mix it up challenge

hi all!

hubby headed back out of town this morning so i am on my own with she-who-never-stops-moving.  seems at this point that he will be out of town 3 days a week for awhile BLECH!!!  at least he doesn't have to do it for the full 5 days a week!

so i have been thinking about pinterest (i say that like this is something new!)  anyway, one of the things i am always finding on there is stuff i want hubby to make/build for me.  so i made a honey make this board.  now i can just refer him to it!  but then it occurred to me - pinterest can be a really fabulous wish list to consult when you need to buy someone a gift!  just check out their pinterest boards and you will see everything they have ever dreamed of!  gift giving made easy!

i kicked off the Mix It Up groupon Color Me Creative - a mixed media/altered art challenge group - on monday with a fun live chat, the next challenge and a scavenger hunt for a chance to win some goodies.  our current challenge is to use a page from a book - in any way, on any type of project:

i scored big time at a cool antique mall right here in my little town called It's Bizarre and found several old books - nice and aged to perfection!  so i tore one out and got to work!

First I mixed up a little Apple Blossom Primary Elements Artist Pigment mica powder with some liquid medium and stamped the page with a claudine hellmuth foam stamp.  then i accented them a bit with some quick circles using a black colored pencil.

Next i further accented them with some drops of buttermilk liquid pearls.  now i have a cool custom patterned paper!

I decided to use it on a card this time - i will be doing more with these in my art journal - but i wanted to show folks how easily mixed media can be incorporated into cardmaking.  they really overlap quite a bit - think tim holtz - pure mixed media.  but i like mine more on the cutesy side so i paired my book page with some cute papers and an adorable Make It Crafty image!

i painted her with Luminarte's Twinkling H2Os and then used regular colored pencils to add depth and shading - the shimmer will still shine through the pencil!

isn't she gorgeous!  i will have a video up on this image soon!

meanwhile on the kitty front - one of our big cats is a ferocious hunting machine.  it is her life's mission to rid our yard and the yards around us of every living thing.  she can cry at the door, go out, head straight to the next yard, grab a mouse and come back.  since bubba came along she can't go in and out freely through the cat door so she has had to resort to hunting indoors:

this is the upstairs hallway after 3 days.  i pick them back up and spread them around the house and she repeats...

and then there is my sweet sweet bubba kitten.  one of his fave hiding places was always under pezza's kitchen step stool.  however he used to be MUCH MUCH smaller so now we have this:

i freakin love that kitten!