Funky Feline

Here's another page for a journal swap. Theme - Get Your Funk On! This was fun. I don't often work in bright colors and this got me thinking I need to get some more neon paint. I also discovered my 'newest' favorite art supply - Bingo Daubers! I had one in a box of stuff someone gave me from a garage sale. You know how people get stuff for you whenever they see it for cheap somewhere because they just 'know' you'll find a use for it? I have lots of that kind of stuff and very little of it actually goes to waste! So I'm pretty fortunate to have friends and family that feed my habit! That particular box came from my MIL, I believe - Thanks Char! Anyhow, I had a ball with this page. The colors, the dots, the cat with the glasses, and of course, the fringe! I'm just diggin' it. Hope you are too!

Fun With Masks!

I just got some new Tim Holtz masks so I thought I'd get them out and play a little this weekend. Couple them with the Heidi Swap masks and you can really get some cool effects. I like the grunge of the 'Time" tag. That was a fun one to work on. Any chance I can get to incorporate my favorite Paper Artsy images cannot be denied! This was a take on Tim's November Challenge. The green tag has a much more damask feel to it. I used color washes for the background in a similar manner Tim used the ink pads in his challenge. I
always have a spritz bottle of water mixed with gum arabic and gold pearl-ex handy, so that is what I used for both tags to mix the background colors on the craft sheet. Crackle paint on the grungeboard was highlighted with some rub-n-buff to give it a nice patina. The final tag I did quite some time ago for a colaborative book swap. I used Paper Artsy images again and the butterfly girl came from A time To Stamp. Her wings are done up with Twinkling H2Os for a nice sparkle. These were a fun stress releaser
for an afternoon!

New Tacks For My Office

Since I have an office now - and a place to display some of my 'dalliances' - I decided that I needed to be rid of those pesky push pins. So I opted to make my own artful tacks. I took some dominoes that I had done quite some time ago, pried off the magnet tape - I have a stainless fridge now, so what's the use!? - and epoxied some thumb tacks to the back. I think they put those danged push pins to shame! The dominoes are mostly done with Staz-On and Sharpie markers. There are a couple of Chart-Pak transfers in there, too and some alcohol ink things. Then I started eye-ing the Rummi-Kub tiles and got to work on those. Chalk inks or Stazon for the backgounds. I stamp with Stazon and then color in with chalk pastels or prismacolor pencils. I went to Frenzy Stamper yesterday to pick up my Halloween book pages and got some Tim Holtz Fragments. These things could easily become an addiction! Just put some clear glue like Diamond Glaze, Dimensional Magic or Glossy Accents down on your picture and put the fragment on top of it. Trim the excess paper when it's dry and - Viola! - you have an acrylic tile! It's very easy and very cool looking. I found that I had a bit better luck when I weighted the Fragment after gluing, but either way went well. There's also an embossing powder bug and lizard thrown into the mix for fun. So, my bulletin board should be much happier now. It was thrilled when I took down the faded purple paper and the bear border from the last gal that had my job! That got replaced with a beautiful blue and green batik fabric. I've got to make that place my own!

Happy Anniversary To Me!

Today marks the 17th anniversary of the best day of my life. It's the day I married my fantastic husband. I could never in my wildest dreams have asked for a man that is more compassionate, thoughtful, endearing or loving. He is everything I could ever want and more. He's an awesome father - I often say he's a better mother than I am! He's calm, level-headed and my best friend in the whole world. He knows how I feel about him, but I felt the need to share it with the world today. My public declaration. This picture was taken about 18 years ago, but the love is still there and even stronger than it was then. When I think of us, this is the image that appears in my head.
Love you long time, my love - forever and ever!

K-

Boo Cat!

See?
I told you the swaps were keeping me in the studio! This is Boo Cat. Another Frenzy Stamper swap. We had to do 33 of these puppies! Yikes! That's about maxing me out! Anyhow, I wanted this to have a primitive look - no fancy stuff or tricks - except for the rhinestone eyes! It was another one of those - took much more work than I thought - but it was fun. The background is the credit card technique I credited in an earlier post - it's done on both sides. The cat is done is black gesso. Then I had to go back in with white gesso to put in the mouth, eyes and moon. The rest is pretty self explanatory.


I did learn on very valuable (to me!) trick doing this page. I was concerned about placing the tiny rhinestones in the eyes without getting any glue seepage around the edges. I don't really care for that - looks sloppy to me. I was envisioning placing each rhinestone with my self clamping tweezers and a teeny tiny drop of glue on the end, dropping them, making a mess, etc. YECH! I was dreading that! Then I had an "aha!' moment. I used the rhinestones that are made for clothing embellishments to be set with an iron. They have heat activated glue on the backs. I set them in place and gently heated them with the heat gun. As they warmed up I went in low until the glue melted - it's a visual thing that you get used to seeing after you've done a few. It took me less than 10 minutes to set all 70 eyes! (I did a few extra pages) What a relief that was! I was seriously considering leaving the rhinestones off!

I was planning on pouring some resin today, but we've had the evap cooler running now that the intense heat has backed off. It makes the house so nice and cool. It's much better on the skin and furniture, too. But resin does not like he humidity. It'll never set up right - stays tacky forever. So I'm kind of hopin git cools off around here quickly so I can play with the resin!
I've got another Halloween project in mind, but I'm still waiting for supplies....
I hope they get here soon before I lose interest!

Halloweenchies!

Wow! It's been quite some time since I've posted an update here. Time has become a rare commodity at my house. With two kids each in a new school and a new job after almost 15 years of working strictly from home, I've got some serious juggling to do! Don't get me wrong, I love my job and the kids are doing fantastic - straight A's for both of them the first quarter! But if it's update the blog or clean the bathroom - the bathroom usually wins out! And I'm still running my business to top it all off!



I'm trying to pluck some time here and there to work on my art. It's been a challenge - but one I'm up to! One thing I've done is swaps. I work better with a deadline sometimes! Here you'll see my 'Halloweenchies' for another Frenzy Stamper swap. This came up spur of the moment a few days ago and I've already got them done - yea! I just love Jack - who doesn't? These were really straightforward. I sprayed the orange cardstock with black webbing; punched out the inchies and edged them with an ink pad; then cut jack out and adhered him using mounting tape to give it some dimension. I think he looks great!

I have the inchies from the last swap mounted and framed. I can't take a picture of it because my camera is dead and Chris lost his (bummer!). It's too big to fit on the scanner, but as soon as I can get a good picture of it, I'll post. It looks fantastic!

More Inchies!

I finished my inchies for the most recent Frenzy Stamper swap. I can hardly believe I had time! I got two sets done before I started working and had three to finish up after. I realize that most people work full time, so I'm not trying to whine by any means. It's just quite a bit of an adjustment for me. I worked 106 hours in the first two weeks, so I was bushed! Anyway, these three sets are the last of them. One set is circles and polka dots. Another is metal. I punched a fleur de lis, mounted it on the inchie, covered it with aluminum tape, coated it with india ink, then lightly sanded the raised edges. The last set is the 'anything goes' set. I cut the hearts from the leftover phone book pages from my last journal swap. I really like this one.

New Job!

Well, I started a new job about two weeks ago. I'm now the Administrative Assistant at my kids' old elementary school. I've put in a ton of hours the last two weeks trying to learn the job and my responsibilities. It's really quite a bit, but I'm looking forward to it. It's been quite some time since I've had to get up and go to a job every morning, but I like it. It's still hard to get anything done when I get home, but that will come with time - and necessity! The schedule works really well for our family. I have close to the same schedule as the kids with the exception of about 4 weeks in the summer that they have off that I don't. They're old enough now that that's not a huge problem. Other than that, I have pretty much the same time off as they do - not too many jobs can give me that! My consulting and window covering business takes place almost exclusively on the weekends and evenings, so it doesn't conflict with KCK Designs either. So it's a win, win for everyone! The only thing that I think may suffer is time for art - BOO! I just have to make the time becasue it makes me happy. And when Mom's happy - everybody's happy!!!!!!

Inchies!

Inchies are all the rage right now and I've just jumped into the fray! I've got to get 5 sets done by the first of August - no sweat! These are the neatest little pieces of art going! Each one is a 1" square and must be original - no copies - and have at least two layers to them. I thought it would be a PITA to work this small, but it's actually really fun! Here are my first two sets - Black and White and 'Word.' For B&W I used a zettiology stamp - Maddie calls this one "Fat Little Bee Man." The dots are done with a Sharpie poster paint pen. For Inspire, I did a Simple Solution background with pink and yellow pear ex, stamped the word and added a square brad. It's simple, but pretty.

Fabric 2 x 2's

This is my first foray into anything art related using fabric. It was a real stretch for me which is odd considering the amount of time I've spent sewing during my life. I've made all kinds of clothes - including jeans, suits & heavy coats! I spent the beginning of the summer making new cushions for all of my patio furniture, and there's a lot of it! I've sewed intricate window coverings for myself and clients. Yet these little 2 x 2 pieces of fabric had me on the run. I have no idea why I was so intimidated. They aren't fantastic by any means, but it got me using my machine for something other than a utilitarian purpose and I LOVED it! I have 6 sewing machines ( yes, six!) - they are mostly vintage Singers. But I've borrowed the whole set of decorative stitch cams from my brother - we have a sewing machine thing in our family! - and I'm planning on playing with those as soon as I can. I already have a wall hanging design in mind for my next fabric project!

4th of July

Well, we headed up to the Stoneman Lake area for the 4th. This is my favorite place to camp in the state. It's not too far and the forest is fantastic! We had a bit of light rain a few days, HAIL on one - but I loved it! - and general good camping weather the rest of the time. The rain is no issue since it soaks in pretty quickly and goes a long way toward keeping the dust down. We went on some great Ranger rides, but we broke the other strut - the first one went on the last trip to Crown King! Luckily, Chris took a jaunt down to Prescott Valley and picked up a new one so we weren't without our 4-wheeling for the rest of the trip.



Things were pretty low-key, but I couldn't go without my art bag! I just got a new order of Zettiology stamps so I had to take them along to trim and get them in my binders. Well, if you're going to take stamps, you'd better bring along the rest of the acoutrements! So I played with some post cards. I'm sure the letter carriers like to have some eye candy pass through their hands every now and then! I only took a black pad, my prismacolor pencils and my peerless watercolor leaves. It was actually nice not to have too much to choose from! I love the bright colors of the peerless watercolors and I'm digging how easy it is to shade with them. I really like the Dr. Ph Martins, too, but didn't bring those along. So here are a few of my playthings. I didn't finish the background on one yet, but that's coming. The kids (5 of them!) all got into the fray and made more postcards than I ever would have thought! My stamp binders sure got a workout! But if they're respectful of my things, I have no problems with the kids diving in, too. They had a ball and were very proud of their creations. After looking at these, I'm not so sure they will actually make it into the mail. I might just have to put together a Zetti Journal. I just love the artful oddness of it all...

Metal 2x2's

Another swap in the can so to speak! This one was for MMArtFriends again. There's always a good swap going on in that group and the quality of what you receive is good. This one had to be 2" x 2", made of metal and have a metal focal point. I mostly used this great 12 x 12 sheet from Provocraft that I had gotten eons ago. It's stamped with dots - very cool. I used some alcohol inks, gesso and koh-i-noor inks for coloring. You get a nice pattern when you sand off the dots. The rest is pretty self explanatory. The one in the upper right is a slide mount done with metal tape, embossed and distressed. I thought the 'window' was perfect for hanging a charm!

Four

Well, I just finished up another swap for the Frenzy Stamper number book swap. This one has 4 x 6 pages and ranges from 1-25. Again, the concept for this one took much more time to execute than I had planned on, but the outcome is exactly what I had envisioned. That alone is a huge accomplishment for me! To have something come out just as the mind's eye sees it? Doesn't happen too often at my house! LOL! The picture doesn't quite do it justice. The focal point is heat patina'd copper mesh layered onto a blue patina copper mesh background. It's affixed with rusted staples which compliment the rusted washers. Look closely, the background is done out of phone book pages. And just think, I did 27 of these puppies! ARGH! Anyway, I'm waiting for Maddie to finish up her pages (my little girl is doing her first swap!) and then I'll send them in. I don't want to be late getting to the store (I was last time) and get disqualified. That darned freeway construction caused me to miss many of my fellow swappers! Luckily, I sent my pages in early so I wasn't left out. I hope this is an enhancement to the book. I've already seen the covers on-line at www.mizz-frizz.blogspot.com and they're great! I can't wait to see what else comes in for this one!

IMPORTANT! Orphaned Works Legislation

There are some really disturbing things going on in Congress right now that can affect all of us who post any pictures on the internet, etc. If the legislation passes, you no longer will own the copyright to your own work at the moment of creation. You will have to register it with clearing-house type companies to have a copyright. And even that will not prevent someone from stating that it is orphaned and use it as their own or even registering it themselves. Who would police such a thing? I don't understand why this is even a consideration. It seems to me that the only people this will benefit are the registrars - of course it would be a fee-based registration process - and people who want to use other's artwork without paying for the right to do so. Imagine what a hassle it would be to register everything you produce! This makes me so mad that my head could spin right around a la Linda Blair! But I will not rant excessively here. Please check out the links below for more information. Go to the petition and sign it. Write to your Congressman and Senators. Tell them that this is not acceptable. It is another way our government is stripping our rights one by one. This legislation has been brought up before and defeated. They keep rewriting it and resubmitting it. And this time, some shady behind closed doors things are happening. Please, please educate yourselves and stand up for the rights of artists, crafters, and creators everywhere! Do you enjoy art blog surfing? Imagine no pictures for fear of theft of creative works. Imagine NO EYE CANDY for inspiration. It's a travesty. We must band together and be heard. Please do your part. Let everyone know about this. We can prevail if we are loud enough and strong enough. Thank you.

Sign the petition here - please use correct info - it must be verifiable.
http://www.petitiononline.com/Stop2913/petition.html

Learn more about the Orhaned WOrks Act here:
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

My Little Punk Rocker

Maddie, my daughter, was invited to a costume party. Well, she had the option of dressing in Hawaiian garb, 80's getup, or punk rock. Well we did the punk thing and she looked so cute! She didn't look like herself at all, but we had fun putting it all together. I couldn't get her to wear safety pins in her ears though. "Just because you did it, Mom, doesn't mean it's not gross!" Well, she's got a point there! We found a really fun shirt that had a license plate on it that says BAD GIRL, a cut up and frayed jean jacket, black leggins, flame job hightops and a ferocious belt! Then add the pancake makeup with heavy eyes and lips and the funky hair and she was good to go! I think she looked awesome, but you can judge that one for yourself!

Walking Toward Paradise...

This canvas I did for a friend for her birthday. I hope that she likes it. When I was making it, the Robert Plant song of the same name just kept running through my head, so that stuck as the title. Sometimes what I think is pretty neat, the rest of the world seems to wrinkle their nose at. It's nice to have the on-line art community to share with. There's no judgment, or questioning looks - ha ha! I can't even see you! Or the big one, "So what are you going to do with thaaaaaat?" (tilted head and curled lip) Ugh! I despise that question! Many of my friends and acquaintances don't know how I have the time or wonder why I'm not doing something more productive. For me, art IS productive. It feeds the creative need in me, even if it's not gallery quality stuff. I don't care. Maybe someday it will be, but for now, it's a journey. I love to learn and try new techniques and see where it leads. I started sewing at around 11 and did that for many many years. Used to make most of my own clothes. Not anymore! I also used to make soap, and that fed my creative need. Most people don't question soap making because you have a tangible and useful product when you're done - especially after they used it! If you've never tried a good quality handmade soap - you don't know what you're missing!

But anyway, she's walking toward paradise. I'm not a mall shopper, but this gal is. She's all done up and headed for Nordie's! That's HER paradise! Just send me to the art store - that's MY paradise!

Altered Photos

These are some altered photos I've done. I learned the techniques from Karen Michel. She's a fabulous and giving artist - very down to earth. And she has a style that I really connect with. The best thing about these is that you can hardly make a mistake and there are many happy accidents! Enjoy!

Memorial Day Camping

Well, the kids got out of school and our plan was to take the 5th wheel and head up to Stoneman Lake in the Coconino forest (just south of Flagstaff) as we always do this time of year. We'd been having some unseasonably cold weather as of late and it was snowing up there! Needles to say, we bowed out of that one really fast. I had ENOUGH snow growing up in Upstate New York!

So we opted to head north about 45 minutes and camp behind Lake Pleasant. It's a great camping area that has loads of trails to explore in the Ranger. It's the area that we stage in to head up to Crown King. And it doesn't feel like we're making a mortgage payment to put gas in the truck to get there either!

Of course I came down with a ridiculous head cold the first day, but I toughed it out and still managed to have a blast. Two other families came with us: the DeHeers and the Gillespie/Jensens. We went on some great trail rides, did some target shooting and found a trail that takes us right down to the lake on the far side of 'Party Cove.' It's been a few years since we've had a boat, but Party Cove will forever be etched in my memory banks! The kids braved the icy depths and went swimming. I sat firmly on the shore and watched! It was just a nice relaxing 4 days off and a great way to kick off the summer. I love exploring in the desert and unfortunately we're cut off for the next several months because it's too hot to be out there. Hopefully the next camping trip we'll be able to retire to the forest where it's cool!

Oh! Check this out! One of the boys was riding his dirt bike out of camp and came across this...


A gila monster! YIKES! It was about 50-60 yards from our camp! They're protected - not that we would have done anything to it anyway - but they're poisonous, too! It kinda freaked me out, but the kids thought it was soooooo cooooollll!!!!

Crown King

Well, we headed to a friend's 25th and final (?) pig roast in Crown King last weekend. We went 4-wheeling up the back side of the mountain with some friends. I takes about 4+ hours with all the breaks, pit stops and looky-looing we do. The desert was in bloom and I took some great pictures. Unfortunately, I think the CCD in the camera has had enough 4-wheeling and only a few of the pictures came out in focus. What a shame! But here are a few. The prickly pear cacti were blooming all over the place and the other is a purple thistle. The saguaros are getting ready to burst their flowers, too - May is definitely their month!

We loaded all of our camping gear onto the ranger and headed up the mountain from behind Lake Pleasant. Yes, we took a tent! I haven't tent camped in years! I love this ride, though. It's rough at some spots - definitely rougher than when we went in March! - but the scenery is fantastic!~ You start out in high desert behind the lake and progress up into the forest pines until you're near the top of the mountain. We go through Ora Belle, which is an old 1800's mining community. Unfortunately, there's not much there anymore except the water towers, piping and foundations of a few buildings. At some point we're going to explore the area on foot. I'm sure we'll find more interesting things off the 'beaten path.' The Saloon that used to be in Ora Belle was moved to Crown King and now does a great business and has a cafe inside. It's quite a historic and charming building. The trails we take are the old wagon trails that were used to travel between Ora Belle and Crown King during their hay day. The stonework that was laid to protect the trails from sliding down the mountain is very impressive!

About 10 miles before we got to the pig roast, we broke a shock on the Ranger. We limped it into the camp ground and proceeded to join the party. It was a lot of fun and there were a ton of people there! Tom Oliver provided the entertainment and everyone enjoyed themselves. It got down into the 20's during the night. No, that's not a typo! It was pretty chilly, but we managed to stay warm and make it through the night. Then it warmed up straight away in the morning and it was shorts weather! Crazy!

We left the Ranger at a friend's place and headed back down the mountain with our riding buddies. Chris went right back up the front way and picked it up that night. What a long day for him. He didn't get back home until around 11 at night! Now we're waiting for the new shock to arrive because we have another camping trip - 5th wheel, no tent! - planned for next week when the kids get out of school. Keeping my fingers crossed that it arrives in time.....

Mixed Media Art Group Has Disappeared

Unfortunately the Mixed Media Art Yahoo Group has gone into the big yahoo! black hole. It went missing about 2 weeks ago and yahoo! can't do anything to get it back for Belinda - the owner. Consequently, she has set up a new group to take it's place http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mmartfriends/.
The art, techniques and swaps that took place on the old group were great, and this group promises to be just as good. There are several great swaps going on right now. So hop on over there and join up! You won't be disappointed!

Ancestor Pendant

This is one of my first soldered pieces. You can tell if you look closely! My soldering has definitely improved. But this pendant is dear to my heart. One side has a picture of my grandfather when he was quite young. I'd say early 20's. He was absolutely the dearest man I have ever met. He passed several years ago at the ripe age of 93. He lived long and well, and was loved by many. The other side is my great grandmother - my grandmother's mother. We called her Bopchi - I'm certain that is NOT how it's spelled, but that's how it sounded! It means 'Grandmother' in Polish. She was a very sweet woman. She spoke very little English, but we still managed to communicate and there was never any doubt about the love that was between us. She passed when I was 12 and she was in her 80's. It was quite common when I was growing up to hear lots of conversations taking place in Polish. I never learned - but I wish I had. I can count to almost ten and know a few words, but that's it. What a shame. I'm not a scrap booker - sometimes I wish I was. I envy people who have all those glorious books that document their lives and the lives of those around them. But this was my little bit of scrap booking that day. It preserves these two remarkable people in a pendant that lies close to my heart as they do. I always get comments on this piece when I wear it.

Itty Bitty With Wings Book

Yesterday I picked up my Itty Bitty With Wings book swap pages. The swap was done through a fantastic local store Frenzy Stamper. They were great! Traffic was bad, so I arrived about a half hour after they started. I got to meet a few of the participants, but I was hoping to meet more. The swap didn't fill and not everyone got their pages to the store on time, so it wasn't a full 25 pages. Even so, it made a substantial book! So may different styles and takes on a theme. Our youngest swapper was 10 years old - and the page was fabulous! Now Maddie wants to get in on the next one!

I put it together tonight with the Bind-It-All. It's the first time I've used it. I bought it in January as a birthday present to me. That thing works like a charm! I have chunky book from a few years ago that I never bound - you can bet I'll get after that one with this little machine! I watched Debbie use it yesterday and just followed along with what she did. It was a snap. I guess I'll take a look at the DVD to see what else they say about it. But it's easy to use and does a great job. The binding coils make it really easy to embellish the spine. It only took me about 15 minutes to complete the spine.

Journal & Charm Swaps Received!

I got my 4 x 6 journal swap in the mail yesterday! Woo Hoo! these are beautiful pages! They're much more 'fabricy' than mine. I didn't use too much, but the ones that arrived use fabric as the base and they are all nicely stitched and have inclusions. I guess I'd better get one of my six sewing machines out! Truly, I'm inspired to get going with some fabric and decorative stitching now. Thanks for the great artwork!

My charms arrived yesterday, too! These are amazing! I got 20 back and they all have their own draw. Some are fabric. S0me are beaded. Some are found objects. They're just gorgeous! I can't decide if I actually will make something of these or just display them. A lot of them came on display cards and I hate to remove them and lose their creator info. Oh well, I have time to decide.

Thanks to everyone who participated in these swaps - the work is beautiful. Sometimes it's a crap shoot with a swap, but I'm very pleased with what I received.

Stamped Molding Paste Backgrounds

This is a technique I'm very fond of. I love to spread molding paste around on things and dry brush it, but this lends itself to a much more rich look. It's really quite easy. I apply the molding paste to whatever substrate I'm working on. I most often use my finger, but other tools give a nice effect, too! Don't apply the paste too thickly or your stamp will sink in and you won't get a good impression. It makes a mess on your stamp and your piece. Let the molding paste skin over. Then just impress your stamp, remove it and clean it right away. Let the whole thing dry well and proceed with your project! You can get a lot of great looks with this technique!

Itty Bitty With Wings - Be Free

Another swap! Yes, I've been swapping a bit here lately! I don't have any more in the pipeline after this one though. I've never done an itty bitty before but I'm fond of the 3" format. I'm more inclined to do a larger original work swap if the format is small like this. The theme was 'wings' so this was what I came up with. I used the Industria technique from the recent article in Somerset Studio for the background. What a great effect! The hearts are done with molding paste and acrylics. Then German scrap for the wings. The image is from Paper Artsy and i embossed it on both side with Tim Holtz's distressed emmbossing powder - black soot. That powder look fabulous with the industria technique! I used mostly pretty heavy chipboard which allowed me to use my metal stamps for the lettering. That gave it a more 'metal' feel to me.

Charm Swap

I recently finished a charm swap on the Mixed Media Arts group. It was really fun! I can't wait to see what comes back from this one! The first batch was pretty labor intensive, but they came out great. The second batch went together more quickly but aren't as eye catching. Still, I think they'd be a nice addition to any charm bracelet. One from each batch will go into a bracelet that will be submitted to LK Ludwig's call for collaborative efforts.

Beeswax Collage

This is a pair I did a while ago, but they're some of my favorites. They're done on 5 x 7 canvases. The background was a page from a vintage ledger. I love how the wax made it somewhat translucent and the text is visible from the backside through the paper. I enjoy how the pair plays off positive and negative space. I started out doing just the girl and the other one was a very happy accident! I love the beeswax from Crockett's Honey. They're local to me and it smells awesome! It's great in handmade lip balms as well! The pieces are edged in a vintage eyelet twill tape. I have used this very sparingly in the past because it was quite a find, but now I see you can buy it new at several places. So I guess it's time to break it out and use it up! It's cotton though, and takes coloring quite nicely - I'll have to check on the new stuff and make sure it isn't synthetic. It might be time to break out that wax pot again!

Journal Swap

I've been doing a few swaps lately and it's been a great motivator. I seem to get more done when I have a deadline. I recently sent off 6 pages for a journal swap on the Mixed Media Yahoo Group. They had to be 4 x 6 with paint, paper, metal and fabric on them. I had a whole set of backgrounds done and then I scrapped them all and started over! I like the backgrounds, but they just didn't jell with what else I had in mind. So, I'll use them for something else. This was a nice manageable number of pages. When it gets up around 40 pages or so for fat books - I can't do that. I could just slit my throat after doing 40 of the same thing! LOL! That gets too boring and tedious for me. I like the lower number of items. The pages didn't have to be the same for this swap either, so I did each one differently. That was a nice change as well. One page is being sent off in a collaborative to Cloth Paper Scissors. It would be nice to be published. We'll see how it works out. Below are the other pages I submitted for swapping. Can't show the one being sent in for submission though.

This lizard was fun. I found this great batik fabric and I just had to do an embossing powder lizard to go with it. I like the contrast of the glitzy lizard and the rusty metal.


This turquoise and copper background was done using Kelsey's Credit Card Technique. It's fun, easy and produced great results! I just LOVE these little pieces of rusty metal that I have. I keep my eye out for them everywhere we go! The bead came from Barbara Matthiessen. I really hated to part with it, but it was just perfect for this page!

The beaded scroll technique I learned from Barbara. It's fun to do and you can't really screw this up! I have all sorts of ideas for variations on this technique and the fabric beads. This page has some heft to it but it's very tactile.

Mageia is a favorite or mine. First off, I really love some of those Paper Artsy images. And being a 'Fall,' this settles into my preferred color scheme. Sometimes it's really hard to get me away from the fall colors. That's definitely my comfort zone. This was done with techniques I learned from Bernie Berlin. It's a great look!

Faith just came together out of nowhere. As I post these, I see that there are some themes running though them. And I thought they were all different! LOL! Like I said, LOVE the rusty metal, but it seems I've got a bondage thing going on here, too! Poor little worry doll. All trussed up with no one to save her. I guess she'll just have to have a little faith...