OCT 4

Happy World Card Making Day!!!!!!

Hope you all have a chance to participate. I can't as I have to work onight. I will try to do something in honour of it tomorrow.

Happy Day!

The Witching Hour

Gothic Arches has an open theme this week and for some reason I can't get out of the Hallowe'en mode yet. So this is my arch for this week.

I picked up a set of Inque Boutique stamps last week and I just love the lace border and I guess not all witches have to be ugly, gnarly, ill-kempt and stinky, mine is fairly well heeled and well dressed!! LOL Had to use that lace border!!!

here we go, the winners

of my little 2 year anniversary blog giveaway are, according to a Random Number generator ...

1. Casey
2. Jodi
3. Joanne

But in my house no one goes away without something!! Everyone else who wrote me sweet comments on my anniversary will be receiving a little something fom me!

Thanks to everyone, I really appreciate your support! I will try to get ahold of everyone today for their mail info, but if you don't hear from me, please mail it to me through my emil on my profile. Thank you!!!

apologies

I was to have announced the winners of my anniversary giveaway today but I'm having major issues with my wireless right now and have for most of the day. I promise that I will do this tomorrow! I am very sorry!

favourite movie

is the theme at G.A. this week brought to us by the talented Kristin Long.

I had such a hard time with this one, as I have a ton of favourite movies, most of them the golden oldies, and especially musicals. This is a tribute to 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, one movie I could watch, and have, for hours on end. I love Howard Keel, his voice is incredible, the music just grabs me and I'm a sucker for the dancing. I googled the title and got a bunch of You Tube links and I had to check them out. Some one has uploaded all the songs to the movie and some of the acting acts so I sat there for over an hour watching everything as my copy of the movie is VHS and it's in storage anyway. shoot! I'm going to have to look for all my fav movies on DVD, much more convenient.

I'm not totally happy with the distressing and it seems a bit off centre , I'm tired but i wanted to get the design done before I forgot what I was going to do!!! LOL

Hope you enjoy it..

Please check below for a chance at some blog candy to help me celebrate the 2nd anniversary of my blog, which just past on the 19th.

playing

with all the Halloween art I'm seeing lately, I had to do something too. It's like an itch you just have to scratch!! I had a lot of fun doing these tags bt I wonder why my creative juices always start running more freely on the last day of my weekend? LOL

famous people on mixed media monday

This week the wonderful Katrin returns to issue a new challenge to us. Katrin has chosen “famous people”, so there is no limit to who you can chose or what you can do. I’m looking forward to seeing how some of you interpret this theme. Quite a few of last week’s submissions would have suited this week equally as well! Have fun with this one!

These are pages I did in a round robin deco a couple of years ago. The theme was music and this artist chose Marilyn Monroe. I had a ton of fun with all the pages that I did for this RR but this one made me realize I love pink and silver together.!! silly...

Please check out my blog giveaway below. The more the merrier!!

YIPPEEEEEE

Sept 19th is my 2nd anniversary in blogland, I totally forgot my 1st, and I have 3 pieces of art to give away to celebrate. If you'd like a chance to claim the time flies piece, the nature tin or a tag book I haven't finished yet (oops), please let me know by leaving a comment on this post and I'll draw names on Sept 28. Please leave me your email or another way to get ahold of you in case you win.

time

is the theme at Gothic arches this week brought to us by the very talented Dawn Bryson.

Whenever I here a theme of time I tend to think of the quote in the arch and the White Rabbit as he stares at his fob watch. I remember the quote too as I used to say it as a child whenever I was late getting home from being outside playing. Funny, that just popped into my head. But, I have never read the book! But I have a couple of friends to thank for a very late interest in it. Unfortunately I will probably never have the time to read it now.

weather!

We had the driest month on record, I swear last month, then yesterday, the remnants of an unknown hurricane off the west coast of Mexico made it up to our neck of the woods and dropped 75mm of rain on us. That's 3" in 1 day. Now the remnants of Ike is moving in and we're supposed to get another 35 - 45mm of rain. I think that almost our annual rain fall, in 2 days. I'd better break out the rowboat! LOL

My thoughts and prayers to all who have been affected and those who surely will be, by the crop of hurricanes this year.

pretty in pink

is the theme on G.A. this week and thank you to Susan Hart, the hostess this week. I don't think I have much luck with pink, although 2 of my favourite colour combos are pink and mint green and pink and dark brown, weird but I think both are striking their own way.

I have a stack of 8x8 srapbook paper with the theme of family and friends with pink, brown and green, imagine that!!!! LOL So my arch this week centres around these sisters available at Lisa's Altered Art. The punchinella shapes are done using Brilliance Pearlescent Orchid but when you scan it it looks white due to the shimmer I guess.

Thanks for looking and I hope you like it.

OH, BTW, G.A. has moved due to incessant frustrations the owner had with Wordpress. Just click on the link above to go to the new site. It's a forum format so in order to join, you need to sign up with an email and password in order to be approved. I happen to like this system better than the old. LOL

the glove part 2

I forgot to mention that the glove in the post below is paper, with a very fine texture to it. After I had used the distress inks on it and it had dried, it now feel a lot like suede. So neat!!

Thank you all for your wonderful comments! I so appreciate them all!!!!

the glove

Last year a dear friend of mine whose blog I don't get to often enough, had a giveaway for these plain white 'gloves' to alter. I was lucky enough to win one. When I got it, I had no idea what to do with it so I put it in a safe place til inspiration struck.

Fast forward to this past weekend when I found it in it's 'safe place'. With Autumn coming and the leaves are already falling here, probably due to the lack of rain more than fall imminent, inspiration finally hit. I used Distress inks to do the background, VersaFine Onyx and Sepia for the clock and I don't know if you can see it in the scans but there's a flower flourish I stamped in Encore gold, LOVE gold!!!! But I attached the 'silk' leaves with Modge Podge which was too wet and messed up the distress inks making them blotchy. Lesson learned. I had a lot of fun doing this. Thank you T for the opportunity. I called it 'The Hands of Time', original huh??? LOL

nature

is the theme this week at Mixed Media Mondays. This is fast becoming a favourite challenge of mine, It makes me think beyond the box that I put myself in and I'm realy enjoying the challenge

This week I altered a gum tin that I've been waiting for an excuse to use, and I also used a piece of twig that I picked up off the ground after one of our storms earlier this season. Bird's have become a favourite subject of my art!!

The light's not the bst right now to photograph this but I wanted to get it up.

Hope you like it

end of summer

is the wonderful theme over at G.A. this week chosen by Nancy Dooren, the talented hostess of the week.

The end of summer for me means the beginning of fall, relief from the sometimes oppressive heat and humidity we have at this time of year, leaves turning colours, although we don't get a lot of colour here, mostly yellow and brown, and kids back to school!LOL

I walked to a friends house today to try out her Cricut, to decide if I needed one (YES, I do!!!) and as I was looking around I noticed there was a different quality to the sunshine, more fall like, and that leaves were already falling off the trees, probabaly doe to the fact that we have had no rain this month, but I decided the fall fairies were already out and about playing their tricks on Mother nature!! Hence my fall fairie.

I used coordinating paper and vellum in a leaf theme, used a fairie image that I cut off the wings and attached skeleton leaves for them and had her surrounded by leaves.

Hope you like it!

forgive me

I like to shake things up every once in a while and that's what I was trying to do this morning but discovered I'm missing an element in my layout. I hope to get this resolved soon. But in the mean time, please forgive my 'in construction' look!! LOL

Now, I don't often speak about my home life as I don't enjoy putting my private life out there for all to see but I need some advise on how to deal with something that every mother has to deal with, her children growing up.

I have 2 sons, my oldest is 26 but because he's mentally, and to a small extent physically challenged, I never went through the late nights, dating, etc that comes with being a teenager. Now my youngest, who will be 19 at the end of Novenber, decided this summer to become a social butterfly and comes home at all hours and forgets to call when he knows he will be later than what he's told us he'll be home. And to be fair to the boy, he doesn't go out often but when he does........ And he is off to uni next week. He's going to the one in our city and will be living at home but knowing that his life is expanding and growing away from us is making me crazy.

How do you mothers who have gone through this handle it so you don't drive yourself insane with worry? I know this sounds like I want to keep him tied to the apron strings, but I know I have to let go and I want to do it as graciously as I possibly can!!! Now I know what my mother meant when she said 'One day you'll have kids of your own'!!! Sorry Mom.

Thank you all for listening, I hope I can come up with a solution to this soon.

I am flattered

and pleased to have recieved another award. This time from a very dear friend and fantastic artist, Rob from Australia.

This is a total cop out but there are truly so many wonderful artist who have gorgeous blogs that I absolutely love, I wouldn't be able to pick 7. So, if you're reading this and you have someone who you'd like to give this award to, be my guest.

Here are a few of my favourite artist, some of whom haven't made it into my blog roll yet. I just keep finding more wonderful blogs to look at.

Heather at Creative Solace
Anne at Bulles dorees
Nina at Ornamental
Lydia at Kenning Stone
Frieda at Frieda Oxenham
Sija at Sija
Hermine at Hermine's Place

black and white and a hint of red

is the theme at G.A. this weekend. A wonderful theme chosen by hostess Chrissie Rollins. It gave me a bit of trouble as most of my images are in colour or sepia coloured but not many are black and white and i think I only have the one with red. I'm so glad I found it!! LOL

The background of the arch is a picture I took of one of the trees that are outside our windows. When they bloom in the spring, they are absolutely gorgeous with small white blossoms in bunches all over the canopy. But because there was too much sky showing and too much green from the leaves, I greyscaled it in Photoshop, along with the picture of the Eiffel Tower and there was my B&W!! The text is CG.

Hope you like it!

recycle/repurpose

is the theme at mixed media mondays this week.

I had made this pendant for a very dear friend of mine using an old Scrabble tile, the back has her initial, some embroidery floss left over from my cross stitching days and wired beads and feathers. luckily my friend loved it and allowed me to upload the pic to my blog. This is my entry for MMM this week.

I want to thank all the wonderful artists who visited me last week and left absolutely incredible comments about my entry last week. It did my heart good!!!

Proud member of

View my page on Can-eh? Can-Artistry

mixed media monday

it's my 1st time doing this challenge but I really wanted to do something as

• my friend Heather is the guest hostess this week! LOL
  
• it deals with numbers, which I love along with letters and for which I have a great stamp that I don't use often
• and I have been itching to try to do some kind of canvas, this is actually canvas board, with acrylics and other stuff I have laying around.

I had fun doing this board.

Thanks for looking

renaissance

is the theme at G.A. this week chosen by the hostess Tami, whose art is just gorgeous. I was a bit of an over achiever with this theme as I want to do something specifically with these arches and more if I get them made. LOL

I used more of that gorgeous paper from DCWV and clipart images from Dover and Above The Mark web site. The flourishes are form Martha Stewart! A neat little pack of 17 clear flourish stamps for a reasonable price, at Wal-Mart!!!

I hope you enjoy them! Click on the pic for a larger image.

bird arch

I liked my bird arch so much, I kept it and framed it in a shadow box frame I had hanging around for just such a use. You can't tell from the picture but I used pieces of a thick foam tape to make the arch stand off the back of the box.

Yalpha for August

on one of my groups we do a monthly alphabet mingle in a 4.5x4" format, using any letter of the alphabet but designing it so the elements of the piece are reflective of the 3" high, at least, letter we choose.

My letter for August is R with the words Royalty, Regal, Romanov, reality, romance, romantic, and my list ended there. I swear I go brain dead sometimes, I know there a lot more.

This piece is using a background that Hermine Koster put up on her blog as a freebie to use and for a challenge.

royalty/crowns

is the theme that Kris Dickinson picked for this weeks G.A. I have always had a fascination for royalty and when I was a kid, I wanted to be a princess desperately. A wonderful daydream for me!!!

This is my take on Royalty/Crowns for the week. The paper is from the pack I picked up last month from DCVW Once Upon a Time. It' already got glittered crowns on it so i just placed my little prince under one and had fun with the rest. The image is from Lisa's Altered Arts.

shades of white

is the theme on G.A. this week set by the wonderful artist Hermine Koster. Even tho this is one of my favourite themes, I had a really difficult time with it and although I tried not to I still managed to get a bit of colour in it. I scanned it 1st, then because the texture in the embossed paper didn't show, I took a picure of it. very plain, very simple but i'm happy with it!

Thank you Hermine for this fantastic theme!

another award

I was so surprised when Faye gave me this wonderful award.

Here are the rules.
1. Only 5 people are allowed to receive this award.
2. Four dedicated followers of your blog.
3. One has to be new to your blog and live in another part of the world.
4. You must link back to whoever gave you the award.
I would like to pass this honor on to the following five persons, whose blogs I enjoy.
They are:
Heather
Jodi
Rob
Bethel
Nancy

Thank you Faye for giving me this great award and thank you ladies for checking in on me. There are a few more ladies to whom I'd love to give this award but ......

atc

a bit on the serious side for the moment, I am a huge 'supporter' of Breast Cancer research, having lost my mother to it 24 yrs ago and now getting to about the same age she was when it was discovered, and I wish I could do more to help.

On one of the Yahoo groups I belong to there is also a lovely lady by the name of Patty Jones who owns a fantastic site called Lisa's Altered Art. She makes up the most darling collage sheet containing the sweetest images and on Wendsdays she offers 1 digital sheet for $1!!! What a great deal!! And to add to that she usually adds a sample sheet to your order!. Well I ordered her Awareness sheet and this is what I made. I used some Basic Grey paper, still my favourite, a flourish stamp from, oh m'gosh I can't remember the company name right now, get back to you on that, Red Rocket Gol Brilliance Dew Drop ink and 2 of the images from Patty's sheet.

FANCY PANTS, that's the company that makes the stamp I used, jeesh.... from the set Pollen Dust!

'Wylde Woman' award

that's what I was when my dear friend Heather awarded me this tag. I love being thought of as a wild woman and am amazed that I inspire her, incredible artist that she is!! Thank you so much Heather!!! I am so happy to be considered a 'Wylde Woman'

Here are the rules of this award:

1. You can give it to one or one hundred or any number in between - it's up to you. Make sure you link to their site in your post.
2. Link back to this blogsite (http://www.TammyVitale.com/) so Tammy can go visit all these wonderful women.
and remember the Purpose of the Award: To send love and acknowledgment to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.

These women continually bring joy to my life through their encouragement, humour, inspiration and talent. It is with great pleasure that I award the "Wylde Women Award" to

if she hadn't awarded this to me, I would have tagged Heather LOL

Nina Bagly - an incredible artist who gives so much of herself to her readers and everyone in her life. I think she is amazing!!!!

When I am really down or stressed, I go to both of these ladies blogs and am almost immediately soothed, calmed and inspired. Thank you both so much.

For the Birds....

Nancy asked me to hostess Gothic Arches again, thrilled me to death, and the theme I chose was .... For the Birds. Any interpretation of the theme as long as it has birds. Thanks to a dear friend of mine, my interest in nature and birds has been sparked! Going home from work one morning after a huge thunderstorm yielded all kinds of interesting twigs which I gathered up and brought home with me. I am now using them in my art whenever I can. This is my arch for the week and I hope everyone has fun with the theme. I can't wait to see what you all do.

wow

I didn't realize it had been so long since I'd posted anything. But I'm back, for today anyway. I was hosting this wonderful danglie swap and it truly wouldn't let me concentrate on anything else to it was all together and gone. Happily, it is and is landing in the homes of the members. And from what I've been hearing, they love them!! Yea, a successful swap, just what I like!!

Anywho, I have missed doing my favourite challenges, Gothic arches and dans ma maison so I'm trying to catch up!



Dymphie has set the theme this week on G.A. as Handwriting. Use your own writing on your arch. This is a challenge cuz I never know from one day to the next if my writing is going to be legible or not. Luckily today, it was!!!! My DH took me to Indigo yesterday where we found the most scrumptious (scrummy for short!) 12x12 paper pack by DCWV for $21. The theme is Once Upon a Time and has glitter already on the paper in a gel like form but it's not gooey or scratchy, just beautiful. It's so romantic, I just had to have it. The arch uses a corner of one of the pages.

Be sure to check back to G.A. next week.

apologies to my American friends and relatives


Happy July 4th

I hope it was a good day for all and have a festive weekend!

new banner

I'm taking all kinds of pics on my journeys around the town right now and I made my new banner out of one of them. To think this tub of lilies is just outside our back door and I never paid much attention to them til now. I was lucky enough to get the pic before the flowers started to fade.

Happy Canada Day

Jeez, do you believe the year is half gone already? I hope everybody has a safe and festive holiday week!

I think I have to share this, maybe someone reading, if there's anyone left after my absences, can get something out of it. I mentioned in a previous post that I am hosting a swap. It is due to me today. I received a message on Saturday that one lady will not be taking part in the swap after joining in good faith 2 months ago. I gave 2 months to get 15 items made and to me and this person says sorry, maybe next time, with no care or concern or remorse. Well I'm sorry but there will be no next time for her. I think I have come to the conclusion that if I am going to host a swap again, I will invite people I know and trust. If this makes me a b...h, so be it. It's better than having something like this happen. Luckily a good friend of mine, who was very excited about the swap when I asked her, offered to make another set so as to not disappoint the other members.

My feathers were so ruffled by this turn of events that I needed some soothing and I headed straight for Nina Bagly's blog, Ornamental. Love, love, love everything about it and her. Check it out if you haven't already. You may not get the same out of it that I do but it's worth a look. I think! LOL

And lastly, I leave you with a look at my art space, like you really needed to see it. It's in a sunny corner of the bedroom, to the right is the window and to the right of the window is another storage cabinet with my computer and printers on top. Crowded little corner but it works for me. Care to share yours? I'd love to see! I need better ideas for storage. heeheeee

edited july 7 to include pic - hope I haven't lost my lovely comments.

danglies

At the behest of a dear friend of mine who was unable to host it, I'm hosting a swap on one of my Yahoo groups, Byhand artists, for danglies. This is what I came up with. I'm really happy with the way they turned out but they were a little more labour intensive than I thought they would be. As usual I bit off more than I could chew! Enjoy.

please forgive me

I haven't been too productive lately, too many things needing to be done , too tired from work, not enough hours in my day, 36 would be good, too many commitments and ideas galore for a new adventure percolating in my head - all this plus thinking that my baby is done high school and off to the grand adventure of university, is really making my head spin. I haven't participated in my 2 favourite challenges this week and I really missed doing them.

Even tho the dust lays white on my dark furniture and the dirt dark on the while tile, I have to get some art done!!!!!!!!!! Wish me luck with both!! LOL

faerie tale

is the topic for dans ma maison this week and I had so much fun trying to think what my fairie tale would be. Well of course faeries, and a house but what else would make my life a faerie tale?, living in a 'house' with Gothic arches, being able to do what I want when I want, making a living doing what I love......... all kinds of things, but here's my 'house' for this week. Hope you like it

Can't wait to see what others did!!

The faerie couple was stamped on tracing paper and coloured with coloured pencils on the reverse. The over excited dragonflies covered the stamped sentiment, my fairy tale. LOL that's my story!

tagged

I have been tagged by Nancy Maxwell James who has a gorgeous blog with fantastic art, and her own stamp line with which I wish her much success

If you have been tagged by me, here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person that tagged you... (moi)
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your entry.

Hmm 6 unimportant things

1. I am the youngest in my family by 10 yrs
2. I am addicted to pizza
3. I love bling
4. at 5'5" I am a foot shorter than my DH
5. I love cooking in my slow cooker which is 25 yrs old.
   
6. I hate housework and love to create!

Here are 6 blogs to visit that I have also tagged

Lydia
Heather
Jillian

I'm leaving 3 free for whoever would like to do it for fun. Please pass the tag along.

new countdown

Lisa Vollrath has a new countdown, starting today

father's day countdown

Spain

that's the wonderful theme that Martine (Filetta as I've known her) has chosen for Gothic Arches this week. Spain is another location that I would love to visit but until then I'll fantasize about what it might be like. This is my attempt at Spain. BTW, the micro beads scanned as multi coloured but IRL they are copper and I wanted them to mimic the waves of sand .

metal

I cannot believe it's the 1st of June already. Where I live, we had a very promising start to spring but within days it had deteriorated to cold rainy dark days. We have just managed to get our sun and warmth back, I do hope it's here to stay!!

Metal is the theme on dans ma maison il y a .... and this is my contribution. The flowers are metal, the brads are metal and the little dragonfly beads are metal. This is such a fun challenge and now I'm a bit more comfortable, I'm playing with my roof lines. LOL I would love to get more textural but I love my patterned paper!! LOL

The stamps I used are from Inkadinkado and the images are from Lisa's Altered Art collage sheets (digital downloads)

Hope you like it.

challenges for this week

my favourite challenge, Gothic Arches is on vacation this week, I hope you get some rest in all the busi-ness Nancy, but I did manage to get 2 houses done for my next favourite challenge, dans ma maison ... il y a. This week the theme was green.

For the Alice house, I was wracking my brain for something to do and I thought of some stamps I have that have never been inked. I had a wonderful tree background stamp that I stamped 3x in Distress Peeled Paint ink and the Alice stamps were done with Versafine Vintage sepia. When I think of Alice I think of a thickly wooded garden, hence the trees. Then I coloured in the Alices with coloured pencils.

For the butterfly green, I used some more of that gorgeous BG paper, stampes the dotted diamond strin with Versamark on each edge of the roof and dusted it with pale gold Pearl-ex, it almost looks like the gingerbread trim on an old Victorian, stamped it again with Distress Weathered wood along the side and attached a metal butterfly.

Thank you for looking. Merci!!

new challenge site

I found a new challenge site a couple of weeks ago but haven't been able to take part in the challenges til this week and even so, I'm a little late getting in this week. It's dans ma maison ... il y a and it's very successful already. Ever since I saw the house shape being used on another group I was on last year, I have been fascinated by this shape and all you can do with it. And then my friend Heather has been using it, as have many other artists and I just knew I had to get in on it, but I needed a reason. I don't know why, I just did. Now I have it! heeheeee

This week the challenge is for butterflies and this is what I did. I just love b'flies and I was thrilled I had a legit reason to do a piece with them. I used another Basic Grey paper and another Paper Whimsy image, used Distress Ink Vintage Photo along the roof line and lightly embossed it in gold and added a butterfly image from Inkadinkado that I just love. Hope you like it!

flourishes

is the theme on Gothic Arches this week hosted by the very talented Kelly Burton, the link to whose blog is in my sidebar, 'Artsy Visions'. You should check out her stuff if you haven't already.

This is my contribution this week. I used a gorgeous Basic Grey paper, aren't they all gorgeous, that already had flourishes in the design then stamped one of my favourite flourishes over that in Brilliance Dew Drop Rocket Red Gold, gorgeous colour, added an image from Paper Whimsy, stamped dream in Distress Vintage Photo and added 2 dragonfly punchies. Hope you like it!

freebies

I was out and about last week and I spotted some gorgeous flowering trees in my neighbourhood and I just had to take pics of them. So I ran home, scooped up my camera and ran back. Now I really wasn't thinking until I got back to take the pics that it was a really windy day and how on earth was I going to get any decent pics with the branches blowing all over. I think my camera did a really great job capturing these gorgeous trees. Oh and I thought the clouds were pretty awesome too!

Saturday was my anniversary, 31 incredible years, and yesterday was Mother's Day so I thought I'd offer these images to celebrate. Hope you like them and if you do use them, I'd love to see what you make with them.

Vive la France

is the theme on Gothic arches this week. I have never been to France and it's a life long dream to go but I know that unless we win the lottery, that will never happen! LOL So I thought I'd go with what I'm most familiar with, advertising! To me, France is famous for fashion, champagne, theater, chocolate? hmmm maybe not so much but it was a cute ad, and certainly not last or least , the wonderful fleur de lis.

Hope you like it!

another countdown

Lisa V.'s countdown for Mother's Day

Chair

is the theme on Gothic Arches this week. This was a fun challenge for me in that I have the perfect image and story to go with this challenge but I'm not sure how much you wonderful readers want to hear about me. I know I enjoy reading about other peeps and their lives but moi??? LOL
Oh well here goes, I work midnights and when I come home in the mornings, sometimes it's very difficult to stay awake til it's time to wake up the rest of the household to get them going on their day and I can go to bed. Well, we have this huge oversized, oversuffed chair that I like to curl up in to take a quick nap before I get everyone going, I just have to make sure I put the timer on on the microwave to get me up on time so no one sleeps in. LOL

I've named this arch, something I don't normally do, 65 Dream Lane and I've gone back to my collage images but this one is so sweet I couldn't not use her. Hope you enjoy it and thanks for looking!

Garden Fairies

is the theme on Gothic Arches this week. I was so happy to see this! I decided to challenge myself to do an arch with only stamping, as I feel I may have been over using collage images lately, and I have 2 sets of fairy stamps from CTMH that I love and don't use very muc, definitely not as much as I like.

I did the b/g by stamping gesso on white card, dabbing Distress inks on for grass and sky and tried to put a tree in there with edges of the sponge with branches going over head, which came out as more of an illusion of a tree and branches. Then I stamped my fairies and repeatedly stamped a fern stamp along the bottom. Then I added a few dragonflies for company!

Hope you like it!

me and my doll

is the theme of Gothic Arches this week. I struggled a bit with this one as I couldn't find any decent images in my stash til I ran across this one. That and it was DH's B'day on Sunday and I had a meeting for work that day is why I'm a bit late for this one.

When I was a kid, my parents divorced and my mom remarried, taking me with her when she did. I had a very hard time with this and to escape the reality that was my life I spent more time with Barbie and the house I made her out of a cardboard box than I did with other people until I was befriended by the family next door. The scene in the image shows the place where I wish I could have been. I think she looks happy in her secret spot (that her parents set up!) playing with her favourite doll.

Springtime in Paris

Paris is the theme this week at Gothic Arches and the 1 st thing that came to my mind was Springtime in Paris. I had a definite picture in my head for this arch, this isn't it!! Somehow I really had a hard time interpreting this one the way I wanted. But I still like how it came out. I used cloud scissors to cut out the arch cuz I wanted to relay nice big fluffy clouds in the sky, and I used a gorgeous B.G. paper that turned out to be too busy for what I wanted so I toned it down with Gesso. Oh well, here it is.

another tip in

I'm having fun with these. Having a hard time getting going on the pages, I seem to need a srk to start but once I hav it, look out! LOL The theme for this artist book is Vintage Children.

a little rambling

seems to be what I'm doing today!

• I saw my 1st robin of the season today, wish I had thought to run for my camera! Now I know it's spring but after a few nice warm days, we've gone dark, dreary and cold again. Audrey, right now I envy you! Beach and heat, yum!! LOL
  

• I haven't done much blogging lately. As I said in my previous post, there's just not enough time in the day to do everything I want! But I've been going through a lot of the blogs I have listed in my sidebar and I can't believe how much I have missed! Gorgeous stuff, all of it!
  

• I was up til 2:00 this morning starting on the danglies I'm making for the swap I'm hosting on the Byhand group. I can't believe I let my friend talk me into hosting this. Well ..... she didn't really. She wanted to but had no time so I 'volunteered'. LOL Anyway, I played with polymer clay last night. I have 2 kinds, Primo and Sculpey3. I much prefer the Sculpey 3. The Primo felt very stiff after I had been playing with the Sculpey. Anyone have an opinion on the different clays?

I think that's enough for now. LOL I'm off to do some errands and hopefully when I get back I'll be able to get some more art done. So glad I'm off this week!

arches!!!!

I have missed doing the Gothic arch challenge for 2 weeks and I really missed it!!

Therefore, for this weeks challenge by Nellie, By The Sea, I have created 2 arches. One in an oriental theme using one of my favourite images, I just love the feel of it. And a humorous one, I must have a sick sense of humour, cuz that's where my brain goes whenever something's not working out the way I had planned. The bathing beauties got caught in the rain. This reminds me of my childhood when we went to the beach at Point Pelee when it was nice and sunny, only to be totally clouded over 2 hrs later and have to make a mad dash to pick up all the stuff and get to the car. I don't know why we didn't want to get wet in the rain, we already were!!! LOL

Hope you like them!
the raindrops are made with Liquid Crystal which I dropped on the paper and tried to drag into a drop shape.

changes coming

keep your eyes peeled!

hello!!!

between house, kids, job and too little sleep, I have been able to get almost NO art done. I am on vacation this week so along with spring cleaning, I'm going to try to get caught up on old commitments and new stuff.

This is a fair start, April's Yalpha mingle on Byhandartists


The peel-off saying 'friends' is a new product not even on the market yet but the designer was kind enough to share her stash with me!