I won't be posting quite as often (if at all over the next week or two as my computer died over the weekend. Its with the Geek Squad and hopefully they will be able to restore it over the next week. I know better but I did not have my computer backed up (you can be sure that will change from here on out). So if you're out there without any back-up system and you have items on your computer that would take you a long time to restore, replace or recreate find youself a way to back-up your computer!! Soon!
Will be back blogging as soon as I can....
Monday, February 20, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
The Art House Co-op's New Project
I love how The Art House Co-op now has so many ways to share art. Their newest endeavor is
the 4 x 6 Exchange. Here is a blurb directly from their email.....
the 4 x 6 Exchange. Here is a blurb directly from their email.....
"A (Free!) Global Community Art Swap
There’s no better feeling here at Art House HQ than the daily mail delivery — each afternoon brings us a slew of inspiring artwork from all over the map. The 4 x 6 Exchange is designed to share that thrill by creating an art swap on a worldwide scale. Sign up for the project and mail us a 4” x 6” artwork and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. We’ll exchange your work with another artist’s submission and surprise both of you with the results!"
Sign-up is free so check out the link below to sign up/get more info.....
Let me know if you sign up....
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
The Curious Scrapbooker's Field Guide with May Flaum
Week 1 of May's class has been all about misting. I have about 6 or 7 various mists and have tried it (sort of) a few times but didn't really feel like I knew what I was doing so it wasn't necessarily fun. I've been misting a few tags and papers based on what we learned this week and I think I have a better idea of what I'm doing and how the mists work. Here's the layout I did tonight......
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| I found a box that will even fit 12 x 12 sheets of paper for my misting. I didn't like cleaning up the mess misting made without it before. |
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| I used a Tim Holtz mask from his Timeworks set. |
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| I used Tattered Angels GlimmerMist - Creme de Chocolat to mist Close To My Heart cardstock (colonial white). I added a 2 1/2 inch strip of textured brown cardstock (not sure where I got this paper. I added ribbon above and below the paper strip. The cardstock did curl after I misted it. I'll have to put some weight on it to flatten it. May also told us that we could iron our items that curled. |
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| Finished layout. Added photo over cardstock/ribbon strip. Added acrylic piece with "thankful" on it over the masked area. Added cardstock brown Thickers to make the word "for". Rub-ons added "family" and "happiness is..." from Close To My Heart. I then added black DewDrops to bring the eye to the photo. |
I was very happy with the look of the misting. It covered the cardstock very evenly and I didn't have a lot of big splats or drops. In the class May explained the various types of mist, what they are made of and how they work which helped me understand how to use them better. She also said that its a matter of working with them -I should say playing with them and practicing the various techniques to get the look you want.
My scrapbooking style is typically very basic, clean and simple and I like that I can stay true to that but add a feeling of more depth to my layout.
I can wait til Thursday's class! Thanks, May!
Monday, February 13, 2012
30 Days of Lists
After a year of Project Life one of the things I identified that needed improvement is my journaling. I'm pretty much a who, what, when, where kind of journaler. And now that I'm taking Twelve with Stacy Julian and learning more about storytelling I really want to focus on my journaling and writing. So I've signed up for 30 Days of Lists. This sounds pretty easy and is not time intensive so I'm hoping this can be the starting point for developing a daily writing/journaling habit! Here's more information straight from 30 Days of Lists "About" page....
"30 Days of Lists is our encouragement and challenge to you that you CAN journal just something every day – even something as small as a list.
Every day through the month of March we will be posting a list prompt – anything from weekend goals to celebrity crushes. At the end of the 30 days you’ll have a collection of entries creating a small snapshot of your life right now.
Only 5-10 minutes per day are really needed. While you’re waiting for someone, or when you’re the passenger in the car. Download one of our kits so you have the topics ahead of time and just write.
That’s all.
Just write.
There’s no wrong way to do this and if you don’t like a prompt on a certain day, just change it.
30 Days of Lists is a collaboration between Kam of Campfire Chic and Amy of Lemon and Raspberry."
Here's the link to 30 Days of Lists homepage http://march2012.30daysoflists.com/ for you to learn more and sign-up.
"30 Days of Lists is our encouragement and challenge to you that you CAN journal just something every day – even something as small as a list.
Every day through the month of March we will be posting a list prompt – anything from weekend goals to celebrity crushes. At the end of the 30 days you’ll have a collection of entries creating a small snapshot of your life right now.
Only 5-10 minutes per day are really needed. While you’re waiting for someone, or when you’re the passenger in the car. Download one of our kits so you have the topics ahead of time and just write.
That’s all.
Just write.
There’s no wrong way to do this and if you don’t like a prompt on a certain day, just change it.
30 Days of Lists is a collaboration between Kam of Campfire Chic and Amy of Lemon and Raspberry."
Here's the link to 30 Days of Lists homepage http://march2012.30daysoflists.com/ for you to learn more and sign-up.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
May Flaum's Field Guide
I'm busy over on Big Picture Classes website today. May Flaum's class The Curious Scrapbooker's Field Guide class started today and I'm really excited! I can already tell that I'm going to learn how to get so much more out of my products. Its not to late to sign up so check May's class here...
and I hope you'll join us! I've already watched two of the videos and learned so much about misting. Techniques that I thought looked hard have been demystified! I'll be busy getting inky and will have some finished art to show this weekend! Its going to snow Friday and Saturday so I'm planning on creating in my studio or watching more of May's video's!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
2012 Project Life Blog Hop begins Sunday, February 5th at 8am ET
Hi! Thank you for stopping by my blog for the 1st Project Life Blog Hop!
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| Week 2 Left hand size Core kit elements used |
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| Week 2 right hand side Added birthday card directly to album using 3 hole punch to punch holes "birthday "tag added - adhered to Close To My Heart Flip Flap Memory Protector |
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| Week 2 right hand size (again) without birthday tag and card |
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| Week 2 right hand side one more time with Close To My Heart Flip Flap Memory Protector flipped to show photos underneath |
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| Week 2 right hand side close-up of Close To My Heart Flip Flap Memory Protector on horizontally oriented photo |
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| Week 3 through 4 left side |
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| Week 3 through 4 right hand side Pocket in upper right corner holds a journaling card from Simple Stories Year.O.Graphy with a saying I clipped from a calendar and distressed with Tim Holtz Distress Ink. |
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| Week 5 - one page - not finished |
If you would like to see Week 1 its featured in my previous blog post for February 4th.
The first 5 weeks of the year has kept me a little off-balance. After being away the first week of the year I came home to 4 new Big Picture Classes that started while I was away. The last 4 weeks have been playing catch up on the classes and household stuff. I'm starting to feel back on track but unfortunately the picture taking for PL has taken a back seat. That's why Weeks 3 & 4 are combined and Week 5 is quite brief. As I mentioned in the previous post about Week 1 I really want to keep 2012 to 2 albums so I want to be more selective about which photos I put in the album. I also want to find ways to include more journaling - to do that I need to work on my page layout and jotting down some thoughts during the acutal week. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are able to leave a comment! If you would like to see more of my 2012 Project Life journey please sign up to follow my blog.
To continue on the your blog hop journey visit Donna's blog next. Go here:
http://www.joyfullydonna.blogspot.com/
Here's the entire list of blog hop participants if you want to start at the top and work your way through the entire list.
Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/
Brooke http://everysnapshot.com/
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Project Life 2012 Week 1
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For these pages I'm using a mix of items from Becky Higgins PL Core Kit and Simple Stories Year.O.Graphy collection. The 2" border at left is one of Year.O.Graphy pieces. So easy to do - just cut and slide into the pocket! I tend to shoot quite a few vertically oriented photos so I need to use a variety of divided page protectors like this one. I use page protectors from Becky Higgins, We R Memory Keepers and American Crafts.
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Page on left is same as the one on right.
Different photos are showing on right with the use of Close To My Heart Flip Flap Memory Protectors.
Page above still needs some work. I want to do farm animals for embellishments on the 2" paper strip. Haven't found exactly what I want to do yet. The 2 pages above are the same page but the one on the right shows a Close To My Heart Flip Flap Memory Protector in the bottom right hand corner flipped up so I could include more photos. Its great that these work both horizontally and vertically.
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| 2" paper strip needs embellishment yet |
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| Added children's menu directly to album by using a 3 hole punch to punch holes. |
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| Right hand with menu page turned. Simple Stories Year.O.Graphy pieces on bottom of page along with receipt from dinner. |
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| PL Core Kit and Year.O.Graphy pieces mix well together on this page. |
Arrived home in western NY to snow! No suprise there although it has been quite a warm and generally snow-less winter here. Very unusual but appreciated.
Notes to self - need to include more journaling and try to stay with a select few photos that show the best represent that time period! I ended up with 2 very full albums (probably should be 3) last year. I just have a hard time leaving out photos of Owen!
Hope you enjoyed my first week!
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Art House Co-op's THE MEAL Show
For all you photography buffs out there or anyone who thought about doing the Sketchbook Project but did not have the time for that type of project check out THE MEAL.
The Art House Co-op has a new show in the works and you can check out this project and the details here....The Meal
On February 24th at 12pm EST, join thousands of people around the world in a simultaneous global meal. Whether it's breakfast in LA or a midnight snack in Beijing, let's take a moment from our hectic lives and share it with strangers around the world. Snap a photo of yourself and your meal and mail it to us — we'll create an exhibition from these self-portraits, documenting the world's largest communal snack.
http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/themeal
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
One Little Word Blog Hop 2012 Edition begins 2/1/12 at 11am ET
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| Title page |
JOY
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am very excited to be participating again this year in Ali Edwards' One Little Word(OLW) and Margie's OLW Blog Hop. I can already tell that my second year is going to be a very different experience and that I've grown (personally and artistically) from the first year. The word JOY chose me this year. Its been hanging around me for several months and popping up almost every where I look. I'm looking forward to finding & enjoying the JOY present in everyday life - the small and not so small moments that can be easily missed in our busy lives. At this stage in my life I am not where I planned or expected to be & there are many things I can't change. So rather than feeling fustrated or unhappy (been there, done that) I am looking for the JOY that is in my life. And the JOY that I can invite into my life. On to my project for this month.....
I want to start off by letting you know that the piece looks better in person than in the photos. The sun had been shining aIl day here until I got home from work! So I lost my natural light for the photo taking. Also the Prisma glitter looks slightly yellow rather than silver in some of the photos because of my lighting. Because of all the glitter I did not want to put the piece in my scanner. On to the details of my creation....
I started preparing my "canvases" to go into the 9 pocket page when I decided to go in a slightly different direction. I took my 9 pieces of cardstock, chipboard and paper and adhered them to a piece of white cardstock. My color choices for last year were red, black, white and gold to go with my red We R Memory Keepers 8 1/2" x 11" 3 ring album. This year I changed it a little going with red, white and silver. I was so happy with the collage at this point it was amazing! I took Claudine Hellmuth's Composition for Collage class at Big Picture Classes last year and decided to continue working on this as a grid collage piece. In the middle rectangle (white paper with red dots) I did add some Close To My Heart's Liquid Glass to each dot for a dimensional effect.
I used Claudine Hellmuth's Studio acrylic paint to cover my chipboard letter pieces and then sprinkled the letters with Prisma Glitter (also from Close To My Heart) while the paint was still wet. I love how creamy and smooth Claudine's paint is and it covers easily and quickly. Dries fast too!
I then added my defintion, quote and invitation to the piece.
For the synonyms I typed them out in Word, printed them on white cardstock and cut them out. At first I was just going to add them to the piece the same way I did the definition, invitation and quote.
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| Synonyms and definition |
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| Synonyms & quote |
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| Synonyms and invitation |
I'm pIacing my collage in a frame to hang on the wall in my studio as I feel such JOY just looking at this. I encourage you to make your own grid collage with your word. As I have time I'll recreate this in my 9 pocket page protector.
You most likely got here from Jill's blog so your next stop will be Jenn's blog at
Here is the full list of all 46 blog hop participants for you to visit. I know I'll have to work on visiting all these talented ladies over the next few days.
Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/
Sharyn www.lavieenchic.com
Cindy C http://www.cynthiacrysdale.com/
Kelly http://mindingmynest.com
Melissa http://www.smudgetime.com/
Melissa S http://blog.mshanhun.com
Dawn sunshineandcreativity.com
Katrina http://www.katrinasimeck.com/
Kimberlee http://scrapsandsass.blogspot.com
Nikki Www.inkyart.com.au
Veronica www.veronicanorris.typepad.com
Stephanie www.scrapworthylives.com
Orange Gearle http://orangegearle.blogspot.com
Becky http://www.becky-handforth.blogspot.com/
Thanks for visiting! Please leave a comment if you can - I love them! If you want to follow my/our progress through the year sign up to follow my blog. I plan on sharing projects from various Big Picture Classes including Reclaiming My Time, Project Life, Move More, Eat Well, Library of Memories/Finding Photo Freedom, Twelve, and the Curious Scapbooker's Field Guide as well as layouts for my various albums. Other projects I hope to work on this year include doing a photo tray, a Wendy Vecchi type project and a Tim Holtz configurations piece. Hope to see you soon.
Thanks for visiting! Please leave a comment if you can - I love them! If you want to follow my/our progress through the year sign up to follow my blog. I plan on sharing projects from various Big Picture Classes including Reclaiming My Time, Project Life, Move More, Eat Well, Library of Memories/Finding Photo Freedom, Twelve, and the Curious Scapbooker's Field Guide as well as layouts for my various albums. Other projects I hope to work on this year include doing a photo tray, a Wendy Vecchi type project and a Tim Holtz configurations piece. Hope to see you soon.
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