rubber moon art swap

i'm still in the rubber moon art stamps moon mail club but i don't nearly often enough create with the wonderful stamps from this company.  the company has the most delightful selection of stamps and art supplies.  anyway, i joined a swap again for the first time in probably a year.  

these ATCs feature stamps from the june, july and august monthly kits. the monthly kits also contain little supplies though i did not use any of those for these.  i also used some papers and images by gecko galz as i love to play with mixing vintage images and stamping.  after the fact i wished i had embossed the stamps.  that would have given some extra pizzazz to these.

enjoy; love to all.

altered card deck week 2

well, just to be clear, most everyone else playing along at the altered card deck challenge at claudine's art corner are on week 4 but i'm on week 2 and i'm not ashamed -- at least i'm playing!

here is what i made:

the vintage images on the dream card are from lunagirl and the dream stamp is inkadinkado.
now just for context, here are the samples claudine created as inspiration for week 2:

i'm excited to get back to work on this.  week 1 was gesso-ing the whole deck which i did awhile back.  i already did the backgrounds for the 2 cards for week 3 but need to finish them and i also need to make the backgrounds for week 4.  hopefully this weekend i'll make some headway.

enjoy, love to all.

tombstone ATCs received!

hello friends -- october has been a busy work travel month so i haven't been blogging or visiting the way i like to.  i'll be back at it in november.  meanwhile i'm finally getting around to sharing the beautiful ATCs i received through the retro cafe art swap.

this scary cutie is by lisa robinson, no blog link available.

i love this hallowe'en princess and am sorry my scan didn't do it justice.  it was made by melanie jo from hearts n bloom.

this is such a great 3-dimensional hallowe'en scene by tracy delisle, no blog available.

these creepy spiders are on a 3-dimensional ATC by trent miller, no blog link available.

these were all so great to receive and are good scary fun.  just yesterday i got back in town and saw i got my envelope of ATCs from the unruly paper arts eerie ATC swap so i will get those scanned as soon as i can. 

meanwhile fr those thinking ahead to christmas, retro cafe art has two pretty cool swaps coming up for that holiday as well.

take good care all, especially those impacted by the recent earthquake, tsunami scare and hurricane.  be careful out there.

love to all.

good info about giveaways and freebies for you

thanks to everyone who sent lovely words about my grandmother.  the celebration of life last week was truly amazing and though i am still very sad i also feel incredibly blessed to have had such a wonderful grandmother.  hearing everyone speak about her confirmed that her life was full, rich, faithful and very giving.

i have 2 sweet things to share which i learned about after getting back into town.

first: there is a simply fantastic giveaway at PLUMROSE LANE.  there are 5 possible prizes, all delicious in their own way.  please visit, comment, and tell them michele of artfromthewell sent you!

second: our special blog friend and encourager CINDY ADKINS has a new online seminar and a new book!  the seminar is the AMAZING ART ADVENTURE, designed to jump start your creativity.  the book is Mixed Media Art: Living Your Passion and is full of additional projects.  an online book, it seems a steal at $2.99.

i hope these are good tips for you. when i get my energy back and get caught up on a few things i'll be back to making and posting.

love to all.

alice giveaways from alpha stamps!

it is pretty clear from my blog hops about the mixed media blog world that there is a great passion for creations featuring images and ideas from alice in wonderland.  well, the very delicious company, alpha stamps, has a giveaway of mass quantities of alice-themed goodies.  you should stop on by there for a chance to win.  if all else fails there is always the chance to shop!

happy week; love to all.

are we there yet?

for the next two weeks the challenge at the cheerful stamp pad is "are we there yet?" an exploration on the theme of travel.  my DT piece is a little different (i think!) from what you usually see here.  i've been fooling around lots more with different mixed media techniques and this is an example of what i'm doing.  i had the urge to work with an arch so that was my foundation.  from there i layered mass quantities of vintage travel images and luggage labels from twisted papers.  i wanted to use my diva stamp from hampton arts and i 1st stamped it on vellum and glued it on but it just didn't pop enough.  so then i stamped it on some nice cream cardstock and cut it on and glued it on (over the vellum image which could not be safely removed)  but the cream was too much brightness.  so i next painted the stamp with acrylic paint which i also used on some other areas of the card (for better or worse).  i also used a k & company die cut for the bottom border (partially painted over) and since i needed some more pop i used a white paint pen to do some dots all around.  not bad, eh?  i have some other random stuff i've done that i haven't yet photoed and posted but i'm having fun with lots of new techniques and hope to be sharing more of that in the coming weeks.
love to all.