Handmade paper rocks!

There is no surprise for all my blog friends because they know I love to make my own paper. It's very easy too with a Papermill Kit from Arnold Grummer. Other than the base card stock, the remaining paper is handmade. I love the mottled look of the background paper that I got from splashing in a different colored pulp and the little bird is made out of a multi colored paper with just the tiniest bit of shimmer in it. The different colors comes from blending different colored scraps of paper together, but not over blending...and the shimmer is the result of metallic wrapping paper added to the mix.

Entering this card in
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - No Ordinary paper

I used my new stamp that I just got from Simon Stamps and the little sizzlex dies to cut him out. I just love that I don't have to fussy cut anything! While I am waiting for the accessory stamps I ordered I decided to use a chipboard crown for his little party hat and then penned in the chin strap with my Micron...I think he is just adorable!

And you can save some money when you buy your own paper making kit too!

Artist Studio Expo

I thought I would post a few pictures on my blog about the show Saturday for those who don't follow me on FB. It was a lot of fun, we had a pretty good turn out of people stopping by.

I particularly enjoyed wearing my shirt that I had painted for DecoArt. I got tons of compliments on it and have been encouraged to make a canvas painting from it. It hasn't been posted in the DecoArt Project and Tutorial page yet but when it does it will have all the instructions and materials that you will need to make one of your own.

After the art show I was able to scoot down to see my friend playing onstage at a local coffee shop. It was fun to finally see him perform, his wife is a fabulous painter and we are getting together tomorrow for a sketch date.

And oh my...pictures are coming out on the BlueRidge Times and supposedly I'm in the printed paper too... I hope the paper isn't worse than the one's they posted of me online...BIG SIGH...
Go ahead....laugh....it's OK.....::hangs head::

****update***
I so forgot to look for a paper on Sunday but was lucky to have the owner of the Black Bear Cafe dig through her paper recyling bin for me. Now that is a sweet person! lol At least it wasn't in a waste receptacle with food or anything smelly! Anyway, not hating the picture anymore, I'm getting use to it I think, lmao!

Fishy sneak peek

I am giving you a sneak peek at the whimsical handmade paper fish I created for my next canvas. You'll have to wait for my next Arnold Grummer blog post to see the completed project. Arnold Grummer ROCKS by the way, they are such an awesome company to design for, I just love them!

So back to the sneak peek....I created some fish out of paper pulp and I am going to enter them in ColourArte's monthly challenge #2 which is all about texture. I love this banner they used...

So my little fish are all about texture, first off they are individually created from handmade paper and then they are embellished with stick pins, beading, fibers, and of course, Twinkling H20's.

Each fish has a set of stick pin fins which I added some extra beads to with the help of my other ROCKING company I design for, Helmar Adhesives! I added a little tiny dollop of the 450 to the pin before sliding the beads onto it so I didn't have to worry about them sliding off. 

Each fish has fibers glued and tied onto their tails with seed beads glued on with Helmar's Super Tac glue and then for extra sparkle, a layer of stickles is added over the front half of the beads.

The eyes were so much fun to create, the big blue disks were given to me by a friend a couple of years ago and I never knew what I was going to use them for until now, lol Yes, this is why crafters hoard so many things, you just have to wait until they "speak" to you! I also added seed beads, fibers, stickles, all sorts of goodies around each eye.

I painted the colors - Snap Dragon, Orange Peel, Ginger Peach, Mediterranean Blue and Mustard Green Twinkling H20's on top of each fish which created some wonderful depth and shimmer along with the handmade paper's natural textures!

And one last shout out to Helmar for their awesome, awesome, can't say enough about this product, Liquid Scrap Dots. Not only does the middle stick pin in each set of fins stand out a little more because a dot of LSD was added under the pin's head, but also because each fish is adhered to the canvas with it. The entire canvas has an uneven surface because of the paper pulp so this type of adhesive gets down into the bumps and cracks and fills in the layers allowing for an even surface in which to glue the fish on top of.

The big canvas reveal will be on August 12th for Arnold Grummer and that's also the same week that I will be entering it in our BIG juried art show called Bring Us Your Best. This will be my second year entering it and it's always nerve wrecking just to see if they will accept it into the show itself.

Sparkling Bookmarks

I give away a bookmark for every card I sell at the Art MoB, so I am constantly looking for new ones to make. It dawned on me that The Buckle Boutique Rhinestone Self Adhesive Sticker Sheets would make an excellent bookmark.

The perfect bookmark, and super easy to make. I think I will need to make a lot of them!

Each one is adhered to some material, and I love how well it sticks to the fabric! Aren't they pretty? Just look at all those beautiful colors!

the cutest Garden Art Owl ever! (Wendy Dalton)

I made a garden owl out of a little of this and that...please pop on over to the Helmar blog so you can check it out. It's very cute if I say so myself....lol

I used Earth Safe Finishes to paint his wings, eyes and beak....I love how the chalky paint just adheres to all kinds of surfaces with ease and is safe for the environment.

Judging the 19th Annual chalk it up contest

Boy, was it hot, in the 80's and it was only the morning. Other than that, I have to say how much I enjoyed judging the 7-12 year old group. They are so polite, sweet and great artists too! This was my top 5 pick, in no particular order...

I hope I get to be a judge again next year!

it's gonna' get busy...

Let's start with tomorrow, I've asked to be a judge for the Chalk it Up contests that our downtown area has each year, not sure which age group I will be musing over but it will be fun. Then off to the studio to work on my upcoming piece for the Artists Studio Expo next weekend.

Yesterday they put up the window display in the gallery, it seems I have all my design teams exhibited here, lol The large canvas was done all in paper pulp, and yes, even the black lines are paper ( Arnold Grummer Paper Making ), the kissing dove journal was painted in DecoArts Multi Surface paints, the sparkly heart box was created using The Buckle Boutique Self Adhesive Rhinestone sheets, and the Bless You tissue box was a project I created for Helmar Worldwide Adhesives using Liquid Scrap Dots.

Here's a shot of the window with all 4 artists represented.

Next week before the show I will be going around to all the B&B's to distribute flyers. I'm also going to hand out a magazine where they did a write up about me and invites to the show to my neighbors, although they rarely come to any...lol But it at least lets them know why I am as weird as I am...snort....

And on top of everything going on I have 2 little older ladies who consider me the "young" thing. They use to live next door to each other, but one had to move to a more affordable housing so now, every time she cannot get ahold of her friend via the phone, she calls me to go check on her. I admit I actually starting sniffing the air as I walked down the hall...oh my....that's so bad, it's funny...OK, no, it's just bad. One day someone will be smelling me rotting away in my apartment, it's probably the only way they will discover my passing away.

Well, that's just an upbeat way to end this blog post, now isn't it?

lol

CardMaker Magazine p. 20

I had gotten away from submitting cards for publication when Cricut and Paper Crafts magazine went to ezines...I prefer to have a magazine that I can hold in my hands...prefer my books that way too.

Just my opinion.

So, anyway....here I am, again, now submitting to the CardMaker.

 Featuring my Design Teams

Arnold Grummer Paper Making

Helmar Worldwide Adhesives

Susan K. Weckesser stamps

The courtesy of a thank you

Next weekend we will be having our Studio Artist Expo held at the Art MoB. In appreciation, I made a basket of thank you/gift cards with my handmade paper to give away to everyone who watches my demo. If they have to stand there and listen to me jabber away, they deserve something for their time!

I used Susan K. Weckesser stamps on the front of the tiny cards, just perfect in size!
Grandma's Needlepoint
Tumbleweed Houses
What's Up Gnomey? 

I added a touch of bling from The Buckle Boutique on the sides of my business cards, just love the rows of bling and how easy they are to cut off and apply!

Each Gift card packet has a small pressed flower sticker in them to seal the envelope up. 

If you would to see how I made the cards then please stop by the Arnold Grummer blog and you can get the discount code while you are over there if you want to make some gift cards of your own.

A sparkly sprite

I made a very sparkly card using ColourArte and Sin City stamps today, why don't you fly on over and have a little look see...hmmm? I might sprinkle some fairy dust on you if you do...it's my last post for the Sin City team and I sure would like to go out with a burst of fairy magic, and only YOU can make that happen!

Adding my card to

World Wide Open Design Team Monthly Challenge #01 

Simon Says Anything Goes

Just shut up Sandee

I can remember the first time I had a story printed about me in the local newspaper and being so excited and then totally dismayed at the picture they posted of me, or the time they wrote another newspaper story about me and thinking...seriously, that is a little exaggerated! My feelings for being put in print have diminished over time because now, my first thoughts are...

what are they going to do to it? 

Now, don't get me wrong, I still have kept every article, every story ever written because it is exciting, it is an ego boost to have you memorialized in print.

But it just makes me wary nowadays.

My latest publication is a feature article written about me and about the upcoming Artists Studio Expo show coming up on July 25th in the Bold Life magazine. If you would like to read the article then you can go here. 

Now I am NOT trying to be sour grapes and all, and I AM appreciate of being featured in the magazine but sometimes I just say "huh?" when I see what they do, in this case it's the picture they put up on the page next to the article. If you go read the article you will see that the picture below doesn't correspond as well to the article as the one I sent to them, which was Night Watch...sigh...oh well, as one of my fellow artist from the Art MoB pointed out to me, any publicity is good publicity.

If you want to see the "how to" behind the Laced in Copper canvas, feel free to check out the Helmar blog post... as it has nothing to do with the article..smh

***update 7 - 19 - 15 ***
( Guess I cannot complain too much because since I published this post, this canvas has sold )

Laced in Copper- $175.00 12x24" mixed media canvas - acrylic, hand stitching, metallic floss, beads with acrylic skins

This is the one that I sent in to the magazine for them to publish with the article, which correlates to the questions that they asked me :) Although they didn't use it in the printed magazine they at least used it in the online piece!

12x36 "Night Watch" Mixed Media Magazine Collage canvas $225.00

I am always amazed that they write anything about me, so I need to just shut up, huh?

Anyway, check back on Sunday to see how the show turned out!

Weekly Shout Out

I'm going to start doing a weekly shout out for the people who consistently leave me comments on my blog. They may not know how much that is appreciated, but I sure want them to know.
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This week's shout out goes to an awesome online friend, Pam Danner from Scrap-n-Sew Granny. Not only is she an excellent card maker ( her daughter is getting ready to have a baby! )

And she sews!! She has made the CUTEST baby apparel!! Her daughter is so lucky to have her! You need to check out the other baby bibs too, can we say super sweet! That baby is going to be the best dressed baby ever!

But she also is a wonderful artist ( she claims I inspired her but I think she inspires me more! ) Just look how cute and whimsical this piece is!!

I love going to Pam's blog to visit her, you never know what she has been up to!! Thank you Pam for always visiting my blog and leaving me some cheer along the way, I hope we get to meet one day!

 In the meantime, please stop by her blog and say hello!

Do mermaids dream?

If they do dream, I wonder what they would dream about?

Random ocean dreams or would they dream about the things that exist above the water?

I did my mermaid and background all in Higgins Inks on Yupo paper. I haven't had much success working with Yupo paper before but I was pleasantly surprised at how well the inks stuck to it. I did this piece for my groups monthly challenge. This month Pam's theme is "Fantasy". 

Because I painted the mermaid using the applicator tips to the bottle the painting is loose and it did bleed a little forming and extra tail to her, but I kinda like it, lol

I also dried dripping water, alcohol, and even pure acetone onto the paper hoping for a reaction but didn't get much. In the end I dripped the white ink and splattered a little bit.

Fusion of bling

I have a thing about my brushes, I love them. I also don't want to accidentally pick up a watercolor brush and use it with acrylic paint. So I made a sparkly mosaic jar to keep my watercolor brushes separate from my other brushes.

 I made it all from scrap pieces of the Adhesive rhinestone sheets from The Buckle Boutique. Not only does it keep my brushes separate, I happen to think it looks very artsy too. Here are several views of, it looks different from every angle!

Technically, you can safely use watercolors with acrylic brushes, but always exercise caution when using watercolor brushes with acrylics.

A single use with acrylics can forever alter a watercolor brush.

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Say cheese!

Yay, my new stamp arrived and boy did I need that pick me up as I had just come back from buying some new sandals. 

Now, you might be asking yourself, how does buying new sandals stress you out? Well, I use to buy any cute, sexy strappy little thing that caught my eye, but this time I bought some for comfort...omg, I'm one step away from buying orthopedic shoes!

If I start wearing socks with my sandals I think I'll commit myself to a nursing home!!

I had a lot of fun working on this card for Simon Says We're Going Dotty challenge. One of their design team members used this stamp in her example and well, I immediately had to go buy it! 

Art Impressions CAT Big Mouths Cling Rubber Stamps 4565

(evidently a lot of other people thought it was cute too because when I went to grab the link, it has been sold out! )

But I can see why, I mean it's adorable. 

I did fussy cut the cake out and used my Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots behind the candles, and well, even the cat too. Now the only thing I didn't like was the fact that there wasn't a "stop" piece to keep the slider from being pulled out all the way or from being pushed up too far. I messed up on trying to make something so I wrote "please" on the strip. I will need to do a better job on the next one. I also wish there had been a "pull" stamp that came with the kit, but oh well. 

I added some stickles to the candle flames, and you can see that the background was originally plain so I added some extra larger dots with a stencil and a Signo white pen. All in all, I love this stamp, just need a little practice putting it together, thank goodness it did come with instructions or I would have been sunk. lol