2013 Favorites

As I'm not sleeping I began to think back on 2013 from an artistic point of view. My word for the year was Artist - as in this was the year I would become one. Sometimes I own that, sometimes it still seems  far away, but there is no doubt I grew....as an artist. So here's my top ten of the year.

Tim Holtz issued a tattered flower challenge in March. This tops my favorites list because I really played with colors, mediums, and textures. I had never done anything on a a piece of metal either.

I used grunge board, cheese cloth, plastic, paper, and screening, with paints, stains, metallics, glue (to stiffen the cheese cloth), texture fades and some favorite buttons. The finished piece is hanging in the Fun Room. Original post.

















The next piece was a birthday gift for a dear friend who has been nothing but encouraging about my art work. Not only was it a gas to make - she loved it! Original post.

From canvas to ATC, the next project was for an ATC challenge of underwater. I had been playing around with some Twinkling H2O's and salt a couple of days before and this kind of fell together.  Original post.

I participated - somewhat - in Lifebook 2013. It's a great, year long course, but it takes a lot of time - something I rarely have. This lesson was entitled Quirky Birds. Indeed. Original post.

The tag is another Tim Holtz inspired project. He's what got me into this after all. As I recall this was either the second or third attempt at the colors and layout, but I just love how it came out. It's incredible vibrant...and hangs within my field of vision at the office. Original post.

My daughter turned 21 this year. One of the things I started doing for the kids when they came into my life was silly birthday riddles - I'm made some very unusual rhymes over the years. This year I was informed she would like a BIG card. So I made her a canvas, and turned it into a card. Based on Christy Tomlinson's style...another find from Lifebook. Original post.

Another Lifebook project by a great teacher, Kelly Hoerning. I learned a BUNCH about eyes...even managed to draw a couple. Great techniques as well. Original post.

These little notebooks were Christmas presents I made for sisters and friends. What makes me laugh about them is I started to make them with scrapbook paper and then realized, duh, I make paper....I got good and inky with these! Original post.

These are a recent project as well. Affirmation Cards for the Brave Girls Club. They make the list not because they are such great works of art, but for how consumed I was in making them. I stayed up until 1:30 am and was back at my desk at 7:30 am. Quite unlike me for a Sunday morning! Original post.

And finally this rounds out the list...because it was another first. Really the first time I played with canvas....there's going to be more of that in the new year. Plus the colors are Yummy. Original post.

Thanks for taking this little journey with me....both this post and the whole creative ride. I really can't imagine doing what I do, learning what I have, getting a fraction of the inspiration I have, without all you folks in blogland. I am thankful girl!!

Paris is My Dream City

My mother loved Paris, and took me there for the first time when I was in early twenties. The second time I went to Paris was after my mother was gone, but shortly after I met my sweetie. We went as my Mother would have...so we stayed in a really nice hotel and did tons of fun things. We went everywhere and saw if not everything, well, we saw a lot in the 11 days we were there. So when I saw that Frilly and Funkie was hosting an April in Paris challenge, I knew it was time to break out all those old calendars I had been saving!!

There are so many amazing things to look at in Paris, the architecture, the street lights, the people, the cars. We went everything on the Metro, and of course we had to go see the famous Art Deco Metro stations.  As I said this picture is from a calendar because my photos from Paris are not digital...it was a while ago that we went...lol.

Over on Alison's Words and Pictures blog I saw THE most fantastic piece of steampunk fairy tales that  she had made (you really should go check this out) and she mentioned she was entering it into a Snazzy's Inspired by Anna Dawbrowska. Well, I missed that deadline, but I'm a huge fan of her work, so I thought I would have a go at it.

I started with an 8 x 10 inch canvas, covered it with paper, painted that with a few coats and then layered the photo on a couple of black mats. I glued all most of the metal pieces together and then misted them with Tattered Angels White Chalk Board spray. Once that was dry, I used the new Dylusions Calypso Teal spray. Once everything was dry i glued it onto the background which had been same products. 

I REALLY need a lesson in how the colors are achieved, but it was fun to layer all those cool bits and bobs from Frilly and Funky. I like how it looks, but it's not how I thought it would come out. But then I also thought I would use red and that looked -- let's just say -- not so hot. 

It is my dream to go live in Paris for 6 months at this point. This year, I'll just thank Linda for hosting the challenge.

AHH, A Color Break

I did something I never thought was possible. I overloaded on color! I think it was when I filled the  journal page aside the doodling project in the last post with twinkling H2O's. So I decided to take a break this morning and make some ATC's for the ladies I will be seeing shortly in my monthly class at the Stamp Cache.

The one below was the first of the series and set the theme of "time". The other part of the challenge I set for myself was to use stuff that was either hanging around my desk or in the embellishment bin...some of which have been there for a very, very, long time. 

I had just gotten the new smaller size of the London and Paris stamps; they were lots of fun to play with!

Below are the Working Smaller class samples, loaded with lots of wooden goodies from Helga at Artchix Studio.

I might be ready to work larger for a while!! Enjoy.

Foreign Jewelry

I am really beginning to like challenges. Somehow they lead me into doing things I've wanted to do, but just haven't gotten around to. This week on Grungy Monday 37 Linda chose the theme of Tim Holtz Wearable Art. Love it. A couple of years ago I made a charm bracelet out of some charms, Idealogy pieces and parts, fragments and whatnots. But I wasn't careful and kind of haphazard about the whole thing. It needed to be re-done. What better time than this??? AND as an added bonus, this weeks' Simon Says Stamp and Show theme was London, Paris or New York. Did I mention the charm bracelet was about Paris?? See. It was fate, karma, kismet, whatever you want to call it...

I had some map stickers I had picked up along the way and cut those to fit the fragments. One is backed in silver, one in clear tape, and the other has a different picture applied to the "back" side of the fragment and which is covered in Glossy Accents. I wanted the piece to feel like it was put together over time, maybe even from a Paris Flee Market. After I put it all together I realized the Eiffel Tower was missing so I popped in a little charm along with some beads for color. The dress represents the good shopping in Paris. I used Tim's type charms for the letters, and from Helga at ArtChix I cut a tiny little "spoil me". Because really, who doesn't want to be spoiled at least once and a while?

When I first met my husband we took a trip to Paris, and it really was a trip of a life time. I had wanted to go back again for so long, and it was a perfect vacation. Beautiful city, romantic trip, good weather, great food, laughter, shopping; so the heart and the muse token that says Lifetime reference that experience.

And when not adorning my wrist, it happily lives on top of this little light on my dresser, adding a bit of, well, something to the atmosphere.

Day 5 - Christmas in Paris

Ooo la la. Like this technique a lot! I didn't have the Christmas script, and truth be told I hadn't been really successful with the stamp I did have...but I had only tried stamp to stamp. But using the reverse stamp on the beautifully colored clear tag produced a gorgeous background.

I used Red Pepper, Watermelon, and Current alcohol inks - three different applications. And the process worked just like Tim (link)said it would. I think I was actually giggling when the ink removed the color and just left the french sentences.

I was sitting in a meeting earlier this week when I came up with the idea of the Eiffel Tower and after auditioning red, white, and green I settled on the black background The greenery is from the pine cone die - in about as many different colors of green as you can imagine. Got that from my quilting days: if you use enough they all blend together.

I am a real fan of Tammy Tutterow (link) and so one day ordered the little hero arts alphabet she uses so effectively. I have to say I love it. It's just the right size and I can use it to say any ole' thing that pops into my head. The simple red "pearl" (yeah, right, a string of them for $2.90 at Michael's) was all the embellishment it needed. Enjoyed this tag a lot....I love Paris.