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Friday, January 27, 2012

Be Mine ~

Elizabeth Johnson @ Wind and Honey Creations inspired me to make a Valentine Squirrel. 
If you click here you will be taken to Elizabeth's blog and her Valentine drawing demonstration. She invites you to watch her video demonstration and then try your hand at drawing the cute squirrel and then make a valentine. 
I made a Valentine Tag with my squirrel and with his bright pink heart I knew I would have to save him to share on Pink Saturday
I scanned my original drawing, then reduced the size. I printed a copy and cut out the squirrel. I used StazOn around the edges and a white Gelly Roll pen to write the heart message. 
I have much to learn and need to practice drawing more but it was fun and he is a chubby sweetheart of a squirrel.  I took an Enchanted Bird drawing class with Elizabeth last summer during the Artful Gathering Event 2011. You may remember my chubby blue bird drawing.  Click here  if you would like to see my post about drawing the enchanted chubby blue bird.
Hummm...
I'm beginning to see a trend here with my chubby critter illustrations. You know, I just had an idea, I'll be right back. 
While writing this and talking about my enchanted bird, I got the idea to make an Enchanted Bird Valentine. Thanks, Elizabeth!




An Enchanted Bird Valentine



Elizabeth teaches classes on her site and at the Artful Gathering Event. If you would like to know more about the event click here to visit the 2012 Artful Gathering site.
Click here to visit Beverly, our P.S. hostess, at How Sweet The Sound
There is still time to enter my Celebration of Hope Give Away. A $10.00 gift certificate for the Shabby Cottage Studio. The give away ends January 31st. Click here to leave a comment on the give away post. 
My daughter thinks my squirrel looks just like the ones that come to our patio bird feeder. Here is one of the visitors, it was a cloudy day.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

- Angel Friends. - Hope Tags

A some of you know I'm celebrating a special anniversary this month and as part of the celebration I created a digital collage. To make the collage I used an image and a background from Shabby Cottage Studio along with the beautiful quote "Hope" by Emily Dickinson. I then took my collage and reduced the size to make a set of nine art tags. Each tag is unique even though they all bare the image I created. At the top of the image is this text,  - Angel Friends. - The variation of design on the tags are a reflection of how different each Angel Friend can be. A few of these tags are going to my Angel Friends, the remainder will be available in my Etsy store.
There is still time to enter my give away just click here to leave a comment on my give away post and be a follower. If you would like a second chance to win the gift certificate you can click here. It will take you to Shabby Cottage studio. Leave a comment on Gail's post about my give away.















The back of each tag is stamped with birds and butterflies. 


I'm linking to:
Knick Of Time Tuesday
Tuit Tuesday
Shades of The Season
Bloggers Bodega
What's It Wednesday
Wow Us Wednesday
White Wednesday
Time Travel Thursday
Made U Look 
Show and Tell Friday
Potpourri Friday
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Friday, January 20, 2012

Pink Saturday Rescue and Revive…

Last summer I found several items at a thrift store. Things I thought I would eventually up-cycle. I don’t always have an exact plan as to what I will do with an item at first. Often it takes months for me to decide what technique I’ll use. One item I found was a little stool. I sanded it a little and painted it white. Then it sat for months. Nothing would tickle my muse. I glanced at it one day and thought perhaps I could make it into a little tuffet. I considered painting it with pastel designs or making a little fabric cushion for the top. I could not decide and walked away from it again. Then one day I was browsing through the free images June at Dezinaworld has in her Olde Curiosity Shop. Oh my! There she was, the perfect little image for my tuffet. The perfect image for my “Little Miss Muffet Shabby-Chic Tuffet!”  Thanks once again to June. Another one of her awesome vintage images provides the just right inspiration to spark my muse.

The nursery rhyme is; “Little Miss Muffet, she sat on a tuffet eating of curds and whey; There came a great spider who sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away.”





I’m going to put this rescued and revived shabby-chic footstool in my Etsy shop. The stool is about 10 ¾ inches tall and 8 inches wide. It has the complete “Little Miss Muffet” nursery rhyme written around the edge of the seat. Below the verse is a layer of soft, pale pink, lace. Cotton Candy and Crystal Stickles glitter drips down the legs. Strands of pearls decorate the leg turnings. A sweet addition for a little girl’s bedroom or playroom; a perfect place to perch a stuffed toy, doll, or a stack of vintage nursery rhyme books.

Thank you Beverly for the fun party each week. Visit here at “How Sweet The Sound” to connect with more Pink Saturday participants.

* GIVE AWAY - Don’t forget about entering my Celebration of Hope give away. To find out more, scroll down to last Saturday’s post or click here. Good Luck!

I’m linking this to:

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Black and Lime Unintentional Irony

You must use the colors black and lime to make something for the “Spot Prize Challenge” this month at Dezinaworld. That is the only rule our hostess, June, set. You don’t even have to use any of her images to enter the challenge either but it would be nice if you did, how generous is that?

Inspiration for my door hanger came from two of my favorite ladies. June at Dezinaworld provided the FREE image and the color prompts of black and lime. Gail at Shabby Cottage Studio inspired the design layout of multi-layers, special edging, and embellishing techniques in her new FREE video tutorial, called, “Beloved”.

I find this piece amusing. It is a door hanger. June’s image background speaks of love. I layered the image over some additional text, lyrics, from a song “I hear you knocking but you can’t come in…” I then added a key (perhaps to the room) dangling on black lace to the top of the hanger. The pieces simply fell in place as I worked. I imagine it would make a cute door hanger statement on certain occasions.

If you do not know these two ladies I suggest you visit them. June has wonderful images in her store and she recently decided to stop selling her images and just give them away! Really, you need to visit Dezinaworld and see what she is giving away. Because she has a design team who creates wonderful examples of art with her images to share with us all she will except donations. Gail, at Shabby Cottage Studio also has a fantastic store of images, other supplies, and classes. She also has free tutorials. Her new video tutorial “Beloved” is an audio and visual delight with step-by-step instructions on how to make an exquisite art tag. It too is free.  These are two ladies who are so very generous. Thank you!
A cloudy day made for poor photos and true sharp colors.
 





Don't forget I'm having a "Celebration of Hope" Give Away too. Scroll down to my last post of click here

I’m linking this to:

Friday, January 13, 2012

"Celebration Of Hope Give-Away!"

“Celebration Of Hope Give-Away!”

What is HOPE?

Webster’s dictionary definition: A feeling that what is wanted will happen; desire accompanied by expectation.

Emily Dickinson’s definition: Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes with out the words – and never stops at all.

January 16 th. marks an anniversary of Hope for me. 2012 is the sixth anniversary of when I had surgery to remove advanced stage uterine cancer from my body. The plan of attack was a complete hysterectomy followed weeks later with several rounds of chemotherapy and then radiation treatments.  It took months for all the treatments to be completed but I have always felt that God guided my Oncology Surgeon’s hands and he removed all traces of the cancer during the surgery. The team of oncology specialists could not be sure the cancer was gone and highly recommend the additional treatments. I agreed to their treatment plans and we will never know for sure if they were needed. I know what I believe. I believe God, prayers, and the support of family and friends carried me through the battle.
For many people after being cancer free for five years they say you can call yourself a survivor. When I reached my five-year anniversary I thought I would be in the clear, however my oncology doctor told me that I am a survivor but perhaps after another five years have passed I may be in the clear. So every year in the spring I have an MRI or a CT-Scan. I cling to the HOPE that the cancer will not return. You may think why doesn’t she wait to celebrate until after the yearly test. Because I believe it was taken care of on January 16, 2006.

Let’s get on with the celebration! I’m giving away a $10.00 gift certificate, like the one pictured below, to “The Shabby Cottage Studio.” Many of you are familiar with Gail and the Shabby Cottage Studio. She has an awesome collection of images and mixed media supplies, and on-line classes to purchase. I would love a gift certificate from her store and I think you would too. To have a chance at winning this fantastic prize you must be one of my followers and leave a comment on this post. Sweet Gail is going to mention my give-away Monday on her blog and if you would like a second chance to win my gift visit her at Shabby Cottage Studio blog and leave a comment on her Monday post, click here. You have until January 31 to enter. I will collect the names from the Shabby Cottage Studio post and from my post to pick a Hopeful Winner. Good luck everyone!

I hope you win!


The  digital collage at the top of the page is one I did about my cancer journey some time ago when Gail use to have the Mind Wide Open Challenges.
The collage at the bottom I created for this post. I used three images from Gail's shop. They are called; Orange Roughy Paper, Sheet Music, and Fairy World.  I changed the color of the background sheet, Orange Roughy to a more pink hue, I added the music and the fairy image, and the quote from Dickinson, I adjusted filters in my Photoshop Elements 7 program to merge the different images and achieve the final effect. I learned how to do this by taking some of Gail's on-line digital classes. She is one of my angel friends who contributes to my art therapy without even knowing how much joy she brings.

I'm also linking this post to Beverly's Pink Saturday Party at "How Sweet The Sound"  click here.
One more thing, Hope you all have a Happy Pink Saturday! 

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Tea Cup Tuesday ~

It's a dreary day here and I'm not able to get enough good light for my photos. I'm not going to let that stop me from joining in the Tea Cup Tuesday blog party at Terri's Artful Affirmations. She has some expensive beautiful tea cups posted this week that look like fine art paintings. Click here to visit Terri and other tea cup fans. 
My set of four tea cups were a gift from a friend long ago. I love the colors and the pattern, Blossom Time. I'm looking forward to the arrival of blossom time here but winter is only beginning for us. A hot cup of tea in one of these cups will transport me. 

I Have a question for all my tea cup collector pals. Is there a way to repair what I think might be called checking on bone china? I have a tea pot that has tiny lines on the base. I'm not sure how it happened, I had the pot for years and then one day I noticed the lines. I'd like to restore the pot if possible. 

Friday, January 6, 2012

Time For Changes...

Here in Pennsylvania, January is usually a cold, harsh month. It is also a month with bitter memories for my siblings and myself. On January 7, 1964 our father passed away, then forty-five years later, on January 1, 2009, our mother passed away. That year I didn't wish anyone a Happy New Year. 


However, January is a time for new beginnings, it is a time for change. Some people like to make resolutions in the new year, personally I'm not very good at sticking to them. I do make lists of things I'd like to accomplish each day or week or month. I thought a pretty journal would be a perfect place to write my notes and lists for this new year.


The clock and butterfly graphic are from Dezinaworld. The awesome vintage trumpeter lady is from Plush Possum Studio. The Susan B, Anthony stamp is from Wikipedia. The quotes are from Stamp in Up and Studio G clear stamps. I used several colors of Stickles glitter, a paper flower for her hair, a white feather for the fan, a butterfly and key charm, a silver brad in the clock and seam binding trim to decorate the plain spiral bound journal.


I'm linking this to Pink Saturday. Please say hello to our pink party hostess, Beverly, at How Sweet The Sound. Click here to visit her!
Wishing you all a Joyous and Happy New Year!