I'm sorry it takes me so long to post here. I just don't have the time to do this every day. I guess I should learn to do it first thing in the morning huh?

Anyway...other than Andrew's mom being here, it's been pretty uneventful. Life goes on much as it has this past age. I will post some artwork though...lol

Some ATCs.

Here is the call for artists for the Regina, Saskatchewan Mac Kenzie Art Gallery 10th anniversary ATC showing. That is interesting. I have 1 more card to make for that. That may be another post. I'm pretty pleased so far with the work I've done for the show. I'm also going to create a sheet of 9 ATCs to trade with this gallery group in Chicago. There are about a dozen swappers and it's due Feb. 1st. I have also linked up with another gallery show in the fall, (more about that later), and one in Arizona may be an annual show, but they haven't decided yet.

I made a book as a secret Santa gift for my partner in Blissfully Art Jounalling. My second favorite Yahoo group. Here are pics...

Front and back cover look the same

 

This book was a lot of fun to make, even though I've made several.

This was the first I had made in a while though. In 2012 I helped my scrap pals make about 6 of them in just a few weeks, and got a little burned out. I also made a huge one of like a dozen pages for my pal Jina.

This one is made of plain black cardstock in 8.5 x 11 size. I bought it at WalMart for about 3 bucks.

The flower is a flip up panel

pockets inside the side flips

flip ups with pockets under them

 The patterned paper is from Basic Gray, also purchased at WalMart. I also used some ephemera from various books I have gotten in various places. I love to use ephemera. I think it's interesting, and in a lot of cases adds just the right amount of visual and intellectual zip to any given piece

corner pockets are still my faves!

double layer flips. no pockets on this one.

love that French look. The inserts have a lot of pockets 

I think the inserts were the most fun part!

I decided that I liked this book so much I would make one for myself for my birthday! I started it right before the new year. I constructed the book out of old manilla file folders. It came out just fine. Unfortunately I then signed up for several ATC swaps, and have stalled out on my book. I will get back to it soon. I really need to finish the Mc Kenzie swap, and the Chicago swap before I start to finish it.

I signed up for some pin-up swaps that I will post here later on too.

I guess I have set myself up to be pretty busy for the next couple of weeks at least. Which is good. I won't go crazy that way. lol

I will try to finish my Chicago cards today. They aren't going to be really complicated I don't think. They are going to be a practice in recycling. More on that later.

I have only a few other things on my work desk presently. I have the monthly birthstone swaps, a groundhog day swap and a swap on the risque site about legs. I chose an image with interesting stockings for that one. It should be fun too.

My other major projects right now are crochet related. I started a layette for a friend. Her baby is due on my daughter's birthday in May. She probably won't come that day though. Most likely early as it's a girl. Anyway, the hat and booties are finished, and the blanket is started. I also got 5 pieces of flannel to finish and give her for receiving blankets. I had no idea that finishing those was so tricky. I will have to work on them a bit before the crocheting can begin, so I will take them to Sue's tomorrow to see what can be done.

I guess that's all the umph I have for today all.

I hope you have enjoyed today's blog. I will really try to get into the habit of sharing my art more often this year. Since my only resolution was to work on something 'artsy' every day this year, it should be easier to find something interesting to post. lol

Bye for now my peeps!

--Melody

Moxie Fab Hexagon Challenge!

Hey all. It's been several weeks since I used this blog...but who has the time when you spend all your time creating beautiful stuff right?

So I just happened to run across this neat o challenge today. I expect I saw it before, and just skimmed over it in my newsletters from Paper Crafts. But I was looking here at the MOXIE FAB WORLD today and saw that tonight is the deadline. Well, I love a good challenge, so I started messing around with it. My protractor stinks I discovered, and a new one was added to my wish list. (Just in time for back to school shopping too!)

I finally came up with some hexagons I was happy with and then decided an art journal episode was the direction I wanted to go. So I Gessoed a new page, and cut out about a million hexagons from an old shopping bag, a sheet of music that was laying around and an old piece of HOTP patterned paper I've been saving for something special (vintage blue roses), while I waited for it to dry.

I smeared on some pink and green paint drips with a dry brush, and glued down my hexagons in a pleasing to me pattern. Some are kinda crooked...oh well. I'm not a bee.

Anyway. From beginning to end this took me about 4 hours of fun and games. I enjoyed this project very much and might have to read the challenges more regularly. Thanks Cath!

And without further ado--here is my Art Journal page, with a quote from The Secret Life of Bees.

I really hope you all enjoy it too!

--Melody

Good Evening all! It's been a tough week at our house, and I didn't get a blog in till today. Too much going on with Chloe's attacker being hunted and being angry and all the upset involved with that. The previous week was VBS, and I will post a neat photo from that if I can find it.

I issued a challenge on my weightloss support group page for a piece of artwork...so figured I'd better make one.

It's not real complicated. Just a piece of wallpaper border cut up and arranged and pasted into my art journal. I'm discovering that simple is better sometimes though. The idea isn't complicated, and the journalling even less so. My heartfelt desire is liable to surprise a few folks! lol

I'm also posting the last couple of journal challenges I did. I'm pretty pleased with them really. I'm growing, just a little slowly compared to some. That's OK. My rate of growth suits me just fine.

I'm feeling a lot less angry, and feeling more hurt and offended now. That will be good for the art. Maybe I will get some more ATCs done and posted tomorrow.

G'nite all!

Melody

Art by Raeven: Misc Stuff

This is the newest member of the backyard gang. I've seen one like it two days in a row now, and I am enjoying him immensly!

Following s a link to my friend Raeven's blog. She is just so fun. I'm glad she is one of my ATC sisters.


Art by Raeven: Misc Stuff

I hope you have a scraphappy day!

--Melody

Framing ATCs

Good Morning fellow crafters!

This weeks blog is kinda short, cuz I got work to do. Sorry to disappoint.

This project was something I saw on one of my ATC groups. I liked it so much that I had to re-create it! It looks fairly simple and it is!

All I did was go to the thrift store, and buy a huge-22x28"-picture. I took the picture out, then pounded some brass furniture tacks at 5" intervals down the sides. Then I strung jute twine between the tacks and clipped my cards to the twine with some tiny clothespins I got at Wal-Mart. The whole thing cost less than 10 bucks!

Simple project, beautiful, and inexpensive. I encourage you to try it!

Have an awesome week!

Melody

Room: I always need more of it!

Well, it seems the thing to do this week is post pics of the working space. I call mine 'The Lair'. lol It's a ridiculous mess! I got a bunch of stuff given to me, then got some new shelves put up for it. I haven't had the time or ambition to get it all organized as yet though. I've been too busy dealing with mother's house sale, which is over at last btw. Praise God!

So anyway...

Here's the lair...

I REALLY need to get in there and sort and shelve...I have 7 sets of plastic shelves here ringing the corner. They are all packed pretty tight, but some of the boxes and containers are either partially or completely empty. I have a lot of sorting to do, and re-containering comes immediately after. lol

I have so much stuff in my lair!  My sweetie was so careful when he took these pics for me. There are several boxes, large ones, in front of the shelves on the floor. 

My bookshelf is full of books that I use to make ATCs and other altered art. That's my little Princess. The miniature dachshund. She visits me often. I have more company too!

That's Ricky. He's a white zebra finch. He sings back to me no matter what I sing to him! lol

Also Maxamillion, our chihuahua. He weighs just over 5 pounds.

There's even a pic of my very messy desk. Some days I take my little netbook computer in there with me so I can keep up with y'all. I've become addicted to that new water flavoring stuff called Mio. I drink it all the time! There's a huge jar of Strawberry Watermelon on my desk. lol

There is also a spare table in front of my desk where my pal Sue sits when she comes over to my house for scrap day. Oh look, there she is now! She comes some Thursdays, and occasionally her sister comes with her for Friday nights. We usually meet at their house on Fridays though.

There's acouple of me in the lair too...just in case you wondered what I look like. One last one of Andrew and me. I like to show him off too! Love you baby!

I hope you all have an excellent day!

--Melody

Well, Good morning bloggers! I'm not saying this is going to be a daily thing, but I am here two days in a row. Amazing huh?

I have a few things I want to share though. 

First, I'm a little disappointed this morning in someone who I thought was a really nice person. She had a little hissy fit yesterday, because some things didn't turn out quite the way she wanted, and it caused some real pain. Someone was really hurt. Wounded.

Now this wounded person is someone I only recently met. They have a lot on their plate though, and sometimes you just have to say 'No, I'm sorry, I can't do that right now.' No matter how badly you want to, you just can't be everything that everyone else expects. Unless you are some kind of superhero, you are going to have times when you just can't do something and still meet all your responsibilities. And I think even they disappoint from time to time.

As a result of this whole thing, the wounded person is considering a drastic cut from a part of her life that she really needs. That would just be too sad. It would make a lot of other people sad and wounded too. I'm feeling just a little wounded myself, because I know there isn't much I can do to fix this.

OK. Enough about that. On to better, happier things.

I got to make some ATC's yeterday. It took all day with all the procrastinating I was doing, but I finished my set of 'Something Red' cards. I even think they're pretty good. You tell me what you think...

I had fun with them once I got going. The butterflies are stamped in black then colored with watercolor pencils. I did not wet them though. I didn't want the colors to run.

I was so excited about figuring out how to take good photos of ATC's that I took several more! These are from swaps that I have done recently. I don't even have returns for some of them yet, but most of them are just about done and on the way back to me. First is the 'Coffee Klatch' card...

Then the 2 for 'Tell me a story...

First Reginold, who finally understood. As he sat on the embankment waiting for the ambulance to take him to the hospital, he reflected on his driving habits. "Speed Kills." He coined a new phrase in that instant, that life changing instant when his car flipped over.

And this is Mortimer and Ethel. Mortimer met Ethel when he ran over her in the park with his bicycle. When she got up and dusted herself off, she asked if he would take her for a ride. He knew then that she was the girl for him! The next day he proposed. She, of course, said yes, and they rolled off into the red dust of Oklahoma.

This is the card I made for the fairy swap...

And last but not least, the TIM HOLTZ products cards for a Swap-Bot swap...

These are all I had time for this morning, but maybe I will have time later to take photos of my favorites to post some other time. You got six though, that's not bad. lol

For right now though, I have about a dozed sets of ATC's to make for June swaps. If they are all going to go out around the first, I need to get crackin! lol

See you all later!

--Melody

It's been more than a year since I used this. I almost forgot it was here. I should be using it huh? I guess you're right. lol

So what to blog about...I guess I set this up primarily to catalog my art adventures and maybe some of the personal ones too. So. There.

I don't really want to spend a lot of space rehashing the last year so I'll just sum up. We went in December to get mom, and she's living out at Kansas Christian Home. She's doing pretty well there. She's safe and she's making friends sort of. Her memory is getting really bad now though. We've been racing foreclosure to sell her house too. What fun when there are 500 hoops to jump through. I've decided Texas law is just stupid. That actually brings it pretty current. We are going to visit Andrew's mom over the weekend. She wants to move too. lol

I'm going to try to figure out the picture adding thing again, so with your patience, I will learn to do this right maybe. lol

I made this pretty digital ATC yesterday for the homepage image contest at the new group Tastefully_Risque_ATCs. I'm pretty proud of it really. It came out pretty good. I wish I hadn't chosen pink, but that's changeable. lol

More later.