Admit One

This week, in my Challenge! online class, the theme was 'Circus'.

Ok, I am the first to admit, I don't like the circus. It has always had an overall creepy vibe to me.

But...

I am always up for a challenge. And this certainly was for me!

I have no 'circus' rubber stamps and yet this project seemed to be calling out for them. So, being the adventurous artist soul that I am, I began thinking....what stamp do I have that might work in a circus setting? When you have as many stamps as I do, this thinking takes a lot of time lol

I did finally remember that I have an elephant. He is not all fancy or anything, more like out on the Serengeti, but that was ok. And I wanted a tent! No tent stamp, gonna have to draw that. Hey, I could put the elephant in the tent! Wow, that takes up all of 1/4 of my page! lol

Ok, I need performers! So, I began digging through one of my 'people' boxes...not the Victorian/vintage one....the other one. :-)

Who pops up first but my poor overweight woman that for some reason I have put up on a high wire before...might as well put her up there again, she has experience! Digging deeper into the box, I found her a couple friends.

Now to put this whole side show together!

As I said, I drew the tent on watercolor paper. Then painted it with twinkling H2Os (it is the circus after all...we need some sparkle). I then stamped the elephant on the journal page, colored around here where the opening of the tent would be, sponged on a cloudy sky with chalks, and painted the grass and path before gluing on the tent.

I stamped all the people onto white card stock and using Twinkling H2Os, Staedtler water color pencils and Prismacolor pencils, I gave them life.

Placement was tricky due to the size of my people and the size of my page (only 5 x 8.5). I didn't quite know what to do with my dancing girls....then I decided they must be midgets (oops, "little people") so they could go in front of my high wire act!

stamp credits:
exercizing woman: VivaLasVegaStamps, Woman with word clothing: Stampers Anonymous, Dog: Rubber Stamps of America, Dancing Girl: The Moon Rose Art Stamps, Elephant: ImaginAir, Grass: Posh Impressions, Curiosity definition and Admit One ticket: Curious Possibilities by Tim Holtz

In the above close up, you might be able to tell that the woman is wearing a tulle tutu and is standing on a floss wire stretched tight under her feet.

But let us not forget the Christmas in July tag swap from last week! I finished my third tag. I again used a leather tag from my yard sale stash. I stamped the angel/cherub and noticed that she is hold what looks like a bar of soap that says "Pears". Since I didn't really know what I was going to do with her, I took her suggestion and gave her some pears lol

I also added some vintage sheet music and gold cording.

Stamp credit: Cherub: VivaLasVegaStamps

And since I was STILL in a tag mood. I used one of Tim Holtz jumbo tags and played around with Distress Inks and walnut ink to get a nicely stained background. I added bits of book pages and several stamps done in browns so they really sink into the background. The girl is a stamp from Tim Holtz.

The rest of my time was spent watching my garden grow! I actually harvested my first sugar snap peas of the year! It is going to be a while for any of our other produce but it sure got me in the mood for more fresh veggies! :-)

More great finds!

Last week I mentioned the fabulous photo album I found at an estate/yard sale. What I didn't tell you was that I also picked up a large box full of leather 'tags'. They appear to be upholstery swatches. They are about 2 1/2 x 4 1/2 and there are a couple shades of brown, a couple burgundys, a nice dark green and a couple different blues. There were also some large scraps of leather tossed in there too. There is about 3 pounds of leather.... over 100 leather tags! I paid $5!!! This is going to be a fun stash to play with!!! :-)

Since Tim Holtz put me into tag mode this week, I thought I would play around with them.

I stamped directly onto the leather and it took the ink beautifully! I then colored the boy's face with prismacolor pencils. Since it was a dark brown tag, he has a sort of ghostly look but I like it. I then highlighted the text with prismacolors as well.

With a fabric scrap glued to the left side, some vintage book page scrap and old buttons, this one is complete!
(stamp credits: boy = Paperbag Studios, compass = All Night Media)

Tags must be the in thing this month because no sooner had I completed the one above when one of the Bad Babies suggested a Christmas tag swap. Oh yeah! I am all for that one!!!

I grabbed some more leather tags and began playing.
I used my Zutter to punch the line of holes on the left and threaded in some old lace.
I stamped the children on glossy cardstock then aged them with Distress Inks.
(stamp credits: all stamps from Oxford Impressions)

Here I stamped Santa on matte white cardstock and colored him with prismacolor pencils. I then aged the image with Distress Inks.
I stamped a string of snowflakes with white acrylic paint directly onto the leather. Then I layered a bit of music from an old hymnal (a yard sale find from a couple years ago...50 cents!)

Add some dark red buttons, some poofy yarn saved from a gift and some rusty jingle bells and you have a fun new Christmas tag!
(stamp credits: Santa = Gumball Graphics, snowflakes = Inkadinkado)

But tags are not the only thing I did this week! I have been a busy girl! lol

My art journal prompt for this week was travel.....a real vacation you have taken or one you only dream about.
I dream about Paris!
(stamp credits: Eiffel Tower = Postmodern Design, all others from Oxford Impressions)

And finally, my friend Cris ( crispart.blogspot.com) turned me on to wrap bracelets. I saw them on her blog and just had to give it a try! :-)

I found a great tutorial at http://cupcakepeonie.blogspot.com/2012/03/diy-beaded-wrap-bracelet-tutorial.html

Vintage Photo Find

A couple weeks ago I found an awesome treasure at an estate sale....an old photo album....filled with old photos! They range in date from the 1920s - 40s (based on cars and fashions in the photos)

What an incredible find! On one hand, it is sort of sad that no one in the family wanted these glimpses of days gone by but on the other hand, now they will have a new life!

As I pulled these beauties from the ancient album (and I do mean PULLED as they were glued in with what appears to be old type school glue!) I was witness to graduations, marriages, births, new homes... It made me want to know these people better but alas, that will never happen so I must only imagine who they are and the lives they lead.

As I have been pondering what exactly to do with all these many snapshots of time (over 50 of them!!!) I saw Tim Holtz latest blog post....about aging vintage photos!!! Woohoooo!

blogger is not letting me link to the website so here is the URL www.timholtz.com look for the June 1, 2012 post.

Normally I would not destroy an original photo, but this one actually had a double so I chose the one that was damaged and played around. As you can see, it is creased and has some discoloration.

Below you can see how I 'aged' it even more using Distressed Inks. I thought the little guy looked dapper in Pine Needles green and I tinted his wagon with Barn Door red. I then darkened the rest of the photo with layers of Old Paper, Tea Dye and Walnut Stain. I made sure to enhance the creases in the upper right (just cause I love that look lol)

I then created the tag. I smudged Distress Inks over the tag and spritzed with water so they would bleed. I then darked the edges and corners with Tie Dye and Walnut Stain and spritzed again. I stamped random images in black knowing that only bits would be showing. I stamped the bingo card (Tim Holtz from Stampers Anonymous "Life Possibilities") directly onto the photo using Memories dye ink, Chestnut. The 'childish' text is from a sheet of scrap book paper I bought over 10 years ago and just keep tearing out sections when I need them. (I am down to about 3" square of that 12x12 page lol)

I added an old gold button that I aged with alcohol inks and finally more antique buttons threaded onto ribbon to finish it all off.

Here is a close-up.

And lastly, my 1 year old camera died...which needless to say upset me very much! What was worse, I found out that this is a known problem and the company doesn't care! They make lot of money having you ship your camera, they do a minor adjustment and then charge you an arm and a leg to get it back!

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me! I will never ever buy or deal with a Nikon product ever again!

Long story short, I bought a Canon! And as much as I loved the features on the Nikon, I am over the moon the features on my new Canon SX150!!!

I love playing around in photoshop but sometimes it is time consuming. My camera can do something that I had to manually do before......leave my subject in color and make the rest black and white!

This is one of the roses in my garden (which just started blooming this week!)

Dark Shadows

I haven't been doing much in the art department lately. But I do have my garden planted! And all my annuals potted!!! And my yard, deck and patio all ready for summer fun! :-)

The only art project I have done recently is for a Dark Shadows postcard swap at the Bad Babies yahoo group.

I have to say, I have not seen the movie yet. I love Johnny Depp but, I'm sorry, Jonathan Frid will always be the one and only Barnabas! I had to make sure he was part of this postcard. I also wanted to include other aspects of the show.

I mentally went round and round on this one and finally decided, the only way I could include everything I wanted was to go digital.

If you look closely you will find a howling wolf and a ghost....as well as the obvious vampire and drops of blood. :-0

I have a full moon and creepy cobwebs...the only thing missing that was part of my favorite storyline is the dollhouse...but since the dollhouse was an exact replica of Collinwood, maybe I did include it. ;-)

AWOL

I know, I have been gone again lol

Time sort of gets away from me at times! :-) The weather has finally been looking (and acting) like spring. Which means more time piddling around outside and less time free for art.

But, today, I decided I needed to get into my art room and make something....anything! My original intention was to try something steampunkish. But, that has never been my style and try as I might, it morphed into something else that is more Me. lol

I haven't stamped anything in a really long time so it was really nice to grab some stamps and play!
The flower in the upper left is from Magenta, the clocks are from Non-Sequitor and the rest are all from Oxford Impressions.
The key is chipboard that I painted and then 'rusted' with alcohol inks.

Lilacs are probably my favorite flower. I can sit under the one in the backyard and day dream for hours. The fragrance really calms me.

This one above is new. We planted it a year and a half ago and it didn't bloom last year. I was so excited to see the gorgeous color this year! And the fragrance is amazing! The only problem is, we planted it under my office window so that I could smell it while I work....and then 2 months ago we moved my office to the other side of the house. :-(

This last picture is of my baby girl. She hates cameras and will not sit still for a picture no matter how sneaky I try to be. But she decided to be playful and let me try out my new camera.

She is such a silly girl, she loves to lie on her back with all her little feet in the air. So, I slowly walked up and she twisted around and looked at me then shot out her little paw and patted me on the cheek lol I caught her as she was reaching for me. Such a cutie :-)

Happy Easter!

I just returned from a much needed vacation. It is so nice to get away and play! But also nice to come home. :-)

We headed over to the coast for 5 days. The weather was horrible! Torrential downpours, hail, snow, extremely high winds.....and we loved every minute of it!

While over there we dropped in at the Jennifer Sears Glass Art Studio in Lincoln City. I love that place! The oportunity to create something in glass is too much for me to pass up. :-)

This year I made a paperweight. Unlike past visits, I was totally undecided about what colors I wanted to use until I physically walked through the door. I just couldn't make up my mind!!!

I finally decided on red, orange and black. When it sits on my end table, it glows like a burning ember. Very mesmerizing!

Here is a view from the side.



A view from the top.Once we got home, I had to really kick it in gear to get my Easter Bunny done BEFORE Easter! I completed him this morning. :-)

I had issues making him stand. So I finally had to add a basket.....felted to the back of his leg....to make him stand on his own lol You can sort of see it below on the left under his arm. :-)

Here is close up of his face. I am really pleased with how his face turned out. :-)

Happy Easter!

Journaling

Now that I have my art space back, I am really in the mood to create! I dug out all the art journals I have started over the years and lined them up at the far end of my table. I have 11! lol

So, of course, I started another. lol

No deadlines, no swaps, no criteria, just for me. :-)

I moved way outside my box on this page. I NEVER do bright colors lol. I tend to stick with muted and antique-looking color schemes. But I decided to use papers that I had gotten for free out of Somerset Studio and this was what was on the top of the stack. The background paper was bright yellow (hate the color yellow) and orange. I brushed some blue over it and then scratched some off so the yellow and orange would show through.

I saw an article on paper dolls someplace...heaven knows where. I have been cleaning out junk from the art room and flipping through magazines before I toss them out lol

So, here is my paper doll. :-) I cut her body from an old book page (I think it is French). Her clothes came from another of the Somerset papers. With turquoise tissue paper petticoats. :)
Now back to my normal colors lol

This background took me several days. I just kept layering with papers and paints until I finally liked it. I then stamped the hands at the bottom.

I like it so much, I took a pic before I continued (so I can use it in digital stuff later if I want)
I then added the flower and face. The face is stamped and colored with pencils, the petals are watercolor crayons. A new toy that I think I am going to be using a lot more!

For St Patrick's Day I had to go green. :-) Again I played around with building layers.

The text says "Live the Life You've Imagined".

Now I can't say that I imagined fish flying all around but as I was digging for the girl stamp, this fish was filed in the 'people' box (who knows what I was thinking about that day!!! lol) and I thought he would be fun on the green background.

Thankfully, it is now spring...or so the calendar says. Today my back pain is really bad (thus updating my blog instead of working). I can't wait until the weather turns nice so I can get out and move around and get some fresh air. Until, then...

Another Dragon

I had so much fun creating my last dragon that I decided to try another.

This one is a bit smaller at only 3 1/4" (plus balloon).

It is definitely harder to get details on the smaller projects (and the fuzzies get way out of control too! lol)
Since she is a baby (yes, it is a she lol) I decided she didn't need claws or teeth like my first dragon. I did however try something new and gave her little wings. :-)

I just finished her and as I was downloading the photos I realized I forgot to give her ears! Oops! So, maybe she isn't quite done after all. :-)

Just messing around

I haven't had much in the way of art time the past couple weeks. I have been setting up my new office! My stepson moved out and I gained an office! Yippee!!!

There was the cleaning, painting, shopping (when you grow from a 2x2 desk to a huge, U-shaped desk you find out you NEED things! including the desk! lol)
Then helping (better known as watching) hubby build said new desk. haha

Then came the hardest task of all.....regaining my art desk. 1/3 of it has been doubling as part of my work station for 4 years and now I am finally able to clear it off and reorganize. Currently I have regained about 2/3 of my 10 foot long desk! Yay!

I was so happy that I took time out from cleaning and stashing and I fiddled around in my art journal...something I haven't had room or inclination to do for many many months. :-)

Happy Chinese New Year

Last weekend Hubby and I attended the annual Chinese New Year celebration. It is a wonderful event with demonstrations, food, displays, lectures and an awesome parade.

Since this is the year of the dragon, I was inspired to create my own "Chinese" dragon. Or maybe I should say....Ready for Chinese New Year dragon. lol

As you can see, I shied away from the typical fierce/scary dragon and went in a cute and fun direction.

He is carrying his own dinner in a tiny takeout container and lighting his way with a little Chinese lantern. The takeout container is from a rubber stamp by Jim Stephan I purchased many many years ago. It actually stamps an image twice this size so I scanned the image and reduced it, cut it out and folded. Thank goodness for my crop-a-dile. It made it much easier to get inside there and set the eyelets!

Mr. Dragon was kind enough to do a slow pirouette so that I could photograph him from every angle. :-) Notice his fierce claws and teeth? lol

Here you can see he has horns and (tiny) ears. And spikes? scales? whatever you call those bumps down the middle of his back lol

He is my tallest creation at 5 inches!

I love his shade of green! I was in one of the local yarn shops, Middleford Yarn Shoppe in Medford and saw this lovely green wool. I just couldn't resist. I am so glad I grabbed a bundle. Because of the color variations, it creates such interesting color textures on the dragon skin! I loved it so much, I went back and bought some more...just so I don't run out!

Meet Rocko

Sometimes an idea gets stuck in my head and I have to sit down right then and get it out. This little guy was getting really persistant so I took a few hours and let him come to life.

I call him Rocko! And he just might be my new favorite. Every time I look at him I can't help smiling. :-)

He is the only one of my felted friends that has moved onto my work desk to keep me company. I think he just likes to be in the middle of things. lol
What is kind of maddening is how, when you photograph these little guys, they appear a million times fuzzier than they look in person....of course, blowing up a little guy from 2" up to maybe 10-12" might have something to do with it lol

Here is a close up of his face. Hubby says he looks stern. I think he just looks very intent. lol

He has a merino wool base with merino wool face, hands and chest. And alpaca for his fur. The alpaca is very soft so he feels very nice sitting in my hand while we watch tv. :-)

A Baby is Born

I can't even begin to describe how happy needle felting makes me. I have been an artist my whole life and will admit that '3D' mediums always left me feeling..well...lacking.

I had issues with proportion and the front might look fine but the back would look like a disaster!

To finally, after all these many years, to find a medium where I have no problems creating in a totally 3D format just makes me giggly lol

Here is my first new friend of 2012. He is a little "chubby' bunny. The core is made of merino wool then covered with gray alpaca (I love how soft the alpaca fleece feels!)

I gave him oversized eyes and nose to increase the cute factor. :-)

He stands about 3" tall to the tip of his ears.

And now for the baby. This took me 2 weeks to complete, not because he was difficult but because my neck issues have decided to flare up in a huge way so looking down for long periods of time sends me into horrible neck muscle spasms (trust me, it is not as fun as it sounds!)

I would like to introduce Seymore. He is a baby monster. He seems to have lost his mama (which I think is probably a good thing for me) but managed to keep a grip on his trusty teddy.

He also has a merino wool core and was then covered with a varigated baby blue. I am not sure what type of wool because I got this HUGE ball (at least 8-10 ounces) of it for free because an online vendor messed up my order and tossed in the blue as a thank you because I was patient and didn't complain. It is super soft! (some times it pays to be a patient customer) :-)

As you can see, he has a tight grip on teddy and is also sucking his thumb.

And, of course, a pic from 'behind'.

Seymore is about 3 1/2" tall.

He definitely strays from my normal bunnies and sheep but he came to me one day while I was day dreaming so I had to bring him to life. Now I have a gorilla floating in my head! We'll see if he appears any time soon lol

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a joyous New Year.

Everything was quiet and peaceful here. It was so nice to just sit back and relax and enjoy the season. Unfortunately, that also meant not getting anything 'created' either.

And here we are, over a week into 2012 and still no art projects started. My muse seems to still be on Christmas vacation. I hope she returns soon because I am getting antsy!

But, to kill the time, I have visited a few of the local antique malls. :-)

On Saturday, I found one of my coolest finds ever!

Isn't this just the most awesome cookbook you have ever seen? (and yes, I am assuming you are as hooked on cookbooks as I am!) :-)

Ok, it looks a bit grundgy and dirty....but I could see there was something beautiful under that black gunk!

See, I told you! Look how bright and shiny it is now! And all it took was a bit of liquid handsoap, a soft toothbrush and some hot water. Yay!

I had never seen a book with an aluminum cover before and when I discovered it was a cookbook!!! it had to come home with me!

Here is the cover page, see the copyright? 1933 This thing is in really wonderful shape for it's age. It almost looks like no one used it (which is sad for a cookbook) But one former owner did add a few of her own recipes into the pages so someone at sometime prior to me did make a bit of use of it.

I found out on Wikipedia that this cookbook is the first one ever to tell the cook to use a fork to flatten her peanut butter cookies....now loving peanut butter cookies as I do and having baked more than my fair share of them....I thought this was cool!

Each recipe has it's own little page with instructions on the front and sometimes the back. Kind of neat!

And in case you want to order your own copy, this page is printed in the back of the book. :-)

I hope 2012 is a very artful year for you all! (and hopefully soon for me too lol)