100th Blog Post and a Giveaway

WOW 100 blog posts already, I guess I could have hit this magic number sooner had I not taken a break since the Olympics started, but here we are.
When I first started this journey I didn't think I would have much to say or who would follow me but I soon learned very quickly blogging has it's own community so to speak. Since blogging I have met some wonderful and talented people who love to share their artwork and comments.
So, as a thank you to those who follow me and leave me comments on a regular basis I am offering this little goody package and all you have to do is leave me a comment. I will be picking a winner on March 1 by Random.Org. ,you can only leave one comment. Let others know about my blog to if you would be so kind.
Here I have 2  altered plant pokes, nice little decorative plastic pokes to be used, indoors only, to spruce up that cute plant or put in a plant you are giving as a gift to grandma or auntie. Also a Post-it-Note altered holder for your purse to scribble notes on, a button fairy and last but not least this paper bag album, embellished for you with beautiful papers, some made by me and pockets filled with goodies to embellish the album more. These are fun and a bit time comsuming but I just love making these.
So leave me a comment, I always love to hear from you. Good luck and again I will be picking a winner on March 1/10.

2 posts today #1- personal card challenge

Hi there, well I finally got a picture taken of some cards and my little tote that is just filling up quickly with handmade cards. I have been having so much fun creating these, a little addicting too I found.  I will have to get a much larger tote to put these into as the year progresses, so far I have 64 cards made and it is only the 27th.
What I have been doing to make things go quickly and easily for me is I make several cards alike at one time and then change them up, sizes being from small to larger and I pick a day when to do some. I have a very small house so my kitchen table hardly ever gets used to eat on so things are spread out right in plain view and I make a bunch of cards then have to put it all  away to work on other things. Needless to say I have it down pat but if you want to eat  you have to use the tv tables or give me lots of notice you are coming. More things have been created on this table than meals I think. LOL

If you click on the picutre you will get a better view.

Now off to post my 100th post since beginning blogging and a giveaway to thank all who follow and leave me lovely comments.

 

Where have you been?

Hello friends and family. I have not dropped off the face of the earth but taken a blog breather so to speak. I have been keeping busy, and ,watching the Olympics in my country is very exciting.
Hubby has been home now 1 week since being layed off and although we don't really mind one another I have found my daily routine a bit thrown off but in time I will just keep doing my thing and he can find something to occupy himself.  We do have some things around here that we can do but lets not hurry into those right away. I would rather play with paper and paint than do those house things.
I did paint these 2 items for my Mother. She was away for a couple of weeks and she has since seen these  so now I can show you.
The stool was a green colour with a lot of stroke work on it, not my favourite painting technique but it was time for a facelift. The cannister is an old tin cannister and because these 2 items are going into her kitchen I did sunflowers on both. These are Gail Anderson patterns and I quite enjoyed painting my most favourite flowers. I felt light and cheery while painting these during these long winter days. I am not really a depressed type but just feeling a little cabin fever and just wishing for warmer weather to arrive. The way our winter has been and not a lot of snow, I would love to anticipate an early spring but that means possibly rain leaching into the basement or quick thaws and we know how Lesley get's kind of ugly when that happens.
I have also made some very wonderul papers that I learned to make from a tutorial that was posted on our ATC for Beginners board last month. It was such a hit and we all made ATC's and sent a finished card and some of our papers to each other. The combinations of colours and textures were amazing. I just used brown paper lunch bags and cut the bottoms off then wet the paper, crumpled it, then with my brayer I layed down the colour on the wet paper, then added another colour then gold paint and some embossing powder for some glitz. I just love this paper and now I have  quite a bit of it on hand to use for greeting cards and ATC's. In a day or so I will post some ATC's I made with my Glorious Brayered Paper ( or GBP as we have been calling it).
Speaking of greeting cards, if you recall back in January I posted that I was setting up a personal challenge of a greeting card a day for the following year and to date I have approximately 66 cards made. What I am doing is making a few cards in a sitting because I have such limited crafting space and have to haul things out and put them away constantly ,soooo I make a few or a lot at once, then I go onto to other things and another day will do cards. I will show you a pic I promise , I haven't forgotten.
Here is the stool and the cannister and I will say good night and thanks for dropping by.

An Arch and a Valentines Card

Well it's been a little busy at Harmony Road studio as of late.  Lesley's a busy gal with challenges, keeping house, and trying to keep sane and not stressed. To begin with hubs just got notified he is laid off as of Friday but hopefully it is just til spring picks up in hopes that he will be called back. With the economy the way it is seems this word Lay off is more often spoke of than finding a good job. When you reach a certain age you get looked at a lot differently too. Anyways we hope this is just temporary but the way things go nowadays you must be prepared for just about anything. So we pray and hope that either something else comes along or there will be more business in the spring and hubs will be called back.
Now onto a more pleasant subject, ART.
I have been busy working on my challenge greeting cards and I wanted to show you one in particular I made using my fused fibers. Love that stuff and so many uses for it. Here I have made a Valentine card from it, added some buttons and beads to the heart and then on the card I used a border punch to make a faux lacey edge. I have also cut  out some very easy 4 petal flowers and sewed around them with a random stitch like the heart and then place a button in the center as well. I applied a couple to cards and they are darn cute.

The next thing I want to show you is my February Inkurable Stampers Arch Challenge for 2010.

I haven't named this one yet, it hasn't jumped at me so if you can help me out I would greatly appreciate a title for it. It has to really speak to me and well it hasn't done so, but it will.

I had a piece of burgundy cardstock, I stamped it with this no name acrylic block heart filigree type stamp using Versamark watermark ink, then used clear EP and heated it.

Then, I used my waterpen and filled it with good ole bleach, make sure you have good ventilation when doing this. I spread the bleach over the whole paper and watched as the colour bleached out . I dried it with the heat gun then I proceeded to do the bleaching out again.

Now as you can see the results are stunning. The only part of colour remains is in the stamped area as the embossing resists the beach. I have also stamped using bleach and it is very beautiful as well.

This was better than I expected. The Arch Challenge this month required lace and that is one thing I did not have so I used some ribbon that looked a bit lacy on the edges and I used that on top and bottom with a plain strip of the non bleached out cardstock running through the ribbon and a piece of gauze.

Simple yet very effective I think.

Thanks for looking and when my camera returns to me I will take a photo of my bin of greeting cards.

Good night all.

Dress Up 2010 Challenge

Well I haven't posted in quite some time but not because I didn't want to. Just been busy catching up on swaps, I am a mod on a couple of boards so trying to organize swaps and also working on a few challenges.

I was directed towards this fun challenge by a good friend of mine and I thought why not.
Margaret's blog has a Dress Up 2010 challenge. You make one dress a month for the next year with a total of 12 dresses. These are to be done in an altered art sort of fashion. As you know I did a tutorial not long ago on fused fibers and I knew exactly what I wanted to do for my first dress. I started with my February dress because I wanted my dress to reflect Valentines and some femininity. I will make up Janurary's dress soon but I am so excited to share my first one here.
I dyed some wool with some Crystal Lite drink crystals in a Strawberry Kiwi drink which produced a beautiful  rose colour, added some water of course and dyed my wool in it for a bit. Squeezed it out then hung to dry by the woodstove. Then I made my fused fibers by adding some paper flowers, some pink curly ribbon, and a few other stringy fibers. Fused that all together then cut the dress out using my template Margaret was so kind to send to me.
Then I proceeded to embellish the dress. I didn't have a lot of lace so I took some paper boarder punch and used that at the waist line and hem, then for the neckline I cut the wider part of the boarder off then made small slits to that I could move around the neckline like you do if you were to sew around armholes and necklines with interfacing. Same concept works with paper too. then I added beads and some roses I quilled. And that is it. Simple yet very feminine. I can't wait to do more of these. Each one will be a great challenge and as you get to know me you know, I love a challenge and learning new techniques.

Stay tuned for more and tomorrow I want to show you how I am doing so far in my personal greeting card- a- day challenge for this year. I am whipping them off and I now have over 40 cards made, large and small.