Friday Art Challenge

Here is my entry for the Friday Art Creation.

Here are the images we were provided to work with

I hope you enjoyed my entry and that you might consider participating yourself.  It's a lot of fun.

Wonderful Present Received

On Thursday I received the most wonderful present in the mail from Paula at Tattered Gold, which I'm going to share with you.  Paula had contacted me to let me know she wanted to send me a present for becoming her 100th follower and I was just super excited.  I've never gotten anything like that before.  I was expecting something small and wonderful, but I received this!

Imagine my surprise when the post lady rang the bell and handed me this lovely addressed large box.  I was like a kid in the candy store.  I love all my items so very much and I have so many wonderful projects planned for them.  Thank you so much Paula, you are a dear and it's great to get to meet someone from home.  You are an awesome lady!!

Valentine Pinup Background Theme

I love to create new backgrounds for my blog, mainly because it helps me learn new uses for my PSE 8 software.  However, it can be very frustrating at times, especially with trying to get the layout just right.  I enjoyed making this one.  I adore Valentine's day and decided to go with a fun Pinup theme.  I hope you like it.  I would love feedback on it.  Such as do you think it's too busy, should the elements be smaller so you can see the background more, etc.  Thanks for visiting!

Carnivale Pazzo Collage Obsession

For the most recent Collage Obsession Challenge we were asked to use the given picture:

and to put him in some kind of Steampunk, grungy or edgy Carnival theme.  Here is my rendition.  Hope you like it.

Art Challenge Friday

I have became more and more enamored with digital scrapbooking, collaging, photo manipulation and photo montages.  I'm still very new at it, but I've learned so much; especially since I started participating in more online challenges for example Art Creations Friday.  This is my first time taking part in this challenge so I hope you like what I have created.  The original photo is:

and here is my creation:

Check out the blog Art Creation Friday to see all the lovely creations.

Birthday Card I Created for My Father In Law

One of the things I really enjoy is making cards for family and friends.  I always try to make something unique and significant for that person.  My husband's Father's birthday is next week so I made him a card today to mail out to him.  I found a favorite photo of him and his wife and changed it to sepia so that it would go better with the paper I found that I wanted to use.

I found this great travel scrapbook paper and just loved it (K & Company).  It's a bunch of different postcards and I added the postcard (by 7 Gypsies) and this is the photo of them I just love.  I changed it to a sepia tone, which I love.  

This is the back of the card with the same scrapbook paper (K & Company).  I love the vintage feel of it.

The little postmark on the lower left hand corner says "Budapest".  My father in law is 1st Generation Hungarian and my mother in law is 1st Generation Polish.  Both their parents came over from Hungary and Poland to have a better life for their family.

This is the inside of the card.  I sponged a pearlescent warm gray acrylic paint (Stewart Gill Pearlise in Oyster, purchased at Artistcellar) and then cut out the bird from another piece of scrapbook paper (DCWV).  I stamped in the same color ink (Tsukineko Versa Magic Brilliance) a birthday wish.

I decorated the little heart with leftovers of the scrapbook paper, glittered it and cut out gold keys from another scrapbook paper I have scraps of, added ribbon and a little white daisy to hold it in place.

I enjoy making card so much I have decided that I am going to start making Christmas cards for next year to our closest family and friends.  Each one different and unique.  I must be crazy, you say!  No, I 'll just do one a week and I'll be done before you know it!  Happy card making.

Collage Obsession #33 Jewelry

I haven't done one the Collage Obsession challenges for awhile and I'm still learning how to use my photo editor.  I just recently got a new one too which I'm beyond frustrated with ;)

Anyway, here is the original picture....which I LOVE!

and my rendition

I'm hoping to have a little better understanding of my new photo editor before next challenge.  Happy collaging!

January Paper Dress - Monet

I am so happy to be able to participate in this year's Paper Dresses being hosted by Angela at Sew Loquacious. Angela added her own twist to this year's challenge by giving each month a different art theme.  This month's theme is Impressionist art.  I chose Claude Monet's The Artist's Garden at Giverny as my inspiration.

I so adore this painting.  I love all the different colors and hues.

So here are pictures of my first Paper Dress creation.  I hope you enjoy it.

I started by making my template and I envisioned a beautiful Cinderella style dress.  I used a lavender paper and then painted it with greens (to depict the stems), blues, pinks, purple, and a metallic beige.  

I worked at it at night, so the pictures didn't turn out to well.  Lighting at my house is challenging.  I have two daylight lamps on my "wishlist" which I hope to get soon.  I kind of felt like it looked like flowers, at least that was the feel I was going for.

I then added, lace to the hem and sleeves, tulle to the skirt, lace to the waist, pink crystals to the neck, a pretty peach butterfly to the shoulder and lovely purple flowers and white feather to the skirt.

Don't forget to visit Angela to see all the pretty dresses.  I'm going to have to work better next month on better pictures.  I'm still learning this photography thing!

January Art Bag Challenge

While visiting all the wonderful blogs I follow, I noticed a trend for these art challenges, which I so wanted to be a part of.  Well since this is a new year, I've signed up for a few.  My first post here is for the The Artful Bag Challenge at Frosted Petunias.  I hope you enjoy my January Purse.  Two of the pieces I incorporated into the bag are very dear to me.  1. the handle came from a vintage czech crystal necklace that belonged to my Nanny (my mom's mother) and I believe it originally belonged to her mother.  It was made for a super tiny neck and since I could not locate the same vintage crystals I decided to incorporate the necklace into other pieces and this is the first one I've used it in.  2. The beautiful little brown butterfly I used I received from an artist friend Shwe Thiri Khit I met through Willowing.  She is a beautiful person and an awesomely talented artist. I hope you visit her site.  I think you will be as amazed as I am by her talent.  Please enjoy my purse!

My First Graphite Drawings

So I've been learning about graphite and the first lessons I had to complete were making a gray scale, crosshatching, and making a sphere.  Tedious work and not much fun, but very educational.  Now on to funner things.  Here is my first eye:

And here is my first nose:

And my first lips:

Here they are all together in my art journal.  They were done separately so they are meant to not make a face.

Here's another fun little thing in my art journal:

They aren't done yet.  There are going to be two other princesses on the left page and then some more work on the background.  They are a rough draft for a children's book I'm working on.  They are only preliminary.