The whole blogging thing

is not my cuppa tea lately. Here's a bit of what I've been doing when I can remember to snap a photo.
















Struggling lately to post here once a week. I'm "nicer" and less myself on this blog than in real life where I'm pithier and more critical. Sometimes, when I'm not ready or able to turn those aspects of me down, I just don't attempt a post. I've never admitted that before, but lately it irritates me to censor myself and there you have it.

Anyway, I'm going to try to keep up the weekly posting up for now. Our "baby" comes home for the summer today. Hubs is leaving in a little while to go help her move out of the dorm. Since she is being mean and wants her bedroom back, ah! the nerve of her, winkwink, I've been having to spend a lot of time clearing out that room and finding places for a crapload of my art supplies and home decorating goodies. I've been really lazy and just using it as a storage room.

If I asked for your address, please don't give up on me. I have somethings in the works, it's just that the works keep getting interrupted. I've been timidly trying out...playing...with ink and stamping, and in between it all, continuing to cling cushion the world, I mean, my red rubber stamp collection. It just feels like I'm cushioning the world. I have commited to this, though, and will finish if it kills me, which it could I suppose. Yay for my courageous daring, winkwink.

Anyway, here's what can happen when you cover an entire piece of cardstock with off-stamping. (Since I was using Ancient Page, a permanent solvent ink like Stazon, which requires you to stamp off as much ink as possible before stamping on the cleaner pad and then onto very damp paper towels.) That cardstock in the above photo became the backgrounds for these ATC's:

The little inchie stamps are a very old Leave Memories set called Kiss-Off Cubes, and I'll tellya right now: they are addicting. The raven, nest and text are Collage Stuff stamps. And I forget where I got that brick background stamp.

The next time I do this technique, I am stamping off on paper that's been prepped with some gesso and some base color, and I could also paint some of the stamped images with my alcohol inks (I'm really wanting to play with those and I ordered a set of waterbrushes just for this). Then, there's also versamark-stamping and painting with Perfect Pearls, chalk, pastels, glitter.

Anyway, before I get too much into those daydreams, time to get back to dusting, vacuuming and clearing out Missy's room. I might be finished by the time she arrives. Wish me luck and have a good week!

Happy Earth Day!

In fact, the next few days contain Earth Day celebrations globally, so perhaps it's Earth week, LOL. And when I Googled for info, I saw a couple of celebrations that were on Saturday, the 18th, but that might have been for the sake of weekday workers who wanted to plants trees or some other day-long venture.

Those of you who've been reading my blog for a year or more know I like to make something to honor this day that incorporates the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle theme. This year I wanted to add bestowing an award to someone special who is environmentally aware and pushes for it on their blog more than anyone else I know.

The choice for me was easy. I immediately thought of my friend Vicki Cook, who never fails to commemorate days of action on her blog, whether it be to celebrate the beauty of trees, to plant flowers, install a bird feeder, or coax new birdie visitors with a nesting house.

Vicki, I salute you for being a 2008 Earth Angel and all around Nature Girl Extraordinaire! Here's your award, for displaying on your blog sidebar (I hope!):


Ok, so on to my Earth Day creation. I wanted to make Vicki a piece of hanging art-iness, and I wanted to include my ATC "Patchwork Earth" that I'd made weeks ago, because I'd originally made it with Earth Day in mind. Although I'd been excited about making this ATC from little slivers of scrap paper to look like a quilt, I wasn't 100% happy with it when I finished it. It was missing something.

So, I laid it aside and forgot about it for a while, hoping and knowing deep down that I'd come up with something to make it more acceptable to my tastes. Picking it back up recently, I decided to do the back with a map of the world stamped image (one of those background stamps from a previous post that I mounted cling cushion on and created storage in the VHS tape cases). I then let it sit some more and thought about adding some rhinestones and jewels and maybe some little stamped cut-out birdies to finish that side.

Turning to the front of the CD, I decided to go over the red gel pen with black, blue and green, thereby toning the red down some. That helped. And, I coated the entire top with my favorite Diamond Glaze, which always makes things look better. I also filled in the bottlecap earth with some Glaze, and then I applied some Crystal Stickles to the inside perimeter. Now, I was getting happy with this little card.

Next, how to hang it? Well, I killed two birds with one stone by using an old CD -- I was able to recycle, plus I'd be able to get out my alcohol inks and paint like I'd been wanting to. That done, I went looking for other elements I could add that were sitting around waiting to be re-used. I had some skinny green satin ribbon that I'd looked at for a few months on my creating desk, so I grabbed it and curling-ironed it straight, then stitched it through holes I'd punched with my Cropadile. Then, I found some beads that were the perfect colors and started stringing two tails on the bottom. (And I might add a couple of "arms" on the side.
I think those beads are so pretty, like porcelain or that turquoise kitchen ware from California in the 1940's (with the drink pitchers that look like a tire-shape with a spout and a handle?) Uh, yeah, obviously, I don't collect dishware, right? ROFL!

Anyway, I'm terribly later than I wanted to be with this post, because nothing went anywhere near a timetable today. So, I'll close with a cool thingy you can make to funnel rain water from your gutter to a rain barrel. And, it hangs, too!You can then re-use the water for feeding and watering plants and birds. You'll find instructions here, courtesy of Lowes.

Spring has sprung

Well, don't know who is off on Spring Break because I've been such a bad blog reader lately. I've been working so hard and while I read I craft and create art, such as it is, lol. It's literally boiled down to taking each day as it comes in terms of getting things done and some days it's a singular thing done and no more.

It's times like these when the cruel realization that I probably can't hold down a full time job hits me in the most sober way. I am still too scattered brained to multi-task well enough. My blessed Hubster has gotten to where he knows these times and just kicks it up a notch and picks up my slack where he can. That took 20 years, folks. So, never say never, lol. Okay, seriously, he's a sweetheart.

So, anyway, I did a couple of atc's with this week's Bringing It Back challenge in mind. We're supposed to use punchies in our creations, and I wanted to use my frog punch and a Spring theme:



Then, I needed to make my teenaged nephew a birthday card and I was not feeling the guy-card thing at all, so I opted for simplicity and using a vellum phrase and a diecut frame from my giganta-scrap stash:


Then, I got one of those wild hairs up my butt to attempt an atc with Asian mood, but without using typical Asian elements. Whatdya think, was I close at all?:


I'm currently working on some wrapped atc background bases that are alphabet soup made with my oldest KI Memories rub-ons, and I actually have used one color completely up so far. I have six more partially-used sets to go....ho hum, lol. Next time I'll show the ones I have finished.

Big Red Scores Again!

Good morning. Well, today my money assignment is to watch MSNBC's key political shows and list all the advertisers. Seems there are quite a lot of folks who would like to write these companies...but let me save it for the paycheck and just say "I told you so" and get on to the art...

It may be clouding up outside my window, the economy may be heading into the nearest ditch, and the Democratic National Committee may be writing its own suicide note, but HEY! I hung onto my Big Red Sizzix instead of chucking it when I bought a Big Shot, and I am so avenged cuz I discovered that I can smash bottlecaps with it!


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The 3 photos above show how I did it. First, the right sandwich recipe: from bottom to top, I stacked 2 white platforms, 1 sheet of chipboard (paper pad backing), and then 2 black Sizzlets adapters. I laid the bottlecap with the inside of it up, and I made sure that the Sizzix system converter was OFF the machine. And the last photo shows the bottlecap before and after. Sweet!

I was so jazzed I grabbed my old-school Crop A Dile (it was easier to reach for than my Big Bite) to see if I could punch a hole in my bottlecap, and yes, we can (as they say in yadayada-bama land). This further excited me to the point where I quickly used a couple of smashed n punched b-caps to secure some woven ribbon onto my card box for a handle that I've been meaning to make for forever.

"Patchwork Earth" atc


"Sunflower" atc

Of course I had to make some art with my smashed caps, right? So, here are 2 of the atc's I created.

Now, why would I suddenly start using bottlecaps? (You know I'm Old-School 24/7, but still...). I should fess up: I've been really into the challenges at Bringing It Back blog. It's been fun to re-visit even more of my vast giganta scrap-stash than I've thought to use. I mean, the bottlecaps that have been sitting in my stash drawer for oh, about 2-3 years kinda frightened me. But the challenges give me courage to just experiment and play (I mean, what's the downside? This stuff is so old that if I ruined it, no loss at all. And if I don't and actually make something I like, that rocks.) And I don't have to worry about stupid peer pressure...working with materials in the BTDT category...because my "cover" is the challenge! So, hey, join us if it interests you.

Now, onto the other flowers before I get to the dirt. Been reading. A Book. Don't faint now. I do this from time to time, it's just that my tastes run towards historical and political, not Oprah-bot best sellers, so I rarely even mention them. But I want to mention 2 of them today. The one I'm reading is


Valerie Bertinelli's Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time.
It's a great read! Highly recommended, if for nothing more than all the dirt on her and Eddie. Which is pretty much why I'm reading it. I dunno though. She is brutally honest and just a nice, level-headed girl. I've always liked her and I always will. You can read a little of it at the link I provided and see for yourself.

The other book is one I ordered today:

Adam Shepard's Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream
I should receive this one Monday and cannot wait. It's brand new and I saw Adam interviewed on CNN. He basically took $25, his college degree and the clothes on his back and hit the road to find the American Dream by trying to build a life from scratch, to see if it could still be done. Everyone and thing in his life up til then had indicated to him that life cost so much to live that he might never be able to. He found out that old ways are still possible. It just takes saying no to all the spending, and in the bargain you learn and receive so, so much more.

Not only does that sound like my kinda story, but I want them to be Missy's, too. I plan on giving her both of these after I am through with them. Lots of great, great lessons. I probably shortchanged Valerie's book greatly, because it's biggest impact is in her learning to rely on and believe in herself and in not being tricked into not seeing yourself clearly.

Oh, been meaning to let you all know, I am continuing the RAK'ing, but I decided to do it privately. No deadlines, and from the heart. I've already contacted my next batch and totally aim to continue it cuz it makes me feel good and I want to give back. But I don't want to make a fuss over it, like it's a competition and that's how it was feeling to me. I am also preparing a box of handmade cards to send to soldiers, Mother's and Father's Day cards. It really makes me feel like I am making some little difference.

You know, we don't need any outside force or source to "give" us change and hope. It's within each one of us and only we ourselves can produce it. I am blessed to have known that my entire life, as I see an awful lot of younger people who have no clue of this truth.