Summary Review for May –er- June?

For weeks now I have been thinking of showing what I’ve been up to.  May was an exciting month, but somehow yet another month has passed by!  Sheesh!  What is the matter with me that I can’t seem to post anything?  Well, some of it is that the photos are all on the laptop downstairs, while most everything else is upstairs.  But, let’s get real here.  It’s a LAPTOP!!  Can you say portable?

Never mind.  Let’s see what I’ve been doing for two months:

Dolls

The big news here is that I attended another workshop with Deb Wood.  Our theme this time was Night Circus.

This is my girl, Domino.  I am really pleased with how she came out.  We learned some new techniques and I feel much more confident working in the clay.  Not that there isn’t more to learn!  It will just take practice (lots of practice!)

For now, I’ve gone back to cloth for the Hoffman Challenge. 

Yes, I know – her head and arms need to be attached.  Sometimes it is easier to construct a dress on the body without arms getting in the way.  Depending on what kind of sleeves I want to do, I’ll put sleeves and arms on together.  And jewelry and embellishments are easier without the head.  I know what I want the dress to look like – sort of.  Since the deadline is in two weeks (Yikes!), I will need to finalize the plan pretty quickly now.

Art Journal Emporium

One of the Emporium activities was to work through Diana Trout’s book, “Journal Spilling: Mixed Media Techniques for Free Expression.”  It’s always fun to explore new techniques.  Some of my journal pages:

Digital Scrapping

I must admit, this is where a lot of my time has been going.  I have a LOT of photos to go through, both my own and my family’s.  The challenges put up by the various digital scrapbooking sites have been really great as incentive. 

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, though, you know I tend to go overboard on my projects now and then!  OK – more than now and then . . . like ‘almost always’!!

So, Sweet Shoppe Designs has a monthly challenge called Bingo.  As the name implies, there is a Bingo card each month with prompts of all kinds.  A single row ‘bingo’ gets you a percent off coupon, a pattern (like X or square) gets a bigger discount, and black out is worth an even bigger discount.

For June, I decided I was going to get a blackout.  Who knows what I was thinking?  That’s 24 separate layouts and quite a bit more time than I would normally put into any one project.  In fact, every spare moment went to this effort.  And you know what?

I did it!!!!!

It may never happen again, but now I can say I’ve done it.  And I can go back to a reasonable rate of scrapping all these photos.

So here are some of the others I did in May and June.  I’ll put the name of the site the prompt came from.  Each layout uses papers and elements from that site’s designers.

The Digi Dares:

Scrap Girls:

OScraps:

That’s just a sample, really.  I could bend your ear and burn out your eyeballs with less successful layouts and boring excuses, but to what purpose?   If I were to post more often, I could share more of these, huh?

There has been some quilting happening, too.  Unfortunately, I haven’t taken photos yet.  There are two finishes so I should have something to show you in my next post.  Oh, and some fabric painting!  Wait until you see what that looks like!! 

But let’s not wait two months, okay?

April Recap

Almost a month since me last post . . . now where did that month go?!?  Well, I have been busy, so how about a little summary?

Art Journal Emporium

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but I subscribe to Tangie Baxter’s AJ Emporium and we have a lot of activities geared to inspiring creativity.  Plus, it’s a lot of fun!  Check out the box in the right column if you think you might like to join, too.

One of the activities I take part in is a monthly Artist Trading Card (ATC) swap.  Here is what I received in April:

The Daily Art Dose

I decided to do lettering practice for April – here are some of my favorites:

Emporium Book Club

Yet another activity is the Book Club.  This month, our book was “Art Journal Courage: Mixed Media Techniques” by Dina Wakley.  Check out some of the things I created with the help of this book!

Digital Scrapbook

Since I’ve “discovered” the joys of Photoshop Elements, I’ve used a lot of family photos to create layouts suitable for memory keeping.  One way I keep focused is by joining on-line challenges.  The challenges mean I’m not doing things in any kind of order, but that works for me just fine!

Quilting

In spite of how it may look with all that, I DO have time for a bit of quilt making – just a bit!  These blocks took most of the month, but they are mostly done.

And there are three rows ready to be stitched together:

This is just a sampling.  Whew – makes me tired to look at it all together!  I’m ready for May, though.  Bring it!

Another Dare Answered

I’m back with another page of digital “art.”  This time it’s actually a scrapbook page!

Credits:  Dawn Inskip, Create collection; Manuela Zimmerman, Sound of Music; Studio Viva, Revel-Alissa, font – Harabara Hand
I don’t normally scrapbook in the traditional sense.  Our pre-digital photos are all stuck in those “magnetic” albums with no notes beyond an occasional date.  Of course, nowadays we realize how insecure those albums were.  I’ve been trying to scan photos, but it’s all in fits and starts.  These photos are all from the early 1970s and when I notice a theme developing I decided to do this page.  Just for fun!
About half way through, I realized that I could use this for The Digi Dares Dare #392.  The dare requirements are (1) use a layout that goes from edge to edge.  Check.  (2) use paper strips.  Check (although I used just one, it counts!).  (3) use two photos, one horizontal and one vertical.  Check.  Yeah, I know there are more than two photos, but I think I nailed the horizontal vs. vertical thing!
If you’d like to see other interpretations of this dare, head on over to the Digi Dares web site and read the comments for Dare #392.

Digital Art

I have been spending Sundays this year, working on digital art journal pages.  I’ve managed to keep up all year, as well as learn my around Photoshop Elements.  Pretty well, if I do say so myself!
Since it is November, I’m thinking about what I will do next year.  The Art Journal Caravan will not continue next year, so I have looked around to see what else I might be interested in.
One option is The Digi Dares.  I guess the only way to tell if I like it is to dive in!  So this is my page for Dare #393.  The focus is on daily gratitude for the little things.  You can find the terms of this Dare here. 

Credits:
The Daily Digi – Inbox Party, Amanda Yi – You’re the One That I Want, Studio Ztampf – Enter the Dragon, Lynn Anzelc – Together, Cinzia – Holiday Cheer.
My regular readers (all 3 of you!) will recognize Jake and Barney.  These fur babies never fail to make me smile and I’m so thankful to have them.