Dorothy Tag Book Swap

Karla of Karla's Cottage hosted a Dorothy Tag Book Swap recently. She has a great post here on the whole process of receiving and sorting and packaging and mailing swaps...you have to go look! You'll be amazed to see all that goes into hosting a huge swap like this. My hat's off to her! Plus, you'll get to see many of the gorgeous tags she's received. I'm looking forward to seeing my book when it arrives. Here are my tags...I love this image from the original The Wizard of Oz. I used another image from the same book to make a shrink plastic charm to go along with my tag.

Blog-Along with Santa Claus and a Giveaway

Linda is hosting a Santa Blog-Along at A Swap For All Seasons and you're invited! Everyone who's participating in the current swap will be posting pictures of Santa on our blogs so we can all blog along and visit. There will even be another fabulous giveaway for those participating in the swap. But you don't have to be participating in the swap to enjoy all the fun with Santa...so post a picture if you like, stop by A Swap for All Seasons to let us know Santa has visited your blog and then grab a cup of cocoa and blog along with all of us! HOHOHO

Red Lead Halloween Postcard Tag Swap

Halloween Skinny

I can't believe the summer's gone and here I am working on Halloween things. How time flies!

Red Lead Swap Blog

Chris and Sharon at Red Lead have started a new blog just for Red Lead Art Swaps. If you've participated in Red Lead Swaps in the past or want to see what kind of fun swaps they're cooking up next take a look here. See you there swap sister!

Charm Swap

Last Saturday a group of friends got together to visit and trade charms. This group (with a few additions and a few losses here and there) has been swapping charms twice a year for the past three years or so. Hosted by Beth and Lisa, formerly of The Salvage Studio, and held in Beth's lovely home, these charm swaps are such a great time. There was a little shopping beforehand in Beth's garage, coffee and sweet treats, wonderful charms and even door prizes for each of us! Here's a sampling of some of the charms we swapped. I have to admit once the swapping got started I forgot to take any more photos but if you'd like to see more just take a look at Beth's blog. Thanks everyone for the gorgeous charms and a fun time and thank you Beth for opening your home to us once again...can't wait for next time!

Beth and Debra

Door Prize Table

waiting for the fun to begin

Refreshed

Quinn and I often try to take a short time away around our anniversary each year. For the last few years we've headed to Cannon Beach, Oregon for a few days...it's become one of our favorite places. This year we did things a little differently and started in California where we hiked among the Redwoods. Talk about gorgeous! Photos can't do justice to these magnificent trees...they're just too big! We had a wonderful time working our way up the coast from the forest to the beach. We've come home feeling refreshed and renewed with plans already in the making for next year!

Collage Coterie Lesson 2

I'm so behind with my Collage Coterie Workshop but it's been such a busy week between working and getting ready to go away for a few days. I wanted to at least try one more collage and decided to use one of these old bingo cards. I really like using these for backgrounds...I love all the numbers. Lesson two dealt with the muted colors found in vintage pieces and using chalk and charcoal. I like how the charcoal gives a nice perception of depth to a collage and I've admired its use by others but I'm going to need more practice to make it look more natural.

Summer Beauty ATC Swap

Have you ever found a brand of clothes or a series of books or anything else that just suits you as if it was made for you? That's how I feel about Red Lead. Chris and Sharon have created a wonderful artsy world full of everything I love...a little vintage, a little retro, charm, whimsy and a dash of sass. I got a chance to actually visit their store in St. Louis a year or so ago and had such a fun time...I think I touched everything! They're constantly dreaming up new things to play with...stamps, collage sheets, trinkets and what-nots. The latest group activity was a Summer Beauty ATC swap using their beautiful Vintage Elements collage sheets. I love these images...old seed packs, beautiful summer flowers, birds....so pretty! Here are my cards...I can't wait to see what's flying my way!

Neighborhood Charm

A few weeks ago I was reading some of my favorite blogs (probably when I should've been getting ready for work! ) when I stumbled on these pretty little charms made by Cindy of Cindy is Crafty. She calls them neighborhood charms. They remind me of some of the buildings in my sister's old neighborhood in Brooklyn. Cindy makes them out of old Rummikub tiles. You know how much I like old game pieces so you can imagine how "charmed" I was by them. When I wrote to Cindy to let her know how much I liked her charms she offered to send me one. Now, how sweet was that! Well, we decided to have a little swap...she sent me one of her neighborhood charms and I sent her an altered poker chip charm. And here it is...thank you Cindy...I love it!

Collage Coterie

Mary has started a new workshop called Collage Coterie. I had such a great time with her Your Vintage Gluebook workshop that I didn't hesitate for a moment to join this one! As Mary describes it, this workshop is "especially designed to celebrate the fun of vintage collage!" I think one of the aspects of Mary's workshops I love the most (besides the lessons themselves and all the gorgeous images Mary shares) is the camaraderie among the participants. Mary has set up a Flick group where everyone can share their work. It's a wonderful way to see what everyone else is doing and get feedback from Mary and the others in the group. If this sounds great to you, come join us! In the first lesson we learned Mary's technique for a blended paper background. Here are two ATCs I made for the exercise.

Time to Register for Artfest!

Artfest 2011 doesn't take place until next April but August 1st is the date that Teesha announces the line-up of instructors and workshops. Registration begins on September 4th so you have about a month to look over the offerings and make a decision. For those who may be unfamiliar with it, Artfest is a four day art retreat held annually at Fort Worden near beautiful Port Townsend, WA. Teesha and Tracy Moore host four magical days of mixed media art workshops hosted by talented artists from near and far. It's hard to describe how amazing this experience can be but just try to imagine spending 4 days with 500+ people who all love making art! In addition to the all day workshops there's art trading, late night art parties in the dorms, journaling and bonfires on the beach, art vendors night, show and tell, old friends, new friends and so much more! I'm so fortunate to be able to attend again this year. I've read over the offerings, ordered and reordered my choices (SO hard to decide!) and now I'm ready to send in my registration. Hope to see you there! PS...if you're curious you can take a look at some of my photos from Artfest 2010 here.

Fish Ride

Lady Churchill

Mary at Green Paper has offered us another challenge using some of her lovely vintage images. This time it was an image of Lady Churchill along with two other images. The challenge was to use at least a portion of each image in any kind of art piece. Some of the pieces that were made for the last challenge were amazing! I chose to use the images in an ATC this time. Be sure to stop by Green Paper and download the free images and join the challenge! On August 9th Mary will pick one participant at random to receive one of her wonderful vintage paper packs.