Join us for "Falloween" on Saturday!

DON'T GET SPOOKED!

Come join us at The Little Blue House

118 W. Olive St.

Keller, TX 76248

817-431-7930

on Saturday, Sept. 21, 20l3

10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Check out all the new fall and Halloween class projects!

Cute free Make-and-Take!

Refreshments!

Atlanta here I come!

Tomorrow four art friends and I will be traveling to Atlanta to visit another art friend for a fun and creative five-day art retreat at her house! Six of us like-minded souls together for several days - lots of chit chat, laughter, art, food, shopping, not much sleep and...? It will be fantastic!

See you back here next week.

It's Crunch Time!

New class projects will be revealed at the "Falloween Project Premiere" event at The Little Blue House next Saturday, Sept. 21. So, needless to say, I am hip-deep in paper, glue, paint, Stickles, ink etc. busily creating! And, I can't share any of this until after "Falloween," so I will share photos of a project from another swap I was in recently.

This was a one-on-one swap for an online group and it was for an altered slide mailer and slide(s). These cardboard mailers come with one, two, three or even four openings to insert a glass slide. They open like a book. The theme was simply "garden."

This is the cover of the one I sent to my partner. I painted both front and back with green metallic paint and attached part of a pretty iris napkin, edged with gold Krylon pen and coated with a sparkly glaze to give it some shimmer. The spine is covered with a strip of washi tape and I added an old stamp.

Front cover

Back cover

 Here are a few shots of the inside. I used the same metallic green paint inside and continued the washi tape along the spine to reinforce it.  I stamped the definition of "flower" on the left side.  I decorated both sides of two pieces of cardstock the size of the slides (the left is a watercolored stamp and the right one has a "real" stamp, a bird rubon and the word iris cut out). I sandwiched them each between two slides, wrapping the edges with gold tape to enclose them. In order to keep them in place, but be easily removable, I used a glue dot on the back of each.

Here is the lovely mailer I received back (thank you Nancy!). The entire mailer is painted and then layered with papers. I love the quote on the cover.

Front cover

This is the inside. Love that fairy image! Both slides were enclosed in the mailer slots and tiny microbeads surround them - really pretty!

Inside "pages"

And, for a little extra, Nancy included this gorgeous encaustic wax tag - beautiful!

Girlfriends encaustic tag

If you've never joined a swap before, it's great fun and a good way to exchange art and ideas with others.

A Halloween "Twinchie" Swap

About a month ago five of my friends and I decided to do an "almost twinchie" Vintage Halloween swap. The "almost" came from the size of the wooden boxes I had on hand for displaying them - each opening was about 1 15/16" square.

Unfinished wood box

Since there were six of us and nine squares, we each made one to swap with everyone and then made three others to go in our own box.  A few weeks ago we got together to swap the squares and assembled and decorated our own boxes.

My completed box

For my box I first painted it in Halloween orange and then applied crackle medium and black paint. It's hard to see in the photo, but it cracked nicely and the orange peeks through.  The twinchie I created for everyone is in the upper right corner. I inked and stamped a background and then stamped the little girl witch and words on cardstock. Her hat is covered with Glossy Accents.  My other three twinchies are the middle top (stamped crow and tiny bottle filled with orange glitter and a stamped "poison" label); the far right in middle row - again a stamp colored with watercolor pencils, a Stickled moon and a tiny fabric bat; and the middle of the bottom row which is a stamped and heat-embossed Halloween postmark layered on several papers. 

I love swapping to see what everyone creates with the same theme and size restriction. One gal extracted each of our photos from a group photo, distressed them and made us into little witches with fabulous hats (bottom row, left).  All the twinchies came out great and I love my little Halloween box.

More Student Projects from my Mixed Media Mania Class

My second altered cigar box class at The Little Blue House was as successful as the first! Everyone's projects came out fantastic! Take a look at these wonderful boxes.

Julie's "Create"

Laura's

Linn's

Mary's (she was visiting all the way from Chicago!)

Michelle's - not quite finished - she added red burlap in lower left corner which insisted on remaining red! She wants to change that a bit but the rest of the box looks amazing.

Susie's "Junk"

I love teaching this kind of class where the students just take off on their own, making unique color choices and combinations of embellishments. Every one comes out different yet beautiful.

Looking forward to Mixed Media Mania classes again in September!