Busy Busy Busy!

With work and shopping and life, art has sort of been forgotten. Not completely mind you, but not as much as I would like.

I completed a journal swap with Pam last week. What should have taken me a month took almost 3! Whew!

I joined a monthly ATC swap in November. I have to send 3 ATCs to the hostess by the end of each month. Here are my November creations. We were having blizzard weather....totally unheard of here....so that is why my cards follow a snowy theme.

I started by cutting out a snowflake, you know, like when we were kids. Fold the paper into a triangle and cut out bits, unfold and there is your unique snowflake. I laid this onto my card and then spritzed the card with Glimmer Mists (sea glass and chalk white). I them removed the snowflake so part of the plain background shows. Next I painted on my branch and cardinal. The Glimmer Mists create such a lovely shimmer. I wish it showed up in photos.
Not to let my snowflake go to waste, I used it again to spritz my card and since by this point, being only printer paper and becoming a bit 'flaky', I glued down part of it the upper left of my card. Using acrylics, I splattered white paint all over. Finally, I pounced on a happy snowman and painted a scarf and arms.

For this card I used a glossy marbled cardstock. I spritzed on sea glass Glimmer Mist although you can't tell it is there at all in this picture. I then stamped the snowflakes and embossed in silver. Finally I stamped the woman (Non Sequitor) onto white card stock and painted her with Twinkling H2Os.

I love watching the snow fall. Something I no longer get to see very often. And it is so gorgeous when it has snowed and then gets very cold over night. The snow in the morning literally sparkles like diamonds!

Meet Herman!

He took a bit longer than I was expecting. Not because of any real difficulties but rather because we couldn't agree on a body style! This is his third body! He is a bit strong willed! LOL

BTW in case you don't recognize it, this is the scupted head from a couple weeks back. :-)

Quite the dapper fellow isn't he? LOL
His body is made of muslin and after stuffing him, he got a very thorough soaking of walnut stain and then hung up to dry. (it has been very cold and rainy here so it took a few days to dry)
His belt and hat are made from black felt that was also splashed with a healthy dose of walnut stain.
And finally that spiffy vest. I didn't think to wash it before trying to stain it and had a horrible time. The sizing blocked the stain! I ended up wringing it out and grinding it again my potting table and then re-dying it twice to get any color at all! Lesson to me.....wash stuff first! LOL

Don't you love the color of his chair? It is such an awesome cherry red! I found it an antique store last summer and fell in love with it! I promised hubby I would make a doll to sit on it. I don't think this is what he was expecting. LOL

The chair is only about 19 inches tall so you can see Herman is not a big guy. :-)

A face only a mother could love. LOL

Love that cool crisp air!

Oh how I wish I could spend all my days just making art and enjoying the world around me! Unfortunately, work gets in the way! LOL

Fall is my favorite season and I am sooooo in the mood to create. Now to just find the time!!!!!

I started this fellow over a week ago. I want to make a primative Halloween doll. I haven't sculpted anything since I was in high school.....yeah, THAT long ago!!!!!! It was so sad, I have no 'tools' so I was using my exacto knife for all kinds of things LOL

So, he is a little rough, but I am hoping that makes him look more primative in the end.

I used paperclay. Not sure how I like it. Very weird to work with...very fiberous. Not really surprising I guess considering it is made of paper. Duh. LOL

I tried sanding him a bit and that just seemed to make him fuzzy. Hoping some paint calms that back down. Don't you just love experimenting?! LOL
Now I think he looks very happy but my husband thinks he looks 'scary'. Planning on some serious rosy cheeks and nose action.....I think that will cut out the scary factor. That or hubby will just have to go hide when this guy is around LOL

Check out this profile! Love that nose LOL

Better get painting. I really want to paint him orange. Hubby is against that too....so I better do it while he is still out of the house! heehee Debating on whether to use the weathered crackle or porcelain crackle finish. Weathered crackle would show another paint color in the cracks. Porcelain crackle is a soft topcoat finish that would show up when you rub an antiquing color over the surface.

Oh the decisions!!!!!!

And I just couldn't pass up sharing a pic from the weekend. We made another trip out to the pumpkin patch. (the 3rd or 4th one this season....I've lost count) I love pumpkins!!!!! Have I said that before? :-)

Rainy Day Fun

It has been raining (with actual storms Friday night) since Friday afternoon. This is a very uncommon thing around here. Not wanting to venture out and get wet, I instead played inside.

I have had an idea mulling through my brain for the past week or so. I wanted to 'age' one of my lighthouse photos. I have always been facinated by lighthouses and the men and women who committed their lives to maintaining them. What a lonely existance! And what a huge responsibility!

This is the Cape Blanco lighthouse. It is just north of Port Orford, Oregon and sits on the farthest west point on the continental US. Because of very high winds which can easily blow you right off the point, this lighthouse is closed most days. And if it isn't the wind it is the dense fog! It took 3 trips there before we were finally allowed out to view the lighthouse. And even on the 'calm' days, the wind about knocks you down!

Imagine living in such fierce, constant wind that it rocks a concrete block building! And you are living in a clapboard house!!!

So I took my crystal clear, gorgeous blue sky photo and using Photoshop Elements 5, I 'aged' it. I used so many antiquing overlays that I lost count! LOL

I found this lighthouse keeper online. He was listed as 'unknown keeper'. Poor guy, he served his country, keeping his light lit so that ships would be safe and no one remembers his name. So, now he has a home at Cape Blance. I hope he likes it there. I must say, the view is gorgeous! And the lighthouse it beautiful.

If you like lighthouses, check out all of our lighthouse photos at www.tunnel13.com. Oregon has 9 lighthouses and we have been to 7 of them.

I Love Fall!

I can't help myself! I love fall!!!! And my favorite thing is pumpkins!!!

I buy as many as hubby will allow...some years I only get a few, other years I think he loses count and I end up with tons!!!! :-)

I put them on the hearth, the mantle, the dining table, my kitchen counters. A few end up outside on the front step, as bookends by the garage door and lining the front walk.

Their warm orange color just fills me with joy!

Another gorgeous day!

I spent my morning working...not a fun thing to do on a Saturday but when the boss says work overtime you really don't have much choice. :-(

But my reward was to go out afterward to a nearby town for their city-wide yard sale! I didn't find much but it sure was fun to browse! Oh to be rich and come home with all the goodies that caught my eye. And, unfortunately, I forgot to take a camera along...too bad, I saw some cool textures that would have been great for digital art! Oh well, better luck next time.

So, seeing how I am in this digital/fall/Halloween mood, I had another vision brewing in my head!

A friend had sent me a photo of an old woman holding these huge mushrooms many years ago and I have had it tucked away just waiting to use her. Well today she came out of the drawer! And into her own little castle LOL

I turned that poor old woman into the local witch. I removed one of her mushrooms...I swear the thing was bigger than a pie and in the old b&w pic that is what I thought it was the first time I saw it! Very strange LOL I replaced it with her spell book. :-)

So, now she brews up her spells in her tower room overlooking the ocean. Not too shabby. Well maybe a little shabby. It looks like she could use a decent housekeeper....but you know how hard it is to find good help. LOL

Enjoy.
BTW the cat is hubby's cat "Kitty". (imaginative name huh? LOL)

In the Mood for Halloween!

Over night we went from 100 degree days to 60s and 70s. I love it!!!!! Fall is my favorite season. I love the turning of the leaves, the cool nights, the clear skies. And I love decorating!

I am ready to fill my house with pumpkins!!!!!!!

But it also puts me in a 'learning' mood. Maybe a throw back to my school days? No matter the reason, I grabbed several of my Somerset Digital Studio mags and drooled over the images and tutorials and decided, with my new computer up and running, I needed to get back into digital art for a while.

I have been playing around with layers, overlays, creating brushes and just trying out all the buttons I never used before. There have been lots of mistakes! But you gotta love that back feature! WooHooo!

I don't know why (because I am deathly afraid of spiders) but I had a vision of a woman trapped in a web. So, here she is. And I had a blast creating her!

And anyone who knows me knows this is sooooo not my style LOL But I really like it!

Wood Thread Spools!

Happy Summer!

Let me start with, I love going to yard sales. You just never know what treasures you will find...or what junk you think you just can't live without! LOL And when that junk turns into something really cool--well that makes it all the more fun!

What am I rambling about???? Wood thread spools!!!!!

As best I can figure, they stopped putting thread on wood spools in the mid 70s. Then came the plastic and (oh the horror) styrofoam spools.

Last weekend I came across a shopping bag full of wood spools. Most still had their labels intact...which is great if you want to try and date them. It turns out most of them are from the 40s and 50s. Cool huh?!

I looked at that bag and then walked away. Geez, what on earth would I do with approximately 70-80 spools? But, as we turned to head back to the car, I just couldn't leave them. I grabbed that bag and handed over my dollar and waltzed to my car with the this thought running through my head....Good lord, where am I going to store these? And how the heck am I going to use them?

I sent my questions to Pam....she always has great answers! She bombarded me with tons of info on carving spools! Thanks Pam!!!!!

So, that is how I spent my week....carving spools! LOL Ok, I have never carved anything in my life. And patience is not one of my virtues. If a project takes me more than a couple hours then I don't want to do it! LOL So, I am not like all those others you will find online that hand carve every little detail and fine tune every line so that it is a great work of art you want to hang it on your wall and treasure forever. I am a "hand me my Dremel and lets see what happens" kinda girl.

Thankfully I like the rustic, primitive look. Hopefully you do too. :-)

Here is my very first carving. This spool is 1 1/2" tall and about a 1 1/8" wide carving area. Now, understand, when I did this one I had no 'carving' bits for my Dremel. I was totally winging it. LOL So, he is a bit rougher than the others. (I headed out to the hardware store the next day and bought several of the appropriate bits). Amazing how much difference the proper tools make LOL

Here is Santa #2. As you can see, a bit on the smoother side. LOL This spool (and all the others here) is only 1 1/8" tall and a 7/8" wide carving area.

Here he is, now complete with jute hanger, rusty jingle bell and a button.

Added this pic so you can see the size difference between my first and second Santa.

I paint them with acrylic paints then seal them with an acrylic paint-on sealer. I let that cure and then antique them with antiquing gel and once dry, another coat of the acrylic sealer.

I love how the antiquing medium brings out all my carving lines (even my flubs LOL) but also the grain in the wood.

Sticking with the Christmas/Winter theme, here is a snowman in a stocking cap....because I thought the ribs in his hat would look cool. :-)

And then I got the idea of a striped cat...but I used the carved lines to form the stripes. His body wraps around the spool...that little yellow tip on the left side is the tip of his tail. I think he is pretty cute.

And my last complete one is this Jack O Lantern. I wanted to use the grooves to create the lines on the pumpkin. I also experimented with carving out his eyes and some stars on the back. This pic shows him before and after antiquing. I am thinking of maybe next time doing a pumpkin (not jack o lantern) with the vine and a leaf attached.

Currently I have 6 spools sitting here drawn up waiting to be carved....a Santa, an angel, a witch, a Halloween cat, a bird and a wreath of holly. I have found that I can only do 1 or 2 in a carving session because the Dremel makes my hands all tingly/vibraty for a couple hours afterwards if I do any more than that LOL

Ok, off to make breakfast and out to the garage for some carving! Happy Summer everyone!

Just playing around

Helen told me I needed to do a 3D zentangle. I thought about it and didn't really want to 'buy' something to alter...what if I messed it up? LOL

Then I thought....bowling pin! Doesn't everyone have a set of old, used bowling pins in their garage??? I picked them up at the local alley a few years back. Cost me around $5 I think. Figured I would find a use for them...eventually. :-)

So, here is a video of my tangled pin. It would have been sooooo much easier if I owned a lazy susan. But I don't. Instead I stumbled around out in the yard LOL If the video sort of makes you dizzy just imagine how I felt?! LOL

I also wanted to try out my new flip video camera. This video doesn't do the camera or the pin justice...but you will get the idea LOL

And now the dilemma....what to do with it? My house is overflowing with stuff!

Should I hang on to it? Or try to sell it on etsy? Let me know!

Getting Caught Up

So, since it is a 3 day weekend and I woke up at my normal, before the crack of dawn time, I thought I would get caught up here. :-)

Like I have said before, I am totally hooked on Zentangles! It is soooooo much fun and such a great relaxation exercise that I create them whenever I can.

Here are a few done a couple weeks ago.

I got into another one of those moods where I wanted to draw something, this time a giraffe...still no clue why these moods hit me LOL

Helen, aka Cathy, (long story....don't ask, just know it started waaaaaayyyyyy back in college LOL) wanted me to draw her an outline of a geisha so she could tangle her clothes. I did that and then since I had the original (I emailed her the outline) I went ahead and tangled her myself.

I used to do a lot of stuff with dominos and rummikub tiles. It dawned on me that I could be tangling on those as well! Here are a couple tiles that I had dyed with left over Easter egg dye a few years ago. Now to decide exactly what I want to do with them!

And finally, I found a plain white tote bag at a yard sale, still in it's original, sealed package from Michael's. It just called to be tangled!!!! So, being the big spender that I am, I handed over the 25 cents and came home and created this. I am still trying to decide what I want on the back.

Hey Look!

I FINALLY updated my blog banner! LOL

Bet you are all so glad that it is no longer the winter scene that you don't even care that it isn't centered! haha

Spent this evening getting caught up on blogs

And look what I found...

http://zentangle.blogspot.com/2010/04/too-cute.html

My little girl is 'famous'! Isn't she a cutie pie?!

Gonna post some tangles this weekend.....hopefully. I have been so busy with work and such that I didn't touch a pen for over a week! (gasp)

I have big plans for this weekend......gardening, tangling and reading!

Hey PaleRider!

Just a note for an old and dear friend!!!!

Long time no see! Been thinking about ya and wondering how you are doing.

Next time you drop in, email us....would love to hear from you!!!!!!!!!

I still have my hotmail account from the dark ages LOL

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope all you Mom's had a wonderful day. The weather was really nice for the first part of the day...sunny and warm. Then the rains hit and I came inside to play. :-)

I have been in the mood to draw a turtle. Don't ask me why cause I have no clue! LOL

So, I drew a sea turtle (along with some stylized seaweed) and then 'tangled' it.

Here is it before shading. I debated back and forth as to whether I wanted to shade in color or black/gray.
I opted for color and am not sure whether I made the right choice or not. The scanner did not do justice to the colors. Although the colors are light and not very intense, they are darker than the scanner showed...even after playing in photoshop, I couldn't increase the intensity without it becoming too vibrant. And there was some blue streaks in the background that the scanner did not pick up at all!

I will eventually take a photo of it but until then...

Tangling

I have found, much to my surprise, that creating Zentangles relieves my back pain (my mind is no longer thinking about the pain, thus I relax and it disappears)

I had to create 5 zentangle ATCs for a swap. I ended up with about 30! Here are a few of them. They are standard 2.5x3.5

Then I thought....what about square for a change. These are 4"x4"

And of course, since I cut the above squares from 4x6 cardstock, I had to use up the leftovers so these are 2x2

I haven't gotten around to downloading any photos lately although I have tons and TONS of zentangles done! And I did finally take some pics of my glass garden statues actually in the flower beds...but until then, please enjoy the following video of my little girl enjoying her favorite pastime.

Garden decor and Zentangles

I have been doing an odd mix of things lately. Mostly working LOL But I have squeezed in a few projects as well.

Pam has gotten me into trouble again (she is very good at getting me hooked on new projects!) She sent me some photos of 'totems' and now my yard is full of them.

This is recycling at is best! With the beginning of yard sale season, people are just begging you to take their old glass off their hands....and I am very happy to oblige!

Below you will see my first 2 statues....I have currently finished 5 with supplies for at least another 6 or 7 sitting in the garage.

This first one currently lives in the garage until I find a place for it or someone steps up and says....hey, I want that! :-)

This one is my favorite so far, I love the bluish-green color of the goblet and the small glass on top echos that color in a lighter shade. It goes very well with the color of our house. It is currently residing in my creeping phlox bed. I definitely need to get out there and take a picture.

I am in a Zentangle ATC swap. Being that it is for the badbabyart group. I did not follow the rules....bad babies always break the rules! LOL Pam sent me the idea of using rubber stamps in my tangles and seeing how I have thousands of them, it seemed like a perfect fit. The hard part was finding a way to make the stamp seem like it belonged...not just stuck there for the purpose of using a stamp. I think I succeeded on some and not on others. LOL

Zentangles

I haven't been on here in quite a while. I have been going through some intense training at work and that pretty much killed my muse!

Some friends got me started back into crochet over my training period and I have done some really cute amigurumi toys but at this time none are from my own patterns so I didn't think it right to publish photos here.

Then just a few days ago, some friends said they wanted to do a Zentangle swap. Having no idea what on earth they were talking about, I googled Zentangle.

I checked out lots of images and got a feel for what it was....basically, artistic doodling. :-)

Most places say to divide your page into a grid and then fill each section with patterns. I didn't read any of the 'rules' because in my opinion art should never be confined by rules.

I created a few by using a basic grid but they were so boring I didn't bother to even scan them.

I began by using a sharpie marker (because that was all I had on hand) but the fumes were making me nauseous. I have since switched to Prismacolor fine line markers. Sizes 01 - 08. But in the mean time I did a couple using a black colored pencil. I couldn't get a crisp line but I loved the shading effects I could achieve.

These first 2 were done with Crayola black colored pencils.

I then made the conscious effort to add a specific image into my doodles. In this case, a flower.

More ideas started coming to me....at odd times. Like at the grocery or while driving down the road. It has been rough trying to remember them for when I get home to play. :-)

This frog came to me as I was heading to bed. Thankfully I remembered and could create it after work the next day.

Minnie inspired this one but I want to redo it and make the face more appealing....when I find the time LOL

My friend recently crocheted the most adorable ladybug and ladybugs have been stuck in my mind ever since. I thought it would look great on a doodled leaf...and I think I was right. :-)

I collect dragonflies so of course I needed a dragonfly 'tangle!

Not sure of this one yet. It came to me while we were driving to Walmart. I wanted to create a chain.

I have found these to be extremely fun and addicting. I can complete one in a relatively short time. They also help clear my head (which is a bit cramped right now with the training I have been going through). And there is no pressure....I mean, how can you mess up a doodle?

Playing around with the Cricut

Over the past few months I have aquired several new cartridges but haven't had time to play with them. :-(

I pulled out my Pagoda cartridge today! This one has so many awesome Asian images!!!!!

I used the cherry blossom branch (cut twice) to enhance the ATC below. The woman is from Stonehouse Stamps. The kanji says "spring".
This woman comes from Missing Link Stamp Co. I had originally planned on this being an ATC as well but I liked the bridge cut a bit bigger and then I needed a bigger card. It measures 2 3/4 x 5 1/4. The maple branch and bridge are from the Pagoda cartridge.

All the coloring (other than skin tones) are done with Twinkling H2Os. I even highlighted the maples leaves with a coat of these shimmery paints. And my 'river' is just squiggles of paint.

So many other shapes to cut.....so very little time!

Happy New Year!

Let me start with - Way to go Ohio State! They beat Oregon to become the 2010 Rose Bowl Champs!!!!!

My husband is very upset (we live in Oregon LOL)

I spent most of the game playing in my art room with the game playing in the background but I made sure to cheer at the appropriate times. :-)

I woke up with the idea of 'time' and 'clocks' on my mind.

The clock face is stamped on transparency film (because I wanted to see if it would hold up under the solder). Both the clock and the text are from Technique Tuesday.

The gear is from Tim Holtz. I had a heck of a time soldering it onto the frame (and have the burnt finger to prove it!)