Second letter completed

Hoorah! I was able to get "T" completed today. The tag reads "Take time... before time takes you." This was a quote by yours truly a couple years back. I had envisioned putting a tombstone on the page as well but didn't find one I wanted to use.

Alphabet book

I'm working in the second book of a 10 person round robin. This book has an ABC theme. We are each to pick 2-3 letters. I've decided on "M" and "T" but have only completed this one so far. I have my idea and materials picked for the second...just need time to put it together.

Time has been scarce as of late...it seems that we've got something going every day during this winter break. I try and sneak in some art time before bed but some nights I'm just too darn tired!

Wine label book

I've wanted to make this book for a very long time and finally got around to it.

It will easily allow us to keep track of the wines we've tried and leave comments to remind us about our thoughts. No more wasting money on a wine that we've tried and didn't like.

'Twas the day before Christmas...

our house is a flutter. The cooking, the cleaning, just look at the clutter!

By evening I hope the Legos are not on the floor, you never know who might knock on the door.

When the kids are tucked into their beds, I'll do my impression of the big man in red.

Tomorrow morning will be here too soon, our guests will be here well before noon.

I hope your Christmas will be ever so great and wish you the best in 2008.

Illustration Friday: Horizon

When I saw the Illustration Friday theme: Horizon, I immediately thought of this altered CD that is part of my perpetual calendar. It was painted with a children's watercolor set on standard card stock.

More digital...and gingerbread

Spent some more time playing after getting back from a gingerbread house party at school.

I'll have to take a picture of those as well. They sure had fun making them!





Goodie...more candy...

Digital work

I've also been spending a little time playing with my graphics program again.

Here's what I came up with.

Finished Christmas shopping

I'm done with my shopping! I even brought back a few small stocking stuffers today. I still have a couple handmade things I'd like to get done but if I don't have time it won't be tragic.

Thought I'd leave you with this vintage Santa image.

Another gift

I got another gift made up this weekend. It's a scrapbook made from a children's board book. It is filled with pictures of the kids over the past year.

Last minute gifts

Once again I've waited until the final hours to make teacher gifts.

Here are 3 composition books I altered this afternoon.

Christmas treats

I'm finally done with the kids treats for their classmates. I had to make a total of 54 of these...that's 108 snowflakes punched for the candy cane to slip through. After the first few I knew my hand would never be able to do that many. I figured maybe I could whack the punch with a hammer and IT WORKED!!! I was able to whip them out in no time doing it that way.

Morning beauty

I got up this morning to a beautiful site.

Hoarfrost on everything outside.

Notice the temp on the tree... 10 above.

Not much....just Pirates

I don't think there will be much on the crafty list for the next couple days. I made a B-day card for my brother-in-law but that's about it. My hubby is on vacation this week so I have a feeling I won't be spending much time crafting anything.

Tomorrow we'll be having a PIRATE DAY. We bought the 3rd installment of the Pirates of the Carribean series and plan to watch it sipping on our rum drinks.

I'll leave you with this page I made for a junk mail swap a while back.

Christmas countdown

Just wanted to let everyone know about a great site giving away ephemera for the holiday season.
You can find it at here.

ATC's

Here are a couple more ATC's from the background papers I made yesterday.

Quotes AB and an ATC

I've been at it again.
After moving snow yesterday afternoon and this morning, I thought I'd play a little.


First I took out watercolor paper and started making some backgrounds. I used paints, inks, gesso, embossing powder, PearlEx powder, foam stamps and papers scraps.

LAYERS, LAYERS, LAYERS.
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While waiting for those to dry I pulled out a book I started long ago with some tip-in from a swap. My theme for the swap was quotes. I used the book All I really needed to know I learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum as my base. These are the pages I added today. They are worked in directly in the book...not as a tip-in.






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After my backgrounds dried I cut them into 4x8's for chunky book page backgrounds and 2.5x3.5 for ATC's.

This is the ATC was made with one of my new backgrounds.

Beyond Time

Yet another page in my "just for fun" altered book.

Tailored Man

Here's page that I did in my "just for fun" altered book. The book has no theme. It's just a great place for me to play and experiment.

Here are more in the same book.

More ornaments

I was a busy bee this morning and got 4 more ornaments put together. Amazing what you can get done without the kids around.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Christmas Ornaments

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. I actually have been creating but mostly personal stuff.

These are a couple of ornaments that I finished today.
I think I have half a dozen more to go.

Can you tell what they are made from? Check out the post labels for the answer.

Grandma Olena--PUBLISHED

The Dec/Jan issue of Somerset Memories was in my mailbox today...and why is that significant?? Only because I have a piece of art published on page 63!

I am awaiting a reply from the publisher as to where or not I am allowed to share the image or not. Otherwise..hope you can take a peek at the magazine sometime.

UPDATE:
I got permission to share my published piece with you. In the magazine it's framed but I wasn't able to take a decent photo with it in the frame.

This caption appears next to the photo:

"There are very few photos of my beautiful Grandma Olena since she tragically died before reaching her 30th birthday. As a child I always wondered why she didn't smile for her picture...I'd like to think this tribute to her would make her smile now."

More Humbugs

I made these late last night but was just too tired to get them posted.

I like these but not nearly as much as my first ones.

Bottlecaps

I've been saving bottlecaps for quite a while now...my neighbors and family even save them for me occasionally. Nice to have people like that even if they do think I'm odd.

I was inspired to make these bottlecap magnets aftering seeing a post about some Christmas ones on Ali Edwards blog.

I only had very thin sheet magnets at home so they aren't really strong enough to hold up anything but themselves. Who said art had to be practical, right?!?

I have 16 more sitting taking up precious table space while the Crystal Lacquer dries. Next time ...hopefully...I'll remember to put them on a tray or something so I can move them outta my way!!

UPDATE: Here are the 15 that turned out...

BahHumbug postcards

Here is my postcard poking fun at the chaos of some peoples Christmas. I'm glad our family has the "keep it simple" policy. :)

The second one is giving a little jab to some of the clueless husbands out there.

Glad mine isn't one of them. Love you sweetie!

Altered book pages

I picked up a this book at a local thrift store the other day. I had originally intended it for something completely different but decided since it was small that I should just dive in and play!!

I really like 3 of the 5 pages. The other 2, I am not so pleased with. I don't actually hate them enough to cover them up but may go back and revisit them later to see if I can make any good changes.

Can you guess which ones I like??

I still have plenty of room to play some more in this book. It's very freeing to work without a theme...at least for today. :) Sometimes I need a theme to get me started. In fact this book was planned to be a book in which each spread dealt with one of the senses. Yeah...that changed pretty quickly.

Illustration Friday: Scale

This is a piece I did last year but it seems to fit the Illustration Friday theme perfectly!!

Book Journeys

I'm thrilled that the new altered book round robin, that Theresa invited me to participate in, has begun!!

This book has the theme of Book Journeys. At first I was worried I wouldn't be able to come up with pages..then the ideas started flowing and I had to pick just 2. All the books that I love to read to my kids were close in the running too. But these are what I ended up going with.

Each of these authors are fantastic story tellers and I'd highly recommend any of these books.