Sunday

It was too cold to do anything this Sunday but stay in my warm cozy jammy type clothes and do art! I have several swap items I needed to make, so I did the two most pressing ones, plus an ATC.

 This is my "Under the Sea" Gothic Arch I made for my AFTCM Yahoo group. Sometimes i make things I don't want to give away, and this is one of them! I would love to keep it! The mermaid, the seahorse, and 2 of the shells on the left are popped up. The arch is free standing, made from a chipboard book I got at Michael's in the summer. The 2 sides fold in a bit, but this has been scanned flat. Maybe I'll use it on a journal page!


I also needed to make a card for my Stampscapes II Yahoo group, the theme was "Anything Goes" so I decided to use my new horse stamps (also from Michael's).

 This one is going all the way to the Netherlands! I went to a Hero Arts sale on Saturday and bought a set of word stamps and I used 2 of them on this card. One is on the inside, under a stamped image of a horse's head. If you recognize the stamp of the trees in the background, you will know that I took out the water! How to be versatile with your stamps!

That's it for this week! I'm hoping to get some time to work on my journal from my Strathmore class, but I seem to have such small windows of time! I need to start working on my envelopes (15 of them I think!) for an envelope swap at my Byhand Yahoo Group, and I have 3 sets of ATCs to do as well.

Have a great week!

Missing in Action

But back now! I've gotten so out of the habit of posting to my blog (BAD GIRL!!) I really have to get back to it. It was hard even to just do this, as I hadn't posted in so long! The computer is now fine, I hope, after getting a new hard drive. But now I back everything up.


I have been busy with my swaps, so I'll show some of those. And I am once again participating in the Byhand Twelve days of Christmas Exchange, and I'm in 2 groups. I just finished putting some of the past decorations on my tree, always my most favorite decorations! Just mailed out all my gifts, and have a lovely basket of the gifts piling up!

These are House Tags for a swap, the little windows open and Santa is inside. The person who sent to me also had a window to open with Santa inside!

Stampscapes Swap-theme "character"-this is Frankenstein's bride

I've been kind of obsessed with making these ornaments :

This one isn't mine, but can you see all the tiny triangles? And pins. Thousands of pins.

My first one. I made 3 more that I gave away.

Then I had to "Make it my own", so this one is made from colored book pages (since I love altering books!). This is colored with Distress inks. With dots of silver on the tips of the green ones.  

That's it for now. I have to go to work! I will start posting my 12 Days of Christmas gifts when we start opening them! I'm excited!

My Advent calendar-I get to put a teeny ornament on the tree every day!

Mid-July

Boy this summer is going by fast - and I haven't even really had a holiday yet, despite school being over since the end of June! I have to help at the Summer camp next week again (cooking week). My DD came to visit this weekend to celebrate her dad's birthday! I love when she comes to visit!

At our favourite place for lunch - Pan Chancho!

Birthday dinner in Gananoque- CJ's escargot, spinach & goat cheese in filo appetizer!

and my low-carb dinner-Rack of lamb with ratatoullie

Happy Birthday!

My favourite flowers were on the table!

Ron's Birthday Card

I also made some "Dots" ATCs for my Art For the creative Mind group. 

We were to use heat embossing as well as dots.

The background was made with Punchinello and embossed. The bottom image is from alteredpages.com.

Here is my swap card made for my Stampscapes Group. It was a transportation swap.

Tim Holtz car and words

Well, that's it for now. Today is my last day with CJ, so I plan to enjoy it! Hope you enjoy your day too!

Victoria Day!!

Happy Birthday Queen Victoria, wherever you may be! Today I made sure I didn't have to go anywhere so that I could work on my art all day. And so far that is what I have done! I recently joined a new Yahoo group called Art For the Creative Mind, and they have lots of great swaps - just what I need to keep the juices flowing! I made an Alice in Wonderland postcard for that group, and still need to make 2 Asian ATCs, an art doll, and a bird card. For my ABCanada group I made a Nature ATC, because we have another ATC swap where we make the ATC we receive into an Altered Book Page! And for my Stampscapes group, we are doing "Animalscapes" this month, so I did mine today. Over at the Altered Books yahoo group, we are celebrating a 7th Anniversary with Arches, so I have to make 17 arches. I started designing it today.

So here they are!

 My Alice-In-Wonderland postcard was inpired by a magazine article in Stamper's Sampler, June/July 2009. The article is called "Deconstructed Stamping" by Pam Carriker. I loved the zig-zag around the edge and thought it would be perfect for this card. It was fun poring through my stamps and finding things that would work!

This is my Animalscapes card to mail off to my partner. I found the eagle (Old Island) when I was re-organizing all my um's - so many I had totally forgotten I had! Since I've been watching this eagle and her baby eaglet, it inspired me to make this card.

here is my nature ATC for my ABCanada group:

I love my new word stamps from Michael's - only $1.50!

Update on Beatles Swap!

I received my wonderful Beatles ATCs!

The first one is "She's a Woman" by Martina Fuchs in Germany, the second by Marnie Blum - "rain", and the third by Ingeborg in Germany -"Michelle my belle". My plans are to create pages around these beautiful ATCs in My Beatles Altered Book. A summer project!

And lastly, a journal page. I have been neglecting my journal lately. I think its just because I'm tired and I don't have a lot of energy at the end of the day, especially on those days that I go to the gym after work. I get home late, have to make supper, and by the time I've eaten and washed dishes, I'm ready to zonk out in front of the telly for awhile. I know - I can hear those violins too! Usually asleep by ten. Also I've been a tad depressed lately, and that may be part of it. I'm trying to use more stamps in my journalling lately (why have 1000s of stamps just to cut photos out of magazines??) Also used my new TH die cut, which I had a helluva time getting through my Spellbinder, but it's been easier lately. I may use this die cut for my Aches. Or maybe not. i think these are all TH stamps.

Well that's it for now. If I have forgotten anything I will add it later on. Have a wonderful holiday to those of you who get the day off!