Halloween Mini #2

This is the second of 3 Mini albums for Halloween That I will be sharing with you today.

Halloween Mini Album

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought I would make a couple of mini book with a Halloween theme for my grand kids and a great niece. The book I am posting first is for my two grandsons whose parents have a big extravagant Halloween party every year. My Daughter in Law goes all out with the baking. She makes cookies, candy, and cupcakes all decorated in Halloween spirit. I usually make eyeballs, which are always a big hit. My stepson does all the decorating and what a wonderful job he does.

Well on to my first of three Halloween mini books.

Joined the Close to My Heart Family again

After a couple of years hiatus, I decided it was time to rejoin the CTMH Family.  I really do love the way this company takes the guess work out of matching paper for layouts.  Their kits come with everything you need, even the recipe page, to make sevaeral layouts that are beautifully coordinated and sooooo easy to master.  Here is a layout I created using the Stella Kit.  All materials used were included in the CTMH  Stella
kit with the exception of the flourish stamp which was something that I had in my stash, a Martha Stewart border punch and some iridescent gold glimmer mist that I used on the flowers for some added sparkle and shine. The banner was made using the CTMH Art Philosophy Cartridge.  I love using my cricut to cut out intricate shapes and fonts.  I would never be able to cut all of that out myself with the nerve damage in my arm.  The flowers were white cotton and I used my CTMH inks to color them to coordinate with my page.  

My Reign as Winner Takes All and other ATCs

First and foremost, I need to apologize for the delay in getting this posted.  My mother has been very sick since Mother's Day.  We have finally had to place her in a Nursing Home and that in itself has been very stressful and time consuming.

I belong to an ATC Swap Group called Blissfull ATC Swaps and for the month of May, I was the recipient of the Winner Takes All ATCs.  I chose Hot Air Balloons as my theme.  There were 7 participants,  but I received 8 beautiful Hot Air Balloon ATCs and a whole bunch of sussies. The ATCs I received are pictured below:

Top Row - Left to Right:  Melanie Statnick,  Melanie is a mixed media artist and her beautiful work is showcased on this card.  I just look all the different media!!.  Peggy Jones, Peggy has a whole bunch of Balloons on this small card.  The colors are just beautiful, the picture does not do this card justice.  Debbie Ragan, Debbie sent me not one but two cards the last one of the top row and the first one on the second row.  Both are just beautiful.  I just love the "Romantic Balloon"!!! 

 Second Row - Left to Right:  Debbie Ragan, Electra, Electra send a beautiful "High Flying" Balloon that was sooo colorful and dimensional.  I think my favorite part are the birds on the wire.  Debbie Reed, Debbie's card featured a vintage photo of children watching balloons float across the horizon.  I just love the mix of pin and ink and color photos.

 This ATC came to me from Oliva Ohlson.  She used a small mini cupcake wrapper as her basket and a very three dimensional balloon.  Again, love, love all the textures and dimension.

 My last card came from Wendy K.  She send in a very beautiful ATC that had me singing the Oldie Goldie song, "Up, Up and Away, in my beautiful balloon"...  and her balloon was beautiful.  I love your background paper Wendy, very nicely done!!!

Continuing with me cards from May...  The monthly theme for the May swap over on Blissfull ATCs was Magic.  I was partnered with April Bloome.  I was blown away by April's card.  She took the Magic Theme and ran in the totally opposite direction from me.  April send a beautiful Christmas Themed card and really, what is more magical then Christmas.  I love your way of thinking April.  I also love the frosty nighttime rooftop scene.  Well done, me friend!!!  I love it!!! 

Now my magic card, I ended up doing two, because I was not very happy with my first go round.  Below is the first card.  What a disappointment this card was for me.  It's not that its ugly or horrible, it just wasn't what I was going for.  So I tried again...

 

This time I decided to try to create a magician's closet where he stores all his magical supplies.

So go ahead and open the closet door and you will be greeted with Alexandre's business poster, his top hat and rabbit, gloves and wand and his deck of cards.  I really liked this one much better.  I just hope April did also. 

 

The theme for June was "Pet Me".  We were to make an ATC depicting our pets.  I chose to use a photo of our peekapoo that was taken last Mardi Gras season while we were waiting for the parade to start.  She loves being anywhere we are, so we wouldn't think of not taking her to the parade.  As part of a Ladies Krewe, I ride in the parade and my husband usually pulls the float with our truck.  Lucy, our dog, rides on his lap and looks out the window.  People are always asking him to throw them the puppy, lol.  So here is my Mardi Gras Queen!!!  This month my partner is Dawn from England.  I hope she enjoys this Mardi Gras inspired Pet ATC!!!

Wendy K was the lucky winner of the Winner Takes All Lottery.  She asked that we all send her either Vintage or Steampunk ATC.  I chose to send Steampunk.  I hope she likes it!!!

That's all for this month.  I'll only be participating in the Winner Takes All Lottery next month because of all the summer time activities that we have planned.  The pool for WTA keeps getting smaller and smaller each month, so I'll continue to participate even though I won so that the next winner will receive a bunch of cards like I did.

Donna

Artistic Results

Where in the heck did the month go???Seems like just yesterday we were traveling back from Vegas.  All I can say is there was no relaxing going on in my life.  My mother had some very different plans for me.  You see she has early stage Alzheimer's and basically can no longer live alone.  As fate would have it I'm the only daughter so therefore the one she wants caring for her. So I had to move in with her to take care of her.    Unfortunately we have a love hate relationship.  We really do love and care for each other but we are as different as night and day, she's a homebody content to sit and watch tv and I'm more socially involved, so she hates that I'm not there every day, all day long and I hate just sitting there not being able to do anything I enjoy doing, like working on art projects, gardening, cruising the internet and spending time with friends and family.  For almost 2 weeks all I did was take care of her, read and watch tv.  She doesn't even have internet!!  Talk about withdrawals, lol.. But I don't regret any of the time we spend together.  If no one is there she will forget to take her medicine, which adds to the confusion, then she doesn't want to eat, dress or bathe.  All she wants to do is sleep.  Last Wednesday we finally had a sitter service start and I was paroled from prison, lol.  Not that I'm not still involved but can sleep at home and have some time for my hubby.  So what have I been up to since I returned home....  completed swap items that I committed to before all hell broke lose. 


For the Blissfull ATC swaps:  The monthly Theme was Spring in Paris and Darlene was my Partner. She has a wonderful blog which I really enjoyed.  Here is the ATC she sent to me.  I absolutely love the title.  It reminds me of one of my favorite songs.



I took a different approach to the theme, as usual,  I thought of places I would like to visit and after seeing Midnight in Paris thought of the Paris of the past.  What do you think? 

I also participated in the Winner Takes All swap at Blissfull ATC and this month's winner was Melanie.  Melanie wanted Buddha's so here is her Buddha from me.  Its hard to see but the background is very textured and painted with metallic paints and glazes.  I just hope this was an okay Buddha.  I didn't realize that different countries had different Buddhas and I liked this one the best.

Last month I started participating in swaps over on The Altered Paper Blog.  Tee had another wonderful ATC swap this month.  The theme was Queens and I was partnered with Elysia over at Mischievous Crafts.  Elysia was my first international swap.  You really need to drop in on her blog, she has some fantastic art on display.  Here is the Masterpiece I received.

Isn't she beautiful  And Elysia, I was not in the least offended by the reference to religion.  I loved it!!  She is beautiful and very thought provoking.   Below is the ATC that I created that is winging its way to Canada and Elysia.  I enjoyed making this ATC.  Love the dimension that the Dresden foil arch provides.
 



Lastly Wendy and her friend, Kim have started a new yahoo group called Blissfull Art Swaps  The link is actually to the blog which supports the group.  How fortunate that the first swap I participated in was called Where's my Crown.  I thought, Fantastic More Queens!  The queen theme is close to my heart, every since I was lucky enough to reign as Queen Hera the XIII for our Ladies' Mardi Gras Krewe.  I almost scraped a picture of myself but then thought better of it.  There are definitely better images out there of queens then me, lol... Soooo here are my ATCs.  This swap was either a 3 for 3 or 6 for 6.  I elected, because of time constraints, to create 3 cards.

 

 

 

I also decided to send a little something special for our wonderful Hostess, Wendy.  The title of this swap reminded me of the old "Where's Waldo" picture puzzles, so I thought I would make a Waldo inspired card for Wendy.  Can you see all the crowns that I glued to the card then covered with metal.  I then put purple, green and metallic gold alcohol inks to represent my beloved Mardi Gras.  Hope she likes it. 

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to visit my studio.  Hope you found something to take away with you.  

Smooches

Stick Pin; Lace ATC and March Blissfull ATC Swaps Recieved

Took at quick trip to Vegas with the Hubby.  Had a blast, we saw Cirque de Soleil's LOVE.  This show featured the music of the Beatles and I loved it.  I think this show ranks right up there with Cirque's La Nuba.

Before I left town I was fortunate enough to receive several packages from my March swap partners.  I participated in the March Blissfull ATC Swap. The theme was dress forms.  My partner was Melanie Statnick over at The Rabbit Hole.  She is a multimedia artist and her ATC is awesome.  She also send an envie full of goodies.

The other Swaps I participated in over on the Altered Paper site were a Stick Pin swap and a Lace ATC Swap.   My stick pin partner was Donna and she send these gorgeous red stick pins and vintage red seam binding all wrapped up in vintage pattern paper.  I will be able to use these pins and the seam binding on wedding layouts for Matt and Tori.

Finally, I also received my lace ATC from Karla over at Sketchbooks ATC's Mail Art.  She sent this beautiful ATC covered in lace and topped off with a gorgeous resin Cameo.  Its absolutely stunning.  Then to add to the beauty of the card, Karla made a lace envelope for her lacy creation, how creative is that!!! Karla recently informed me that my Lace ATC was obviously lost in the mail, as she has not received it to date.  Such a sad state of affairs.  I will be recreating her ATC today and shipping it out priority with goodies as my way of apologizing for the Post Office's screw up.

I also wanted to share my Altered Stick Pin holder and Stick pin creations with you. I created this little card which housed the 5 multi colored stick pins inside.  I sure hope Donna in Florida gets her package soon, I would hate to think that two of my packages were lost.

Have a wonderful Sunday!!!

More ATCs

Here are the latest ATCs that I created over the past couple of days.  The Who Dat card is for the Winner Takes All Swap that Wendy hosts.  She randomly draws a person once a month and that lucky person is the recipient of ATCs from all the other participants in whatever theme she chooses.  This month Celia wanted owls.  I hope she enjoys her little Who Dat.  The owl was cut our of really thin wood veneer.  I found the cute little owl on Kate's ABCs cartridge.  The background was created with several colors of distress ink and then topped off with Viva Decor's Pearl Pen in Blue.  This paint is very translucent and easy to use.  I smeared a thin layer on top of the distress inks.  I also used the White Pearl Pen to create the moon

Who Dat

Cinderella's Dream was created for the Monthly Swap over at Blissfull ATCs.  This month's theme was dress-forms.  Under all the fluff of the dress is a beautiful gold leaf dress-form.  I decided to dress my form.  The skirt itself is made from glimmer misted cupcake liners.  The top is a small piece of cotton lace that was the perfect fit.  I added a rhinestone necklace and sequin trim.  The background was created using Tim Holtz's crackle paint.  I then added pink colored pearls as a frame. and randomly placed pink iridescent sequins for a bit of sparkle.  When it was all finished, the dress reminded me of the dress the mice made for Cinderella in the Disney Movie. 

So it just seemed fitting that I would entitle my ATC Cinderella's Dream.  

I sure hope that my partners enjoy their cards!!!