First handmade bird

Back from a quick trip to Houston, TX. We left Thursday morning at 11 am, got into Houston, with generators, at 1:30 pm. Loaded up with piope and came back to ND. Home at 7:15 am Sunday. About 3000 miles. Lots of damage in Houston from hurricane Ike. Power was off at all of the truck stops. The people who we hauled the generators for shared a BBQ feast with us. Wasn't that sweet? We took the load of pipe out so we wouldn't have to sit the weekend there with no electricity. We do carry food in the truck, soups, milk, cereals, sandwich meats but it's nice to have a bathroom to tinkle in occasionally, lol. We put a microwave in this winter and it is so handy for heating things up.

I really like how this one turned out. It's not one othe lessons I am doing but I love all the birds everyone is doing now days so had to try one. I am too cheap apparently to buy the chip board blanks so made one from the back of an empty legal pad. Glued it on using Traci Bautista's Collage Pauge. Used brown chal;k to age the aedges. The back ground is done on torn newspaper pages, 4x4 inches, glued together with glue sticks. An idea I got from checking out Kiwi Carole's blog which sent me to Donna's blog. Very neat little video to watch. I then used Carand'ache neocolorll 's to color the background. Smeared them around using a paper towel. Hubby was like what the heck are you doing? lol. The neo colors I used were salvaged from my daughter's art supplies from high school as I haven't found any in Bismarck yet. Out of 10 in the original tin, there are bits and pieces of 6 colors. Anyhows.... I am working on a book for a friend and this is one of the pages. She must be special cuz she gets my first bird. I made the pages in the truck with various newspapers I read across the country. I think this is from Steele, where I live but there are pages from Knoxville, TN in there too. I cut the letters from a Farmers Almanac. Circles of words are from a dictionary and book, circled with brown marker and then brown chalk. A bit of sequin waste(punchinella) from skybluepink. I hope she likes it. Off to get a shower for our rental. Hopefully get some art done tomorrow while Lance goes fishing. Had a hard time sleeping last night as we had a very loud thunderstorm going on. Our Mother dog, Kringala, is scared stiff of them and whines terribly. Poor thing. Her and Lance almost got hit but a lightening bolt when we were camping. She hasn't been the same since. Have a great day. Hugz, Scary

Fabric ATC's beaded Challenge

They are having a beaded ATC challlenge, no theme, over in the Fabric yahoo group I am in. So here are my entries. The butterfly one was done under duress, lol. Had both boy grankids over helping. First I forgot to put Peltex underneath. I don't know what I was thinking, just used interfacing. Hubby was in craft room on the computer and I was trying to get things done and just grabbed the first stiffener sheet on top in my closet and went with it, lol. Then wanting to cover the stitching from the beading but the beads were too close to the edge so I ended up hand stitching the edges. Oh my head hurt when I got done but for all the messups I thought it turned out ok. Thanks to my daughter Candi for helping to decide colors and placing of beads. I think Marva will like the pansy one for sure. Off to bed. Hugz, Scary

revamped 2nd and 3rd forest pages

Didn't think there was enough on 2nd one(did I mention my clutter problem? lol) so added a leaf skeleton. I am terrible at remembering who sent me those leaves but I have been hoarding them for awhile. I ADORE them. On to the 3rd page, I thought the forest theme fit Robin Hood and Maid Marion so well? Did a packing tape transfer. Don't like it. Tooo thin. Ripped poor Marion's leg right off when I was placing her on the fabric, poor thing. Clever placing of her name covered it up though, lol. I think I will use contact paper next time. The images are from Altered by Lisa. I liked the coins around it, trying to point out Robin robbed from the rich type thing. Not sure if anyone will get it? the backgrounds for both figures is muslin stamped with green ink. Been dieing to use that stamp since I splurged and got it on sale lol.

Had a call on generators going to Houston area but they had to be there by 3 pm tomorrow and couldn't do it unless we flew, lol. Drat. So off to bead another ATC for the Fabric group I am in's swap challenge. Hugz, Scary

2nd page for the swap

Ok I think I went to the opposite extreme on this one. I have some plastic leaf charms I might add yet but kind of like this one as is. Again no back ideas yet. The next one I want to try a technique from CPS but trying to figure how to get the forest theme in on it. I don't want to just add green to the page.

Got side tracked checking out Tim Holtz's blog last night. What a talent. I wonder how he gets any art done with all the traveling he does. My friend Sanna gets to go to one of his classes on the east coast the lucky duck. I was just checking out what they will be making. I am sooooo jealous. He has such cool products already and now he has come out with a new line. I am thinking I need to pick one thing and buy all the stuff needed to do that. I miss driving road construction and having my own money left AFTER paying all the bills. I feel so guilty now buying even the basics as I have so much stuff in my craft room as it is between the paper and fabrics. But Lance got tackle and worms this week so I am thinking I have about another $40 in stuff to get to catch up, lol. How's that for validation? I checked prices on Tim's stuff and so far Stampers Anonymous is the cheapest by at least a nickel on most of his new stuff. Shoot, I am still wanting more of his old stuff. I have been saving his project directions as pdf files. I bought a couple of his stamps and have 4 distressed inks. I also bought one of his books, some card stock sheets and thicker small ones. I made a couple of pins and the pocket watch chain from his book. Do I really need the nonstick scissors? Maybe. I would like the edge distresser after seeing how to use it. I had about 5000 things picked out last night, lol. I want the grungeboard pieces. Someone sent me a piece and it really does work cool. I wish his stamps were all clear. I am new to stamping and it makes it so much easier really. I also want the embossing powders. I wish you could buy this stuff locally. They finally got a few distressed inks in Hobby Lobby and alcohol inks. But not anything else last time I was there.

Ok I really should get a shower and go get the Sunday paper. My friend Fran is in the hospital in Bismarck. I am waiting to see if she is up for visitors today. Zane still has my car so hopefully Candi will take me up if she is. Should take Baby J up to see Grampa Reuben this morning too. It would be nice if he would like to see the rest of us but there you have it, lol. Hugz, Scary

My First Fabric Page for a Swap

Lenna Andrews is having a swap over at http://creativeswaps.blogspot.com . The theme is Forest. We have to make 4 pages that are 6 x 6 inches, and we will recieve 4 from different artists Lenna has great swaps. This is my first page. I have never done a Fabric page swap just because I didn't want to disappoint anyone. I really like the way this one turned out although I forgot to stitch the words on BEFORE beading so had to glue them on , duh to me. The grandboys(3 and 10 months) were here while I was working on it and my brain farted I guess, lol. I was just so happy everything was coming together. I hand stitched under the leaf with some sild embroidery floss? Not sure if you call it that when it is silk? but you really can't see it very well. The dress has glitter painted on it and the beads are stitched on as is the butterfly. I attached each flower different just because I could, lol. The image is from Lisa's altered art. I might have gone over board on the embellishments but I like cluttered. Everything about me is cluttered. Sometimes an organized clutter but still cluttered. When I redid my kitchen and took down my 105 baskets I had hanging on 3 walls(that had windows and doors and a fridge on the wall too) It looked so bare to me. Drove me nuts. I am not a bare wall kind of person. Although when I redid the kitchen and living room last time I went minimal. I am adding things slow but sure but very little. Course that could be because I am too cheap to spend money on the things I want to hang on the walls? Yep it could be. Hee hee. Anyways. I hope someone likes my firstest page. Off to bed. Keeping an eye on Hurricane Ike in TX. Saying many prayers for those poor people down there. Nighters and Hugz, Scary

Books I got this week

I have been looking at altered art books and books on collage and after many questions to my art friends, finally decided on 3. They were waiting patiently for me when we got home this weekend. I got Collage Discovery Workshop by Claudine Hellmuth. Awesome book. I would highly recommend this book to beginners. I have only done a couple techniques so far but after I get more supplies I will be trying everything.
I also got Altered Book Workshop by Bev Brazelton. It has different techniques that Beth Cote's and looks like it will be lots of fun.
I also got Traci Bautista's Collage Unleashed. I have a video by her also. I love her collages. SO hopefully will be posting my process of learning to collage and do altered books.
I am also signed up for my first fabric page swap with Lenna Andrews. The subject is forests. She was in one of my first ATC swaps over at ArtChix yahoo group and she has been so kind and inspirational. I love keeping tabs on her swaps but this is the first I have had enough guts to join. I hope I won't disappoint anyone but I think I have had some great mentors on the subject and if the ideas I have fall into place, I think I will do ok.

Forgot to add that we just managed to stay ahead of Hurricane Gutav last week. Got out of New Orleans on Thursday and went into north Louisiana then out of there to Dallas then up to OK. Hit some of the rain in OK when we were leaving there. Very nice to be home where it's much cooler than down south.

Here's some fishing pictures from August. No comments on the goof holding the BIG fish. I don't dress for pictures obviously. Lol. The 2 kids are Arianna(7) and Trevin(3), our 2 grandkids that are our fishing buddies. The picture of the guy with the hat and Trevin, is my brother in law who came fishing with us.

Orange altered book page

You might remember me mentioning Lisa Vollrath before when I posted the bamboo tile pendants. This orange page is from my altered book I just started a few weeks ago and her theme at Go Make Something is orange this week and since I finally got to be home I made an orange page in my book. Her site is so awesome. She teaches so many techniques about so many things. Check her out when you have time. Well worth it.

I painted the pages yellow with acrylic paint. Then used orange Pastels chalk to shade the edges. I smeared it and blended with my fingers. I used a pink paint to do the bubble wrap paint dots in the corners(that is very fun, try it sometime.) I cut the letters out of a page from a book, chalked them, then glue sticked them on. I outlined the letters with a sharpie marker. The squares in the right upper corner are finger nail polish from a magazine as are the tulips. I sewed some butterfly sequins onto a piece of lace and double sided taped it to the page. I sewed the round sequins on the right page on but had to glue the ones on the left as the page behind it was already done and the orange thread didn't go with my Texas theme, lol. The left corner design is from some paper placemats I bought cheap at the dollar store. And the mesh is the stuff you put on drywall(brain fart and I don't remember what it is called, lol) I am going to spray this page to set it as it has lots of chalks on it. Thanks for looking.