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.....

The True Meaning of Christmas

Luke 2:1-14

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests"

Merry Christmas and may you find peace, health and happiness in the New Year.

XO

Paper Roses gift box

If I know some of artist blog friends who followed Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas, these will be very familiar. Tim made his roses out of grungepaper but I wasn't lucky enough to have any so I made these beauties out of regular cardstock. Unfortunately the picture does not really show the distressing very well. I also lack paper cutting machines so off to cyber space looking for a flower template for a 6 petal flower. After a few processes of elimination I found one.

If you use the bottom left hand flower it is the perfect shape for roses.

You might want to put this in an editing program crop the flower then resize to make your rose.

My size was about 1 3/4 inches, remember the layer of the rose will eventually get smaller as you follow Tim's tutorial but the base size is great for this. I found 2 inches was a tad too big.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

I painted the box in a copper metallic acrylic paint, then I spread non washable dollar store glue on the lid and the side of the box, applied Antique White acrylic paint over top with a sponge and watched it crackle. Oh I love this look. I then Modged some hymnal music on the lid under the roses but first inked the edges of the torn paper. Glued the roses on. The leaves I drew out and made a template so I can later just trace aroud it. I inked the edges of my grunged green scrap paper with Distress Frayed Burlap then glued them in place. I also added a bit of Stickles Diamond glitter to the folds of the roses

. You want to smell them that is how nice they look.

I didn't do the centers quite like Tim, I am a quiller as well so I put my quilling tool to good use and was able to get some nice folds in the centers.

Not bad for paper I say.

Thanks for Tim's tutorial.

This little box will be holding a nice little Christmas pressie for a good friend.

Thank you for looking.

altered Christmas cards

This past week I have been pretty much a hermit, staying at home with the lack of hot water the beginning of the week, only to find that whoever called in the problem said we had some hot water so we were not a priority. So to make that long story short we finally had to have an element replaced and then had to wait 2 hours for a full tank of hot water. That was one welcome shower I tell you.

Then we had a winter blast of snow, ice, rain, more snow then wind. Now it is just plain cold. Winter has arrived and Lesley tends to hibernate like a bear.

I have come to realize  there is only 2 weeks left til Christmas and here I am putzing away still making cards.

I thought I would show you a  few I have had fun making.

My friend Jeanie over at All My Artist Trading Cards sent me an email the last couple days and showed me some pictures of some future swap possibilities. One of them was trees that you can cut and make into any theme, the ones posted in her email were Santa trees. Well I wasn't really up to do any swapping but the tree idea sparked some creativity of my own for come cards. I had some collaged paper on cardboard hanging around waiting for something to be done with it and I applied some white paint over top to tone down the papers, I used mostly text and some scraps of printed papers. Lo and behold it is great to have some saved items for projects like these.

I cut 3 different sized trees, stamped them then I took oil pastels and just on the edges of the trees I ran colours, then rubbed with my fingers to just darken the edges and left the centers lighter. I then took a gold gel pen and went around the edge of them, you probably can't see that in the photo. Another option you could emboss with golds, bronzes or whichever colour scheme you are going with.

I also made a round ornament, cut a circle usinga shot glass to make it round added the top part, cut it out and voile' you have a round ornie, stamp, do the same but this time I added a vintage girl looking up and the other ornie a vintage lady.

The Joy tag, if you are following Tim Holtz's blog he did this remarkable tag using grungeboard letters, metal sheet, I used metal tape Jeanie sent me a while back then he used alcohol inks to colour. I don't have all the paper accessory luxuries so I just used acrylic paints and did my own thing. This is what I came up with and I quite like it.

Now to decide who gets what card, I probably will be a little late getting cards out.

 I tried to do a bit of decorating today, had to clean up the floor after some furniture got moved for me to put the tree up.

Hopefully this weekend JB and I will get ourselves in the Christmas mood after we see the house decorated and snow has finally come.

Thank you for looking and I hope I have inspired you to use some of your scraps and make do's for your cards or creations.

Away in a Manger

Over at Inchy by Inch challenge blog this weeks theme and final for the year is Christmas Carol.

I decided to paint my inchie, I was in a miniature painting mood today and I decided to paint this to reflect one of my favourite Christmas carols, Away in a Manger.

Space was small do I didn't do a lot of detail but as one of my favourite artist, Jerry Yarnell would say, you create a suggestion, so here I created a manger with a baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. and the Star of David shining brightly as my suggestion. :)

Remember the true meaning of Christmas, it really didn't start with good deals at Walmart or Best Buy but rather a tiny babe in a manger a gift to all of us from God.

I would like to thank Fiona the hostess over at Inchy by Inch for all the work that she does to run this fun blog challenge and to all the girls I have met over there that share the same art interests as I do.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.