Wow, I have really neglected my blog as of late. I had a nasty respiratory virus for the first part of summer and have been playing catch-up ever since. Between that and the grandkids I haven't accomplished much else. Of course the ridiculously high temps and humidity haven't helped much either. I'd just as soon be a hermit as to go out in that heat....blech!!! So I thought I'd post some pictures of the things I have managed to do! The first pictures are of the skinny book pages I have made for the monthly swap I am in. These first two pages are for Karen's "Grandma's Attic" theme. I loved this theme! These pages were made using old family photos. On this first page, I used a photo of my Mom, one of my Mom and Uncle Gene when they were little kids and one of my Grandma and Aunt Ann. I used a piece of vintage ledger paper and an old brass stamping piece for embellishment.


This page uses and old ledger sheet for the background and a postmark from an old letter sent to my mother-in-law from a friend of my husband's who was in the service during the Vietnam war. The couple in the old car are my Great-Aunt Ann and Great-Uncle Wilbur! I embellished it with vintage lace and buttons.

These pages are for my friend Caryl. Her theme is "Dreams"....a fun theme to work with. I found so may great dream quotes so I had a hard time narrowing it down to two. These are all PaperWhimsy images.







These two pages were for Freida's "Venice" themed book. I was really stressed about this theme, but after my search for images, I felt a little better about it! I painted over the gold areas of the mask below with some sparkly gold paint and the canal image on the second page was painted over with clear crackle paint kind of creating the illusion of an old oil painting.



Someone dropped out early in the swap, so I made an extra set of pages for Linda K's "Summer" themed book. There are tiny seashells sewn to the bottom of this page.



The images on the page above are printed on a paper that resembles fabric. I would love to find a source for this paper, but so far no luck.

This page has a real capiz shell attached and the background is made from various fibers sewn together. The nest is made from strips of paper cut from a vintage book page.

These skinny pages were for Lisa's open theme book. Cemetery images and Marie Antoinette were among the things she likes...hence my choice of images used. The swirl stamp under the cemetery angel is embossed with a rough feeling embossing powder that reminds me of stone and the flower is handmade using fabric circles singed around the edges (with fire extinguisher close at hand!) then assembled with a button for the center.



These pictures are of a journal I made for my friend Heather for a swap on the PaperWhimsy site. I love PaperWhimsy collage images...and making books...so this was a fun swap for me!



These are tags and little charms for the All Things Tim birthday swap using Tim Holtz stamps and products.



These are the charms I made for two charm swaps. One was a mini-book charm swap and the other was an open theme.

Just a quick post...

First, computer problems...then knee problems...blech. I've got a new router and it seems to have solved my computer issues. Unfortunately, I still have the same old knee. Finally gave in and went to the doctor last week and then for an MRI on Thursday. Waiting to hear the results tomorrow and crossing my fingers that it won't involve surgery. Although anything would be better than this pain and the resulting drug induced stupor. The worst part is the pills only dull the pain....haven't slept more than a couple hours at a time in several days....yawn!

So, being behind in all my commitments, I hobbled down the stairs to my little art studio and got busy. I still have a couple of things to finish, but here's what I managed to get done.....

This is for a tag triptych swap on PaperWhimsy. I will be sending this off to my swap partner. I received my fabulous triptych yesterday from Lorraine Beaumont. I will have to check with Lorraine and will add a photo of it if she doesn't mind my posting it here. It's awesome!

Next is my contribution to a tag book for a dear art friend who is dealing with the grief of losing her father-in-law.

These little hangings are gifts for the February birthdays on AllThingsTim. These started out using the technique I learned in a class with Tim using shrink plastic and UTEE. Unfortunately, the UTEE I have seemed too thick and didn't work as well as the brand we used in class. (Of course my patience wasn't what it should be with this knee pain interfering!) So, rather than be even later than I already am, I opted to use Fragments. I don't like the outcome as well, so will buy some of the UTEE we used in class and give it another try.....maybe for the March birthdays.

Well, first a litle nap (I hope) then back to work!

Great giveaway!

Wow, Lesley Venable of Flatwoods Art Blog is offering a fabulous giveaway. Kerin Gale of Remnants of Olde is offering two awesome online classes "Vintage Gentlemen"and "Resin Clay Pendants". Lesley is giving away a chance to take the class of your choice. See Lesley's blog post here to get the details:

http://www.flatwoodsfolkart.typepad.com/

You can also read all about it on Kerin's Ning site here: http://mixedmediaart.ning.com/

I don't know about you, but I would LOVE to take either of these classes! Check it out!

Giveaways...giveaways...giveaways!!

So I have spent most of the week so far going from blog to blog admiring all the fantastic bloggers who are participating in the One World One Heart celebration put on by The Whimsical Bohemian. Here is the site for more information and a very long list of all the blogs you can visit: http://awhimsicalbohemian.typepad.com/a_whimsical_bohemian/one-world-one-heart.html My full time job will have to be "blog reader" to keep up with all the blogs I am following now! I have seen some amazing talent on my journey!

So in my travels, I discovered yet another awesome giveaway going on this week. The folks at Patina Soul are giving away some incredible jewelry. GO HERE to see the awesome pieces: http://patinasoul.blogspot.com/2010/02/50-vintage-jewelery-giveaway.html or their etsy shop SimplyMeArt.etsy.com . All I can say is WOW!!!

And one more giveaway discovery....a fabulous resin necklace from "In the light of the moon"

http://inthelightofthemoon.blogspot.com/2010/02/its-giveaway.html Is this cool or what?!

And yet one more fabulous giveaway. Lisa at Tarnished and Tattered is giving away a beautiful basket filled with lovely vintage items. Her blog is quite a treat too!http://tarnishedandtattered.blogspot.com/

Well, back to that magic carpet ride.....

A couple of new things...

I am in a skinny book swap with some on-line art friends. Each person chose their theme and will ultimately receive a page for their book from each person who is participating. This is my first contribution! I chose white and neutral as the theme of my book....can't wait to see my first page in person. (I have seen a picture on-line and it looks awesome!)

These charms and tags are for a birthday swap on a Yahoo group for All Things Tim (Holtz).

I am also nearly finished with some valentine charms for yet another swap.

I just don't like January....

Everything seems so dismal after the holidays. The weather in Ohio is gloomy and cold......the hustle and bustle of another Christmas season is behind us....spring is a long way off. And this is the first winter in MANY MANY years that I wasn't working full time. That being said, I have been making mental notes of the things I want to accomplish before the flowers start blooming and the birds sing in the morning and spring calls us outside. One thing I am planning to do is clean and organize my studio. It's in a worse than usual state of disaray since I found myself rushing at the last minute (as usual) to finish some Christmas gifts for friends and family. Another thing I plan to do is to get this blog up and running so I can share it with my art buddies. I envy those who are so good at blogging and journaling.....I think this will be a bit of a chore for awhile. Well for now, I will stick to posting some of my art and getting some links put up

Well, like everyone else, I've been sidetracked by the holidays. But now it's a new year and I'm going to get back to this blogging thing and figure it out! I did manage to find time to make a few gifts this year now that I'm "retired". The vintage bottle snowmen were an inspiration from Nov/Dec 2008 Cloth Paper Scissors magazine. I fell in love with them and started collecting things to make them right away. They are made from vintage bottles I found on ebay and embellished with vintage beads, measuring tape, jewelry, old cake decorating tips and lots of other little odds and ends I picked up over the year. The heads are clay, the eyes and mouths are tiny brads and the noses are small bits of folded copper tape. After embellishing, I spread glue on the heads and small areas of the scarves or tinsel collars and sprinkled them with course glitter that looks like snow. Then for good measure I sprayed them with silver glitter spray! They were tons of fun to make and I used them for little "extra" gifts for my sisters, friends, neices and my daughter-in-laws.

My next endeavor was a little art quiltie for each of our sons and their wives. At last a legitimate use for all the fabric and lace and pretty little odds and ends I've been collecting for so long! I framed each quiltie in a shadowbox frame. I haven't done a ton of sewing, but I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. I also made some soldered ornaments, but didn't get pictures. I'll have to find the extra one I made for me and get a picture of it. I had other things in various stages of completion, but this is what I managed to finish. Guess I will have a head start on next year's gifts! My daughter-in-laws are glad I got laid off!! (Isn't that sweet??!)