Countdown to Christmas Blog Along

Well, December first is almost here! Tomorrow everyone who participated in A Swap for All Seasons Christmas Matchbox Swap will begin opening all those little boxes. My matchboxes arrived about a week ago...I can't wait for the fun to begin! Be sure to come back tomorrow to see the first box and stop in at A Swap for All Seasons to find links to everyone in the blog-along.

Beauty Reborn

Lat year I decorated some empty tin cans, filled them with stones and a large paper white bulb and gave them to friends at Christmas. This one was leftover so I kept this one for myself. After it bloomed I kept it on the kitchen counter behind the sink with some potted plants. Basically, I ignored the little spent bulb all year content to enjoy looking at the pretty bird now and then. Last week when I was giving the kitchen counters a pre-Thanksgiving wipe down I was going to throw out the old bulb and plant a new one when lo and behold I noticed a tiny bright green shoot peeking out from the old brown stem. My little bulb was coming back! I couldn't believe it...I hadn't added water to it in a year and here it was struggling to grow! I added some water to the bottom of the can and just look at it...it shot up this much in less than a week!

"It is not more surprising to be born once twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection." Voltaire

Happy Thanksgiving

Lenna's Creative Swaps

Lenna Andrews is a wonderfully creative mixed media artist who I've had to pleasure to "meet" in Mary Green's online classes. The other day I visited her blog to see some for the work she's been doing for Mary latest class Collage Basics with Vintage Paper. While I was there I was intrigued to see that Lenna hosts a creative swaps blog and that the latest swap was mail art! I love arting up my mail so I just had to join in. We were to create and send 3 artful envelopes to Lenna and we'll receive 3 in return...actually 4 since Lenna will package the 3 envelopes in one she creates herself. As they arrive Lenna's been posting the envelopes on the swap blog. Be sure to take a look at the beautiful mail art that's been coming in at the Creative Swaps Blog. Here are the 4 envelopes I made for the swap. I Created the envelopes from pages of an old ledger I bought recently at a garage sale. And, I'm sure you'll recognize some of Mary's lovely French Dictionary pages in the background. The adorable children were all courtesy of Lisa's Altered Art.

six

Rosanna and the Elephants

Mary's having another monthly challenge on her Green Paper blog. This month she's given us another lovely sheet of images to use to create whatever we like. The challenge is to use at least part of each of the three images. I've created a small collage on the cover of an old book. Mary's starting a new e-course this week called Collage Basics with Vintage Paper and if it's anything like her previous classes you won't want to miss it!

Journalfest

Journalfest is like Artfest but the focus is on journaling...making journals, sharing journals or just finding out what journaling is all about. It's put on by Teesha Moore and held at Fort Worden near Port Townsend. A few weeks ago I realized I was going to have a day off during Journalfest so I wrote Teesha and asked her if I could come for just the day. She graciously said yes! I chose a class by Katherine England who turned out to be a delightful teacher. The class was called Oz in a Box. I think that's one of the reasons I chose the class...I love the old Oz books. The other was that I would get to actually make my own journal and learn Coptic binding...something I've been wanting to try for awhile now. The class was wonderful...Katherine was a warm and generous teacher and I'm just thrilled with how my journal turned out. Because the journals are expected to get a lot of use (note to self...use your journal!) the spine is bound with leather...so you can't SEE the Coptic binding. But, it's under there...and I hope to make another journal soon and leave the binding uncovered. Katherine gave us each a cigar box to house our journals and I can happily report it's been out of the box several times already. I find that I really like the size...it's small...about 5" x 7"... but substantial.

Art Smile

Happy Halloween!!

Image courtesy of Jack and Cat Curio

The Friendly Visitor

You know how I love shopping in thrift stores....one of my recent finds was this old book. It's an 1885 bound volume of a monthly religious magazine. It was absolutely falling apart but I loved the cover and the pages and illustrations are wonderful. I plan to make a journal out of the cover and I know the pages will find their way into a collage one day. Here are a few pages from the book...feel free to use them too. What treasures have you found lately?

So Charming!

I love charms...I love to make them and I love to trade them! I joined a charm swap with some of the members of the Altered Dominos & Other Altered Game Pieces Flickr Group recently and the charms have been flying in! Here's the charm I made...it's an old wooden Monopoly house with a lucite bead (thank you Beth!) and a little mica home charm.

And here are the lovely charms I've received. Everyone was so imaginative. Mary Ann made her own tiny clay cupcake. Jan colored a Monopoly shoe and added beautiful lavender beads and trinkets. joAnne made two charms! I love the little metal man. Cindy made the sweetest mini domino bird charm. Heather took a die and added a collaged wooden roof...too cute! Nina made a little beaded person out of an old checker and Eda made a lovely fleur de lis scrabble charm. Every one is so special!

A Little Halloween Decorating

As much as I love Halloween I don't have a lot of Halloween doo-dads that I put up each year. I think I was feeling a little down in the dumps today because Quinn is gone on a business trip for THREE WHOLE WEEKS (!) and the house was so quiet...so I decided to cheer myself up with a little Halloween decorating. I took one of my favorite doll heads and sat him in my tin of fall potpourri. I tossed a few of those little pumpkin shaped pods in there for some color, gave him a party hat and a little pint sized friend with a "Happy" sign. Then I remembered I had this pumpkin trick-or-treater stashed away from a few years back and an extra Halloween banner...I put everything on the table in the entryway under my Farmer's Market Girl. I think they all look very happy together!

Life's Better When...

Here's the circle journal page I completed for Nellie's journal. Her theme is "Life is better when..." so since we all became such fast friends at Artfest I just had to finish the sentence with "you have friends." I've loved working in a new journal each month...this is the 5th one! The background here was inspired by techniques in Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts. And the Paper dolls are a free template from Somerset Studios.

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