ArtiphyTheHeart

When We Were Young. . .

So many things were different when I was young.  Bingo was a huge fundraiser for many churches and organizations, and without cable TV, movie rentals, internet access, or video games, a lot of people were available to play.  I can't imagine having fun with Bingo, but a lot of people lived for it!

Birthdays were very important in our house.  My mother made sure that each was celebrated enormously, and cake, ice cream, cards, and gifts were never forgotten.  Today, birthdays are still revered as high holidays in my home.

So, for Skinny Saturday's theme, "When We Were Young", I chose to use Studio Art Stamps with a bingo and birthday theme.  I used black Versafine to stamp "Max", the flower, and the text.  The hat Max is wearing is a foam stamp colored with markers and topped with an orange brad.  Tag, flowers, and stamped image are colored with Nick Bantock inks, Adirondack lights, and Tim Holtz distress inks.  Background paper is hand-colored with acrylics, then mounted onto black cardstock.

Have a wonderful day, Everyone!

Metamorphosis. . .

With an open theme at Skinny Saturday, I'm here feeding my op-art addiction.  When Barbara Hurst suggested that we do zentangles for a swap at the end of April,  little did either of us know what a Pandora's box this would open for me.  I really, truly, do not want to stop making these things. . .Oh no. . .am I morphing into a retro '60s artist??  I remember an art teacher in high school telling me that I'd never amount to anything if I kept wasting my time drawing these things (she and her still lifes of shoes and apples). . .well, I'm a fairly good cook. . .

So here's my butterfly of change.  My metamorphosis.  Done on a page from a book I'm altering, mounted onto cardstock.  Inkadinkadoo's butterfly was stamped with Staz-on black and colored with Marvy markers and black felt tip pens, as was the background.

Have a great weekend, Everyone. 

Skinny With ATC. . .

Today's Skinny Saturday theme required incorporating an ATC into the Skinny and was a bit of a challenge, but once I wrapped my brain around the concept, this was a lot of fun to do!  The ATC is detachable.

Backgrounds for both the skinny and the ATC are a medley of Tsukineko mint green ink, a home-made glimmer mist of spring green Pearl Ex, gum Arabic and water, and Adirondack acrylic dabbers in cloudy blue and citrus.  Images are cut from a Memories Of A Lifetime image.  Border is gold leaf pen. 

Have a great weekend, Everyone!

Monday's Child. . .

 

"Monday's Child" is fair of face. . .this is the theme for this week's SS, and easy one for me, since I have a Monday Child.  I've made a simple, dimensional collge of my daughter, Amy, cut from a scanned photo and placed with dimensional tape in front of another scan - - a portrait of Natalia Pushkina, which I have framed with gold French border.  It shows a little in my skinny, but in person, Amy's resemblance to Natalia (left) is uncanny, and her skin tone matches almost exactly the skin tone of Natalia Puskina's mother, Natalia, in my second skinny, on the right. 

If you looked at this post earlier, I had larger versions of each photo, one on top of the other.  Everything else remains the same, but I decided it would be better to see the skinnys a little smaller, and side by side.  Hope the rest of your weekend is happy!

Sisters. . .

There's something about being a woman that ties most of us together like sisters.  A few are outside this net - - I'm not sure why.  But for the most part, women, no matter how dissimilar, are still in one way or another,  kindred spirits.

For Skinny Saturday's theme of "Sisters", I tried to evoke the ethereal and spiritual essence of sisterhood.  The doctored image is originally from an eighteenth century painting by Thomas Gainsborough, a portrait of (sisters) his daughters.  I added the vintage blue paper flowers, the black German scrap, a snippet of blue fabric trim and black rose rub-ons from BasicGrey.  The background is textured cardstock from DCWV's Far East stack.

Kewpie With Butterflies

"Sitting Pretty" is today's Skinny Saturday theme, and it gave me an excuse to use one of my new "Kewpies" stamps from Clear Art Stamps.  I stamped the image on to cardstock with StazOn, then used watercolors and watercolor pencils to color the image, the large butterfly at the top, and the background, then I clipped the corners and edged the paper with a gold Krylon pen.  The green ribbon is from Making Memories, the flowers are from Prima Marketing, the "Happy" rub-on and the patterned paper base is from K&Company.

Have a great weekend, Everyone, and be "Happy"!

Growing Older. . .

There is one universal:  No matter how young we are, we are all growing older.  This is the theme for today's Skinny Saturday, which as far as I'm concerned is a happy thing!  I might have been prettier and skinnier when I was younger, but if going back in years means leaving all the lessons I've learned behind, then I'm much happier growing older, and hopefully, wiser! 

Forget about the things you might not be able to do as well.  Usually, they aren't the most important, and even if they were, why stress over what's gone?  Now, think about your talent.  It doesn't decrease with time.  It's one thing, unlike your hips and your knees, that the more you use it, the better it gets!  So say "hooray" to growing older!  I love this theme!

There are no stamps on my skinny, just a music sheet (which just happened to have the lyrics "growing old. . .how lucky is that!), a photo image and some cranberry cardstock.  Brown rub-ons from Basic Grey, a couple of stick-ons from K&Company, and a piece of ribbon to finish it off.

Hope your weekend is wonderful!

Love. . .

When you have a blog called "ArtiphyTheHeart", it makes sense that Valentines are going to be a favorite theme.  This week's Skinny Saturday has "Love" as the theme, perfect for getting out my favorite papers and tiny snippets of things, scissors and glue.  Scans will never look as good as photographs, but they're so much quicker. 

The count-down has begun!  48 hours to V-Day!

Little Traveler. . .

"Travel" is this week's Skinny Saturday theme, and after a lot of looking, I chose this little traveler image from Memories of a Lifetime for my focal point.  Other elements include a canceled stamp, a couple of Tim Holtz "distressables and doo-dads, postage series" items, number stencils, and word rub-ons from Anna Griffin.  Basically, it was just cut, layer and paste, with the exception of the baggage tag which I stitched on. 

Maybe next time I'll actually get this done on Saturday. . .

Birds. . .

Today's Skinny Saturday theme is "Birds".  I love this theme!  I could draw, freehand cut, stamp, stencil and rub-on birds every day of my life.  I have no idea why they captivate me, but they do, so this was a labor of love. 

The background is a 3" X 5" cutting of hand-painted paper, stamped repeatedly with the Color Box diamond shape stylus tip in pigment ink and embossed with JudiKins white diamond embossing powder.  The centers of each diamond have blue and brown sunburst rub-ons from K&Company.  A piece of paper lace cut from a sheet of Creative Imaginations scrapbooking paper is glued to the bottom.  On top of this is a transparency overlay attached with eyelets by Making Memories.  The white bird and the scrolly decoration at the top are rub-ons by BasicGrey.  A strip of white leaf ribbon is attached to the edges of the transparency sheet with GemTac.  I threaded part of a beaded necklace through the eyelets and tied on the silk ribbon at the top.  Lots of fun! 

Now I get to have even more fun looking at what everyone else has done!

Christmas: "Birds", the Reprise. . .

Today's Skinny Saturday challenge was "Christmas", with the added suggestion that the piece be made as a hanging.  I scanned my birds (see yesterday's post), resized them and printed them on watercolor paper.  I added a fabric Santa hat with some fuzzy white felt trim, made a gift of a square cut from origami paper and drew-on the ribbon and the bow, added the calligraphy and the "long life" chop and backed it on black canvas before adding the beads at the bottom.

Have a wonderful weekend!  It's late here and I'm off to slumber-land (where I don't spend near enough time).  See you tomorrow with another Gothic Arch. 

Dream . . .

Like most children, when I was little I dreamed of flying.  One dream, when I was about 5 years old, was so vivid that I almost convinced myself I had really soared through the air in our living room, high above the the amazed adults who looked so tiny sitting on sofas far below me.  Our living room had a very high ceiling, and I remember walking through that room many times later, looking up, hoping to talk myself into believing that my dream had been real.

I no longer stare at ceilings wishing I could fly, but I do soar above the world below each time I loose myself in a creative endeavor.  Dreams really do come true.  Sometimes, and fortunately, not exactly as we had originally planned, but often even better than we could have imagined.

Today's Skinny Saturday theme is "Dream".  To illustrate my dream, I used original art stamps from Stampotique Originals.  The little girl is from "Kleins Other Lines" and the balloon is a "Weensies" by Susan Mahoney.  I drew the background with colored pencils and colored the sky with chalks.  The balloon was colored with markers and stuffed with a tiny cotton ball for dimension.  The tail is a tiny piece of red raffia.  Text and swirls are rub-ons from K&Company.

It's night time now where I live, and I'm off to what I hope will be the holiday party of my "dreams".  Since I won't be posting again till morning, I'll wish you all sweet "dreams" until then.  And always, may your every good "dream" come true!

Skinny Saturday

Today's theme is "Beauty" and I couldn't think of anything more beautiful than hearts and flowers and lace and some wonderful scrolly lines and dots.  Happy December Everyone!