project spectrum: red and pink

Earlier this month I stumbled upon a monthly challenge called Project Sprectrum. Each month is assigned a color or colors and participants are invited to create anything they wish to make using the color theme for the month. It doesn't even have to be new work. It could be something you're working on at the moment or it could be an unfinished project you took a breather from...bottom line, it's a no pressure project. I like that part the best.


rosita the mermaid, paper, glass ornaments, seashell, ribbons, novelty fibers, wool, ink. click on the image for close-ups on flickr.

I created this tag art doll today (the last day of the month, no less) for this month's color theme. The idea for this paper doll started with the red glass balls she has for boobs. I have hundreds of those things and besides giving them away to everyone I can think of I try to think of ways to use them in my art. She didn't start out as a mermaid originally. She was to be a bathing beauty with a bikini top and perhaps a hula skirt. When it came down to drawing the legs I thought to myself, "eh, I don't feel like drawing legs." So a mermaid she became. I sewed all sorts of ribbons, yarns, novelty fibers to her tail using some crazy metallic pink thread I've had in my notions stash for a while now. The seashell is from the beach in Edmonds, Washington.

month of softies: a room of one's own

I lost track of participating in Loobylu's A Month of Softies there for a while. But I'm back again for March's theme...in a round about way anyway.

I submitted my little tree fairy mixed media collage.



When I started out making this piece I didn't have a particular room (or any room for that matter) in mind, really. Only that I needed to start using all of these doll blanks I'd sewn too many months ago. Once it was finished I decided it would be perfect for our downstairs guest bedroom. The room is currently in a state of flux...it's been fully furnished since we bought this house three and a half years ago and it has some wall art. I finally decided on a paint color and now all that's left is to paint the room and hang this little gal up and we'll be good to go. In that room anyway. Plenty more to go before we'll actually be finished. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

About the piece: For the doll, I started out with a doll blank I had laying around. After I stuffed it, I used watered down acrylic paint for the skin color and then straight from the tube acrylics to paint everything else. The hair is some wool/mohair mix that I knotted up and then needle felted to her head. The dress is some vintage calico I found on ebay and the wings are paper and mesh screening. I used various machined and handmade, vintage and everyday papers for the collaged background. After the papers were attached I sewed along the most of the edges with my sewing machine and some black thread. If you haven't yet tried sewing paper, you should give a whirl, it's a little bit addicting.

inspire me thursday: monochromatic art

This is a small mock-up of a larger project I have in mind for some art to hang in my red dining room.

My mom recently restored a dozen or so redwork squares that my great grandmother stitched up some sixty or seventy years ago (maybe even longer, she passed away in 1993 at the age of 93). As one of my Christmas presents this past year my mom is finishing three of them out with log cabin quilted borders in reds and framing them for one of my dining room walls. With one wall taken care of, I still have two to tackle. So I think I'm going to make a quilt and then applique something like this little collage on to it and then mount it like a stretched canvas. Or I'll make it three dimensional by building a facade to mount on the stretched quilt background, find a nice branch and perch a couple birds on the branch. Or maybe one of each. Who knows. Hopefully at least one will be accomplished before the end of the year!

illustration friday: monster

A while back I was contacted by an editor at Lark Books to submit a couple plush/fabric designs for consideration in a book to be published this October/November. I sent in a spec sheet for these girls and one for a super cute little monster named Batty Cat Bubbles. Both were accepted and I was asked to do a modified version of my Alyce and Chessie dolls as well. I designed the dolls, wrote the patterns, made finished versions of each and shipped them to the publisher. As it turned out, I was the only artist to submit projects that required painting the doll forms and it was decided that it might be considered a more difficult project, etc. etc. etc. My poor siamese triplets and Alyce and Chessie didn't make the final cut! I was asked if I could redo the triplets all in fabric and I would've loved to if it hadn't come up right smack dab in the middle of December. I may still do it, I can see the possiblities. Anyhoo, here are the girls "in the flesh" as it were:



And just so she doesn't feel left out, here's Alyce too:

just a day late...

Just a tiny day late, but they're all uploaded and ready to go! Given the insanity going on behind the scenes here, the fact that I'm only a day behind is a miracle. Shee-it (as I sling sweat from my brow).

Without further ado...if you're interested...new (previously posted about) jewelry! As always, click the images for more details.


ffcccc necklace, twenty inches long, apl sterling and lampwork pendant, unakite, peruvian opal, miyuki glass. $68 plus postage and applicable sales tax.

with matching earrings here.


cowgirl's dream necklace, nineteen and a half inches long, apl sterling, copper, and brass toggle, yellow jade, turquoise, dalmation jasper, unakite, coral, miyuki glass. $85 plus postage and applicable sales tax.

with matching earrings here.


hidden message necklace #1, twenty inches long, apl brass, copper and sterling pendant, apl lampwork bead clasp, turquoise, miyuki glass. $48 plus postage and applicable sales tax.

okay...

Monday totally got away from me. I did manage to finish a few more pieces. Couldn't manage to do it before daylight went away though. There will be frantic photo taking while the smalls are eating breakfast. In the meantime, here are some "eh" nighttime pictures for your perusal. Click on the images for more info over at Flickr.


love these colors together.




I am totally smitten with these. Plus, they match the necklace in the previous post!

In other news:

Playdough seems like a good idea at the time. That is, until there millions of little dried playdough pellets scattered about a carpeted area. My question is this: how on God's green Earth does a four year old manage to grind playdough into millions of little pieces in the time it takes to rotate laundry? Thank goodness it dries quickly and that dried playdough doesn't ruin a vacuum cleaner.

phew...

Just a quick post to show you these:





I spent yesterday cleaning components I've been working on lately and last night trying to decide how to feature them. The two above are complete and I have at least four more pieces which will be completed when we return from Logan's speech therapy later this morning.

Oh, and I worked on this mixed media collage Thursday and Friday too:



Back with more in a bit.

can i tell you...

how adorable my mother is? Actually, there are no words to truly describe how awesome my mom really is. But I can give you an example so you'll have an idea.

We stumble links back and forth to each other all the time. Today she stumbled me a link to a recent entry from Yarn Harlot. In this entry Stephanie compares raising teenaged daughters to the finishing of sweaters. It's really a great post and while I am a seriously crappy knitter, I was once a teenaged daughter, so I see the similarities and can totally appreciate them. This is where the adorable part comes in: along with the stumble, my mom sent a little note. It reads, "I always thought of it in terms of a painting----4 masterpieces down and 2 to go."

My mom thinks I'm a masterpiece and while I know my parents are proud of me, the fact that she said it just made my whole week.

holy crap...

bed time is going to come early tonight for a couple little boys I know. The April/May issue of Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion just arrived today and WOW, just from flipping through it briefly, there are tons upon tons of good things in this issue! If you don't subscribe, you should run out and pick up a copy. Plenty of Spring-time inspiration from what I've seen.

the chicken or the egg...

from an antique postcard.

Emily recently suggested the idea of an egg shaped/Easter themed ATC swap. Sounds like fun to me. Here's what I'm thinking: I like the idea of a broad theme that can be widely interpreted. So "SPRING" is the theme. It could be intrepreted as the season, an object (like a bed spring or a clock part), a verb, something stream of consciousness based (like spring chicken, which came first the chicken or the egg, etc). I uploaded an egg shaped template to flickr for anyone interested in doing egg shaped atcs. Click the text link then right click on the template and click SAVE AS, make sure it will be saved in a folder you can find, and just in case, rename it something simple so you can run a search for it if you should need to. Once you have printed the egg template, cut it out along the INSIDE of the black line to maintain the 2.5" by 3.5" size!

The particulars:

The deadline for sign-ups is Monday, March 27th. To join all you have to do is email me (amy at aplcreations dot com) with your name, address and blog url (if you have one).

You do not have to have a blog to participate. International participants are welcome to play as well.

Each participant will make five artist trading cards to be mailed to me no later than Monday, April 3rd. So as not break the bank on my end, stateside folks, please send along two 39 cent stamps (or one 63 cent stamp) with your cards; those across the pond, please send $1.70 along with your cards. Each swapper will receive back a random selection of five ATCs plus an extra little treat from me. I will mail out the divvied ATCs on Monday, April 10th so that they will arrive round about Easter time.

A couple of bullet points on ATCs (courtesy of Cedarseed.com)
* The dimensions of the cards must be 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches.
* Sets of identical cards are known as editions and should be numbered (1/5, 2/5, etc.).
* Sets of cards based on a theme are known as a series.
* On the back of each ATC the artist writes part or all of the following information: name, contact information, title of the ATC and number if it's part of an edition.

more fun with chalk cloth...

Yesterday I was cutting out more panels of chalk cloth for some new Mommy's Little Sanity Savers. I ended up with one not-big-enough-for-another-mat piece and as it turned out it was also a too-big-to-just-throw-out piece. What to do? Make a miniature version, that's what. For the time being, I'm calling them Doorknob Love Notes.



Doorknob Naggers just didn't have the same ring, although I think they're kinder, gentler naggers.



I'm making another one for our downstairs bathroom. For some reason, it's the bathroom in which all the potty trained boys in this house forget ALL their potty etiquette. And really it's going to be for the big one who SHOULD know better. Lynn.

rain, rain and more rain...

That's what we've had since Friday and thank the good Lord for it too. We need it. Badly. It is rare that we get this much rain in such a short span of time and that fact was made painfully evident by all the crazy people stranded in their cars by high water! My sister (who lives in NC) saw a person floating down a Dallas street in his Mercedes Benz on the news last night and figured she'd better call to make sure we hadn't floated away.

Lynn flew to Austin out of Love Field this morning retro-style. He said the airport had been flooded out last night and they had no computers because of it. NO COMPUTERS. He said the counter attendant gave him a handwritten boarding pass. Can you imagine? He also claims to have been on the worst flight of his life today. This speaks volumes to me as the man is in the air three or four times a week sometimes. It was extremely turbulent, lots of people were air sick, he said he almost kissed the ground when they deplaned. He got a neck massage instead. I guess Spring is arriving in Texas this year with a wha-tah and a nice kick to the gut.

if you're the prayerful type...

I could use your prayers for my aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle (psuedo-grandparents) were in an auto accident last week. My uncle is fine physically, a wreck emotionally. He is worried sick about my aunt. My aunt is still in the hospital with broken ribs and a concussion. The doctors say she will likely be in the hospital for the next several weeks of her recovery. Thanks in advance for the help.

the cult, b & p and some acorns...

My husband and a buddy of his went to see The Cult on Friday night. The first two times they saw The Cult Lynn and "Helldog" were in high school. With that history already in place going to see the concert together now was especially fun. Lynn even scrambled around on the floor to get a tamborine that was tossed into the crowd by Ian Astbury. It is possible he might have enjoyed fetching the tamborine more than the actual concert at that moment. I say this because he reinacted the entire tamborine scuttle not once, but four times in the middle of our kitchen replete with getting down on all fours and tossing elbows. Good times.

Saturday my youngest sibs, Beth and Patrick, drove up to stay with us for Spring Break. I know what you're thinking, "yeehaw, Spring Break with your married sister, her husband and two kids! It's just TOO much. How will you recover in time to get back to classes?" Hey, we may be old(er) now but we still know how to have a good time. It's just the good time usually shuts down around midnight or one instead of four or five. It's important to be at least partially lucid when the two year old wants breakfast at 7:30 a.m.

Aside from all the festivities and company a lowly little acorn charm FINALLY made it's way to me so I could finish a special order i.d. charm bracelet; I finished another necklace; and I worked on another little batch of party girls (which I forgot to take pictures of). I'm putting a text link to the picture of the charms here just in case Tricia doesn't want to peek before her bracelet arrives. Here is a snap of the other necklace I finished:


sterling, copper, unakite, miyuki glass. twenty inches long. $35 plus postage and applicable sales tax.

Click on the image for more pictures.

mmmkay...

Thursday was Errands from Hell Day. Traffic was insane, people were insane, things I needed were out of stock, etc. Blech, not much of anything fun or creative accomplished on Thursday.

Friday was better creativity wise. I managed to get two necklaces completed and a handful of little party girl tags and a birthday card made.

The first necklace:

I actually made something else for the recipient of this necklace and decided after the fact that I should make a necklace instead. It's an unwritten law that most birthday gifts from me are going to be late...most of the time I'm just a little late, but sometimes, as in this case, I'm a few months late. This necklace is made with Serpentine beads, Miyuki glass, copper and sterling. It's the first bezel setting I've done in close to ten years. I seem to remember having problems with bezel setting in my classes way back when. Surprisingly, this attempt went very smoothly.

The second necklace:



This necklace is also a birthday present, only a not so overdue one. This one will hopefully only be a few days late. I wire wrapped a couple of my lampwork beads along with some Unakite beads and strung the necklace with Miyuki glass and more Unakite beads.

Some of the party girls:





More to come...

new necklace...

I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am this necklace is finally finished.

I made the owl focal back in November or December of last year. For weeks it sat and sat and sat some more on my workbench just waiting to be turned into something beautiful. Everytime I started to string the necklace it wasn't right. Back on my bench it went. One evening I was lamenting this pathetic turn of events to my mother. Her advice to me was to put it away, out of sight for awhile. Come back to it in a couple weeks with fresh eyes. I should have remembered this from all my art classes in college, but I didn't, not until my brilliant mother reminded me. Anyway, I'm glad I listened to my mom, because fresh eyes is exactly what it needed.

Sorry for the poor picture quality. It is overcast and blah here today. Click on the image for more pictures.


bird of minerva necklace

apl sterling, copper and brass focal, yellow turquoise, serpentine, miyuki glass. twenty-one inches long.

$85 plus postage and applicable sales tax.

new markers...

While out running our errands today, I bought the boys each a new set of WASHABLE markers. Logan got a 20 pack of Crayola Super Tips and Caleb got 16 pack of Crayola Pip Squeaks. I'm hoping to dissuade them from wanting to use my permanent markers in their artistic endeavors. Ha! Fat chance, I know. I'm trying to think positive here.

Tonight we cracked open all the marker packages and the boys set to town on their own bumble bees. Caleb chose a more traditional pallette of black, grey and orange for his bee. He also took every opportunity to color his body, clothing and table top with black, grey and orange (see a close up at flickr). After he deemed his masterpiece finished, he held it up with pride and me without my camera at the ready! Luckily he was feeling photogenic this evening and not only held it up to show off once, but five or six times. Chanting, "again, again," everytime the camera flash snapped.



Logan felt his bumble bee would be happier if it was more colorful than just black and yellow (see a close up at flickr). He worked so hard at coloring inside the lines. He had a few little straggled lines around the body and wings and didn't seem bothered at all by them. Once he started working on the right cheek he had on little area spring up and out of the lines. He just flipped...he wanted to wad it up, cut into a million pieces with his scissors, throw it away. He was so upset. I told him we could fix it to make it look like it was supposed to be that way all along. He was intrigued. We sat back down and I showed him he could turn the little mistake into a line and then he could just put a few more lines down to balance it and noone would be the wiser. You would have thought I pulled a quarter out of his ear. So cute.

illustration friday: insect

Because the photos my brother took of the "Crisco Clouds" deserve a little more air time and I couldn't decide on a background to finish for my little bumble bee. Oh well, at least I managed to get this one posted! I have my "tea" submission for last week hardly even sketched so I think I'll claim this as a small victory for today.

* * * * *
Logan and Caleb colored their own versions of the bumble bee too. See Logan's here and Caleb's here.

my matisse and a sneak peek...

L: "Mom, you know what I would like to do?"
M: "Tell me."

L: "I would like to get my Christmas paint tray (from my mom and dad) out and fill it full of colors."
M: "Sounds good to me. Get your smock."

L: As he walked down the stairs, "But orange is not my favorite color anymore. Blue is my favorite color now." When my mom made the smocks she painted an orange L on Logan's and a green C on Caleb's.
M: "It's only a little orange. I'm sure you will survive wearing just a little orange."
L: "Hmph."

L: Upon finding his smock, "Hey, I like this thing. It IS blue."
M: "Grandma is clever that way isn't she."

L: "Yeah."

On to the sneak peek! Among other things this weekend, I worked on my carved stamp sticker swap stuff. I ended up making three stamps/stickers and then folded up some joss paper squares into envelopes to house everyone's stickers.



Have I mentioned how much I like joss paper? It's a nice thing to have in the stash...very versatile. And another thing, paper punches? Love them. If they didn't take up so much space I would have way more than I do which plenty, I assure you.

guess...

what Momma's next splurge is going to be. I hope you are sitting down because, well because your knees are about to buckle. I promise. And if they don't then we need to work on thawing out your cold, dead heart.


images are property of www.earthangeltoys.com

Click on the image to visit the Earth Angel Toys site. It is just jammed to the gills with many of my favorite artists.

Click here and look at that sweet little blue bird in the middle. Swoon. I think he's the one I want. I hope he'll still be available when I inquire!

found...

For anyone doing Moki's newest stamp swap and looking for sticker paper: Hobby Lobby has 5-packs of self-adhesive vellum on clearance for $2.49. I bought a package of bold colors (a very blue magenta, a sunshine-y yellow, an orange-y red, royal blue and a pine-y green).



I tested some out for stickability as well as stampability and found it to be a reliable product.



The only thing I would suggest is to use a solvent ink pad versus a regular dye ink pad because otherwise the second coming will pass before the ink dries.

mommy's little sanity saver...

I made another chalk cloth place mat yesterday with more polka dots (of course) and one of my favorite Kaffe Fassett prints. I like this combination...it's a little more grown-up I think.

Last night I took the boys to dinner with their new mats and was informed by my four year old that maybe I needed to make one for myself because he likes to draw big and won't have enough drawing room if he has to share with me. I guess I will have to make one for myself.

There are three now available for purchase: click here.

* * * * *
confidential to Aunt Doot: it's a flickr pic.

round-robin journal...

Have you picked up your April copy of Country Marketplace yet? I hear there's an excellent article a few pages in (shameless, I know). I checked for them yesterday and my bookstore still had last month's issue displayed. Boo, hiss. In any event, the magazine is hosting a round-robin journal project and I just signed up for it myself. I think it will be a fun thing to participate in...a little creative spur.

Here are the round-robin particulars from the CM website:

Journal Basics:
A journal will be sent from reader to reader and will make its way twice around the reader circle before it is returned to Country Marketplace. Excerpts from the journals may be published online at www.countrymarketplace.com or in an upcoming issue of the magazine. The number of journals that are started will depend on the number of readers who join. Ideally, there will be 5 readers per group. A popular Country Marketplace designer will kick off each journal with a two-page entry.

Important Details:

* A deadline schedule will be posted on the inside cover of each journal. Deadlines must be met.

* Entries must be two pages (maximum four pages), and they can feature anything that the reader is inspired to include, such as a list of good books to read or fun Web sites to visit, a new recipe, a photo of a project she completed, a craft product she recommends, a photo of her pet, a quote or a poem, or anything else that falls in between. We want you to have fun when you are journaling! Embellish or scrapbook the pages; doodle a border; apply stickers; use watercolor markers. Be sure to sign your entry.

* Once you have completed your entry, you will package the journal and send it to the next reader on the list. Be sure to track the package so it does not get lost! You will then send that person an e-mail to let her know that she should expect the package soon. After the first reader has received the journal a second time, she will send it back to Country Marketplace.

How to Join:
Send an e-mail to awiegman@sampler.emmis.com with “Round-Robin Journal” typed in the subject heading (**tell her Amy sent you and maybe we will end up working on the same journal**). The e-mail must include your name, e-mail address, mailing address and daytime phone number. Names, addresses and e-mail addresses will not be shared with outside parties. Once groups have been formed, you will receive a welcome e-mail with the names and mailing information of everyone in your group.

* * * * *
This just in: I will be kicking off one of the journals! Now I need to get to thinking on what to include to get it started off with a bang.

επτά...

That's seven in Greek. Moki tagged me a few days couple weeks ago. This time it's lucky number seven:

7 Things to do before I die:

1. Take an extended European vacation with my husband.

2. See my children grow up and be happy and successful.

3. See all my siblings grow up and be happy and successful. (Most of them are already there...two to go).

4. This may seem small, but knit a sweater.

5. Go on a safari.

6. Still thinking.

7. Still thinking.

Seven Things I Cannot Do:

1. Speak Chinese.

2. Follow most knitting or crocheting instructions...my mind wanders and my eyes cross.

3. Eat calamari. The texture just kills me. I literally cannot swallow the stuff.

4. I cannot take erythromycin. I am allergic to it.

5. Honestly, I hate to admit anything I cannot do.

6. And really, if I put my mind to something, I can do most anything.

7. Oh, aside from a crane and a few other objects, my origami skills are lacking.

Seven Things That Attract Me To My Mate:

1. His totally off the wall sense of humor. Though sometimes you'd be hard pressed to get me to 'fess up to it.

2. The man does laundry.

3. He puts up with dinner being late and dishes piling up in the sink because I've been playing with the boys and making artsy fartsy all day.

4. He works his ass off so that I can stay home with our children.

5. He may not be the best disciplinarian, but he is a fantastic dad.

6. My (extended) family is important to him.

7. Did I mention he does laundry?

Seven Books I Love:

1. The Princess Bride

2. Most of Sue Grafton's books

3. Anything by Nick Bantock

4. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (all of them, except I haven't read Book 12 yet.)

5. Collage Discovery Workshop: Make Your Own Collage Creations Using Vintage Photos, Found Objects and Ephemera by Claudine Hellmuth

6. The Creative License : Giving Yourself Permission to be the Artist You Truly Are by Danny Gregory

7. Alphabetica : An A-Z Creativity Guide for Collage and Book Artists by Lynne Perrella

Seven Things I Say:

1. Come here, monkey.

2. Don't hit/bite/push/kick your brother.

3. WTF? Now I actually say, "dubbya-tee-eff." It's taken me a long time to get this abbreviated state. I used to walk around with a blue streak spilling out of my mouth as I cussed sailors and truck drivers under the table. However, once Logan started dropping f-bombs at the tender age of two I really started trying to clean up my mouth. It's leaps and bounds better now, but I still have a ways to go.

4. Good googally moogally.

5. No. Stop that! Put that down.

6. I love you.

7. What's the magic word? and any other phrase that might help remind my boys to mind their manners.

Seven Movies I’ve Loved:

1. "The Princess Bride"

2. "A Nightmare Before Christmas"

3. "Amelie"

4. "A Knight's Tale"

5. "Everafter"

6. "Nanny McPhee"

7. "The Corpse Bride"