Painting Pile Up

I can't believe how fast this week has flown, I suppose with a trip coming up and 3 craft shows I am going to be doing has kept me quite busy and time is not wasted. Somehow I have found time to do a bit of much needed personal shopping, making homemade granola bars, the usual housework, cutting out things to take with me, paper trimming, stamping, embossing images, distressing paper with my inks and packing.
I also wanted to do some sealing of my painted items as I still needed to do that as things were piling up but the finishing is what takes the time to do as well.
These items I worked on last week and I am so pleased with how they turned out.
The snowmen wreaths were fun and really quick to do. I just love snowmen and these designs are by another fav artist of mine Renee Mullins. I decided since the snowman hats were to look like birdhouses I needed a birdie so I took one of her birds off of a pattern in one of her books and enlarged it a bit and had it sitting off to the side looking for a new home. These wreaths all had something different on them at one time and never sold so I thought they would be something you could hang on a door for most of the winter since they don't have to be hung up just for Christmas.

This snowie is my fav with the hat pulled down over his eyes. Sorry the pic looks dark, we have had a lot of rain and dreary weather, guess I should have had better lighting. I must have been looking at him a little crooked as well. Oh well I never said I was a photographer.

And next are some mixed media signs I did.

Oh these were fun and turned out better than I thought they would.

I have a feeling when I return from my trip I will be doing more of these.

I hope they are a good seller at my craft shows.

I think some Home and Welcome signs would look nice with vintage photos.

Thank you for dropping by and I do appreciate your comments.

Til next time, be creative and happy.

L

What happened to Customer Service????

I am slowly getting things done and prepared both for home and going away next week to see my dear Dad.
Today I tried to book a  hotel room by phone and was put on hold for the reservation desk. I saw the prices online assuming they were the same prices if you called in because I wanted to get directions from the airport to the hotel as well and just familiarize myself with the general area I wanted to be in to see my dad in the home.
Well when I finally get to talk to the person who was going to take my reservation and I say " going to" this woman I could tell already had attitude. I explained the number of nights that I needed and I saw a price online and wondered if that is the price just to confirm. She said no that was a AAA or CAA pricing. I said no where did that say that online it just said a price. Ok then I said, can you give me that price anyways since I am staying 3 nights, she got all snotty and said no that is the price for CAA or AAA. I said well it didn't say that, then she said well if you pay up front with your credit card you can get that price, I said ok with card in hand I was all prepared. No she said I can't do that on the phone you have to do that online. Talk about run around and a price is a price is it not? Anyways I went back online and oh I did get my answer to the question about location from the airport but with some snarliness. I tell you if it weren't for the fact I have a small kitchenette in my room and the price was right I don't think it would have been my choice of hotel but.... location location location as well.
I guess I was asking too many questions. Anyways this is just pre flight ramblings before next week.
I hope that you don't encounter any alien attitude of the 3rd kind today. I thought Customer Service was the  in thing now a days but I was plumb mistaken.
Lots of stuff to do before I go...til next post.....
Have a super day.

What do pizza box, toothpicks and bookpages have in common?

Recycle, reuse and new is the theme for these ornies, I used a pizza box for the backing of the ornies, covered with old book pages and made a frame from  new and unused toothpicks. I assembled the frames first by gluing 3 toothpics together with a good sturdy glue, Aleene's Tacky Glue. Make sure you make groupings of 4 to form a frame. Let all the toothpics groups of 3 dry completely before painting. I just painted them one coat of burnt umber for a prim and distressed look. While the paint is still wet you could sprinkle a little cinnamon on them to grunge them up and added smell. Yummy. I applied the bookpages to my little squares of pizza box, on the shiny side of the box then the plain cardboard will be on the backside as you know everyone at craft shows flips things over to see how finished the backs are. I learned that a longggggg time ago.
When the paper is dry, paint your little goodies on the paper. After all your paintings are complete, glue the frame on, add a little ribbon at the top for hanging on the tree. Give as a teachers gift, sell at craft shows, apply to a gift etc. They are fun to make with kids if you have any. Rosie my cat helped me, she is a good supervisor and I paint her whiskers with water on the brush and she loves it. What a creative cat.

Next is a recycled cupboard door I have had in my stash. I love this pattern so I dug it out of my many magazines and painted this. This pattern is by Marnie Perry and is quick and easy and a lot of fun. I found an old door handle so need to clean it up and repaint it and I will attach it to the one side of the door and add a little tag. I have done cupboard doors before and they are quite popular sellers.

And my little muffin tin gingers. Sorry the pic isn't the best. I had lighting issues this day, I believe it was cloudy and inside wasn't allowing for good lighting. I am not photographer.

The faces are from a stencil, they are great for snowmen or ginger faces so here I did up ginger faces.

I still have to drill a hole at the top and put my homespun hanger on so you can hang it in your kitchen. Again a great seller.

And that is it for now.

I have booked my trip to Western Canada to see Dad in early October so I am scrambling to get some paper things and some painting done. I plan to take some inchie stuff with me for the evenings once I get to wind down. I have to keep my hands busy or I will go crazy for 4 days.

Thanks for dropping by.

I always appreciate your comments and love to visit your blogs as well.

So many of you keep me inspired.

Til next time, be happy.

L

Gingersnap Creations Inchie Challenge GC71

Well I was blog hopping the other night, taking  some time away from painting, and, I saw a challenge I really wanted to join in on. Over at Gingersnap Creations they have an inchie challenge with no other set rules other than to make something with inchies. Well I looked at some really great creations that other members had made  from cubes, cards and other things and I wanted to do something a little different.
Here I have made 3 inchie houses, yes I said houses. I was intrigued last year in a group I was in that they were showing these inchie houses and were going to swap them but for some reason I couldn't participate.
Well I downloaded the template and it wasn't quite working for me with all the adjustments and what have you so I basically started from scratch and took the cube inchie and re-designed it and tweaked it a bit.
So here you will see some examples of my inchie houses and I hope the gals over at Gingersnap Creations will like them. These are fun and something you could really get into. I made the one house an ornament and will hang it on my tree at Christmas time. These would be fun to swap in groups or give as little gifties to teachers or someone who might have a small tree to decorate.
The Hallowe'en house was very different for me to do as I don't generally do Hallowe'en but I had too many ideas floating around. Hubby even added in an idea by putting the bat on a wire suspended about the roof, how cute is that? Thanks Honbun!  I received some goodies in a swap last year and almost forgot about the little bats, spiderweb stickers and other items til I found the matchbox that they were contained in.
So here you go, I hope you like these little houses, they sure were a lot of fun to make.

I used Spiced Marmalade distress ink and then used Black Soot on the edges all around the house. Black soot distress ink for the roof, some cotton batton for the webbing, a lot of stickles. And an image from FlickR but I removed her head scarf and made my own witchy hat. Boo....

Here is the backside of the house and sorry you can see the wire on the bat but I only had 2 bats and the other one is on one side of the house.

This was the first house I  made and I used Peeled Paint and Broken China distress inks. Stamped on the paper after it was dry with Broken China and some flourishes. (Sorry about the spools, I didn't have anything else to prop them up on for the pics.)This is the front of the house and I have various other women on all 4 sides. These were all made inchie size but I cut the women out because the base of the cube minus the roof part is one inch square (inchie size).

I added lots of Stickles for bling, love that stuff. I have a new colour to play with Lime Ice Stickles, ooo love my greens.

And last but not least my little winter house...incuding snow and sparkle....

All girls were left on their inchies and I applied them to the base of the scrapbook paper I used which was a lovely wintery blue. The roof is paper I did the brayer technique using acrylics and metallic acrylics and glitter. And the snow is Aleene's glitter snow but I added  a bit more glitter to make it really sparkle when the litghts hit it. I think I have to make more of these for Christmas, the snow just makes it.

I think some Vintage Santas would look really cute on some of these.

Thanks for dropping by.

L

A little break from painting.....

Well now that September has come I thought I might try to still be involved in some group swaps so I took a bit of a break from painting but not for long and completed these projects. On  the ATC for beginners group we have a torso shape swap and the Addicted to Inchies group we have make a bookmark featuring inchies.

The left hand with the Geisha is done with a Sitra Solv applied to a magazine page. I did not make this paper but a member from the ATC group made and sent it to me. Thanks SoKat. Then I added Liquid Pearls at the top, a piece of handpainted paper in red at that bottom and neckline. I had some small asian coins I added one with gold thread to dangle from the neck and then embossed Chinese characters in black then put my Geisha over that. Click on the pic for a close up view. These magazine pages lend to some really cool effects and the colours all bleed together.

The Paris themed Torso background is actually a paper napkin someone kindly sent to me a while ago. Not sure if it was Jen or not but I love it, I would love another couple and all I really did was add a woman's image to the bottom. I think I still need a little French saying so that might still be a possibility.

And.....here are my inchie bookmarks...

These were fun and very easy to do. I made several in fact and might be a good little gifty at Christmas.

Of course I love anything Asian so i used my Asian inchie stamps from Inkadinkado and distressed some paper using TH Frayed Burlap then I stamped and embossed the images in black. I used a bit of paper from a Chinese newspaper that my friend Kathy sent me not too long ago, the lettering is a bit larger. I mounted a piece of black cardstock over top of a red, Lined both cardstock with Gold metallic gel pen.

I added some black fiber and added a bead at each end.

The green and black bookmark is basically the same only I used Peeled paint distress ink and some gold German scrap I got from Artchix.

It was nice to play with paper for a bit but I must continue on with painting. November is looming closer and I am planning a trip to see Dad the end of the month or very beginning of October.

I would love to show you more of my painted items but my camera or the batteries are not co-operating. Until then I can only scan small items so look out when I can finally take a pic that won't drain the batteries.

I may have to replace the charger who knows. I sure don't.

Well thanks for dropping by, til next time....

Create, dream and love one another.

L

Please help me find ........

Last fall or close to Christmas I was blogging around and found a really cute and quick craft. You needed a ceramic white plate (which I have a few) and you used a permanent marker or something for ceramic glazed plates on the rim where the food won't touch it and you placed words around the rim of the plate. Now the problem is I didn't bookmark that site and I can't remember who's blog it was. I have done a search on Google and Bing but I must not be using the correct words to find such a thing. If anyone knows the blog or has seen something similar could you please post a comment.
I would really appreciate it very much. I have looked on Ucreate and Dollar store crafts but somehow I don't think it was on either site, I may have missed it but instead of wasting valuable time looking I wonder if anyone out in blog land may have seen it . Thans so much and if you find it I can make it worth your while.
Thanks for dropping by,
L

Some painted ATC's

Over at ATC for Beginners we have a monthly themed lottery. A theme is picked by the winner of the previous month then those that participate are eligible to win all the ATC's. So July I won and then I picked the theme for August and of course Sunflowers being my favourite flower and I have a lot of them in my garden right now it seemed a nice way to say goodbye to summer.
I haven't played with paper seems like forever but I had to sneek some sunflower cards in for out winner this month, Jenny. I painted both cards, the first one a Terrye French design with some sunflowers and of course a little crow in there and the 2nd card I painted the background like a seedpacket then I had some sunflower paper tole pages so I cut 2 out and layered it on top of the background. I sure hope Jenny likes them.

And I am not lacking for painting surfaces now or ideas, I have been prepping canvas, spraying plates and bottles outside while the weather is still warm and things can cure so painting on them is easier.
Lots to do still before November.
I also hope to be able to go out to BC to see my elderly father late September so lots to do before I go.
The trip out west isn't usually a long one, about 4 or 5 days. Dad took ill after my Mum passed away and now resides in a long term care facility. Dad suffers from dementia and it is heartbreaking to see a once productive man fall victim to this disease.
Anyways I will keep blogging for now and hope you come to visit often.
Take care of yourself and each other.
Thanks for dropping by.
L