fall mantle

election time!!!!!!  i hope you all go out and vote - remember you can't bit** if you didn't bother to participate!  as broken as the system is (and i do believe it is broken) your vote is all you have!

poor little pezza is STILL coughing up a storm.  she just finished a huge breakfast and then informed us she was going to be growing today because she is turning 6 on thursday :P  i can't believe she is turning 6 wow!  she is such a funny, interesting, crazy kid!

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don't forget to join us on Color Me Creative for our current Mixed Media challenge - altering a die cut!  Lots of great prizes up for grabs!

You can also join in on one of my Mixed Media Classes on CMC too!  a third one is coming soon!

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So what do i have to show you today?  my fall decor - finally finished!  my halloween/fall decorating had not been updated in WELL over a decade.  it was kinda sad AND not really what i wanted anymore either.  not to mention sparse as pieces have been getting thrown out too.  SO i decided to do something that is more fall and less halloween only and also something that i could update each season.  here is what i came up with.

these are the two shelves on either side of the tv:

our mantle has been neglected for the most part since we built this house 8 years ago so i finally remedied that too

 i may still make some adjustments/additions but i am LOVING it for now!  and those large paintings were my starting point.

 i had the idea for making them in my head for quite awhile and built the rest of it around them.

the backgrounds are a mix of collage and acrylic paint, stamping, Silks glaze, and textured mediums.

this is a great way to use up some of your older papers too!  here you can see papers peaking through, fun stamping using the new Inkadinkado Stamping Gear for the circular motif (just saw them available in Michaels yesterday!), more stamping using bubble wrap and accenting with black stabilo pencil.

in addition i added some texture using ceramic stucco medium mixed with Luminarte Primary elements and a stencil.  you can also see the subtle yellow Silks glaze.

i also wanted to give the pieces a "ground" - for this i used glass bead medium again mixed with luminarte primary elements.

most of my focal images are die cuts done on my Black Cat cutter and come from Digi Scrap Kits except for the cat above which i drew myself and cut out.

i love the way these turned out and already have some christmas ones planned!

...an artist

hi all!

it has been a really rough couple weeks around my house but so far i am hanging in there.  lots of health issues i am still attempting to sort through and it can make the day to day all messy. but i thought i would come post another of the journal pages I did for my mixed media class on color me creative:

this one was a lot of fun to work on and i love how it turned out!

i love anything with birds so i thought i would try my hand at drawing a few to use here. 

i have been very busy with an assignment and some goodies using an art fibers kit and scrumptious Liminarte Silks - learning lots of new things and having fun along the way!  i can't wait to share with y'all what i have been up to!

mixed media couture!

hi all!

did anyone miss me???  sheesh summer is busy!  so what the heck have i been up to?  alot i can tell ya that!  last weekend we headed out to virginia beach to spend some time with my buddy catherine and her family - ALWAYS a good time when cat and i are hanging out!  and our hubbies finally got to meet each other!!!  the drive down was miserable for ALL involved - lots of rain and heavy traffic.  our site was nothing but a mud puddle but luckily our set up with the camper is relatively easy.  cat's family was all in tents and setting up tents in the rain SUCKS!  but sunday was gorgeous - not quite as hot and perfectly sunny.  cat told me they were going down there to go crabbing.  i didn't believe her.  but sure enough we got to the beach and there were the guys, in the water, pulling out crabs right and left!  FREE CRABS!!!!  i couldn't believe it!  so we had yummy crabs for lunch and then spent the afternoon in the pool.  pezza loved cat's neice tiana and the other kids there and it was so nice to have some little friends for her to play with.  all in all a great time!

in addition to the trip pezza also hosted her first tea party last week.  a GREAT success!  although we had way too much food - the kids were more worried about playing than eating and all had a great time.  i enjoyed spending time with the moms!  we hope to host many more tea times!  the only bad part - I FORGOT TO TAKE ANY PICTURES!!!!!!  what kind of scrapbooker am i anyway?!?!?!?

this week i am hosting a Close To My Heart party - their new cricut cartridge will be available!!!!!!!  don't live by me but want to place an order?  NO problem - you can order online through my party on aug 1-3.  just go to my demo's website and look for the button that goes to my party! CLICK HERE!

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what else have i been up to???  besides keeping pezza entertained (no camps for us this summer) i have been working on my next online class for Color Me Creative!  this one is a mixed media basics class and is technique based.  this means the focus is on learning the techniques and how to USE all sorts of mediums/products effectively.  then next week the project classes will launch to go with the main class.  these are techniques and ideas that can be easily incorporated into card making, scrapbooking, art journaling, mixed media canvases - so no matter what you love to do it is a great group of classes to take!  want to take the classes?  CLICK HERE to register!

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i have also been having lots of fun with a book i was given at CHA called Collage Couture by julie nutting - look for a full book review tomorrow!  here is one of the projects I made from the book:

SO MUCH FUN!  i am not going to give away any how tos on this one but it is straight from the book!  I used some great stuff from SCACD on this one - the city skyline stamp, the "strong" stamp and those gorgeous die cut corners.

The polymer clay flower was made using one of the fab silicone molds also at available at SCACD!  and now back to work getting my class up and running today!!!