November swaps

The theme for the November altered trading coins swap was "Christmas." I made these two coins to send off.

And I received these.

I also hosted an "Old is New Again Technique Tag" swap. The theme for this was to use a Tim Holtz Christmas Tag from any year as inspiration.  Mine was inspired by his tag #3 from 2007. I haven't received one back yet.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and/or friends. We are traveling to Kansas City to be with my sister-ini-law and her husband. Two of our daughters, their husbands, and the four grand boys will be there too.



May your turkey be tender, juicy and delicious! (My husband smoked a turkey last weekend for our own early holiday meal.)

More retreat projects

This project was created on a large 12"x16" canvas board using Dyan Reaveley stamps for the outfits and borders, a brick stencil and paint for the background, and copies of photos of each of our heads. I used colored pencils and Zig markers for the coloring. This was fun and a great memento of our week.

We used two different-sized embroidery hoops to create this wall hanging in pinks and greens. The hoops were painted and covered with painted lace and canvas, then embellished with lots of flowers. This photo doesn't show the real-life colors and dimension of this pretty project.

And here is one other book we made. This is a Traveler's Notebook made with the Eileen Hull TN die from Sizzix.  The cover was cut from Spellbinder's chipboard and is very sturdy. The papers used are from Stamperia - gorgeous and vintage.  There are many pockets and tags on the three folders making up the signatures of the book. I love this size of book.

cover

Inside front cover and cover of first folder

Inside front cover of first folder (this folder has dotted-grid paper for journaling)

Inside back cover of first folder

Cover of second folder

Inside of second pocket folder

Back of pocket folder and front cover of third folder

Inside front cover of third folder (this folder contains plain paper for journaling)

Back cover of third folder and inside back cover of notebook

This notebook will be fun to fill with notes or sketches and the folders can be removed or replaced.

Back from annual retreat

Every year I attend a week-long retreat with 9 other artsy friends. This year we rented a large house in Blanco in the hill country of Texas. The attendees were from Washington state, Utah, New Mexico and Texas. Five of us presented day-long art projects and the remaining four brought kits for creating five or more cards. WE had a fantastic time, as always, and it certainly sparked my creative mojo!

This was my project - a Christmas-themed "shadowbox" using a six-cup muffin pan. I used a dark green paint for the first coat, then crackle and a top coat of ivory paint.  The openings have different backgrounds of Christmas papers along with various embellishments.

Another project was this great book project. We first created the book foundation using black cardstock and the "Stack the Deck" hinge system (Laura Denison). The kit included lots of these pretty papers, Tim Holtz "paper dolls", die cuts, metal embellishments, ribbons and stickers.  We all added many of our own embellishments as well. I love the vintage feel of this little book!

Cover

First two pages

Pages 3 and 4

Pages 5 and 6

Pages 7 and 8

Pages 9 and 10

Pages 11 and 12

Pages 13 and 14

Pages 15 and 16

Page 17 and back inside cover

I will share more of our projects in my next post.

Finally, an update

It's been a crazy month! As I wrote in my last post, I started a huge purge of my craft room and guest room (which holds the overflow). I've taken several boxes of supplies to Scrap Denton (which is like a craft thrift shop in nearby Denton, TX) and several boxes to Goodwill. I have two boxes of needlework books and two huge boxes of needlework supplies that I will donate to a local embroidery guild once my contact and I can schedule a time to meet.

All of this work keeps getting interrupted by "life." I just returned from ten days' of babysitting with my two Albuquerque grand boys. Their parents went to Spain for a week and while they were away, the demo and remodel of their home commenced. Luckily, my daughter rented a house for the boys and me for part of the time so we could escape the noise, dust and lack of kitchen!  It was a busy week filled with soccer games, practices, school activities, a second grade field trip to the pumpkin patch that I volunteered on, birthday party, music lessons, book fair and a neighborhood party. I had forgotten how busy life is with children! Enjoying the quiet of home now!

And in a few days we will go down to Austin to be with our other two grand boys for Halloween and then bring the four-year old home with us for several days as a special trip since his brother and Mom are leaving for Hong Kong on Friday. So I don't expect much crafting to get done in the near future.

I did, however, do a project for my grandson when I was in Albuquerque. I had found the supplies to make little felt mice for Christmas while cleaning out my rooms (I had made these for my kids to take to school parties years ago) and had just enough to make 22 for the 7-year old's Christmas party. They just need the candy canes inserted for the tails as shown in the one mouse in the foreground.

While I was there I also finished their Halloween costumes since they wanted to wear them to the school Halloween carnival before their parents returned.  Grant is Flash - I glued the white felt circle and yellow felt lightning bolts to his red sweat suit.  He already had the mask.

Drew wanted to go as a football player, specifically Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints. We had given him the shirt for his birthday this summer and his parents added gold duct tape to black pants. They also started his helmet by cutting and painting a pumpkin. I painted on two fleur de lys and added the gold duct tape face guard. I also made a foam "vest" and shoulder pads for under his shirt. He loved it, especially the black makeup under his eyes.

So that's about all I've been doing creatively for awhile!

October Altered Trading Coins -- and purging

I've been "missing" for awhile. I spent a long weekend babysitting the grands in Albuquerque. Once home, I finally decided to tackle my art room. I've been putting it off for years and really haven't done much except add to the "stuff" since we moved into this house 13 years ago! Every time I start, I find all kinds of treasures and get side-tracked into working on projects.

I am starting with the six-foot standard closet in the room which is stuffed with sewing and needlework supplies. I figure that once that is cleaned out, I will have much more room to store my current mixed media supplies.

Most people don't know that I was an addicted needlepointer (and cross-stitcher) before moving to Texas 20 years ago. It was something portable I could do while my children were younger and still keep watch over them.  I became a needlepoint teacher and was certified by the National Embroiderers' Guild of America. I taught at seminars throughout the country and was even named "National Teacher of the Year" in 1996 by the EGA.  All this to say that I have a lot of supplies, personal as well as for all the class kits!

And, since I'm knee-deep in a huge mess, I haven't done much crafting. I did finish my altered trading coins for the October swap. The theme was "Fall is in the Air." They are very similar, except for the card stock layer. The background is heat-embossed leaf stamps with Distress ink sponged over. The heat embossing resists the color. Then I stamped and punched the sentiment from scraps of the same paper. Simple, but "fallish."



I hope to be back with more projects soon, but still have a long way to go before my art room is functional again!

September swaps

I joined three swaps this month.

The first one was for Halloween-themed altered trading coins.  These two were what I created and sent off, similar but different.

And these were the two I received. (Thanks to Linda and Barbara.)

The second swap was for three Halloween-themed triangles.  I sent these to three different people.

I received three back and connected them with baker's twine to create a little banner. (Thanks to Laurie, Julie and Barbara.)

The last swap was for a "girl-on-a-stick."  The challenge was to use a 6" craft stick and an image of a girl or woman and decorate as desired.

I created this one:

And received not one, but two (!) from Barbara. They are so different but I love them both.

I like joining swaps for "littles" as it keeps me active and acting at my table. I also love seeing all the variations that people come up with.

"Well-remembered" Altered Book Page

This is the latest page in my altered book.  The background is collaged book pages, white gesso, paints and stencils. The floral images are from a napkin and I stamped the friendship quote on a bit of the plain napkin and adhered it to the page.  The focal point image is from a Somerset Studio magazine which I loved and wanted to save. Since the girls needed to be grounded, I used a piece of an old book spine. I think the color coordinates well with the page.  Simple but fun!