Friday Fill-Ins

Because I feel like sailing away today.... (image from Dover)

And...here we go!







1. Bring your favorite brushes, we're creating all weekend long.






2. Batteries are included.






3. A month vacation is exactly what I really need.






4. Well, you see, it all started when I was in kindergarden and the teacher handed me the paper and scissors. I was hooked.






5. This afternoon can't come too soon!






6. But what if I call in sick.






7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a birthday dinner with my SIL and BIL (it's her birthday), tomorrow my plans include sleeping in, playing a bit and who knows what else and Sunday, I want to paint and stamp and create, but I'll end up carting kids around and doing mom and wife things (sigh)!

Thursday Thankful

Just a little early afternoon snack.

I LOVE this little bowl. It's actually a mug. I got it with 2 others in a set from Starbucks. The others ones are blue and well, I can't remember what color. LOL. The other 2 are at home. I brought this one into work. I love the color and the shape. And it is a perfect size. Holds about a cup. I eat my yogurt out of it. And oatmeal. It holds strawberries and cut apple wedges wonderfully.

It's a perfect little bowl.

It makes me smile.

Silly, maybe. But, I gotta be me.

WOYWW #91

So, what's on my desk this Wednesday?

A few bookmarks that I am working on. I have a "thing" for bookmarks. These are made using masking fluid and watercolors. I sketched a random design on a 6x6 inch piece of cardstock, painted the masking fluid, waited for it to dry, and then painted with watercolors. After that was dry, I rubbed off the masking. It's kind of like rubber cement. Then I cut the cardstock into 2x6 inch pieces. I used a Tim stamp and a rub-on on one. I'll make a fairy bookmark out of one and am undecided about the last one. We'll see...

Also on my workdesk is a mess from my art journal that should be put up. Sheesh. I am impatient. I think that putting my workdesk out there every week is helping me to see how sloppy I really am. The paints should have been put away, and the dried paint should be wiped off, and the brayer should be put up too. Along with the waterbrush and the watercolor crayons. (you can barely see the edge of the plastic box on the lower right)

Maybe Julia at Stamping Ground is really out there to help us messy folk tidy up a bit. LOL

So, What's On Your Workdesk the Wednesday?

Free Girl

I don't know about you, but I was having a hard time finding the "PERFECT" art journal. I have amassed quite a collection of books. Moleskine, Strathmore, Canson, dollar store notebooks, a financial ledger, even a composition notebook. Nothing was striking that chord with me. You know the one. It sings to you, "I'm the one you've been looking for."

If I found paper that I loved, the size was not right, the ones that were the right size didn't have the right paper. SIGH...

Well, my search is over. (At least for this particular art journal.) A well meaning secretary at work ordered new calendars for the office and she ordered one for me that I really don't like, but the dates are all in there, so I am using it. Which left my old calendar up for recycle... And I did recycle. I took it home and painted the first couple of pages. And waited to see if it would stand up to the paint. It did!

I am finally taking my art journal to a new level. For me anyway.

I signed up for Tam's Art Heart and Healing workshop. She's offered this free class. It's

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G !!!

Tam is a sweet, adorable person. Being English, she has an accent to me. Which I find magical and delightful. She shares her methods, and teaches. She actually shares her knowledge. I painted this girl because I watched her videos from Week 1. YES, I said Week 1. She uses a combination of paints and watercolor crayons. I just used paints. I went with what I was feeling.

My page is still in process. I painted this last night. I didn't start until 9pm. I finally washed my paint brushes and went to bed around midnight.

You can't tell, but the purpley background has an iridescent medium layered on top. It sparkles. I love it.

Now being the engineer, I can't leave without letting you know that I see MANY areas for improvement here. BUT, I am okay with that. GASP. As hard as it is to believe, I am learning to embrace my works AS-IS.

I too am a work in process.

We've gone Postal over at OPUS GLUEI

This week on OPUS GLUEI the challenge is to make a postcard. Well, this sounds easy enough.

I decided that mine would be mail-able. SO, I opted for flat postcards.

I have some 4x6 photo paper from my portable photo printer that for some reason was left over. I am not quite sure how this happened, but the size is perfect, AND the back has postcard printing. Seemed like a natural fit to me.

At first I thought I would just drop different colors of alcohol ink and stamp on top of that.

Well, it turned out to be a beautiful background, but my stamping was horrible. So, I set this aside and grabbed another 4x6 photo paper.

This time I thought I would try something different. I dropped the alcohol inks onto the photo paper, and because of the slick surface, it took a bit to dry. Before it dried, I placed a piece of cardstock on top of it. My intention was to soak up some of the ink, leaving a little. Here's what I saw when I lifted the cardstock.

 Hardly any of the ink stayed behind. Darn it. UNTIL......

I took a look at the cardstock. It was perfect. I got all the colors and the pattern. BUT the colors were muted enough for the stamping to really show. (INSERT HUGE SMILE HERE!!!)

(You can't see it, but the butterflies are perfect pearled. All of the stamps are SU. I accented with poster paint pens.)

(The border is a SU stamp. Same one used in the first one. The butterfly and the poem are ancient rub-ons. Accented with poster paint pens again.)

(This one was stamped with an irridescent ink using an unidentified stamp. The border on this one is one of Tim's swirls. As are the butterflies and the quote. The quote on this one wasn't standing out as much as I would have liked, so I painted a little white to stamp it upon. The butterflies are perfect pearled. The swirl has been accent painted with poster paint pens. Again.)

And because you have stuck with me this far, I'll share my major fail. It was almost perfect. Then I sprayed some water to get the ink from behind the Perfect Pearled DREAMS stamp to bleed. I sprayed too much water and the cardstock warped beyond repair. SIGH. I'll try this design again with a different paper. 



(This background was done with smushing the ink on my non-stick mat thingy. I know the name of it, but it eludes me right now. The butterfly, border and DREAM stamps are all SU. Butterflies are perfect pearled, as is the DREAM stamp.)

I hope my mistakes help you out.

Friday Fill-Ins 2011-8

It isn't the official picture this week, but I like this one better.

And...here we go!

1. Ooooh, I am in a mood.
2. Stop whispering like that, I can't stand it.
3. How the heck did I end up with so many MEN.
4. At the end of a long day, my bed is one of my favorite places to visit.
5. I'm not a bad girl, I'm not!
6. A few glasses of wine beforehand and you know it has to be good.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Survivor and Pizza, tomorrow my plans include an early morning parents meeting for Melissa's soccer team and then lots of playing and Sunday, I want to sleep-in and play some more!

WOYWW #90

I just love participating in WOYWW. I try to visit everyone else. I am NEVER successful. I usually will leave some love, but sometimes my boss will walk by my office, or the kids are trying to rip each others heads off, you know how it goes.....

Anyway, what I love is the variety of projects to be found. I marvel at the creativity out there. And usually find a thing or two (or twenty) that makes me say, "I want to make something like that".

This week finds my workdesk (not sure why it's called WORKDESK, because it doesn't feel like work. it's a joy to be here. should be my JOYDESK) with ATC's upon it. I had a piece (6x6 inches) of white cardstock, and some new (to me) stamps. So I started playing. I created a background with Distress Ink smushed onto the mat and sprayed with water, then dragged the paper through it. It was fun. Then I just started stamping onto the 6x6 piece. When I liked the look of it, I cut it into 4 ATC's and 1 inchie.

Like this:

You can see the inchie on one of the ATC's. then I started to embellish each ATC.

It's a fun way to make a series of ATC's without having them turn out identical.

More workdesks,

with a TON of inspiration,

can be seen HERE.