completed banner garland

Just had to post a quick photo of all the wonderful little holiday banners I received in this swap. I strung them all together on silk ribbon and hung them on the mirror in my living room...a perfect spot to show them off! I love how the banner backs are reflected in the mirror in this photo.

wishes and dreams ~ Kim's round robin book

This is the page spread I completed for Kim's round robin book titled Wishes and Dreams. I have finally finished working on it and will have it on its way home to her for Christmas. There has been much going on here at home for me and squeezing in art is nearly impossible right now. Hopefully after the holidays...?
Detail pictures of the words, tiny stars and jewels. I tried writing the words with a white pen but it was really difficult writing over wrinkled paper and then the ink didn't show up so well. I ended up painting over the writing with white paint so that the words are more legible. In case you still can't read the words it says..."In her pale moonlit dreams she becomes the Fairy Queen...Dancing in the moonlight and granting wishes to all her fairy realm.

One more little project ready to go on its way. These are for a holiday mini banner swap. Each little banner piece is 3 inches wide at the top and 5 five inches long at the point. We send in 6 and get back 5 to string together for our holiday decorating. Now...I just have to decide where to hang my little banner when it comes home to me.
Banner pieces are made of double sided cardstock. I attached an image of a vintage Christmas postcard with 3-D foam squares to give it that raised dimensional look as you can see below.

I had so much fun playing with my waxy winter theme for the "Have a Seat" swap that I decided to just carry it over into this next project. (Hey...the supplies were already handy!) These are "ornament charms" for an exchange I'm doing in my Charmsters Group. They're charms on a larger scale than you would normally wear and ment to be used as ornamentation. Mine are 1 inch wide by 2 1/2 inches tall. Perfect little dangelies to hang somewhere special...just don't put them too near the fireplace or they might melt!

have a seat

I was finally able to steal a few moments to do some artwork again...actually I HAD to steal those moments because projects I signed up for are now due. This one is for a 3 dimensional ATC with the theme of "Have a Seat". I created this little winter "sculpted ice chair" in honor of my daughter who lives in Alaska and calls me daily with reports of falling snow and freezing weather. I used vellum for my chair to create the look of ice. I love how you can see through it to the background.
This view from the top allows you to see the layered texture of the ATC background that is a base of paper with layers of impressed wax mounted onto sturdy mat board
Side view of chair.
Detail of the snowflake embraced by downy feathers nestled on the chairs seat.
Detail of intricately "sculpted" back of the chair.
It was a fun little project to do and my little chairs will be on their way out of here tomorrow. Next on to some little banners!

passionate heart ~ Tejae's round robin book

This months round robin book belongs to Tejae and it is actually a very small little book, about 4x4 inches. I had fun with paper, paint and beeswax doing this book.
Close-up of the words.
I created an embossed beeswax heart to cover the little secret door and gave the heart feather wings..."give love wings".
Close-up of heart detail.
Once you open the heart door it reveals another heart with butterfly wings and the word Soar, "and your heart will soar". I love how the open door also looks like a butterfly.
Finally a close-up of the Soaring Heart.

secrets and hidden layers ~ Kara's round robin book

This is the artwork I did in the second round robin book to come my way. As you can see the title of Kara's book is Secrets and Hidden Layers. This was a busy month for me, as noted by the lack of postings, and I worked on this at the last minute, nothing like the pressure of a deadline!
Close up of the words I wrote.
Secrets revealed.

Closeup of paint texture and layers.

let love in ~ laurel's round robin book

This is my artwork done in Laurel's book titled, Let Love In. Her theme had to do with "overcoming feelings of fear and distrust in order to become open again." I did a two page spread as you can see.

heavy metal charm swap

Another charm swap...this one is made of cold rolled steel - rusted. Corners are copper tape. Decorative element is some little wire used in electronics. Size is 1/2 inch wide by 3/4 inch high.

polymer clay house charm

Another little house charm...this one is made of black polymer clay with an embedded silver heart bead, painted with green metalic paint. The charm was made for a small Polymer Clay House Charm Swap I hosted.

a sparrow's song

I'm participating in a Board Book Round Robin with 6 other people...this month we were to find a child's board book, sand down all the pages, paint gesso on them and create the covers. We could also create a page or two to give the others an idea of our theme, mine is birds (like you didn't figure that one out). The above image is my front cover in its simple form. I want to add twigs and other embellishments, but will hold off doing that till the book comes home to me. I didn't want so much bulk on the front cover while folks are trying to work in it. Below is the back of the book which really is finished.
I created an "artist sign in" page where I hope everyone will "sign an egg" for me as well as sign their own artwork.
I also did one two page spread just to give it a start since I had 4 extra pages in my book that I was going to have to decorate anyway.

Can't wait to see what wonderful things the others are going to add!

vintage distressed atc

Simple little ATC for a Vintage Distressed theme.

post artfest fat book

Had to make 40 4x4 pages for the Fat Book. The theme was ArtFest of course. I so enjoy going to ArtFest that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do another Fat Book over the summer.

catching up on fat book pages

This is my June "By the Sea" 4x4 page (front and back) for an All Originals fat book group that I trade with.
Below is the July page for the same group. The theme was "Spirit of Freedom"...like you couldn't figure that one out!

mini canvas

I did this for a little mini canvas swap. The size is 2.5 x 3 inches. The "canvas" is made from 1/4" wood painted with 3 coats of gesso. The background and flowers are painted with acrylics and the dragonfly is an attached image.

mosaic number 9

More artwork in the mail today. This piece is 4x4 done on heavy weight watercolor paper for a 'Number Mosaic' swap. There are 9 players and each person signed up for a number, which was already assigned a color. Most spots were already filled by the time I joined in so out of the two choices left I picked NUMBER 9 which had to be created in BROWN. I think brown would have been my first choice anyway...I love Sepia!

The words "Family of" and the number "9" are actually raised elements on this little piece of artwork. The idea of this swap is that when we recieve all our numbers we are to glue them onto a 12x12 canvas and thus create a Mosaic.