ATC's have been happening

This past week I have been enjoying making some ATC's again. I have not made one in quite some time so now that the holidays are over I can concentrate on one of my papercrats and that is ATC's.

The above ATC's are done with transparency overlays. The For Heaven's Sake is done with some beautiful BoBunny glittery flourishy scrapbook paper, then I glued the smaller image down then I printed off a Graveyard Angel statue on the transparency looking down. I love this image and the composition. The Making Literal Sense is distress inked book page then a woman reading a book printed on transparency and again overlayed on the background paper. I just love this layered look. These cards are up for trade on the ATC for Beginner's group but if anyone is interested the first one to email me will be considered. I don't often make more than 1 of the same card, just something I like to keep as a OOAK but in some instances if someone really likes the card and it has been traded I do make exceptions.

Below is another new technique I tried from Bernie Berlin's ATC Workshop book and it is fused fibers.

You make a nesty of fibers large enough to cover an atc background size then using fusible webbing you fuse the fibers together and with ironing it all eventually lays ftat. I have also cut up some cheesecloth and placed bits here and there and it becomes a beautiful textured background. I added the flowers and thought this was a good clown background. I have named these two...Send in the clowns 1 and 2 respectively since these will be considered a series of 2.

I have some other cards in the making, some just need names or titles and then a few others need little embellishments.

I also have some painting projects lined up and some more challenge cards to make. I was doing well last week but this week I kind of slipped but I can make it up. I have cards precut and some ideas and things to use up so I won't be lacking any ideas or materials.

Thanks for dropping by and stay tuned for some more of my musings.

I am back

Well it wasn't as bad as it was going to be. I made a frantic phone call yesterday to the store I bought my hard drive from , only to find it it was going to be at least a week before they could look at my system. The tech who works on my computers was kind enough to listen to my dilema with no picutres visible, I told him everything had been updated etc. I even downloaded a browser thinking it was the browser I was using. Anyways one more thing to try and I did and it worked. I now can see pictures galore. I was thinking with no computer I would have tons of time on my hands to create, clean, tidy up etc, make more cards for my personal challenge and now I have been online trying to catch up on things and events.
I will be posting some fused fiber ATC's shortly and a few other various types of variations on ATC's soon.
Off to read some blogs then off to lala land.
Good night friends.

Out of commission

Hello my dear friends. I am afraid that I am having computer issues, not being able to see pictures of any kind so I will not be posting much until I resolve the problem. I thought it was Internet Ex. but I downloaded Firefox and I am still having these issues. I have been to the Microsoft website and done all that I can think of humanly possible and I am at a loss. I will probably have to take my hard drive in to see what is up because after 2 days I am at my wits end.
Therefore I will not be able to visit and comment on your blogs til further notice.
Hopefully it is something very simple that can be rectified quickly.
Until then, stay warm, safe and keep creating.

Canvas Remix inspired by Alisa Burke

Hi Everyone,
well it was a nice holiday it came and it went just like that. All that mad rushing around, finding the right gifts, mailing out cards and parcels, baking, planning and all gone in a week. Phew....
I sort of took it easy over the holiday and today I was headed for a day of creativity and I sat down to do a few things and my mind isn't into it. I started to stare at things and decided it isn't working today.
Yesterday I had to see my endocrinologist in another town so a 3pm appt landed me home almost 6pm so needless to day the day wasn't very productive either. Oh and the card a day...well so far 3 cards have been made but last night I got card bases cut so I have a few to really dive into so I have to get cracking on those to catch up. Needless to say today it didn't happen either but it may later or it may not.
I have been a follower of Alisa Burke's blog and I am quite taken with her recent book Canvas Remix. I bought myself the book after my fall craft show and I have really enjoyed the descriptive techniques. Most of them I already know from working with wood and applying some of them to canvas has really opened up some possibilities for me. I worked on these little either makeup bags for your purse or a change purse or whatever you want during Christmas even tho I really didn't do  a lot of creating. These I worked on over several days and finally yesterday I got them finished and wanted to share the finished look with you.

My Mumsy was generous enough to give me a whole bolt of canvas that she no longer needed and I accepted it without hesitation, at the time now knowing what to use it for, either canvas floorcloths or something like grocery bags etc. Take a look at these.....(click pic for larger view)

These little pouches are made from canvas, painted with acrylics. I made my own stamps some houses some flowers and the other graffiti type are my wild and crazy ones all freehand.

I also stitched all edges using a zigzag stitich and used big buttons and instead of using grommets or snaps I used velcro dots to open and close with some added adhesive to secure.

This is a lot of fun and I really like the graffiti ones.

I always thought graffiti was a way of others to either shout for help or just needed a venue to vent frustration or just let it all come out. Well I can tell you after the holidays this is what I did and I really enjoyed the graffiti style, I just slapped the paint on then painted on my letters then went around them with a black permanent marker.

Mum give me a spray can and a wall lets go do some graffiti art now. LOL

My 100th blog post is coming soon and I may just be having a giveaway so keep coming back to see what the prize or prizes might be.

Well off to see what I can get into now.

Not sure the creativity bug has hit yet but it may, one never knows.

Happy New Years and 20 years

Wow another year gone and what did I do?
This year will be a more productive year around the house, organizing, cleaning out and maybe talk JB into wall papering the kitchen. Time for some fresh beginnings, rearrange furniture in a square foot challenged house and tyding up things that have either been forgotten or put on a lengthy to do list that never gets done.
I would also like to explore some new avenues in my art, since my big fall show is no longer taking place I will have to find a couple more places to sell my wares at Christmas. I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to sell my things at HomeSpun Hill but now it is time to move on and perhaps expose my art in other avenues and meet up with like minded people. I did enjoy painting primitive style and folk art but I would like to touch on other subjects as well and since this is now open to me I think I will try some different styles.
I have a couple challenges set  for this year, one is to make a greeting card a day so when Christmas arrives next year I will have almost 365 cards completed. Usually if I sit to make one I do try to make another one, and the plan is if I miss a day then the day I do make cards I will make up for that lost day. I will keep you all posted to hopefully you can encourage me to keep this challenge going. Sometimes I mean well but then I get distracted or no longer interested.
The second challenge is to start painting for my fall shows earlier and not wait til September or late August like I have done the last couple of years. My goal is to make enough for Christmas shopping and that is all I really want to do but with the price of things now a days you really need to have a nice little supply.
Currently over at The Friendly Palette one of our members suggested we make a list of 20 things to be completed in 20 days or basically for the month of January. I started a list and didn't quite get 20 things yet but I have completed 2 and almost a 3rd item. This is part of my clean out and tidy up part of my resolution.
I really don't believe in resolutions much, resolutions are like rules meant to be broken. People mean well and have great enthusiasm at first but like me get distracted or disinterested but having a list like a grocery list is more my style. So perhaps I can call it my New Years List.

Jan 1 also marks JB and I being together 20 years. Wow, where has the time gone?. We have spent a lot of time together, we are best friends and will do anything we need for each other. My partner in life, Happy Anniversary JB.

And to all my Blogging friends and family have a safe and Happy New Year.
May you all be blessed with good health, love and a prosperous New Year.

Now off to get ready for Canada Juniors to play the US in the world cup tournament of hockey.
Go Canada Go.....