ArtiphyTheHeart

Some Awards and a Tag

A Couple of Awards. . .

 A huge thank you and lots of hugs to Lisa Cornelius of Simple Journeys who graced me with the "One Lovely Blog" award weeks ago.  My sincere apologies for taking so long to post it on my blog and choose recipients.  How hard it is to choose recipients!  My method is to put the names of all my beautiful blogging friends in a hat, and pick two.  These are the two:  Louise of Kard Krazy, and Patty of Magpie's Nest.  Both of your blogs are completely lovely and wonderful!

More hugs and a thank you to my daughter, Amy, for the "Fabulous Blogger" award.  Amy has waited more than a week for me to post this, and again, I apologize!  I'm beginning to think I'll have to clone myself to get everything done in a timely fashion, but then you'd all have to put up with more than one of me, so I'll spare you that!  The two names picked from the hat for this award are:  Liz of Pink Petticoat, and Alberta of Amusing Muses2.  The hat did a great job!  Both of your styles and your blogs are completely different, and both are completely fabulous!

And The Tag. . .

 

The challenge for the week at Tag You're It is "numbers".  Valentines artiphy my heart!  This is my favorite time of year, and I can't get enough of them!  My tag is simple:  The Love14 is a Cuttlebug embossing folder, coupled with a die cut.  The button is truly vintage, found on one of my antique button expeditions quite some time ago, and the paper lace was made with my Martha Stewart border punch.

It's a busy time of year, and right now I am:

Adjusting to a completely different schedule

Listening to the Classic Vinyl station on Sirius/XM

Drinking a cup of french pressed coffee made with beans roasted by a friend

Finishing artwork for the 14 Days Of Valentines swap

Enjoying the gentle rain we've had for the past two days

Have a great day, Everyone!

 

Something New

 

The Weekend Taggers challenge this week is to use part of your new stash.  I just happened to download the brand new set of Valentine's papers and images from Pink Petticoat last night, and I've used them in today's tag.  The tiny gold hearts paper, the valentine sentiments paper and even the crimson paper used to cover the chipboard letters are all part of Pink Petticoat's "just an old-fashioned girl" collection.  The ecru lace at the bottom of the tag was made with my new Martha Stewart punch, and the silk ribbon at the top isn't very old, either.

I hope your New Year has gotten off to a wonderful start!  I'm in the middle of a gazillion on-going projects.  To mention only a few, there's a 14 days of Valentines swap, and I'm making mixed-media pieces for that.  You'll have to wait to see them though, because it would ruin the surprise if I posted them now;  ...And I'm hand-binding ten more books that will serve as my 2009 art journal stash;  ...There's an altered book round-robin that I'm part of, and the theme for my book is "self-portraits", so I'll have a wonderful record of the artists who participated when my book comes back to me in June;  ...I'm half-finished with my son's Christmas scarf -- yes, I'm late, but I need to take frequent breaks when crocheting as I can feel the tinge of repetitive stress if I'm not careful;  ...And there's the valentine's throw that I'm hand-quilting, made up of 4" squares.  The more I think about it, the closer I am to deciding that this will be a table scarf for Valentines Day, but it may morph into something entirely different before its finished.  You never know;  ...And there pages and pages in my art journals that get done daily.  No matter what!;  ...And there are DT pieces for This Thursday It's All About.   You'll want to be sure to take part in the first challenge of the new year which will be on Thursday, January 8th!;  ...And all the other wonderful challenges in blog-land that provide inspiration and keep us fresh with new techniques, and the latest most wonderful artwork that our friends are posting.  So yes, it's already a good year!! 

As for the other things in life, right now I'm:

Listening to my kids laughing

Reading a newly published epic by the late Roberto Bolano

Craving enchiladas (because of the book?)

Staring at the bright green vacuum cleaner that my daughter thinks is "cute" (it isn't)

Watching old television episodes of The Rockford Files

Getting ready to make a cup of tea

Thinking about creating a new blog banner

And wishing you all an abundance of happiness, creativity and prosperity in this new year!

Have a great day, Everyone! 

 

Brown & Aqua. . .

 

This week the Weekend Taggers theme is "brown and aqua", a very pleasant change from the plethora of holiday colors that I love, but that we are necessarily bombarded with at this time of the year!

I couldn't resist the season however, so mine is a "joy" tag.  The tag was stamped with Hero Arts "manuscript background" in tea dye distress ink, then mounted onto a cut piece of 7Gypsies paper, which was then mounted onto a piece of aqua Bazzill cardstock, then cut to shape.  The tag is topped with an off-cut of brown Bazzill, a large aqua flower from Making Memories, a circle of brown cardboard, a couple of buttons, and some aqua silk ribbon.  The j-o-y letters are Making Memories pre-glittered shimmer jigsaw chipboard.

Have a great day, Everyone!

Carving A Tree

 

I'm late again!  Inspire Me Thursday's theme for the week is "carve", and Weekend Taggers want a Christmas tree.  I've been cutting tags from a set of templates by Paper Bouquet, and decided that it made sense to carve a tag-sized Christmas tree to work with both these challenges. 

I don't really own any holiday-themed stamps, at least I didn't until recently when all of us on the This Thursday It's All About... design team were given a great set Halloween stamps from Artistic Outpost, and then shortly after that I won the candy on Willy's blog and got a gorgeous set of Christmas-themed stamps from Art Journey.  But no tree.  So adding one to the collection was really what I needed, and I think this one is great because it's really not just for Christmas.  I can picture it in a variety of settings.  I was aiming for the wood-block look, and a positive image (as opposed to a negative in which the background takes on the ink and the image remains un-inked), and I think I pulled that of rather nicely.  In a way, this felt like cheating!  I have carved wood blocks for prints, but this is my first time using rubber.  It won't be my last!  Compared to wood, this is like cutting butter!!   And no gouged fingers!  It was FUN!  Now I think I may be hooked!

In addition to my tree, the sentiment stamp is from Art Journey, and the background is very faintly patterned cardstock from K&Company, which I spruced-up with a brown Micron pen and some dots and doodles, faux-bandana style.  Both images were stamped with black Staz-On. 

I can't wait to get back to carving, so expect more stamps soon!

Have a great day, Everyone!

Flower-shaped Tag. . .

The Tag You're It challenge this week from Weekend Taggers is to make a tag in a non-traditional shape.  I just happened to have saved a flower-shaped tag from a beach hat, perfect for the theme.  And since almost everything about this tag is recycled from something else, it also fits the continuing Arty Girlz recycling challenge.

I covered both sides of the tag in multiple thin layers of titanium buff acrylic paint and gesso, drying and lightly sanding between coats to keep it smooth.  The first layer is torn scrap from flowered wall paper, recycled left-overs from another project, and on top of that is another project leftover, a piece of tracing paper over-stamped with Hero Arts manuscript background, which had been used as a mask for another piece of art. After more washes of paint, Marvy markers and Christine Adolph's honeycomb stamp with turquoise chalk ink, I used an image that had been Photoshopped for another project, but was printed the wrong size, so it ended up in the recycled image bin.  I rescued it and cut it to fit the tag, ending with white gel pen dots, an overspray of home-made glimmermist, and a burst of fibers which were also recycled left-overs from projects past.

Have a great weekend, Everyone!

Fish Fairy

Weekend Taggers current theme is "fairies", which gave me an opportunity to use my Mer Baby stamp from StampFrancisco.

The background is a couple of thin washes of acrylic paint and a generous spray of home-made glimmer mist (PearlEx powder mixed with gum Arabic and water in a mini-mister), over-stamped with the starfish from Christine Adolph's clearly impressed collection, using perfect medium, then dusted with white perfect pearls.  If you look closely, you can almost see the glimmering starfish behind the sea grass.  The tall darker green sea grass is also a clear Christine Adolph stamp.  It was hand colored with two shades of green Marvy Markers, and stamped in several places on the background.  The Mer Baby was stamped with black VersaFine, colored with watercolors and perfect pearls, and cut and glued into place, then more sea grass--stickers this time--were placed over the top. The flowers are from Making Memories and Close to My Heart.  Last, I added some lace trim and a few pearl-stitched ribbons.

Have a great weekend, Everyone!