Spiders!!!

This is 1 of 8 ATC's I made for another swap with my "ATC's anonymous" group. The theme is "Ghoulish" and my Mom saw them and said they weren't ghoulish at all - they were pretty. I had a TERRIBLE time trying to photograph them. They way the light bounces off different parts isn't consistent. Parts are shiny and parts are sparkly, and they are on different levels. The thread I used is a multicolored metallic and it's kind of hard to see in the pic. It was inspired by a pic I took last fall (or was it 2 yrs?) of a spider in his/her web by by front door. Thus the title of this one is "Spider By My Front Door" (I know! - How imaginative!, right?)

Here is the picture of the real one!

This is a card I made for the group leader, Lynn, to send the ATC's to her IN. I was just playing around with the idea of dripping blood and this was what happened.

This was discovered outside my bedroom window this morning and inspired the entire (almost) blog entry to be spider-inspired. (say THAT 10 times, fast!) If you click on the picture you can see it full size and you can see the tiny little hairs on her! Once again, it's a macabre love-hate thing I have with bugs!! (She is no longer outside my window in case you were wondering)

Garden pics

Just wanted to also post some pics of the garden this year. It has actually been pretty neglected since all the work we did in May and early June.
My trumpet vine has really taken off this year and has started to really bloom. This one even grew this bizarre bean pod thing which I have never seen before!The natural shading in this sunflower makes me think of all the copic tutorials I've been seeing. Now I need yellow copics! (Cha Ching!$$)Harley hurt his ear this spring and he looks old and grumpy in this pic. Kind of how he really is getting. He IS 14 years old this October!Just pretty. And one of very few garden pics I took this year :(
Yeah, neglected. I never got out and stalked butterflies and bees this year either!
I liked how this sunflower looked like it was giving the Japanese beetle the finger!

I got some Mums put in around the Cherry tree. It looks like fall! Where did summer go!?!!
A nice macabre image to leave you with! I actually think these images are really interesting and cool. Nature just fascinates! The bug at the top is another dead one. I can just imagine the spider hiding down that tunnel looking back at me with malevolent intentions!

Summertime fun ATC swap

I also entered a swap with the theme of "Summertime Fun". Not so much detail this time. Not so sure how much everyone wants to hear about my thought processes! Bad enough I think out loud, now I'm typing it out too!

It was really hard to get a good pic of this one. I may try to scan it instead, Scans just never show sparkle. Although it would give me a chance to get the dog hair out of the picture!. (Ignore that please!)

I used my Tattered Angels glimmer mist and a glimmer screen of a dragonfly for this one. My first time! Again, it's really hard to get the subtle shimmer to be seen in a picture. The rest is just various dragonfly stamps I had.

New SU! stamps! I liked the grunge look of this one. Made my own ink wash spray with reinker.

More of the new SU! stamps. Cleaner image this time. Not sure which way I like better.

My nephew, Dallas. "Bingo Blast" technique on the background. If you guys haven't heard of Technique Junkies, ya gotta go! Pat Huntoon runs a website and an every other month technique newsletter. Go to patstamps.com to check it out. It's not free for the newsletter, but so worth it and there are some free tutorials on the site to whet your appetite!

A little paper tole with a $1 stamp from Michael's I bought about 5 years ago on a background of the shaving cream marbling technique. I made a ton of cards for a large SU! swap last year and used the marbled paper (shaving cream and reinker-and plenty of paper towels! FUN!) but I got a little carried away and made LOTS more marbled paper than I needed. My favorite ice cream is vanilla with stawberry topping and
when I looked in my stash for an "ice-creamy" background, there it was! It's very subtle in this picture.

This background was a TJ technique also. Stamped the image first, then masked and did the BG, Colored with SU! markers and shell attached with Crystal Effects.

Cigar Bands Continued!

OK! Crisis averted! Everyone's home now. A little wetter, but safe and sound! So fun to go jump a car in the rain! Back to the Cigar bands...

When I was struggling at first to find images to use on an ATC, all I could think of was the wrinkly, sun-dried ladies with the big, fat cigars. I found several great images of them, but did not really end up using those. I was trying to think of ways to make my own images and, of course, photos came to mind! I asked my daughter if she would do a "photo shoot" for me and just as we were getting ready to do it her friend happened to come over, so they both did it for me. I got some really great shots and we had fun stinking up the backyard with the cigar (outdoor lighting and trying to keep the stink out of the house!) My daughter is the Blond-Veronica, and her friend is Stella.

The first one here has an image of tobacco growing in the field, a Dominican Republic postage stamp (image), a photo of my daughter and her friend, the band, some more tobacco leaves and some cut out coins from another band just like the one included. I printed the photo very small in black and white on plain printer paper, and distressed it a little with some brown ink and it ended up looking like a newspaper clipping to me. I'll definitely keep that in mind for future works.

The last one, on the right, was done using a bit of the band from the cigar that I bought for the photos. This was a picture that I was thinking" wow it's too bad that came out blurry", but everyone who saw it really liked it. They said it really looked like they had been "caught" and the more I thought about it the more I liked that idea. I happened to have a crown stamp that is almost exactly the same as the crown on the label and then I added the rub-ons from SU! and the result, I think, looks like an ad for the cigar brand. "Smoke these! They're Funky, Fresh and Fun!"

Cigar Band ATC swaps

These are the ATC's I made for a Cigar Band challenge in a yahoo group I belong to (ATCs Anonymous) This first one is a blown up image of a hand that was part of a larger image I got from an ad. I knew almost nothing about cigars, don't have any stamps I thought would relate and didn't know where to get images from so I Googled some, got some ideas and then went to a local smoke shop where they let me take pictures in the walk-in humidor! The "smoke" is wisps of cotton pulled off a cotton ball. I thought it looked really cool in this pic! and of course the cigar band itself -which the group leader sent to us to be used in the cards. The red is only the background I laid it on for the photo.

This second one is an image almost straight from Google. I cut her out, created shadows on the background then mounted the image with pop dots for more dimension, added the fake leaf to her scarf and the match and that was pretty much it! I tried to use a burnt match, but they just crumble. :( Lastly added the cigar band of course!

This one is most of the image that I pulled the hand from in the first one. Very simple: Mounted the image on glossy gold cardstock -offset - and added the label! I liked it just as it was, but it seemed too simple. Like I had to make it more my own somehow. So I used a small bit of a larger image stamp. Inked it with Versa Mark and embossed with gold. I didn't want this image to get too busy, so that was it!

This was another image from the net. The smoke swirling around her head made me think of everything bad about smoking and made me also think about other bad habits that might go along with that . The top of her head was not in the picture and I wanted the complete image from the stamp, so I mounted it on black. Not really "professional"-looking, but I guess it's OK. Anyway, clear embossed the skull image from a new SU! set over her face. There's a Jack-o-lantern near the skull's chin and I did not want it there (I didn't want a Halloween card) so she got to smoke her cigar still! (cut from one of the pics I took in the humidor). Added the cigar band and tequila label. I bought some small bottles (like from hotels and airplanes) just for the labels then had to LABEL the bottles with paper when I soaked the labels off! I thought it was kinda cool that both labels have the coin images on them! Debauchery will make you rich? No, you have to PAY for your sins is probably more like it! I like that title too! This one's called "It'll Kill Ya"

Dry-brushed the background green with acrylics, collaged images from the net - men drying tobacco leaves, map of Cuba, Cuban stamp and some dry tobacco leaves off a cigar I bought for the "photo shoot" (which I'll tell you about in a minute), added the cigar band then stamped the "C" (stamped-off first to make sure it would not be opaque) Then outlined it in gold because it came out SO subtle that it wasn't really clear!

Gotta go! I'll have to finish my post later. My daughter has a minor emergency - dead car battery!

Busy summer!

Hi! I AM HERE! It has been a pretty busy summer. Working a lot mostly and weekends spent working on the stuuf that needs to get done all week but doesn't! I have been busy in the "studio" though too! (I still find it hard to call it that-sounds stuffy and self-aggrandizing, but sounds better than "craft room " somehow. I guess I'll just keep using the quotes!) I've been in a couple of ATC swaps recently and have some more to send for another. I also just came from a really awesome blog hop through Stampers United. Start here if you want to play: http://cardsmadebyclaudia.blogspot.com/ They have some awesome blog canday and I've "wasted" my whole morning signing up for blog candy and getting lots of eye candy and ideas along the way! I'll post a couple of the pics now and then I have to go play some more!

pic of the week -

I have been trying to keep my camera handy at all times and I want to do some scrapbooking and do a small book or a few pages about work. We have potluck parties all the time at the clinic where I work and I love the people I work with as well as (most of) the patients. This is my friend/coworker Christine with one of our patients and I just loved the picture they made!

Indoor creativity!

OK, I know I'm a little late, but here's my post from the weekend. OK, not really-we've been SOO busy on the weekends with this landsacaping stuff, but we finally have everything IN and we just need to make sure it all stays wet enough till it grows in a bit. So I just finally got into the studio a little Monday night and tonite again because I promised to make a few things. Here are a few pics of the graduation hat cards I invented last year. I got 2 requests for them this year! They have a pocket inside for a sentiment or a tag or a gift card. Then my friend asked me for a card for her neice's baptism and here is the card I made for that.

The hats are very easy, cut 3 5/8" down the long side of a piece of 8 1/2" by 11" paper then score every 3 5/8" (I use my Scor-Pal... LOVE IT!) Then scor diagonally in the center square and fold on the score lines. You can make it a little more 3-D or tape the diagonal down to create the pocket. To make it into the grad hat I poke a hole in the center and place a shank button in the hole. I secure it with the little doo-dads that hold the buttons on the cards sometimes. I have also used a small piece of wire. Then use pop dots to put you stamped piece inside because of the button shank

3 stamps used are very obscure companies (to me anyway)which I forgot to write down of course! I bought them at Hobby Lobby, I believe. I hope you like them.

no paper art, just garden "art"

Look at me being a good little Blogger and posting weekly! (It's about time!) I haven't had much time to try to get any paper art done this week, I really NEED to, too! I have a couple of occasions to make cards for and a friend at work asked me to make one of my graduation hat cards for her (I HAVE to get that DONE-darnit!) I never posted those last year-I'll have to do that. Or just the new one. A couple of people actually PAID me to make those last year! Anyway, the focus for the last week has been on landscaping and I haven't been in the studio until tonite when I got a new wireless printer that I can print my photos on. WhooHoo! I really want to start incorporating some of my own family vintage photos into some things and I can hardly wait! I HATE that it's already 11:28 on Sunday night and I have to get up and spend 10 hours at work tomorrow! I have so little left of the day to play :( Any way, I am posting pics of some of the yard. I promise? to try to get some NEW art on here next week! We are completely re-doing the front of the house. My daughter's boyfriend works in landscaping and he's helping us with it along with some of his friends to get some work on the side. They worked really hard to get 8 bushes pulled out. I cut them all down to stumps first-they were really overgrown! Then I'm also posting a pic of the spring garden coming to life and my favorite, the "pic-of-the-week", is one of my yellow tulips after it had rained all day.

Craft it Forward...

I found this on http://ckchai.blogspot.com/ and thought it was a really cool idea! Read on...
Craft it Forward
Chance upon this on Black River Designs' Blog and I find this interesting... Not sure if there will be people interested in my hand made stuff though...The first three people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!2- What I create will be just for you.3- It’ll be done this year.4- You have no clue what it’s going to be.5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on your blog. The first 3 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it! Craft it forward idea from Kiwi

Pensando en ti

Sorry- I do have one more post, then I think I'm pretty much caught up. Another friend, at my other job, lost her father this winter and as a daughter who still MISSES her daddy after almost 12 years, I really felt this card for her. I've noticed she still has it hanging in her workspace too, it makes me sympathetic again every time I see it (and a little bit proud). In case you can't tell, I was already working on the butterflies for Kayla, but this is definitely a different feeling! Retired SU! stamp, plus new one for words, painted with Twinkling H2O's and antiqued with walnut ink and chalk ink.

Baby gifts

OK last post for today (?) Catching up a little. One of my friends at work had a baby this spring and I could not limit my ideas for gifts to just one. They all know I'm the "crafty" one and make everyone's cards for occasions. So no one was very surprised I wanted to MAKE presents! She told me they were doing the baby girl's room in pink and purple with a butterfly theme and her name would be Kayla. I also managed to make a photocopy of a couple of the ultrasound pictures she had one day. I ended up with 3 gifts to give her. I hope you like them. The letter can be put on a bookshelf or hung on the wall. The white part at the top of the name frame is for her vital stats. And the trunk is for Mom to keep all those little things us moms want to keep!-Congrats cards, first booties, lock of hair, etc,etc. (Please tell me-I'm curious-what you guys kept from your kid's babyhood).

OOPS! I'll have to edit this post later-I just realized I never uploaded a pic of the trunk completely finished! For now, imagine that the trunk looks like the practice-board!

PIC-OF-THE-WEEK!

I'm going to try to make a posting EVERY WEEK! Any one who catches me NOT posting weekly can feel free to call me out on it -I need to stop being so lazy! One of my goals this spring/summer is to get started (and hopefully continue throughout the year) posting a "PIC-OF-THE-WEEK". It will make me remember to take my camera and take pictures of daily inspirations and life in general. I have a good one from last weekend to post today. We got donuts on Sunday and Pokey decided to reach right in and lick one before anyone else picked one. They are all so spoiled! Needless to say we had to give it to them and I had my camera handy, sooo...

Don't worry, she did not get to eat the whole thing! I love the perspective in this pic-the donut looks enormous and Pokey looks so focused! Next post: gifts for new baby!

RE-introducing me

I recntly asked to be added to an ATC group and the following is my "brief" introduction of myself. Writing this inspired me to re-introduce myself here, too! :
I am actaually newer to ATC's. I just heard of them last summer/fall. I started as a scrapbooker several years ago (about 10 or 11?) then discovered stamping and cardmaking about 7 or 8 years ago. I love the artsier cards and discovered about a year ago that there does seem to be a whole world of art that I have been away from for a long time!
I took several art classes in college, but got away from that side of myself for a career, marriage and child. Marriage is long-gone, child is almost-grown and career is stable. I've realized lately that I want to get back to doing some of the things I used to that were just for me. I actually enjoy being alone. (I hope that doesn't sound creepy! I love being with family and friends too!)
I love blogs! I started my own, but have had trouble keeping it up! I kind-of "went away" this winter and have not been very active in my crafts or blogging this winter. I recently moved and reorganized my "studio" (LONG STORY!) and have been getting back into photos and creating just in the past few weeks.
I love to learn new techniques and see people's ideas. It inspires me! My biggest problem with it all is that I tend to get caught up in ideas and looking and not spending enough time DOING. I bought a laptop this winter, in part, to be able to take my inspiration into the studio (before, these things were 2 floors away from each other) and that has really helped re-fuel my creative juices! Look for some new postings soon on my blog!
I also tend to be very wordy (in case you couldn't tell), so I'll shut up now!
Sara Larson