I'm Back!

Finally, after a long, long winter and fall I have returned to my blog. It's been a long time and for that I apologize. But spring is here and the birds are singing and today is the first day of the rest of my life. I have so much to show you, it's hard to know where to begin. For all of you who have been patient with me, I thank you.

Today is Easter Sunday. I hope you spend the day with your loved ones and think about the meaning of this very special day. I have so much to share with you...I've been teaching the "ABC's of Techniques" for the past three months and it will continue through July. I will be sharing these techniques here with you starting this week. I just finished a scrapbook for a gentleman who presented it to his mother. The book was about his father and his life. A true Irish gentleman, if ever there were one. I don't think I have ever enjoyed doing a book for someone more than I enjoyed this one. I wish I had been given the opportunity to know him, he was amazing.

The next 15 months will be spent getting ready for my oldest daughter's wedding. Her fiance is an Army officer in Afghanistan and won't be home except for R and R, until Januay 2010. The wedding won't be until July 2010. Thank heavens we have time to plan and create! So much has been happening and is going to be happening in the next few months, that we'll talk about it all here along with all the creativity that is finally back in my life!

Altered State of Mind

I have posted a couple of pictures below of a few of the pieces that I put at Crone Cottage. Of course this week we had "Ike" blow through here, literally. Many places are without power. Bellevue being one of them. We're in the fourth day now and Duke Energy is doing a pretty good job of getting power back to everyone. Having grown up in Daytona Beach, FL. it is rather a shock that I would move to NKY and have a hurricane hit here. Most of my neighbors have lost a lot of shingles and parts of their roofs. It is quite sad. We were very fortunate and had just a little damage to our siding and never lost power. We did lose phone service for two days which isn't a big deal, except my DH teaches on line and no phone = no internet. He was not a happy camper. I kept telling him...it could be so much worse!

My DH's parents live in San Antonio and they evacuated. I'm so thankful that they are back home and are safe and sound. We were so worried. I know there are many people from the Gingerwood board who are in TX. I pray they are safe and sound.

And now to brag a minute...my wonderful 19 year old son auditioned for the Louisville Youth Symphony and not only did he make it, he is the "principal trombonist". We're so very proud of him and his many accomplishments. The only thing now is he has to travel 2 hours each way every Sunday from college to Louisville to attend practice. Luckily he carpools with two other guys. But you know, a mom still worries. lol. I hope you enjoy the art!

Altered pieces

Altered State of Mind Art Show

The altered club that I belong to are the featured artists of the month at Crone Cottage in Bellevue, Kentucky. (Bellevue/Belleview...I always get those two mixed up...anyway down at Newport on the Levee.) Crone Cottage is a wonderful little gallery owned by Beth McGrath. She's an awesome lady and a member of the ASOM group. September 5th she held a reception for the artists. I have posted some pictures below of the reception. The first picture is Crone Cottage and the second is of Beth, the owner. It was a wonderful evening! If you're in the area, stop by Crone Cottage this month and view the work! Have a wonderful Saturday!

Some pics from the art show!

It's been awhile...

Sorry for being MIA for the past month. A death in the family and a very ill child...not much time left for anything else. Now that things have settled down somewhat, it's back to business. As you can tell by the last post, I'm still trying to figure out this blogging thing. It would be great if when I post a picture, it would actually post where I put it, lol. Anyway, Printworks did not do a board for August since they were at CHA last month and didn't have time. The ladies who take my Printworks class didn't want to miss a class so they asked me to design one for them. I ordered some stamps and went to work. I'm going to try and post the pictures of the outside of the cards here. In true Printworks style, there is a lot going on inside the cards, too. But I'm only posting the outside here for today. I scanned them instead of photographing them. Not sure I like this. The card that looks gray is actually shades of purple. Well, cross your fingers and hope this comes out like it looks right now. LOL! Enjoy!

Still learning this blogging thing.

I'm still trying to figure out this blogging thing. Layouts are very difficult. They never look like what I design when I post them. There are huge spaces between the posts below about CHA and Tim Holtz. Be sure to scan down and read about CHA under the title "Corrupt Windows File". That is where I talk about the show and Tim, etc. Don't know why it never looks the same when I post. Maybe I need to go to typepad or something. Please take a minute to read the posts below! Have fun!

Idea-ology from CHA 2008

Tim Holtz was so gracious. His Idea-ology line lends itself to endless creativity! I can't wait to play!

Corrupt Windows File!

Those dreaded three words have kept me off my blog for the past 7 weeks. But thanks to a wonderful friend of mine, Karl, he saved my computer and I'm back! Thanks to all of you who have been e-mailing me and letting me know you missed my updates. I have so much to post from the past two months, that I'll probably post every single day for a while.

News: I just got home from CHA! It was great! Attendance was down, I think someone said by 25%, and there were less vendors than in years past, but I came away wanting to stay put in my studio for the next month just playing. I'm going to post some pictures every few days, because I took over 200 and I don't want to overwhelm everyone. (Isn't that nice of me? lol) I did get to meet my idol, Tim Holtz. He is so incredibly nice and down to earth. And of course talented. So we're going to start with his Idea-ology booth. OMG! Not only were the products amazing, the examples would blow you away. But the booth itself was calming in the sea of glitz and glamour and loud colors. It was a place that drew you to it, calmed your nerves and you thought you were someplace else. Enjoy these pictures of Tim's booth and I'll be back tomorrow, or maybe later today, who knows. I have to prepare for a Printworks class tomorrow morning and Thursday evening, so we'll see how much time I have. Have a great Tuesday!! Let me hear from you!

Hero Arts Class

Hero Arts came out with these cute clear stamp sets with BLING! I love bling! I created these three cards with three of the sets, and if you took the class you received the Hello Birdie set (the one with the blue bird) for free. These are small sets and they come with the flower bling to put on the cards. The class was last night, so I'm sharing the cards here with you now that it's over. The Hello Birdie set has four different birds in it. The You Hoo set (owl) comes with three different owls and then there is the cupcake set. I think I like it the best! It has a large cupcake and a small cupcake. I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but I had to add glitter to the icing and lettering. Each set comes with more stamps, like branches, or swirlies, or words. Really cute and a great price. I hope you like them.

For a report of my patio Robins (see post below), sad to say but we started out with three eggs in the nest and due to lots of rain and wind the pole holding the geranium fell over and one egg fell out. We set the pole back up and watched nervously as mommy sat on the two remaining eggs. One hatched and one didn't. As a matter of fact it's still in the nest. Did you know when the beautiful blue Robin's egg doesn't hatch it turns an ugly shade of blue. Kinda hard to describe...maybe Tempting Turquoise and you've taken a Night of Navy pad and blotched (word?) it up with it. (I never claimed to be an english major, that would be my daughter, lol)

The egg that hatched had a really ugly baby bird in it. ( Ihave to be honest, no feathers, really ugly) but then it got feathers and mommy took care of it, and about 5 days ago it just wasn't there anymore. No feathers on the ground, so I assume it made it out of the nest safely.

Out of the nest safely. Makes me think of my own children. It's what we want for all our children. I guess the problem arises when they leave the nest and we can't protect them anymore. Enough for today. Have a great Thursday. I'm teaching Denami Designs June board tonight, so it should be fun. Really cute board!

Altered State of Mind

It's the last day of May and I can't believe that the year is flying by so fast. It must be something that happens when you get "old". I always thought that old is a state of mind. June is going to be a milestone month for me as I turn 50. I used think 50 was old, but now I know that it is only the beginning. The beginning of the second half my life. The beginning of my figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. I have a dear friend I call "Butterfly". I relate 50 to a butterfly. I've been sitting here for 50 years in my cocoon and now, I will change into the butterfly and spread my wings and see what new things I discover. "Change". That will be a topic for another day along with all the brain "fog" that comes with it, lol.

I belong to an altered art club called "Altered State of Mind". We've done "tip-in's", tags, and all kinds of cool things. Currently, we're going through Bernie Berlin's ATC book and playing with the different techniques. In April, the technique in the book was all about watercolor and baby wipes. I took some of the paper that I created with this technique and made this ATC. I stamped the flower image on it, adding some bling, (gotta love the bling!). I also stamped this really cool flower stamp by DRS. It has a place where you can cut the center out to run ribbon through it. My LSS got 5 of them in and of course I have to buy all 5. One is a butterfly and I'm sure that will be the next one I use. On the butterfly, you feed the ribbon through the body. Anyway, back to the ATC, I used clear embossing powder and glitter on the petals of the "ribbon flower". I then used Tim Holtz's distressing tool on the edges and inked the edges with Ranger's Dusty Concord Distress Ink for a much darker edge. Unfortunately, with the dark background, it's kinda hard to see the dark edges.

Enjoy your last day of May 2008. Make it an unbelievable day, doing whatever your heart desires, 'cause you will never have this day again! Go create something and get off the computer!

Printworks Pickup Truck

Printworks for May spotlighted a stamp with an image of the back of a pickup truck. Since I offered two classes in May for the board provided by the company, I had to design two cards. There are three cards in each class and the board only offered four total, making two cards per class. Printworks had a truck with DAD on the tailgate and made it into a pocket, really awesome. One card had "Stop and smell the flowers" on the gate, one Mom, and one Congrats with a graduation cap in the tailgate. Really great cards! The first truck I did was in blue and had "Just Married written in the back window. I tied tin cans to the bumper and it came out really cute. I was stuck on the second one, had a couple of ideas, but then my husband, Paul, had this wild idea. He said, "Turn the truck into an ambulance." You would know that he is a lawyer, but I'm sure that had nothing to do with the ambulance thought, lol. So I thought, if I use a marker to ink it and leave off the tailgate and draw in the door, it might work. Well, it did! I used an upside down flower pot from Art Impressions as the light on top, but it came out really cute. So in true Printworks style I had to do a little something on the inside.

So the thought for the day is, when you look at a stamp, think of what else it might be when you stamp it. Let your imagination take you to other places, and you might be pleasantly surprised. I hope you like it.

Victorian Box from Holly Berry House

Happy Memorial Day! It has been a crazy month and now it is almost over and I can't say I'm going to miss it. Sickness, two children moving home from college, one going to Spain for a week to play in the symphony, one moving from one state to another, the tragic death of a 21 year old friend of one of my daughters...and all this only involving three of the four children. Like I said, I'm glad it is over.

Back at the beginning of the month I taught a class at my LSS on the Victorian Box and Medallion from Holly Berry House. I prestamped/embossed all the cardstock. In class we cut the pieces out and glittered them up and put them together. They are really pretty. I'm currently working on one using Twinkling H2O's. It's really pretty and I will post it here when I get it done. (hopefully, I'll time to play in my studio the next week) These are great stamps and make beautiful boxes. I stamped the medallion numerous times and cut them out, graduating in sizes down. I used pop dots to attach the different layers. I used red line tape to put the box together and it makes a beautiful gift box. I absolutely love Holly Berry House stamps! They are so detailed. I hope you enjoy this beautiful weekend and I hope where ever you may be this Memorial Day weekend, that you take a moment to tell someone important to you, that they are special to you!

New to blogging??

Obviously I still need to work out the bugs in this blogging thing. I apologize for the way the post below looks. I really need to figure out why when I post it doesn't look like it did when I created it. Please have patience with me, I promise to figure it out and get it right. Thanks!

My shoe

Okay, so when I say I'll post something tomorrow, maybe I mean in a few days. So sorry, but the robin's nest really threw me, that along with 4 kids with more drama in their lives than one person can stand and a sick husband, and well, I'm sure you understand. Anyway, I wanted to post a picture of the card I designed with the April Printworks stamps. I loved the shoes as I mentioned before. I wanted something 3-D so I used glue dots and put a green button on the card. Before I attached it, I ran blue wire through it, twisting it around a pretty white polka dot green ribbon, and then spiraled it to make it really funky. Add that to the vellum, and I realy liked it. I used Liquid Lacquer on the polka dots on the shoe and the sole, heel, and bow to make them pop. One the inside of the card, I used Liquid Lacquer on all the blue parts of the shoe and even though you really can't see it here, I attached a blue rhinestone to the top of the shoe. Gotta love that bling! I then stamped "good friends never go out of style". I thought that they couldn't have cuter stamps than the shoes, but the May ones are awesome. The big stamp is a pickup truck. The back view of it. How cool! I already have a card design ready in my head to go along with the four on the board for the month. I hope you enjoy this card, but for now, know that I'm "thinking of shoe"!