tim Holtz! The dots along the V are raised. I guess I'm in a dot stage - I've been using them a lot!

I was looking at a lot of Challenge Blogs this morning, and I came across this background technique blog. So I thought I'd give it a try, it's a tissue paper technique that I've done before, but it's always fun to play! She has several other background techniques to try as well.


After cutting the page into ATC sizes I did some doctoring. I used Memories Mist, some cat's eyes, some distress inks, and acrylic paint. I'll make ATC's from them tomorrow.

And last but not least, I made my first ever Moo Card. these things are tiny! I used the challenge at this site. A Moo Card is 2.8 x 7 cm. The theme was Asian, and next weeks theme is birds, so I did them both!



The rooster is covered with Dimensional Magic, a very clear glue that gives it a raised effect.

See you tomorrow!

Dead Batteries

Yes I did do some art today, but the batteries in my camera died! So I'll have to show you tomorrow. But I have finished my journal page, and have started on my next page. Also worked on the Dictionary Altered Book, figured if the page was about fragrance, I should have some, so I'm making a niche to put some lavender in, so the page will smell like lavender! This is my first niche! Will have to go and find some lavender tomorrow.

Saturday & Sunday

I did work both days, but not a lot. I worked in my journal, I rediscovered an altered book I started last year, and I worked in the altered dictionary. Saturday night DH and I went on a date night out - lovely! Dinner at a very nice steak house, then to see Les Miserables at a local theatre. So not much time to post!

This was Saturdays work - putting these images onto the page. I often stamp the image onto tissue paper first, then I can reposition it anywhere I want. I stick it down with the same stuff I use for my journal. It does dry shiny, as you can see, but when looking it the page as a whole it's OK. You can also see the second image at the top of the page.


This is the book I've rediscovered. It started as a children's book. Each of those squares in yellow turn to reveal a new picture. I'll show you again later. There are 3 themes to this book. I covered these pages in paper.




This is what I did today for the altered dictionary. I'm almost done, just one more thing to add. The flower images were added the same way as the others, but I colored them with colored pencil first.
See you tomorrow!

Happy Fourth to my US Friends!

Hope everyone is having a Happy 4th of July today! Our holiday was on Tuesday, Canada Day, and that's when I broke a tooth and had to have it extracted. Great day! Hope yours turns out better!

Here's what I did today:

Finished my 4X4


Worked on my Journal:



Using watercolour pencils I sometimes trace around the edges of the images just to accent them, and I draw the lines. Then I go over the lines in white to tone them down. I decided to use white gel pen to write.



And worked in a friends Altered Dictionary:



The picture is not stuck down, just sitting there so I can think about it. It sitting on top of some of the words. The dictionary word I chose was "fragrance" This page is just started, not finished. Perhaps I will finish it tomorrow.

I Look at Some Online Challenges

So, today I was wondering what I would do, since I had completed the things I needed to do. I worked on my Journal, adding some magazine cut-outs. I was looking for interesting images with colors that would go with what I had, nothing more. I found a few and added them. I glue these down with Liquitex Glazing Medium. It's liquidy, paints on smoothly with a brush, then I go over top of the image as well, like decoupage.

Below is the box of magazine cut-outs I keep. Just anything that catches my fancy!

As I was wondering what to do next, I remembered all the Challenge Blogs that I look at each week, and say "I don't have the time. . ." Well, now I do! So I chose 2 challenges to do in one -GPP Street Team (my fav) and 4X4 Friday. GPP Street team is doing stencils, very cool technique, using a crayon, rub the stencil with paper over top, then paint over with acrylic paint, spritz with water, and gently rub off. Easy! 4X4 wanted an orange and yellow color palette, so this is what I came up with:



But, it's not finished yet. I will leave it until tomorrow and we'll see what I come up with to finish it, if anything. (Image from Altered Pages)

So that's it for today!