Thanksgiving Magnet

I love the image that I used on this Thanksgiving Magnet! I think that my very favorite style of art is 'Nostalgic'. My favorite artists are Norman Rockwell, and Gil Elvgren. I absolutely love the feeling and humor that their paintings evoke. Although I am a HUGE fan of photos, and am thrilled with the advances that photography has made over the past century; I think that it is a shame that advertisements and magazine covers have stoped using Nostalgic art almost completely. I know there will always be a place in my heart for Nostalgic art. For me its like looking at life and history through a rose coloured glass, as it has a way of romanticizing everything.

I made this altered CD for an American friend.

Scrapbooking on the Wall!

Here it is! Finally, yesterday, I made time to sit down and put together this art canvas! I completed it in one sitting, but it did take nearly all day. ;)

I used lots of different textures, cork, burlap, canvas, raffia, chipboard, wooden letters, and yes, even wheat! I absolutly LOVE how it turned out. The canvas messures 20" X 24".

Back at it!

Wow, it has been a very long time since Ive posted here. I have almost completely quit doing mail art and art swaps over the past several months.
Life has been very busy. I have started making time to do a few paper crafts here and there again. but not nearly in the volume I used to, and now more of what I create is for myself.
I'm happy to be creating again!
My artistic endeavors these days seem to be mostly scrapbooking, though I have an altered book in the works, and am planning an art/photo canvas, (think scrapbooking on the wall).
The photo Ive included here is of my very first altered CD. I just completed it this week. It is called 'Love Many Things' and features the quote by Van Gogh, "The Way to Know Life is to Love Many Things". The stamps I used are by Stampin' Up!

Challenges!

It looks like everyone wants to challenge me!! Linda Has challenged me to show my 'Creating Space', and Cathy has challenged me to tell several things about myself. I WILL do both those things.... But NOT today. ;0)

Today I am answering a different challenge.

A challenge by Wednesdays Stamper to create something that has to do with games, using stamping somewhere on it.

This is my first time participating in one of Wednesdays Stampers Challenges. And this is what I'v created.

Its an ATC. I made this ATC by heat embossing the Image onto a playing card. The Stamped image is by Hampton Art Stamps. Unexpectedly the playing card shrunk under the heat (I guess there must have been some plastic in the playing card). In the space that was created by the card shrinking I strung beads along the top of the card. Its a bit warped and altered looking, but I think its neat.

Mail Art

This is a decorated Mail art envelope that I made for a swap Im in. When I was a teenager I used to make envelopes out of magazine adds, and that was as close to creative envelopes that I got. This is my first real try at Envelope mail art. It was fun, and Im quite pleased with how it turned out. My mother-in-law saw me making it, and imeadiatly recruited me to decorate 20 envelopes for my father-in-laws birthday party invitations. What have I got myself into?!

Bye Bye Artists Block

Wow!! I cant believe its been nearly a month since my last post. Im sure that anyone who used to visit my blog has given up all hope of me ever posting again by now.

Well, here I am to say that my nearly month long artist block is finally over! Now my creative juices are flowing once again, and I could create night and day if I had the time and didnt require sleep.

The picture above is my first set of "inchies". The latest mail art craze to hit my radar. Would you believe that each one of those squares is only 1 inch X 1 inch?! That is an imposibly small size on which to work. But I did it!! I did those inchies for a 9/9 Spring inchie swap that I am in. I think now that Ive actually finished them, the size wasn't too bad at all. You just have to look at your supplies and art from a completely different angle.

I found a great blog by someone who does a lot of inchies. Her blog completely inspired me, and gave me the push I needed to get working on these for the swap I am in. Here is her blog address, check it out if you like: http://www.artjunk.typepad.com/ Im sure you will find it interesting... I know I did!!

Hey, if your still checking my blog give a shout out so I know your here.

A bit about Decos

Here is a picture of the cover of one of my decos. This is the deco that I mentioned was being displayed this week on the home page of one of the Yahoo! deco groups that I belong to. The theme for this deco is 'Vintage Automobiles' This deco has been floating around in the art community for a few months now. I have no idea how long it will take for this deco to be completed and come home to me, or even if it ever will. Hopefully one day it will come home full of wonderful art. It will be so neat to see how it turned out!

So, finally, as promised, here is a bit of an explanation of what decos are:

-A deco is a bit like a circle journal, small art book, or as some call them 'friendship books'

-Topics for Decos usually focus more around art then journalling

-When creating a deco you basically create a small, flat and light book (so that mailing is easy and not too expensive).

-You create the book with a binding method of your choice...(anything from stab binding, to pamphlet binding, to coil bound,jump rings, or just plain ribbon, pretty much the sky is the limit.)

-In your deco you will have several pages for various artists to sign. Decos usually are made of at least 2 pages (which usuallygives 5-6 blank sides giving oportunity for 5-6 artists to work in the deco). You can make your deco with as many pages as you like, But keep in mind, that the deco needs to be light, and that the more pages that it has in it, the longer it will take for the deco to be filled up and returned home to you. I have not often seen a deco with more then 6 pages (14 sides). Most decos I see have room for between 5-9 artists to work in them.

-So, once the deco is made. The creator picks a theme for the deco. Themes can be anything from 'Monkys' to 'Encouragment and Inspiration' or anything else you can imagine. The most popular themes seem to be themes that involve vintage art/photography.

-Once a theme has been chosen, the creator decorates the front page of their deco acordingly.

-Ocassionally the creator will put instructions for how they would like their deco decorated inside the front cover of the deco. Other times the creator will leave the deco without directions, allowing each artist to interpret the theme as they wish.

-Once the creator has decorated the cover of the deco and the first page in the deco. They will put their address on the deco. This can either be on the inside front cover, or on the inside or outside of the back cover of the deco. Putting your address somewhere on thedeco is VERY important so that people know where to send the deco home to after it is full of art.

-Now that the deco is made, decorated and addressed the creating artist will send it to another artist to work in. This next artist may be a friend, a pen pal, someone from a RR, someone from a local Deco swap group, or someone they signed up for a blind swap with on a deco internet group.

-I usually do the later. In which case, when that artist is done working in my deco they will send it on to another artist and so on, so that one day when I recieve my completed deco home it is full of art from a variety of artists from around the world. Some whos art I may be familure with, and others whos art I may not know.

I have been making and working in artistic decos now for a little over a year, and I have already had several completed decos come home to me. My completed decos have turned out beautifully! They are quite a treasure to me!