Summer of Color - Weeks 3 & 4

I'm participating in Kristin's Summer of Color Challenge for my third year.

I decided this year to do some 3D style mixed-media projects - specifically - altered bottle art.  These were finished timely, but I've been sick (yes, head cold round 2) so I'm very late posting.  And to my regular readers... I'll be offline the rest of this week - traveling to visit the inlaws.

Week 3 - lavender plus violet plus yellow:

Week 4 - burgundy plus red-orange plus metallic (gold):

The "lid" is actually a filigree drawer knob, held in place with several rounds of packing tape!  This was originally a vintage cough syrup bottle.  Have to say that this one currently holds second place behind the sea glass one in my heart!

Summer of Color - Weeks 1 & 2

I'm participating in Kristin's Summer of Color Challenge for my third year.

I decided this year to do some 3D style mixed-media projects - specifically - altered bottle art.

I saw my first altered bottle at the Frisco Mercantile in April with Melissa. I was quite taken with the concept.  Since then I've been collecting bottles at flea markets for between 25 cents and about $3 a piece. I won't pay more than the $3 for a base for a project.  Anyway....

Week 1 - 2 blues + 1 green.  I chose a sapphire blue, a turquoise blue, and a lime green:

This took me awhile and I got side-tracked with a nasty summer head cold that's had me out of commission for about four days.  But I finally finished!

I used decoupage to adhere the lace and twine and used hot glue for the shells and beads. I actually bought a necklace at the flea market for $1 just so I could take it apart for the beads and charms!

 Here's a close up of the detail:

Week 2 - 2 pinks + 1 orange.  I chose baby pink, fuschia, and a bright coral-orange:

I'm not really sure about that fuschia ribbon at the top.  Help me decide!  Do you like it better with the ribbon....

Or without the ribbon???

Here's a close-up of the yummy detail.
Keep in mind, these bottles have been washed. But they are old and imperfect and I really like them that way!

One Little Word - May

I'm continuing on my journey with Kindness this year.  Have you checked out my Year of Kindness Project  yet?

Ali's assignment for May was to create artsy cards with reflections on the statement "I Am"

Keeping in mind that I'm working in a Smash Book and don't have quite the real estate of an 8.5x11 page protector with nine slots for cards (what most of the One Little Word students are working with), this is what I came up with:

 Colored modeling paste through a stencil and gelatos for the background of the page, modeling paste through a stencil added in bits to the Project Life cards and then colored with gelatos.

Love those folding project life cards for this page!  I've also been thinking about printing off some of my kindness quote photographs and adding to the book.   

How is your One Little Word working in your life this year?

Zoom In Zoom Out Mixed Media

I made a canvas panel (8x10) for my sister Deanna:

 Her "One Little Word" for this year is "Let Go" and I wanted to give her something that would encourage her in this practice. Lots of embedded messages.  And a totally vintagy, shabby chic look.

Linking up with Helena's Zoom In Zoom Out meme.

Play on the Popular

So I wanted to join in Sian's "Blog Cos You Want To" Club and take advantage of suggestion #2 - Play on the Popular.  But when I started looking through my old posts, all of the "popular" ones (ie- those with the highest number of comments) came from blog hops and Story Telling Sunday posts.  Which bring in an audience far wider than my "regulars".  So I started looking through the posts that only my "regulars" saw... and decided to share this one again...written August 19, 2011, this was my 500th post:

My 500th Post - Meet My Inner Critic

I've been blogging since October 2, 2008 - nearly 3 years. But I haven't always been a prolific blogger - and definitely not an every day without fail blogger.

But here I am today, nearly three years later, publishing my 500th post.  And if you are someone who likes to do the math, you'll quickly figure out that 500 posts over just shy of three years comes out to just about one post for every two days. And wow! That surprised me. I didn't expect it to be that high.

So how can I mark my 500th post?  What can I do to make this one special? Honestly, I wasn't coming up with anything exciting. Nothing seemed good enough. I tossed aside ideas about polls. And lists of 500 things. And then I realized... my Inner Critic was being loud and obnoxious and I just needed to hush her up. So for my 500th post I'm introducing you to my Inner Critic. And then, just to spite her, I'm doing a fabulous giveaway.  So keep reading!

I've been aware of my Inner Critic for a long, long time. I think most of us are. But I never really took the time to get to KNOW her until recently. I've been reading a book called Journal Spilling by Diana Trout (I did not realize until I was reading the book, she actually lives about 45 minutes from me.)  In her book, Diana introduces her Inner Critic - a short skinny geek with ugly bug glasses who wears his pants too short and his tie too tight. He's a very cartoonish fellow named Stewie. The lesson Diana offers is that when you get to really know your Inner Critic, you take away his/her power.

My Inner Critic is nothing like Diana's.  First off, she's decidedly female. She is 5'6" (the exact height I always want to be but never reached) and physically fit and toned. She wears the classic never-goes-out-of-style clothing and always looks polished and put together. She never leaves the house without makeup on. She never looks frumpy.

We share an affinity for good food, but she is satisfied with a bite or two whereas I am a certified card-carrying member of the clean plate club.

She is the kind of woman who keeps an immaculate home, makes a living, is a supportive spouse and loving mother, yet still finds time for creative pursuits, and does it all with flair and makes it look easy.  You know... the kind of woman you love to hate?

And because this is all natural to her, she expects it to be natural to me as well.  She scoffs at my awkwardness and discomfort in social situations. She reacts with total scorn at my sticky kitchen floors and cluttered counters. In fact, she is really quite judgmental.  Nothing I do is ever good enough for her. You see, we also share a complete lack of tolerance for incompetence and laziness... and she considers me to be both.  (if you've ever watched the showThe Gilmore Girls, she's eerily similar to the character Emily Gilmore as played by Kelly Bishop - see what I mean?)

Honestly, her whole "Martha Stewart" persona and "holier than thou" attitude are quite annoying. In fact, as I've thought more about her, I realized there is nothing AUTHENTIC about her whatsoever. She's just a construct of societal expectations and consumerism. The perfect middle-aged woman of 2011. A total phony. And she's doing her best to peddle her wares on me.  Thing is, I've decided I'm not buying it anymore. It is time to tell my Inner Critic to stuff a sock in it and kick her to the curb!

My no make-up, yoga pants and tee look is far more authentic. My messy home speaks of the real life and real activities happening here. The fact that I am too busy to clean obsessively - I guess that is a good thing!

To celebrate my 500th post AND the occasion of me finally telling my Inner Critic to shut the hell up, I'm offering a give-away!  One lucky blog reader will receive a mixed media canvas art from me (on a canvas panel which can be framed or used as is) designed specifically for the winner.  My Inner Critic is yapping away that nobody would really want my "art," it isn't good enough, the winner will surely be disappointed, blah, blah, blah.  I've firmly clapped my hands over my ears and am singing "la, la, la, la, la, I can't hear you!" at the top of my lungs.  I'm taking the chance and I'm going to do this!

If you would like to participate, please leave a comment telling me your happy color(s), any favorite quote or saying you have, or any other hints that might provide me with inspiration for your piece!  I will choose a winner on Friday, August 26th from all the entries received by then.  [end of 500th post]*

* Obviously, this giveaway was  over two years ago! But if you've been kind enough to read this far, here's the reward -  I've decided to do it again anyway... just as an excuse to play with canvas and paints and messy stuff.  So same rules as before, only I'll choose a winner on Friday, December 13, 2013.  I won't guarantee that the canvas goes out until well into January however...

Get Artsy

Seriously, I can't keep up with my life anymore! I have so much to share but have had precious little time to get anything posted here to my blog. I'm here today trying to remedy that at least a little!

I'm taking the Get Artsy class by Mou Saha over at Big Picture Classes.  This class combines two of my favorite things - scrapbooking and mixed media techniques. Up til now I've kept these two hobbies separate, so I thought I'd give this class a try to see how I felt about mixing it up.

Week 1:

Week one we were to use a gessoed background with gelatos (a stick form of watercolor) to create a background. I didn't have the gelatos yet, so I used my Neocolor Watercolor crayons.  After the color is applied you can use a stencil and a baby wipe to remove color to create a reverse resist (see those little butterflies just above the photo?). I didn't get exactly the look I was going for because I didn't have enough stencils on hand to do what I wanted. But I was still very pleased with the final result.

Week 2:

This layout was a result of my Studio purge/memorabilia review last month.  I came across a "love letter" I had written to my twins when they were toddlers. I excerpted the portion that was just to Rachel for this layout.

Week two had us using gel medium for collage (lower right corner of the white canvas) and for a resist technique with watercolors (chevron upper left corner).  I learned that gel medium works so much better for collage than mod podge and dries without the stickiness that has been causing so many of my art journal pages to stick together. Good thing to know!  This layout (because of drying time between layers) took all day.

I'm rapidly learning that I don't really like mixing mixed media with scrapbooking.  Although I love the results of these two layouts, this is definitely too fussy and time-consuming for scrapbook pages (let's face it, I LOVE Digi!) and because I still want to tell a story with words and photos I'm finding that you really have to PLAN placement of elements to make a balanced layout. Doing mixed media just for fun doesn't have those kind of constraints and I can just go with the flow more.

I still intend to finish out the class and participate in all the exercises, but I'm happy to have learned that after this, I'll likely be keeping these separate.

I've also learned that I'm rapidly running out of my butterfly stash! Oh no! So to all my bloggy friends here's a heads up... my birthday is May 29th... and I'm almost out of butterflies...  Seriously, just kidding.  Sort of. ;-)

Ten Totally Random Things

This is my Ten on the Tenth Post - albeit late.  I've had the idea for this post in the back of my mind for two months now and just couldn't seem to make it happen.  But here it is!

1. June has been flying by in a frenetic fury.  We've already experienced a Prom, we are a week into the latest Becca/Peter break-up drama (outcome yet to be determined), a Graduation , a flurry of medical appointments for various family members, and seriously one of the craziest busy periods of work for me yet! I still haven't had a chance to play with my new toy either. Do you ever have times like this in your life, where you feel like you just can't catch your breath?  So I've been reading everyone's blog posts, but haven't always had time to comment. But I'm there!

2. Would you love to receive daily uplifting emails... love Notes from the Universe?  I get them daily and frequently enough they are so on point to what I need to hear.  It's free and you can sign up HERE.

3.  I'm late in sharing this:

After Deb sent in the crazy-quilt butterfly I'd made for her butterfly project, I felt compelled to finish the Butterfly Canvas I'd started for her before the butterfly project.  And here it is!  You can't see the sides, but there are butterflies there too! And between painted butterflies, stamped butterflies, die-cut butterflies, rub-on butterflies, butterflies cut from thank you cards and gift wrap, and a hand made modeling paste butterfly... well, there are 51 butterflies on the canvas!

4.  I know a lot of you followed my burst of productivity during LOAD last month.  Were you curious about trying it out, but afraid to commit to an entire month?  Lain is offering her one week version, Your Story Matters, at a name your own price special.  Literally, it goes into the shopping cart at $0.00 and you can leave that if you want... or change it to any amount you feel moved to offer.  It starts on June 24th. Click the Your Story Matters link to sign up!

5.  And speaking of FREE classes, Jessica Sprague is offering Photoshop Top 5 free - beginning June 18th, so hurry!

6.  While I'm on a roll with the internet freebies...  Have you always wanted a Gratitude Practice, but had a hard time remembering to write in a journal or think about it each day? I did! Until I stumbled across Grateful160.com.  They will send you a daily (or up to 4x/day) email or text asking you what you are grateful for at that moment.  Your responses are kept in an online journal and emailed back to you weekly or you can access it at any time.  Again... free or a donation of your choosing.  Click HERE to sign up.  For me, it is helping to keep gratitude front and center in my life.

7. Our next big EVENT here is the Graduation Party on June 30th - family and friends. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.  If you have any great ideas for food, decorations, or entertainment (think INexpensive or DIY) please do share! Point me to your favorite board on Pinterest or link me up with tutorials and recipes.  I did get the invites out... honestly, pretty darn happy with them!

8.  One thing I love to do when I'm feeling overwhelmed is meditate.  It is a relatively new practice for me (started in February), but I do find it helps keep me calm, focused, and centered.  Yep, FOCUSed. Never saw that one coming when I chose my One Little Word!  If you are interested in trying meditation without spending cash, Susan Piver offers The Open Heart Project.  Again, free. Click HERE to check it out.

9. The last "31 Things" layout I managed to complete. I'm two weeks behind in this course!

10. Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am to have all of you in my life?  Really and truly I am. I love my blog tribe!

Just a Quote for Friday

I know I used this quote last week, but it's been on my mind a lot lately, so here it is again, in another context...

On the front cover of an art journal, altered for the "Your Living Canvas" class with Christy Tomlinson.  Actually, this was a brand new regular journal (lined pages inside) with a faux leather exterior in dark navy blue. I got it free at a legal expo.  It was sitting unused in a drawer for a couple of years.  I wasn't sure how well the paint would take, but I sanded the cover a bit before I painted and the paint adhered flawlessly!

the back cover.  I picked up some great finds at the thrift store last week - including a couple of sheet music books and a book called "Headlines - a collection of historical headlines from the Los Angeles Times" - what a treasure trove of mixed media stuff! And with the half price sale, I got the book for $1.50!

Entire cover opened out.  This is how it was the whole time I was working on it... hence the visual triangle (butterflies in circles) covering the whole spread... which of course makes no sense at all when the book is closed!  I also used a lot of rub-ons sent to me by blog friends when I started in mixed media last year. That was so fun!  Do you recognize anything you sent me???

I made this butterfly embellishment out of modeling paste - one of the new tricks taught in Christy's class this week.

Usually when I am doing mixed media projects, there is a gift recipient in mind. I rarely keep a project for myself. To say that the photos of this project don't do it justice would be an understatement. I LOVE the way this journal turned out.  And I'll be using it for this class to capture my thoughts in art journaling. So excited!

Enabler Alert!

As you all know, I'm an online class junkie.  Right now I've got two classes starting soon that I'm really excited about and wanted to share, just in case any of you lovely women out there would care to join me!

             Your Living Canvas - a mixed media/ life choices workshop.  Christy Tomlinson has partnered with Art McCracken, a life coach, to bring a course that is a combination of mixed media art and thought-provoking journaling exercises to get you thinking about what you really want your life to be.  The course is six weeks and has a full year access to the materials.  Begins May 21st.  It is a little more expensive, but I think it is just what I need right now.  So far I haven't been disappointed with a Christy class.  She delivers a LOT of content for the money.  If she and Art deliver on the "make you think" part of this class (I know they will just from the pre-class exercises we've been doing in our private Facebook group), I anticipate that this class will not only help me navigate the transitional phase of all my girls graduating, but also help me create a life plan for moving forward.  I'm excited to get started!  For complete information or to sign up, click on the Your Living Canvas link.

     31 Things with Ali Edwards.  Begins this Thursday, May 17th!  31 days of prompts for documenting 31 everyday stories with words and photos for just $31!  If, like me, you feel like you don't document enough of the everyday moments... or just never get deep enough into the little things that matter most, this may be the class for you.  Pre-class is set up and my ideas are already percolating.  For more information or to sign up, click the 31 Things link.

Hope to see you in class!!! :)

Just A Quote for Friday

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."  ~Albert Schweitzer


A little more than the quote - I thought I'd share the journaling on this page:


In the world of art - whether it is photography, scrapbooking, art journaling, mixed media, or some other form, one important part of the process is the connections - meeting other people who share your interest and passion - people with whom you can share tips and ideas and who will provide support and encouragement when you share your art. I love the tribe of women I've "collected" on my blog - they keep me working even when I sometimes feel that "not good enough" gremlin sneaking back in and threatening to sideline me. I also love attending crops. It is so much fun to have others asking questions about my work - and being genuinely interested because I'm doing something so different and unexpected.

Gone Postal

I'm writing this post on Monday, the 3rd, but setting it to go live on my blog on Thursday, the 6th. I had finished these little canvases and needed to have them on their way to their new owners before this post went live.  Hopefully at least one of them will be in hand before the big reveal!

For Karen - who asked for the Mary Oliver quote. I chose the colors for her canvas
based on one of her favorite color schemes for the cards she makes - kraft, black,
and red. I even used some of the rub-ons she had sent me! So they went right
back to her, just in a different form.

For Sian, who gave me no direction, but who loves books and
telling stories, and vintage color schemes,
this just seemed the right way to go.

Another She Art Canvas

Made this one for my mother's birthday.  Now that she's seen it, I can post here!

 That's a real bird feather peeking out of her hat! Found in the front yard and sprayed with purple mist.

I had two inspiration pieces that I used in creating this one.  My inspiration for the tree can be found here with many thanks to Junelle, and my inspiration for the dress can be found here with many thanks to Eniko since I completely lifted the jacket design from her! 

Big Idea Festival - Wonder

The word of the day prompted not one, but two layouts today! Plus I created an intro page for my mini album:

BPC supplied a download for the title square - the rest of it was simply inspired!

Page 1 with today's word "Wonder" - totally digital.  Life is miracle and magic - oh yeah baby!

Page #2 - hybrid. I printed the template on matte photo paper.  I hand wrote the quote. Used inks, misted with water and blown with a straw for the color splash and filled in with chalk inks at the bottom.  Butterfly was stamped first in red chalk ink and then in black Staz-On.

I was attempting to honor the quote by painting and playing a little today!

Creative Color - A Canvas

In the Creative Color class, Christy took us through a variety of sources for color inspiration.  I used the "Where Women Create" book for my first piece.

For my second piece, I went back to Christy's Day One Color Inspiration piece... a page from Somerset Life magazine.  I was honestly so taken by smitten with this color inspiration that I HAD to own it! So I went out shopping and found a copy at Joanne's Fabrics.  $15 later I was home with this gorgeous magazine and I just loved the ideas and inspiration there!  This is the color inspiration page:

I love the aqua, teal, kiwi color scheme with the splashes of lavender and coral.  This color scheme is not one I decorate with and other than the aqua/teal portion, not colors I dress in either.  In fact, for the most part I don't care for lavender at all!  But somehow this inspiration was just calling my name.

I was also drawn to the crazy quilting effect of the way the author of this page placed all her pieces and knew I wanted to incorporate that look/feel into my piece.

Here is my color scheme chart with the paint colors I chose (I actually had to purchase the first three because I didn't have any of those colors in my stash) and the bits of paper and a snippet of ribbon I pulled from my scrap stash. Not only did I not have any lavender in my paint stash, I didn't have a single bit of it in my paper or ribbons either!

And you can see from the tiny little sketch at the bottom my rough plan for mimicking the crazy quilt layout of elements in the inspiration page.

This planner page was one of the things Christy introduced us to in class. And I LOVE it! I could do an entire Art Journal of nothing but the Inspiration and Planning pages ... because finding the inspiration and then pulling from what you have to match it really is addicting!

My finished piece - a 6x12" canvas.  I still consider myself a novice when it comes to mixed media, but I was SO HAPPY with the way this came out.  Not my colors at all.  I swear it doesn't match any room in my home decor wise. And yet I love it enough that I really want to figure out a place to hang it! I surprised myself with this one.

 detail shots - top center.  The purple paper on the left with the printed butterfly is actually a bit of gift wrap. I traced over the larger one with Pitt Artist Pen (brown) and paint (coral) - the butterfly was orange on the wrapping paper.

Center right - the quote. Love it.

Bottom right - Prima flowers with paint highlights and button centers.  Prima flowers have long been one of my "go to" embellishments and they definitely worked on this piece.

Sorry I have droned on forever about this little work of art. I just really enjoyed the process and wanted to share!

Art Journal Play

I've been playing in my Art Journal. These are my newest pages:

The crazy face image came from a paper bag that Sarah brought back from Italy and gave me my mother's day gift in. That just gives the page some extra meaning to me.

And here's the close-up:

The wording for this page comes from a Chrysler Town & Country advertisement!

In my case it was particularly appropriate after a whinefest by Rachel about how much she dislikes our family and how we never do anything "fun" together. Yet, she was unable to name a single "fun" activity she would like to do as a family that did not involve spending money. Obviously we have no intention of going into debt to take the ingrates on a family vacation.

Coming Soon

to a mailbox near you...

A while ago I received this lovely little giftie from Melissa as part of Pay It Forward.  It is the cutest little (3" x 4.5") purse size notebook.

I decided that rather than do a lottery on my blog, I would just choose some people to receive a Pay It Forward from me.

Here's a sneak peek at what I made:

Sorry, that is all I'm giving away for the moment. I want my recipients to be surprised!

But here's the catch.  You see I'm also participating in Mail Art Exchange with Ginger.

So those little gifties went postal last Friday in these:

And I purposefully took the photo BEFORE I addressed the envelopes, so  I would not be giving away any secrets!

Now here's the final kicker.  When I started this, I only made ten envelopes. :(

I had the darnedest time choosing just ten people to send out to.  Some regular readers, some newer ones. Five here in the states, five abroad.  But there were so many others I wanted to send a pretty envelope to... that I've already decided to do a round two!  Cause I just can't stand leaving any of my bloggy friends out.