New Spring Canvas

I decided to change the canvas in the previous post. So I scraped off lots of the elements and decided to start again.
This time I came up with this piece, which I think is better...? As I said I have a lot of learning to do, but the fun is in the trying, Thanks to Angela for her response to the last post (on Next Generation Stampers) and Annie - appreciated!!!
So what do you think of this new one?
I did it quick cos my lot are at football - a semi final, which they have won (China just called to let me know) 4-1 Hallelujah! I haven't been near my craft room since Friday so wanted to do "something" Thanks for dropping by xxx


This is what it looks like after getting feedback - consensus was that the fibres distracted too much so they have had a trim! Thanks girls for your help....

I must admit it looks sooooooooooo much better now! more power to art friends xxxx

Spring Canvas

So we take a canvas, it is blank and we look at it and wonder what we are going to create; does that sound familiar to you.
To be honest a blank canvas is rather intimidating to me. I visualise so well in my head and then I find when I go to transfer that image to my chosen canvas I start to have so much self doubt. I know that art is a new journey for me and that I have so much to learn, I want to have all that knowledge NOW! I have tried to create a Spring Canvas here, I wanted to use layers as I see so often in others art but don't know if I have achieved a crisp image, whether this looks muddy - so I would appreciate honest feedback here if you don't mind - I will really appreciate your time on this one.
That's all I can say on this for now...will wait to hear what you have to say THANKS XXX

2nd spread in Altered Book for ICE

This evening my lot all headed off to football training so I was able to work on my
2nd spread in my altered book. I am begining to get the hang of this I think and I am really enjoying working on this book. That said it is ready to post of so that Linda can work on it 1st (fabulous). I made the little book that is attached with a brad from a Tim Holtz sheet, the background as shown previously I painted and stamped myself. I have some many ideas for this book and truth be known I could carry on and create another spread but I will sit on my hands and content myself with knowing I shall be doing the covers when the book returns to me.....
Dawn xx

Spread for my Altered book

 
 

Worked on 1 page of the spreads I have to do for my book. As you can see I made a door with the school children and
teacher showing in the school..... more to come

Practise book for Altered Book RR

 
As I am doing this RR and don't want to muck it up I thought I would create a practise book, to try out bg's, layouts etc. before commiting them to the book.
I created this bg and will develop it before committing it, I may decide not to use it, I will use the a, b c letter as they are going to be chipboard in the book, this is just a drawing of them with the color that they are. I can add images to this page to try out layouts just so that I will be 100% sure.
I will also do dummy runs for the other pages that I will be working on and in this way I will have a record of the books that I have worked on once they have been returned to the owner.
Dawn

What? 2 posts in one day...

Earlier I posted about my RR pages and mentioned that I had been working on a couple of Decos. Here is the final result for one of the decos that will go in the post tomorrow. I shall have to do ibble obble black bobble to see who is going to get it.
This one is for Next Generation Stampers Yahoo group.
I enjoyed doing the image on this, transfered it onto cardstock with acrylic paint, then covered the image with crackle glaze - et viola, quite a pleasing result considering.
Then I made up the little saying for the reverse of the page....this deco is ready to fly!

Sign in Page for RR Altered Book

So Easter break is behind me, the family are back to school/college/work and I have the house to myself and my craft room was calling to me...
So this morning I started work on a couple of pages for 2 decos that I am involved in - will post those when finished.
Also thought I would get the sign in pages done for my I.C.E. Altered book. As my chosen theme is Childhood and Schooldays I have made the sign in book as close to a blackboard as I can.I painted the pages black and then distressed some lolly sticks and wrote on with a white marker pen. Now that I have started I feel relieved, the 1st posting date is the 14th April so I am hoping to get the other pages done this week as I want to get it in the post so that it can wing its way across the ocean to the 1st recipient, Linda East
There are 12 of us in this RR with themes ranging from Pre Raphaelite art, Sounds of the 70's, Secrets, Where the green fern grows to name a few.
I shall be posting pictures as I create the pages for this book - I am tingling with anticipation....
Hope you like my sign in page x

My Chosen Book to Alter

So here is the book, 2nd choice I might add, that I am going to be sending round for the I.C.E. Altered book RR.
It measures 5 x 6 1/2 so is not too big, I think it is a great size.
Whoever works in it will have the option of inserting an image where the photo was removed and then decorating the borders, or they could use card stock to cover the hole and take it from there, I think it will be exciting to see what results ensue.
I love this book, this is the album that held the vintage images that I have been sharing on this blog; I love the leather cover and the clasp closure. The photos date from 1880's so it truly is old.
Hope the girls in the RR enjoy working in this old album and giving it a new lease of life....

TreasureArtTrends Projects

One of the Yahoo groups I belong to has a couple of projects that I have been involved in.
The 1st pictures are for a THINK PINK ATC swap, they look orange in the photos but truthfully they are pink.
The 2nd image is the page I done in my book for a Vintage Deco RR - this book is on it's way to the U.S.A. for Jo Crabtree to work in, who knows when it will return, but I know it will have fabulous art in it when it does.
My biggest project is going to be working on an altered book with 12 others involved. I shall post pictures as and when I do the pages.
There is such a diverse group of people and ideas behind all the books, it is really exciting to be part of it.
I also have a fabric gothic arch to create, not 1 but 3 pages with charms and some beach charms for a swap, more about those projects as I post them.
So with the other decos that I am involved in it is going to be a busy time for me - but you know what I LOVE IT!!!

Color Tag Book Swap

 
For this swap we each had a color to work with, guess what mine was???? lol. In case you didn't guess :p
my color was pink....just joking, orange ruled in my house.
So I had to make 10 tags and the other girls will make their tags in their given color and then they will be combined to
make a color tag book. Should be fun, well I know I had fun getting ink, paint and glue on my hands creating my tags.

I am going to make this post brief as I have an awful cold and it is making me really tired.Thanks for dropping by to
check out my blog, it is much appreciated...hugs from me to you x

Gothic Arch arrive...

At last my Gothic Arches have arrived. I nearly accosted the poor postman everyday waiting for these. This morning I resigned myself to the fact that they would not be here today either, and the reverse psychology worked because as you can see they did turn up YIPPEE!!!!
So who are the talented artists whose work I received in this swap [l-r]
Karen Ouellette,Marcy Hudziak,Ann Hartman and the bonus Arch was from Caryl Hoobler.
Thank you ladies for your wonderful arches, I have displayed them on a frame for now so that I can look at them and decide whether to bind them or not.

Johnny Lee arrives in England

Let me tell you about Johnny Lee. Over on Paper Whimsy there is a swap in progress to make a Paper Doll for A.N.OTHER in the swap. Unfortunately I missed the sign up because it was for a limited number; I resigned myself to the fact that I would not be participating in the swap...c'est la vie and all that.
Then I got numerous e mails from Linda East suggesting that we could do a swap amongst ourselves (she had successfully signed up for the PW Paper Doll.) so of course I agreed.

I posted my doll, called "Betty" with her doll "Boop" to Linda.
Then Linda let me know that she had posted Johnny and since that day I have waited with bated breathe for Johnny Lee to arrive.
Today he did. He came all carefully packaged in a box surrounded by lots of "goodies" for use in collages (he reminded me of a Pharoah -sent of on a journey with bits and pieces from home).
As I opened the tissue paper and bubble wrap he was so lovingly esconced in, my jaw drop. He is gorgeous. Linda has really done me proud with Johnny - even Jazz my teenage son thought he was "wicked"! (praise indeed).
Johnny as you can see from the photo has a fishing rod, with glass beads for fish. A kite with colorful ribbon, some birds flying in the sky, the most delightful picket fence - truly awesome!!!
Then his shadow box is embellished with seashells, glass beads,gold ribbon, charms all on a beautifully hand painted crackle effect box.
Linda I cannot THANK YOU enough for Johnny, I shall cherish him and care for him forever. He came with a little letter of introduction - well no, not letter poem which is delightful too.
Johnny will make a trip to Spain with me, just so that I can show him off and so that he can be a well travelled little chap...
Whoever gets the other Paper Doll on PW will be truly lucky, believe me I know!

THANK YOU!! Linda, once again I will never tire of saying that.......

ZNE - NEVER FORGOTTEN for Joanna

Joanna Pierotti lost her dear mum recently, a sad event that touched her friends on ZNE.
Chelise asked for art to have a book published for Joanna, her sister and niece to have in remembrance of her and this book was the result of that calling.
I am proud to be a part of this project as it was a way of showing Joanna that she was not alone at this terribly sad time in her life.
This book is available on ZNE and if you click here it is possible to purchase a copy of this very special book.
Joanna will now realise what everyone in this online artists community thinks of her and I know she will feel the warmth of love from us all. GOD BLESS her and her family xxxx

Junk shop finds

I had a dental appointment today, or so I thought - when I got there I found out that the receptionist had told me todays date and booked it in for next Thursday, oh well never mind....I love the dentist anyway -NOT!!
So on the way back home I stopped of at Books and Bygones in Hayes to have a mooch.
I picked up these books

now I have a nice little selection and have to contemplate what to do with them, I have just bought Altered Book Workshop by Bev Brazelton - so with her inspiration and that precious commodity TIME I shall try and create a piece.

As I left with my books I spotted this wonderful hinged box with handle, and you know how it is I could hear it say "buy me, buy me" - so I walked back into the shop with it and said to the owner "how much do you want for this?"
My money came out of my purse faster than you can say "bargain" because I paid the princely sum of £1......oh joy of joys, I am one happy bunny I can tell you.

Once I have finished my current swaps etc. I shall think of what to do with this box to make it more special...

Sharing is caring - Part 2

Following on from my last "Sharing is Caring" post, here as promised is the next set of photos. These photos are from a vintage album I purchased.
It would give me great pleasure to see these photos used in your art work. All that I ask is that you leave a link to my blog on your blog if you use these photos so that others may benefit.
And even more fantastic if you would leave a comment on my blog with a link to yours so that I could see what wonderful art you have created.
That's it, except for me to say ENJOY!!!

Back....

Oh my it seems so long since I posted, my old computer was about to bite the dust so my dh bought me a new computer for Mother's Day (I love that man!!!) and so I have been busy transferring all the data and sorting out all the hardware to make sure that I can scan, print etc.
 
Betty Boop here was brought for me by my beautiful daughter China - she is great, Betty with a football, how cool is that!?
What else have I been up to, well not a lot really, completed a couple of pages for the Deco RR on Next Generation Stampers. Worked on 2 books, got another one in hand.








Treated myself to a couple of new books, Mixed Media Explorations, Paper Transformed and a little ATC book.
I was so in love with the Paper Transformed book that I just had to buy a copy for a special friend, hope she loves it as much as I do...
That is it for this little piece, tomorrow at some point I want to add some more scans from the vintage photo album I bought for you all to use.
take care out there all my wonderful blogland friends....