Faux Wood Doors

Every once in a while, I get calls to do some faux finishing. In a past life, I used to do it for a living but life gets in the way and the kids were small so it had to go to the wayside. A neighbor down the block saw my house and asked me to do some work in her house - a faux brick wall! Then a faux stone wall. They in turn had a party this past winter and a friend of theirs saw the work and fell in love. So when her office wanted to redo their meeting room, she remembered me. The job was to take the metal doors and paint them on one side to look like the wood floors and crown molding. Here are the before and after shots, I will let you decide if they turned out.

Cardboard Alphabet

Another thing I have been doing in the last few months has been arting up some 9" cardboard letters sets for the preschool teachers. I have done two sets for friends of mine and this set, I actually was paid to do! I took pictures of sets of them and my camera died before I could get the last few letters. Gggrrrrr. I have been having a bit of fun with my sharpie markers! Hope you enjoy them! I have one more set and I may try to sell it when done.

Why so busy!

November was NaNoWriMo which is short for National Novel Writing Month. Check it out here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ They need donations to keep this program alive so please consider donating if you can afford it.

I actually am a winner! I finished a 50,000 page "novel" by the end of the month! I was feeling so lost with my art and totally unmotivated. Whenever that happens, I usually try to take a class or hunt down a book that will move me off into a new direction. Nothing was sparking my imagination. I had a crazy dream one night and thought that it would make an interesting book. Finding this website made me think that this was an omen and to give it a try. I found myself sneaking away for an hour or so a day and writing about my story. If you can write 1670 words a day, you can totally pull off a book in a month. It needs serious editing but I will leave that for another day! My creative spirit is refreshed and I am now feeling that creative tingle itching to get back into the studio. Yeah!!!

My certificate does not have my name because I keep forgetting to add it in. But you can only get this if you upload your novel and they verify the word count.

Grateful ATC Challenge

Wow have I been busy! I forgot to post this to my blog (and the trading card blog! Whoops!)
Our theme for November was Grateful which is appropriate for the Thanksgiving season. I struggled trying to find a way to incorporate all that I was grateful for into a small space. When I thought about what I was most grateful, the idea snapped into place. I am grateful for each and everyday that I have to spend with family and friends! (Insert smacking of forehead here) Here is the link to all the grateful ATC entries: http://artsinthecards.blogspot.com

I used cardstock and colored the background with sharpie markers to create sunrise/sunset and mountains. More details were added with colored pencils and then a pine tree was stamped in dark brown. The final detail was the birds drawn in with a black pigma pen.

Our next trade is a Flat Santa exchange! The pieces so far have been so cute and adorable. I unfortunately had to sit this one out as I had quite a bit going on. They should be going up in the next week or so. Stayed tuned!

Radiance-Hardware ATC Challenge

I would have done this sooner but my email account seems to have disappeared. Of course, everything was attached to that address and my last week of life has been somewhat of a nightmare! GGrrrr

But I managed to soothe my jangled nerves and produce a piece for this challenge. We were supposed to be using hardware. Stuff you find at the hardware store. Keeping in mind that this is a small piece and that it has to go through the mail, really limits what you can use!




I started out with a piece of hand stitched rust dyed fabric. The piece was started and blown off a while ago. It just wasn't working. So I measured out my cards on the fabric with a black marker and screwed one of them up by not double checking the size before hand! That's why I make extras for mistakes such as these. I wound some copper wire that was from a picture frame hanging kit (at least I think that is where it came from!) Boring. Painted some washers in metallic blue and hand stitched them on. Better but still boring. Looked at the one that I wrote on and realized if I made an intersecting line running down, I would create a focal point. Hmm. More washers, and blue metallic thread gave me the wonderful masterpieces I finally ended up creating! Please note that this is the second ATC in a row that was not a TREE!! I am really growing! Hee-hee

Balance

This months challenge was Balance. I picked the challenge and it was based on my life being as crazy as it is now. It is to remind myself to stop and breathe once in a while and enjoy the moment. My son just made the school soccer team for 7th grade and he has all of us in a frenzy he's so excited!

I chose the water drop as my image. It always reminds me of peaceful images and focus. I made an extra one for myself and have it sitting by my computer. This may be one of my favorites.

I used commercial fabric for the background because the colors were gorgeous. Then I drew in the circles using water color crayons and the water drop is made using glossy accents! Fun stuff! then I sewed in some of the edges to make it more dimensional.

Check here for everyone's interpretation: http://artsinthecards.blogspot.com

Death/Rebirth - Opposites Challenge

Time for the monthly posting of my ATC trade! See the rest here: http://artsinthecards.blogspot.com

This month was Opposites. I thought it would be an easy one to do but I ended up struggling with it. I was not feeling very creative as the day before this was announced, we learned of the sudden death of my BIL Paul. My husband was devastated as he had just lost his father 8 months prior. Events like this always gives us pause to contemplate the cycle of life and other things.

Driving home from the store, my attention was caught by a dead tree spiraling quite high into the sky. It was quite striking against the blue sky with fluffy clouds. I am sure it was a very stately tree with a very interesting past - kind of like my BIL. Below the tree, there were tiny trees, shrubs and flowers growing up all around the dead tree. So that became my theme - death/rebirth. Interesting how after death, other things show up to fill the void.




I used a fabric I dyed with blue dye and a flour paste resist. The trees are made from black and white puffy paint added on top of one another. At the base of the tree, I couched green yarn to create to shrubs and silk scraps are held in place with beads to create the wildflowers. I beaded some additional sprigs of orange flowers to add to the image.

Rest in Peace Paul Cox.
Your outrageous personality and quick wit will be dearly missed.