Happy Crafting

I had the wonderful pleasure on Sunday to participate in a craft class with Cathy Lyn Harrison from Teach Me Art School and Studio. We met at her home in Historic Niles and tried out a project from Cloth Paper Scissors November/December issue. These Sparkling Snowmen have bottles for bodies and each bottle is filled with treasures: beads, crystals, pearls, etc.

Here are my Snow Ladies! They are obviously female because of my unrestrained use of froo-froo and their cute little pillbox hats :)


I have one more bottle that Cathy was kind enough to give me, as well as a handmade snowman head, so I'm not finished yet! The trick is finding enough do-dads to fill the bottle. During this project I was able to try some new products. I used a lot of gel medium to decorate with, especially when we covered the heads with chunky glitter. The whole thing is sprayed with aerosol glitter from Krylon. I really want some of my own!

I am ashamed to say that my pictures have been languishing on my computer, unused and unseen. Last night I made a small step in the right direction by finishing a digiscrap layout. I used freebie kits from Theresa Hernandez, Peppermint Creative, Daniela Peuss, and Connie Prince.

Hopefully, I'll be posting some more layouts in the future :) Have a nice weekend everyone!
Allison

The last of the spooky stuff, I promise!

Here is a quick pic of my "altar" for both Halloween and Day of the Dead. My centerpiece is Eve. She was created in an art for kids class I took at San Jose State. Her body is made by using masking tape to adhere newspaper to a straw. The straw provides the hollow for the aluminum wire to go through and connect all the bones. The newspaper adds the bulk and give you the shape to paper mache over. The hardest part if I remember correctly was attaching her head! Eve was constructed to show our common ancestor. They say we are all descended from an African Woman. I used the biblical myth of Eve to represent her. The green felt around her neck is the serpent whispering knowledge to her. This is one of my favorite things in the whole world. It expresses so much of me and took many days and a lot of new skills to make.



After my pumpkins were done I had a little fun with them :) You can also see the finished Halloween Tree... well, as finished as it's gonna get this year! I wouldn't ever consider it "done", just like a Christmas tree, every year it will change. I think next October I will add some spider webs and garlands of some sort...
It was a great start and now I get to continue practicing! My dear Kevin got me this cute little mini xmas tree! I guess I'll be creating more ornaments and hopefully taking better pics ;)

Well, Eve says, good bye everyone and remember that we are all connected in one big family tree!

Post-Halloween blues...

Yep, I'm gonna miss Halloween a lot! I enjoy Christmas but it's never been a real crafty time for me... I take that back. I tend to make more digital art around xmas where as Halloween has me up to my elbows in paper, glue and pumpkin guts ;) Here is something I made last year for Crafty Curios: a set of winter shirts for ladies and girls. Of course, you can also get the designs on sweatshirts and hoodies. I imagined these being perfect for gals who spend their winter up in the snow skiiing or just sipping hot chocolate. Of course, if the only snow you see is the sparkly stuff at the mall, that's okay too! Here are the Ladies of Winter: Snow Bunny, Frost Queen and Ice Goddess!



I'm not completely done with Autumn though, oh no. We still have Turkey Day to celebrate! Here is a link to a FREEBIE! This is a scrapbooking page kit that I designed called Apples to Apples. It's free for you to download and use for personal scrapbooks and such. Please no commercial use. Hope you enjoy it! Click on the link above to download the zip file! I think it would go nicely with any sort of Fall layout :)Here is a preview of the kit to give you an idea...

Creative and Motivated!

Sometimes it's hard to be both at the same time... especially with the time and energy constraints of modern life. If I look back, I can see that I was most creative and likely to finish a project when I was in college. Duh, if I didn't, I got a bad grade! But I think it was more than that. Us creative folks can be, forgive the stereotype, a little out there and I believe that I personally benefit from structure. This can be self-imposed (but that's like letting the fox guard the hen house) or imposed from outside one's self. Luckily, one of my good friends turned me on to Swapbot.com. It's a great way not only to find structure for your creative endeavors but to meet other artists and fun people all over the globe. You join a swap and you're given parameters for your creation, an audience and a deadline ;) I can't tell you how great this has been for me! Here are the results of my first swap, an ATC swap with a Dia de los Muertos theme.

They are both ofrendas which means "tribute" or "offering" in Spanish and refers to the altars made by families for their beloved dead on Dia de los Muertos. The first one is for my grandma Barbara. The images in the card remind me of her. The perfume bottle for her Avon, the dragonfly for the pair of earrings she gave me and the calaca for the many Albee awards she received for her success with Avon. The flowers are marigolds, traditional altar flowers for the Day of the Dead and also represent the love and joy she brought to so many.

The second one is for my grandpa. His was a little harder for many reasons. My grandma died in 2002 and I think I've had a lot of time to process that loss. My grandpa died in 2005 while I was planning my wedding. In order to make it through that time, I had to push aside many of my feelings of grief and guilt. By making this piece for him, I was able to get back in touch with and release some of that pain. I chose the images based on his love of westerns, his free spirit, his love of his country and his stellar personality. You might also notice that my grandpa's card has a small dragonfly, which links the two pieces together. Also, the wire on his card spells out his call sign: W6UBQ.

There are so many lessons I learned through this project! One was about giving your art away. Yes, I mailed the originals to my swap partner. I didn't have to, the rules specify that you can send high quality copies but something told me that I should. Maybe it was another act of letting go. I'm happy that they will be placed in someone's art collection. I have already benefited through the creation and I don't think I would benefit more by keeping them. Anyway, thanks everyone for reading. This is indeed the time of year when we are going into the darkness. I hope you all find healing there.
Allison

My first ATC!

ATC stands for Artist Trading Card! I love this idea :) I've been seeing them and hearing about them on scrapbooking sites for a while but wasn't sure if I could work on such a small canvas. Here is my first attempt and I'm pretty proud of it!
I chose the vintage photo because of the look on the girl's face. What a pretty little sourpuss! I attached it to a card that I had painted and stamped. Over the pic, I adhered a snip of fabric with the butterfly and leaf design. The star is glitter and chipboard. The title reads "The Docters said she was just "Too Bright". Is the misspelling of Docters a mistake or a part of the piece? I'll let you decide. The title paper is actually dimensional and rolls up at the bottom.
The story behind the card? Well, as a young teen, my parents got divorced. I was having a little trouble with it and my mom took me to see a therapist. I was off and on "the couch" for many years and I remember at one point a therapist telling me that I was just "too bright", meaning that I saw things in people and in the world that others might not see or might not brood about so much. Ignorance is bliss in other words! I'm not ashamed to say that I've worked hard to become a better person and I definitely encourage people to explore their minds and hearts through whatever means they feel comfortable with. For me, that means therapy and art :) But I still chuckle sometimes thinking about that young girl who stared back at her therapist and thought "I'm too bright???!!!"

bye for now,
Allison

Halloween Tree part 2

Just a sneak peek for you this time because I'm still not happy with the pics I've taken of this creation! My hubby did try and help me and we came up with some very atmospheric photos but not quite what I wanted. Here are a few close ups!



As you can see, I'm using everything in my artistic arsenal! Sculpey, beads, wire, yarn, toothpicks (hahahah) and my awesome color printer! Stay tuned for some more pics and of course, more projects! I have MANY irons in the fire right now ;)
later,
Allison

Stop the clock!

I wish I could slow down time so we could all truly enjoy and savor this time of year :) As promised, I have pictures of the art that I did for my nephew's Harvest Festival at his preschool. I totally didn't know this but the game we helped construct is called... uh oh. It's gone, I can't remember! Something like pinkle? But a web search isn't helping me here. Oh well, here are the pics, maybe you all can tell me what in the world this game was!

You take a little plastic ball and drop it into the top, it bounces here and there off the pegs and lands in one of the bottom spaces. Now, at a more competitive fair, there might be points at the bottom or you might have to get the ball into one particular slot. But since this was a fun, family festival, every child got a ticket which they could then use to get a prize :) You might be able to tell that the paint ran in some places. I was using gel paints. The upside was that when my nephew helped us paint, I could simply wipe up the extra with a paper towel. As you can see, the downside is that when the boards were propped up to dry... they didn't dry fast enough! Oh well :) Those spots can always be touched up for future festivals. And I have to give credit to my sis who painted the board with the hay bale and pumpkin by herself! We did the tree board together. I have to say that I now feel a little more confident in my free hand drawing skills!
later,
Allison