Christmas Card

Here is one of my Christmas cards! I used a variety of background paper, some that I had left over from other projects, matching cardstock, two stamps that I bought last year and really liked. Some I stamped with distress ink, some I embossed, this one has that lightening black brilliance ink that I am newly fond of.
I have another rubber stamp that I hope to get some additional ones done with.
All the art for today! I can see I have been busy with work, no posts since before Thanksgiving!

Food atcs

This month on the byhandartists group, food is one of the themes for our atc swap. I am down to the wire on this one as they have to reach Alberta, Canada by the last postal day of the month. But, I'm giving it a try. Here are my contributions.

Countdown art

Lisa Volrath has a new Christmas countdown coming for free printable art. You can find it here. It begins Dec 1.
I could get the link to attach but you can find it in the lovely links to the right.

byhand alcohol ink challenge

This week's challenge on the byhandartists group is to use alcohol inks. I've been crazy busy working the past two weeks, but put this together with a few free minutes this afternoon. I love alcohol inks and liked the big blotches on this particular background.

Tuesday Challenge byhandartists

Today I took the challenge on createdbyhandchallenge to create a piece of art using eyelets. This is my art. I love this new music stamp and used it with my favorite stamp of Suzanne's at Quietfire Design. I stamped the music with emboss ink, embossed with copper penny ep, stamped the quote with Stazon black onto vellum, attached with copper eyelets and edged with copper Perfect Pearls.

Music Decos

The first one I worked in, Linda T's, is a fun round book and included Canadian postage stamps of music artist. I chose the Joni Mitchell stamp and incoporated it in my page. One page is a photo of Joni and a vellum pocket for a little record Linda enclosed on which I placed the stamp and on the back I cut a circle from cardstock and stamped a record and music notes stamp (from Michael's dollar bin)and use as a sign in tag. Added fibers. These are cool little record tags. I made two atcs to stick between the front and back page of the deco with the same stamp and names of songs. The front is Krylon silver resist for a river and lake. Twinkling H2o stamped trees and around the edge is written the words to "River"

I've been working in two decos this week and they are ready to head on to Linda C.
Sandy's deco started with "Goodbye Norma Jean" and Linda T and I have continued the Marilyn Monroe theme. My page is "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend". The words are superimposed on the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes poster. I backed it with silver paper on top of polka dot patterned paper. I cut the photo corner from patterned paper with my cuttlebug. I added some Liquid Pearls platinum around her neck where the diamonds are. The other page is a photo on more patterned paper (love the kisses. In the metal rimmed tag is pink paper with "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" Edged the photo and paper with silver Krylon pen. Rubber stamped the sheet music with charcoal chalk ink. Added fibers and attached metal letters that spell Marilyn.

Anne's deco began with a classical tribute followed by a fantastic interactive layout by Linda about "Showboat". I had Porgy and Bess in my head all day so I went with that. Anne had already painted her pages and I used them. A copy of some sheet music from the opera holds a tag with facts about it. Copies of photos from the original play and an album cover are the other pics. I used the cuttlebug to cut out the letters from patterned paper and used some negative and some positive ones. The same sheet music stamp was used on the background of the left page with vintage photo Distress ink.

Wedding Charm

My quilt artist friend, Jude, is marrying this weekend. I made her this collage charm to go on a bottle of wine and she can wear it later or use it on another bottle of wine or hang it on a Christmas tree if she chooses. It is 1 1/2 x 1 1/2"
The background is alcohol ink on photo paper which tends to do odd things. I cut the word on the front "love perfectly" out of patterned paper. The heart is punched from another patterned paper. The back is a quote cut from patterned paper that reads " has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it's all about what you are expected to give.. which is everything." I added the heart to start out the quote as "Love". I soldered it and added two jump rings. I forgot how much I like to solder.

Tagged

by my art friend Mary-Beth, so honored that she likes my art and visits my blog. My challenge is to list one fact that is somehow relevant to my life using the letters of my middle name, Shaw, which is also my Mother's maiden name and my daughter's middle name, too. I used it as my first name for a while in high school- I was new in town and there were 5 Elizabeth's in my class.
S-seeker of knowledge
H-hardly ever bored
A-art lover, oh so easy
W-wondering where life will lead me.
Now I am to tag people in equal number to the letters of my middle name.
I don't know a lot of art bloggers but I will choose some of those who's art I get to not only see, but touch sometimes.
Linda T
Julie K in Taiwan
Therese Malak
Sandy Proulx
consider yourself tagged, my art friends. Enjoy a moment of self-reflection.

More Egyptian atcs

Here are 4 atcs done with alcohol ink (bottle, butterscotch,red pepper, terra cotta) and Krylon pen on glossy cardstock. The glyphs are stamped with emboss ink and embossed with Pirate Gold ep. The tablets are shrink plastic colored with Archival Inks in sepia and printed on my laser printer. The atcs are edged with Brilliance Ink in Lightning Black and Impress Dye Ink in black.
The fish is stamped with Twinkling H2O Golden Jade and overstamped with emboss ink and embossed with Pirate Gold ep. The paper is 140# watercolor paper painted with Lumiere Halo Pink Gold. The fish is atop patterned paper with big fish layered on top of yellow paste paper.
Oops, can you find the atc I scanned upside down?

atcs for October swap

I have done a little art today for the atc swap with the byhandartists group. Our themes this month are Halloween, Egypt and the color indigo (if I remember correctly). Being a lover of Halloween I did some Halloween art first and then an Egyptian one. I am having fun researching the glyph stamps I have that came from a Goodwill store. On the back of the Eye of Horus atc is a brief description of the symbol.
The "spooky" atc has fun foam, decorative background paper, painted path and stamped branches and gold script. The little witch I posted before for the seasons atc mingle. The Bats atc (you can't see it but the word "Bats" is stamped in metallic black ink in the bottom right corner) is the same background paper with a gold embossed moon and black embossed bats used Stazon for the branches. I really like this branch stamp from Impress. It has a mini flower stamp at one end. I use it a lot.
The "eerie" atc is Krylon resist for the moon with twinkling H2O background paint. The tree is stamped with Stazon black and the bat is fun foam.
The Eye of Horus atc is Lumiere's metallic gold edged with Twinkling H2O's golden jade on 140# cold pressed watercolor paper. The eyes are stamped with the same Twinkling H2O on the same watercolor paper colored with a wet brush and a blue Marvy Le Plume brush pen in blue. I edged the "eye" paper with Krylon gold and mounted with mounting squares for some dimension. sun and moon are stamped with the Brilliance Lightning Black which is becoming a favorite ink!
I'll upload pics again later, blogger is having problems.

Mini Book with Shrink Plastic

I have wanted to use Suzanne's ( www.quietfiredesign.com )mini stamps for a while and I am facinated with shrink plastic, so they were a great combo! I stamped my front image with Stazon ink on the frosty side and colored it with chalks. The back images ( quote from the above web-site) stamped better on the glossy side for some unknown reason. The ink tended to spread on the frosty side. So, I went with it. The flowers were added with souffle pens after baking. I edged the covers with silver Krylon pen.
The original size of the covers was 3 1/2 by 2 3/4. The finished size is 1 1/2 x 1 1/8. I used an 1/8 hole punch. I cut the white cardstock and used an awl to punch the holes for the pages using the cover as a guide.
I stamped different images from mini stamp collection on 5 of the pages. Added a little ink to color two of them.
It is bound with blue wire that I have had forever and beads that I have had longer than that!
I added a decorative paper clip to one of the blank pages.

ee cummings

My mingle this month for the byhandartists, "A this and that mingle", is about
ee cummings, poet, who's birthday is October 14th. I had a great time researching him. I was always facinated with his small letters and arrangement on the page as much as what he had to say.
Sorry for the messy scans, again, I need to clean the scanner glass! It is much more crisply white without a bunch of blobs of color where there shouldn't be any, but I don't have time to scan again right now.
The back has a pocket with a brief biography.

Over a week!

I've been doing some art but not writing. Here is a background challenge and the atc I made using it and a random 4x4. It has been incredibly beautiful here in KY. Very warm for fall, but the humidity has dropped so it is like a nice summer day, unlike the sweltering days we had this summer. Jim and I enjoyed the afternoon on the river after a fish sandwich on Harrods Creek.

Season atcs

Today I worked on season atcs for a mingle I decided to do one of each season. Some have chosen to do the same season. I posted this Krylon resist background earlier. Decided it was perfect for a winter moon. The spring one is from my Asian series, summer-my favorite summer quote, and gotta love the little vintage witch for fall.

Hometown Ghost Stories

This is a project done last year or the year before on byhandartists. I rebound it with my zutter binder. People did atcs about the ghosts in their hometown. Mine is about Waverly Hills Sanitarium. http://www.underworldtales.com/waverly.htm

Music Deco Round Robin

This is the spread I did in my Zutter-bound music deco (posted previously). The background is patterned paper with gesso painted over it, walnut ink sprayed and rolled over a crocheted doily. Vintage photo framed with copper peel offs, "wish" stamp, swirl stamped with vintage photo distress ink. Fabric leaves were run through my little xyron and I stamped music with distress ink on them. The quote is printed on my laser printer. We have 8 players in the round robin. Can't wait to see what others are doing.

Free Texture backgrounds link

Enjoy these free texture backgrounds for your art. You can upload 20 per day.
This paint is an example of many catagories: windows, doors, fabric, food, etc.
http://www.mayang.com/textures/
click on link is listed under lovely links to the right.

September Mingle

I decided to do this month's mingle for the byhandartists group on the Hong Kong Moon Festival. I always enjoy doing research for these fun projects and this one was no different.
The moon was printed on cardstock, 8 1/2 x 4 and folded at 4". I stamped the evergreens with black dye ink and cut a hill from black carstock. The chinese characters in the lower right were embossed with pirate gold ep. I cut black cardstock to line the interior and decided to leave the right side unattached so I could have an extra page inside. I stamped the lanterns and embossed with clear ep. Cut them out, added a sticker letter and hung them to gold paint pen lines.
The story of the festival is printed on vellum with red ink and chinese takeout font. Attached the vellum with vellum adhesive, no matter what I use, it shows through.
The back is another copy of the moon and a printed picture of the Hong Kong celebration with lanterns. My scanner scans crooked sometimes- this was one of them. The picture is really centered on the moon on the back. Sheesh!

Asian Blue

I've been wanting to play around with fun foam for a while. Some artist friends have done some great things with foam on atcs. So here is my attempt. I'm fairly happy with the results. This is for the blue swap. I'd like to experiment with multiple colors next time.

I didn't stay on blue long, huh?

I continue to be drawn to a stash of Asian papers I have so I had to do another atc. There is a black border all the way around, though I can't convince my scanner of it.

Blue is not my favorite color

Our other theme this month for the atc swap is the color blue. Not my favorite color, even though I love the sea and all things associated with it. When I think of blue, it isn't the aquas and teals of the water I visit. I decided to use some of my paste paper to inspire me and thought that the blue of the night sky might be one to explore. I like this quote from Shakespeare and this dancing figure stamp found vaguely in the background.

End of the geishas

This is the end of the line for the pretty stamps from Japan. I have created all the atcs I can with them, these are the final 3.