Domino Pendants

Haven't done these in ages, but had a box of domino's sitting here so I figured I'd give them a whirl again.

For church

I'm putting these 3 pieces up at my church. The door piece I did last year, but because of the space I'm putting it in, I felt it needed something bigger. So I made 2 companion pieces to it. I think it works, cept I'd love to find a small key hole to add to the one w/ the hinges, I'll keep my eyes peeled and if you know where I can find one, holler :)

This is just a close up of the keys so that you can see the words and such on the keys. Thanks Tim Holtz for making kewl art stuff!

Ink Blot bkgrds

Was having issues tonight while i was in the studio, nothing wanted to work right, so I cut some loose canvas up and made some fun paint bkgrds. Think I might just cut these up and frame them as is, not sure yet though. We'll see what happens when I start cutting.

Spring-y and so not my usual thing!

Ok just so everyone doesn't think I've fallen off the face of the earth and that I haven't been doing anything I'm going to share some canvas's that are in progress, starting with this one.

Used lots of stencils in this one, not sure where I'm going with it, but I forced myself to use happy springy pastel type colors. Who knows, maybe it'll look NOTHING like this when I'm done, but for now I'm just looking at it waiting for inspiration to strike!

Music Makes Me Happy

Music is a very important part of my life, and the life of my family. You can't ever walk into our house if there are people home and not hear music coming from at least 1 place in the house. I've done this one using pages from a hymnal and lots of texture on the right side using thick gel medium. I actually traced the treble clef and then painted that, but the other notes are free handed, not too bad if I do say so myself, especially since that's not usually my strong suit. It's still not done, but a work in progress.

song of the cross

I picked up and old Lutheran Hymnal at Goodwill a while back and although it's hard to tell from the glare, this cross is all done w/ torn pages from that hymnal. At the bottom, which is slightly obscured by the easel, is verses from a song about the Crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Again this is still a work in progress, just doesn't feel finished to me.

Everything intertwines with every thing else.

I'm taking a class at my church and it's all about finding out who I am, what I value and what are my gifts and talents and personality traits. In doing this, we were asked to write a creed, as I wrote it I found that everything in my creed connected and intertwined with each other. Love is important to me, and so is family, and I love my family, connection, community and fellowship are important to me, and these all connect, as does love also connect to these things. There were other things on my creed (which I will be posting on my spiritual blog, if you care to see it) that intertwined as well. In talking w/ my pastor about all this, this image came into my head to do this canvas. It USED to be called "circles" , but I screwed that one up and gessoed over it and started over. It is a large canvas, 24x48 and I don't know if it's done yet or not, may have to just sit on this one for a bit and see what happens.

Fun w/ alcohol inks

This is an ATC I did w/ the new Brights AI's, such fun!!!

swaps

Just a couple swaps I did.

Missing You

Oh my goodness am I missing my studio time!!! Things are starting to slow down a bit and I can actually see a light at the end of the tunnel!! I have so many ideas swimming around in my brain that I just cannot wait to get down on canvas!!! I do have a few swaps that I am sorely behind on, I do have some of them done, just have to get them scanned. I also have several canvas's in process just not anything ready to be posted. Hopefully something soon!!!

24x48 almost done

Ok this is really turning out kewl!!!! I don't think it's done yet, I need to tweek some of the circles but I think I'm close.

Zendala

I was browsing the Internet trying to find a site that would show my daughter what zentangles were. Came across a site that had what's called Zendala's, which is basically the same thing, just round. My daughter is very talented but said she couldn't do one of these. So I thought if I showed her I could do one, no matter how pathetic it looks LOL that maybe she'd give it a try. We found a you tube video showing someone doing one of these, it's basically a doodle, anyone can doodle.

another art form

I just wanted to share some family pictures we had done this last weekend. We had so much fun doing these!! The photographer was so awesome, very fun and flexible, she had awesome ideas and let us give our own suggestions and ideas too. These are just a few of the ones she took, there are others, but I figured this was a good amount to share. Here's the website for the photographer if you wanna check her out!! KaseyK Photo

Technique Junkies

For several years now I've subscribed to a wonderful newsletter called The Technique Junkies. Every other month I'd get a newsletter in my snail mail box, just chalk full of different new techniques or old techniques taken and tweaked a bit. This year because of my space issues I've opted to just get the online subscription instead of having a hard copy mailed to me, but it's the same newsletter either way.

This month Pat Huntoon, the owner and editor and creator (along with her "team") of this newsletter has taken to heart the fact that our economy is hurting and that having to buy supplies us stampers don't already have is a hard thing to do. All of the techniques are basic stamp, ink and paper type techniques, yet they're still just as wonderful as ones in past issues.

If you've never gotten one of these newsletters and are interested, if you go to The Technique Junkies Website, you can find out more information on it. Right now through the end of the month of February she's even running a special price for the hard copy for this year.

I'm not affiliated other than just a happy customer and I happen to think Pat is a wonderful, driven, talented, hard working person who deserves success!

Another batch of scrabble charms

Just a recent batch of scrabble charms. Now it's time to focus on getting the necklace parts of them all made.

Good Old Days in progress

Seems like it's been a long time since I worked on a collage piece like this, and I think I forgot how fun it could be. It's not finished yet, gotta add some more paint and maybe some more texture and things to it. But I just wanted to share it. :)

A Personal Piece

This is certainly not saleworthy, and not something I ran around showing everyone. It was a highly emotional piece for me. Several months back I went through a bout of depression, what an awful, horrible thing to go through. I spent most of my days trying to keep the darkness from closing in on me. All day long I could feel it creeping in around the edges trying to consume me and take over. So thats what this depicts. It's highly textured, as I mixed my paint with ultra thick gel medium. I'm much better now, thanks to a daily "happy pill", (which I hope to get off of come May), but I'll keep this around just to remind me of how bad things could be.

ATC's for Swaps

More Scrabble Charms

I'm just having so much fun doing these things! I'm excited too cause Patty from Lisa's Altered Art is going to be sending me some images the perfect size for these! I really hope my beads come soon!

Winter in Wisconsin ATC

Ok this doesn't seem like much, but it just cracks me up LOL Mind you, I've been up since 4:30am and it's pushing 8:30pm at the time of this post.

I'm on a list called Wisconsin Stampers, and it's open to stampers who live in Wisconsin or have some affiliation to Wisconsin. One of our ATC swaps this month is White/Snow. I took a piece of white cardstock, cut it to size and covered it in about 3 layers of white embossing power. I then layered it onto a piece of white cardstock. (the black is only there so it would scan)

If you live in Wisconsin, or you know anything about it, this is exactly what it looks like from about November to March, snow, snow and more snow!

I will however, be doing another ATC to throw in with this one, but it just cracked me up when I got the idea in my head.

More Scrabble Charms

I haven't gotten these on cords yet, I'm waiting on some beads to come in the mail. Who knew finding glass beads with holes big enough to fit the cord through would be so hard to do. As always the scan doesn't do them justice, they're wonderful in RL, I'm really pleased at how they are coming together. And remember, I'm doing these for a church youth group fund raiser, so if there's something you see that you can't live with out please let me know.

Christmas 4x6 Postcard

I'm on a yahoo list that is all about swapping altered post cards, so I was in the mood to work on some. I came up with this festive Christmas 4x6 done on watercolor paper. I used left over torn strips of magazines that I had from my Art Through Media canvas. Then stamped the newsy bird from Stampers Anonymous on watercolor paper and added it to it. Also stamped the holly from Stampers Anonymous all over it in Olive Green Staz-On. Gave the whole thing a good coating of matte medium for staying power.

Youth Group Fund Raiser

Our church youth group wants to go to a Youth Convention this coming summer in Washington DC, so to help them raise some money for that trip I'm making some scrabble charm necklaces that I'm going to sell for $15.00 a piece. $10.00 of each necklace will go to the youth group. These are the first 3 I've done and I'm going to keep the Faith one for myself cause I like it so much. Not that I'm necessarily using my blog to sell these, but if you should happen to see one you just can't live with out as I get them posted holler and I'll be happy to sell it to you plus the cost of shipping :o) Click the photo for a larger view.

Artella Freebie--Enjoy!

Download a FREE copy of the Artella eBook, Stunning and Simple Seasonal Salutations, an eBook featuring 10 beautiful handmade cards, complete with photos and descriptive "how-to" instructions, showcasing a variety of techniques such as rubber stamping, collage, and innovative paper and mixed media arts.Download your copy here!

Charm Swap

On my Wisconsin Stampers list we're doing another charm swap. This is our 3rd one and it's getting hard to come up with new ideas. So I ordered these little silver charm frames from Artchix Studio. They have a hole at one end for the wire to go through. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with them but I played a little bit with a small image and some glossy accents but that didn't look right. I remembered I had some Embossing Enamels so I pulled those out. I heated them up on a metal spoon with my heat gun pointed under the spoon. I had the charm with the wire put through the hole laying on my craft sheet and then I'd pour the enamels into the charm frame. When they cooled, I ran my finger nail along the edges to peel away any stray enamel and then bent the wire into shape. Easy Peasy!!