Underwater Torso Trio

How's that for an odd title?  I was working on two different challenges this morning (Something Completely Different's "of the sea" torso prompt and Studio L3's Compendium of Curiosity chipped enamel prompt), and I came up with this little trio which I like quite a bit!  Each one starts with a Club Scrap stamp in cobalt blue archival ink and then has some other stamps layered on top.  I'm particularly happy with the layering on the pirate version.  The silver images are embossed with Ranger's Liquid Platinum, my all time favorite embossing powder, and the treasure chest is embossed with vintage photo distress powders.  I used the chipped enamel technique on two round tags (with broken china and painted shutters) for the two mermaid tags and on a key (black) for the pirate tag.  I hadn't played with embossing powders in a while, and it was a lot of fun! Kindof  put me in the mood for a margarita. But then most things put me in the mood for a margarita! Yo ho ho!

Learn Something New

There's something so satisfying about putting together a blank album at the start of a project.  I'm going to follow along with Shimelle's class "Learn Something New Everyday."  Last time, I did a series of mixed media ATC's.  This year I'm going to focus on journaling, accented with rubber stamped images. I started with a stack of 4.5"x6.5" colored chipboard pieces and some Basic Grey paper scraps. I edged everything with ink and assembled.  Keeping it simple this year and looking forward to it.
 
Meanwhile, I received this wonderful blog award from a few friends.  Thank you so much! The award asks me to list three things about myself and post a favorite picture.
1. My current favorite band is The Avett Brothers.  Great lyrics and interesting blend of upbeat and folk.  I also really like Michael Franti.
2. I don't read much, and I watch a ton of television.  This summer I did read The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked over the Hornet's Nest, Heart in the Right Place (a great memoir), Breath, and (currently) Await Your Reply.
3. I have traveled all over the world: El Salvador; Ireland; Scotland; Wales; London; Paris; Rome; Milan; Bellagio; Budapest; Vienna; Venice; Prague; Canada; Hong Kong; Beijing; and most of the 50 states.   I really want to go to Greece, Australia and New Zealand.  I just learned that next summer we're planning to travel to Puebla, Mexico.
Now for a favorite picture:

This is one of my favorite from pictures from our trip to Venice and my blog friend Mel asked me to post one.
I'm also supposed to pass the award along to five friends, but I fear that most of my blog friends have already been tagged on this one.  So, I'm going to pass on that part of the award.
Thanks again for the acknowledgement!

Let's Talk Stamps & Stamp Companies

After photography and scrapbooking, stamping was my next step into creating art.  That was almost ten years ago.  I started with Club Scrap stamps, which are high quality and nicely designed.  I dabbled with Stampin' Up and Close to My Heart stamps, mainly because I had friends who sold them, but neither really grabbed me.  Right now, my two current favorite stamp lines are from Stampotique (especially those designed by the Penney-Torrente) and Invoke Arts (you can see some cards I made with their stamps in this post).  Stampotique has a wonderful challenge blog and recently they were kind enough to award me a "designer's choice" badge for this brave girls graffiti wall altered book page I submitted.  "Yea me!" (oops, did I say that out loud?)  The current design challenge is to create a birthday card using a Stampotique stamp with the theme "not so sweet 16."  Snarky cards are right up my alley, so I made this super simple card. They run two challenges a month; one requires the use of their stamps but the other does not.  Thanks to Jacky for telling me about the blog.
Of course, I also love the Tim Holtz stamp line at Stampers Anonymous (except for the clowns!) and two local stamp lines (Alpha Stamps and Leavenworth Jackson). I'd love to hear about your favorite stamps and stamp companies!

Red and Black and Scary

The current color challenge at Gingersnap Creations is red and black.  This color combination suggested vintage to me, so I pulled out my newest Tim Holtz stamp set and used the blended batik technique (in red and black) to make a vintage circus tag. I added a variety of papers and ephemera to finish the card.  I love these images (and the clock) from the stamp set, but the fifth image, not so much:

Clowns . . . uhhhhhggg.  Creepy clowns.  These ones kindof freak me out.  Not sure I'll ever use them.  What about you?  How do you feel about clowns?  Are there other things that freak you out?

Blended Batik & a Hawaii Story

This week's Studio L3 Tim Holtz Compendium of Curiosities challenge is blended batik. I found this technique a bit scary because it involves using an iron, but I ended happy with the Halloween card I made.  I used lavender and grape distress inks for the bottom layer and orange marmalade for the top layer.  Plus, I overstamped in black. For the title block, I used marmalade for the bottom layer and black soot for the top level.  I added some ribbon and brads and declared it done!
So, here's my Hawaii story.  Five years ago, our family traveled to Hawaii, and we put the kids in camp one day so DH and I could go snorkeling.  At the end of the day, the kids brought in some cool fuse bead creations. Fuse beads are plastic, donut-shaped beads that children arrange into interesting shapes like flowers, butterflies, trains, etc. I'd always wondered how these were made. I asked the kids what kind of glue they used. Henry said there wasn't any glue. When I asked him how the beads were stuck together, he said:
"The teacher brought in this big flat board thing that looked kindof like a surfboard.  Then she took a really hot metal thing and pressed it on top of the beads and they melted together."  Of course, he was describing an ironing board and iron, but my children had managed to reach the ages of 10 and 7 without ever learning what those things were! 
No wonder the blended batik made me nervous!

The Fantasy World of Michael DeMeng

I've been working on this altered book spread for a while, but I'm very happy with how it came out! The theme for the book was "Fantasy," and I decided to create a spread about the fantasy world of Michael DeMeng.  The background is textured gesso, colored with DeMeng's recipe for Uzzzh, with some added green.  I adhered some grungeboard elements (key, flourish and letters) and a plastic tree.  I cut a niche, filled it with a picture I took of my sister holding a skull at a nature museum and covered it with some mesh.  The picture of the model is from a fashion magazine and the other picture is one I took of the Budapest Opera House. You can see more details if you click on the image to enlarge it. It was a ton of fun to make and it definitely meets the Gingersnap Creations challenge for creating a 3D object with paint.  The themes, color and style are all inspired by Michael DeMeng. I find it inspiring and useful to create in the style of other artists.  Have you ever done that?

Busy, Busy (photos to scrap)

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to create art. I started teaching my new semester on Monday night (a huge, heartfelt thank you to all your wonderful comments on my video yesterday; they made me feel terrific!). Today (Wednesday) is the first day of school for my kids. We got all the school shopping done, and DS Henry finished all his summer work in the nick of time. In spite of the above sign I spied at the baseball field over the weekend, I'm pretty ready for them to go spend some time with their teachers and friends!
Speaking of the baseball field, the boys had another successful weekend, winning the tournament:

I tried my hand at taking some "generic" baseball pictures I might be able to use for greeting cards or sports-themed artwork.  As my photography skills continue to improve, I think this is something I'd like to do more of.  Here's the best shot, which I turned to sepia, but  I think could be improved with other effects (once I learn photoshop):

Of course, I had to take a couple of my boy, who was really happy to have contributed with his bat this tournament (by hitting well and scoring a lot; interesting note, at this age level, the travel teams all play with wood bats instead of metal/aluminum/composite). He usually contributes with his glove (he normally plays amazing defense, but our pitchers threw so well in this tournament, that wasn't really needed):

Love that kid!