Spider man journal

I call his my spider man journal because before I completely altered this

it was a spider man kids book! Haven't you ever seen a book , loved the shape but didn't care for the title or the entire book. That was one of those books for me so I altered it into a art journal with some decoupage, gesso, & lots of distressing. I decided this will be my next class. Instead of calling it the spider man journal, its got to have a little more artsy sound to it which will be Mixed media journal. Sounds artsy enough! Anyway I hope you'll come an enjoy getting a little creative, & alot of messy with me on Sunday, October 2 at 12:30.I don't believe the picture shows how pretty it is so I will take it to the store for you to see in person. Hope to see you in class!

My Baby Inspiration

Okay, So for those of you who know me knows that I don't have "babies" small ones that is. My Babies just happen to be 23 yrs. old! When I hit that creative block, I can find a picture of my girls & I'm back in my creative space. I did this page using tons of prima flowers. I also draped a chain from an old tarnished necklace at the bottom & loved the way it looked. All my paper was distressed just a little & very lightly brushed with my foam tim holtz tool. Mostly the edges of the pieces of paper. In this page I used the black soot distressing ink. Not bad for someone going from no inspiration to this beautiful page. I really love the way it turned out.

Back from Texas

I'm back from Texas! I've been back 2 1/2 weeks & I just now feel like I'm getting back into my routine. I was very busy & didn't get to do any scrapping while I was gone.I missed getting together with friends & this past Saturday my friend Kathy came over with some great pictures of her and her husband Frank. I decided to share the idea of the Donna Downey weaved page that I took the weekend before. It came out great! I took pictures to show off just how good it turned out. We used a different color palette all together. Nice & Bright. Good job Kathy!

On a roll

I have been on a roll with starting and actually finishing projects. We all know how that goes. Starting new projects isn't the hard part it's actually finishing them. Lastnight at 9 'clock I decided to start putting together a 4x6 Donna Downey canvas album. I started out thinking I would just paint the cover. Finished that and thought,well that didn't too long so maybe I'll just paint a few of the pages.Before I knew it I was knee deep in the project and wasn't about to not finish it.I used a poppy red paint mixed with a little pink and all the pages I painted a light sky blue. I trimmed all the pages with orange and bright green ribbon to keep it simple. I didn't go too crazy decorating the pages because my goal was to just get them ready for pictures.I don't think the picture does it justice as far as showing how pretty how colors I used are. It reminds me of Sherbert.I of course had fun putting this project together until 5 a.m. this morning.Totally worth it!

Ready for Texas

I leave next Wednesday for Texas. I'm going home for a short visit with my daughters. I have really been trying to finish up all those unfinished projects I have laying around. I bought the Donna Downey 12x8 canvas album at inspire and decided I wanted to use if for this trip.
So I started it and got completely sucked in.I'm a bit of a night owl, so as the sun was comig up this morning, I was just hitting the hay!I really wanted to finish it and to say I'm notorious for losing track of time would be a understatement.I would have loved to take pictures of every page but I wouldn't want to bore you so that's why I took a side view picture.I'm so happy it's done and can't wait to fill it with pictures.

Whoa Baby

After Hattie's makeover I found another cute pic of a baby but the background was wah wah wah.... booorrriiing! I gave the baby a cool place to hang out & he definitely loves his butterfly wings. It was a quick project but fun to do.

Hattie Hogan

So are you at all curious as to who Hattie Hogan is? Me too.I know she's from Greely Kansas. I bought her picture in a antique store in Boerne, Texas.I know she needed a makeover. You know the kind of surprise makeover like on tv!I got the idea from my somerset studio magazine.The photo was the normal Sepia color which made her dress look like a light color just like black and white. I started by cutting her out.Then I began putting different scraps of fabric around her until I found one I liked. I took my alene's glue and just started shaping it to cover the one she was wearing. I added some flowers in her lap, some in her hair, and of course I had to give poor Hattie some bling! I took gold stickles and made her a ring, necklace, earrings, and a gold bracelet. Homely Hattie is now Hottie Hattie! I can't be sure but to me Hattie almost has a little grin on her face now. I think she's loving her new look!

Sunshine Friday

My Grandaughter enjoying a day at the pool.


Woo Hoo the sun is out, the heat temperature is up & I'm loving it!I'm from Texas! I have to love the warmer weather.I guess I would have been up a creek If I didn't. Today is one of those days that I'm all over the place when it comes to figuring out what I want to do today. Isn't that annoying?! There is the "I need to" list & then there's the " I want to" list. So I need to go to the gym & after that I'm putting in a good movie & working on something fun.I just might have to cook something yummy while I'm at it or even better yet, I'm gonna order some shrimp pad thai. Yummm. I hope everyone has a fun Memorial Day. It's nice for all of you who get a day off from work so enjoy whatever you do & if anyone creates anything really cool, send it to my email & I'll post it here on the blog for some inspiration for someone else!

Vintage Sunday

This picture is my Mothers wedding picture taken in 1945. She joined her soon to be husband in South Carolina where they were married before he shipped out for Germany. It's probably one of my favorite pictures of her. I wanted to give it that vintage look because it was the 40's after all. I used old lace, broken vintage jewelry pieces.The paper I used was Basic grey,& Graphic 45.The flowers and stick pins I used were Prima,& maya road.The charm in the corner was by making memories. Behind the photo is an old doily I had. I distressed the edges with Tim Holtz walnut distessing ink. Because the photo itself was so light I tried to add color in the embellishments. Pretty paper & flowers for a pretty picture.

Inspire pictures

Here are a couple my inspire projects. I really didn't think I had a favorites but when I went to take pictures these were the two I picked up first.I've done encaustics classes before but never bees wax with pigment in them. It was so fun building up the wax on the hearts which is a new technique to me.



When I first saw the felt tree with the jute I wasn't sure how I felt about it but when I saw it I loved the whole idea right away. It was time consuming and took a ton of glue sticks but fun to put together. I'm not sure if you can see how the jute is twirled to make patterns which was a little tricky but still alot of fun.So that's all for now. You'll have to keep watching my blog for more pictures!:)

Back from Inspire

Okay, so I really did have every intention of posting pictures of all the cool projects I worked on at Inspire but I have a real good excuse why I didn't. No really. To use internet would have cost $60 a day! Forget about it!I thought well, I'll get caught up this past week but that did't happen either. I spent my week getting back into my usual routine.So I will get you up to speed.I learned alot & really enjoyed all the classes. Well, there was one that I wasn't crazy about but I'd never kiss & tell which one and besides 9 out of 10 isn't too shabby! I just found it amazing how we all start out with the same idea & everyone had a different spin on it. There were people so creative there that it made me feel like a clueless kindergartner on the first day of art class. The gift of creativity that people had just blew me away. Now with all that having been said, I still haven't taken any pictures of any of the projects I worked on! I will be doing that tomorrow, promise, cross my heart. Have a wonderful weekend & watch for upcoming classes. I have so many great new ideas & techniques that I can't wait to share with you all.

Oh so sweet

I've been off the blog for a couple of weeks! I went through a "what to do" moment or two. We all have them right? I just played around with stuff but just wasn't inspired enough to put anything together. Lastnight I broke the dry spell! I did a page with my grandaughter Evie & her baby doll. I had some Crate paper that I was itching to use & my fabric from Stamping Up.I made the flowers with pages from a childrens book & the letters I used to spell sweet at the top were white so I used my copic markers & colored them red along with some stickles. I've also been working on my art journal. I have just been doing totally random themes for pages.I'm getting really excited about my trip to North Carolina for Donna Downeys inspire.I leave Tuesday and will gone all week.I'll try to take pics while I'm there for the blog so you can see what fun we'll be having.
I won't promise, but I'll try.

Easter memories

Lastnight I was going through old pictures of my kids when I came across Easter pictures of my son Mario at the age of 2. Made me a litte weepy.He's now 26 yrs.old & it makes you wonder where the time goes.

My scraps basket

I wanted to come up with a catchy name for my easter basket.Lastnight or this morning (4a.m.) when I went to post it nothing was coming to me and that's probably because it WAS 4 a.m. and I was feeling a little tired! This morning I sat down with my cup of coffee to post and I thought to myself you need to put up the pictures of your scraps basket. There it was. Scraps basket! maybe not so catchy, but it best describes the materials I used in making this. It started out as a bird nest which I made out of the box stuffing paper from my stamping up order. In my collage class Sunday we were joking about keeping that stuffing or tossing it and I said I felt like I could make a cool dress with it by scrunching it & misting it. Instead I misted it & made into a birds nest/basket. The eggs In it I started out by taking toilet paper rolls & them cut into 3 pieces. Then stuffed them with paper and started taking strips of a paper bag brushed with watered down mod podge. Then I starting shaping them into an egg shape. Basically paper mache. When I finished the eggs I sped up the drying process with my heating tool because I'm a little on the impatient side. I first painted them & didn't like the way that looked at all so thats when I got the idea of using buttons to cover them. For an impatient person that took too long so I only did one egg covered with buttons. I loved it but no way was I gonna do all three eggs. The other two eggs I covered with pieces of old shirts that I have in my fabric stash. Then I added a little bling by adding old jewelery pieces to one & sequin flowers to the other. I made grass out of green crepe paper that I cut with my martha stewart scissors that cuts in strips. The handle to the basket I've had forever. Some ribbon on the trim, a bow on the side, a few flowers & Ta da! I had a beautiful, one of a kind easter basket. It's crazy what all we can make with scraps, a little creativity, & alot of imagination.

Spring in the classroom

Today Spring was in the air & in the classroom! It was our dc collage class this afternoon and I think this might be one of my favorites. Everyone really stepped out of their comfort zones and ended of with collages to be proud of. Thank you ladies for making time for some fun time in the classroom! I really enjoyed my time with you all & hope to see you soon.

Saturday scrap page

Tonight usual get together.Fried fish,hushpuppies,& fries for dinner. Sounds healthy huh? Not so much. Boy was it yummy! Anyway,after stuffing myself I wasn't sure what I was gonna work on. I started with putting my kits together for tomorrows dc collage class. Then I found a great picture of my daughters & some of their girlfriends. My new stampin' up paper that I got from Tessa came in & I really wanted to use it.That's just what I did. In my layout I also used jenni bowlin buttons, prima flowers & lace trim. I love the way it turned out. Very girly without a drop of pink in it!

Barbie Fun

Saturday I had the usual gang over for dinner & crafting. I wasn't really sure what I was gonna work on when my friend Kristen started talking about some barbie pictures a co-worker had on her computer or something like that. She said the dresses were so pretty. I said well, "What do the dresses look like?" Long story short she found the pictures on the computer & I said, I thought I could draw them. We decided to put them on 11x14 canvas. Kristen didn't finish hers but I just finished my tonight. It was a fun relaxing project. As a kid I loved playing Barbies. I loved dressing them, & I had everything from clothes to cars, to the Barbie townhouse. Remember that? Oh ya. I had it all. So this project kind of made me think back to those fun days. I used acrylic paints, copic markers, Toulle for the dress along with flowers on her skirt. I also used a ton of stickles because I love bling!

Saturday fun

I had my usual saturday night gang over for food & fun. Tonight the menu was simple. Hor'deurves. Of course I ate too much & will no doubt have to try & work it off at the gym this week. I have been working on a really funky, fun project.I put the finishing touches on it tonight & I have to say I like it alot. In it I used Tim Holtz gears, watch faces, prima flowers, butterflies, & buttons.I first started with a canvas & gesso to prime it. I picked my background colors & it just took off from there.I started painted my ladies face & gave her a bee hive sort of hair do because I knew I wanted to layer it with gears,& flowers. I love the look of steampunk & have wanted to do a project with this as a theme for a while. I had so much fun with this project but now that it's done I have to think of another fun new project.

8x8 Fun Pages

I love doing random pages.I start by just putting bits & pieces down on my paper.When I'm doing pages with more of the ecclectic feel I definitely don't go for matchy, matchy.Just like with the cd class,& the mini canvas class this is a fun way to use up odds & ends of paper,ribbon, & ephemera.You don't always have to have pictures in mind to put together fun pages.Alot of times I don't add pictures until later & sometimes I just add ephemera to make it a collage book. I guess its pretty much the same as my art journaling pages.I like to make different sizes of pages. I may start out with 8x8 & then do an 8x10 so you can get that staggered look that you can add tabs to. On the 8x8 pages here I used my sewing machine to sew on the pages, along with duct tape, buttons, pieces of hankerchiefs, & paint. Its about not overthinking & just letting go & creating.Remember there is no right or wrong in art. Sometimes its not that something is wrong but you may not be getting the look you're going for. When that happens I just keep working with it by painting, or layer over what I don't like. Every now & then I can't come up with something I like so I just set it aside & come back to it later.Putting on my favorite music always helps bring out that creative mood.

Things that make me smile

Every now & then the creative juices don't flow. Something new to get me out of my rut is to take pictures of things around my house that I like. I collect buddhas so I like taking pictures of those or goodies brought to me as gifts from other countries. Sometimes it just helps sprucing up my work space so I can start with a clean slate.