Raising a Little Cain......

Me! Never!  My sister, maybe, but certainly not me. lol (kidding Sis!)

So, as you might have been aware..I took two classes with the amazingly talented Linda Cain this past weekend at a "local" store.  "Local" for me means at least an hour away. lol.  You can check out her blog to see some more pictures, I find it rather annoying to be carrying around a camera.  So sue me.

Here's the first class, embossed metal on canvas...too cool!

And the second class...a chunky ATC..

A wonderful time was had by all...I sat at a table with Charlotte, Jennifer and Chris...Hi guys!  We had a great time and discovered that we're all class junkies. lol.

And of course, Linda was as charming and helpful as always!  She demoed in between classes with the melting pot and UTEE on Vintaj metal and metal numerals, very cool stuff!

Till next time.....Go Be Creative!

Fred B Tidy Drinks Orange Pekoe tea....

...lol!

Well, at least I got your attention.

For the latest challenge over at the EWV Yahoo! Group, the theme is a bottle or bottles.  I've been wanting to ink up some of the new Studio 490 stamps.....so I did. lol.

The STANO card (old Stanley Home Products) is from SusiCreates , who had sent it to me, oh, a couple of years ago. I'm finally getting around to using it....I have a hard time covering stuff up. I haven't glued the piece to the card, I might move it up to the middle of the card...let me know what you think.

Any HOO....all stamps are Studio 490, of course. The guy image didn't come with a hat..I had some chipboard hats, and as luck would have it, a bowtie shape, my friend Deb had given me...so I went with a top hat covered with Distress Stickles...I think he looks pretty dapper. lol.

Thanks to a reminder demo by the lovely Ms. Linda yesterday at class...I covered the metal numeral with UTEE...gold, platinum and bronze. Thanks Linda, for reminding me of this awesome technique!

Art Parts Circle is the base, as is the Ink Bottle with coordinating stamp. The little Orange Pekoe Tea label is 7 Gypsies Mini labels...love those!

The ink nib is from my friend Michael....(found it! lol!) I dipped it in Pitch Black alcohol ink to make it look ...well....inky. lol.

Ok, now on to a new product find from Stampaway. It was at Darcie Heater's booth...Darcie's Country Folk... and it makes the base of the LIFE IS ART...above... Introducing....

Cast and Paint. Accompanying molds...

Makes a plaster like surface...as you can see from my example, you can ink, paint, stamp, do pretty much what you want to it.  Adds some nice dimension for sentiments and so forth.  Bucket of powder costs $6.00. Molds were about $4 a piece.  Low initial start up cost. lol. You can use rub-ons, probably transfers...lots of possibilities. Like plaster, it will have a tendency to chip around the edges if you're not careful, but other than that, I'll enjoy seeing what I can do with it! And, I'm not sure if it's sold in stores..but they do have a website.  You can check it out HERE.

Hope this finds my Eastern friends doing ok after Irene....will be thinking of you!

Thanks for stopping by...as always...Go Be Creative!

Remember these?

How about a tour down memory lane?

I decided to take some of my projects that are lying around, and entered them in the local county fair.  Why not?  May not mean much, but I'm happy to report I got blue ribbons for all four pieces. Whoohoo!  It does kinda give a person a boost of confidence. (between you and me, though, I didn't notice a lot of entries in my categories, so, you know, take that for what it's worth, lol).

The top piece was entered in Collage/Assemblage, the second was in the Altered Art (using scrapbooking materials), the third was a scrapbook page about my family, and the last piece was entered in Mixed Media (altered Ikea frame with metal). 

It was also kind of nice to get out some of my favorite pieces and look at them again. I kind of forget what I've made, you know?
Any hoo... thanks for stopping by...greatly appreciated!

Frugality strikes again....

Take a $1.00 plastic bin from Wal Mart.......it's small...about 8 x 9 and approx. 6 inches tall...I think it's supposed to be for DVD's or CD's.....

Cut from top, where the handle is, down each side to the bottom....fold.....secure with zip ties underneath, and, VIOLA!

A 36 count holder for stickles, mini glossy accents, mini studio medium, etc.....

The holes are a perfect fit.

They also hold Tim's stamp sets upright...perfectly (in their uncut state, lol).....as well as Wendy's small stamp sets....I'm just sayin'. Go forth and be frugal.

Monthly Post

...wow, I hope not! lol! I know, it's been forever ... but, well, what can I say...life happens.

Let's see...where to start. How about my latest creations for the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group Making Art! Challenges?  That's a mouthful and a half, isn't it? I forgot to post the last one, and here it is already time for the next one that's due Tuesday.

Here was challenge #21...using the Snow Cap Pigment Ink resist technique...

The stamps are Studio 490, of course, the flower is metal, embossed with some free hand squiggles, then swiped over with black archival. And, I'm sure you recognize the butterfly as Tim's. :) 

On to the current challenge, which is to use a scallop edge and two different border strips.  Here we go:

The colors are Peeled Paint and Wild Honey, which I kind of like together.

The flower is glassine paper cut with the Tattered Florals die, embossed with a folder, and swiped with some Inka Gold by Viva, which you can't see here very well, but it looks pretty cool in real life. 

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to go to Stampaway in Cincinnati with my friend Nancy.  We met up with Michael (ok, I've tried all available resources in the last fifteen minutes, and I can't find his blog, sorry Michael!), who graciously drove us around.  I didn't take pics around Cincy, but Nancy and Michael did. lol. He took us to an antique mall, where we all bought something, of course. I found an old jar that was labeled "jar of old stuff". HA! Got it for $5. I also got some brass corners, brass doorplate and some other brass hardware that I believe was originally for a plate rail on the top of a cupboard. Any hoo... here's the goods:

Everything's full of dirt, so I think it was on the floor of a barn or old building or something, and they just scooped it up and put it in a jar. lol. That's ok...that's what old toothbrushes are for. What I thought might be a frozen charlotte head turned out to be a little white pitcher, see it there next to the doorplate? The handle is busted off, but it will still look great as part of an assemblage.

Nancy and I were in the same classes, except I took one that she didn't.

The first one we took was Haunted Little Houses, where we soldered some vintage glass pieces together with a picture sandwiched in between, here's my rookie attempt:

Ok, that's a weird angle, but at least you can see the sides. I do plan on hanging something from the bottom, just haven't gotten to it yet.

The other classes were with Sandy Obertin, where we basically made some jewelry pieces using glass tiles and fantastic film (fusible film).

Yep, wire wrapped by moi.  The top is really iridescent, it's just hard to photograph. Or, it could be the camera operator.

I took another class with Sandy, once again using glass tiles, only this time we used decals, colored pencils and diamond glaze....

There was another class...but it isn't quite finished yet...lol....

A good time was had by all, and a lot of money spent. lol. We'll get into that later. Thanks for stopping by, hope you had a chance to make some art this weekend!

Another Swaparooski...

...I had the good fortune to be asked to swap 6 x 6 pages with a very talented group of gals a while back. Everyone has received their pages now, so I get to show YOU! The theme was "Art is.." or "Art ....". 

And, here we go!

Lynn's page, check out that awesome background!

Sarah also had an awesome embossed background, and a little ATC in the envie!

Pam - the paper is just gorgeous, and the stamping is too!

Louise - check out the little mirror, brilliant way to emphasize the sentiment!

Mine - I chose to go Steampunk again...

Are they awesome or what?  I thought mine was kinda funny, 'cause it looks like "David" is checking out the chick with wings. lol. Perhaps I'm the only one that thinks that....Her wings are friendly plastic and a mold. The gears are covered with a mix of embossing powder to get a rusty effect. The sentiment and the chick's body are Studio 490 stamps.
Now, to just make a cover for these beauties and get them bound! Thanks for stopping by!