Luck of the Draw

A few weeks ago, Kathy at Creative Home Expressions held a giveaway sponsored by Pick Your Plum.  Well, I was the VERY lucky winner.  A whopping $75 goodie box was headed my way.

I was so excited!  Goodies from Pick Your Plum!  I felt like it was Christmas!  So, you wanna see what all I got?  Say pretty please…………...okay, that’s good.  Here you go.

  Lookie  lookie

  Burlap, chipboard flowers, a watches, bottle caps, Yipppee!

  A paper pad, zippers in awesome colors, tags, spools, wooden buttons……

  Cupcake liners, twine (been REALLY wanting twine), card mailers, ribbon……….

  Chipboard covered note pad (another want) ready for me to decorate, plastic moustaches (GOT to figure out a cool use), a metal owl, bobby pins………yeah, what a haul!

I want to thank both Kathy at Creative Home Expressions and Pick Your Plum for such an AWESOME giveaway.  I’ve been doing the happy dance since my box arrived.

Until later……………………………………………..

Wild West Tag Book Swap

I recently hosted a Tag Book Swap over on the Altered Pages-Artsociates blog.  Our theme, in honor of Arizona’s 100-year anniversary as a state, was the Wild West.

Given that broad spectrum of possibility, here is what I came up with:

For this tag, I used Gold Punchinella, and parts of the Brown Mixed Media Color Kit from Gauche Alchemy, along with a  few other items already in my stash.

  This tag was almost entirely made using the Orange Mixed Media Color Kit from Gauche Alchemy.  The saddle charm was already in my stash as was the Wild West sticker at the bottom.  Yes, that is fabric as the background.  When I saw it, I thought INDIAN BLANKET which immediately let to WOO HOO, great for this tag!

  This tag used lace from Gauche’s Lace Ribbon Variety Pack and a few elements from their Green Mixed Media Color Kit.  I slightly distressed the roses uses Tim Holtz’s Walnut Distress Ink.  The “Wanted” poster can from a package of scrapbook stickers.

These next two were ones made from items I had in my stash.   The cloth background for the one on the left is actually an upholstery fabric sample.  I have several “books” of these samples hanging from hooks in my studio.

Once again, I used fabric (in this case, upholstery fabric) for the backing on my “Attitude” tag.  The roses, button, and trim are all vintage from my stash.  The star and filigree are new that I purchased on a trip to Gary’s Arts & Crafts in Metairie (great place!).  For all of the tags, I used Tattered Angels mist as a starting point. 

Here they are all together:

ONE thing to note:  If you double your tags like I do for sturdiness & are using mists (like Tattered Angels), do all your spraying BEFORE gluing the tags together.  I had to reglue a few of them since the mist is wet and it made the tags separate.  Yeah, I know, it was a “DUH” moment.

Until later………………………

Stopped in my Tracks

I’m having one of THOSE days.  You know, the kind where you want to do something, but as soon as you approach that “something” you entire body goes into shut-down mode? 

Well, the other day, I thought I would tackle my little work-room in the house.  I was used for my doll-making but now it’s become a catch-all for swaps and “finds”.  Here’s a picture:

 
Scary isn’t it?

NOW can you see when I walk in  squeeze my body through the door it screams “GET ME OUT, GET ME OUT”?  Some of the stuff needs to go outside to my studio, a LOT of it needs to be filed away in binders (all those lovely ATCs), and the rest needs to be put away in the work room itself. 

This is one of two rooms that have me stymied.  I cleaned up the dining room and my studio, but for some reason, this 5’ x 6’ space terrifies me (as does the 10’ x 10’ spare bedroom I need to clean).  It’s almost like I’m afraid the room will eat me alive.  Now, we all know rooms don’t eat people, but what if the Black Hole of Calcutta opens up?  HMMM?  (BTW the Black Hole of Calcutta is what I call the place things disappear to, never to be seen again).

I’m beginning to think I need to take a week off work to tackle these two rooms (along with a few other projects).  Pull EVERYTHING out and systematically sort and place it.  Now the week off is no problem; I have plenty of leave.  The timing is the key.  I’m approaching a time of year when work gets really busy trying to close out a fiscal year and start a new one.  Also, if I take a week off at the wrong time, I’ll be hit by “why don’t you go to such & such with us since you’re off”, us being hubby and son (who will want me to go with them and sit around twiddling my thumbs in a motel room while they fish).  The “um no, I took this week off to sort my room” wouldn’t fly. 

So, until I get that week off or just “woman-up” on a Saturday or Sunday and tackle that room, it’ll remain one of the scariest places I’ve ever seen.

Until later……………………..

Altered Fan Blades

What fun this was!  Alpha Stamps is holding a fan blade swap and I decided to participate.  Altering chipboard fan blades is a little out of my comfort zone, but I’m been trying to stretch my artistic wings lately and try new mediums.  So, this was the perfect time.

What was needed:  Five fan blades and collage sheets from Alpha Stamps (required) and then any embellishments you wanted to use.  Since I didn’t have the fan blades nor the correct collage sheets, I went online, placed my order, sat back, and waited for it to arrive.

Once it arrived, I got started.  Since I met the requirements of using Alpha Stamps Fan Blades and their Perfume Collage Sheets, I was free to use anything else I wanted.  Out came the Gauche Alchemy products.  Here, I used their Paper Napkin Art Kit as the background for two of my blades.

Then, on these, I used parts of the Banana Hammock Yellow Mixed Media Kit, Lace Ribbon Variety Pack, and the Scarlet Red Mixed Media Kit.

    

These other two were made using products I either happened to have on hand or had ordered from Alpha Stamps. 

    

You’ll notice the blades are not finished at the very bottom. This is so that after they are swapped and everyone has their five new blades, they can be combined to make one fan and the bottom will need to move smoothly. 

Here they are all together:

After these photos were taken, I went back and used Stickles on all of them.  MUCHO improvement!  Covered those raw fan blade edges like a dream.

Got to run!  Until later…………………………….

Sherlock Holmes–Inchie Style

I did it.  I actually created Inchies using Sherlock Holmes as the theme.  This was REALLY a hard one.  WHEW!

So who is to blame for such a hair-brained theme?  MOI!  Yep, I’m the one whose bright idea it was to choose old Sherlock as a theme.  So of course, I had a world of trouble coming up with ideas and actually finished them right before the deadline.

It was definitely time to raid the old mini stash.  Thank goodness my other hobby is 12-scale miniatures (even if I haven’t done any in a while).  This fellow looked right smart with this Inchie.  I used embossed aluminum tape for the background.  I have fallen in LOVE with aluminum tape!

This is my favorite.  I used embossed craft metal in copper for the background and stick-on jewels (which I glued on) for the blood.  Again, I went to my mini stash for the dagger.

Minis to the rescue again! WOO HOO. I decided to add some Dresden scrap to the edge to make this one look like a book.  Of course, the “shell casings” are just a little out of scale.

These aren’t my favorites, but again, I had to get very creative.  There is actually one more, but for some reason I didn’t save it to my hard drive.  Thought I had, but it’s disappeared and I just deleted the photos from my camera.

  Here’s all six of them.  They have been mailed and will soon find their way to their new home.  I hope whoever receives them likes them.  To me, they seemed kind of gruesome, but hey, Sherlock Holmes wasn’t all butterflies and sunshine!

Until later…………………………………….