New Art & Supplies in My Store

I've added a few more pieces of art and some supplies for inspiration for Halloween. Take a look in my etsy store (link is on the upper left)

Witches, Goblins & Bats, Oh My!

I actually started ahead of the season for once. Here are a few of the Halloween items I've made and put in my etsy shop.




These are some folded pinwheels that I made with vintage music sheets. They were very time consuming to make.


A little hanging with twigs, burlap, raffia and ribbon.



I really like how this one turned out. The photo is an original that I had in my collection. This woman has creepy light eyes. I've also had the old wooden frame for years and invested in some black gloss spray paint and presto!


I really got into making tags this time. I found I had a lot of vintage Halloween images already, but they were small pixel images so would only work on a smaller project.

Out of the Comfort Zone

I’m really liking graphic art lately and I’ve been wanting to create something different (at least for me). Wanting to go (a little) out of my comfort zone. I came across some large ledger sheets that I forgot I had hidden away (not usual). I just started doodling and cutting and pasting. Two of these came out (somewhat) to my satisfaction.

I really like the artwork of swallowfield, jp-art and abbyjane among many. Eventually I want obtain some carving tools and try making a couple carved blocks to try my hand at block prints. I just love all the two color graphic art you see everywhere. I see fabric, pillows, curtains, etc. in all the home dec. magazines. I’ve just got so many ideas floating around, and I’ll never live long enough to do them all.

Fire in the Sky

sunset and moonrise

Here's a couple pics from earlier in the week, and of course its because of the smoke in the air that they look like this. We've had more clear days lately. I haven't even checked the news to see what fires are still going. Like I've said before, and I'll say it again, we've been lucky so far--no fires near us. I live near a road that people take to reach part of the American River. We always seem to get at least one fire near the river canyon where some idiot obviously throws out a cigarette or something to start the fire. I don't know how many times I've been on the freeway and I see some idiot hauling his trailer full of toys and the connecting chains are dragging on the ground shooting off sparks. Duh! all it takes is a little spark (like Smokey the Bear says) to start the fire, and they just keep driving oblivious to what they cause. Ok enough of that!

I put together a sewn paper banner, my first, but I'm not too happy with it. I wanted to use some embelishments I already had on hand and incorporated them with some of my trims and papers. I decided to start out small and used the word "NEST" as my inspiration. I'll be putting it in my etsy art shop.

A confused butterfly

A Little Vacation at Home

artI guess it was last week, I was alone for 4…whole… glorious… days! Everyone had gone to different places, the kids, the H, and I was enjoying every minute of it. It was quiet and relaxed, just me and the dogs. I also realized that during that time, I found I was really creative. I had lots of ideas and actually created quite a few works of art, which is unusual for me to create so many at one time. So what’s up with that? I should pack up and leave? (had that thought many times, lol) live in a cave? But seriously, what does that say about our creative selves? I guess for me I need quiet, some people can work with music or background noise, apparently not me. I also realized that I had long periods of uninterrupted time (except for the occasional doggy potty breaks, where I rounded up all 5 and let them out at one time). I could follow through on an idea, not be interrupted and loose my train of thought. I’m lucky in that my kids are teens and I don’t have little ones demanding even more of my attention. I don’t know how you do it - those of you with little ones - I see the art created by you and am amazed.

My creative space is nothing fancy, just an alcove on one side of the kitchen. I recently redid it, painted, added shelves, combined and conquered the clutter and organized the plastic drawers. Stayed nice and neat for about a day! I find that I work better in clutter, then when I can’t stand it, I clean, but only if absolutely necessary!

Well, off to finish some art, here’s some that I created during my little 4 day vacation.

Feelin' Witchy

I’m usually never on time with making holiday decorations/crafts, but this time I’ve actually already made a few Halloween items to sell in my etsy store. I usually start too late and then the items end up in a box in storage for next year, but then I forget I have them and … Such is the cycle of my life, “a day late and a dollar short” as my Dad always says.

I’ve been on a kick making tags, which I’ve never really done to any extent before. Below is one that I made from a photo I have. OMG are they a homely couple, such a sourpuss face on the older one. They are not related to me (bought on ebay)!!



Seems like when I get an idea in my head I have to search all over to find the elements I'm looking for. Take for instance the crow tags below. I knew I wanted crows, but I only had one pic of a crow.
I wanted to use several different views, so I had to search all through my books to find images, then I had to scan them, then print them (finding I'm almost out of black printer ink in the mean time!). Is it that way for you? Do you find your elements first and then put the idea together? It just seems that I spend alot of time looking for just the right element to add. Am I too picky? Just seems like it takes me so long to get something done. Even when the ideas are flowing, it just seems that a simple project like a few tags takes me several days to complete. And it never fails, right when I'm in the "zone", I get interrupted! Kids to pick up from school, dogs need to be let out, dogs to be let in (most of my day is spent doing this). ARGH!



This is a small painting (5x7) I just finished. I haven’t done any real painting since high school many, many years ago, lol! I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I’ve never been good at drawing people that look real. But I’ve never tried to draw a figure that has a primitive look that seems so popular. Since this was my first attempt I didn’t want to waste one of my canvases so I used 140 lb cold press watercolor paper. I painted gesso on first, and then when almost dry, I set it under a heavy book to get it to lay flat. It worked pretty well with the acrylic paints, but did want to curl some, so I pressed it flat overnight a few times. I put it in a thrifted frame that was already painted a dark brown (looks almost black) and I’m keeping it for now, he he.





I think I might have a few more Halloween ideas somewhere in my mind, so back to the crafting table!

Ok, Enough of the Kids, Already!

To continue the “maternal” theme of late, I just finished this piece, called appropriately "maternal love". Its one of the largest so far at 8 x 10 inches. My camera broke recently so I'm forced to scan everything, so can't show how nice this looks hanging by the ribbon. Its listed in my etsy store, check it out.


I guess I’m pretty lucky; I’ve got some great kids. They are healthy, well adjusted, compassionate, and generally well-behaved (maybe that’s because of the daily cattle-prod, whether they need it or not!) Just kidding of course. For the most part I don’t have to do much in the way of discipline (to my two youngest still at home). My middle child, just turned 16 and she’s awesome in school and I don’t even have to nag her about it, go figure? Just have to rein in her mouth sometimes when it goes a little too far. I’m sure no one knows how that is with a teen, right?

My oldest daughter lives with her boyfriend and my 18 mo. old granddaughter. We had some tough times during her 16-18 years, but thankfully no drug/alcohol problems. I think our main problem is that we’re just too much alike (both like the last word) and we bumped heads a lot over her schooling and some boyfriends. But you can’t believe how gratifying it was to hear this the other day, and I quote “Mom, I can’t believe how well you raised me and how lucky I was to live with such a normal family”. We had been talking about how some kids just don’t have a chance, because parents let them run wild, no rules, do drugs in front of their kids, etc. So this mom felt pretty good after that conversation. (picture strutting chicken with chest puffed out ;-) I couldn’t be more proud of this beautiful, mature, baby of mine (at almost 23 yrs old!)

And then there’s my son…my last baby and my baby boy. It’s so true what people say about the bond between a mother and her son and its probably doubly so, when he’s the only boy and baby in the family. He just turned 13. We have a great relationship, we talk a lot and he knows he can come to me with anything (the girls know this too). Then there’s the other side of this pre-teen boy coin that shows its ugly head. He just seems to do those typical “boy things” that cause him to get into trouble, with a typical response of “I don’t know” when standing in front of me. I’m even smiling as I type because I’ve told this kid, over and over, “don’t even think that I won’t find out!” I think I’ve got him believing that I do have some kind of sixth sense (got to keep him on his toes ya know). It’s never been anything bad…who drank the ?, when I said not to, how did such and such get broken, etc., you get the idea. I probably get more of those sharp pains above the eye, that you have to put your index and middle fingers on and press hard, than I should, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I love my kids.

Ok, I promise no more about my kids, maybe.

Last Blast of Summer

We’ve had our heat wave (hopefully) the last couple weeks and now have some cooler temps, which hint of the coming fall. With that, I thought I would give a last blast to summer with these summery aceo’s. They’ll be available later tonight on etsy.

I’ve wanted to start using paints more in backgrounds of my art. I picked up a couple new acrylic paints recently (I only have mostly old colors from when I was painting my wood crafts and they are country colors, like pine green, and heartland blue, yuk.) So picked up some pretty blue colors. I love this new (for me) blue called Tahiti blue and with paint in hand and no idea what I wanted to do, and already out of my comfort zone just thinking about painting, I dove in. I thought I could always just throw it away and no one will ever know.

I picked a few scraps lying around my desk and divided them up on three cards. I randomly layered them along with painting the blue on the background and/over the papers. I didn’t like them at that stage. I then stamped French script with white paint. Seemed a little better. Then I went to my images. I had no idea what, but I decided to go with a type of image I’ve never used before, so I picked a couple nudes and bathing beauties and moved them around to find what background I like them on. Ok, getting better. Looking at the nude lying down, she didn’t fit on the card and when I looked at her I decided that she should be a mermaid. I’ve never done a mermaid in my life and always shied away from them. But I found a piece of paper that was a copy of a famous painting and thought it would look great as the tail part. I drew a tail section and cut it out, added some glitter, a few white acrylic paint squiggles and called it done. The other one of the nude looking in the mirror, I added a stamped crown done in the same blue paint. I added some cut pieces of white fine netting and tinted some gel medium with the paint and layered the netting pieces with the gel medium to add some texture. I then added some “spots” of glitter, and some tiny wings. The last one of the bathing suit beauty, I didn’t do anything special, but I did add some tinted gel medium to simulate the water under the pier. I’m pretty pleased how they turned out and they actually came together quickly, even though I used elements and mediums I’d never used before.

Creative Weekend

So now that you know a little about me from my previous posts…I have to say I'm now obsessed with creating. Every spare second is spent at my desk trying to create. I’ve had some dry spells when nothing is there in my mind and other times I just can’t create something fast enough. I think my art has “grown” since starting my first atc’s last year at this time. I have more confidence in my ability to create collages. I can kind of “feel” what works and what doesn’t with my atc’s. But now I want to create bigger pieces and experiment with painting.

I don’t want to have one “style” of art that I just make over and over, I want to experiment with all kinds of art mediums. There are so many artists out there that I admire and they make it look so effortless. But although I’ve painted years ago it was always closely following a photograph. I want to create freely, “from the heart” as many say, or from the mind, is what comes to mind, lol. I’m not an overly demonstrative person, and I tend to keep my most personal feelings inside. But I want to be passionate in my creating; I want to be able to paint with a flourish (and have it actually look like something). I hope that time will come. It’s even hard for me to blog about my feelings, but it’s also easy in a way, i.e. hiding behind a computer. I don’t get much support of my art from my family; they are pretty flippant (except for my dad and step-mom they are supportive) about the whole thing. My family is of the mind “get a real job” and make some real money. They’re probably right, but for the time being I want to take this road and see where it leads me. I know I won’t ever be famous, but something inside me has changed since I found art. I’m happier in a sense (but maybe that’s just the meds talking, lol). I’m not like jumping for joy kind of happy, but just content with myself right now. I’m not thinking the “dark thoughts” like I was this time last year. I’m excited to get up in the morning or the evening, depending on my sleep pattern at the time. I do my best work when I’m up at night, its quiet, and no disturbances.

I don’t have the money to take classes or go to those awesome ‘fests, so I’m surfing the ‘net and self-teaching by trial and error (there’s a heck of a lot of “error” too.) I’m so thankful for those artists who take the time to post tutorials and how-to’s. Below is a piece I did this weekend (this was a good creative weekend for me). Although the style is not something I would think of doing on my own, it was fun and the inspiration was from a lady whose art I really like, Debra of mtjoyschool. I'll be keeping this one for myself. The A3 is a little hidden meaning, all three of my kids' names begin with "A". Pretty clever eh? Well ttfn off to drive my rounds to pick up my two kids from school.