A Great Mail Day

Sometimes the mail carrier brings me bills, and sometimes he makes my heart sing!  Today, my heart was belting out an entire soundtrack.

The photo above is the end result of a several months long progressive swap masterminded by my friend Liz in the ATT group.  Liz sent out nine plain unfinished frames, about 5x5", and the same number of those vials used in drawing blood.  That was it!  Each of the nine people in the swap added something and the little masterpiece you see above is what we came up with.  The pieces traveled a total of 16, 344 miles, and crisscrossed the country several times, going from Liz in Arizona to Allie in Oklahoma, to Jason in Texas, to Nancy in California, to me in New York, to Pam back in California, to Peggy in Ohio, to Barbara in Oregon, to Julie in Montana, and finally, back to Liz in Arizona.  Liz finished them off and then mailed one to each of us.
I doubt if the photo does this justice, but click on it to see the details.  I don't know how it happened, (and I have to credit the final participants here) but it became a wonderful and cohesive work of art!  Thanks Liz and everyone else for this great experience and unique and beautiful piece that I will cherish forever!

As if that wasn't enough, also in the mail was a totally unexpected package from Japan.  Jessica, a military wife from my ArtHaven group sent me this cool RAK:

 

I just love that the package of pink lace has a label in Japanese!  Trust me, the label will find its way into a project.

Speaking of ArtHaven, I was lucky enough to win the February Lottery there, and everyone who submitted a piece (the theme was Happiness) will be sending theirs to me.  Today I received this beauty from my dear friend Angie:

 

I love the sentiment, and would you believe that the base started out as one of those coffee cup sleeves you slide over the cup to keep from getting burned?  Angie is an amazing artist and just loves to find interesting uses for what most folks would toss in the trash.

No photo for these, but there was also a new journal to work on.  Yea!  This one is from my Journal of Dreams group, and it belongs to Sarah, who lives in Australia.  

And the new idea book by Wendy Vecchi was in the mail too.

Like I said, a great mail day.   My email brought me a few surprises as well.  Several of my very kind cyber friends decided to pass along various blog awards to me.  I would like to acknowledge them and thank them for thinking of me.

Lori sent me this one:

 

Valerie sent me this:

 

And Celeste sent:

 

I decided a while back not to do this blog award thing any more.  I absolutely can't think of any more interesting things about myself to share and I love too many people and too many blogs to try to pick out the five or seven or ten to pass them on to.  So, I'm not adding these to my sidebar or passing them forward, just saying thanks to those who gave them to me, and hope this doesn't offend anyone.

The Queen & Her Cake - A Marie Antoinette Collaborative Art Journal

 

As my first collaborative art journal (Through The Eyes of An Artist) nears the end of its year+ journey, I am getting ready for the start of our next project: The Queen & Her Cake.  We'll be interpreting the Marie Antoinette theme in a variety of ways.  My choice, Marie's Scrapbook.  Everyone will do 2 page scrapbook layouts in my journal, imagining Marie as a scrapbooker, inserting pictures, memorabilia, embellishments, and journaling fit for a queen!  I am very excited about this group.  There are 17 of us, and we represent the United States, Canada, England, Australia,  and Belgium.  

 Our launch date is March 10, and I am ready.  Here is my cover (an 8x8" fabric covered scrapbook that I have altered):

 

I do have an introductory page, but for some reason, blogger refuses to upload it.  Onward....I took the advice of many in this group, and decided to use the Marie paper doll I made the other day in my own layout for my journal.  Here is Marie enjoying the gardens of Versaille:

 

I added a bit more bling to the doll.  And here is the facing journaling page:

 

For someone whose usual style goes toward the darker and grungier, this has been a fun challenge for me...I'm really unleashing my inner Marie, frou frou and all!

Journal of Dreams, Flowers & Flourishes, and a Birthday Gift

Yesterday I completed the last of the three pages I had in my queue for my Journal of Dreams collaborative group.  This one in for my Australian buddy Lee.  Please don't ask what sort of dream conjured this up; I just sat down at my work table and it happened.  All by itself.  Honest. 

 

The background came from a technique class I took at my friend Heidi's meetup group. Tissue paper was covered with stamps in several colors and attached to cardstock.  I added lots more stamping, doodling with glaze pens, sharpie poster paint markers, and bic markers.  The face is an image stamped over watercolor paper that had been previously stamped with text.

As for the crafty old bird (my alter ego in this "dream"), the bird head is a Tim Holtz stamp, embossed with black EP; the wings are grungeboard, embossed and inked, and the skirt several layers of paper, sequin waste and mulberry paper.

At the PID yahoo group we have a monthly lottery, that I moderate.  Because I'm sick and tired of snow, I picked a springy theme for March:  flowers and flourishes.  Check out the PID blog to see how I did the background for this piece:

 

I joined the Birthday Club in another of my groups, EWV (Everything Wendy Vecchi), and we have one birthday in March, Kathryn's.  So if you are Kathryn and wish to be surprised, don't look at the next photo.

 

I made this wall hanging for Kathryn's BD.  The frame was a chipboard piece with a design I didn't like, so I covered it with some text and then added the coaster on top.  All the stamps, including the cool (and brand new) herringbone background stamp are by Wendy, and I even added the one remaining grungepaper rose I'd received from Susan in our GP rose swap.  The metal you see is from Tim Holtz's idea-ology line.

You're A Doll

I'm sure you are, but that's also the theme of this week's challenge at PID.  Since I'm just beginning a Marie Antoinette collaborative art journal, the late queen has been on my mind, so I used a PID Marie image as the base of my doll.

 

The head and upper torso are from the image, but everything else was cut from various scraps, mostly past techniques.  The sleeves and lower torso came from the floor wax technique.  The poofy bottom skirt was a scrap left over from the stamping on tissue paper technique, the pink apron is the wax paper resist technique, and right below that is just a scrap of sheet music I distressed with some ink.

I had fun with the shoes....used a few "jewels" on them.  

Marie is holding a bouquet of Prima mini flowers, which cleverly hide my inability to free cut the human hand.

The gold grid over the pink apron is some German scrap that I found under a pile of crap important papers on my work table.

Art Goddess Pins

Are you an art goddess?  Of course you are!  I love creating art goddess pins, usually using old rusted keys, stamped images, and found objects.  PID  has a new collage sheet  called "art heads," that has simplified this project.  All I had to do was attach an image to grungepaper for added strength and glue it onto a key.  The images already have wings.  I didn't have any more old keys, so used some of Tim Holtz's keys from his idea-ology line.   I used my Brother label maker (with the very cool black tape and gold letters) to create the words.

 

 

BIG Prima Giveaway!

Who doesn't love stuff from Prima?  Look at this haul:

 

Prima has a big giveaway going on right now to whet everyone's appetite for a major announcement....don't know what it is (big secret), but to win ALL of the above, visit Prima here and follow the directions.  there will be two winners....one from the US and one international, so everyone should enter.

Another Journal of Dreams

It snowed again today....all day.  So, I stayed indoors again and worked on the next journal, which belongs to Lillian.  Carla's was a petite 6x6", but Lillian's is much larger; she altered an existing book, something I've done and am partial to.  No worries about binding when you use an altered book.

 

Lillian included a note with her journal, in which she mentioned some things she is partial to......foreign languages, architecture, anything French, vintage, rust.....  I did my best to incorporate many of these features in my page for her.

I was thinking about dreams of travel.  As an experienced traveler, I am usually prepared, know what to expect, and through careful planning, don't miss much.  When I was a very young traveler, too dumb to be cautious, I just went where the spirit took me, with very little in the way of preparation.  At first, I was going to say that I miss the spontaneity of my youth, but do I really?  I wouldn't want to be that girl again.  Not really.

Well, be my travels well thought out or spur of the moment, my message is the same.....it's all about the journey, not the destination.

I started by spraying watercolor paper with several colors of homemade mica spray, then inked the paper and added strips of music sheets and old text (in a few languages).  More ink.  Combed my stash for exotic images and architectural elements.  Added a central image of a 40's pin-up girl (why not!), and some bling.  Oh, and I just noticed that the charm dangling from that little chain was turned backwards when I took the picture.  Just so you know, it says "journey."

More snow is expected tomorrow, so I just may get to Lee's journal as well.

Journal of Dreams

My collaborative art journal drought has ended!  After months with none reaching my door, I suddenly had three to work on.  All from the Journal of Dreams group.  Today I worked on Carla's.

I used the spray starch technique for the background, and almost everything else on the page came from my scrap pile.  So there are leftover bits of embossed metal, old text, scraps from various techniques,  and cut off pieces of collages.  Also, LOTS of shimmer from distress stickles.  The mermaid is from PID, though she didn't start out as a mermaid.  I made her tail from glitter paper which I then embossed and distressed.

The Circus is Coming.....and a Lovely Giveaway

 

What is this blurry strange thing?  Well, it's a sneak peek of my circus page for a collaborative book some of us are doing at ATT.  There's always a lively discussion about Tim Holtz's Cirque stamp set.  Much as we love All Things Tim, many find his clowns to be, well, creepy.

I'm one of them, though creepy can also be interesting.  At any rate, I jumped at the challenge and have been busy creating 17 pages for this book.  It hasn't been easy, but I'm getting there. I'll post full pictures once our pages have been swapped out.

Here are a few more blurry teases:

 

  

Yes, that is some of Tim's film strip ribbon on the side.  And you do see a clown shoe.  That's all I'm sayin' for now.

Onto the giveaway.  Do you enjoy vintage?  Ephemera? Using the above in your art?  Then check this out:

 

This is only a small part of the giveaway being offered by Robin's Egg Blue, to celebrate this lovely blog's 300+ followers.  Hop on over there to find out how you can win.

New Stamps are Inspiring!

When I returned from my trip a large box was there waiting for me.  Inside.....the new Wendy Vecchi stamps I'd pre-ordered.  New toys always inspire me, so I pulled stamps from different sets and did a tag and a pin.  Both are on their way to a friend in the EWV yahoo group and I hope she likes them!

 

The tag has several new stamps and my favorite "old" one -- the art chick.  She is wearing a grungepaper rose that I received from Susan in our GP rose swap.  Lots of distress inks, some perfect pearls spray, Maya Road trinket pins, and accents with gel pens.

 

 The base of the pin is a grungeboard key that I colored with KAT's "drunken scotch" technique.  The grungeboard wings have distress inks applied with a sponge, then some heirloom gold perfect pearls brushed over top.  The face and word are both new Wendy stamps. 

Some New Art and A Palm Tree or Two.....

I'm still getting used to being back in the northeast, and all that implies, weather-wise.  I actually love being home, but can't say I don't miss those swaying palms and days spent by the pool.  Anyway....a few projects, and a few shots of Paradise.

 

While I was gone, PID had a "doodle me" challenge, which I completed last night.  We were to alter, with doodling one of their images, and I went to town with my gel pens!

 

Not sure what I was thinking, but it was very therapeutic.  Now, back to Paradise.

This is what the entrance to the dining room looked like:

 

This nice man cut open a coconut for me:

 

And I enjoyed it!

 

Ahhhh, well, back to art.  At ArtHaven, we have a monthly lottery.  This month's theme is "happiness," and we were to enter anything that made us happy.  I've been enjoying altering mini notebooks with both real and faux metal, so this is what I did:

 

As you can see, we had  a very relaxing vacation:

 

We enjoyed Hokkaido, the Japanese restaurant at the resort:

 

  

When I returned home there was a package waiting for me.  It contained a very timely gift from my secret sister (something my SU! team does each quarter).....a picture frame already decorated to hold a vacation photo.  So, I did a little photo collage and popped it in the frame:

 

The new challenge theme at PID is "green or clover."  Yes, it really is almost March, though someone needs to inform the weather people of that fact.  They seem to think we're still solidly in winter.  But, I digress..... I found this cute little guy in my PID stash, and did a St. Patrick's Day card:

 

And I'll end this with a few more random shots from the gorgeous Melia Caribe Tropical Resort in Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic:

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

And The Winners Are.....

 

Well, another wonderful OWOH has come to an end.  I just got back from my vacation, and was delighted to learn I'd won two fabulous items, which I will tell you more about when they arrive.

And now, for my winners.....I used Random.org to get my three numbers, and will email the winners as well as post their names here.

 

The winner of the box of supplies is Jona!

 

This art goddess pin goes to IrishFairyGirl.

 

And this one goes to Elaine Allen.

Winners, you'll get an email from me asking for your mailing info, and I will get your prizes to you as soon as you get back to me.

This was a fun ride, and I hope to visit every single one of the participants even though the giveaways are over.  I'm almost there!