Yay! A weekend off!

I finally have a whole weekend off. Of course it will be my only one until the store opens in about a week and a half, so I must take advantage of it artistically. I get Saturdays off but not Sundays... I will start my Wings(6 ATC's) swap tomorrow. I have lots of background ideas! Speaking of backgrounds, here are a few I did a couple weeks ago I forgot to post here. I just played with various types of paint on a gessoed ATC. As soon as I start building on these I will post more.

I joined Swapbot today! I am very excited about it. I trolled the Forums a bit after joining 3 swaps. A little scary since there is alot of 'beware' stuff in there. I will keep it simple for my first couple swaps. Two of them are the smae guidelines as most of the swaps in my Yahoo group and the other one is more complex. I wanted to make myself a wand though and this way I can put my effort into someone elses. (I told my honey I wanted to make myself a wand, LOVE harry potter, he cracked up-silly boys!) I think I enjoy making for others more than myself. I seem to have a hard time finding the stop point when it's for me, but it leaps out at me on others..... Sigh. As long as the stuff I send looks good, I guess that's all I need?

And seriously! Must make myself something this weekend. I've spent the last few days making some zip loc baggies of 'goodies' to send with my MMAN swaps so I can throw them in there when I'm ready. I think that will make preparing the packages super fast!

I'm out for the night.... Must get some rest so I can get up and CREATE!

Send away ART!

This piece is for my Mixed Media art group again.... I always seem to be posting stuff for it that I'm sending to others.... I swear one of these will be for me! Anyway, July's Random Lottery Theme winner chose Harmony. I made this piece from a 1x1 paper mache box, lumiere paints, buttons, a feather, moss, some twigs, fibers, a vintage flower button, ephemera, a rhinestone and assorted glues....

It took me about 2 hours to do. Now the glue around the button was cleaned up a bit after I took the pic. As you can see, it was still drying! But I removed the excess and it looks great now. If you look at the last photo, the colors on it really come through alot. The Lumieres are so awesome to work with and they come out so shimmery....

I really need to work on something for me. I still haven't finished my version of "Night". And I have lots of other ideas that I need to put into motion. So many people are doing the stamping classes in group that I think I need to join too. Maybe on Tuesday when I have a whole day off to devote to me. Well, that's it for tonight kids!

This weeks WU entry

I got my entry done today and got it posted. Such a relief to get it done. It's not that it was stressful but I wanted to finish it last night. But after the head injury incident, I was still not in good shape yesterday. The background I did for it was beautiful. I had this blue sparkly paint. Only thing is its washable. So after coating my surface and dropping more glitter in it, I heat treated it with my heat gun. Then I needed to finish it. Well thats where I got stuck. So today I went online searching for quotes about 'night'. I found one and it inspired the rest of it. All in all I like it. (top photo)

I copied the background technique onto another piece because while I do like trading these out, I am sad to see them go. (bottom photo) So this way I can keep my art by making another one very similar but not the same. I just need to find another tree!

Quote of the Day

'When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?" ~Howard Ikemoto'

That cracked me up! I always feel when I am working on my art that incredulous wonder. I play with child like abandon. And when I stop doing that, my art suffers. Life is small wonderful things that make you happy. It is not the big happy moments but the small ones that make life worth living. And my art is a succession of small happy moments of creative bliss.

Answers!

Thank you kindly for the wonderful comments! To answer your questions.... (since it won't let me do it on those posts....)

#1) Beeswax is awesome! I took the little pellets... natural yellow ones... and kind of pressed them down a little onto the paper so it would stay. They are sticky so it works well. This holds them down if you are using a heat gun. (you can also use a craft iron, but you can't watch it as easily) Once you have squished em', turn on your heat gun and keep it about 3 inches from the wax. Make sure you have your project on something to protect your work surface. The wax goes where it wants! You can try to direct it by tipping the card up and aiming the heat down. If you don't have enough wax, stick some more on and repeat. It takes a bit to get used to it. The piece under "Paris" is my first one. Travel was the second. Just experiment away and see what results you get~! I'm gonna try adding crayon wax shavings next! I'll post that when I do.

#2) The clock face is vellum. I bought it in a pack of assorted clock faces from Walmart. I wish they still had them.... I'd buy more! As soon as I get Challenge #4,I will post the next stage of my card.

If you haven't seen the book "ATC Workshop", I highly recommend it! This book has sooooo many ideas! Anyone interested in mixed media, altered art, or ATC's will LOVE it! It can be applied to almost anything! I finally really dove into it and can't put it down.

Weekly Uniquely!

So I got my Travel 4x4 done for the WU in my Yahoo Group - MMN. It came out so much better than I thought it would! It looks a little blurry in this photo but the color really comes through. I got to use some of my vintage metal buttons too. I agree with Tami, this one is going to be hard to mail away! But I think I am glad to send it off to someone in this group. I wouldn't have created it without them and this is a thank you for getting me back to my creative zone. I haven't been there in soooo long!

I looked at some of the other 4x4's people have posted and I got ideas for more. I think I will try them later after the supply run. I am starting a sketch book to write down my ideas when I can't get to them immediately.

I think I am officially addicted to using beeswax in my collage/ATC's. It a pain in the butt to get right but it smells like heaven to work with. And it ends up giving this wonderful aged look that ink doesn't quite reach. And the combo of the two is amazing. Plus look at the detail it brought out in the Paris ATC? The old book page I used is enhanced and protected from further aging. I think that's another thing I like about beeswax. It's acid free and archival. Just got to keep it out of the heat. ;)

Paris playtime

I decided to experiment with a little bit of wax and some old book pages. I came up with a couple of neat looking ATC's. Although one is really oversized.

On the wings of inspiration.......

So I am playing in my room currently. Not working on anything specific... just whatever catches my eye. Threw a little Shrek on for background and started grabbing whatever was within reach. I got one of my really old pages from work done. I've done quite a few pages for them that I didn't have pictures for. So now I need to go back and complete them. I got the Studio K page done. Added a couple recent photos of myself and Hac and a little bit of memorabilia from our trips in the pocket.... I also got an ATC done. Not sure it's finished as I like a busier finale than most..... The one with the lace. There's actually two shots of it. The before and after. The first picture is the butterfly ATC I need to finish. Not sure where it's going though so I am taking a step back.

I think I will jump back in now~! If I come up for air later I'll post whatever I managed to get done. Ta-ta for now!