Everything But the Kitchen Sink

Etsy Shop: Faerie Acres Now Open For Business

2009-08-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally took the plunge and opened my very own Etsy Shop! I am working on de-stashing and have created card kits for sale. I am working on scrapbook kits and also kicking around the idea of custom orders for fabric books. I'll try to keep you posted!
If you go to April's blog, she posts card sketches from Unscripted Sketches that would be a great way to use the items in the card kits!

Pics from Virginia

2009-08-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

Today I was able to upload some pics from my summer in Virginia; unlike here in AZ in so many ways: rain, green foliage, wild animals, cool weather, open windows at night, etc. After prepping the house Wednesday, we left in this weather:

The view from our front door.....this is why it's called the Blue Ridge! It actually rained for most of the first two days on the road until we hit Texas and New Mexico.
Here are some of our neighbors:

This Eastern Hognose showed up one of the last days we were at the house. It was about 4 feet long, harmless but interesting.
There is a farm at the back of our property through the woods where there are goats, donkeys, horses, cows, and a mule. We could hear the donkeys braying through the night and quite often the goats chimed in! I love this picture of the goat peeking around the building as if saying: "What's up?"

On one of the larger roads into the next town there was a mare and her colt. This is one of the earliest pictures where the colt is actually standing! Many times we would drive by and she/he would be laying down (looking dead!) resting from whatever it is that tires little horsies out!

Needless to say there were quite a few white-tailed deer roaming around. It took many shots to get some good pictures of them.......... I missed it the one morning there were six including a buck with a rack, that's what I get for sleeping late! This doe and her fawn walked right under the elevated porch while Dave was standing there the afternoon before we left.

Tomorrow I will post some of the things I made during the summer!

Call Me "Crazy"

2009-08-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

I was looking through some "stuff" in one of my art rooms and found a Crazy Quilt Lesson from here and sat for a while just looking at Annie's crazy quilts, samplers, and stitches. This is one thing I want to learn to do in the next year. My mother made a crazy quilt for my sister and I love looking at it when I visit. Jane made some mini crazy quilt pages for a swap and I would love to practice embroidery stitches and learn some new ones!

Back in the Heat.... Boo! Blah! Yuck!

2009-07-31T16:01:00.001-07:00

Well......okay........I can't seem to get my photos uploaded, so will post some later. We arrived back in the heat this morning so I can start my 8th grade language arts position in the next week. I am excited to be back with the kids, but not here in the desert and heat. I miss Virginia already. I got used to sitting on the porch and listening to nature (not neighbors, trains, traffic, and F-16s) and watching the deer wander around eating grass. It was so nice there that I didn't use either heat or air conditioning and slept with the window open almost every night, even when it rained! I forgot how much I hate being cooped up with artificial air for most of the year.
I got to travel to NY state and visit with my sister, her family and my mother for almost a week. Had a great time (even despite the water incident!) and can't wait until we are back East permanently next year and spend more quality time with the family!
I got pretty busy with Facebook and hope to use it more now that I have DSL rather than dial-up so look for me there and ask me to be your friend!
Bad news today, I found 0ut that Art Fiber Fest (which I LOVED) will be no longer. I am SO glad that Jane and I got to experience it at least once. Thank you, Teesha!
Pizza and wings at April's house in a little bit..... yum!

Art Fiber Fest

2009-06-20T05:49:00.000-07:00

ONLY FOUR MORE DAYS UNTIL ART FIBER FEST! Wahoo! Flying to Portland, OR this Wednesday to attend AFF. I am taking classes with Ruth Rae and Alisa Burke. Right now I am finishing up a tote bag to take on the plane with me, still trying to figure the best way to take my sewing machine, buying some "more packable" clothes that don't have stains (I did not bring any decent clothes with me to the woods!), and generally getting excited about my first time at AFF!
My dial up isn't too bad at uploading pics, so I have a sneak peek at a "secret project" I worked on and will be taking with me to Portland. On the velvet ribbon is my first attempt at herringbone stitch (with perle cotton):

VACATION!

2009-06-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

My posts will be VERY sparse for the next couple of months and definitely no pictures.... I am in VA for the summer and we only have dial-up here. I have been making lots of good stuff and taking lots of walks. I have many pictures of flowers, trees, mules, etc., but won't be able to post them until I have DSL again....
Ah, the cool weather and green trees! And... April... I saw bluejays and today a cardinal!

Kelly Kilmer -- Fairy book

2009-05-18T19:02:00.001-07:00

I attended Kelly's "Reclaimed: An Altered Artist's Journal" class yesterday at Frenzy Stamper here in Scottsdale. We spent most of the morning painting pages to go in our gutted books. I took a copy of "The Queen's Physician" which I only bought at the thrift store because it had queen in the title, thinking I would play off the queen theme. Even saved the spine to use in the book, which didn't happen. I was looking through some of April's collage materials when I saw the fairy picture which happened to be the same color scheme as my book and painted canvas spine. I got two signatures sewn in and a little bit of decoration on a few pages before we had to leave, but I really wanted to do some more to the book so I could take it to school and show the kids, they LOVE to look at my stuff! It gives me incentive to keep plugging away on my projects. So I added a dragonfly charm to the front along with some wool felted beads, the front is not finished, but getting there.

I fixed my "upside down" pocket accident. The pocket holds my ticket from So You Think You Can Dance show which was on my birthday last year:

I also cut Alice out of my Alice in Wonderland book as an homage to the Jabberwocky poem we worked on in Reader's Theater, added some color and some wings so she can escape the JubJub bird and mome raths:

And cut out some puppies from my puppy book that I passed around at class because I love puppies:

And, Kelly, if you're out there: I licked the brush when I was finished!

Thank you Cards

2009-05-16T19:14:00.000-07:00

The first week in May was Teacher Appreciation Week and I always have my students write letters to a teacher in appreciation. I received quite a few from them myself so I decided that they would all receive from me an artsy card to thank them for their kind words. I found some embossed pink thank you cards at Goodwill last weekend and had to run back for some more when I counted the letters and realized I needed closer to 40 than the 20 that comes in each box. For the cards themselves I sewed scraps of fabric on the edges:

For the envelopes I blew black ink to decorate them:

I hope the kids like them!

Memo Book and Ink

2009-05-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

First I need to say WAHOO to Jane whose journal is featured on the upcoming issue of Sew Somerset. I am so psyched for her! Maybe I'll even get an autographed copy! LOL Go check it out and buy it when it comes out next month!
My sister has been sending me good junk from NY since my trip out in Oct. and here is a memo pad I made to thank her. In the last box she sent there was a Scrabble board with a note attached that hinted she would like it used for a book, so here it is! I sewed some of my handpainted canvas to a piece of cereal box, added a transparency and some hand dyed trim for the front. The pages are recycled odds and ends (some she sent me, like menus, calendars, etc.) including some cardstock with hand dyed fabric sewn on.

The back is simply a piece of the Scrabble board with her name in tiles. I used the Letter Distribution section of the game just because I think it's cool! I just mailed it out today, so she should be receiving it early next week:

I'm too cheap to buy straws so I saved my Starbucks straw from yesterday and played with my inks. I have been itching to blow the ink around like I've seen in several tutorials so I grabbed a piece of canvas paper and used black, turquoise, pink, bright orange, burnt umber, and black. I also used transparent yellow, but it was too light and didn't show up as well as the darker colors. Hmm... maybe on some dark cardstock?
I'm loving the effect and am thinking of using some of it in the journal I am working on:

Journal in Progress

2009-05-05T18:08:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a journal/book/whatever on and off when the mood strikes for several months now. I used a paint sample booklet for the cover base and sewed hand painted canvas to the two pieces. I used assorted scrapbook type cardstock/paper, fabric, tablecloth, take out bag, barf bag from the airline for the pages. I sewed on many before adding the signatures to the covers. I dyed (of course!) really wide twill tape, doubled it with interfacing in between for the spine. I sewed large beads also to the spine.
Here is a close up of part of the front cover. You can't see the dragonfly transparency at the top which is sewed on over tulle. I added crown tape, Dick and Jane (Look) word for a tab, a Dog playing card wrapped in black tulle and embellished with brads, fabric, and stitches. I connected chain and charms from the spine to the Dog card:

One of the pages is a piece of tablecloth that I used to have on one of those outdated round tables. To the edge I sewed fabric and then stapled a photo of my sisters, my brother, and I from my trip to NY last October. You can see the back of the star flower I sewed on a previous page:

I just love the photo I took in Hawaii a couple of years ago of a sign forbidding rock piles in the Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island with a pile of rocks underneath. I hand sewed the photo to the page and wrote Irony with a Sharpie poster paint pen:

This page just shows random pieces of scrap fabric sewed to the page:

And finally the back cover with a pilfered goodie from Jane's trash (my favorite place to "shop"), the heart of muslin which is sewn on and decorated with another brad:

Yesterday I took the book in to show my seventh graders and today Kaitlyn started her own book (after rooting through our recycle box!) out of "junk" and "stuff." LOVE IT!

Calling all Alisa Burke fans!

2009-05-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

If you check out Alisa's blog you will find a link to here and some fab give aways, including a clutch by Alisa.

Unscripted Sketch #4

2009-05-02T13:38:00.001-07:00

This is my version of the Unscripted Sketch #4:

I painted a piece(9X12) of canvas paper, stenciled the black "lace" at the bottom center, painted the rectangles with lumiere, stamped them and then outlined both with black sharpie and decorative stitching. I sewed dyed lace and snaps and then bordered the piece with calico fabric. I added rubons.

Orange you glad?

2009-04-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, bad puns aside............. the next Rolodex cards I need to work on for Penney-Jane are orange themed. Everyone is using a different color/shade/tint so when we are finished we have a virtual rainbow in our Rolodex! What fun! Last night I started gathering whatever I had in paper and fabric for orange and since it is not my favorite color (I chose it for a challenge), there wasn't much so I threw it on my table. The burst of orange was so bright I wanted to take a picture of it, but then I thought why not add other items to it first? So, here is orange.....

and orange.........

and a closeup of orange.........

I plan on using these photos for backgrounds. Now I want to see if I can come up with some other color photos! Probably better do the Rolodex cards first since the materials are now all over my table!

Dragonfly (what else?)

2009-04-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

I started this ......... piece........for lack of a better description (no, I don't know what I am going to do with it!?) Saturday afternoon after our foray to SAS and Saver's. I am only focusing on the dragonfly that I made last night, because I have been looking for "me" in my art and I love this dragonfly........I will use it quite often in different sizes from now on. The next item I want to attempt is some sort of mixed media fairy......... speaking of fairies, if you know of a good Michael's here in the Phoenix area that has the full collection of their new dollar stamps, fairy princess series, let me or April know............

Wahoo!!!

2009-04-27T17:54:00.001-07:00

I passed the Middle School Language Arts AEPA (Arizona Educator Professional Assessment?) which means that I am officially "highly qualified" according to No Child Left Behind. Man, that test was difficult, I didn't study for it and REALLY did not think I passed............
Wahoo!

Metal Rolodex

2009-04-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

I used the same debossing and alcohol ink technique that I used on my green journal to alter May's rolodex cards for Penney-Jane' s yearlong rolodex swaps. I added brads, fibers, and random charms from my collection. Here are Jane's, April's, and my cards:

I spent yesterday shopping with April and Jane, April made us go to SAS..........man, that twisted arm hurts today! Underneath the cards is a napkin I picked up at Saver's thrift store and then dyed.......geesh, she made us go there, too! The things I do for my family! ROFLMAO

Messy Hands

2009-04-20T19:21:00.001-07:00

After dinner this evening I showed April how to scrape paint using a technique from Mary Todd Beam's The Creative Edge book. Of course, once we scraped the paint I had to get my hands into the paint left on the spoons, wouldn't want to waste any paint would we? I used my "less messy" hand to corral the camera and take a picture of our hands post-painting:

.... and here are two of the backgrounds we painted:

Pencil Shavings and a Zentangle Mandala

2009-04-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

I have formed a group of 7th graders at my school to create a Teen Zine. We meet after school Friday and work on art, poetry, photographing stuff, etc. By the end of the school year we will publish our own Wicked Zine. The backgrounds and poetry so far are amazing and I am excited about this project! Our fabulous art teacher, Karen, has been graciously assisting us in this endeavor and last week I introduced her to zentangles. We started a mandala together which she worked on this past week while I was typing poetry into the computer................

Earlier in the day I was sharpening my pink fuzzy pencil, my 2nd favorite pencil next to my mechanical pencil, with my favorite sharpener. I was sharpening it onto a piece of paper on my desk to then throw the shavings into the trash when I realized how colorful and artistic the shavings actually looked! So I saved them and had my Teen Zine crew sharpen the colored pencils onto the paper as we went along and here is just one of the pics I took............

I like this picture because it has the large curly shaving in it. I took many close-ups of different sections of the shavings thinking they would make colorful backgrounds. You never know what will strike you as beautiful!

Yet another kitty

2009-04-19T08:18:00.001-07:00

This is another kitty who found our back yard and my lap! She is not quite full grown and I think she is ADHD.............she hung around for quite awhile not quite settling, but roaming. It was difficult actually getting a clear pic of her because she wouldn't hold still in any one spot for long. She obviously has a home because she is clean and well-fed (unlike the orange tabby male who visits us).

WOW

2009-04-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

This month's chunky book swap over at Penney-Jane Mixed Media Art is Altered Cards and the first swap I am hosting. Not only did I receive Karen's wonderful cabinet cards in the mail Friday, but she sent me the most AMAZING necklace ever! I have secretly longed to possess a wire wrapped bird's nest and now I have one.........it is fabuloso and I can't wait to wear it to work Tuesday. Thank you, Karen!!

New Journal

2009-04-15T16:32:00.001-07:00

I collect (ahem.....among many other things) craft/art books. One that I've had for a little while now is Creative Awakenings by Sheri Gaynor. In this book the first project is to deboss aluminum for the cover of a Book of Dreams Journal. Several weeks ago I sent for and received the aluminum and tools I needed. It has taken me this long to figure out the process and finished the journal covers today.
The front cover:

the inside of the covers: some glossy cardstock I scraped with paint on one of my "painting" days:

This and That

2009-04-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

I have been working on odds and ends, finishing up some swaps, playing with paint, etc., etc. lately. I got my Penney-Jane Sewing Chunky Book pages back the other day and bound them with book rings. This cover should look familiar and here it is bound with Gina's fabulous hand crocheted lace peeking from the edge of her page.

Here are all 20 pages in their chunkiness from the top:

I wouldn't have enough room to show all of my favorite pages so I just chose Jane's to showcase here.

I've been trying to doodle more and chose some heavier fashion pages from an old magazine. I first painted over all but the face and doodled over the paint, but it kept gumming up my Sharpies so I tried swiping gel medium over the paint and Voila! Much better! This is one of the three that I actually liked:

I also watched a short video on Traci Bautista's blog which showed painting with just one color and it inspired me to create these two background pages (for what? I don't know, I just like them!):

Altered Index Cards

2009-04-07T18:01:00.000-07:00

I finally finished my altered index dividers for the Altered Card swap over at Penney-Jane. I am hostessing this swap which is due in the next couple of weeks. The index dividers were an ugly faded orange so I swiped paint over them as a base layer, then painted white through sequin waste, stenciled green, added odd rub-ons, glued on a piece of resin paper from either Charlie and the Chocolate Factory pages or Lemony Snicket pages, then stamped text over the entire card. I layered white and black duck tape and silver tape over the back. The three shown are the ones made for me (7), Jane (23), and April (14).

Play Date with Miranda

2009-04-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I kidnapped Miranda to spend the afternoon with me sans her boys. We ate at Castillo's, a hole-in-the-wall Mexican food place around the corner. Then we shopped at the thrift store. I found tons of lace to dye and some wooden thread spools, Miranda found some VHS movies for her kiddos. Then I forced her to take my clothes, games, cards, etc. from my house! Ha ha! I am trying to lighten our load so that we don't take stuff we don't need in Virginia. Man, twisting her arm was hard work....... anyway, she raided my "stuff" to make a book in which she can write down the wacky and silly things her sons, Edan and Troy, say so she doesn't forget and then made another book for her student teacher.

and the finished product for her boys:

Both books turned out great! While Miranda was playing on the floor I worked on my Altered index dividers for the next Penney-Jane swap. I swiped paint yesterday and today colored the back with duck tape. Not quite finished, but getting there.

Sewing book cover and my sister's hat

2009-03-28T16:06:00.001-07:00

I have been busy working on swaps and don't seem to remember to take pics before I send them off to the hostess! Duh! Anyway, here are a couple of projects using my dyed muslin as a base. Over at Penney-Jane Mixed Media our second swap is a Sewing Chunky Book. I made the covers and a page (60 items in all!). Took a picture of the cover, but failed to document the pages I made. I think I just get so tired of looking at 20 of the same thing that I ship them off without another thought. I probably should get better at taking those darned pics! I love, love, love sewing the "star flower" and try to put it on whatever I sew..........
the sewing book cover on tan fabric:

the back of a memo book I made for my sister who sends me really cool "stuff" she finds in odd places:

and here is my star flower again on the cover of her memo book:

in return for the good "stuff" she sends I sent my sister some royal blue dyed muslin to make an OR hat for work:

lookin' good! So, in answer to the age old question I hear a lot: "What are you going to do with IT?" I say.........sew a flower on it or send it to my sister! Ha!

Canvas Fun

2009-03-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

Since I have this week off I have been working on several projects. Finishing up a swap due this week and working on the covers for another. But..........this is just for me! I dyed some canvas pink and then painted, stenciled, and generally doodled all over. The end product......well....I'm keeping that one close to my vest until it's finished.

Extreme Sale!

2009-03-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

Over at Lowe's they have been clearancing their wallpaper. The last time I was there the large rolls were $3 and the small borders were $1 which is a good deal so I bought one of each and used the large roll for my Gold Swap pages. Our "upgraded" cabinets in the house decided to "downgrade" themselves to crap and the silverware drawer busted apart so off to Lowe's to get wood to fix it. NOW the wallpaper rolls are 25 cents each! Yes, only a quarter..........so I grabbed 5......yes, April I will share............the one on the left has dragonflies on it! Wahoo!

Charm Swap

2009-03-03T16:27:00.000-08:00

I finally finished the many charms for a swap due by the middle of the month. I had a difficult time getting started over at Jane's this past Saturday, but finally got into the swing of things Sunday in between lesson plans and laundry. Top left charm is strictly beads with a Swarovski charm on top and a Swarovski flower near the bottom. Middle round charm is Monopoly money circle on a checker piece and beads. Top left is a paper bead with other beads woven around it. Lower left is a game piece with lampwork beads on top and bottom. Lower middle is a washer painted with alcohol ink and colored wire wrapped around. Lower right is a fabric bead with other beads and fibers sewn on (thanks for the inspiration Alma!).

Bunny Bread

2009-03-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this post is TOTALLY RANDOM! I was making my umpteenth peanut butter and butter sandwich and after slicing my bread I noticed a bunny hiding in it! With an eye and everything!

Off to see the Wizard!

2009-02-27T18:36:00.001-08:00

Over at Penney-Jane Mixed Media our FIRST EVER CHUNKY BOOK SWAP is wrapping up. I can't wait to get all of the pages and bind them into the chunky book! I made the covers and the Tin Man page so I will be receiving two sets of books in return. The front cover has a replica of the door to the Emerald City, the transparency art was drawn by one of my seventh graders, Kaitlyn.

The Tin Man page is made from roof flashing:

Today's Play Date

2009-02-22T19:02:00.001-08:00

This post was supposed to be finished last night (and it really was--three times in fact!), but apparently I was blog-challenged, so let's try it again...
Today (actually yesterday) was another play date at Jane's Studio 23. I should have been working on swaps for my group that are due this week, but frankly needed a break from what I SHOULD have been doing to just "play" with all of the supplies that are sitting in piles yelling at me to use them. So I gathered tons of supplies and trotted over to the studio to sew........... I haven't decided exactly what the covers and pages in this and the next post will be, but then I usually never have an end purpose when I start. My goal was to just create.
The covers started out as the freebie paint chip brochures at the home improvement store. I covered them with painted and stamped canvas first. On the front cover I sewed my favorite dragonfly transparency over some light green tulle and then added a Dick & Jane tab. On the inside back I sewed some random pieces onto the actual paint chips for interest:

The next sets of photos show the fronts of a couple of pages and then unfolded.
This page is sewn onto a Claim Jumper's doggie bag: stamped, hand-dyed fabric, bits an pieces sewn under plastic, paint chip with a fabric strip woven through it and wall paper:

My plan is to utilize the open (left) side of the bag as a pocket

The base for the next set of pages is an old tablecloth (for one of those outdated round plywood tables covered with glass) that I had dyed with coffee to "age" it.

Inside I sewed fabric and a piece of Jane's tape measure twill tape:

Today's Play Date Continued

2009-02-22T18:22:00.000-08:00

This is a piece of Basic Grey paper (I think it's Infuse, but could be wrong) and sewed around the outline of the butterfly with embroidery thread, used a button for the head and sewed down a Dick and Jane word:

This page started out going in one direction until I accidentally sewed through both sides and had to refold it differently. I sewed down a dyed piece of table runner and added gathered black tulle under the plain side of the fabric.

Another piece of Basic Grey paper with fabric and phrase sewn to the edge:

And the inside of the page with some more of my dyed fabric as a base for my star flower. At the top are a few odds and ends of fabric, paper UPC and another D&J word

Dragonfly & Cat

2009-02-16T19:20:00.000-08:00

Geesh......has it really been two entire weeks since I posted? Cripes! The past couple of weeks have been busy, some deadlines for swaps have been creeping up so I've had to get it into gear and start making art, baby! I am currently fighting with a couple of ideas that have been brewing for the Wizard of Oz chunky book for my Yahoo group. The door to the Emerald City is almost finished and I am trying to use the chunky tin snips to cut out the tin man out of roof flashing. Anyway.........finished my D page for the ABC Chunky book for Treasure Art Trends. I backed it with a paint chip "Summer Dragonfly" from the Home Depot, sewed a burned edge transparency over some singed tulle and hand-dyed teal fabric. Dave got me some washers that I painted with alcohol inks (the glue is still wet on this one). Oh, I also got my labels on a huge 120 page recycled technique swap over at Arttechiniques due the end of this month. I actually did two sets of 120 pages (one book will be for April) and finished both ready to send in soon.

We've had a visitor on and off lately:

It took several weeks for him to come to us, but he loves to be petted. He's obviously an outdoor cat, he has scars, scabs, and scratches all over his head, but he's fed and hasn't been neutered so he's around quite a bit. No, April, I'm not adopting him!

Sample Fabric Project

2009-02-01T17:50:00.001-08:00

Today was play day at Jane's, we swapped out the gold pages (see April's blog for the bound version) and sewed. I ripped strips of my dyed fabric and made a sampler wall hanging. The backing is fused plastic grocery bags.

20 yards of muslin later...

2009-01-31T18:26:00.000-08:00

All 20 yards dyed, dried, and pressed:

And now I need to find the other 13 colors! And another bolt of muslin!

Drying Dyeing

2009-01-31T11:33:00.001-08:00

Below are two of the batches drying on my clothes line, the yellow and black pieces. No, I'm not a Steelers fan! You can also see the gloves I used to protect my hands from the dye, it takes a LOT of squeezing after taking them out of the pot to get most of the dye out of the fabric before hanging them to dry. In between batches I am cutting up the plastic bags, eating, and reading my book. Right now the scarlet and dark green batches are steeping, by the time they are ready to rinse, these will be dry and ready to press.

During Dyeing

2009-01-31T11:28:00.000-08:00

Been dyeing for a while now, I am using yard pieces and dyeing 2 yards at a time in a color bath. The batch below is my 11th and 12th yard. The fabric has to steep in the pot for over 30 minutes. I am using both liquid and powder dyes. So far I have used dark green, scarlet, black, sunshine orange, yellow, and purple. Two batches dried and ready to be ironed, two batches hanging on the line to dry, and two batches steeping on the stove. Lots of gloves and lots of rinsing involved! Definitely a labor of love, I smile every time a piece goes on my clothes line!
Here is the scarlet batch, after taking the pic I smushed it down into the dye, but took the pic this way so you could see the color:

With the fabric balled up like that you get an interesting mottled, tie dye effect.

Busy Day Today

2009-01-31T07:57:00.001-08:00

I have so many cool things to do today that I actually had to make a list! I left my school work on my desk so I wouldn't get sucked into the vortex of grading, etc. Four things on my list:
First, take the bags pictured below and iron the crap out of them to make Alisa Burke's paper.

Second: Take the doodled flowers that came from directions in Alma Stoller's Soulcraft Zine and finish my black and white Rolodex cards for a swap in my Yahoo group. Here is the before picture of my supplies:

And my favorite project for today:DYEING MUSLIN! After school the other day I went to the local Wal-Mart that still carries fabric and purchase an entire bolt of unbleached muslin and every color of dye they carried. I haven't worked with the liquid dye yet so we'll see. I got every color they had to see if I can mix the colors in the Dec/Jan issue Quilting Arts article by Judy Coates Perez. Jane has a project for us tomorrow using the dyed fabric. The before picture of 21 yards of muslin and 17 packages/bottles of Rit dye:

Now, I'm off to work!

Funky Holiday Swap

2009-01-25T17:03:00.001-08:00

Over at Bad Baby Art I am hosting a year-long swap: Funky Holidays. Instead of doing the run of the mill themes like New Year's for January and St. Patrick's Day for March, April researched some lesser known holidays and the swap was off and running! January's theme was Women in Blue Jeans day. It was fun to see the different interpretations each participant came up with for her 4X4 page. At the end of the year each swapper will have 48 pages if they swap for all 12 months. I made 8 pages instead of 4, the second set is going to Jane as a Christmas present. The pages were so good I am thinking I might have to make 12 pages so that I can have one of each! It was painful to only get 4 out of all of the quality work! Next month is American Crossword Puzzle Week, right up my alley..........I love crossword puzzles and have even watched the documentary Word Play about the New York Times crossword puzzle annual competition. Pretty interesting if you like crossword puzzles. Below are the five pages I kept (I have an extra as one swapper made an extra for me):

and here are Jane's: (mine is the one on the bottom right and April's is on the upper left)

Fabric to Dye for

2009-01-25T12:15:00.001-08:00

In the latest issue of Quilting Arts magazine there is an article with really good directions for dyeing fabric with Rit dye. All of the directions I have seen before have been very sketchy. I tried to tie dye a piece of muslin in my washing machine awhile back and the dye didn't take at all! ARghhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... so when I saw this article I got out my packages of dye and tried it again, on the stove this time. As a teenager in the 70's I tie dyed MANY t-shirts on the stove in my mother's ceramic pan, but that was so long ago I didn't remember how to do it. I used the leftover teal dye from the first attempt and this is what I got:
cheesecloth

unbleached muslin

I LOVE the mottled look of both pieces. The package of dye only makes so much dye and I used small pieces to test the method. Now that I know it works just like I had envisioned, I need to buy more muslin and double or triple the batch in a bigger pot!!
Working on a black and white swap has stymied me until I remembered the cut out doodle flowers that are in Alma Stoller's SoulCraft Zine. I doodled on the pages of an Alice in Wonderland book. These are the ones that are ready to cut out and use somehow in the swap:

Orangutan Baby and Beaded Charms

2009-01-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

Ok, so here I am a few months old. I told you I look like an orangutan baby with that hair stickin' out all over!

These are the beaded charms I received through Bad Baby Art, love them!

These are the beads I contributed, made from leftover gel tar paper from a different swap and beaded:

Blog Slacker

2009-01-17T07:35:00.000-08:00

That's me this week.
Excuse #1: I have gone back to working "full time" even though I only took time off the past few months from contract teaching to go back East for visits. I signed a contract for 7th grade Language Arts taking over for a wonderful teacher whose husband has been transferred to an Air Force base in Japan. I think right now this will be a great niche for me (until the next great niche presents itself!) and I am looking forward to concentrating on teaching one content area. Next step is to take a proficiency test in Language Arts/Reading to satisfy No Child Left Behind highly qualified status to teach a content area. The test is in late March and since I minored in English eons ago at SUNY Cortland in NY it should be a breeze.
Excuse #2: I haven't really focused much on creating the past week or two, just sorting and organizing my mess...........wasn't really successful in that area.
Excuse #3: Running an invitation only Yahoo group and participating/hosting several swaps at the same time.
I have received back a couple of swaps that I participated in and I love the quality of everything I have gotten from the members of Bad Baby Art! Thanks to Pam C. for getting me hooked up with this bunch! The charms I received are fabulous. I will take a photo and upload this weekend.
I also have to share a pic that my sister in NY sent to me, she sent several, but one makes me laugh when I see it. It is me when I was an infant with this shock of black hair sticking out...I call it my orangutan baby photo! Too funny, I will take a pic of the pic and upload as well.

Another Journal

2009-01-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

I have been looking at the pieces of leftover paper from my Collage Unleashed swap and I just had to put them on something! So, I took the composition book in which I have been recording swap info and stuff for my yahoo group, cut the pieces into smaller ones so I could see both sides and glued them onto the front. Also had to use a leftover piece from Dave's purple plastic bag journal and another piece ripped off from Studio 23 trash. First is a closeup of my star flower and Dick and Jane strip:

And the entire front of the book (which is stuffed with stapled papers and notes for swaps):

Rule #1 Journals for 2009

2009-01-04T11:57:00.000-08:00

I won't explain what Rule #1 is, anyone who knows me well enough knows what that is! I have made two journals for 2009, one for my husband and one for me. My journal is quite large at 12 inches square, only so that I can put full size sheets of paper on the page and still have room to write should I need to add more. I chose to do one month at a time with a page for each day......thus only one month at a time, I don't think I could sufficiently bind 365 pages at once! I plan to use birthstone colors as a guide for each month, so January is garnet themed...........

In the new Cloth Paper Scissors magazine (Jan./Feb. 3, 2009) there is an article by Alisa Burke (author of Canvas Remix) and I followed her easy directions to make paper out of plastic grocery bags. Very easy and very cool to work with! I painted a piece with purple metallic acrylic cheapo paint, sewed my star flower onto it and then sewed on a Starbucks coffee sleeve. I also added a line from Dick and Jane (thanks, Jane!) that has Spot on it (we dog-sat a cool dog named Spot!). You can see how wrinkly and unique the paper turned out and if you look closely can see the grocery name in red at the bottom peeking through the paint:

Sewing on Canvas

2009-01-01T15:59:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! I have been working on many projects lately, but just had to share this piece I finished on canvas paper. The background paints are what was left on my brush and on the palette when working on a set of swap pages for Arttechniques. As I worked I had several canvas papers handy and slapped leftover paint onto them and used my punchinella (sequin waste? not sure exactly what it is called) for accents. Inspired by Traci Bautista's book Collage Unleashed I wanted to freehand sew a flower (I love hers!) so I just grabbed this canvas and started. I used a dark green for the stem, leaves, and flower petals. Added some purple tufts of grass at the base and then changed to white for the stamen-like stems between each petal. I call this my Star Flower Canvas and I am pleased with the way it came out.
The canvas:

Close up of the flower:

Canvas Adventures

2008-12-27T07:47:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a great holiday! We don't do much here, but finally got a good paycheck that wasn't totally taken by bills so I ordered a sewing machine from WalMart. The shipping was only 97 cents and it got here within a few days. I ordered a Brother CS6000i which has 60 different stitches on it and I LOVE IT! I have been using an older Brother machine (they are workhorses and I have had this since my days at House Of Fabrics!)and wanted to use some fancier stitches in my work. I gave the old machine to April so hopefully she will be able to do some fancier work herself with it!
For the past week of break I have been working, working, working on several swaps that are due in January. I joined collageUnleashed and have made 20 out of the 24 background papers to send in. It was sunny out yesterday here so I covered a table out on the patio and painted for several hours (Dave laughed when he saw my large pieces drying on the clothesline!). I forgot to finish one side of a piece so will probably finish that today and get them in the mail. We were to do 24 8X10 double-sided papers utilizing techniques in Traci Bautista's book Collage Unleashed. I had started these several weeks ago at Jane's and needed several hours outside to finish them. When I finish the last set I will post pics.
Below is a piece I worked on with April Christmas day. I started with canvas paper and layered acrylic paint (pink, green, yellow) brushed on, stenciled with a metal bracket (found in the junk drawer) in both white and black, stenciled the oval (Easter egg cookie cutter) into chains and a flower in black and purple, used punchinella in two different sizes with white and black again. When I got home the next day I sewed over the flower petals with my machine and then used a fancy stitch all over the canvas.

This is canvas paper again with left over paint from the 120 pages for Arttechniques technique swap....

...and another left over paint canvas with more added to it: I collaged scrapbook paper pieces, page from an old children's encyclopedia, used some rub on phrases that I would never use elsewhere (cut apart and randomly adhered), added some hearts and a flower with black sharpie. On the machine I stitched over the hearts and layered clear plastic over the flower before stitching that as well. I added some fabric scraps from my stash, highlighted some rubons with stitching, and stamped some squares on top.

Arttechniques is hosting Monthly Art Technique swaps, January's swap is using tar gel which I received a small jar in Jacqueline Sullivan's Journal of Surfaces class at Art Unraveled. Those 10 pages are finished and there were 1 inch pieces left on the ends so I used them for a beaded charm swap hosted by Pam at Bad Baby Artists group.
I used the leftovers to make beads and then added an assortment of beads around the beads for the charms.

Today April and I worked on some larger canvas pieces out back. Hopefully she will post some of what she did on her blog!

Time to Breathe!

2008-12-21T11:50:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to shake the cough left from a cold I've had for the past two weeks or so! I finally bought some Mucinex which has helped some (at least I can sleep for more than a couple of hours straight!. In between coughing fits I have been working on tons of swaps. Every time Jane and I swear off swapping we get swept right back into it...........I'm sure it doesn't help that I started a Yahoo group dedicated to swapping.....duh! Our first book is the Wizard of Oz and it should be a great collaboration.
In the past week weeks here are just a few things I have been working on:
A composition book headed for Albuquerque:

A page for Barb V in Florida in her bee deco:

2 fabric books I worked on at home and at Jane's. Neither have any pages in them yet:
Some collaged blocks started at Jane's last week and finished at home with help from hubby:

Hosting Wahoo!

2008-12-07T16:40:00.001-08:00

I have been working diligently at my computer for the past few days fine tuning details for two chunky book swaps that I am hosting on-line. I am so psyched to actually be in charge of these swaps! One was already semi-established, but the other is my own creation. I have suckered April into doing them with me as, if you read her blog, you know she is starting to really be interested in chunky book swaps. Yesterday we participated in a Funky Chunky Book swap and I love all of the pages we received! Jane did the fabulous covers!

I just signed up on collageUNLEASHED yahoo group and am in the process of making 24 double-sided 8x10 pages ala Traci Bautista. As usual it is taking me a while to get in the groove, but they will be finished on time!

Blog Candy Winner!

2008-12-04T17:16:00.001-08:00

AND THE WINNER IS:
SuzanneRenee!!!!!!!!! Little did you know that my favorite number is 7 so I chose your suggestion of blog candy at 1,777 hits! Email me with your address Suzanne and I will send you this 4x4 accordian album made from Heidi Grace's Urban Couture line.
Thank you to all who played! Stay tuned for the magical number of 1,777...........

This is NOT the squirrel from Virginia!

2008-12-02T17:12:00.000-08:00

LOL

Love this kitty!

2008-11-26T17:59:00.000-08:00

What is wrong with some dog owners?

2008-11-26T17:51:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I am driving home from work yesterday on Greenway and just before I have to turn onto Dysart I see a cute little puppy running around in the busy street. This always sends my heart into my throat, but it was so little it seemed worse with this cutie. He/she made it out of the street so I kept driving. Get to the intersection of Dysart and Greenway when I see a man in a red truck stopped in the turn lane trying to corral another one of these little guys! I stopped, got out and tried to call the dog to me.......it ran in the other direction. The guy just stood there, not chasing, not calling, just telling the dog not to go in a particular direction. All this time I am wondering where the dogs came from (his truck? the neighborhood--not likely as all the developments are fenced in with block fences here?), why they run in the opposite directions when called, and why this yahoo is not making much of an effort to get his two, yes, two, not just one, dogs back. I would have been frantic, but then again, my dogs would have come when called! This is the second time in as many days where I have seen dogs in the street on my way home.
People! Take care of your pets! They can't do it on their own, thus the term DOMESTICATED PETS! They are not wild and certainly cannot survive in a city of millions on their own. Hell, some people can't survive here!
ARghhhhhh............................

I love rats!

2008-11-24T15:25:00.001-08:00

Love LOLCats!

2008-11-23T17:07:00.000-08:00

Senior Moment

2008-11-23T16:56:00.001-08:00

Duh! It helps if I upload the pictures of the journal from the previous post! Here's the cover with a transparency that Jane gave me:

The cheesecloth is some that I got clearanced at WalMart for 25 cents a yard and dyed with instant coffee. The back:

The pen pocket on the inside front:

A top view of the two signatures:

New Journal project with Jane

2008-11-23T15:27:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was our "play date" at Jane's house after the Inchie swap over at Frenzy Stamper. After we made bags for an ATC swap we played with a fabric journal design. I never totally finish a project when we get together on Saturdays, but always have most of it done............I actually got my journal done this morning, I wanted to show the finished product to April before we went shopping. The pages are a combination of plain pages and scrapbook paper. I think I may have to make another this weekend with April! We found some really good deals on discounted fabric at Joann's and WalMart this afternoon so we will probably be using them to make the journals.
Only three days of work this week! Wahoo!
Update on Pack N' More (see previous rant!): I tried to send an email to the store/company but SURPRISE, SURPRISE (as Gomer would say) it was kicked back to me. Now why am I not surprised that the email address on their website is no good? Could it be a reflection of their business practices and fabulous customer service? Well, being the stubborn .......... person? that I am, I printed the email and added a nice little note to the bottom about the email that didn't go through and then sent it in the mail. They will get it, won't they? After all they ship packages don't they? Well, only if they feel like it that day...................

Thank you! Blog Candy!

2008-11-21T05:48:00.000-08:00

Thank you to my readers! Since adding a counter to my blog I have received over 1,000 visits! I should have anticipated this and had some blog candy. I am overwhelmed that that many people have read what I have posted.
I have been busy this week back at work semi-full time (which means every day, but at sub pay) so I have not had as much time to create or blog.
So......... I would like to give away some blog candy (don't know what yet, but it will be something I create here in my tiny room!), so here's what I need from you, my faithful bloggers:
Leave me a comment about what lucky number my counter should reach next to give away some blog candy. If I choose the number you suggest I will send you a goodie. Please leave me some way to contact you when you comment so I can reach you when you win! If you are not able to leave a comment please email me at: penney.klaproth@cox.net with your counter suggestion.
Good luck to all and thank you!

WARNING: RANT AND LANGUAGE AHEAD!

2008-11-17T13:36:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this afternoon I needed to mail several (as in over 20) small boxes for a swap I participated in. The boxes all had stamps on them and we wanted to check that we put enough so the recipients wouldn't owe postage. Thinking about how I don't like to get in line behind someone with a buttload of stuff I thought it would be best if I visited one of those independent mailing stores. I know of one close by the house and there are never people waiting in line. After getting a couple of personal packages ready to mail with the swap boxes I toodle down the road and have to detour a couple of miles out of my way because they are working on the train intersection a mile from my house. For those of you familiar with the Phoenix area this involves the dreaded Grand Ave. intersection (could possibly be fall out from the two old people who got in the way of the train last week?). So.........down Grand way out of my way to get to this store at Bell and RH Johnson Blvd. Figure out how to get all 20+ packages in in one trip (it's still way too hot here!), ok, so far so good. I troop into the store and the woman behind the counter sluffs out, looks at the bags of boxes and says to me: "What do you have there?" Jesus! What the Fuck does it look like? Let's see..... I'm in a store called Pack and More that deals in sending mail, packages, etc. ..........I probably have LOTS OF PIECES OF DOG SHIT FOR YOU TO CHEW ON LADY!. But instead of saying what I was thinking (see above) I said "I have packages (duh!) for you to check the postage on." She looked at the boxes, looked at me and said "I suppose you want me to stand here and check all of those?" NO! STAND OVER THERE AND CHECK THEM, DUMB SHIT! I said: "Obviously, you don't want to." To which she replied: "Oh, I guess I can this time." Please feel free to imagine at this point the martyred heavy sigh that accompanied this statement from her. I looked at her, picked up the bags and said: "No, don't bother, I'll go to the post office where they won't give me a hard time about it." AND LEFT! OMG! What the hell does she do in there? Read The National Enquirer and drink prune juice? I wanted to beat the shit out of this indifferent, offensive bitch! I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO PACK AND MORE AT RH JOHNSON BLVD. AND BELL IN SUN CITY WEST, ARIZONA. Yes, if I knew the asshole's name I would print that, too!
Yet, the saga continues, because now I have to reload the boxes into my trunk and now go to the PO which is on the other side of the detour and hope there aren't a ton of people in the little po manned by just one clerk. She was VERY FRIENDLY! Yes, this would be THE POST OFFICE FOR SURPRISE AT GRAND AVE. AND DYSART IN SURPRISE ARIZONA! There were a few people on and off that came in so I let them do their business in between boxes.
On the way home just one more reason I hate the big city -- had to go another mile out of my way in S-L-O-W T-R-A-F-F-I-C in El Mirage just to get home!
Anyway, the packages are mailed, the postage was enough and I made it home. WITH THE AIR ON IN MY CAR BECAUSE IT IS WAY TOO F****ING HOT HERE IN NOVEMBER! Did I mention how I don't like living here anymore? I thought so, but thought I would say it again!
OK, done for now! Have to go breathe...................................

Last day of Freedom

2008-11-17T07:26:00.000-08:00

My "year off" from teaching is quickly coming to a close. No, it has not actually been a year off from teaching. The only substantial breaks I have had from subbing have been the two vacations back East. Tomorrow begins a 6 week long term position for my good friend Alyssa who just recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. When that job is finished in January I will be accepting a full time position in 7th grade Language Arts.
However I have made good use of the time I have had to work on projects such as the swap below. The chunky book contains pages from Art Unraveled 2008 participants. Each contributor gets a set of pages and one book will be auctioned off at AU 2009 for charity. Jane and I sorted and bound books yesterday. My book does not sit flat as I chose a page with a spoon in it and the spoon extends below the page. Side view (love the dangling pearl!):

Top view:

Front cover made by Jane (this is the view where you can see that my book does not sit flat, that's the charm of chunky books!):

Here is the main reason I have been restless and "out of sorts" lately:

I really, really, really don't want to be in Arizona any more......... I want to be in our house in the woods! It is extremely peaceful there and I miss it (especially in the lingering heat here and all the city noise that we tuned out until returning and realizing just how much noise there really is here!).
So, today is my last day to play (of course after running errands like the doctor's office and the bank..............) and I will be finishing Christmas inchies for a swap at Frenzy Stamper and then I would really love to work on the canvas book that I started at Jane's last month. She has completed one of hers and it is absolutely fabulous!
One of the things I MUST do today is cancel my subscriptions through Scrapbook Trends magazines.......... I am really annoyed at their less than honest way of doing business and plan to cancel all three of their magazines and getting my money returned to my account. When I first subscribed to Cards, Paper Trends, and Bead Trends I loved the issues, however my tastes have changed and I barely look at them now, so when my account was charged for over $150 for the renewals...............................not good! They have been dishonest with me (telling me I had a gift subscription then charging my account anyway in the next two days) and I refuse to do business with them any more. Furthermore, April is canceling her subscription as well since they told me SHE was the one who gave me the gift, which she had not. What a mess......... long story short, I WILL get my money returned!!!!!!!!!

Back from Virginia

2008-11-14T14:17:00.000-08:00

We left for Virginia very early on Saturday, Nov. 1 after carefully packing the car with the few things we could fit and felt we would need to live for a week in our home there. Toodling along I 40 we stopped in New Mexico for lunch and while I was using the facilities Dave decided to check how much room we had in the trunk. Come to find out we had LOTS of room because neither of us stowed the two suitcases that contained our clothes!!!!!!!!! Crap! It was out of the question to go back 500 miles just for that, so.............. we found Wal-Mart on the way and bought just enough to get us through a few days and found a laundromat in the nearby town. Duh! We both assumed that the other had put the cases in the car and neither of us noticed them sitting in our bedroom ready to go! All I could think of is how on the reality shows like Project Runway when Kenley left her tulle at Mood and the camera zoomed in as she went on her merry way designing until much later she noticed it missing. That's the image I had when we discovered NO CLOTHES FOR TWO WEEKS! As we say here: there's always a story! Here is our lonely luggage right where I left them Oct. 31 in the bedroom!

The picture below is taken from the gravel road a bit from the house. The green building is the barn located behind our house so we actually live somewhere amongst those trees in the center of the picture behind the farm:

The Maple trees had shed their leaves, but the oaks and elms still had theirs interspersed among the pine trees. Our property has four types of oak trees, pine, and a few maple and elm. We could hear quite a few squirrels running through the dead leaves looking for acorns on our property. One afternoon I got close enough to one in a tree eating his lunch! Dave had a stare down with a couple of deer while raking the leaves from the street and we saw a buck (and heard him snorting) after dark at the edge of the "lawn." Here is one of the smaller critters we saw. I used to know the adage about figuring the strength of the winter according to the amount of brown on the caterpillar, but that was sooooooo long ago. If you can help jog my memory I'd appreciate it. Hopefully when we return in the summer we will see some of the beautiful Monarch butterflies:

This is the same signpost in the slide show above however the oak tree is much prettier now!

This next picture gives a pretty good idea of how tall the trees are surrounding the house.

One of the great things about being at the house was the quiet! We don't really have any neighbors per se (we don't count the deer, squirrels, crows, and the black bear one of the "neighbors" saw in his backyard), we are the only house on Laurel Ridge Lane. Our street intersects with Millstone Rd. (gravel) and there are several houses on this road, but they are all set back in the woods. No traffic, no neighbors' crappy music, no air force jets, no train whistles, no dogs barking, no kids walking by bouncing basketballs......... just the wind rustling the leaves at the tops of the trees, crows cawing in the distance, squirrels running through the dead leaves....... it is so quiet there that we could actually hear the oak leaves hit the ground when they fell from the trees!
The weather was in the 50s-60s and not much sunlight in the early morning and late afternoon because of the tree cover, but it was really nice to be in the cooler weather. The previous owner for some reason had not put registers in the bedrooms so it was a good thing we brought a portable heater and a warm blanket (for our air mattress!).
We really found out how much stuff we DID NOT NEED back there. We had two bar stools for the kitchen, bought two camping chairs to sit outside in, an air mattress on the floor, a refrigerator, and a range. We DID NOT have any couches, microwave, toaster, TV, computer, more than 3 days worth of clothes, etc. But, we made do for a week with what we had!
Next trip will be at the end of May next year where I will be staying for as long as possible before I have to go back to work!

LOL Cats

2008-10-28T18:14:00.001-07:00

I have added a picture and a link to what I think is the FUNNIEST place ever! I love the LOL Cats web site, I laugh out loud like a little kid every time I look at these pics. There is a companion site for dogs which can be found at the Cats site. Look at the bottom of my blog for the pic and link...........
Enjoy! I do!

Playing at Jane's: Canvas Book

2008-10-26T09:20:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a pretty busy day! First thing in the morning Jane, Jeanne, and I traveled to Frenzy Stamper to pick up our Halloween inchies (I love all of them!) and then Jane and I headed back to her "studio" to play with canvas and paint. We referred to Alisa Burke's Canvas Remix book for inspiration and even though we both had the same supplies in front of us our canvas pieces, the results were amazingly different. Our intent was to just let go with the different paint media Jane had on hand and experiment with different methods....... "what if?" being the driving question. After our pieces dried we gather photos, random pieces of leftover fabric to "funk" up our books. We ripped the canvas in half and swapped so our books became a true collaboration of art, hit the sewing machines and started stitching away. I had brought copies of my NY trip so I used an image of the river at Chittenango Falls for the back cover and then used the small pieces left over elsewhere. I loved the way my paint soaked yarn left a trail, knot and all and made sure it was on my cover. I still need to embellish, but am leaning toward writing on the cover rather than covering up the paint.....

A close-up of the glaze stamped with a pill bottle lid:

An inside page with decorative stitching on unpainted canvas showing Jane's work beneath. I think I would like to get a sewing machine with more decorative stitches for Christmas, I love playing with thread and those stitches!

More stitches and a transparency:

The back cover:

I really, really love the way this book is turning out and cannot wait to get time to work on it some more! Thanks, Jane!!!!

Autumn Decos

2008-10-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

Two more decos done and ready to be sent on their way...... first is an Autumn Fairy Envelope Deco. Not sure what an envelope deco should be so I made up my own. I used an envelope stencil from Paper Bouquet and traced it on double-sided Paper Salon cardstock that I've had since last year (purchased all Recollections had in their clearance section!). Inside I ripped cream colored cardstock for the "pages." for the cover I traced a Dover sample with sharpies onto a transparency and layered it over vellum. I first just laid the transparency over the cover and the fairy image got lost, so I tried vellum and achieved exactly what I imagined, I like the pattern of the paper showing through.
The front cover:

The inside envelopes:

Right now the book is temporarily bound with a piece of leather cord, when it gets sent back I will bind it permanently with my Bind-It-All.
For the Autumn Deco I found a card I had made previously for a swap, ripped the front from the card and glued it onto cardstock, bound it with some leaf ribbon and it was finished in less than ten minutes! Easy!

More Busy Stuff

2008-10-24T15:32:00.001-07:00

Whew! Been very busy today on swaps that are due within the next month. I haven't worked since I got back from NY so I have made a concentrated effort to get ahead on what's due since I anticipate working next week and then leaving for VA for two weeks followed by a long term sub job for my dear friend Alyssa who's baby is due within the next two weeks!
First up I completed 30 technique pages for an Art Unraveled swap. We were to duplicate a technique learned in one of the classes and I chose Katie Kendrick's Cardboard Visual Journal made from corrugated cardboard. The top layer is peeled off, gessoed, painted, 3-D matte medium over painted with Lumiere, stamped, and edged in dyed cheesecloth. I used primary colors to made secondary colors for paint.

18 Halloween inchies for swap over at Frenzy Stamper. This was my second attempt, the first inchies made from Shrinky Dink didn't come out the way I wanted, the glue never dried in between the plastic and the backing. Yuck! These are much better:

Finally, Holiday inchies for a Yahoo group swap. This time the Shrinky Dink came out okay. I made tags from it and attached to foam taped presents:

Yet more decos and Goodwill score

2008-10-24T08:02:00.001-07:00

It's near the end of the month and time to get some decos out in the mail! Yikes! Catch up time.... two Marine decos..... Coastline of My country heading for the UK with faux weathered 7 Gypsies paper, Rusty Pickle tag, and rub ons:

Sea mammals also headed to UK...... painted background paper, ocean fabric from Joann's, lampwork beads and image from National Geographic (I chose a Humpback whale for the cover because I saw several off the coast of the big island of Hawaii):

On a trip to Goodwill ( I have decided this is one of the very few things I will miss about AZ when we settle in VA for good!) I scored some heart doilies, embroidered hankies, and (not pictured) a plastic tablecloth cover: these will be shared with April......

This and That

2008-10-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

PHOTOS OF THE TRIP:
Since April is much better at getting lots of photos on a blog, please visit here to see the pics of our weeklong trip to upstate NY. Many pics of the leaves, family, sites we visited....... good stuff.
FUN WEB SITE:
I've been LMAO at this hilarious site recommended by one of my Yahoo group sisters:
LOLcats, there is also a book which brings me to my next thought:
PAPERBACK TRADING:
Visiting my sister in Binghamton, NY on my trip I noticed that she had some books ready to mail so I asked her what was up. She showed me a really great site on which you can send used paperbacks to people who want to read them and get ones you want in exchange, just for the postage (which has only been two dollars and change for each!). This is great for someone like me who chews through books like nothing! So far I have had 8 people request books from me and I should have the fourth Psychic Eye book by Victoria Laurie coming to me soon. For those crafty people, I have placed several journaling books on my wish list and am waiting to see if I can get any of them through this site. Speaking of journaling: if you have not seen any of Keri Smith's books you should! Last year in my fifth grade class I purchased several copies of "Wreck This Journal" and the kids LOVED them! I just bought "How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum and can't wait to dig in. Go to amazon and check them out. While you are there check out the Psychic Eye series. Here is the link for the paperback trading site:
Paperback Swap
Leave me a comment if you like any of these recommended sites or books! Thank you, now GO ENJOY LIFE TODAY!

Back to the heat of AZ

2008-10-22T17:37:00.001-07:00

April and I returned from our upstate NY trip Monday evening. It was absolutely gorgeous there! Everyone we met agreed that the trees were the most colorful they had been in a long time. Talk about timing! April took four times as many pics as I did so keep checking her blog for more. We did some sightseeing, shopping, sewing, visiting, lots of eating, and walking through the leaves on the sidewalks. Madison, NY boasts a population of around 300+ so you can imagine that everyone knows everyone there. Yes, I am one of the Edwards girls! Sunday we had a family reunion at my mother's house which was great as it has been 13 years since my last visit. Below are my brother, Skip and my two sisters, Cindy and Merry.

Friday we drove to Cindy's house in Binghamton and after a couple of wrong turns (Oh, THAT Sunoco station!). We spent time at a local library book sale, thrift store, and an alpaca farm.

Wednesday afternoon April and I drove to Cooperstown. We didn't visit the Baseball Hall of Fame, just wandered around to buy souvenirs and eat. We drove west to Cazenovia where April purchased some unique Wizard of Oz fabric that her grandmother will quilt for her. Further north we stopped in the birthplace of L. Frank Baum, Chittenango. There is actually a yellow brick road in the center of the sidewalk there! Heading back we stopped at Chittenango Falls and took some pics:

This is a building in the "center" of town where Rte. 20 intersects North and South streets. We thought the foliage on the bricks was unique and colorful.

And here is one of the spectacular trees in the town:

Needless to say the weather there was a lot cooler than the 90 degree temps here in AZ. It ranged from 40 to around 70 degrees and rained on Thursday. It felt good to take a walk at the end of the day and come home with tingly cheeks! Can't wait to see what the weather is like in VA in 10 days!

Busy making Journals and books

2008-10-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

The day after we return from our NY trip is my mother's birthday so I made her a journal/book with a fabric/sewing theme. Before "retiring" my mother was a seamstress and now enjoys quilting when she can. I found an inexpensive table runner at a thrift store awhile back which was perfect for the cover. The inside of the cover is some really cool quilted white fabric. I sewed buttons, lace trim, placed some fancy pins and an alcohol colored spoon on the spine. My mother also collected spoons so I was having fun finding a way to incorporate one!

Below are several of the types of pages I included: to the left a color wash on bristol board, the right is bristol board with two types of lace sewn on the edge:

The smaller page in the foreground is a collage piece with Golden paints, a McCall's pattern, a piece of fabric, and zipper tape; the page in the background is several magazine pages sewn together and then painted with black, orange, and yellow paint. On the bottom you can just make out the tape measure tape

The right page is the back of the orange/yellow page. I used black only framing the girl on the ad near the center, at the top of the page is a plastic tape measure that are free at Ikea.

I made a hard bound journal to take with me as well as a paper book. I purchased two funky Zetti stamps this weekend at Frenzy Stamper and stamped those along with many other stamps in the books to color on the plane and during down time on the trip. We both left plenty of room in our suitcases to bring goodies back!
Have a good week!

Off to New York

2008-10-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

No, not the Big Apple, more like the small cow pattie............. April and I are flying to upstate NY this Monday to stay the week with my mother in the teeny tiny town on Route 20 of Madison (population 325) where I grew up. I am hoping that we get to see the fall colors and that it's not too late, it's been so long since I was there in Autumn that I don't remember when the leaves change. My mother emailed me today to remind me to bring a sweater......... the weather is in the 70s which will be perfect! We plan on visiting the Oz museum nearby, an alpaca farm near my sister's house in Binghamton, maybe Cooperstown, and visiting with relativews on and off during the week. It will be relaxing to just walk around town, drive in the country, and work on some basic journal/collage work without distractions. Will be picking up some nature items for Karen's art and hopefully lots of pictures.

Hearts and Decos

2008-10-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

These three hearts are for the Puffy heart swap over at Bad Baby Art. The swap was patterned after an article in the latest issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine. My favorite is the denim heart made from a too-short-for-work jumper I got from someone sometime. I used the label for decoration.

I received some excess decos from one of my Yahoo groups (can't remember now which one!?) including this Faithful Friends deco. I had fabric, but had given my dog embellishments to April and borrowed them back.

A Fantasy Art Deco: Underwater Fantasy -- I wove the "seaweed" from shimmery voile-type fabric, watercolored my favorite mermaid stamp (Judikins), embellished with rhinestones and trim from a trip to a bargain fabric store here in town and all on a handpainted background (my new favorite technique!).

Lastly, another Fantasy Art Deco: Winged Beings -- stamped my favorite fairy stamp (All Night Media) with Stazon and watercolored with regular watercolor paints and some Twinkling H2Os. for the background I used a wet brush to pick up color from watercolor pencils and blended blue and purple then off stamped swirls in Iris Stazon using a stamp from the Studio G line at Michael's. The word Believe (Technique Tuesday) is stamped in Cactus Green Stazon. And again the backing is handpainted Bristol board.

Baby Book, Mega Swap, & Class Project

2008-10-05T15:13:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was Alyssa's baby shower and here is the cover of a baby photo album I made for her........

WHEW!! I finished gluing the 120th back to my technique pages for the Arttechniques swap due October 15. It has been a loooong process, but I am finished ahead of schedule which is unusual for me. But, this is NOT the type of project that can be done at the last minute. Some of the members' pages have been posted and it will be exciting to try the techniques. This is what 120 woven quilted background pages looks like:

Kelly Kilmer's Funky Chunky Book class last night at Frenzy Stamper in Scottsdale did not disappoint. The book is similar to the Avant Garde journal Karen and I made at Art Unraveled. The covers are papered rather than painted and the pages are painted rather than papers! If that makes any sense? I am always happy painting so it was fun. My front cover (with one of my new favorite stamps!)

The painted signatures:

I always seem to want this Rorschach image in my book somewhere. So I stamped it onto one of my favorite pages. I took my Golden Acrylic interference paints to add shimmer:

Kelly Kilmer class & World Card Making Day

2008-10-04T08:05:00.001-07:00

Tonight April, Karen, and I will be taking Kelly Kilmer's Funky Chunky Book class over at Frenzy Stamper. Should be fun! Karen and I took a class from Kelly at AU this past August and had a blast. I think that was where I fell in love with painting background papers, which has now bordered on an obsession. On that note, I have joined a couple of background swaps and have used Jacqueline Sullivan's gesso resist technique with wonderful results. When I am finished with all the pages, I will post pictures. I absolutely love Golden's Heavy Body Acrylic paints, especially the interference colors which give any paint a je ne ce quois...............

If you are a cardmaker, today is World Card Making Day and April will be hosting some challenges for you....... join her if you can............

More Swaps!

2008-10-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

I joined quite a few swaps and deco round robins that were due this past week, so I have been busy finishing them as well as working nine out the past ten school days! First up was completing a recipe swap for Milliande's Creativity Club. Since I live in the Southwest I felt a salsa recipe was appropriate for this international group. I am looking forward to receiving an interesting set of recipes! If you cannot read the recipe and are interested, email me and I would be delighted to share! penney.klaproth@cox.net

Several decos were due to be mailed by the beginning of this month for Marine Decos. I participated in the Seahorse, Whale, and Mermaid swaps. Since leaving teaching full time and a severe drop in income I have been challenging myself to use as many supplies as I can find in my mini-Michael's store at my house. LOL I purchased very few items for making these decos and found it satisfying to create on a budget. The seahorse deco was made with stickers (no seahorse stamp:(), rick rack, a beautiful ceramic tile purchased at Art Unraveled (from Sacred Heart Art), rhinestones, a page from National Geographic, and hand painted seaweed.

I love the way my whale deco turned out! After scouring Joann's for stamp, stickers, etc. of whales I found this absolutely perfect fabric of ocean waves. I had black and white fabric left from my huge background swap so I enlarged and traced an orca whale pic from the internet then appliqued the pieces to the ocean background.

This is a fun (and weird!) collage done for a Masterpieces Unmasked round robin book for Pam over at Bad Baby Art group. I have always loved playing games and as a youngster Masterpiece was a favorite, although you needed 3 to play (just like Clue which is another favorite) so I didn't play as often as I liked. Pam has taken the art cards from the game and we were to "unmask" the artist. I chose "American Gothic" by Grant Wood. I took his serious painting and added antlers, monkey face, etc. to make it look bizarre. I then collaged synonyms for "american" and "gothic" to the top. It makes me giggle when I look at how the farmer and his wife are so crazy looking!

My final Marine Deco: mermaid. It's difficult to get the full effect of the Twinkling H2Os I used to paint the mermaid stamp (Judikins), but her "skin" is painted in Golden's acrylic Interference Green to give her just a hint of "fishy" skin. Again I used the Nat Geo pics and rhinestones for bubbles. The background is one of my favorite painting techniques using Golden Heavy Body Acrylics.

Works in progress and a gift

2008-09-25T16:16:00.000-07:00

So last weekend my daughter and I got together and worked on covering board books with fabric. After raiding the books at Saver's thrift store (but I ONLY bought 20 this time, honest!) we started stripping the pages. Then after several failed attempts to attach the fabric we figured it out! We both used pinks and greens for our books since most of my fabric is those colors and April raided my stash for a variety. I have not embellished any pages as of yet, but check out April's blog, she has made a good start on her fairy-themed book.
I used a chintz-style fabric for my cover:

Here are the pages that my husband compared to ravioli (they do resemble large ravioli!).

A close-up of two of the pages, the book only measures 3 inches by 31/2 inches so it's rather small:

While at April's we both had our sewing machines out and made some fabric hearts. I am in a swap to exchange hearts similar to the ones in the latest issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. I have made three as samples to play with, just need to embellish them to jazz it up! The denim heart is hand sewn from a jumper that is too short for me to wear to work!

I covered some journals that a dear friend at work photocopied from her husband who recently passed away. His relatives wanted his original journals so I helped her make copies. I hand painted the covers (they look like leather IRL), sewed them to cardstock and bound them with my Bind-It-All. I will be delivering it to her tomorrow at school. The cover is very plain, but I left it so she could add whatever she wanted to personalize the journals.

Messy, Messy, Messy

2008-09-25T16:11:00.001-07:00

Does this resemble your working area? I can't seem to keep my craft table clear for more than 5 minutes! In this picture you can see at least three projects that I am currently working on: whale deco, mermaid deco, and cutting out comics for a friend's book.......... in the mail today I received 4 decos to work in. The good news is that I finished sewing my techinque pages (see previous post) and my Halloween pages for a local swap. Whew! Now if I could just get inspired to begin my first Beaded Journal Entry (not like it's supposed to be finished at the end of Sept. or anything............LOL). Ah, well.......... such is the life of a crafter/artist. I have found that if I don't have several projects lined up to work on, I drift aimlessly in my craft room......... so I keep myself busy that way!!!

Huge Swap Undertaking

2008-09-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

I spent all day yesterday cutting and sewing 120 pages for a swap hosted by a Yahoo group! When I signed up for this technique swap I figured maybe 30 pages, but it mushroomed into something much bigger! The 4X4 pages are due sometime next month and I really pushed into overdrive yesterday. My background is fabric woven and then sewn to a backing using decorative stitches in colorful thread. You can see what I have done with this technique for a fabric postcard in a prior post (the checkerboard postcard). I cut and stripped the black and white fabric for six more pieces yesterday. Then I wove them into checkerboard patterns and began sewing. The pink feather pattern is complete and I got a good start on the orange fagot stitch before my shoulders started aching and I needed to take a break. This process took almost the entire day, but now all that's left is to finish the stitches, cut them and prepare the backing of cardstock with the directions! Whew! I have seen some of the pages that members have completed already and I cannot wait to get my hands on this "obese" book next month! I will be sure to post a picture when I receive this treasure!

Learning to Knit

2008-09-16T09:53:00.001-07:00

No pictures to add to this post! April and I spent a couple of hours the last two Saturdays learning to knit at The Needler's Nest in Surprise just down the road. We had both attempted to learn via YouTube videos. Irene was very helpful! We learned two methods of casting on yarn, knit and purl stitches, ribbing stitches, how to fix mistakes, read patterns, and how to cast off when finished. Our homework between classes was to knit/purl a stockinette piece and bring it to measure our stitches. Mine came out okay, but I have to admit I ripped it out countless times so the stitches would be even and automatic! Such a perfectionist........... arghhh....... Since the class I have been attempting to create some stitch patterns, but my tension is very tight (a throw back to crochet) so I must persevere and fix it!!!!!!!!!!!!! My ultimate goal is to know how to knit when we move to VA so I can possibly learn to spin yarn at the Alpaca farm near our new house and then knit with the yarn......... I know, high hopes. I 'll keep practicing! When I perfect the ripple stitch I will post a picture, don't hold your breath. LOL.... happy knitting!

Swaps

2008-09-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

When I wasn't subbing, creating new decos, orvsigning established decos, I made several items for swaps (for Yahoo groups): The first is a fence swap for Treasure Art Trends. The requirements were a 4X6 page incorporating a fence. The background is painted with a yellow-tinted gesso resist sun, hand painted grass in foreground. The fence is painted cardboard strips and the fairy/mushroom is an enlarged stamped image. I used a combination of colored pencils, twinkling H2Os and Gelly Roll pens to color the image and then fussy cut it.

I really love how this ATC came out. It was also a swap at Treasure Art Trends, Things with Wings ATCs. The fairy is embossed onto a hand painted background and colored with twinkling H2Os. The starburst above her is stamped with white Stazon and embellished with Stickles. I bordered the card with a gold paint pen.

This is one of the two fabric postcard swaps this month at Fun Friendly. The theme was Pink and Brown only. I chose an abstract, geometric design and sewed buttons on with perle cotton.

A is for.... Arizona Applique: as an AZ resident I went with the Saguaro cactus (designed by hand) and added a blooming Cactus flower to the top using Prima paper flower and a pale yellow brad.

Deco Pages

2008-09-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

So here are the Deco pages that I worked on ready to send to the next signers:
This is Raquel's Pocket Deco with Tags. I used a molding paste technique I learned in Jacqueline Sullivan's Journal of Surfaces Art Unraveled class for the dragonfly on the tag. Of course I hand painted the tag first. The pocket is collaged dragonfly, buttons, ribbon, and text.

This is an excess Deco I received some time ago from Jaime, it is a Travel Journal Deco. Each entry should be from the journal of the traveler. I choose to "visit" Hawaii and used a photo that I took on our visit last year to the big island of Hawaii. The paper is the same as I used in a journal I started on the trip.

This is Barbara's vintage Fashion Deco. I used two greeting cards that I purchased at Ross eons ago. I sewed the cut-out fronts to the plaid backs and embellished with K&Co. chipboard, ribbon, and cute button brads. Pink and green, my favorite colors!

Drowning in Decos

2008-09-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe it has been over two weeks since I blogged! Yikes! I must be more diligent. Even though I no longer work "full time" as a teacher I have been subbing for two schools in the district and have subbed almost all of the 10 days for the past two weeks. When I am not teaching 8th grade Language Arts to hormonal teenagers I have been trying to catch up on swaps that are due. Here are the Decos that I created and have sent to the first signers:
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland -- the mushroom was free-handed from Basic Grey paper (love this line). Alice was a "project" that both my husband and I worked on. It is an illustration from the book that I scanned and then enlarged to what I thought was "just the right size" for my mushroom........ my printer was out of ink so I emailed the Print Shop enlargement upstairs to Dave's email, printed it out, ran back downstairs to find that it did not print enlarged! Repeat procedure two more times (insert curse words here!)... get frustrated.... hubby likes a computer challenge and finally gets Alice to the correct size. Now I white out the mushroom from the original illustration, scan again, send again, print again, cut out, run upstairs to print on watercolor paper, color (not with watercolors as the ink will bleed!) and then fussy cut, glue, finally finished!!!!!!! If only I could draw, I could have saved a bazillion steps.......... oh, well............

Underwater Fantasy Deco in a "meander" style -- I handpainted the background paper (my newest obsession). This time I had to shrink the mermaid stamp (this was done prior to Alice so I had ink in my printer--whew!) and used my Gelly Roll pens to color her on watercolor paper.

Tin Deco: I colored the tin with alcohol inks and made an accordion book to fit inside. The chipboard embellishment is handpainted, on the back of the tin I adhered the little flower petals that came out of the front piece.

Winged Beings Deco: Again handpainted background, with collaged elements. The wings are painted skeleton leaves and the photo is a freebie from a blog ( I think The last door down the hall? )... if not check it out, she has an awesome blog! I attached some butterfly, fairy, and dragonfly charms to the fiber threads on the spine (not shown).

These decos have been sent to the first signers, might be awhile before I see them again!

Check out this blog!

2008-08-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

I am linking Stef's blog: Craftside -- A behind the scenes peek at a craft world. I have been visiting her blog ever since I joined Arttechniques Yahoo group. She reviews craft books and has great ideas for projects associated with the books. Thanks for blogging, Stef!

Postcard and Hike

2008-08-28T17:14:00.001-07:00

Got another swap done! Over at Fun and Friendly Yahoo group I needed a Games themed fabric postcard. The background is black and white fabric woven and then sewn at the seams with a feather stitch. I made paper "checkers" and stamped "king me" in the squares. They will be on their way tomorrow.

Yesterday morning (before subbing in a first grade classroom all afternoon) Daphne and I went hiking on my favorite White Tanks trail, Goat Camp Trail. This was Daphne's second hike with me since getting her cast removed and she really wanted to get to the 2 mile mark. We made it! It took 3 hours and we got back with just enough time to guzzle some more coffee, take a shower, and get to school. Way to go, Daphne!!

Nominated by April

2008-08-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

Thanks, April!

The rules for this award are:

1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.

2. Link the person you received your award from.

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4. Put links of those blogs on yours.

5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you've nominated.

So my nominees are:

Erin

Laura

Michael

Dawn and Stephanie

Kelly

Adriana

Alma

These wonderful people are already linked under Favorite Places!!

P.S. I changed the wording so as not to leave out the male bloggers (see how nice I am to you, Michael! even though you are known to wear a skirt......... LOL!)

New Bead

2008-08-26T22:07:00.001-07:00

I made another Eye Candy Bead from Alma Stoller's instructions tonight. I used a bronze sheer fabric with green and burgandy fibers for embellishment. Looking at my picture it reminds me of a caterpillar. Hmm.... I wonder what the butterfly from this would look like? LOL

On the flight to and from Virginia I played in a journal I made prior to leaving. I brought my Jelly Roll pens (love 'em!) and People magazines I hadn't read yet. I attached the tangerine bead to ribbon on the binding. It held up pretty well for all the traveling it did! This is one of my favorite pages in the journal, an ad for Cirque de Soleil that I doodled on and labeled it Southern Hospitality.

Birthday Card

2008-08-26T16:13:00.001-07:00

Today is Dave' 50th birthday and I used my favorite technique from Lisa Engelbrecht's Modern Mark Making class at Art Unraveled. I actually played with this method on the plane in my travel journal. I love using Jelly Roll pens and I have silver and gold paint pens. So the letters really sparkle! The envelope:

The front of the card: simple, but effective

Post Card contest

2008-08-26T12:26:00.000-07:00

Since our return from Virginia, I have been knee deep in finishing swaps due in the next couple of weeks. I finished my aqua postcards for the colors_postcards_group. I didn't take a picture of them because I am not extremely happy about the way they came out. Working on a flat piece using one color was much more difficult than I had imagined. Next I finished a fabric postcard for the FunFriendly group. This is an entry in the Back to School Postcard challenge. I took a piece of printed fabric and embroidered borders and details on it. I also added the word "CAT" on the left and P.S. 84 on the roof (homage to the p.o. box number I grew up with). I'll let you know if it wins.

Dave's 50th Birthday

2008-08-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

OMG! You have to go to April's blog and check out the freakin' hilarious ecard that she made for Dave's birthday.

Cool giveaway

2008-08-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

Check out centsible Mommy's blog for a chance to win a fabulous wallet: http://centsiblemommy.blogspot.com/2008/08/custom-wallet-giveaway-from.html
This site has some pretty items: http://thetrendyspot.com/
I love the hair clips that look like fish, spiders, bees, butterflies: all made out of ribbon. Very clever.

Back From Virginia

2008-08-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

Above this post you will find a slide show of our new house and property in southwest Virginia. Our final offer was accepted and if all else goes well we should take possession in October. We are planning a trip back again in December to visit our vacation, soon to be retirement home. There is a bit of work to do finishing the inside, but the previous owner has added many details such as a tongue and groove wood ceiling as well as floor, tiled entryway to match the fireplace surround, pine cabinets in the kitchen as well as other wood details. The house has two livable levels and an unfinished basement that, when finished will add quite a bit of square footage to the house.
The house is located at the end of a "street" which you can see in one of the pictures. It is literally two ruts in the ground which extends from a gravel road. The property is over an acre in size, mostly wooded and very isolated. Exactly what we were looking for! Bonus: wild turkeys and deer on the property. We did not actually see the turkeys (only their feathers), but did see several deer running around through the trees. It is so quiet there it's unbelievable. The weather was perfect, 70s to 80s with a bit of rain one day. Even after the rain it wasn't muggy at all. The area is in the Blue Ridge mountains and beautifully preserved.
While there we took a side trip to Mount Airy, NC home of Andy Griffith. I managed to find two fabric stores, a Goodwill, and an Alpaca farm (add weaving to my craft repertoire soon!!). It was great seeing green trees, grass, water in streams, hay bales, cows, horses, and two lane country roads after having lived in the urban Phoenix area for nearly 30 years. It smelled so good there I couldn't stop taking deep breaths... people probably thought I was asthmatic! LOL
Speaking of people, Southern Hospitality is not just a phrase, everyone really was nice. We have never had better service in restaurants than in Hillsville, VA! Even the buffet across the street was great and no matter where we ate our glasses were constantly refilled. Anyone who knows me knows that my tip is based on a full glass of whatever we are drinking! When we told people we were buying property they were genuinely excited that we would be moving to the area! What a difference between here and there.... can't wait to be there permanently...

Off to Virginia

2008-08-17T13:07:00.001-07:00

We are vacationing in southwestern Virginia to look at houses there. Our intent is to purchase a second home for vacations and ultimately retirement. If nothing else we will be 30 degrees cooler there than we are here in the Phoenix area. After nearly 30 years of the desert heat we are more than ready to experience cooler temps and four seasons again!

Bead Journal Project 2008

2008-08-16T07:27:00.000-07:00

I just learned today that I have been accepted to join the Bead Journal Project 2008!!!!! I learned about it yesterday and quickly emailed them as the cut-off date to join was yesterday! Got a nice email this morning letting me know that I was not too late. I am not sure what I will be doing, that's nothing new! I have been making beaded jewelry for several months now and this will be a great chance to use my plethera of beads in a new way! I will post updates and pictures of this journey............

Fabric Bead

2008-08-11T23:18:00.001-07:00

I purchased Alma Stoller's Eye Candy Beads instruction booklet at Art Unraveled this past weekend. Today I bought a size 13 knitting needle at Michael's after spending at least an hour at SAS Fabrics here in Phoenix hunting for fabric and notion bargains. I found several yummy colors of voile there to use for the fabric beads. Here is my first attempt using a squash-colored base with three different types of fibers as well as random beads from my collection. The directions were very good and I am very happy with my first Eye Candy Bead. Thank you, Alma!!

Vendor Faire Win and Friends

2008-08-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

Although Karen and I did not have bunches of time to attend the Vendor Faire yesterday morning before eating lunch and attending Kelly Kilmer's class, we had enough time to wander over to a few booths and spend all of our money! During a break in our class I met up with Alma Stoller whose zine I had purchased several months ago. In her zine, Odd Ball Zine, I found a pattern for crocheted flowers which I used and incorporated into a row house swap for TreasuredArtTrends Yahoo group. I love Alma's work, but realized that I had signed up for other classes that coincided with her classes...... bummer....... but we met up and seemed to have a connection! I made her take a pic with me (just kidding, she was more than happy to pose!) and I purchased the kits from her classes. I am excited to try her fabric beads, may have to find a large knitting needle first. They look way cool!!!

So, who was in the booth right next to Alma? Why, the lovely Katie Kendrick! So, here are two of my favorite artists: (love these ladies!!!)

Poor Susan had to suffer through two classes with me (she survived!)....... both Carboard Visual Journal and Avant Garde Journals. I think she is in love with my heat gun (just kidding Susan! always glad to share!) I asked her to share her favorite page from her Avant Garde journal (she finished this one, still waiting for her to sew her cardboard journal together -- send me a pic, Susan!), she chose a large pull-out page, her covers were beautiful!!!

Karen incorporated some personal memorabilia into her journal (love the passport shot!) as well as some papers we shared (notice the fashion black and white paper that was in mine too). Her favorite spread shows her drawing ( on the left) and painted pages (too bad the textures she made don't show up, they are wonderful!):

So, during our break and visit to Alma and Katie I actually won a door prize. Those who know me, understand how unusual this is. At one conference I attended there were fifty people and thirty prizes and I was one of the twenty!! If there are numbers involved mine is only one or two away from the winner....... anyway I won this gorgeous pendant made by Cindy Dean. This was something I recognized immediately from her blogspot, they are across her masthead. Not only did I win, but I won something I really coveted! Thank you, Cindy! Your work is marvelous!

At Unraveled Day 5

2008-08-10T14:20:00.001-07:00

Saturday I attended Kelly Kilmer's Avant Garde Journal class. What a blast! I don't even know how to begin to describe the fun we had in this class........ Kelly is a great teacher! We made these funky journals made out of "Everything but the Kitchen Sink" ! LOL!! We first painted canvas spines and chipboard covers for two different sized journals. It was fun watching Karen really dig into the painting......... loved the deep colors she ended up with for her covers! Before class we attended the Vendor Faire, discovered two paper stores and bought very cool papers to add to our books. I found out we both love crowns! Wahoo!
Back to painting, I am very much an amateur as I have not had much experience with paints, but I love the feel of brushing on an medium!!! Did not end up with beloved green, but my spine is pink!! I also managed a dragonfly on the spine (since my spine is half black, it didn't show up too well, but I know it is there!). Here is my front cover for the larger journal (of course I ran out of time in class --slow poke!, so I haven't had a chance to finish the small journal), notice all of the funky pages sticking out:

We also painted a page for each signature for both journals and stenciled onto them, I call my painting style "Eric Carle" and I really am pleased with the effect I got. I love the dressmaker's stencil (an homage to my mother who is a seamstress!), this is one of my favorite painted pages:

So for all four signatures we were to incorporate a variety of styles, textures, etc. for the pages. We needed 48 different pages, I thought I had enough but when I counted I only had 36. What to do? I didn't feel like looking through what was in the room (again!) so I decided to see what I could beg from vendors and look through trash......... I got the idea from my purchase at Tricia's Vintage Bliss booth. She gave me a patterened paper bag I wanted to use as a page. So of course I ran up to Tricia and told her what I was doing... we dug through her bag bag and found some stuff (including a yellow legal tablet page with some sort of list on it!)........... what a sport she is! I loved it!!! I needed one more page so I scrounged in Stamp-O-Tique's trash and found register tape.......... SCORE! Now I had enough for my book. Here is the section with Tricia's paper list, also the brown and black paper was a purchase as was the hand made paper on the right (from S.A.G.E. Crafts, made in Bali). Although not in this shot, one of my favorite finds in Kelly's stash was a Japanese magazine, the pages are thick and glossy (actually now that I look closely at the pic you can see the black "W" page, I think that is one of them?).

A top view of all the pages in the two signatures. There is room for at least two more signatures, so I am already saving recycled treasures to add in later............ Yes, that is a gift bag hand sticking out on the left! It was the bag that held paper purchased at Paper Studio's booth. In the back signature is a plastic handled bag from Tricia's stuff.......

The class was great and I can't wait to take more classes from Kelly when she returns to Frenzy Stamper this October! Kelly, you are warned! LOL

Art Unraveled Day 4 Night Class

2008-08-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday's night class was Jacqueline Sullivan's Journal of Surfaces. Even though the class was crowded, I learned quite a few techniques I will definitely use again. We used seven different methods for creating journal page backgrounds and then cut the pages to fit into a 4X4 book bound with the Zutter Bind-it-All. We used these backgrounds for divider pages and inserted directions for each method into small envelopes which also became part of the book. As with the earlier class, I did not get the book assembled, but took it home and finished it there ( I recently purchased a Zutter so it wasn't an issue of having to bind it in class).
I was really pleased with the molding paste method we used on the cover, at first my colors were rather dark, but they lightened up once I hit it with copper and interference green. My cover:

The sad thing is there was no dragonfly stencil so butterfly was the next best thing (Hah!) I have dragonfly stencils here, so I feel another book in my future!
I was not thrilled with some of my results on a couple of techniques, but once I got home and cut them down, they weren't so bad!! My favorite (after the molding paste and stencil) was the raised foil marks with clear tar gel on black gesso:

I also liked the gesso resist method......... I love my book! It will be a great reference source.

Nancy's Cathedral Door

2008-08-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

Nancy wanted a cathedral style door for her cardboard visual journal (see post below), so I volunteered to cut one since I was cutting windows anyway. She was very happy so I wanted to post her work. Note the green paint, my Making Memories Evergreen paint struck a chord with several students that day, so it appears in a couple of journals.... it is a great shade!! Here is Nancy's door shut:

and open:

I am positive she did more work on this page before she was finished. I love the colors, she chose to make only a few pages and is going to give the book to her mother. Thanks for sharing Nancy!! (Nancy and I also were in the night class, see above post for info)

Art Unraveled Day 4 Class #`1

2008-08-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

Thursday's first class was THE class I had been waiting to take: A Cardboard Visual Journal with Katie Kendrick featured in the Nov./Dec. 2007 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors (boy, this issue was fantastic -- it is also the one that featured my Tuesday class with Cathy Taylor!). The class did not disappoint! Katie is a fantastic teacher and wonderful person (odd bit of trivia: we were born 3 days apart!!!!!), I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with her. The ladies in this class were very energetic and there was such a collaborative spirit. It was very energizing and creative on that second floor! Although I did not completely finish assembling the book during class, I left knowing that I was armed with all the info I needed to complete the project. So, after my night class I came home and finished both the books (staying up until midnight to do so). Here is my finished cover (of course it's pink and green and has a dragonfly and beads-- duh!):

The entire book is constructed from corrugated cardboard and coffee dyed cheesecloth. My favorite two page spread with my "window" page which came about as a solution to a weak page:

Yes, you did see a dragonfly and there are more beads!! Below is a photo of the spine and the fuzzies on the page edges, it brings to mind a barn ( for those who have lived in farm country), the cardboard texture looks like the side of a weathered barn and the cheesecloth is reminiscent of hay:

Yesterday I met up with Katie at the Vendor Faire:

Absoulutely loved her and the class, this is one book I will be making again, and again.......

Modern Mark Making purchase

2008-08-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

I am really excited to have purchased a copy of Lisa Engelbrecht's new book Modern Mark Making upon which my Thursday class was based (see earlier post). It is large and spiral bound so that it will lay flat when you practice from it. I bought the copy at the Art Unraveled Vendor Faire yesterday..............

and had Lisa sign it........

Fabulous stuff, can't wait to dive in and practice some more!!

Art Unraveled Day 3

2008-08-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

What a fantabulous class today: Modern Mark Making with Lisa Engelbrecht. This was the one class I was leery about, I have no experience in calligraphy and do not like my natural handwriting. Which is why I took this class, I want to add handwriting to my work and thought this class would help. It sure did! Lisa is a wonderful teacher and the energy in the room was energizing! I could have watched Lisa make letters all day and been happy. However, once I dipped my nib in pink ink and started stroking I realized that I could do this, it was a great feeling! Here is Lisa giving one her awe-inspiring demos:

As a class we collaborated on a cover for our work, we all "left our mark" for each cover:

I numbered my pages as I went to track my progress and this is only page 5, I broke up the letters:

One of the last pages of the day. We were to make multi stroke letters and then fill in withe colors, more strokes, and doodles:

Isn't this A wonderful? One of our class mates did this work, I think it is my favorite:

I have added a couple of blogs from fellow Mark Makers: altered artists, Adrianna, and Lisa... go see our fabulous work!

Art Unraveled Day 2

2008-08-06T19:24:00.000-07:00

Today was rather disappointing to me as I wasn't as productive in class as I would have liked. I really resisted the exercise in drawing. I do not like to draw and do not like what I draw when forced to draw! Moving on, I only produced a few pages that I even came close to liking so I have included them here. This first piece wasn't even one of the exercises we were supposed to be working on, but I got so frustrated I just grabbed the cover of the Harper's Bazaar mag I had and color washed , then drew with Sharpie around the face to frame it. This is my homage to Alma Stoller whose zine is full of this type of work and I love my first attempt!!! Part of the issue today was that I didn't have any appropriate weight paper to work on or markers (there are so many supplies to bring to these classes it's almost impossible to have everything you need that day) so it was frustrating. I made Jane take me to Michael's after we ate lunch to buy heavy paper, duct tape, and paint, but I still couldn't get it right. Ah, well.....

We pooled paper and "stuff" and I pulled this kitty pic from that pile. When Traci was scanning it the woman commented that someone was using her cat, so I had her put Dash's name on my page in her own handwriting. The page under Dash is plain, but I like the composition (I used bling and beloved duct tape!)

These next two pages are okay, better than some of the others. I may have to go back to them and work, but.........

Tomorrow's class is Modern Mark Making with the mistress of all things written..... Lisa Englebrecht (who has been featured in Somerset Studio with her exemplar alphabets). I have never done calligraphy and don't even know if I have the right nib, but......... now I know where Michael's is near PV mall so I can always scoot out at lunch again.........