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.

grunge, post industerial and mica

There are a few charm swaps I've been working on and getting in the mail. Two of them were grunge/post industerial, made with old "grungy" found items. I only have a picture of one because I forgot to photograph the other one. I will try to add it here later after the charm comes back to me. This next one is for a "Mica" charm swap. It had to be created with mica of course and the theme was 'Home'. The first photo is photographed laying flat and the second one is backlit for a clearer view of the imbeded image.

birds in my garden

This is the Fabric ATC I made for a recent swap 'Brids In My Garden'. It really doesn't show up well, but the image is covered with mica.

Not making much of it I'm afraid! I've been a bit overwhelmed with everyday life and my many art projects have been pushed to the side as of late. Hopefully I will get back to them soon...maybe even later today.

vintage gentleman

Just a little ATC done for a lottery drawing on one of my art groups. Those who participate post a picture of their "Gentleman of Yesteryear" ATC in the group album and on a certain day there is a drawing for the winner. After that we all send our ATCs to the person who won the drawing. Of course I'm hoping to win! This is my first time playing with this group.

journey to the soul

Just finished my Journey To The Soul ATCs for a small ATC Book exchange. The pair of eyes peering out the window belong to my beautiful, inside and out, daughter. She 's often my Muse in art projects. When you lift the window you see another window frame with the words below.

The back of the ATC continues the window theme.

I just finished these little "extreme inchies" for another trade I'm doing. An extreme inchie is the size of a "moo card" (aprox. 1 and 1/8 x 2 and 3/4 inches). The theme was 'Hints Of Spring'. I practiced doing image transfers of the flowers for my background, then I made the butterfly double sided so that it looked more "real" in flight. One rule for the swap was that we had to have a 3D element included.

hanging in this charming neighborhood

This little piece of artwork was created for the Hanging In This Charming Neighborhood swap. It is only 1.5 inches wide and about 2.5 inches high. We were to choose a "house" theme, create 20 out of heavy weight cardstock/watercolor paper and then emboss the edges to give it the effect of a soldered charm. Fun!

by the sea charm swap

This is the little charm I created for our recent By The Sea charm swap. It was my first attempt to solder. I just thought the glass bauble looked like it had a bit of beautiful blue ocean captured in glass...the pearl and shell just seemed to finish it off perfectly.

belated posting of artfest trades

I was really pushed for time in preparing for ArtFest this year so I never got the pictures of my trades posted. Better late than never! Above is my ATC. Below is a really close up of my charm. Last is a handful of the inchies I made. I traded everything and came home with some wonderful treasures.

all originals 4x4 fat book pages

These two pages were done for a monthly swap I participate in. The top one was for the March trade with the theme of "Birds of a Feather". The bottom one was for April with the theme "Green...for earth day".

seattle ~ pike place market

Guess what place this famous address belongs to? It belongs to the original Starbucks which is right across the street from Pike Place Market. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I couldn't resist buying a special gift card that can only be purchased at that location. I promptly used it to pay for my Tall Hot Chocolate! Beautiful spring tulips in the market.
Loved all the neon signs.

Yummy fresh fruit.

lingering in port townsend

We stayed an extra day after ArtFest to see a little more of Port Townsend. We spent the night at the Tides Inn and yes we stayed in the old part... didn't actually stay in this room but...

the front desk did have a well worn copy of the movie which we watched as the sun was setting. It was just a must do since the entire movie was filmed at Fort Worden, Port Townsend and The Tides Inn. View from our room that evening with the tide in.
Our morning view with the tide out.
Spent some time looking around town before we left. This is the old Waterfront Hotel.

View of the town along Water Street.
The Antique store where we found some cool things.