Sunday, January 28, 2007

Hi Everyone!

I don't have much of an update... but I did want to add a link to the charms swap since with my chosen template I don't have a links section on my blog page. Please visit the charms swap blog for more delightful eye candy!!! The charms that are being submitted are really incredible!

This past week, I also completed a fatbook page for Vickie from B-Muse. As some of you might be aware, she suffered from a brain aneurysm earlier this year. Her Bmuse yahoo! group hosted a special fat book as a get well gift for Vickie. The first picture is the front of the page, the second, the back.

The most recent news is that Vickie is home now and is getting stronger and stronger by the day. I hope that she enjoys her fatbook... and my wish for her is that she recovers from this stronger and more vibrant than she was before (although for those of you who know her, you know she's already an amazing woman!)

So that's all for now... Thanks for checking in and reading along!

~Anne

January 23, 2007 10:41 pm

Hi Everyone!

Wow! Did it snow! We don't usually get snow up here... rain... sure, but rarely does it snow. I would say we average maybe one snow per year, and usually it's a light snow that remains a day or two at the most. My kids were out of school all week last week, except for Friday, which was a late start day, because of the snow.

The change in the weather also affected me, leaving me with a cold/flu that just hasn't been much fun to contend with. I think I'm on the mend now though, and able to do a lot more than I was just a couple of days ago.

Which leads me to explain the tardiness in some of the tea of the month packages. I was working on preparation of the tea of the month packages just before the snowstorm hit this way. After that, I wasn't able to trek down to the post office. So, my apologies for the delays, please be assured that your packages WILL be mailed later this week.

On to art related news... I have been working on charm-making as of late. Here are a couple pictures of my first set, which I finished several weeks ago, but only just got around to getting them scanned. I only scanned 3 of the 22 that I made, scanning 22 individual charms just didn't seem like fun to me........

These were all done on guitar picks. I had traded for a bunch of guitar picks about a year and a half ago, but never got around to trying my hand at altering them... so I decided to use them as the base for my charms. The flowers are cut out of German paper scrap, and then I used a gloss lacquer to coat it, and then sealed it with acrylic sealant. Here are a couple more......

As you've probably noticed this one's a bit different. Most of the charms look like this second one, with a flower in the background and a butterfly as the main image, with the word "fly". Only two of them did I make with just a rose.

I'm really happy with the way these turned out. It's funny, when I first started doing these, I thought that they wouldn't be 'enough' with just the rose, that they needed the butterfly and word to complete the collage look... but now that they're all finished, I think I actually prefer the simplicity of the rose picks.

Anyway, so now that they've been 'airing' out for a couple of weeks, I think they're ready to head on out to the swap hostess. I am so looking forward to seeing the rest of the charms sent in from this swap!

So that's all for now!

~Anne

Happy New Year!

Hi Everyone!

How's the new year's resolutions going so far? For me, not so great... but better than most years, I suppose. My #1 resolution is to journal more often (written journal as opposed to blogger journal). While I have been keeping the journal... I've not been keeping it daily, which I'd like to do... but I guess it's probably not too realistic for me... I just don't have the attention span, I guess.

Anyway... here are some photos of what inspired me to begin journaling more... I've altered 3 journal covers -- all three for swaps, and I want to use the books! Here's two of them that I altered...

This first one is an Asian inspired collage... the top is the front, the bottom, the back. I didn't scan the inner covers (which I also altered) because I didn't want to possibly break the binding of the books in the scanner...

I used a pond leaf handmade paper as the base cover... I liked how the pond leaf impressions sort of look like fans, adding to the overall Asain theme.

For the second journal cover, I used a kit that I got from Altered Pages. I don't think she sells these particular kits anymore... but I just loved the colors and the gypsy theme of the collage sheets in the kit, and thought they worked well with the composition book cover.

The colors of the papers included in the kit were so bold and beautiful. I painted a base coat onto the covers using a latex paint I found at my local hardware store, and then added the papers which I tore to give some interest. I added the images & gel medium. On top of the images, I used crackle glaze -- I really liked the effect this created. Then I painted a strip of muslin to cover the spine and used copper tape around the edges. I found an old earring that I used on the end of a piece of ribbon (the ribbon came with the kit) and tied the earring on to it like a bead.

I really enjoyed working on the comp books... Next year, I'll have to secure a bunch of these, alter them and give them out as gifts.

Anyway, that's all for now... thanks for reading along!

~Anne