This is a card I initially started making for a card contest on the "Stemelglede" blog. They are having a contest through Dec. 6th and the two requirements are you must use only their stamps, and the other is to use the images they have shown on the blog for color inspiration. I believe this company is out of Holland but I'm not completely certain on that.

At any rate, I stumbled upon their blog one day while I was blog hopping and I just fell in love with the work the Design Team does. It's all so pretty and whimsical and very shabby chic-ish. So, when I needed that type of inspiration I would go visit their blog. They have really cool stamps as well. I actually only own one of their stamps, but I love this particular stamp I bought, it's called "Maribel" and it's a really cool image of a woman. A lot of the other stamps they manufacture have a very "grunge" type look to them. So as I was saying, I started in on this card the other day and I got so into making the front of the card that I totally forgot about the stamped image I needed to put on the front. So this particular card turned out pretty I think, but it is NOT the card I will be entering into the contest.

If you get a chance go visit their blog. I think you will agree, they have some great inspiration over there. http://stempelglede.typepad.com

Quite awhile ago I stamped this Asian beauty on some transparency along with the fans and I then colored them in on the backside using Twinkling H2O's. The transparencies turned out really pretty that way. But then for some reason I set the three stamped images to the side and forgot about them. I didn't get back to making something with them until now. I have since attached the two fans to the main transparency and then attached that focal piece to some black cardstock.

Yesterday I finally finished making something with these transparency images. I attached some beautiful redish/pinkish cardstock to a cardboard piece that measures 7x9 and then I stamped some cherry blossoms on the red/pinkish cardstock. Then I stamped out a motivating sentence that I randomly came up with using the Asian style word stamps that I got from Club Scrap and then attached the focal transparency piece to it the larger cardboard piece. To finish it up I added some black German Dresden to the top and bottom of it, then on either side of the piece I ran some black Stickles glitter glue along the sides and then I added some paper flowers to the cherry blossom branches. Finally, I embellished the paper flowers with black Stickles glitter glue. By the way, I realize the main stamped image of the Asian woman is kind of hard to see. Try clicking on it if you want a better look.

I'm not really thrilled with the paper flowers that were added and how they turned out. But what's done is done. I actually initially tried making some cherry blossoms that stood out with some of Ranger's liquid pearls. However, they ended up looking really sloppy, so I needed to make these paper flowers to cover that mess up so you couldn't see it. Overall though, I'm happy with how it turned out.

I had sent Stampers Sampler my original "Penelope" collage (see prior posts on it) that I made and then all the different pieces I made from that collage after I made different sized copies of it. When I received my newest issue of Stampers Sampler, I found out that they will be doing a challenge/call for artwork based on one of the pieces I sent to them using that particular collage. I had initially thought they could use everything I sent in for a masterboard article, but I guess they decided to do this instead, which is fine by me. It will be interesting to see what everyone comes up with based on the directions they have given for this challenge.

RAK from TumbleFish

Take a look at the awesome original collage I won from the TumbleFish blog. I've been dying to own an original piece of Marsha's and now I do, yeah!! I actually won her RAK drawing. So in return for this one of a kind beautiful, beautiful artwork I received, I need to either do three random acts of kindness to three other individuals within a year, or I need to draw three names and send three different individuals some original artwork of mine as a RAK.

I'm just so excited to have this piece Marsha made. I've always had a hard time believing that she does cut and paste it all together because when you see it on-line it has such a polished, finished look, you kind of assume it's digital artwork. But now that I see it up close and personal I can verify that she does piece it all together herself and that in person it's even more amazing. If you've never been to Marsha's blog I highly recommend it. http://tumblefishstudio.blogspot.com/

One quick little correction. These last three photos were not different angles to one piece I made as I had said in the previous post. It is two different frames that I made using that same collage in the frame. One of the frames has a transparency butterfly and the other has a stamped, embossed bird.

These three photos are the different angles to a piece I made using my "Penelope" collage. The best thing about making these collages I've been working on, is that you can copy them, reduce them and incorporate them into anything and everything you make. They go great in journals, you can cut them up into strips, I could even print them up as collage sheets and sell them. But I'm not up to that task yet. Marsha over at TumbleFish just finished making several collage sheets and it sounds like it takes a bit of time. But her work is so awesome, I think it will be well worth it because everyone is going to want to buy them.

At any rate, I've made about four of these colored collages now with an image of a woman in the middle and I'm currently working on three more. They are all different colors and the one I'm currently working on is the cream colors, ivory and whites. Then after that I will be doing one with kind of a red, white and blue color theme, and finally I will be doing one that has all different colors of orange.

But I liked how this frame turned out. This is a reduced version of the collage inside the frame. I believe my friend Laura Haviland over at creativewhispers7.com has one of these that I made for her?

This is a Marie Antoinette collage I put together for the AlphaStamps site. AlphaStamps is having their 5th Anniversary and along with that they are having a contest called "Let Them East Cake." Back in the Spring of this year when everyone was in "Marie Antoinette Mode"
I never did end up making anything using one of her images. Not because I didn't like her or anything, I just never got around to it. Plus I'm not big on trends so I was kind of waiting for it to all die down. But let's face it, how could you not love this young queen who was such a rock star before there were rock stars. Or maybe she was the Britney Spears of her generation? Or possibly the Paris Hilton of the Versailles? Who knows, but she was young, beautiful and full of spunk and who doesn't love a girl like that?

Well finally, here is my first Marie piece. I painted the chipboard birdcage with a metallic pink paint and then on portions of the birdcage I attached some glitter. I just love how the birdcage turned out. If your looking for a birdcage like this, you can find them on the AlphaStamps website. The french document that the collage was done on is an authentic document I got from VintageCharmings.com and I believe it is dated 1870. I think it's the prettiest document just by itself, so I knew it would be perfect to do the collage on. And I love the way the roses and flowers look against Marie, the document and also the birdcage. I'm debating on whether I should add some satin pink ribbon to the collage or not? It just seems like it needs a little something else. What do you think?

Biggest Cactus in Arizona

For those of you who are not that familiar with the desert or how big cactus's can get here, this is a picture of my step-father Ray standing by the biggest Saguaro cactus that we know of in Arizona. Pretty big don't you think?

ArtChix Blue Moo Crads

These are the first six Moo cards I made for the up and coming ArtChix swap. I'm not sure or not if I'll be making six more. I've hit a bit of a slump and I'm not sure what direction to go?

I am however very happy to announce that I won the ArtChix Art Doll contest/swap. It was very unexpected and I was very excited. The ART Dolls are here on my blog back in one of the October posts. There were so many amazing entries I was really humbled by the win. That particular Yahoo group has an incredible amount of talented artists.

I want to clarify something I wrote about on my Halloween post from 10/31/09. A few people have commented on what I said and I think they got the wrong idea. I was apologizing for my backgrounds and telling you all how bad they were and that I wish I was better with them. I was not referring to the backgrounds on my art pieces, I'm referring to the background behind the pieces I have scanned.

I probably should put either a white or black piece of cardstock behind each piece I scan, but I forget to do that. Especially on the pieces that aren't square in shape, it's hard to get the backgrounds just right on those. The square ones are easiest because I just crop out everything except all four sides of the art piece I have just scanned. As I had mentioned, my friend Trudi does awesome backgrounds, and so do a lot of you as well. Trudi can give the scanned art piece a framed background or put ribbons around all sides or just get the background all completely blacked out. But like I said I'm not great at it and it's something I need to work on. I probably need to buy photoshop or a similar program like that. Right now I'm using the free IrfanView.

I came across these older cards I made last year sometime I think? I had submitted them to Stampers Sampler but they were never published. Even though my work and techniques have changed quite a bit since I made these, I still thought these were kind of cute when I came across them. You know how when you come across older work that you've done and you either hate it, or you think "Well, that's not too bad."
I thought these weren't too bad. I called them the "Hat Ladies".

These are a few Halloween pieces I did that I thought I'd appropriately show you today. Before I tell you a little about them, I want to apologize for my backgrounds. I wish I could do really even, great backgrounds but I don't know how. My friend Trudi over at Two Dresses Studio can do wonderful backgrounds. I wish I had her digital talents because she's amazing. So try and ignore my sloppy backgrounds if you don't mind?

This first one is a Halloween collage I did on 6x6 bookboard. Granted the witch isn't scary looking, in fact she's quite sweet looking, but there are those good witches too.

The second one is a little house I made initially for Leslie at Alpha Stamps. I thought the little girl coming out of the pumpkin was pretty cute, so I thought I'd show you that one.

And finally I made this little holder for some Halloween tags I made. The tags I actually made pretty quickly one day for my sister Shelly who was going to be having a Halloween party and I was giving her examples of what she could do to decorate her house a bit.

Happy Halloween to everyone out there in blogging land. Tomorrow is November, can you believe it?

Well, Halloween is just around the corner now if you can believe that? Pretty soon it will be turkeys, giving thanks and then the whole holiday rush is officially on. Where this year went I have no idea? I'm at a loss. At any rate, I made this little Halloween piece just for fun. The two witches in training are my two big sisters. Pretty cute weren't they? It's amazing looking at them at this point and how cute they were, that they soon grew up to torture me. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating, they have both always been pretty exceptional to me, but what fun would that be if I said how wonderful they were on a Halloween art piece? That wouldn't really fall into the whole witch persona would it?

I'm a little late with this particular post but a very, very happy 50th to my big sister Shelly. Look how darn cute she was? I of course had to rosy her cheeks up a bit with some chalk. This is the card I made for her to celebrate her birthday this year. I can't even believe she's 50. I remember when both my sisters (who are six and seven years older than me) were in their late twenties and me and my friends thought they were so old. Wow, time goes fast doesn't it? I should find a picture of her to show you all what she looks like now. She doesn't even look close to 50, more like 35 to 37, somewhere in there. She has this amazing figure and the big perfect boobs with blonde hair, you know.........she's the whole package. She's incredibly beautiful. It's truly annoying when people think I'm older than she is. But oh well, I've had some physical challenges that she hasn't had and I'm just proud to call her my big sis. At any rate, on October 9th she turned 50 and this is what she looked like back in the day when she was just a little babe in the woods, cute as a button then, cute as a button now.