Tattered Florals

Black and White Tattered Floral flowers added to wedding cake. Wedding theme was Parisian with black and white theme.

Three Years - No Posting!! What Gives???

It's been three years since my last post. Now I'm trying to figure how this works so I can renovate this ancient site and start posting some of my artwork.

Heart Postcards

It's been a week of rain here in "sunny" Southern California. We haven't had this much rain in five years. We drove down to the beach a couple times to watch the waves and surf. They are incredibly beautiful - the power of the ocean is hard to describe.

While inside during the rain, I finished four heart postcards I've been working on for a  mixed media swap. They're the first I've done and I'm quite happy with them. Now I plan to make some for the grandkids for Valentine's Day. Here they are:

I love working with muted and monocromatic color schemes. I never get tired of the soft colors.

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I used distress crackle on this one to give an aged look but the lines show up too much on the face. I do love purple valentines though.

My favorite. Isn't the girl sweet?

The small pink dots are beads. The ruffe around the edge is a ribbon I had in my crazy quilt stash.

Tim Holtz Tags

I'm posting twice today because I'll be gone much of the rest of the month and want to get my holiday tags online.  I've been obsessed with following Tim Holtz's "Ten Days of Tags" at http://timholtz.typepad.com/ . He posted  instructions for a new Christmas tag each day for 12 days in a row. He posted at midnight so of course I had to stay up until midnight every night to see the new card.  He uses tons of supplies and gives 25-45 steps for making each tag. Early in the process I spent much time looking for supplies both in stores and online. On Day 1, I went to 6 different craft and art stores finding only 1 or 2 items at each store. Later in the week I was much luckier and found many of the supplies on-line. They have not arrived yet but I'll continue learning the techniques once they arrive even if it is after the holidays.
    These pictures are from Day 1 (click to enlarge). Of course one tag wasn't enough; I had to make five. I'm not happy with the end result but did learn a lot of new techniques. I tried to improvise with materials I had on hand and they didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. My favorite is the one in the individual photo. I didn't use the grunge board on him that was really supposed to be grunge paper which I didn't have.

Grandchildren's Birthdays

November and December bring a rash of birthdays to our family - anniversaries too; so I've been busy trying to get cards made and out to those who might enjoy them.

My granddaughter Kiera is into the 1920's in fashion and make-up so I made her this card using scrapbooking paper. She seemed to love the card.

Danny turned 20 today and I sent him this card because he loves animals. They usually have 2-3 dogs, 5 birds,  8-9 cats, and a variety of smaller animals at any given time.

It's fun for me to watch my growth as I make cards and do other paper art - each year's cards seem a little better with more detail and precision. They also seem to enjoy the handmade touch from "grandma" almost as much as the gift that accompanies it. Tyler turned 21 in November but he seemed too old for a handmade card. Maybe next year I can think of something more appropiate for a 20+ year old young man.

Thank God for grandchildren!!!

Baby Brother's 50th Birthday

We're off to Vegas this week-end to celebrate my baby brother Paul's 50th birthday. Two sisters and their husbands are coming from Michigan, my husband and I from San Diego, and brother Paul from Denver. It should be a fun time for all of us. Since our parents both died before he was 21 he had few momentos from our family so I made him this 12" x12" wall hanging so he'd have at least a few pictures.

Day of the Dead

I planned a Day of the Dead evening for a group of my friends. It was a lot of fun planning it. I made chocolate skulls by melting white chocolate into a form from Michaels. I decorated the table in tiers with a lot of candles,
marigolds, food, and then we each added a photo of someone
we wanted commorate. We took turns talking about the person in each photo. It was a very caring/sharing evening bringing us even closer together as friends.