Playing With Blog Design

I just wanted to tell y'all that I'm working on the design of both my blogs trying to get something that I'm happy with, so if when you get to either one of them and they look different a few times, they're under construction. The content will be the same, but I'm playing with all the other stuff.

Got all my Christmas shopping done yesterday, with J's help. YAY!!! We were too tired to unload the SUV last night, and J is gone after cattle feed this morning. I should have already had the car unloaded, but I've been playing with my blogs all morning, so I better go get er done before he gets back. We have presents to wrap!

Have a wonderful weekend all!

Artyz Girls-Small

This week's challenge at Artygirlz is Small. I absolutely lovvvvve small things and miniatures, and i have a large dollhouse full of things to prove it. LOL Therefore I love atcs and inchies. Unfortunately, my eyes aren't what they used to be, but I still enjoy making them.

I'm sharing an inchie and an atc. Both are mixed media on cardstock. The inchie has a shiny finish plus metallic copper glitter and threads and didn't photograph as well as I'd have liked, but it's one of my favorites that I've made. The atc figure is a photograph of a doll in my collection downsized to fit against the stamped background. The stamp is from The Montage Collection and is quite a bit larger than the atc. The quote says, "When the wind stops you smell the fragrance of the orchid."

Hope you enjoy them. Have a great day! :)

IMT Challenge-Dress

For this week's dress challenge on IMT I thought I'd share one of my favorite dresses ever.

It probably looks like it needs throwing away to you guys, but I wore this little dress when I was about a year old, and it is well worn. I feel very loved when I look at this little dress. It's about 58 years old and after I outgrew it mama put it in the cedar chest with some other baby dresses, which were a little fancier and more delicate, but this one is dearest to me. She gave them all to me a few months ago when she was cleaning out things. I only wish she had saved the ones she made for me.

My paternal grandmother, whom I adored, made this little dress, just for me, out of a cotton flour sack. I had many little flour sack dresses and diapers, but this is the only one I still have. It was made on her old treadle sewing machine, I'm sure without a pattern. Faded from the many times mama carried water, washed it on a rub board, and ironed it, it's now also yellowed with age, torn under both arms and has a few loose stitches from much wear. The little placket opening in the back never had a button and was held together with a safety pin.

It may not look like much to anyone else, but to me, it represents a lot of love. And, yes, I was a chubby baby. :)

Inspire Me Thurs & Tissue Carnation

The challenge for this week at inspire me Thursday was a handmade gift. I'm running a bit late on it. I was dressing an art doll to share, but ran out of time.

Yesterday, I got to thinking about my grandmother teaching me to make paper flowers when I was little (I'm going to write an article on my other blog about it soon), and wondered if I could still make them. I didn't have any crepe paper or colored tissues, so I used a white tissue, dipped in wc and let dry, then folded, cut, tied, and seperated into this little carnation. I used a wire bread tie, because that is what I had handy, and I put it in an old glass Vicks Salve jar. It just may turn up ON someone's gift at Christmas. :)

Have a great day!

Arty Girlz & Happy Holidays

This is my entry for the Arty Girlz challenge this week, which is our favorite medium. I don't really have a favorite. I love playing with them all. Lately, though, I've learned to love drawing, watercolor, watercolor pencils, and inktense pencils.

Through these doodles I have learned to relax and have fun when drawing/painting instead of trying to make everything look perfect, which is stressful. I am a dabbler. I love oils, pastels, clay, making art dolls, miniatures, ink, printmaking, stamps, trying new supplies and techniques, and I have an obsession with decorative papers, esp unruyu rice paper. Maybe if I could choose a favorite, I might be a master of one. But then I would get bored. As it is, I'm never bored. :)

Anyway for this challenge I used watercolor/pencils, since that's what I've been into for a few months now. The Christmas ptg above is actually a page in my moleskine journal, and a quirky sketch, but now that I'm looking at it on here, I may print some off for Christmas cards.

The one below, which I titled "Goldfish," is an atc on wc paper, where instead of drawing doodles I let different colors of wc flow into each other, then splattered a black inktense pencil onto it. When it dried it made me think of goldfish in a little pond.


I hope they made you smile. Thanks for visiting. Have a great week! :)

Arty Girlz - Frames

Here is my entry for the Artygirlz Challenge this week, which is frames. I decided to share my atc view finder frame (hope this counts), which is laying on a work in progress cloud painting, inspired by Alex Shur in her article in Cloth, Paper, Scissors a couple of issues back. I've gotten it to this point and can't decide where to go next. The technique is fun. I just haven't fully grasped it yet. Still working on it though. :) Check out her blog to see how it's supposed to be done.


Cloud Inhabitants--WIP-pencil, sharpie, gesso, watercolors on wc paper--quite a concoction of souls, huh? :) Can't decide whether to cut it up into smaller paintings or leave it whole with enhancements. I'm using the view finder frame to see how many atcs I could make from it, but at the same time I hate to cut it up. Decisions, decisions! :)

Ms Mouskette (see post below or visit group) was voted the honor of being on the Mojoart group home page until the next challenge. This challenge was "Celebrating Women." She and I appreciate the votes and the honor. :)