My Journey Into Art

from Prima’s blog

but we can’t reveal it just yet! We know you’re going to love it! And don’t worry-we promise to share the big news with you soon. It’s really hard not to spill the beans, but we are sworn to secrecy. So, in the meantime, we have an exciting opportunity for you to win BIG and it’s open to everyone! There are two fabulous prize baskets worth $100 up for grabs. Prima will choose one winner from the US and one International winner.

Soooo exciting!!!!

for the hanging – #130 Kate

and for the tags  #34 Nicole

CONGRATULATIONS ladies, I have emailed you asking for info, please get back to me as soon as possible!

Thank you to everyone who visited and entered the giveaway, I totally enjoyed visiting back and meeting new people!

Can’t wait for the next OWOH!!!!! LOL

Over at the Byhandartist group, one of our lovely artists came up with the idea that we’d have a challenge with no commitment to sending. It has the theme of Queen of Hearts (hence the title of the post lol) Check out the challenge and entries here. Here is my entry for this challenge

It’s about postcard size – I embossed Quietfire Diamond background on a paper of hydrangeas I had printed out long ago but the paper warped, I should have retried but had no more paper, should have flattened before finishing, but don’t think that fast! (shaking head at self) attached a collage image from Quietfire cut the Q♥ off a card and stuck them to the paper. Then I added some little puff blossoms that I received from a friend a long time ago and voila!!I  I love this image of the little girl with wings and thought she deserved to be a Queen for a day! It didn’t scan well due to the dimensionality of the flowers (is that a  word?)

Hope you like it!

I so love this event, click on the button in my sidebar to learn more but in short it’s all about artists, of all kinds offering what they do best to meet other artists Now I’m not an rtist, a hack at worst, a crafter at best but I love looking and trying for a chance to win others art! The last one, my 1st, was amazing, over 1000 blogs to visit, I saw about 1/3 of those! And I managed to win 2 wonderful, and different pieces of art, lucky me!!

This year, Lisa has chosen the theme of a magic carpet ride. I have many magic carpet rides, but I think the one that means the most is freedom, to do what you wish, learn all you can, take chances, to fly and have fun! I am learning how to use a new toy my DH thought I’d love, a Bamboo tablet for digital work. I thought I’d make a cute presentation of my contribution using it. HA!!, I have way more learning to do not to mention trying to figure out how to keep my hand steady when outlining. Any way, this is what I have right now, a hanging I made using a picture I took of an amazing nest that was in a tree across the street from us. It fell in  a wind storm only a couple of weeks after I took this pic.

It’s not perfect but neither am I!!!!!

I plan on adding more offerings as as time and comments allow. The event starts today and runs til Feb 15. I will announce my winner(s) on the 16th, please make sure you leave me an email address where I can easily contact you, will wait 5 days for the contact info and ship out that weekend.

amended Feb. 6/10 – well I’m at almost 100 visitors as I type so I have decided to add another giveaway to this.

I will post the addition on Monday as I still have 2 more nights of work to get through before I can finish and scan it.

I am thrilled that so many of you like what I have offered and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the lovely comments I have had.

I promised myself and mentioned earlier in the post that there would be a second giveaway but I wasn’t sure what it would be. Well today is the 13 and with only 2 days left to this fantastic event, I have finally posted that second giveaway! These 2 tags, my absolutely most favouritest thing to play with, will be going to a second lucky winner!

on GA this week. I always thought of shabby chic as well worn white country  furniture, soft blues, softer pinks and greens, but then I saw a couple of arches that were done in reds and burgundies and I had to do it too!!! eeek, I think I even used the same papers as Nancy our wonderful talented hostess! double eek!!! (whew, nope I didn’t, not even close! LOL) This one was a hard one for me, to fill up the space with frou frou and not leave it a little bare as I think I tend to do, just tested me. The image is again from Paper Imagery Designs, I smudged the poor dears dress with the ink pad was using to ink up the flowers , oooops!

The brads across the upper R spell out FLEUR, are silver, distressed with AI’s

Hope you like it!

for my mil for Christmas. I’ve been wanting to make her an album of my 2 boys for her for years. I finally did it this year! I only took pics of the outside front but the pages are black that I stamped with some of my favourite stamps in gold pigment ink and I used both original photos and printed digital ones I have. Not the greatest I admit but it held some pics my mil had never seen before!! And she really liked it. I’m very lucky, she likes everything I make!!!

I used some of my fav Basic Grey paper, some grungeboard flourishes that I painted with acrylic paint and daubed with alcohol inks and metal mixative. The latters are metal that I daubed again with the AI’s and gold metal mixative. gave an antiquey look to them.  used my Zutter for binding and wrapped coordinating ribbons around the O-rings for decoration! I love doing these books and should really do more!

for this week was Birthstones. I hate my birthstone, it’s the Blue Zircon and I just do not like it! I prefer red stones, my mother’s is ruby for July and my oldest son, whose birthday is today, Happy Birthday T.J.!!!!! is the Garnet. My engagement ring is rubies and diamonds as is my anniversary band. I just like red! LOL

So the arch I made is red! It’s not the best pic, I’m going to scan it as soon as I can and reupload!

here’s the scan. Yep i definitely need to get my tripod out when I take pics!!! lol

Thank you for the sweet comments, the image is from Paper Imagery Designs.

I really do not enjoy making cards as I feel I don’t do a good job on them! So when Birthdays come up, or any other occasion that requires a card, I get a little frustrated. My son’s girlfriend’s birthday is tomorrow so I had to make a card of course.

Got the base folded, pawed through my pp’s, went through my images, this one is from Lisa’s Altered Art, and wow, they are ok together! Something was needed so I went for the ribbon, can’t tie a bow straight!, stamped a crown from Quietfiredesigns, queen for the day, right?, and swiped distress ink along the edges. Voila!

Hope she likes it!

Gothic arches, who has changed to blogger, had a challenge for Hallowe’en and I just had to do it. I haven’t been doing challenges or much of anything, as I have earlier stated, but I had to do this. I did, but didn’t get it off the camera and edited til it was too late for the challenge. I gave it to a friend of mine who is also an artist for her birthday and she loved it! Um pardon me for a few minutes while I go edit the pic! OK got it, jeez I really don’t enjoy editing, shows me all my mistakes that I don’t see when I’m making it. LOL

And then of course I can see just how bad my choice of background paper is, shaking head at self! I used a free download of a door from Paper Whimsy, a collage image, or 2 from Paper Imagery Designs  distress inks and anmong a lot of other things, fabulous glitter paper that I punched bats out of! Had a thing for bats this Hallowe’en!

OK more to come soon! Promise!!!

and Merry Christmas if I missed that! I had 8 night off and didn’t get a lot of anything but housework done. No art, no play, and no editing.

But .. I just got an email from Lisa at One World One Heart that this years event, Magic Carpet Ride, will be held starting Jan 25 and I intend to be on that magic carpet! So I will be creating I just don’t know what yet! Stay tuned.

OK back to editing .. I really do have a lot of nice stuff to show and it’s not just mine!!! LOL

well if you’re me, it gets wasted on Facebook!!! LOL There is so much on there that you can just loose yourself in and that’s what I tend to do, stress free nonsense but I get nothing done!

Now having said that I actually have got some stuff dome since I last posted but I just have to edit the pics and get them up. I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of something I did for Christmas ….

and something for Halloween ….

more to come, I have a lot of clening up to do on this computer, but I am on vacation this week so I will get it done, just 1 thing at a time!!!!!

Oh and I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year!

there was a call for art on the Paper Imagery Design Yahoo group I belong to to alter a household item. Well, I had seen a few altered spoons along my blogging journeys and I fell in love with the idea of altering falware.  I put off doing any until I had talked to DH about using any of our ol stuff, he’s the cook of the fam and the kitchen is his domain, and he told me what I could use. This is the result. I love it, he thinks the twig should go!

It’s a tablespoon from a broken up set, I used Alcohol inks on it, glued the image, from PID, with gel medium. When that was dry I applied a line of Distress stickles around the image and waited for that to dry (lot of waiting with this project lol). when that was dry, I applied a couple of coats of Crystal Lacquer on top of the image, waited for to dry ….  Finally after everything was dry, I wrapped a couple of thin ribbons around the twig and handle putting on a couple of charms along the way and tied it off in a nice big bow!

For this I was featured in the PID monthly newsletter!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!! Thank you Melissa, you are the best, awesome company, awesome people!!!  Not affiliated, just happy!

Betty Miller!!!!!

And due to glitches that some ladies ran into getting to the blog, and never getting here, there will be 2 little extras going out to Elaine Bellomo and Terry Nicholson-Williams!!! And depending on what I get accomplished today, I may pull a couple of more names. fingers crossed!!! lol

Thank you everyone who left a comment, I so appreciate your visits! Your stories amused and touched and made me wish for simpler times when Halloween was fun and safe.

I’ll be getting in touch with all the winners, thank you so much!

All you have to do is just tell me your favourite memory of this time of year … Autumn, Hallowe’en, Thanksgiving etc… . I will pick the winner on Sunday Oct. 4 so it leaves me enough time to get it to you before Hallowe’en!. Please feel free to spread the word, if I get enough responses, I’ll make another something and have 2 draws!  lol

I haven’t forgotten and I’m not reneging on it! The piece is done, I just have to get a pic of it and I’ll post it Mon Sept 28!

want your blog advertised? The list mom of CST, Canadian Stamp Talk Yahoo group, is trying to compile a list of Canadian blogs.

Here is what she posted on the group.

“I have put a list of Canadian Paper Crafting bloggers on my blog but I know
that it is incomplete..

..

If you fit the criteria (live in Canada, are a paper crafter, have a blog),
please email me <nancy@elrick.ca> and I will add you to the list!

Please include your name, a link to your blog and the city you live in!

Also, could you help pass the word around?? Include a post on your blog
about what I’m attempting to do and include a link back to my blog (
http://nancyscreativemess.blogspot.com) and pass the word around on any
other paper crafting Yahoogroups you belong to.

I’d appreciate your help in spreading the word!!!”

Nancy E

I know I haven’t been around much and I’ve lost a lot of readers so I’d like to have a giveaway for a piece of Halloween art I will create! Just tell me your favourite memory of this time of year … Autumn, Hallowe’en, Thanksgiving etc… . I shall post the item I’m giving away as soon as I get it done, this weekend and will pick the winner on Sunday Oct. 4. Please feel free to spread the word, if I get enough responses, I’ll make another and have 2 draws!  lol

My favourite memory is of my youngest’s 2st Hallowe’en- he was dressed as Barney and had no clue why we were trotting him all over the neighbourhood. He started getting the idea as soon as he saw the goodies going into his basket! If i can dig up a pic to share, I’ll post it! Well I thought it was precious! That same baby boy is now almost 20 and would probably be mortified if he knew I told that story! lol

So on with the giveaway and I hope you’ll take a look around while you’re here! Thank you!!!!!

(art from Dover )

wow! And Nancy does such a wonderful job running it! Gothic Arches is my favourite challenge to participate in and although I took a hiatus from it, I hope I can truthfully say that I am back (for good) .

So GA is 2 and Nancy has a whole whack of challenges  going on, I hope to be able to do a few of them but my schedule is so screwed up I’ll be happy if I just get this one done! lol The 1st challenge bof the week was for Cupcakes to celebrate the birthday and I used a paper that has arches on it. The 2 is from a stencil that I covered in glue and sprinkled with glitter. The image is from Lisa’s Altered Art. Nothing else too special.

Happy Birthday GA!!!!!!!

is the theme this week on G.A.. This was a bit of a challenge for me as I haven’t traveled and the cities I have been to are sooooo not known …. So I picked the one city that I have ALWAYS wanted to see IRL … Paris. I used a patterned paper I likesand an image from PID that spoke to me of the fashion houses in Paris and this is what I got. lol I also used one of Tim Holze’s stamp sets and rub ons and stickers and.. and… well you get the picture.

I’m not getting to many blogs to check out the wonderful art and I miss that.

lol well not quite but I am very happy that I got another arch done for this weeks Boys challenge on Gothic Arches.

Even tho I have 2 boys they are not never have been nor never will be the typical ‘boy’, so I had a hard time with this one. Until I ran across this paper which made me think of the perfect image, from Paper Imagery Designs, to go with it and came up with a boy who might be a little bored with summer dreaming about going on a treasure hunt adventure.

Hope you like it!

Oh I had a really hard time getting a good pic of this so I decided to scan it but because I adhered shells to the bottom right, it didn’t scan very well either! The caption says Off on an adventure to find treasure!!