Art journaling, knitting, and other stuff

Thankfully I am now recovered - the cold only lasted 5 days but it was a nasty one. Unfortunately Dan isn't feeling too well today - he isn't sure if it's the cold - but he did go off to work. I made this art journal page for A Year in the Life of an Art Journal or something like that - I saw Jenneke's page and Michelle's page so I decided that I had better do mine. For my art journal I really wanted one of those Donna Downey canvas albums like Michelle has but since I have very little to spend on scrapping this year, that was out of the question so - I looked through my craft boxes and found an old Bobunny 9 x 9 chipboard binder with 6 chipboard pages in it. I dug through my fabric scraps and found some heavy cream cotton and some batting scraps and I made some pages by sandwiching batting between 2 pieces of cotton and sewing around the edges and also around the binding end leaving room to punch holes with my cropodile. It worked quite well and here is my first page - What is holding me back? (sorry this is a little blurry). The cool citrus paint is an Adirondack acrylic paint dabber (got it from Scrapgal) and it is perfect for messy people like me - and isn't the color cool!

This layout is on Harlee-Quinnz Designs Scents to Remember paper - I repeated the lacey curtains with pieces of vintage lace. The flowers are all Prima. I will enter this in the Blue Moon vintage challenge. HQD is going through some changes right now but they will be releasing some new products in the next month.

So, I have to admit I need a change of pace sometimes - last week before I got sick, I made new curtains for my kitchen, new napkins, and a new apron. I also cut out a black and white apron for the Tie One On blog challenge - need to get it finished. I think the Prima Donna Downey canvas aprons are charming but again no funds - so I found an old piece of canvas in my fabric stash and cut out an apron - now to embellish it!!!!!

I also changed my internet browser from Explorer to Firefox and so far I am loving it - I had been thinking about this for a while but the straw that broke the camel's back was on Saturday when Explorer decided not to let me read my gmail - anyway, I have misplaced my favorites list so I was redoing it and got fascinated by Ravelry (a fantastic knitting site) and started following links (and you know how that goes) and found an incredible knitter who does exactly the kind of knitting that I like to do - sort of free form with gorgeous yarns. Jane Thornley is her name and she has several free patterns on her site that I am so wanting to do. I spent this morning digging through my meager 2 containers of yarn to come up with some fun stuff to work with so I can make this scarf - (see below photo courtesy of Jane Thornley) - Isn't it just stunning? I will have to break down and buy a little bit of yarn and ribbon to do this so hopefully I will be able to begin knitting it sometime in the next month. I could do it in whites and creams right now but I think it needs some darks and sparkles to make it really dazzle! I have some fantastic beads to use on the ends.
 She also offers workshops and trips to some places that I would love to visit so can you believe I was perusing her blog today and when I looked up at the clock, over an hour had passed!!! I was just dreaming of fun places to go and things to do. Do you ever do that?

 

Thanks for reading and have a great day. I just received my February Sampler so I have to get busy with it - what fun!!!!!

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Chris

Check out my tutorials

I have a blog posting that is supposed to appear on http://scrapbookingsuppliesrus.com/forum - just click on the Crop Spot - but as of right now - noon EST, Sarah's SEI posting is still the top one but I am sure by tomorrow my tutorial on Color using these 2 layouts as examples will be up. Both of these layouts were created using the December Sampler kit (I created 7 layouts from that kit - incredible!) For the above layout, I handcut the reindeer and painted the poinsettia.

I used lots of Webster's Pages in this layout and handcut the bird, the flower, and the title. We will also be having our 2nd challenge this coming week. Check it out!

This little table decoration was created for the http://www.harleequinnzdesigns.com/blog/ and I posted a little tutorial there on how to make it. I think it would go very well with the Blue Christmas wall hanging that I did earlier but also you could use it as a New Year's table decoration. It's quick and easy, and the supplies are minimal.

I have been reading about all of the bad weather - lots of snow and cold - in other places and I remember how much fun snow was when I was a child but how much I hated it when I was an adult in Denver and had to drive to work - and it was always dark. Brrrrrrrr! It is cold here today and will get down into the 30s tonight which is really cold for here - our heat pumps are not designed to heat very much so Dan and I just dress warmly - we actually have to wear socks - what a concept!!!!!

Have a wonderful week - my son is coming over for Christmas and I am looking forward to seeing him again. We always talk at least once a week but we only get to see each other a few times a year so it's always nice (except that Hana is not happy!!!!! She comes into the room and sees us talking so she comes over to me and insists on being petted while she glares at Brian - and sometimes if we are sitting on the couch, she will jump up between us and climb on me - it's a riot!). I will post again this week with some new things that I have made and with some Christmas scenes around my house.

Take care, stay warm, and thanks for reading.

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Blue Christmas and something springy

I have been quite busy creating the past couple of days. I finally finished all of my Christmas presents on Monday and mailed them after work yesterday -whew!!!!! I had already finished all of my DT work last week so now I am just playing - yay!!!!! I did the above wallhanging for the Let's Get Shabby challenge blog - I used some Harlee-quinnz Designs Butterfly Gardens "Garden of Beauty" paper, wet the edges, and then molded it into the embroidery hoop. The doily is vintage and the flowers are mixtures of Making Memories, Heidi Swapp, Joannes, and American Crafts with vintage buttons as centers. The bear buttons are porcelain, and the glitz is old Heidi Swapp. the photo is a Waterford crystal ice bucket filled with white silk flowers on my dining room table last Christmas.

I did this layout just for fun last night using the colors for the Candy Shoppe Designs Bold and Beautiful challenge - fuschia, yellow, white, and black along with big alphas. I have been doing so much fall stuff and now Christmas stuff that I just had to do something spring-like. I am working on a daffodil painting and this is one of my reference photos. The journaling reads

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." - Anne Bradstreet (a wonderful poet who lived in American colonial times). Isn't this an apropo statement for today - as they say, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes! The ruffled flowers are tissue paper, the background paper is SIS (purchased this fall when their paper was 10 cents a sheet) and the fuschia die cut paper is old Autumn Leaves . The die cut flowers and leaves are Basic Grey from last year.

I finished my watercolor class today and am trying to catch up on the Tim Holtz tags plus make some decorations for my house. I saw a wonderful felt deer on a website and I have drawn a pattern to make it as well as a small felt tree. I also want to make some little "Putz" houses for my village (photos to come) and maybe a small button wreath. Then I need to get some cookies made - Dan wants Scottish shortbread from his grandmother's recipe, Brian wants chocolate chip (for Christmas???), and I love meringue cookies and macaroons but neither works well in the Florida humidity so I will probably make some iced cut-outs and/or cookie press cookies.

thanks for reading and ttfn

Harlee-Quinnz blog post & ramblings

I did a blog posting on http://www.harleequinnzdesigns.com/blog/ today with a short tutorial on how to make this wallhanging/wreath. I posted this idea a while back but actually redid the piece using glimmer misted Harlee-Quinnz Designs patterned papers for the leaves, and I really like it way better than done with the fabric leaves from Michaels.

It's been a busy week (no surprise!) with work, painting, baking (got the Christmas cake done, bread (in the winter I bake all of our bread), and a key lime cake), getting Christmas presents finished, a couple of layouts (I have very little scrap mojo right now but yesterday I went into photoshop and played with some photos so I am getting it back) scrapped, and watching Project Runway last night ( I thought that Irina would win but so much black!!! Last spring I did layouts inspired by the 3 finalists so I am thinking that would be a fun challenge for myself - I mean, for Irina, how many textures or patterns of black can I find? definitely some birds for the teeshirt designs. For Carol Hannah I could do some blue, and for Althea, probably earth tones.)

I have been reading some really cool books also - I just finished The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber - it's sort of a mystery about a forged painting but the twist is that the forger is sort of time traveling and becoming the original painter - sounds strange but fascinating.

My son is coming over for Thanksgiving so I will have to clean up my studio as that is where the fold-out couch is that where he will sleep. Dan has to work on Thanksgiving Day; the golf course closes at 5pm so we will eat our meal in the evening. (Dan volunteers at a golf course and then gets to play golf for free - he works 1 day a week in the summer and 2 days a week in the winter when things are busier). I will be doing the total tradional thing - turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, vegetable, cranberries, relish tray, pumpkin pie and whipped cream, and white wine. YUM!!!!!!!

Hope you have a great Friday - I have to work today but hopefully I will have some new projects to show on Sunday or Monday.

Thanks for reading and ttfn

A self-portrait and some Harlee-Quinnz

the new Bad Girls Project 52 challenge came out this week - do a self-portrait using paper mache and a found object. The DT examples were interesting (some great, some not so great) and 2 of them used the idea of body forms (sort of like my HERO canvas) so I decided to do a silhouette - like a cameo out of paper mache. It was very very messy (the glue container actually exploded - fortunately it was facing away from me and I had the table covered with waste paper but I must be the messiest artist ever! It took forever to wash all of the paper mache off of my hands) and fairly complicated to get the facial details to work out but I am moderately happy with the result. (See photos below this text - the above photo is explained later down in the text) the found object is the base - a plastic plate that I brought home from work - it had had cookies on it from a grocery store. I layered 3 layers of tissue papers onto the plate and then layered 4 chipboard silhouettes in varying sizes onto that, then I tore old dictionary pages and tissue paper into strips and paper mached them onto the chipboard, sculpting as I went, let it dry, then laid a paper silhouette over it and sprayed with coffee glimmer mist (my fav and almost out) around it, blotting with paper towels. finally I put a thin layer of gesso over the silhouette. I added a lace collar that I had cut off of an old old Laura Ashley dress (can you believe I used to live in Laura Ashley clothes in the 1990s?), sprayed it with stiffen quick, and adhered it to the plate. finally I attached a vintage glass necklace to the back to add interest at the bottom and a holder at the top.
I have always loved silhouettes - the above layout I did a couple of years ago and used a silhouette that my mother had done of me when I was small. (Also notice the Laura Ashley ribbon.) My mother loved cameos, and I inherited 3 absolutely beautiful ones from her. When I worked as an accountant and had to dress "appropriately" for the job, I used to wear all 3 at one time on my jacket lapel - that always got compliments!

The next 2 layouts are ones done with Harlee-Quinnz Designs papers - the purple is from the Butterfly Garden collection and the cool paper with the blue and white pitcher is from the Scents Remember collection. This year has been a bumper crop for Pears, which I love!!!! they are so plentiful, inexpensive, and so delicious. I love to just eat them or make pear/walnut/blue cheese salads with viniagrette. YUM!

For the Purple layout, I used a Prima flower, some flowers from Michaels, a yo yo made from Liberty fabric, an old button card, some funky see through netting, a piece of paper stamped with a Harlee-quinnz mandala stamp, a dictionary page, a jewelry pendant from Michaels, a tea ad, some ribbons, and a little dollsize belt buckle. I took the photo last summer at the Biltmore in North Carolina.

For the Pears layout, I used a wallpaper sample from Anthropologie, vintage lace, Starbucks card, doily, Prima flowers, handmade silk ribbon flower with beads, old MM letters, old Lil Davis letters, and a tag from a jewelry pendant (see Purple layout) from Michaels.

I am off to work - got lots to do today.

ttfn

Lost and found

I have been listening to The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown on audio CDs while I paint and scrap. It is very fast-paced, totally predictable, and selling like mad. I painted these paintings on Saturday and designed them to fit into these thriftshop frames.

I did this layout for Larissa's perfect life challenge on SIS. I had a lot of fun with this - I had taken this photo of Hana a while ago and have been saving it for the "purrfect" layout. She is such a sweet little fur person - so affectionate but also demanding for attention - I found her at the Humane Society and she was about 9 months old and had already been spayed and declawed (front only). I would never declaw a cat as the pain must be hideous and then they are defenseless. She is so gentle and is always patting me with her paws but she never even attempts to go outside the house or screened in porch. She is now 4 1/2.

I made this layout with Harlee-Quinnz Scents Remember Lucky Stripe and Paper Indian papers, and used a Harlee-Quinnz Butterfly Gardens Garden Icon stamp (can you believe it came out perfect!!!!!!!!!! I have been a stamping fool lately and I guess my technique has improved). The rub ons are making memories and pink paislee, the 2 is Heidi Grace, the die cut is daisyds, the ribbons Michaels, a real brass buckle off of an old canvas belt, and a handmade felt heart with embroidery and a nautical tie tack. the photo is of Dan and his twin sailing on Chinook, our small sailboat in Jacksonville (this is not the sailboat on which we lived. We sold Chinook when we bought Kalahari.)

So I have been busy creating this past weekend. Tonight we are going to a wine tasting dinner - all the wines have names like Spellbound and Devil in them. It's a Hallowine dinner (sorry for that but that's what the restaurant is calling it).

I will be back on Thursday with the latest These are a few of my favorite things challenge. You have one day to finish up this one - your favorite time of day.

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Glimmer Mist and Harlee Quinnz - what fun!!!!!!

I used the cool glimmer mist technique that I saw on a video on Michelle's blog http://www.inspirationeverywhere.blogspot.com/ - I used glossy card stock on the left (there's a 2nd piece per the video but I have already used it on a layout and can't show it yet). The 2 pieces on the right were done on scraps of photo paper and it took the glimmer mist totally differently from the glossy card stock. I also kept the paper on which I did on the spraying (regular card stock) and it is a really cool background. These papers are even cooler in person than in the photo - and they were so much fun to do (of course I ended up with mist all over my hands. LOL!)

I did this layout for Harlee-Quinnz Designs using Harlee-Quinnz Butterfly Gardens Summers Garden paper for the background. I cut out leaves from the Sunlight Bower paper and painted the leaves with watercolor paints. The pictures of Henry the 8th's wives, the patterned paper behind the photo, and the little cutouts all came from the Harlee-Quinnz Henry's Wives ephemera sheet. Other elements are Maya Road flowers, Making Memories brad, leaves from Michael's, cardboard spritzed with Glimmer mist, and a purple velvet flower that I made and added a vintage button.

The quotation reads - Autumn is indeed the crowning glory of the year. ---Rose Kingsley

I will be doing a blog posting on the http://www.harleequinnzdesigns.com/blog/ next Friday. It will be a tutorial for a small wallhanging that you could also use as a card. Each DT member will be doing 2 postings a month.

It's a quiet weekend and that is always a blessing. Dan is glued to the television watching sports - golf and football. I went into the gift shop for a while and then did some work on the computer when I returned home. I am trying to paint this afternoon but you know those days when nothing seems to work - well, this is one of them so I should probably just quit and go read for a while. I will be making stuffed peppers for dinner and I baked a carrot cake yesterday so we will have a piece for dessert. - Hana just came in and told me that she needs to be petted - her psyche is suffering from a lack of attention so

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JOY - an early holiday layout and original patterned paper

NOTE - IMAGE WAS DELETED AS THIS LAYOUT WILL BE PUBLISHED IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE OF SCRAP N' ART ONLINE ZINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I know that it isn't even Halloween yet but I noticed Christmas stuff was already at Michaels so - actually that's not why I created this layout. The current challenge at Candy Shoppe is to make your own patterned paper and since I am obsessed with stamping right now, I decided to use a couple of the Harlee-Quinnz stamps ( a border stamp and an accent stamp) to stamp this piece of kraft paper. I think it has almost a Jenni Bowlin look (I love Jenni Bowlin but have never been in a store where I could purchase any but I read her blogs - speaking of, congrats to Amy who just won a fabulous stash of Jenni Bowlin on the Moxie Fab blog) so I went with a vintage b/w photo and embellishments in the dark red, dark green, and brown ranges. I cut out the little felt heart and added the edge embroidery and the buttons. The striped pieces are cut from a little holder that I got at Starbucks with a free cookie in it (had to get a pumplin spice latte on Saturday), the title JOY is the name of the type of tea on the TAZO bag, and the journaling block was stamped from a Harlee-Quinnz stamp. I also added a fabric scrap, a lace scrap, a tape measure scrap, a Prism trim scrap, a book page scrap, a HQ Tabacco scrap, some mix and match flowers (Making memories and Lil Davis and my buttons), a Heidi Swapp tape scrap, and a couple of funky vintage buttons.
Sometimes I find myself doing layouts with a purpose - that is, to use certain brands of supplies or to answer a challenge; and other times I do layouts just for fun - just to play with my stuff. This layout started out with a purpose but it became fun - I just kept digging through my scrap box (and that's another story: Julie T-W once said she kept her supplies in her rollaround tote so I was determined to weed mine down to something like that, and though it's not quite there yet, most of my supplies and scrap stash are in a rollaround crate that is 13x15x15 - are you not impressed????I keep a few things out to inspire me but most stuff is now organized and I find that I am really using up old stuff, like alphas, etc.) and found all these little treasures.
I had a terrible night last night with my stuffed up head and with my cat throwing up 4 times - I thought animals were supposed to be easier than babies?! but today I feel way better (just tired) and the cat seems fine. I will be busy in the studio working on some projects to submit and on some items to put in my etsy shop, which will open very soon. Thanks to everyone for the encouragement!
Hope you have a great day!

the A list

I created this layout for the Dreamgirls challenge about first liners - your favorite first line in a book - actually with my English Lit background, I have lots of first liners but I decided to take a photo of my collection of Alice in Wonderland books and use the first sentence from the book:
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"
I used Harlee-Quinnz Butterfly Garden paper and accentuated the butterlies with little gems. The pink/brown/turquoise paper with the birds and flowers is cut from a vintage postage letter (remember those ones that you could write a letter on one side and then fold it in thirds and address it on the back); the chipboard butterflies are from K&co; I made the fabric flower from some Amy Butler scraps; and I stamped the A with an old Heidi Swapp stamp.
My incompetence with stamps is decreasing bit by bit but I had a disaster with this layout yesterday afternoon when I was working on it. I wanted to use one of my new stamps on the bottom right to offset the A on the top left so I selected a beautiful one that is like a frame around journaling lines and practiced it over and over on scrap paper till I felt confidant. Then I stamped the paper and it didn't all come out right so I restamped it and tried to fill in with a Sharpie pen - disaster! it looked hideous so fortunately I had a 2nd sheet of this paper and I carefully removed everything and put it all on the new sheet. the colored cutout section in the middle was larger that it is now as I had to carefully cut off the stamped part - I was able to save most of the background paper to use as cutouts or for a card.

I was feeling pretty terrible and frustrated - both from the disaster with this page and from my cold, which I can report that I really do have one. Thanks to everyone who wished me well. Hopefully this will only last a week or so. I did go in to work today as I felt pretty much okay this morning but as the day has worn on, I am tired now, but all in all, not too bad - just stuffed up.

I started another project last night after dinner - Candy Shoppe has a challenge to make your own background paper so I used 2 of the HQ stamps to stamp a background - and it came out pretty cool (As you can tell, I am currently obsessed with improving my stamping skills). Depending on how tired I am after dinner, I will try to finish that layout tonight and post it tomorrow.

and a quote about home and hearth:

Home is the sphere of harmony and peace,

The spot where angels find a resting-place,

When, bearing blessings, they descend to earth.

- Mrs. Hale

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Harlee-Quinnz layouts

I did this layout using some HarleeQuinnz paper from the Butterfly Garden collection - the paper is called Fairy Grove but I thought it would be a cool Halloween paper as it is pretty much black and gray, and the bare tree limbs look sort of menacing. I used one of the images from a H-Q ephermera page (they have some awesome ones) along with a vintage postard, 2 vintage bookmarks, and a KISS mask - all from my collections. I added a Heidi Swapp clock, a flower, and a Making Memories moon.

This layout is of Dan's grandpa Pete - I thought this photo of him up at Lake Erie with his pipe in his mouth was perfect for the H-Q Scents to Remember collection - this paper is call Tabacco and I used some of the stamps for the words in the little Making Memories metal frames. The fox print is actually a wallpaper sample from Anthropologie and the doily is sprayed with Glimmer Mist.

I have also almost finished 2 other H-Q layouts but one had to be totally redone due to my stamping incompetence. Fortunately I had another sheet of paper to redo it on. I then created a piece of original patterned paper using one of the H-Q stamps - it actually looks great!!! and I am doing a layout on it for the current Candy Shoppe Designs blog.

Anyway, right now I feel pretty terrible and I am afraid I am coming down with a cold so hopefully I'm wrong, but if not, I won't be posting for a few days.

Hope you have a great and creative week!

Harlee-Quinnz, a quote, and a visit to the Candy Shoppe

I did the Candy Shoppe Designs blog hop and here's my layout - the steps in order: create a background, put an edge on a piece of paper, layer a pp on top, pick a photo, a closeup (okay, this is not super close but believe me, you don't want to get too close to a man who has been on a sailboat for 4 days, who stayed up much of the night, and who hasn't showered since leaving the US - got the picture?!), do something to the photo (I painted the edges), layer the photo on top of the pp, add some ribbon, add 3 flowers at the corner of the photo, add 3 more embellies, and add a title. The prize for whoever wins this blog hop challenge is a kit from http://www.studiocalico.com/

In other news, I received my design team kit from Harlee-Quinnz, and it is awesome - the papers are so beautiful and the stamps are just giving me chills. This morning I am painting but this afternoon I am going to play with my new toys!!!!!!!!!! Don't you just love these mandalas and the fairies! And the ephemera pages are just too cool!

And now another quote about home (in honor of the What's your favorite room challenge on TAAFOMFT)

"'It is but a cottage,' she continued, 'but I hope to see many of my friends in it. A room or two can easily be added; and if my friends find no difficulty in travelling so far to see me, I am sure I will find none in accommodating them.'"

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

This weekend I plan to be a busy girl painting and scrapping - not only for the design team but also the Great beginnings challenge (I think that's the title) at Dreamgirls - I have selected a great opening sentence to a book and can hardly wait to scrap it.

Have a wonderful day!

I am so excited and thrilled!!!!!!!

Just a quickie post to tell you how excited and thrilled I am that I was named as one of the Harlee-Quinnz design team members!!!!!!! I recognize some of the other names and I feel so honored to be a part of them. The Harlee-Quinnz papers are so beautiful and unique, and I can hardly wait to get my packet and start creating!!!!!!