Thriving Art

As you all know I was in the Gingersnap Creation's flower art exchange and I rec'd four very pretty pieces of art. I kept looking at them and wondering what I could do with them, surly not get rid of them, surly not put them in a box tucked away, ( light bulb time ) Hmmmmm, why not string them together and use my B-day chip board at the top! BINGO! I decided to hang it where everybody coming into my stamp area, or passes the doorway could see it. I wish the picture was better so many of the colors in the painting make the flowers pop. The oil painting is an original, of mine, I painted about 10 years ago. She is my favorite of all my paintings, and one of the few I have ever hung in my house, now my pretty flowers hang next to it!

Last month I was in an anonymous image swap (SSUS) we were sent two images and had to choose one and make a card with it. This is the one I didn't send, but with the summer heat heading our way next week, and the fact I followed a toy hauler (trailer) headed for the beach today ,on the way home from work, made me think of summer vacations. ( I just think and dream about them ) Soooooo, I am sending this to all of you stampers in other parts of the country and world! LOL The background is a scanned coaster / post card from a restaurant in San Diego. I did cut off the handcrafted beer part of it, but I did drink the beer! LOL! Some Cricut palms and a sand castle were added, along with sand, sea shells and sunglasses. I am SO ready to head for the beach and ride in the sand buggies.......................

Well it's the BIG 6-0, geesh that is really sounding old! Since this is one I've been dreading I decided to have more positive mind set and just be happy knowing that today I made 60, that's right it's TODAY! OMG!!!!! I dd this chip board sign to hang where I can see it daily, once I get home. Today and tomorrow I'm here in the LA area for a seminar on life priorities, or The Seven habits of Effective People. I did , or tried to do an acrylic paint resist. The paint didn't release the ink, so it is tinted, but I liked it and kept going! There are layers of ink, paint and stamped images. Tiring to rub the ink off the paint with a damp rag pulled at the chip board,, which in turn added a little texture, so I kept on going. LOL some mistakes give the project a little more personality!!! I cut 2 sizes, of two sizes of flowers with my Cricut, slightly tinted them with ink in the centers outwards, then layered them. The centers are puffy paint. The dots around the

Good Sunday morning to all. This morning, while blog hopping, I visited Hels Sunday Stamper and she has a RED Challenge going. I just love all the tags she makes, which inspired me to make these three. They are the laminate samples for casework and counter tops. Since I worked for a cabinet shop for a couple of years I would take the discontinued chains to make tags. Well, I drifted away from the tags ( and the full box in the garage ) only to come full circle this morning. The black images are a couple of $1.00 stamps from Studio G I picked up at Michael's. The white ones are from different vendor that I have had for ions, these are embossed to show on the dark red. The paper flower was cut with my Cricut, and then layered onto the tag. Red paper raffia are the tie ons. Thanks Hels for the inspiration and the desire to make more tags, I want to grow up and be just like you! LOL

OMG! I have had this card rattling around in my head since the challenge was made! May is such a busy month with birthdays, Mother's day, anniversaries and then there is my job! I have been designing fliers for a home show next week, letters to go out to decorators and designers, doing layouts of how I want our booth to be for the home show to be and the list gos on. I scanned ( which is an other story, it hasn't been working ) any way I scanned a very old book, over 100 years, that had been my Grandmother's. The second scan I did larger then stamped the glasses over that image so it would look magnified through the lens. Great stamp from Stamp Rosa. I can't remember where the book stamp came from, but they were colored with Prisma colored pencils, trimmed and added. The book is written in Norwegian, it was one of her school books. It all sits on a layer of an off red cs, and then on a cream colored card.

Since the cards have all been sent to the swap person and the cards have gone back out I've decided I can now post the card I made for the swap. We were each sent 2 stamped images and were to choose just one and create a card with it. This is actually a card cut like a tag. This image really made me fogotten memories come fuldding back. I think I had a dress just like this one LOL! I tore the edges and then aged everything with some brown ink, using a stamp that looks like weathered cracks for the back ground. A very short, but real, pencil was glued on along with a few stickers, and a stamped apple made the card complete. This was really a fun swap to be in, thanks Snobby Stuck Up Stampers!

Our newest member of the family arrive Friday, April 30, 2010 at 3:40PM. She weighed 8 pounds even and was 21 1/4 inches long. She looks just like her daddy did when he was born, and all that lovely brown hair! Mommy and sister with Megan. I am sooo blessed! Well now, it's me and both girls, my personal Gingersnap, Hannah and 2 day old Megan!

Being kraft -T I combined two challenges with this card. The skeleton leaves are from Stamping Up and the sentiment is from Rubber Monger. All were stamped with black ink on tan cs then layered on white cs. All sit on a kraft paper colored card. Very clean and simple ( a change for me ) but I am so happy with it I will put it with the ones that I had published years ago. ( not that there are that many )