Altered page

working on a new book because I misplaced the older one, lol. This technique is from Bev Braselton's book, Altered Books Workshop. I tea stained the pages, then sprinkled instant coffee on and let it dry. I thought it was very fun. I used various stamps, Distressed ink pads from Tim Holtz line, black card stock behind the main tags on left page, thebutterfly bit was done on a piece of manilla folder and then torn out. I need to decide what ribbons to put in the tag holes yet but was kind of impressed it turned out as good as it did for my first one, lol.

Eyelet Give away

was just checking out this give away at Kristin's site. Very cool!!! If you win, you will get:An eyelet setter, THREE leather punches, and 1200 unique eyelets (these are EZ set aluminum eyelets that set beautifully and don't split on the backs)
the types and shapes of eyelets include heart mixture, angel mixture, triangle mixture, teddy bear mixture, halloween mixture, pastel yellow, star mixture, diamond mixture, lavender mixture, square mixture, butterfly mixture, and holiday mix.
I am an eyelet freak. If you would like a chance to win go to her blog Here for details. Also check out the blog entries lower on the page. The pieces she does are outstanding. She also has a supply store that is listed on my links to the right under favorite online supplies. RetroCafeArt. That's it for now. Working on 2 new altered book techniques today between feeding Hubby and Wayne who are putting in a shower at our rental. Will try and get them posted later this week. Got a call about hauling bees for our favorite bee guy but they are going to CA and we kind of took CA off our to do list of places to go in the truck. So not leaving as of yet.

Zentanlge Journey

My first attempts at Zentangle. If you haven't heard of them, search the word. Amazing art on the web done by way more talented people than I. My doodles have always been pretty boring. This elevates doodling to art. I would love to have the kit with all the fancy paper (deckle cut)and pens and the die to roll is a neat idea, but as I am too cheap to spend $49 for it, I go with searches on the web. Here is my first and 2nd attempt. The first is in my journal Miss Fannie sent me, the 2nd on white card stock cut to 3 1/2 inches square. Card stock was not a good choice as the pen bleeds into it too much. Arianna was here and had fun with one too. Will definitely be doing more of these in the future. I am making a "legend" of designs for when I am stumped on what to do next. That's what the die is for in the kit. You roll the number and look on the legend for the design and doodle away. The legend has numbered doodles. Hugz for now, Scary

1st pages in art journal

My first try at journalling with art. These are the first 2 pages from my journal I got from the marvelous Miss Fannie. Doing a lesson from arttradermag.com/issues/ArtTrader_Issue4.pdf (awesome mag) on how to funky draw by Sal Scheibe. I need more practice but this is my first page trying to draw. It was fun but definitely need more colors of pencils. Trevin kept helping me with colors, lol. I used Prismacolor pencils 24 count water soluble. I thought they were artist quality but they don't blend like I thought they would. I did forget to add the clouds to my lady drawing too. But all in all was happy with my first try. I also need some better black to draw with. Need to research that. Maybe will ask Sanna for some imput. Very Fun so far. Hugz, Scary

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