AB RR Life in Numbers

I have created a photo album at PhotoBucket of my book that returned to me almost a year after it left.
I think it turned out great and wanted to share it with everyone that participated and my friends & follows.

Merry Christmas Everyone!
Deb

Early Christmas Present

LAPTOP!!
It's my first laptop . . . I'm so excited!
It's a HP G71, if that means anything to you. It's kinda big ... but I like the screen size for some of the photo and art stuff I intend to do on it.
So did I say I'm EXCITED!!. I'll post some art soon. I have to install my new printer/scanner to it. Just so you know... I intend to bring both with me to any workshops or retreats I do. :-)
It's going to snow most of the weekend, so I'll have lots of time to play with my new toy.

New Art Journal Page

I have been watching technique videos by Teesha Moore and others.

They have inspired me to work in my Healthy Art Journal. I want to finish this journal for 2009. I have not been that successful in getting healthy, but I am planning on beginning with my husband in January down that path, so we can have some fun adventures in the next few years.

This is my finished page.

Maps to Alter

I belong to an alteredbook yahoo group and we are doing a book page swap, where we have books that we are willing to tear up and swap for others.

I have this large atlas book that has really neat maps in it, that are hand drawn and would be cool to alter into your own personal map. They are mostly in foreign language so it only makes since to alter them and not worry as to what they are a map of really.

I think I will do one this week and post it later.

Another Weekend Gone . . .

I did get a lot accomplished. Yesterday was raining and cloudy and sooo cold for October. I stayed in and organized some more stuff. We moved a large cedar chest upstairs to my art room. I filled it with magazines, all kinds, Gardening, Travel, Decorating, Fitness, Women's. I have lots of them to go through and cut out what I want. I like to save them for some reason. I have some that go back to the 80's.

I found a card kit that I only made about half the cards, so I finished the rest, but I made them into to Christmas cards. I have sooo many cards. I may package up a few for presents.

I have been reading about doing collages with encaustic paints and beeswax. I bought a small kit last year about this time and so it is time to use it. I have a small box that I want to try out a project I saw in a book called Creative Paint Workshop for Mixed Media Artists by Ann Baldwin.

The book has a lot of techniques in it.

Today I we went out for breakfast, I had Stuffed French Toast with blueberry topping. It was sooo good! I bought some fleece sheets at Kohl's on sale, so I will be warmer at night. Then when we got home, we made chili and headed out to mow. I mowed the lawn and Greg mowed the pasture and hills. It was sunny, but the wind was freezing. I got about half the yard done it an hour and decided to get my camera and take some pictures of the changing trees.

Summer (our dog) came with me up the hill, we saw a doe. Greg said he saw quite a few bucks, one with a monster rack.

Getting ready to watch the Amazing Race, after about 1 1/2 hour delay due to football :-(

Everyone have a good week, hopefully warmer ;-)

Home from Vacation

It's sooo good to be home.

We had a wonderful time . . .

First went through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, MN and into North Dakota.

This was an interesting drive. Iowa is flat and huge farms. Up into northern Iowa & MN they have lots of windmills. I am fascinated by them. I want one of my own. I don't know why we are not using the wind and the sun to provide our energy. When are we going to wake up, America!!

North Dakota has fields and fields of sunflowers. Judy B would love it.

We had a fun visit with Kevin and Amanda. Their home is lovely. The base is nice and the weather was very warm except for a couple days.

We came home the northern route, thru MN, WI and UP MI. We stopped in Ashland WI, went to Bayfield for a sail boat ride. It was a beautiful day!

Then we went to Mackinaw City and out to Mackinaw Island. We visited Fort Mackinaw and went for a horse carriage ride. We want to come back and stay at one of the Inns along the shore. The picture is from Arch Rock on Mackinaw Island. I loved our two stops on the way home.

Then we headed home so home.

I added a vacation photo album below.

I LOVE Weekends, they just go to fast!

I went to a card workshop yesterday with my friends & co-workers. It was fun to get together and make some stuff. Lunch was soooo good Judy B.

Decided to check out some of my favorite blogs and found this video to inspire all who think Art is too hard.

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KabUINP_D8

Still working on my parent's 50th Anniversary book. Can't post pictures yet.

LONG WEEEEEK!

This probably the most I have worked in a week in a long time. 2 - 12 hour days and Saturday too!

I finished my color postcard trades from March this week and got them sent today. I totally forgot about doing them. So as always "better late than never".

I got a Big Kick from Sizzix last weekend and I embossed the paper, which was a piece of paper I had under other paper I was spritzing with Moon Glow mist. Then I doodled around the embossing. The colors for March were blue / green, my favorites. So I was glad to get them done and had a lot of fun doing them. Hope the ladies I trade with like them. Off to the backyard for a fire and roasted marshmallows!!

49th Birthday Weekend!!

It's been a good birthday. Worked on the 17th, so we went to Columbus today and explored the Polaris side of town. Lot's of neat shops. We got here about 9:30am so not much was open except Barnes & Nobles. It was a huge one. About 10:15 we wandered over to The Great Indoors. We got some bathroom makeover ideas. Neat store. Greg plans on doing on 1st floor bathroom over into a spa type of shower. So it was neat to see ideas. We also went to World Market. Found a nice Reisling wine to take home. Next stop was Joann's. Had my coupons, some for Greg too. So I got a new stamp and paper was 6/96 cents. So I got some neat new ones.

Then we looked at Sizzix Big Kick stuff. I have been wanting to try some embossing, so Greg said I should get one with my 50% off. They were sold out, so I got some embossing templates, since I know someone in our group has one. We then went to Red Lobster for lunch. Delicious!! No room for dessert. We then found Kirkland's, which I fell in love with in NC. I got a little lamp and some picture frames. Started home and stopped at one antique store. Got a few treasures. I scanned one of a box of old cards I got. The back of each card is a clear piece of vellum like material. Really neat. I called the Zanesville Joann's when I got home and they had a Big Kick , so I went and got it. I can't wait to use it. I need to get a special pad for embossing and I'll be set.

Came home and made a fire in the back yard and sat by it while the sun went down, drinking a glass of my wine. Relaxing and peaceful end to a perfect day!

Working on 50th Anniversary Book

We got back from a small vacation yesterday. I started working again on my parent's 50th anniversary book. It's going to take some time to complete. I hope I can scan the pages for each of my sisters. I am scanning all the pictures before I use them in the book, so I have them for other uses later.
I will try and scan some of the work, but it is 12x12 pages and my scanner isn't that big, so I may have to go to a scrapbook store like Archiver's to scan them.
Hope everyone is still enjoying summer. It seems to be going fast. I don't want it to, but I also want September to get here, so I can go see my son and his new wife up in North Dakota. I miss them both a lot.

July 3 - NO WORK!! YEA!!!

I love a day off. Slept in until 9am. Caught up on some of my taped shows for a few hours.
Decided to go up and clean stuff up in my art room. Our oldest son, Chris, came home for a few days. He stayed in my art room, so I had to take my stuff off the bed and lay it on the floor.
Once things were straightened up, I had a few swapped ATC's to put away and realized my binder is getting too small. My mom had given me a few binders she had laying around, so I decided to cover one with some of my favorite papers. Used Mod Podge to get it all to stay put. I bought a Scrabble Junior game awhile back and decided to use the tiles in it to make the title on the front of the binder. The binder is too big for the scanner, so the picture came out blurry. I'll take some pictures in a few days to post. It has lots of room for my ATC's now.
I have to start working on my parents 50th anniversary present. I am going to make them a remembrance book, scrapbook type of thing. I have been meaning to do this for sometime, so it's time to get it done.
Hope everyone enjoys their 4th of July!!

AB Yahoo group birthday book

I have finished my page for the Altered Book Yahoo group birthday book. Over 100 people are submitting pages to Corinne, one of the co-moderators of the group. She is going to out of the very goodness of her heart, copy each page sent and bind them into a book for each of us, who are participating. It's quite an undertaking in my book! I can't wait to see it.

It was a challenge to work on a page only 4 x 6 inches big. I had decided as soon as I signed up for the swap to use a page out of one my favorite books, A Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindburg. So I picked the page, and started the background effect and then measured. My page was way too big to get the words I wanted to include. So I decided to scan the page with the background effect done and shrink it down to 4 x 6. Mission accomplished, I set to adding all the doodles and stamped images. I'm pretty happy with it. The background doesn't sparkle like the original, but I guess it wouldn't have sparkled in the copies either. Corinne is going to keep all the originals and possibly submit the original book for publication. That would be sooo cool. That was not the original intent of the project. But a nice possible side effect . . .

I worked all day getting caught up on an Art Journal RR I am in. We lost one of our participants, due to an injury, so I just got the book I should have gotten a month ago. But it's been fun working on it. I am working in Kim's journal and she made her own with heavy watercolor paper. So it is very nice to work with. I wish I would have made mine now. But I didn't. Hopefully everyone can work in it ok.

This is today's page. I decided I would use a postcard from my vintage collection in each person's book. This postcard had on the back: To Allen, From Grace, August 14, 1912. I worked on the backgrounds for the rest of the 10 days, so I can just journal and add a little bit during the week.

Thank You All

Thanks for all the wonderful comments. I didn't know so many of you had commented.
I am having a blast doing this and it really has helped to keep me focused on getting into my art room and getting things done!!
I am headed up now to get 3 ATC's created for Stephanie at http://www.joyuslion.com/
We are trading 3 for 3 butterfly cards. I love her digital art. I'm not that great at the digital stuff yet. But then again I work on a computer all day, so it's good to get away from it when doing my art.
I think we are in for some big storms tonight. Time to turn off the computer and head upstairs.
I'll post my cards before I send them.

What I finished this Saturday . . .

I had to remove the finished project from it's picture frame. No easy task. Then it didn't really fit the scanner, but I finally got a good scan. It's pictured larger below. This is the other project I am offer on June 27th. Again size is your decision. The stamped image is just about 1 1/4 " square. So depending on your name, you have flexibility with the size. I also found picture frames at Family Dollar, some are even marked down 1/2 price.

I am also posting my decoupage project I finished this weekend using Basic Gray paper from Hobby lobby 1/2 price this week!! I have loved this saying since seeing it down in NC at Kirkland's. And I love these colors, so it made for a fun project. The paper bubbled a little, so I'll have to work on that. I have a map of Monhegan Island, ME and the coast that I want to get done. But we don't have water right now. Spring is acting up. Greg is laid up with his back, so I am hoping a friend will be over sometime this weekend to help me figure this problem out.

Beautiful Day outside, they don't get much better. On my way out to try and enjoy it a little!

Heritage Tag Picture

I finished this project tonight.

I used CTMH paper pack called "Notebook" for background and tags. Also for some of the embellishments. Mine is 10.5 x 12. I removed the glass, since the project has dimension to it.

There is another picture of frame below posts.

I will be offering this as a workshop at the Marne Crop on June 27th. We will begin at 1pm. The cost is $5.00 and the purchase of a level 2 paper pack, of your choice, by June 12th. Then find a picture frame. (I found mine at a garage sale)Remember paper is 12x12, you can go bigger if you want to piece paper together. Which can be done. Just depends how much you want to do. I will provide tag punch and some additional embellishments, such as, buttons, eyelets, ribbon, etc. Each person should bring there own tool kit which should include: adhesive, scissors, eyelet setter and protective pad to set eyelets.

I will also have a simplier project on hand that I will post a picture of next week. It would again call for a paper pack, frame & $5.00. Not so much embellishment though. I would supply the stamp set and ink.

Let me know if you have any questions by email or phone. debis7860@yahoo.com or 828-3921.

Back to Work

I was exhausted after my first day back. I was amazed how much I had forgotten how to do in just 3 months. But it's all coming back. It's just the sitting for 8 hours a day. Blah!
It stormed bad here last night, and I was up off & on all night. I think I'll climb back in bed and try to get another hour. It's going to be a long day . . .
I have to get my new project done, so I can scan it and send my CTMH newsletter out.
Tonight after work!

I Have Finally Created My Blog

I was stumped for a name. I want to use the name I will call my art studio, should I start one on the farm. So I decided to use our house numbers and call the studio simply what it will be.

I have had a time getting this to look half way how I want it. It's started and as I learn more about editing and creating on the computer I will change it.

But until then, it's here and I am going to do my best to post at least once a week. I want to post a project or a piece of art I created that week.

So that's the plan, we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for stopping by!