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.

Inspire Me Thursday #3

Okay, I'll be the first to admit I did not enjoy the Inspire Me Thursday (IMT) challenge this week. It's very important to me that my art conveys a message of some significance, and when I saw the "senseless" challenge, I immediately thought of Jackson Pollack's drip paintings ~ senseless. So here's my artist process for this senseless piece ... I grabbed a piece of blue cardstock (about 2"x5") and packing tape. Next I stuck the packing tape sticky side down on my work table. By doing so, I collected bits and pieces of paper that were sitting there. Yep, I think it's senseless.

Birthday Challenge

Sally Turlington (of MMCA fame) had her birthday this week and asked people to post photos of themselves as children on their birthdays.

Here's the photo of me on my first birthday. Sorry about the quality of the snapshot ~ that was a long time ago, ya know. My mom made the cake and my dad was holding me behind (see his hands?).

Happy birthday Sally ~ it was fun to meet your birthday challenge!

Wheeeeeeeeeeee ~ I love Dollarama

This morning I was in Dollarama and found theeeee most incredible thing to add to the calendar I've been working on. Look at this!

Not only is this Asian shirt gorgeous but it's simply perfect for Ruth's calendar. I feel better about my contribution to Ruth's calendar now because I was feeling like I need to add fabric somehow to the mix but didn't think I could ~ until today.

March's desk calendar RR spreads

Here are the four pages I created in Ruth Rae's calendar. Although most of her book is in fabric, I stuck to my Vintage Grunge look on paper. Anyone who knows me, knows I've got an acute case of Fabricphobia! I love and appreciate the work others do with fabric, but I have difficulty in using it in my own work.

On the fourth page, I ripped a photo of one of van Gogh's Asian influenced work of a pear tree in blossom. Then using my latest favourite medium, soft pastel, I added my own impressionism to the page.

I think I'm finished with Ruth's calendar ... but you never know ... I may just have to add some more embellies if I can find the right ones!

On another note ... it's snowing like cats and dogs this morning. Strange winter ... no snow all winter until March. Go figure. Anyway, I'm off to Tim Horton's to Rrrrroll-up-the-Rrrrrim (Canadians will know what I mean by that) and have coffee with my friend Nicolette. She wants to see Ruth's calendar before I send it off in the mail again. Have a cozy day!

Spendin' a little time with my friends

My art buddy Arlene and her two great kids came over yesterday to play. I showed her the RR calendar that I'm working on currently (which I received in the mail the day before ~ perfect timing, eh)? Lots of eye candy in it for sure. Ruth, the person who is the original creator of this particular calendar did an absolutely beautiful job on setting the tone for it.

The theme is "Asian Victorian". Pictures certainly cannot show just how lovely this book is ~ but I'll show a couple here anyway. The first is a side view of the calendar. Look at the side view of this thing! And this is with only 3 people having worked on it. Imagine how it'll be when it's completed.

I wish I'd taken a photo of the recyled soup tin Arlene created while she was at my house. It had a tea theme and was absolutely gorgeous!

Creating with the 5 senses

For Inspire Me Thursday this week, the challenge was to use all five of your senses in the creative process.

At first I thought that this was going to be a difficult exercise. But it was a good one in the end because it got me to think about the sensory aspect of creating a piece of art.



WHAT I DID (& what senses were used):

• took Irish Spring soap out of its box (smell)
  - here I could have used the sense of taste, but didn't
• flattened it (touch)
• scribbled with my favourite medium ~ waxed crayons (smell)
• used acrylic paint as a wash over box (see)
• sandpapered parts of box (hear)
• then used felt marker to write "embellie" on box (smell)
• glued on bottle cap that i'd previously created (touch of warm glue gun in my hand)
• rounded up unused some bottle caps and closed box (touch ~ picking caps up)
• shook the box (hear)

So I wonder what the challenge will be next week ....