Sizzix: Who Are YOU?

In case you haven't heard, Sizzix has a new campaign going on AND they want to know WHO you are -- you know the WHO, WHAT, WHERE's and everything about you -- and you could also WIN a HUGE prize just for sharing WHO you are with us! Click on the image above to find out everything you need to know to play along!

It's really hard to narrow it down to three words to describe who I am because any combination of three would do the trick but would they really give you a clear picture of WHO I am?

To start with, I think you already know I'm an artist. I love pretty much everything there is to love about creating art -- from the inspiration to the completed project. Even pieces that I struggle with -- because when I turn that ugly duckling into something fantastic it really makes me happy. That's not to say that I don't struggle at times, all artists do. But turning a blank piece of paper into a colorful mess that other people love is a talent I am pretty proud and happy to have.

I also have a pretty silly side, which I don't always show. And, luckily this photo covers three of the many aspects of me while only using up one of my words -- here I am being silly with my husband demonstrating how to use Pore Strips for our teenage son -- two of my other loves.

Nature lover. I love everything about the natural world that surrounds me -- even bugs -- except the biting kind. Nature has the most beautiful colors, textures, layouts and subjects and inspires me on a daily basis! If I need some inspiration for something new or different to draw all I need to do is go outside and look around me!

 

My favorite Sizzix project is this paper quilt using the Hexagons Bigs. This project came together so beautifully, if only I could quilt this good with fabric!!

Well, that about sums it up -- I'm a silly artist that loves nature -- my family and quilts. Make sure you click on over and to the Sizzix blog to see how you can play along - and I think you will love the SUPER COOL prize you could be eligible to win!

Have a great day and HAPPY Halloween!

Be Thankful for Chocolate

Check out the Sizzix blog today to see my post about these cuties and learn how I made the tags for them!

Have a great weekend, thanks for stopping by!

Make a Custom iPhone Case

Hello there, I know I've been pretty quiet here on the blog lately, but things have been busy I've not really been in the mood for blogging. The same questions I ask myself all the time. But, I'm back today -- thanks to the commitment yesterday to the Whatevers to finally blog.

But as a bonus,  due to my silence I thought I'd give you a little tutorial -- a little thanks to you for coming back to see what I've got going on.

Last week I stopped by Joann Fabrics and found this super cool CLEAR silicone iPhone case. It was on clearance for $5.00 -- and I immediately had an idea pop into my head. This would be perfect to make a custom case for my phone using my Art Gone Wild! Stamps. It was easy peasy -- and here's how I did it.

First I cut a piece of watercolor paper the SAME SIZE as the interchangeable designs included with the case and used the Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper to chomp a 1/4" corner on each corner of the watercolor paper.

 I also made sure it fit inside the case, since the paper was a bit thicker than the included design I had to do a little trimming to make it fit.

 When it did fit, I used a pencil to trace the camera hole on the case.

I used a combination of an x-acto blade and fussy cutting scissors to cut the camera hole out.

Then I stamped my black eyed susan stamp and Archival Ink to stamp my favorite flower on the watercolor paper. To add color I used my watercolor paints to paint the design -- but you could use any thing to color the design.

The result is a super beautiful custom iPhone case that i can swap out with any of my favorite stamps or designs from my Just Add Color line!

 

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day!

Who, exactly, was Oscar?

It's that time of the month -- when the Whatever Team comes out with our monthly edition of stories. In case you don't know what Whatevers is, a group of artsy friends have gotten together to give our favorite old photos a story. Each month we pick one photo (that we also provide to you, if you'd like to play along), of people who are in need of a story. You know, that long lost photo. One of those you might find at a flea market, or vintage shop. The kind that always makes you wonder.  Where do these people belong? You DO know they belonged to someone. We'll we give them a new story and now journey ... a new adventure!   We each create a page and story just for them.  As you can image, it's a creative journey that takes many different paths :)

You can see what everyone is up to this month by following these links:

Cuchy
Vic
Martha
Nat

Without further delay, here's my story for this month!!

__________________________________

Cordelia knew that Winston was hiding something, she just knew. The story he had told her so far sounded far fetched and had a lot of holes and missing information.

As she waited for him to return from his “fishing trip” she looked through her old photo albums remembering the many happy times they had had.

The pictures from their modest wedding helped her remember how much they were in love – but the pictures of Winston as a boy on a farm with his mother and a cow made her sit back and think about the situation and how long he’d been gone and how much he had missed in Winnie and Newt’s lives.

In this picture, he’d named the cow Oscar, or at least that’s what it said on the back of the photo.

Mother and Oscar with Bessie.

No, wait. The Cow was Bessie. Who was Oscar? He looked just like Winston. Red hair. Cute nose. Blue eyes.

 And Winston’s mother looked old enough to be a grandmother not a mother to “Oscar”.

Who, exactly, was Oscar?

__________________________________

__________________________________

Here is how it works

• Vicki, Cat, Cuchy (Carmen), Martha and I and I have made a one-year commitment to each other and picked twelve photos with Whatevers whom we will give a story.

• Every month – if possible always on the 15th –  each of us will do a post with an individual story that goes along for us with the same photo.

• If you want you can play along and we will have the photo for you to download and show us your version of The Whatevers. The photo will be posted at the end of our blogposts- not on Facebook!

• There are no rules to the story itself- it can be funny, sad, uplifting, breathtaking- WHATEVER
  There are no rules on the length or the form of the story- it can be a short sentence, an essay, a poem or a soap opera – WHATEVER

• There are no rules on the artform you choose – it can be a scrapbook layout, an altered art project, an artjournal page – WHATEVER

• Here is a rule though: if you take the photo you have to link back to us and show us your story.


• These pictures are from our personal stash and are for personal use for you only! If you want to use them for a publication whether a book or magazine in print or digital form please ask for permission

• If you want to participate we’ll have a linky list for each Whatever Post.

You can also join our The Whatevers -Facebook Page

Hoarder's Mini Book: A fun Project for Sizzix

Hello and HAPPY Sunday! Popping in today to share the link to see the fun Instagram Mini Book I made over on the Sizzix blog this month.

Click on either of the images to go over to the Sizzix blog for more pictures and a quickie how-to!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and thank you for stopping by!

We Could All Learn Something from Butterflies

Helloooooo -- and TGIF!! I took a bit more time last night to relax and finish more of my Deconstructed Journal pages and thought I would share this one. It's a collaboration between one of the students (and DEAR friend) from the class, Mimi DiNatale. When I saw her original page I fell in love with the shapes and colors. It was stunning before -- I had a little bit of guilt working on it. But, I know Mimi won't mind. At the end of the class we swapped pages because this one really spoke to me. From the first moment I looked at it I saw wing shapes from the colors she applied to the page. Still not sure how she created this but it is super cool. I was so lucky that she would part with it.

To create this page I highlighted the wings with a pencil and painted the background with white. When that was dry I journaled with a pencil and added a border and detailed the butterflies with a marker.

It turned out super whimsical and the perfect combination of colors.

And really, couldn't we all learn a thing or two from those beautiful and graceful creatures?

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your weekend!

Deconstructed Journal: Weekend ReCap

Wow, seems like forever since I blogged last. Almost a week I guess. This week I've been trying to get caught up as I've had some distractions over the last several weeks that have kept me from getting things created and classes ready to open and most importantly from creating artsy fartsy things to blog about. I did spend the last weekend away and it was a great break from the stress -- I traveled back to Kept Creations in Whitman, Massachusetts to teach a brand new fun class that I am totally in love with.

With all the things going on I've been having a hard time getting started on that to-do list. Today I was really feeling the urge to be creative, so I thought I would work on finishing a few of the demo's I created for the class.

The class was called "Deconstructed Journal" and was a painty, creative mess (in the best possible way) using the gelli plate. I loved seeing how everyone used the tools and demos to create the pages for their own journals. For this page I combined two different stencils, one from Dina Wakely and the other from Heidi Swapp. This series turned out great -- but my favorite one -- a collaboration with another student -- was swapped with one of the students. I tried to veto the swap but well, you know how that goes.

This morning, as I was spinning my wheels with the news, facebook and lots of other distractions I decided to take 20 minutes or so to simply play and finish up some of the demo pages I started in the class.

To finish this particular page, I journaled in the body of the woman with a pencil and then painted over it with watered down white gesso. I also added some black paint on the left and right to fill in some distracting white areas and used my lettering stencil to add some important information that I wanted to remember about the journaling. 

That greenish blue strip at the top totally makes me giddy. And the silver happiness that radiates out of her body -- yeah -- that's another happy part. Two great reasons to be happy right there -- greenish blue and silver happiness radiating from your body.

Well anyway enough of my silly nonsense, thanks for stopping by today -- if you feel yourself stuck in the mud -- take a few minutes out of your day to do something creative for no other reason than to make yourself happy! Have a great day.

Easy Peasy Butterfly Chain Card

I forgot to share this how-to post with you on Monday, if you want to see how I created this fun and easy card click on over to the Sizzix blog to find out how I made this fun fall inspired card!

Have a great day, thank you so much for stopping by!

Finding Inspiration in the Strangest Places

I think it's safe to say that everyone is inspired by life and the fleeting images that pass by them each day differently. What may spark something inside your heart might not spark the same thing in mine. Take for instance the image that I saw on Pinterest. A beautiful arrangement of cheese, wine. bread. olive oil. Some kinda nut. herbs. It's beautiful in every way possible.

Photo by Pratos e Travessas discovered on Pinterest

It's simply a beautiful image -- but I wasn't inspired by the food nor did it make me hungry. Now - put some chocolate truffles or cake in a photo and I'd be starving, ha ha.

What I saw in my head was a beautiful composition that I could use for an art journal page. While I have put my own flair on the design, the photograph really spoke to me in a way that I don't think the photographer intended. (If you click on the photo you'll go to her beautiful blog -- so much inspiration and gorgeous food photography there!)

Here are a few close-ups of the journaling -- because I've been feeling really angry about a lot of things that are out of my control lately I thought a different train of thought would help me not be that way.

I used my new Caran D'Ache colored pencils for this page. This 30 pencil set has the most gorgeous colors.... LOVE it so much.

  

 I think my favorite is laugh until it hurts. We don't laugh enough some days. 

The journaling was done with my Dip Pen with a 512 Nib and black Calligraphy Ink.

While I don't sing out loud at home,  I do whenever I'm alone in the car.

I hope I have inspired you to look at your world with brand new eyes! Thanks for stopping by, have a great day!

Dali on Perfection

Head on over to the eclectic Paperie blog to see some more pictures and how I created this Grid of Perfection post -- and take a look around the shop to see if she has my products in stock yet!

Oh Whatever -- Maybe I Should Have Said...

Well, it's that time of the month and I'm pretty excited to share my story with you. I look forward to playing with the photos and coming up with silly stories each month. Sometimes I like combining historical facts with my characters, like I did this month. I hope you enjoy this little peak into Winston's head.

______________________________________

What WOULD he tell Cordelia?

Would he start with revealing he had once worked for Allen Pinkerton of Pinkerton Government Services? Or would he start with I have two children . . . but I thought they had perished in a horrible fire. Maybe he’d start with, I was married once before, to Allen Pinkerton’s younger sister who had come to America from Scotland. We fell in love at a young age and Allen gave me a job so I could take care of my family.

Or, he could say he lived a double life, but lost track of his first life when his wife died in childbirth and his children were whisked into an orphanage to keep them safe from enemies of the Pinkerton’s.

The orphanage burned down just as he was about to bring them home to his Mother but that was a long time before he met Cordelia.

 

Instead of coming up with a solution to his dilemma, Winston couldn’t stop his mind from thinking about fishing.

 

Maybe a couple of hours at his favorite fishing hole would help him come up with an answer for his beloved Cordelia.

 

Or, maybe not.

______________________________________

Take a look around  to see what everyone else came up with this month:

• Martha: http://themermaidscloset.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-whatevers-or-guess-whos-coming-for.html


• Vicki: http://vickichrisman.blogspot.com/2013/09/september-whatevers-two.html


• Cuchy: http://la-almohada.blogspot.com/2013/09/whatevers-ii-school-mates.html


• Nat: http://wp.me/p3Cnxf-32m

______________________________________

Here is how it works:

• Vicki, Cat, Cuchy (Carmen), Martha and I and I have made a one-year commitment to each other and picked twelve photos with Whatevers whom we will give a story.


• Every month – if possible always on the 15th –  each of us will do a post with an individual story that goes along for us with the same photo.


• If you want you can play along and we will have the photo for you to download and show us your version of The Whatevers. The photo will be posted at the end of our blogposts- not on Facebook!


• There are no rules to the story itself- it can be funny, sad, uplifting, breathtaking- WHATEVER There are no rules on the length or the form of the story- it can be a short sentence, an essay, a poem or a soap opera – WHATEVER


• There are no rules on the artform you choose – it can be a scrapbook layout, an altered art project, an artjournal page – WHATEVER


• Here is a rule though: if you take the photo you have to link back to us and show us your story.


• These pictures are from our personal stash and are for personal use for you only! If you want to use them for a publication whether a book or magazine in print or digital form please ask for permission


• If you want to participate we’ll have a linky list for each Whatever Post.


• You can also join our The Whatevers -Facebook Page

And finally, you can share your project for September with us here: