Dare to........................................

Dare to..............

Pare things down to essentials

Tear it up

Wear it out

Stare someone down

Prepare for the unexpected

Bare your soul

It's just one little word

Chris

NEW LAYOUTS - TAAFOMFT AND OLW

today was an incredibly busy day starting with doing the substitute posting on http://whatisyourfavething.blogspot.com/ for Julie who is on vacation. She is so vibrant and charming that I could never do it the way she does but I was very positive and lively, and added lots of smileys (her trademark). The challenge this time is what is your favorite flower and as you can see, I picked Peonies - I found an incredible poem by Mary Oliver to use lines from (and posted the entire poem on the back so I can always remember it) and used some antique lace and a doily and also some K&Co Amy Butler stuff along with some Amy Butler fabric cutouts. come have some fun with us and show us your favorite flower - the DT did some fabulous stuff, layouts and 2 projects, and they are awesome!!!!!

I did this layout for the latest OLW challenge SWEET. I immediately thought of the fabulous def leppard song "Pour some sugar on me" and I was totally inspired. I used a striped piece of pp and painted on some gesso and some yellow and hot pink acrylic paint. Then while the paint was still wet, I laid on some funky yarn and some yellow sequins that I had won from KIMBO for NSD. We had bought some peaches while we were in NC and they were the perfect photo op so......

I have been painting like a mad woman and finished one painting today and am almost finished with a large mixed media piece - I will post both of them on Sunday.

Tomorrow I have to go to Miami to pick up my son at the airport as he returns from Buenos Aires.

ttfn

Life is just a bowl of cherries

Happy Tuesday - I thought I'd blog for a few minutes before I go to the book store to work and hopefully find some treasures. I made this layout as one of mine to submit for the Bad Girls DT call but obviously I didn't win. I recognized some of the names of the winners and really congratulate them. I know the competition was steep and they were the cream of the crop. Looking forward to seeing their layouts.

This was a fun layout - I had cut the purse out of an old Dwell magazine and did a little research on Andy Warhol (I had a hard time believing he did this drawing but it was an early piece). Once I decided to use the Bob Fosse lyrics, the whole thing just came together. I had seen cupcakes on other people's layouts but, in my NOT BUYING IT mode, I made my own from cardboard, felt, and brads.The sequin waste came from some items that I won from SATU from Crop Suey. After the layout was not picked for Bad Girls, I added the journaling on the cupcake base - enjoy the party, have FUN and submitted it to SIS and OLW. I have to admit the layout just makes me happy.

Last night I got a little crazy (or so Dan said) with puns about gnomes. I am working on a quickie layout fot Inspired by Amelie. The challenge this time is create a layout with the gnome so I had painted a small mountain landscape for my watercolor class and I thought about putting the gnome in the front and titling it Gnome, gnome on the range, and then I started thinking about There's no place like gnome and Phone gnome, and, well, you get the picture.

Off to eat some breakfast. Have a great day!

By the way, I changed my user name on Scrapinstyletv to ChrisA (old name was kalaiton).

New layouts - OLW and Noel Mignon

for the OLW challenge "living"

for the Noel Mignon challenge
I have been super busy working on some challenge and DT submissions this past week. I won a place in Wilna's heart class on SIS and I am loving this - I did 2 projects based on Lesson 1 and I am busily painting the hearts for the cards for today's project. I love so much inspiration!!

Start - for OLW

I finished my layout for the OLW challenge due tomorrow - START. I kept seeing in my mind the word ST{ART} but couldn't figure out what to do with it. When I pulled out the Making Memories {}s and saw that I had both black and green, I decided to go with both, and the green led to plants, and that led to my Christmas cactus photo taken in early December. I thought about using a progression of the cactus plant blooming but then I thought that I'd attempt a drawing or painting of the cactus so I went out onto the lanai and sketched for a while to get the shapes of the cactus stems and blossoms. I painted the cactus with a combination of watercolors and acrylics but I think I succeeded in getting the general concept.

I am also posting a photo of the tessellation wall hanging on my design wall and the fabrics being used for my bedquilt. I'll be cutting out pieces this afternoon and listening to more of 1776.

My word for 2009

I think Ali Edwards's one little word idea is great as an inspiration for a year but have never picked one before. This year I decided to select a word and have spent quite a bit of time and brain energy researching and mulling about the word to use. I have always remembered the quote from (I think) Zora Neale Hurston that some years are beginning years and some years are ending years, and since I want this year to be a year of completions and accomplishments, I toyed with the ideas of completion and fulfill but then today I "realized" that my word should be REALIZE, which means "to give concrete or objective existence to that which has existed either as an abstraction, a conception, or as a possibility...(it)...implies emergence into the sphere of actual things that which has been a dream, an ideal, a hope, or a plan".

I have several quilts pieced but not quilted, a sweater with yarn purchased but not knitted, a beaded ginko necklace with one and a half ginkos finished, fabric for 2 pairs of pants and several tops neither cut nor sewn, sketches of layouts and papers and embellishments to do them with so I will work to bring these projects to realization but also continue to realize projects that are currently in my brain or art journal.

On another front, I had an awesome "75 % off clearance"shopping day yesterday - 2 tops and some teas at TJ Maxx; a yoga mat, Christmas ornaments (my theme will be red and metallic next year), teapot and Tazo tea (with a coupon for a free Starbucks inside), Starbucks big reindeer and Christmas CD at Target; and a Making Memories 3 hole binder and some Foofala seals at Big Lots.

Happy New Year - I'll be tidying my studio this afternoon and finishing - REALIZING - some layouts.