Happy Halloween!

Hooooooooot!

Tag, I'm it

My passion for altering manilla tags is well know to many people, if not, let it be known. I also love anything vintage or distressed. I have been playing with paint again lately, and turned my creativity toward collage for my latest set of cards. I wish I could decide on one style of card making, but I'm into the One of a Kind, not easily duplicated. Enjoy!







I'd love to credit the stamps and paper, let's just say it's mostly Club Stamp/Club Scrap with a bit of stash mixed in. Ephemera was taken from National geographics and an old dictionary.

I've been busy...really busy!

Here's some of what I've been up to lately. Between a retreat in Wsconsin, and some local classes my artistic direction is very confused and out of whack! Here's what's coming out of it: ps-the lady christmas cards were designed by scrapologychicago with Dolly Mama's stamps.

Caardvarks- Beads micro challenge

I had to take some time away from cleaning up to play with my new witchy hats...boo! All paper Club Scrap, stamps Sunday International & Stampendous, polka-dotty tape Heidi Swapp, ink Nick Bantock, Vintage Seed Beeds from my Grandmother's stash!. Click on the image to see a close up. Happy Halloween!

Level 1 Hurricane in Chicago?

Seriously! Thursday pm, about 3:15 as all the school busses had just left the grade schools, Grade 1 Hurricane force winds blew through our neighborhood north of Chicago. The sky and air were white with whipping rain. 100 year old trees were falling like toothpicks, the ground was so waterlogged, as the trees blew, they were uprooted and blown over. It was Armaggedon!

Allison was suppossed to be on the school bus, but I had picked her up. Good thing! An electric pole was torn out of the ground and wires smashed into the bus as the pole lay on top of it. Emily's bus driver tried to take her wheelchair off the bus...moron! I shouted for him to keep her on until things calmed down. Insane!

Crackle....Crackle...Snap...Crash! One of the huge 50 foot Maple Trees which Canopy my house cracked in half and came crashing down on Utility lines. Buzzz....buzzzzz.....the power went out.

OMG what is happening?

The streets were beginning to flood...think Louisianna. It's time to get out of here!

Off to Mom's, where they have lights, electricity, air conditioning and food.

We call my sister who lives nearby, but got hit harder. She's out of town, her basement is flooding, no power and the sump pump doesn't work.......

72 hours later...

We are all safe. Power was restored earlier today,and tomorrow we attempt to go home. No food in the refrigerator or freezer...no fresh fruit...everyone wanting to stock up too. It's crazy, simply insane. Tomorrow I will begin to put together an emergency kit, even if I never use it. When the world is spinning out of control, you don't have time to think, but you have to! You have to stay calm. You have to protect your family. You have to protect yourself. We made it through this one, I don't want to do it again!

1-2-3-Simplicity

1 Embellishment = Fence
2 Patterned papers
3 Flowers

a few cards for Fall

I know July isn't even over, but I got this great paper and wanted to do something with it. All paper is from WeRMemory Keepers (Available at Archiver's for Limited time), Stamps are Club Scrap/Stamp & Rhonna Farrer's"Flurishes v:1", Vintage ribbon from stash, Vintage button, Other supplies Flavia & Tim Holtz Distress inks in Mustard Seed, Tea Dye & Vintage foto. Black is Staz-On.

ATC Art Dolls

Details to follow, I wanted to get the foto up while I had a minute.

Happy 4th of July!!!!!!!

I hope everyone out there had a fun, safe 4th of July!!

Back to the paperplaeing

Life has a way of hitting me upside the head until I've fallen over and forgotten everything I was doing.
Actually, my scanner broke. Since I was unable to upload stuff, I lost motivation to make anything. The good news is that the slump is over! The scanner is still caput, but I've found the time, and a little motivation to crank out some ATCs, and begin 2 really neat board books. I'll post as soon as I get fotos.

an artist at 4 years old

It's been a while since I made a scrapbook layout. Tonight I decided to try out the UHU glue roller,(which is really a two-sided tape mechanism)and play with some pictures I took yesterday of Allison painting her 1st canvas.
Supplies: Stratosphere paper, Paint: Making Memories 'daquiri' & Anita's Acrylic 'steamed milk', Stratosphere UMs, Versamark ink-Amethyst (came with Jr kit) heat embossed with Stampendous 'Kaleidoscope' transparent embossing powder. Fibers & eyelet from stash.
Adhere foto to light blue cardstock, then dark blue, then to 12x12 Fuchsia paper from April's Club Scrap Stratosphere kit. Apply paints, alternately to brayer, roll onto paper in one direction. Refill brayer, repeat. Stamp Phrase to tag cut from light blue cardstock with ink & heat emboss. Punch hole and place eyelet with crop-a-dile, tie fibers through hole, put a dab of UHU roll-on to paper, press down fibers in a jaunty fashion.

a bit of metal tape

I don't remember where I saw this, but somewhere out in cyberspace I learned to use metal tape as a background. I like the industrial look of it, I'll have to experiment with aging it.

anatomy of an ATC Tim Holtz

I adore everyhing this man invents! Here is my ATC offering for Art Techniques ATC group. ATC created from a sheet of aluminum, inked with Tim's Alcohol inks. I added the Harlequin from Stamp Camp with Black Staz-on. Transfered some bingo stuff onto seriously old paper (thrift store find) as well as one of Tim's newest stamps from Stamper's Anonymous. A bit more alcohol inks on some metal thing-a-ma-jiggers. Voilla.

a life in mixed media

This piece is my entry in the April Challenge "wrapped fiber art" for arttechniques. It is my 1st attempt at a few techniques in my journey into the 'dark side': Fiber wrapping, art dolls, found metal collage, and mixed media. I'm really enjoying the freedom that comes from this! I guarantee there will be a whole lot more to come!!
I'm working on a set of shrines...oooohhhh

an exerpt from Lee Iwan Acumulated Experience

I am away from home, unable to create today, but wanted to share one of my favorite thoughts taken from Lee Iwan Accumulated experience. A fantastic blog that makes you think about the world we live in, the the quality to which we live.

Frustration
January 17th, 2007
Frustration can cause bizarre behavior and out of proportion reactions.

When we are frustrated we get angry or apathetic. Our responses become magnified or diminished.

The perfect example of how strange we can react when frustrated is reflected in the “mosquito in bed” scenario.

We lie in bed just dozing off. We have a planned a perfect long nights uninterrupted sleep.

Then the thin piercing buzzing begins, seemingly inside one of our ears. A mosquito.

A quick pass of our hand seems to frighten away the mosquito, and we close our eyes again and drift toward dreamland.

Again the mosquito appears. Exactly in front of our ear. This time we move quickly and with more vigor in order to squash the tiny insect before it can fly away.

This happens several more times.

By now we are angry, frustrated and bent on killing that bug.

Each time we slap at the mosquito we are increasing our velocity and the force behind each swing.

By the 6th or 7th swat all we are really accomplishing is increasing our frustration level and repeatedly hitting ourselves about the head harder and harder.

The apathetic approach calls for us to cover our entire head with the covers and pillow.

This successfully prevents the mosquito from entering our ears and has the added benefit of increasing our body temperature and reducing the oxygen level, eliminating every possibility of breathing normally.

After 10 minutes we throw back the covers gasping for breath, sweating at the temples and find our nemesis in our ear again.

We don’t stop, sit up and turn on the light and track down the tiny bug in a well lighted room. No, our frustration has driven us to absurd behavior, boxing our own ears or suffocating ourselves in the attempt to eliminate a tiny problem from our lives.

Now think about your day at work.

Can you identify your “mosquito” that’s preventing you from fulfilling your real mission?

What the best, most efficient way to find and eliminate your “mosquito”?


Lee has been to or worked with: Russia, China, India, Taiwan, Philippines, South Africa, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Turkey, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Canada, USA, Mexico, Martinique, Barbados, Aruba, American Virgin Islands, Grenada, Panama, British Virgin Islands....and the list keeps on growing. 35 years in the USA and 15 years in Mexico. What's next?

Mosquito image courtesy: desktopexchange.com

a new e-zine & free download

New & Free...anything better? There is a great group of smart ladies out of Australia who have just released a new website: Go-make-art.com and e-zine: Astarte's Mega-Zine, for your artful enjoyment. If you follow this link Astarte Mega-Zine: you'll be able to sign on to their mailing list, and download:
"A three-page "Saucy Ladies" clipart-and-quotes set
Two pages of high resolution butterfly clipart
Issue #1 of Astarte's Mega-Zine - nearly 40 pages long with 17 fantastic articles to inspire you to create art AND to work with creative processes like reflection, goal setting, art journaling and more."
Ooh la la. I used some of the ladies in my nightlight below. They are offering the free-limited time- sign up in hopes you will subscribe, so don't just take and run! Look over the magazine, and you'll realize there are a ton of tips, projects with step-outs, and fotos!! Instant :Inspiration, Instruction and Gratification. Go visit them & sign up!

a saucy nightlight

March ClubStamp project was a nightlight...and here it is. The vintage images came as a bonus for signing up for a new e-zine (details soon to follow), Beads and twill from stash. This was an incredibly easy project! The difficulty was deciding on images and where to put them, then I photocopied the group onto thin paper, attached it and voilla, done!
I did notice the other day at the LSS there were similiar nightlights for sale, but in bright colors.

Caardvarks Stars Challenge

The month kicks off with the theme of stars. MM scrapbook paints in spotlight, asphalt & red wagon on CS cardstock. My mind's eye paper inked with Walnut Distress from Ranger, Flag um Sunday INternational, staples from MM & ribbon from stash. Vintage image.

an art-e-zine

Ok, my life is now complete. What will those wacky girls from the UK come up with next? art-e-zine ! This web zine (like a magazine but it's online) has the most amazing collection of altered artists I have found in a long time. The art is not for the squeemish, and definitely not mundane. It's edgy, bold, funny, sentimental, bright...everything you could imagine and more. If you stop by, you'll get entranced, and lose hours of time there. If you're looking for "paperarts, art stamping, collage, altered books, art journals, assemblages, digital art, polymer clay etc etc in fact any art medium you like playing with and experimenting and being creative, no limits, just enjoying your art" that is how they describe themselves.
The owner of the site asks for a $10 yearly subscription, if you find yourself using the information. a very very small price to pay for a wealth of stuff!
Finally, if you still haven't gotten enough, there is a yahoo group to join for swaps and information...guess where I'm gonna be all day!

a great clip art site

Clipart ETC. is an off shoot of the Florida Educational Technology Clearinghouse, where they house thousands of fantastic clipart images. I'm not talking everyday childish designs, these are detailed black and white drawings and etchings like the flies above. Fantastic to print out, color & collage or use as a focal point for a card. This is not your mother's clip art page. Enjoy!