The Big Clean-Up!

Well, to do art everyday, you need somewhere to do it! So first I had to transform this:



Into this:



OK, so now I'm ready. I'm going to make a new journal page. Several people like the idea of making a journal, but don't know where to start. First, go to the Dollar Store and buy a composition book. They are fairly thick, with lined pages and a hard cover.

Make sure you have some cheap acrylic paint on hand, choose a colour, and paint. I chose blue. Then the the other colour left on my table was Kiwi green, so I sponged the edges in Kiwi. Yuk. It was a horrible combo. So, I taped up a border, and painted black inside over the blue.



Much better, not so much blue.



Now what? the green edge needed a border print, so I went to my leaves and found this little stamp which I stamped all around.



That's it for now! I usually let things sit so I can look at them again, see what else I might add from my drawer full of cut-outs from magazines. I'll probably do some more cutting tonight while watching "So You Think You Can Dance"! I also often move right on to the next page and add colour to it and a few after that too.



This is a mingle 4X4 I made for my ByHand Yahoo Group, it's for our "Yalpha Mingle", due early June, obviously late, but not forgotten! I needed to choose a letter, then illustrate it. there are words on the back that all start with "M". The background is from a magazine, the "M" was cut out of white CS after I stamped a map onto it. I edged the M in red paper, and edged the whole thing in red. The back has the word "Map" in red, then lots of red Ms with black words that started with M: Music Marsh Man, etc

So that's it for this post! See you tomorrow!

July's Challenge

Finally, it's July, and there is no school to go to everyday, and I won't be exhausted at 8pm every night! Should be a time for rejoicing and finally getting onto my Art Room! But, alas, as happens EVERY year, it is a time of sadness (somethings missing), depression ("don't know what to do" she whines), and a creative block, as I sit at my chair in my art room,look around, and say "maybe I should sell all this stuff". BUT - it doesn't usually last for long. There was a challenge on my Altered Books Yahoo group to do some art, anything, everyday in July. So I am up for that challenge, and I'm declaring it today, July 1, (Happy Canada Day BTW!!), that I will do some art everyday in July and (try to) post everyday in July to show what I've done. I actually have made a list of things I want to do everyday this summer:

1-ART
2-JOURNAL
3-READ
4-PLAY PIANO
5-FLYLADY
6-MAKE MATERIALS FOR MY CLASSROOM

With Art at the top, it will be the first thing I do everyday, even if nothing else gets done!

So, to start, here is another (yes, this is REALLY my last one) violet and lime postcard:

It's hard to tell with the scan, but all the little dots are raised silver dots. I love this stuff!

I haven't posted any journal pages for awhile, so here are my last several pages:

The white piece on the right is a piece that Wanda sent , embossed using the same stencil she used for the ATC on the left. I know you can't see it, but it's there!

Not one of my favourite pages!

I love the colours on this page

This page was fun, I took a face from a magazine page and painted over it! The pink thing hanging down is Ron's hospital band.

Using my new Paper Artsy stamps! Also, using the colors from my new Color Postcards group -Salmon and Turquoise

again, using June's colors this time from my Colors Postcard Group -Violet and Lime. The dots are gold raised dots. like on my postcards.

So, there is my June 1st post. Don't expect this much everyday!! I will try to also post my Journal Pages this month as I finish each one.

Last one

This last postcard is for my dd. I sent it as a surprise, and it got lost in her deep dark mailbox. I had to reveal the surprise so she would go and look for it in her mailbox!

More Lime and Violet

Here are a few more Violet and Lime postcards for my color postcards group!

I've Been Tagged!

Valerie, from Val's Altered HeART Journey has tagged me! I feel honored! She has changed the tagging rules a little bit, now we only have to list 3 (instead of 6) things about ourselves, and tag 3 (instead of 6) more people. Should be easy enough!

So, 3 things about myself that people might not know. . .

1- I am a stamper at heart (you may have guessed that one) I literally have more than 1000 stamps, and I try to use them whenever I can!

2- I have 2 cats, one white and one orange. The white cat had an infection in her ear last year and now it's folded in. it makes her look evil. But wait - she IS evil! We call her the evil cat because just as you are petting her, and she is purring -ZAP- she gets you. The orange cat is twice her size, but a few years younger. She had an encounter with a full grown fox the other day. Here she is, waiting for the birds to be thirsty:



3- my mother is a visionary artist. She actually paints! If you click here you can see her wonderful art! I must get my artistic streak from her!

Here are the 3 people I tag:
1-Ingrid Dijikers Ingrid is one of my all time favorite artists. I LOVE her work, especially her journals and books! I hope she's not too busy. . .

2-Pattio She has just made herself a new wonderful studio -have a peek!

3-Kelly Burton Kelly and I go WAY back to when I first started stamping! She was awesome then and she's awesome now!

So, I hope my choices aren't too upset with me! And thanks Val, 3 is so much better than 6!

Violet and Lime Green

Here we are, I've begun making my violet and lime green cards. Now my violet seems a bit dark, is violet lighter than this? Don't know. Maybe I'll try a few with a lighter, lavender color.

The transparency is from Altered Pages

I am using my coasters that I bought last spring for my postcard base. The coasters are all different sizes and shapes, which gives me a lot of creative ideas to work with! The coasters are perfect for traveling "naked" through the mail!

Last Two. . .

postcards that is, in Turquoise and Salmon.




This last one is, I admit, a bit busy. . .!

Next month's colours: Violet and Lime Green -Yuk!! We'll have to see how that goes!

Happy Birthday!!

Monday. May 26th, was my beautiful daughter's 22nd birthday! I didn't want to post her card until she got it, which she did, right on time!




This card was inspired by my good friend Marg's Thank You card to me for working in her deco. It is a beautiful card and I love it! The birthday card resembles it in design only. The part that looks like a tab above her hat is part of the scanner. I forgot to put my usual black cover on top!

One more postcard

Here is my 5th postcard, only 2 more to go!



The image is from the internet. The pearly dots around and on the image is a neat paint that is raised when dry.

Arches

Here are 3 arches I created for an Altered Pages mini kit. For Mother's Day I combined them on top of each other so that they swung down to reveal each one on a card for my Mom. They pivoted on a brad on the lower left. The last arch was glued to the card, and I had a little brad holding them together at the side that swung away to open the arches.

Deco page

This was the final page in my friend Marg's deco, which completed the Music Deco RR I have been involved in for the past several months. It was a fun deco, looking forward to the next one!

More postcards

Three more postcards for my Colour Postcard Group, in Salmon and Turquoise. I'm beginning to like this combination! All clip art images from Altered Pages.

Some May Challenges

Since my DH's knee surgery and subsequent recovery, I haven't had much time to do much! But I did have these two challenges to do, and now that DH is a little less reliant on me, perhaps I can get more done~

The newest Yahoo group that I have joined is called Colour Postcards. It's a really neat group where we choose a colour combo each month, and make postcards for the people on our list, like a Mingle. May's combo is Turquoise and Salmon. So here is my first colour postcard for the group:


(image by altered pages)

I have 7 more to do...

The next piece is for my Byhand Artists group, for what is lovingly called a "Yalpha Mingle". We choose a letter each month (our own choice) and make a 4X4 page for it. This month I chose "P", because I am reminded of the upcoming Proms for the high school students. I didn't go to mine, my DD went to hers, it always seemed so feminine and wonderful, I wish I could go back in time and go to my Prom!

front:


back:

This weekend is a long weekend in Canada, called Victoria Day. It's not as warm as I would like it, but it's nice to have a day off from work. Only one month left before I can do art all summer!

Altered Book Challenge done

A bit disappointed that no one was up for the challenge, but I did mine! Here it is:




Oh well. I didn't advertise it either, so that may be why. I used images of NYC from altered pages, and a stencil for the edges and the folded piece (a stamp for the other side). The letters are rub-ons. The tassel is an earring found at a garage sale last year!

Not sure what the next challenge will be. It's been a busy weekend, my hubby just had knee surgery, so I'm fetching and caring! I'll try to add the next challenge in the next few days.

Altered Book Challenge

I am sending out weekly challenges on my Canadian Altered Book Yahoo Group, but I'm not getting much response. So I thought I would send out the challenges to you too, each week. Last week's Challenge was to use some kind of a flip on the page, either flipping up or out (sideways) with some kind of surprise beneath. Here is the page that I did in the House of Blues AB that I am working on:




I used a piece of denim for the background for the flip card.


Looking at it now, I think I need to add some more to it. It looks a little bare to me. Not sure what to add, but If I do I'll repost it.

This week's Challenge: Use a FOLDED PAGE in your layout. If you fold down from the top right, you will get a triangular pocket that you can put things into. If you ALSO fold UP from the bottom right, you will get a triangular page that will flip. If you fold two page, one from th left and one from the right, you can glue them together for a solid page with no seams. Add your pages as links in the comments so we can see what you have come up with!

Earth Hour

How many observed "Earth Hour" last night from 8-9 o'clock? The idea was to promote awareness for our earth by reducing the power we use for one hour. Some cities, such as Toronto, made a huge deal of it! We did our part with a candlelight dinner and a game of "Myth Busters"!

My Winnings!

A few weeks ago I won some Blog Candy from Wanda Hentges blog, and a huge package arrived a few days ago! It was chock full of fun stuff to play with. Just what I needed! Thanks Wanda!

Spring-I wish it would come!

I haven't posted for a long while, let's call it the Winter Blues. . .

But here is the Easter card I made for my DH!

I can't wait for Spring to really show up. I'm SO SICK of SNOW!!!! And apparently we are not through yet. . . I have plans to take a photo for every day in April, of the same view, to watch Spring come in.

In the meantime, I have made lots of Journal Pages for Feb and March, so here they are:


This page above was inspired by a blog called ThriftyCollageArtist.blogspot.com
Although I enjoyed making hte page, it took a long time! I have kept some of the ideas for my next pages. One of which is to use a coloured pencil (watercolour pencils work nicely because they are so soft) to colour over my lines to tone them down, and fuzz them a bit. First I use white, then a simailar colour to the background. Also colouring around the images is a nice effect.



Valentines Day is usually a big deal in out house, I always get a dozen roses, plus a mushy card. this time I got the roses, but due to work, DH couldn't get out to get the card. So Valentines Day morning, a whole bunch of Pirate cards (he knows I love Johnny) were strewn around the house!
Now that's mushy!



A little bit of ThriftyCollage Artist here! I like my new border stamps from Michael's - a set of 9 for around 8$ -great buy!




I really like this page, kind of a Renaissance quality to it. I used a homemade stamp around the border - just bits of rubber I had cut off unmounted stamps and glued to a Jenga Block! Stamped with copper paint.

I was thinking that St. Pat's day might fall on this page, but it didn't. Oh well!




This page has all the stamps I bought at the stamp store in toronto (on Bloor St W). DH chose the angel, and the ledger page. He makes good choices! He also paid for everything-nice Easter present! Thanks DH!! I really liked the ledger flag-border, so I used it on my Easter card for him!