Valentine Swap 2, 3, 4 & 5

The Be My Valentine swap organized by Lelaina Lloyd is in full swing now. We're up to Day 5 of opening wonderful artsy Valentine treats from all over the world. Unfortunately, I still haven't received Day 1's gift, but I'm hoping it may arrive today. Here are Days 2, 3, 4 and 5. It is so much fun opening these awesome little surprises every day. What talented folks!

Today's gift was from my dear friend and art buddy Arlene Travnik. She created a luxuriously padded embossed satin heart with a little pocket which holds a soldered charm with an accompanying little message on a piece of paper. One side of the charm reads: My Secret Valentine 2007, while the other side reads: She alters her heart. Beautiful. Thanks Arlene ~ your work always inspires me.

Welcome home!

Look at this ~ my calendar made it's way home this week!! What a treasure of art it is.
It's so thick and chock-full of wonderful textures, colour and fantastic art by some of altered art's best-est mixed mediaists!

Thank you Beth, Sue, Liz, Caren, Christine, Lorraine, Sharon, Jennifer, Cece, Ruth, and Marci.

You guys have created a wonderful piece of art that I shall always be cherished. Thank you Marci for sending the calendars on to me in rotation without delay. Also I'd like to give a big thank you to Kathy Wasilewski for putting this year-long swap together. It's been a wonderful journey together. I've experimented, stretched, made mistakes, grown and learnt so much from the other talented artists, mentioned above, in the process.

Please note: Thanks to my art buddy Arlene who is so incredibly computer savvy NOT! but who helped me add links to people I mention in my blog. Would that make you computer literate now, Arlene?

Love em ATCs

Four ATCs for Ruth Rae's Valentine ATC swap are now complete. It took me forever to start working on them, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. January and February always seem to be such a difficult month to produce art after the big Christmas rush. I feel artistically drained.

Anyhoo, here's "Love Bug", one of the ATCs. Material used include: copies of photos of me at ages 1 and 2, DYMO labels, chandelier danglies, glitter and more.

I'll be very exciting to receive 4 ATCs in return for these babies. It's been a long time since I've been in an ATC swap.

After completing these ATCs, yesterday, I continued making Valentine ATCs for an upcoming PHAP ATC swap. I'll post one or two of those ATCs soon for you to have a look.

Be my Valentine

I'm in a 14 day swap with the artists I participated with in the 12 Days of Christmas. This time around, we made 15 Valentine gifties for each other. We need to mail the gifts out to each participant directly. I love getting Snail Mail ~ it's such an event in this fast paced computer age.

Here's a photo of my WRAPPED gifts ~ What? You thought I'd show you what I made before February 8th, when my gift will be opened by the group? Silly you!

My art buddy, Arlene and I plan to mail out our things together. (Her gift will be opened on February 5th) This is soooo much fun ~ I can't wait to see what these wonderfully talented friends will create for this swap. Other swaps I'm in right now include a 4 for 4 Valentine ATC swap ~ which I really have to get moving on! Plus, I'm also working on a collaborative publishing effort with the artists of the Charm swap. More about that exciting subject yet to come ....

Happy New Year!

ABOVE: Two inserts tucked into page one of Beth's December calendar
RIGHT: Page 4 & 5 spread of the calendar

I apologize for the lull in posting blogs ... I see it was December 7th last time I actually put something out there. Thanks to the nagging of a nameless art buddy (Hi ARLENE), I'm FINALLY getting around to getting something done on here.

I've completed the last month of calendar pages ~ hard to believe a whole year has passed since we started this project. December's calendar is Beth's and her theme, Journeys. I created 10 pages, count em, in her book. I won't post all the photos here, but you can check out ALL the pages I completed in other people's calendars in 2006. Now I just have to sit back and patiently (NOT!) wait for my calendar to return home to me. This has been an awesome experience. Thanks to Kathy for heading up this project. I don't have one regret in signing up for this swap. It's been such an awesome learning experience for me all year through.

Next on the agenda ... I need to work on a Valentine Swap and a 5 for 5 ATC swap. It's kind of hard to get back into the artwork mode after Christmas. I need some inspiration ~ quick!

12 Days of Christmas almost here

Here's gift #12 from the 12 Days of Christmas swap I'm participating in. It starts on December 13th ~ I can't wait! How do you like my PINK Christmas tree? When I saw it at Winner's I just knew I had to buy it ~ it was calling my name! I literally laughed out loud when I first saw it. What fun!

On the 10th day of Christmas ...

I just completed my Christmas ornaments for the 12 Days of Christmas swap which Lelainia Lloyd is hosting. I had to make 12 ornaments which I'll mail out tomorrow morning to the US, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Each one has the basic same design with slight differences (I don't enjoy making "assembly line art"!).

My ornament is for the 10th day. It is made almost entirely of recycled materials because I love to reuse stuff in new ways. Unfortunately, I can't show you what it looks like, but here is a little teaser ... what it looks
like ... wrapped.

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser ...

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser" is a quote that appears on page 2 of the October calendar I completed for Liz.

This month has been a busy month for me ... my mom is seriously ill and was admitted to hospital on the 14th due to complications of a diabetic foot (she's still there), I've took a 3 week personal development career course and started a new job, so I haven't been blogging very much. However, I have completed some tasks.

** received my charm bracelette ~ yay!! See blog: http://justsimplycharming.blogspot.com/

** started working on my 12 Days of Christmas ornaments

** started collecting goodies for PHAP Secret Santa gift

Here are some photos of October calendar. I tried to use lush "autumn-y" colours and rich fabrics. For a close up peek at these pages, check out my Picture Trail at: http://picturetrail.com/canada_eh

I made 26 charms like this for a charm bracelette swap I'm participating in, hosted by Ruth Rae.

My charms are made from squished old bottle caps ~ with maple leaves on the backs. The photo on the charm is of my great aunt (she's on the right) taken in the 1920s. It says "CHUMS" and an antique-looking key adorns the side of the charm.

Here's a photo too of what the bracelette that Ruth is making for me will look like (imagine 25 little totally unique, artsy charms on it!) I can't wait ~ wheee!!

And ... September's Calendar

For September's calendar, Caren has a theme of Color and "A dream I have for myself." I like some of the pages I created for her calendar. I hope she'll like em too!

These are my two favourite pages. What do you think?


(Wow, did you notice, I'm posting twice in one night .. isn't that some sort of record or something?)

Here's August's pages

I just noticed that I didn't post August's calendar pages yet. This calendar had a New York theme with a Portal sub-theme. Pictured here is page 1, with a door opened to page 3. Also, a slide holder that I used on the sign in page which frames a postage stamp that reads: Greetings from New York.

I used the Statue of Liberty several time on the 6 pages I completed, including a bottle cap dangly attached to the bottom of page 1.

This was a challenge for me to work with this theme as it is one I wouldn't choose for myself. I still enjoyed working on it.

Mailmania2

I recently submitted some mail art for Mailmania2 in Victoria, Showing at the Fran Willis Gallery #200-1619 Store Street Victoria, BC, Canada, from 4 September until 21 September 2006. I noticed the other day that they'd posted my entry on the Mailmania blog. http://mailmania2.blogspot.com/

I painted the canvas and then added several layers of tissue paper and other papers, gold leaf and a photo transparency. The transparency I used on this 4"x6" canvas is of my Great Grandfather and my mother's cousin.

Zach also sent a postcard with a copy of a drawing he did of a imaginary creature named "Purple". His postcard, front and back is shown above.

Must blog!

I was just taking a look at my friend Arlene's blog and noticed how faithfully she's been blogging lately. It's really interesting to read. http://artdeme.blogspot.com/ Then I took a peek at my blog and realized that I've been "loafing on the job"! Sorry folks.

In other news ... I've signed up for several swaps as of late.
1. Charm Bracelette Swap (I have them done & ready to mail, but can't post them until they've been sent out to the participants)
2. Vintage Postcards
3. Altered Cabinet Cards
4. Twelve Days of Christmas (need to make 12 small gifts to send out to 12 other participants ~ I still haven't decided what to make for this

The circular art here is a photo repro of my mother with her mother in the 1920s. I used this piece for a recipe book that I made for my niece Sharon recently.

New York, New York

Rest easy ~ I'm not going to New York. I just got back from there. Sort of ... thanks to Christine's August calendar. I found this one to be a struggle, but I perservered and it's finally done. For page 6, I used a tip in that I made in 2003 ~ a little old, but it fit, so I used it. I've been trying to save photos here, but it doesn't seem to want to work, so hopefully I'm eventually able to upload some of the NY pages.

Bright Idea Award

This is the trophy that I recently created for PHAP. I began with an old trophy base (stuck on a pendant that said "BEST", and stuck on black-on-gold stickers reading "PHAP"). Then I attached a large cardboard thread spool to it. Then I covered the spool with silver tape. The award is topped with a red Christmas light with copper wire wrapped around it. To gussy up the award, I added a Zetti-like face and gave him a pointy hat, as well as a mini ATC, a rusty screw (Posse members often have a screw or two loose!), a small pencil, a red tag that reads "Bright Idea Trophy" and rhinestones. At the base of the award: blue, green and silver pipecleaners add some pizzazz, as do four marbles (just in case someone thinks they may have lost their marbles!).

The first winner of the award was Corrinne who created a very cool ART doll for the July Posse meetin'.

July pages done already!

Believe it or not, I'm actually ahead in the calendar swap! I received the July calendar soon after the June one arrived.

I decided to go with three different themes. 1. Canada Day
2. Humour
3. Travel

Pictured here is the Canada spread. I used transparent packing tape with Canadian flags on it on the backgrounds. If you look closely, you'll see the crossword puzzle pages ~ the original calendar were New York Times Crosswords. I like having some of the original book show through my pages. The library card holder contains some interesting facts about Canada in it. The soup tin can swing back and forth ~ a little kinetic art for you.

By the way, I messed up when I uploaded these pages. The moose page should actually be on the left side, because it's page one. Oh well. Happy Canada Day, eh!?

June pages done!

You would not believe the gorgeous calendar I got to work in this month. Cece's album is one of the most beautiful books I've worked in yet! The book's theme is Bohemian Rhapsody.

Take a look at all the pages on my Picture Trail at this address: picturetrail.com/canada_eh

The photo to the left is page 6 ~ the last page I did in Cece's calendar.

Show closes

The World Premier of Tom Wood's Peter Pan has closed in Edmonton after 49 performances (and countless rehearsals). On June 11th, the final show ran, and a closing night party followed.

I took lots of photos so that Zach would have a nice collection of pictures to remember the cast and crew by. This has been an awesome experience for Zach!

Photo: Peter Pan, Spittal & Captain Hook

May calendar pages done

Here are calendar pages 1 and 2 along with the sign in tag I made for Jennifer's calendar. Most people that had worked in her calendar so far had used a photo of themselves to identify themselves, so I decided to use a couple photo booth shots that I'd used for a previous Wacky Photo Booth Swap I hosted.

For Jennifer's calendar, I decided to feature things that had occured in my life during the month of May. I consentrated on 3 themes: Peter Pan play (my son's theatrical debut), the Pointy Hat ART Posse (my local mixed media art group) and the Edmonton Oilers' (our NHL hockey team) drive for the Stanley Cup.

Page 1: I made Jennifer a hanging star like the 34 other stars I created for the cast of Peter Pan, then I made an vellum envelope to "house" it in.

Page 2: This page features a photo of Captain Hook, punched out stars, and an Opening Night ticket attached to it. I trimmed the side of the page with dangly beads (mostly green) ~ Mmmm ... I love danglies and things hanging out the side of these calendars.

May ~ Pointy Pages

Hockey is Canada's sport. Hockey to us is like what baseball or basketball is to the the US. This year our local NHL team, the Edmonton Oilers, is one of the 4 teams left in the Stanley Cup play offs. So I had to do an Edmonton Oilers spread (pages 5 & 6). The team's colours are blue and copper, so I used blue and copper acrylic paint on these pages. On page five, I ripped a photo of the Oilers after a big series win out of the Edmonton Journal newspaper, sealed it with see-thru sticky paper. I added some team facts to the page and added copper wire to the side of the page. For page six, I used the photo that was on the page and added a Stanley Cup on top of the cake.

Here are the Pointy Hat ART Posse (PHAP), Pages 3 & 4 in the May calendar. I wanted to feature PHAP in one of the calendars during this year long project, and May seemed like the perfect time to do so. You can't really see here, but on page four, I used a golden corrigated cardboard background, and used one of the images from the original calendar, which I ripped out of the book. I think it was originally a bishop or something, but I made it into a PHAPer with a polka-dotted dress and pointy hat! "Bringing ART Justice to an Uncreative World" is the Posse's motto, by the way.

Peter Pan Opening Night a smashing success!

The performance was excellent and the after-party was fun. With cool jazz playing, the hors d'oeuvres were great ~ everything from sushi, to fruit platters, cheeses to appetizers on a spoon and tea, coffee, punch and wine were available to all. The lighting was very dim, so half the time we couldn't see exactly what we were sampling. We were famished however, (because we hadn't really taken the time to eat supper), so we really didn't much care ~ everything tasted yummy. They had a cool ice sculpture of a ship "Wendy" to add to the ambiance.

Zach looked very handsome at the party in his "dress-up" clothes ~ even if he didn't button up 3 buttons on his shirt and "forgot" to wear his tie. Hehee

The first thing Zach said to me when we met him after the show was that everyone LOVED the stars. He added that a couple people even hugged him when they received them. While we were mingling at the party, the actor who played Hook came up to Zach and thanked him for the star, commenting on how creative it was.

I ended up making 4 extra stars which was a good thing. Instead of writing names on them, I wrote: "All children, except one, grow up". I think that once Zach realized how impressed people were with them, he was encouraged to give more out to some of the production crew including the director. The photo above shows Zach's star inside the see-thru envelope I made. I sealed all the envelope with copper coloured wax and sealed it with a embossing star.

A good time was had by all.
The big partiers that we are ...we arrived at home by midnight.

I'm seeing Stars!

Zachary's been working hard since March as a part of the production of Peter Pan at the Citadel Theatre here in the city. Tonight they're doing the play in front of their first preview audience. Zach plays an Indian guard and a nasssssty pirate.

Our family will be going to see the play on Opening Night on May 4th which is soooo exciting!

Here's a couple photos of the stars I made for Zach to give the other cast members. I made 31 in all, including one for Zach. I was very pleased how the stars worked out.
Thanks to the Pointy Hat Art Posse members who helped me cut out the stars from matt board ~ that stuff is THICK!

New Swap ~ come join the fun!

Strawberry Saroyan of the NY Times News Service writes: "... The old-fashioned photo booth is making a comeback. Bars and restaurants in San Francisco and New York are using them to attract customers, and individuals are buying them for their homes. But perhaps not surprisingly it is in Hollywood where they have become the toy du jour, with celebrities installing them as permanent party gimmicks for guests who never tire of seeing themselves in close-up."

Back by popular demand, it’s time for another Wacky Photo Booth Swap (WPBS)! 4 for 4 original ATCs

Here’s what you do: Collect your "props", go to a photo booth, get your photos taken (you can scan the orginal photo strips if you wish to keep them) and create a set of 4 ATCs.
Because some people wanted to join last time, but didn’t have a photo booth in their area, this time around you are welcome to "create" a photo booth-like backdrop and take your own photos. Or, you may want to use old photo booth ATCs from way back when. Having said that, anyone who participated in the last WPB Swap would tell you half the fun was venturing out to a photo booth in a middle of a mall somewhere ~ oh the adventure of it all! Any questions? Just ask.
Sign up by: 12 May 2006
Due Date: 12 June 2006 (in my hands)
Postage within Canada: send a SASE
Postage from US: If you’re in the US, please send $2 cash to cover return postage as I cannot use US postage stamps to mail things back to you.

Email me if you wanna play!

Sharon's April calendar ~ my 1st spread

For the first spread in Sharon Wisely's calendar (April), I ripped a page out which had the photo of the girl and the cow and then pasted it on another page. Then I painted the two pages in a beautiful spring green. Accent colour here is a fuschia and the pages have an Easter theme. The pocket on the right side contain some goodies including an Easter ATC, a silver pendant and a page from an old hymnal with an Easter hymn on it. Sharon placed a Cesare Pavese quote on the 2nd page, but the whole quote wasn't there, so I finished it in big letters on the right. Lots of colour and scribbling on these pages as well as a few poked holes, jagged edges and ribbons galore complete this spread.

Sharon's calendar ~ 2nd spread

Here is a two page spread that I have completed in Sharon Wisely's calendar (for the MMCA calendar swap).

On the left hand page, Sharon included an small envelope with a place for a few facts to be inserted about each individual artist who creates in her calendar. They are: Name, favourite colour, indulgence, favourite movie, and the following statement: "If I had wings I would ..." Stuff I used on this spread include: soft pastel (fast becoming my favourite thing to work with), markers, crayons, fibers, glitter glue, a tag, rubber stamps and found images.

Inspire Me Thursday #5 (Monochromatic)

The colour here on my monochromatic Inspire Me Thursday entry isn't too good because I can't seem to get the true colour ~ I'm taking it in the evening ~ you know me ... a great procrastinator.

Gotta keep a few, once in a while.

Today I completed the 9 ATCs for Nicolette's Elvis swap. It was fun to create these ATCs ~ too bad I didn't have an Elvis CD to listen to while I created. Oh well. I also made a little something special to go along with the ATCs for each participant.

I'm also trying to finish off a few pieces for other people that I promised to complete. Hope to have them all done in time for the Pointy Hat ART Posse meeting on Monday night.

The ATC shown here is one that I made to keep for my personal collection. Although I've traded hundreds of ATCs over the past three years, I've kept very few for myself. It's nice to have some to show when people ask to see some of my own ATCs. I've gotta keep a few, once in a while.

The hats these ladies are wearing read: "create", "know your style" and "magic" ~ appropriate I think. When I make pointy hats using words, I don't always pick and choose, but today I was in the mood to do just that.

Just had a thought ... perhaps I should make an altered book, with this ATC on the cover, and display some of the many ATCs that I've received from fellow posse members. I do have quite a collection of ATCs from my local art buddies here.

Well I'm off to the library to return some books and maybe find some inspiration for the last project I have to work on for Monday night. See you again soon.

Inspire Me Thursday #4

Theme this week is BIG. We were encouraged to make bigger art than we normally would. Since I most often make ATCs, anything bigger than 2.5"x3.5" is BIG.

I decided to work on a page for my friend Nicolette's Vintage Grunge book which features all hand-made paper. It measures 8.5"x11" ~ bigger than my usual comfort zone. To make it, I used some of my handmade stamps, brush markers, crayons (my favourites!), acrylic and some vintage images. This page also features moving parts, hand sewing and dangly beads. I loved making this and I hope Nicolette will enjoy it too!

Snow Day!

I woke up this morning and looked out my window to see my large spruce tree weighted down by tons of snow. Seems we've got all our snow during the month of March. Strange winter.

Here you can see my husband shovelling the walk. He's standing in front of our car which was buried under the white stuff.

Well at least since we didn't go ANYwhere today due to the storm, I got lots of artwork done. I'll upload a photo of one of the things I did too.