Altered Art Baby Book

Okay.  I gave my friend, Kelly, her gift last Saturday and now I can put up the pics.  Beware!  There are several.  I did a lot of pages for her, so there was a lot to document.  I tried to choose the most interesting ones.  I used a regular art journal and modge podged 3 pages together for each 'page'.  That helped to give the pages more strength for all of the ephemera that I added.  Most pages are also gessoed so that the paints will go on more smoothly and will be more vivid.  I used a lot of PanPastels, cheap acrylic paints, Claudine Helmuth (love), sprays and alcohol inks.  Most of the papers are the 6 x 6 type as the prints are smaller.  Roller stamps, tons of rub-ons, image transfers...you name it, I tried it.  One of my most favorite effects is the striping I did for the shopping page.  It's definitely bold!  I hope that you enjoy these pics.  There are quite a few.

I love the little piece of tape (dots) from 7 Gypsies.  This is part of the cover.

The picture on the right is an image transfer.  The word 'home' and the white flower are actually stickers that I Modge Podged over to make certain they adhered!

Spec is their dog!

Probably one of my fav techniques!  I love alcohol ink on gesso.

Ok, the picture that I put on the left page is actually from the Crate and Barrel catalogue.

Image transfer of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  I would have liked it to be brighter, but I didn't let the ink dry long enough. You have to jump through some hoops to flip the words for Word.  This page also has glow in the dark paint on it.

Star punchinells (sequin waste) that I got from a cool little website called Sky Blue Pink

Yeah.  Another use for the Apothecary Emporium papers from Echo Park.  You will prolly see these again.

Love this harlequin stencil from Crafter's Workshop.

Couldn't help myself.  She loves the movies too.

Loved that I could use my new music roller stamp.

Burlap on the circle.  I Modge Podged twine around it.  The background paper is tissue paper from 7 Gypsies.

Yeah.  They are from Michigan, but live here and attend as many games as they can.  The big letters are colored modeling paste.

List

I know that I promised you guys a Christmas list, so here it is.  I don't really ever care if I get what's on the list.  You guys know that.  Just having you here is the best.
1.  The only thing I really want is an Ipad and a card reader for it.  I do so much work in the living room for school that I am getting tired of hauling my computer up and down all of the time.  Not that it is exhausting, but then I have to do the cord, etc and it is annoying.  I also do worry about dropping the darn thing since I am so not coordinated.  With an Ipad, I could just leave the computer upstairs and work off of the tablet in the LR.  I am seriously on it about 2 hours a night or more posting, looking for ideas, etc.
2.  Long necklaces that are cool.  Silver, gold, whatever.  Don't care.  I like cool stuff, not old lady stuff.  JJill has some really cool ones this season.
3.  Wrist band type bracelets.  The kind that snap and have rivets, bolts, bling.  Any color or metal color.  Don't care.  They have cool ones at The Buckle that I like.  I also like ropey kind of leather bracelets.
4.  Breaking Dawn CD.  I will most likely download the music next week, but I want the CD for the car as I don't always use my touch there.
5.  Any movies you think I will like.  I don't have some of the HP's on DVD.  In fact, I'm not sure that I have any of the on DVD, just video.  I haven't seen the last one at all.
6.  Gift cert from Amazon for my Kindle which I adore!!!!
7.  Cool art stuff like neat paints, brushes, etc.  Julie Anne would know more of what I am using.  I don't have a good watercolor pencil set.  I like the Neo color crayons and PanPastels.  I have some of those but not a lot.  I also would love to have some Shiva paintsticks.  They are oil paints in a stick form.  Don't have any of those.  Could always use a small palette as I the one I use is always a mess.
8.  Cool music you think I would like.
9.  SD cards of 4 gb or more.  I never delete my pics, just save my cards.
10.  There is a cool product called Picture Keeper that is a memory stick for pics.  One of those would be amazing.  They can be pricey though. http://www.aaaimaging.com/Retail-Products/Picture-Keeper-c161/?gclid=COqjxLrSlqwCFacEQAodOyenPw
11.  Patagonia capilene.  I have been sleeping in one of the long sleeve level 3 shirts and it is pretty much keeping me warm.  Size L, crew neck, any color, I have black.  I like it all so any would be appreciated as that is the only piece that I have.
12.  Anything from Active Endeavors that would keep me warm.  My thermostat is way off since surgery and I am suffering already!
13.  An alarm clock for iTouch.  Wouldn't mind something for the living room for music as I don't always like to watch tv and I won't wear my headphones all the time.  I think that HyVee has a cool tower for Ipod.
14.  Okay, as usual I have to put on a digital SLR camera like a Nikon or Canon.  I really want to learn to take better pics, especially since I am taking so many for my blogs now.


That's all I can think of right now.  I am pretty basic on my likes and stuff.  If I think of anything else, I will let you know on here.  I will get dad to give me a list.

Altered art...

Working on a cool new project for a friend.  I will take pics and post them after I give her the gift.  I wouldn't want her to know what's up.

Apple Pie

Hey, you all.  I just had a special request from an old friend.  They desperately need my Caramel Crunch Apple Pie recipe.  So I will post it here.  Enjoy!

CARAMEL CRUNCH APPLE PIE

This was in the newspaper one day and I used the apples from our tree to make it.

Recipe:

24 caramels (1/2 of 14 oz package)

2 T water

4 cups sliced, peeled baking apples

¾ cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

½ t. cinnamon

1/3 cup margarine or butter

½ cup chopped walnuts

Pastry for 9 inch pie

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Prepare pastry and place in pie pan.  Melt caramels with water in heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently until smooth. 

Spoon apples into crust; top with caramel sauce.  Mix flour, sugar and cinnamon. 

Cut in margarine or butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Stir in walnuts.  Sprinkle over apples.  Bake for 40-45 minutes or until apples are tender.

FYI:

-You can make your own pie crust or you can purchase at the grocery store.

-I tend to use the Marzetti’s caramel sauce instead of melting the caramels with the water.  I usually use nearly the whole thing.

PIE CRUST

This recipe comes from Sue Rector’s mom.  We made a bunch of the Caramel Apple Pies at girl scouts one night and she helped us with the crust.  Lauren is a master at the crust.

Recipe:

1 ½ cup of flour

½ stick of shortening

4 or 5 T cold water

Cut in ingredients with fork or pastry cutter.  Roll into ball and roll out with rolling pin to desired size.

Punkin Head Girl is Finished!

 Hooray!  I got her finished and from all of the feedback I am hoping she is popular!  She is mine though.  I am putting her in the living room as a Halloween decoration.  There are a couple of design flaws, but oh well.  Since she is mine, it doesn't matter, although I will possibly change a couple of things tomorrow.  She really didn't take that long, just a few hours.  I would prefer to do it all at once, but I am grateful for any time I get to spend on my art.

Not exactly the hair I wanted, but I do like it.

I'm sorry, but I just love her shoes.

The splat is from a Tim Holtz stencil (of course).

I decided to do reverse printing for the words.  I had never tried that before, but it seemed to be appropriate here.

The dots are from the bottom of flip flops.  Love it!

I couldn't resist putting that web there.  

The candelabra is a Tim Holtz die that I cut in plastic and used as a stencil.  So is the spider  on another pic.

Ok.  Her hair was hard.  I added a few bats and bling to help it stand out.

Punkin Head Girl

I wanted to make something for Halloween, so I decided to do a punkin head girl.  She is so stinkin' cute!!  I am frustrated 'cuz I still want to keep working on her, but I have to get ready for work.  Here is a sneak peek!  She isn't nearly finished, no finishing touches, but she's so cute I can't stand it!!!  I know right where I will put her.  This one's mine!

Halloween

I made a cool kid's book for a project at work.  Hope they like it and that lots of kids sign up to take the class.  I may actually get to teach this one!

The book is made of narrow pieces of corrugated cardboard with pieces pulled off.  That paint around the edge is glow in the dark paint that I frosted on with a palette knife.

I am now in love with net.

Gotta love bubble wrap and Tim Holtz textures.

The Familiar

Okay.  I finally got the layout done.  It is up at the store right by the Apothecary Emporium papers (by Echo Park).  I absolutely freakin' love these papers.  Hope you enjoy my work.

Here is the entire one-page layout.  I call it The Familiar.  It's a great pic of Pluto giving me the stink eye while I was using the macro setting on my camera.

Lots of layers.

I added a clock rub-on under the A.  I love rub-ons!

Tim Holtz has a piece of my heart.  

The mottled appearance is caused by spraying bleach water onto Bazzill paper.  Lots of texture is added with stamps, etc.  I tore the paper while it was wet and of course, roughed up and edged everything.  When don't I?

Almost...

Okay.  Give me another couple of days and I promise to post the page I am creating for the store.

I'm Back

I'm back to creating again!  It's been a while.  I have created a mixed media banner that will be taught as a class at the store on September 10th.  I promise to post more pics as the creating continues.

The W from the Iowa banner.  So fun!

This is the whole thing even though it is hard to see.

Of course, this is Tim Holz inspired with his calendar stamp and an altered clip.

The football is made from cardboard painted and sanded.

4 x 4 Canvases

Being brilliant, I decided that I would make a gift for my students for the last day of school.  There are 12 of them, 6 boys and 6 girls.  I knew that I wanted to make girls and boys for them, but I didn't want to make full sized canvases. I found packs of 9-4x4" canvases at JoAnn's.

  I decided to use paint for the background as it would be easy and less time consuming. Since I was on a deadline and was already a couple of weeks behind, this would be the safest approach.  I always gesso a canvas when I am only using paint; even if it is already factory prepared.  Gesso is cool!  I knew that I had to be rather formulaic about the process or I would never get finished on time.  All the girls were done in pink and the boys in blue.  I dry brushed the main layer of paint making sure to leave some white canvas showing.  Stamps, rub-ons, more paint, etc and I was ready to do the people.  The only thing was that I hadn't really considered the fact that these were really small canvases so I would need to make really small patterns for the bodies, clothes, etc.  This entire project required the use of my super sharp embroidery sized scissors.  There were lots and lots of re dos on the patterns, I can tell you.  It was exhausting!!!

I finally got 12 heads cut (out of big lined Kindergarten writing paper, cool huh?) and then grabbed my 6 x 6 paper pads to figure out the clothes.  Thank goodness I had plenty of those pads to choose from.  I wound up using some odds and ends for the girls, but lots of Echo Park "Be Mine" papers.  I love that these are the same designs as the 12 x 12, just smaller prints.  For the boys, I used odds and ends of 6 x 6 papers.
After cutting out all of the pieces and getting them on, I realized that I might not have much in the way of small rub-ons.  Or, egads, boy themed rub-ons!  Eeek.  What to do, what to do?  Luckily, I wound up having plenty of the appropriated sized rub-ons.  I just happened to have purchased a bunch at my favorite scrapbook store's (Scrapaganza) garage sale and lo and behold, there were some Halloween rub-ons in the pack filled with spiders and bats.  Perfect!!!  I also happened to have some from KaiserCraft that looked like splotches, etc.  Saved!  Sometimes it's good to be a hoarder.  A few stick on jewels for the girls and some Tim Holtz gears and spinners for the boys and voila!  Project complete!

I love her hair!

Okay.  So I admit it!  I am still a little anal about my stamps and was super reluctant to use my texture stamps in paint.  After using an ink that wouldn't stay when I added the Mod Podge, I sucked it up and used paint.  What a cool texture it left.  I will admit to scrubbing the stamp a little after I rinsed it.  Just a little.  I am getting better at 'letting it go'.

Everyone at school knew right away who this was.  It was the hair.

I love my Unity stamps.

My first boy!!  You should have seen all of my doodles on my table covering as I tried to figure out how to do boy hair.  I had never done it before.  I also have to say that I about panicked when I realized I would have to paint on arms.  Sheesh. Why did I decide to do this again?

The kitty stamp in the corner is kind of an inside Preschool joke.  The kids all love to hear stories about my cats Skittles and Pluto and they call them the "Skittles Stories".  I put a kitty on all of the boys.

All scrapbookers know that a mistake is an opportunity.  I didn't use the correct pronoun when I printed these out, so I just wrote it in.  It works.

I couldn't believe that I had this spider on his thread.

I thought I had gotten something green on this guy's face.  I tried to rub it off, then I remembered it was part of the face paper.  Yeah, I'm getting old.