Circle Of Friends 2010 Journal Rotation

Last month I had Caroline's Journal and completed this piece for her.  For this Journal you had your choice of two templates for making a castle and two subjects to use - Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty.  She had included many collage images for you to choose from and this is what I came up with.

I chose this castle, it just seemed to speak to me, and I used the Cinderlla theme.  I cut my castle from Grunge Paper and I had this glitter embossed paper that seemd to work perfectly for this project.  I used Distressed Inks on all of the edges in Rusty Hindge and Wild Honey to give a little extra depth to the paper. After I attached the image I coated it with Rock Candy Distress Paint to give it that old crackle look. I have also used Distressed Stickles on parts of the castle.  You have to have a bit of sparkle in your work!!  I then added ribbon, beads and flowers to the project.

I really enjoyed creating this piece for Caroline and I believe it has finally started me back on the creative road.  I will thank Caroline for that and I really hope you like your page.

Circle Of Friends April ATC Swap

For the month of April at The Circle of Friends we were give the theme of "Dance"  I found this great image on one of my Altered Pages collage sheets and thought  it fit the bill perfectly.  It reminded me of a beautiful flowing waltz.

For the background I once again went to my trusty Alcohol inks - this time using Latte, Shell Pink and Raspberry.  I used this on Glossy Photo paper and I made this by placing a dot of each color on my applicator and doing a crisscross pattern on a larger piece of the paper.  I then cut it down into the ATC's.  Each one is a bit different, but all have the same colors.  for the image I cut it out and then coated it with Crackle Paint in Rock Candy.  It comes out clear, but with really nice crackles on it.  Once this was dry I attached it to the card and place a couple of crystals on the image.  I added a ribbon flower, a colored bead and the work Waltz on the side.

COF 2010 Round Robin Journal

The Circle of Friends is once again doing a Journal Round Robin with I think nine of the ladies.  This year I have chosen the Theme of "Circus/Clown".  Because I was running late to get my journal on it's way I wasn't able to get a page done on the inside, but I did get the cover done.  I have used a Grungeboard book page for the cover and I covered it with an orangish paper.  To that I added some Circus stamps from Tim Holtz.  The letters for the title are from Cosmo Cricket.  I can't wait to see all the wonderful pages that everyone will add to my book.

Advent ATC's Day Five

This is the ATC that I did for Day 5

and this is the one I got from Dawn.

Advent ATC's Day Four

Here is the Advent ATC I made for Day Four

This is the card that I got from Cheryl

Advent ATC's Day Three

This is the Day Three ATC that I made and

here is the Day Three that I received from Andrea

Advent ATC's Day Two

This was the Day Two ATC that I made.

Here is Day Two that I received from Michelle.

Advent ATC's Day One

I have done a swap on Circle of Friends and we did an Advent Calender using ATC Cards. I am going to try and post each days cards that I made and the ones that I received back in the trade. So here we will start with December 1st - Day One

This was my Day One

This is Day one that I received from Janice.

November Swap COF

For the November Swap at the Circle of Friends the hostess sent us some stamps and we were to use them to create anything that inspired us. We received two sets of clear stamps - one with two flowers and one with butterflies and a bird, some of my favorite images. But I must say I was really challenged with this project and it took me almost three weeks of looking at the stamps and looking at the paper I wanted to use to get inspired. It finally all came together and here is the final result - a small hanging inspirational card.

For the base card I used this great paper I found at Reddi Arts, a shop

here in Jacksonville, FL, it is a recycled brown Rough Sketch paper, but I wanted to find a way to use it in this project. I used Distressed Ink in Spiced Marmalade all around the edges of each card and a bit over the whole piece. Using a watermark ink I stamped the flourish in the background and then added the saying and bird, both from Tim Holtz clear stamp collection Artful Flight using Pearlescent Chocolate Brilliance by Tsukineko. I glued the art piece to an really pretty orange cardstock to make it a little more sturdy and then added the little corner pearls from Basic Grey.

For the flower I stamped it on Grungepaper and cut them all out, added Distressed inks in a variety of different colors - for this one I used Faded Denim and Mustard Seed in the center. Because the Grungepaper is soflexible I used a toothpick and wrapped each petal to give it a bit of curled dimension. I added Distressed Stickles in the same colors on the flower and at the edges of the petals I used Picket Fence Stickles. To glue the flower I only used glue dots in the center so that the petals are free and can be "fluffed" to add even more dimension to the piece. Here's a close up of the flower.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope I have inspired you to create,

Circle Of Friends Sept ATC Swap

Sorry I haven't updated in so long - between being sick for a week and loads of work at the office I haven't been in the craft room much over the last few weeks. I'm hoping to get a few things worked on over the week end and getting a few more things posted for you to see.

For September and and October at COF we are doing an Advent ATC Swap. Numbers 1 - 12 are due by the end of Sept and numbers 13 - 25 are due at the end of October. We are all using the same set of papers from Basic Gray - Wassail, but from there you can make them completely your own. I sent off my Sept set last week and I have been working on the second set for Oct in

between working on a few other projects - I'll get to those in another post. I thought I would post a few of them over the next couple of posts.

For number 1 I used a Mask from Tim Holtz and Distressed Ink in Tea Dyed for the background. The Santa is an image from Altered Pages from a collage sheet called Glass Slides Christmas. I added Distressed Stickles in Fire Brick to the background for a little added sparkle. I stamped the number One and added a button to finish the piece.

For number 2 I used a printed background, a couple of fabric stars, a one inch Fragment, again from Tim's collection and a really pretty green jewel brad. I found the number 2 tag and paired it with the brad. Under the Fragment I used a Christmas Greetings image from Altered Pages from a collage sheet called Inches Christmas

For my third ATC I used a Grungboard number 3, three Christmas Trees and a cute red and green ribbon and bow. I used Distressed Ink in Old Paper around the edges of the card and just a bit on the card to give a more of an aged look. The 3 is painted with a shinny paint and I added three green jewels for that added sparkle. I also added a little green Stickles in green to the trees.

Well, there you have my first three cards - I will add more in the next post and I promise it won't be such a long wait for that one. Thanks for stopping by - I love sharing my Art projects with you all and I hope I can inspire you to go make some Art!!

August COF Swap

Well, for once I am way ahead of myself for the Monthly Swap we do at Circle of Friends. This month the challenge was to make an arch using a theme of Medieval. I have to say this is one of my favorite projects and I had so much fun putting it all together.

For the arch it's self I used Grungepaper and embossed it with an embossing folder that looks like Steel Plate, I thought that would give the look of a shield. I painted the arch with a metallic silver and used a bit of gold and Black Soot over that just to give a more aged look. The knight is printed on paper and painted with H2O's, for the horse I used a brown Distressed Ink. I added some torn papers and then did all the bead work along the side.

COF July Swap

For the month of July Andrea is hosting a swap where she sent each of us different products and we were to make ATC's for the group. I finished mine on Friday and wanted to share them. I received Blue cardstock, a blue/green pattern paper, some square buttons and a roll of colored tape for my Dymo Labeler. Here is what I came up with.

I added beads, Grungepaper, a stripe of paper that I embossed and sanded, and Twinkling H2O paint.

First I used H2O's in Iridescent Green on the blue cardstock, then I cut a stripe of the pattern paper with a zig zag edge. For the flower I used a flower die from Quickuts and cut them out of the Grungepaper. I painted them with Mountain Rose Paint Dabbers and a pink H2O to add the needed sparkle and shine. For the embossed edge I worked with Sandable cardstock from Core'dinations with a whitewash finish and a pink underneath. Once embossed I sanded it to bring out the color from under the white. I added the Friends title and there you have it.

Thanks for stopping by for a look at my latest work.

May COF Swap

This month the challenge was to use newspaper in your project.  You could make anything you wanted as long as there is newspaper somewhere in it.  I chose to make another tag - right now they just seem to be what I enjoy making.  Here is my tag with a newspaper flower.  For the flower itself I painted a strip of newspaper that was cut about 1 1/2 inches wide and I cut it with a pinking blade for added texture, with Twinkling H2O's in a purple (I also did some in yellow and pink),  I then pleated the paper into a circle and taped the back to hold it together.  Then I took a large pop-up dot and covered it with colorful thread for the center.  The stem and leaves are cut out of Grungeboard and painted with Twinkling H2O paint.  For the background of the tag I first sprayed it with Glimmer Mist in Sea Glass, then I used a mask from Tim Holtz and Distressed Ink in Worn Lipstick.  I also used a bit of China Blue over the whole tag.  I then added a little ribbon and a pink pearl.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look.  Please feel free to comment.

COF Journal

I just sent off my latest journal - the theme on this one was to make a tag using "Momisims".  All those wonderful bits of knowledge Mom knows and tries to give us, and when we're young we think it's all a bunch of mumble jumble.  We later learn that Mom was pretty smart after all!!

 

For my tag I used "When one door closes, another door opens".  Life is so full of going out one door and  going into another.  Our lives are always changing and we shouldn't be afraid of that change. 

For the background of my tag I used a color wash of Twinkling H2O's in Mandarin Blush then I used a Mask from Tim Holtz in the shape of a crown and I used Distressed Ink in Shabby Shutters.  I found the pictures of doors on line and I attached them only on one side so they can be opened - there's a surprise under each one.  I used little beads for the door knobs. For all my words I used this new paper I have that is brown with colors underneath and it's made for sanding.  Once you emboss it you can sand it and the other colors comes through.  I used one strip that was brown and orange and another that was brown and green and I ran them through my trusty Dymo labeler.  I then added a couple of word bubbles.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!!

COF Journal

I got my Journal to work on for April and can you believe it - I'm already done with it so I thought I would post it for those that want to see.  For this Journal you had to pick three words from a list and use them in an ATC, but you could not use any words - just pictures to represent the words.  The words I used were: flower, girl and undergarment.  They just popped right out at me and I know right away what I wanted to do.  I know I had an image of a lady in a corset from Altered Pages, and it worked perfectly.

I took a piece of green paper from Basic Grey, stamped a few flourishes on it using Distressed Ink in Pine Needle, I also used this around the edges for added color.  I added tiny flowers from Prima and used Distressed Stickles Glitter Glue for the centers.  I  also added Diamond glitter glue around the edges for the corset for added sparkle.  A girl can never have to much sparkle!!   I added a few crystals that I dyed green using Alcohol Ink in Bottle, on the card and a crystal flower at the top.

Thanks for taking a look.

COF March Journal

This month I had a journal from Cheryl that was an Altered Book and the theme was "Mystery". I had a really hard time trying to come up with a good subject so one day I went on line and just Googled mystery and the first thing to come up was Alfred Hitchcock - now growing up I watched this weekly program all the time and I think I have see most of his movies.  So that's where I got the inspiration for this page.

The first thing I did was cover a page with Distressed Ink in Soot - I wanted this to be a dark layout.  I used a black and white paper and some black and white ribbon  for the center of the page.  

I cut out this picture of Mr. Hitchcock took a GrungeBoard crown and painted it with Crackle Paint in Pewter and added some green jewels.  Well, you have to have some bling you know!!  Alfred was Knighted in 1980 by the Queen of England.

 I stamped his name on some paper with a bit of color to it and then added Distressed Ink in Tea Dyed for the more vintage look.  The saying was made using my trusty Dymo Labeler.  I use heavier paper with a white core so that when I sand them the letters stand out white.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look at my work.

  

March Tag Book Swap COF

The swap for COF for March is to make a tag from the template given to us and using the theme of Spring.  This one really was fun to make and I'm so excited to be done so early!!  Now I can move on to something else that I didn't think I would be able to do.

For these tags I used some Distressed Ink in Worn Lipstick and Shabby Shutters around the edges of each tag.  Using circles from GrungeBoard Shapes in small and medium I painted them with H2O's and  punched a hole in the center of each and then wound ribbon around them to make flowers.  I stamped the vines, Hero Arts, and painted the leaves and flowers with H2O's.  I added crystals in matching colors to each tag.  The crystals were clear and I colored them using Alcohol Inks in Wild Plum and Bottle.  Spring is created with my trusty Dymo Labeler.

February COF Swap

The theme for the February COF Swap was "Secret of the Heart" and here is the project I came up with.  I made an ATC using a pink patterened paper and used a pink wash over that to add texture. I stamped the picture with black and embossed it using clear embossing powder.  The butterfly is from Jolee's Jewels and I colored the pearls with Wild Plum Alcohol ink.  I added a purple ribbon and the works were made on my Dymo and then sanded a a bit of pink paint added to them.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look.