Card and flower

My friend, Bren made me a really cute Christmas card and I just love looking at it. I think Santa is after that bird with his golf club and the dog and cat want in because they are afraid they are next! I still have the card on my mantle and everytime I look at it, it makes me chuckle.

Bren also gave me an amaryllis for Chirstmas and told me to document it's growth so here is the first picture.

Cricket and lucky # 7 - TMTA

This is my ATC for Think Monday - Think ATC. The theme is symbols of luck. We've always considered crickets good luck and if we get one in the house, we carefully try to get them back outside but they can be really hard to catch!

The #7 is what I consider my own personal lucky number.

Prize package

I have been on the EK Success Consumer board for some time now and recently did a survey for them and they said there would be 20 people that would win a prize package. Well, Friday I came home and there was a package on my front porch. It was like Santa visited and left me a prezzie! I was so excited and thrilled to get a prezzie especially at Christmas time.
Thank you, EK Success!

Here is what I got:

There was a punch needle kit. I've never done an punch needle work before and I'm excited to find out how to do it after the holidays.

There was over 20 Jolee's stickers and other fun packages of stickers. Wahoo! A whole box of fun!

There was a fun scrapbook that has folders inside with the page protecters. I've never seen a scrapbook like this and I'm looking forward to being able to save some memorabelia in the folders.

There is a curvey cutter that interlocks apparently to do all types of shapes - circles, ovals, squares and curvey lines. I am super excited about this! I have the circle cutter and I love it!

There are Jolee Swarovski crystals (which I've alread torn into) and a package of Christmas ornaments. I love making earrings so the Swarovski crystals will be really enjoyed and the Christmas ornament will be opened this Christmas when the kids and grandson are here.

And last, there is a Martha Stewart collector's box. It is a hinged shadow box frame that you put something special into. Hmm! Wonder what an altered artist can put in there! Hmm! All sorts of possibilities, aren't there?

I'm going to have fun for a long time using all those goodies!

Christmas star - TMTA

This is my ATC for Think Monday - Think ATC. The theme is a Christmas character. My character is the Christmas star. I did it on Black Magic Cardstock and sanded it.

Black Magic cardstock has color on one side and black on the other side. It is great to sand and emboss.

The city scene is hand cut and it has blue stickles. The star is punched and treated to gold stickles.

2009 Christmas card

This is one of my Christmas cards for this year. I just love these colors together!

Dreams - TMTA

The theme this week at Think Monday - Think ATC is dreams. Everyone's ATCs are so pretty but my dreams are not pretty. I have weird dreams that make no sense. Last night I dreamed I had a baby that I forgot about and someone else was feeding it and fussing at me because I forgot about it. I put a car key on my ATC because there is no telling where I'll go in my dreams!

charms and stickey note holder

It is so nice to finally have some time to create art. I did my very first charms for a Valentine charm swap that my art group, AAWA (An Affair with Art) is doing. The little heart is stamped with a script stamp (although it is now lost after shrinking), colored with alchol inks and die cut. The heart is shrink plastic.

And I also did a stickey note holder book for a Thanksgiving lottery for my art group. The pumpkin is a magazine picture that I have been saving. I absolutely love this picture although it is a well worn picture. The saying was made very real to me when our church packed over 1400 boxes of Love for people that would have otherwise not have had a Thanksgiving meal. We also helped to give out these boxes and my heart went out to one lady in particular. She came to get her box and ran out of gas and had no money for more gas. We did get her back on the road with more gas and I will certainly be thinking of her and praying for her and opening my heart to others more because God has blessed me so much this Thanksgiving.

Blue Bird - TMTA

After 2 extremely busy weeks, I am finally able to get back to starting my week off right with some art. I had no idea what to do for the Think Monday Think ATC theme this week which was the color blue and the bird. So I started out with my favorite blue metallic paint and drybrushed it onto an old playing card. Then I used an old phonebook and looked up the words, "blue" and "bird". Then I got into my images and scraps and this is what I came up with.

Caribbean altered book and ATC for Local Altered Book club

Above is an altered book that I just completed for our local altered book club. I was inspired by the holey paper that I purchased at Random arts. Here is their website:

http://www.randomartnotes.blogspot.com/

Their Holey paper is vintage paper from the textile mills.

I tore out a page from the book so that I could make it holey and put these caribbean fish from an old children's encyclopedia under it. I also stamped circles on the page and embossed them with the white diamonds embossing powder that I also purchased there. So you can't see it too well with the picture but it sparkles just like water does. The bottom page has a blue metallic paint and the page that I tore out and then glued back on top has turquoise mettalic paint on it. The map is from the same old children's encyclopedia. The tag is in the pocket of the book. It is a chipboard tag and that is the back and front of it.

I did a page on the fish under the Caribbean waters because that is my favorite thing to do when I visited the Caribbean and I thought that the circles reminded me of the view that you have through your snorkle mask.

The ATC is a swap that we are doing in our AB club with ATCs that fold up. She has a watercolor paper background that has been done with green inks. She is hand watercolored except for her dress which was printed on leaf paper and her wings are sparkly with Stickles.

I have missed doing an ATC for TMTA this Monday because I have had no internet service for 3 days but I will be checking out all of their ATCs this week. Their theme is fruit this week.

Gypsy tags, Autumn banner and Gypsy book cover

These are some of the projects we did on my retreat last weekend. Diann did the tags and Jeri gave us some gypsy pictures and we each did a tag and then traded them. My tag is now in my book.

The front of my Gypsy book is pictured here. I will post pictures of the entire book whenever I finish it.

Charlotte and I planned and put the banners into kits for all of us to do at the retreat. I am enjoying this pretty banner in my dining room.

Smokey Mt Retreat

Where does the time go when you're having fun?

We laughed so much that I am just beginning to recover from the most wonderful weekend

in the Smokey Mountains with a great group of girls. We has a beautiful log cabin in the mountains overlooking Maggie Valley.

This is the view from our deck.

I'll have to put the banner we did and the book that I'm working on in another post.

Wish I could be this pampered and have that much fun all the time. It was a great weekend!

Thanks so much to Jeri for organizing this weekend and to our cooks who keep us stuffed with the best food you can imagine.

I tried really hard to get everyone's name with their pictures but after much editing I still could not get the names to turn out with the pictures. The first picture is Kathy (Vanna), a picture of all of us, Barbara and Joanne - our wonderful cooks, Linda, Kathy's finger watch, Eugenia, Autumn, Diann, Charlotte, Roxanna, Mary, me, and Jerri - the organizer of the retreat.

Brown ATC - TMTA

This is my ATC for TMTA for this week. Their theme this week is the color brown.

Ghosts in the graveyard - TMTA

Happy Halloween, Y'all!

punk - Think Monday - Think ATC

Punk and grunge sort of go together in my mind so I did this punk girl with her broken heart and a Janice Joplin song for this week's challenge which was punk on Think Monday-Think ATC.

Day of the Dead ATC and domino

This is my Day of the Dead ATC and domino. This is a swap that my online art group, AAWA is doing. I put a mini domino and a heart on my ATC to show that this was a dearly departed one.

Cards for our troops and Youth rehab

Our online art group, An Affair with Art - AAWA is doing cards

for our troops and cards for a youth group in rehab. I made 6 of each of these to send out.

Autumn post card

Oh joy, the challenge for Think Monday - Think ATC was an Autumn challenge this week! I am already in an Autumn mood so this one was just fun. The leaves are stamped on an old french book page and inked and then glued to mica and cut out.

I just love Fall

I just love Fall and Halloween and I've been in an orange kind of mood. This is an altered CD that I did for my local altered book club. She is the Fall Queen.

And this is an ATC paper doll. She was not supposed to fit on the card and had to be folded up to fit inside the ATC. She is the pumpkin patch fairy.

Hotlanta - TMTA

This is my ATC for Think Monday - Think ATC's challenge this week which is big cities. Atlanta, Georgia is only about 3 hours away from me depending on the traffic which is never ending and scary! I think Atlanta will forever be building roads and having traffic problems. But even though it is a relativly new city because it was destroyed in the civil war, it has risen from the ashes and is truly a hot big city now. Everyone in the South knows it as Hotlanta.

Got Milk? - Think Monday - Think ATC

This is my ATC for this week's theme at Think Monday - Think ATC which is bottles.

Dolly & Me - Think Monday - Think ATC

The theme at Think Monday - Think ATC is little girls and their dolls. Well I must have been good that Christmas because I not only have a doll, I have a turtle too!