Huge Blog Candy giveaway....

Just a quick post tonight. I want to tell you about this great Blog Candy giveaway at Meyer's Imports.
All you have to do is leave a comment.
If you send people their way, you have more chances to win and.... the pile gets bigger as more people leave comments. So stop on over to their blog.....Everything Glittery and leave a nice comment.
Oh and I feel about the same, got my flu shot and I have whatever is going around.
Thanks to all who left me kind comments and well wishes in my last post.
Till next time.....be creative.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Gingersnap Creations GC87

Random Redhead Challenge is to use a Tea bag template and alter or decorate it to be eligible to be a Ginger Gem. I have already once been  a Ginger Gem but I rather enjoy seeing all the creativity these women have to offer. There are so many creative peeps out there and so willing to share how and what they do to create these lovelies.
Here is my attempt at 3 to show you. The two larger one I made using the same paper but it has a different look because the paper is double sided. I have also made a few embellies to adorn my creations. Remember me telling you in a post that I was busy over the holidays making roses, well here are a few that I think add a lovely feminine touch to these. Also I made a little embelly for one of the tea bags by stamping onto Shrink Plastic, colouring it with a gel glitter pen then shunk it with my heat gun. I love making little things that are different and catch your eye.

Below I used a chipboard heart frame that I had in my stash. I inked it with DI in Fired Brick, I had an inchie image floating around so used that behind the frame, stamped the heart at the top in black ink to stand out and coloured in the small flower in with gold gel pen. Stamped "Be Mine" in Black (a Studio G stamp), wrapped the frame with a bit of fine gold beading wire and added the lock before gluing to the front of my tea bag.

 This one below is the other side of the paper from the above tea bag, cool paper huh? got it on sale at Michaels a while back. Here is my Shrinky Dink heart I was telling you up above, it is so glittery. More roses and a little key.

This teabag below I made using a free Digi Stamp. I printed the teapot off, I traced over it again with a fine tip black marker, stamped the Flour de Lis on and then coloured the whole thing with a pink pencil crayon and adding some shading to make it a little 3-D.  The little rose at the top is again made by me, I now have a flower die cut I use on the Cuttlebug instead of cutting by hand all the flower layers, this makes things go much quicker. Hey when you don't have the proper tools you make do right? The little borders were cut using a border punch and the reverse side of the paper that is shown here. I also punched the tags and rose leaves out and voila'.

And this is another one of my shrines that was inspired by Kim Dellow's blog I visit regulary. Kim did a post on Mixed Media tags and so that lead to this creation which lead to some tags I am working on and another shrine. I thought I was going to have to put this little idea on hold til I routed around and found some corrugated cardboard. I have some now safely tucked away as this is my kind of trash I love to have on hand. Thanks for the inspiration Kim. Go on over to check out Kim's blog. She sounds like me with a space challenged studio, she creates in her kitchen as well.

Well I have been kind of poorly this past week. I started out with a scratchy throat Sunday and now I am coughing , sneezing and sometimes I lose my voice. Not good for conversation for now. It can only get better right? I knew I should have gotten my flu shot sooner. Tomorrow when I see the doc for my regular health check up I hope he will say it's still ok to get it.

Til next time, stay safe, warm and healthy, achooooo.



PS this shrine is called the Tree of Knowledge!

4 Trade

ATC Shrine Time

Hello bloggers and friends.

First of all I would like to say thank you to a couple of you (you know who you are) for helping me out with some fairy images. I have many ideas so this will truly help my creative process.

Now to show you what I have been up to.

I haven't made a lot of ATC's of late, just a few here and there for my FlickR group but other than that I was needing something a little different to play with.

After visiting Agnes the Red Art site I found these really cool ATC shrines that she made and a tutorial on how she made her's and this sparked a whole new wave of creativity. I am so addicted to making them. I currently have these 3 and have more on the way.

I think I will be posting these in my FlickR album but if you want to make a trade even for another ATC I would certainly consider it.

You can email as well by clicking on my email button on the sidebar.

The inside little doorway is made using a matchbox drawer and secured in so it will not come out or off.

This first shrine is made using some new paper I bought  and it was a collection of All Occasion paper pack made by K and Company. The sparkly sticker at the top was also included in the paper pack and the little white flowers.I also added some sequin waste that was generously given to me by my friend Jenxo ages ago. I hoard that stuff and for some reason I thought why not use it, are you just going to keep it and look at it once in a while. This time I had a great idea and put it up like a trellis so the butterflies (which I made if you click on the pic you can see them sparkle on the left hand side, my signature butterflies which I will be featuring on most of my shrines) could sit and land on, and the image is from Artchix Studio.

 This next shrine was inspired by another blog I visit, Kelsey over at KO OK blog. Kelsey teaches classes on various techniques and since she lives in Australia that is not possible for me to attend. Kelsey kindly shared this next paper but I can't tell you because I haven't asked permission to share it. Just let's say it involves paint, embossing and a few other things. I used German scrap , the flowers were inspired by Gingersnap Creations blog, they are having a challenge using coffee filters so I made some coffee filter flowers and painted them with Twinkling H20's. The filters were painted first then dried then I cut them out using a die cut on my Cuttlebug and added a bit of gel pen accents and some gems in the center. I made quite a few. They feel so delicate. I had to use the basket type filters the paper is more delicate than the cone shape but that is what I used and they still turned out so pretty.I also used some mesh that you use for dry walling on the LHS of the shrine and the little picture is a charm I bought (4 in a pack at the dollar store) I had some tiny images sent to me in an order from Artchix Studio a while back and the little girl fairy I adapted on one of my programs, and her dress I coloured in with chalk since it was a drab yellow. This one is called Family Portrait. I love this one.

 And finally this one is metal duct tape I used some alcohol inks on. Again German scrap from ArtChix Studio. A metal inspire charm Becky gave me ages ago, my last one I think. The gears are chipboard given to me by Jenxo and my tiny butterflies and an ArtChix image.

Well thanks for dropping by. I haven't been too terribly busy of late. Winter keeps me indoors quite a bit, a time of hibernation. Can't wait for warmer weather.

Til next time, be happy, do something good for someone and be creative if you can. It always feels so good.

Fairy images needed

I am calling out to any fellow blogger friends to direct me to some free altered faery or fairy images, preferably little children with wings or ballerina type images. I have searched and searched and cannot find any. I did attempt to make a few but I don't have the fancy Adobe Photoshop to produce and edit images like I see on ATC's etc.
I am currently making some ATC shrines and would really love some fairy images to enhance them. They will be then posted here and put up for trade in my FlickR album.
If I really like the images and you help me I may make you one just to say thank you.
Thanks so much.
Oh and I would like them yesterday.....have you heard that one before??? LOL
L

Finally some arty goodness to share

I can't believe January 10th already, seems like ages ago now since the hub bub of Christmas and New Years and all over for another year. Where does the time fly????

I have been busy with some personal family stuff and that has been keeping me busy but I have had a bit of time to play with some of my arty creations.

Between Christmas and New Years I did get myself a die cut for some flowers to make roses and I made a lot of roses during that week. Funny how they seem to disappear really quick and before I know it it will be time to make more. Valentines is coming and what a pretty thing to add to some creative goodness. I will show a pic of them another day. Sorry I didn't take one this evening.

Well this will be quick as the bedtime is drawing near and Lesley needs sleep. I get real ugly when I don't sleep and seems lately it has been taking me a while to get to sleep.

So here are some things I have been working on.

I started a new FlickR group for monthly matchbox swapping and so far so good we have 13 eager members. I don't really mind if the group stays small but it is always nice to have a few more in case some don't want to swap for that month.

Here I made this little 32 count matchox, I covered it with some paper I first stamped with Versamark Watermark ink using a background crackle stamp, then I embossed using a gold glittery Embossing powder. Let that dry then I painted the paper with 3 Twinkling H20 colours, a lime green ,rose blush and a sort of night blue. I love Twinklers as they always give the paper a nice shimmer when dry and the gold EP resisted the paint and left the gold shimmering with the paper. So lush as some of my arty friends say. Then I used gold German scrap to line the top and bottom. I used an Artchix inchie photo frame, inchie image and then placed Glossy Accents onto the photo and added some nice micro beads to that. I then put the photo charm on a gold string and tied it securely. The box is filled with some arty goodness for my partner. I wonder who it will be?



Next is an ATC I made for a FlickR monthly ATC group I joined. The theme this month is postal or anything postal related. I used the inside of a security envy, stamped with a small acrylic postal collage stamp (thank you  Becky) in Black Soot DI. Added some stamps that I collected from other swap partners a piece of a map and some little envies from my stash (thanks Kathy K knew those would come in handy some day)and the woman image is from FlickR . Hope my partner likes it.



And finally here is an altered Domino. I have been swapping dominoes with another FlickR member for quite a while now and each month one of us picks a theme then we make each other one and send it. I guess my last domino got ripped out of the envy and Lori never got it with her Christmas card but I will redo it, it really didn't turn out as I expected.

So this domino is a fairy in a bottle. The domino was inked with my new Alcohol inks, love how they pool and blend their colours together. Love the contrast of colours as well, green is my fav colour so this really is one of my fav's so far. The domino was then embossed with my gold sparkly EP. Then my image is from Artchix Fairies in a bottle, cut and trimmed and then I put a layer of Glossy Accents on top so everything is trapped in.



Well folks that is it. I rambled long enough, now time to go to bed.

Thanks for dropping by and stay tuned for my arty goodness.

Valentines is coming and I feel more tags are in store.

Night night ZZZZZZZZZZZ

Toronto Maple Leaf Game and a Matchbox group

Howdy friends and Family.

At Christmas JB and I received Maple Leaf tickets for Jan 3/11 vs the Boston Bruins from my Mum and Thom.

We had a super time and I was able to get to ice level not far from our seating (in the Reds) pre game to get some photos of the players. Now I am not a super photographer even in this day and age of digital. I get so excited that I just start clicking.

Thanks to a young lady who was at ice level beside me we helped each other and her first game she wanted me to take a pic of her so I did and she obliged me the same.

Here I am sporting my Leaf jersey, wootwoot.

And below here is Thoma Kaberle #15, the glare is from the plexiglass that was in front, we don't want to get hit by flying pucks now do we? so this is why there is a bit of a glare. I was able to tone it down a bit.

Isn't he a size? I know Thomas is on skates but these guys are big, maybe that is why the boards bang a lot when they hit opposing players, you can almost hear the bones crunching. Yikes.....

 

 And this is just before the game when they turn the lights down and the players are ready to take to the ice.
We scored the first goal but, unfortunately Boston won 2-1 but the Leafs a struggling young team sure played a great game. Thanks Mom and Thom this was so special and we had a great time.

 And this last pic has nothing to do with hockey. This is a matchbox I made from a template and decorated over the holidays. I never seem to be able to sit still for very long and I enjoy making these little boxes then filling them with goodies like art bits that I have in my stash. Over the past few years I have made and traded a few and really enjoyed the different art interpretations on various themed swaps.

This box is our mascot over at the newly formed FlickR group Matchbox monthly swap  I set up for 2011. We are going to have monthly themed swaps so if you would like to join us just click on the link and if you don't already have a FlickR account, it is free. FlickR is a great venue for free images, swap groups and much more.

If you notice on this matchbox I have one of my paper roses. I now have a template I can use with my Cuttlebug to cut out my flower shapes then make my roses much faster than trying to hand cut each flower. The image is an Artchix image mounted on a small house shape chipboard shape and the crown is from Artchix as well.

Thanks for stopping by and keep watching for more creativity this year.

I hope you all rang in the New Year with fun and new resolutions.

L