Some Things I am Working On

Somehow October has gone by and I never made an October desktop; I used September's for two months. No wonder I never know what day it is! I have worked a little bit ahead of time this month - I have November's desktop done and I love it. Putting up a new desktop is almost as rewarding and refreshing as rearranging a room's furniture.


I am also finishing up some swaps that I am involved in - whimsical houses and a partner swap.


I am sending my Mom a package with some hard crossword puzzles, pencils and Yahtzee score cards, so I decided to make her an ATC too. She loves Arby's roast beef sandwich so I transferred a sandwich and the logo to a background of scrapbook paper. I then cut out words that represented our couple of days together and collaged them onto the ATC. I cut the words from a game I purchased at Goodwill in Lansing yesterday. I hope she likes it. Earlier in the year I made her a postcard and sent it through the mail, but she never received it. One employee of the post office said maybe it was just too cute and someone decided to keep it. I did not find that funny.

I've Been Tagged

I've had this blog for a little over a month and I've already been tagged. The fun thing is that I am being tagged by a very new friend from Australia. Thanks, Brenda. The first time I visited her site, I realized that we are friends in more ways than one. We both belong to the Yahoo! group, arttechniques, and both participated in a fat book with 120 people total. We also have both taken a class with Paulette Insall.

I have to post the rules and list 6 things about myself that you don't know, which shouldn't be that hard as most of you probably know nothing about me. But how to choose six things:

1. In my youth I won trophies in pool (billiards), bowling and golf.

2. I once made my living pumping gas (back in the day before self service).

3. I am addicted to apples with peanut butter (The apples have to be crisp and slightly tart and the peanut butter has to be creamy Jif.)

4. I once lived on a private island with a very wealthy family as a governess to their two young children.

5. When I was young, I went to school to be a welder. Unfortunately, the school was in Florida and with all that leather on, I passed out all the time and couldn't finish the class.

6. I lived in Phoenix for a short time (I got married there.) with a car that had no air and a black interior. I kept oven mitts in my glove box and sometimes had to wear them to drive home from work.

Now I am supposed to tag six people. I subscribe to 165 blogs, so this is going to be very difficult. So here they are:

1. Julie, at The Land of Lost Luggage.
2. Patricia, at The Unfinished Flower.
3. Suzanne, at Studio Suzanne.
4. Lia, at Art Junk Girl.
5. Karen, at Beelieve.
6. Missy, at In a Shabby Kind of Way.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Travel and Weather

I drove to the UP to visit my Mother for a couple of days. She turned 84 on Friday. Driving up was an adventure - pouring rain, hail, sunshine. In Michigan (probably this saying is popular in other places as well) we have a saying, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute."

For an 84 year old, my Mom sure is a lively one. For my one full day there, she and my sister who lives with her had the day planned out and we filled it. We began with breakfast at home at 8:30. We then drove into town and filled up the tank and began our adventure. First stop Hope House in St. Ignace. This is a second hand store that is huge and very well organized. Their pricing is "donation". I worry that they don't always get what they are worth. At any rate, I filled up two bags - I bought lovely lace, both a border and lots of applique pieces; a few scratched LPs that I am planning to gesso and paint over; a handball racquet that I am planning to sand, gesso and paint; several plastic metric tape measures; a Scrabble junior game with lovely cardboard letters that I will use to "write" on my mixed media pieces; a couple of old calendars with beautiful pictures; a latch hook rug design book with lovely patterns; an old cupcake pan that I will use for a palette, and a few books. I will definitely go back there next time I am "home". I gave them $20, which seemed to be a big surprise to them. I definitely got my money's worth.

Next stop, the library, where we picked out a few large print books for Mom. We then drove to Hessel and picked up another sister who took us to a second hand store in Cedarville. This is a very small store/food pantry that is mostly clothes. I did find a deviled egg plate that looked like a paint palette to me and another cupcake pan. We took that sister back to Hessel (she has a sick cat and didn't want to leave her too long) and drove to the Soo (Sault Ste. Marie) to a huge Goodwill store. What a disappointment!! All of us are familiar with the Goodwill stores down near my house and over in the southwest corner of Michigan, where they are very clean and organized and very reasonably priced. The store in the Soo was way overpriced - their used books were $3 and $4 dollars. I found some cute little stamps in there, but they were as expensive as they are at Michael's. My sister found a used jacket that was priced at $19.99, about three times as much as it would be at any other Goodwill store I have ever visited. And maybe the worst thing about the store, was that the clothes were soiled - they hadn't even bothered to clean them before putting price tags on them.

I appreciate the Goodwill store in Lansing even more than I did before.

Expect the Unexpected Part 2

I drove into town yesterday to go to Discount Tire to have my tires rotated and balanced. However, I had three (yes, three!) bald tires. So instead of a free service that I would wait patiently for while listening to random songs on my iPod, I spent nearly $400 on tires. Yes, I have a small car and the tires are small. I suppose it could be worse. BUT, I can't help but think of how many and what kind of art supplies I could have purchased for that amount of money.

I did draw another face yesterday while the baby napped. It is not exactly like the one I used as a model, but I like how it turned out. This is modeled after a rather famous picture, a print of which is hanging in the basement bathroom of my husband's brother's house in Maple City. I don't think I captured the slant of the head quite right, but it is more practice which is just what I need. I am thinking that I may print one of these faces out (enlarging it in Photoshop first) and try to transfer it to a canvas with transfer paper so that I could make a large collaged and painted version. I really need some free time to try all the things I want to do, but that isn't happening right now, so I have to use the time I have now and be happy with what I can get done.

I also tried the Saran Wrap background technique for a swap I am involved in. I am supposed to make ten 6 x 8 pieces. I was all ready to try it last evening when I discovered I had used up all of my good watercolor paper on my 120 4 x 4s for the Fat (Obese) Book swap I was involved in earlier. I did have some 6 x 6 watercolor paper so I tried it on that just to get a sample. I just love it. For now it is my favorite background technique and it is so simple. For complete instructions and a look at some really fabulous examples visit Susan Chong's blog. She also did a stamp on hers, but it is fabulous even without that last step.

ATCs and Faces

I am still trying to draw a face each day, but some days I just don't get a chance to step foot into my art room. I am still trying to get some color into the sketches I am doing, but I find that pencil still shows through and sometimes the pictures looked better before I tried to color them. Today's face is colored with colored pencils and her face is a little yellow since I didn't really have a realistic flesh color to use - the black was too black, the olive was too green, and this was obviously too yellow.


The baby was up on and off most of the night the night before last, so was difficult during the day yesterday. She was a bit feverish and very needy. She did finally crash in the late afternoon and I was called from my art room to take a few pix. She had been playing at the end of the sofa hugging her big bear when suddenly she became very quiet. All you could see of her were her legs sticking out.



I also finished the two ATCs in the round robin I was involved in and got them in the mail.



The one above arrived with the lovely silvery background. I added the woman's face stamp and the decorative edge stamp and then collaged the word "dream" onto the bottom corner.

This one arrived with the background and the collaged cook and recipe info. My contribution is the image transfer of the soup and tomatoes.

I went to the Leslie post office this time instead of the Pleasant Lake office and what a difference - the woman was pleasant, efficient, and helpful. I was afraid that kind of service was a thing of the past. At the Pleasant Lake office, I usually have to wait at the counter while listening to the employees gabbing in the back, get an unsmiling face of a person who acts like I am interrupting their day, have an employee ask if New Mexico is in the United States (she was not joking!), you get the picture.....


I am also involved in an ATC swap in the arttechniquesatc Yahoo! group. The theme is "metal". Over the course of the couple of weeks that I was brainstorming what to do with metal, I felt that this was going to be very difficult and then I found these little metal flowers with raised stickers on the back at the dollar store. And dictionary pages area always good backgrounds. I think I wish I had rotated the page a bit before attaching it, but overall I am pleased with how it turned out. As a finishing touch I stamped with an iridescent copper liquid acrylic using a bottle cap and then ran a brick red distressing ink around the edge. That, too, went out in yesterday's mail.

For the rest of this week, DD works and so not much art will be done, but I have Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off. It is my Mom's 84th birthday on Friday, so I am driving north to see her for a couple of days, but should still have a couple of days in my art room to do more of the ATCs I am working on for swaps.

Most of the 120 4 x 4 fat book pages have been received by now and I absolutely can't wait to get my copy in the mail. There are so many techniques that I not only have not tried, but have never even heard of...oh, the possibilities.

Meanwhile, this morning I am driving into town to have my tires rotated and balanced before making the trip north. I seem to have at least one tire that is feeling "wobbly" when I drive. I hope to also have time to run into a store and find a couple of small spray bottles to use for the ten 6 x 8 saran wrap techniques that I am supposed to swap by November 10.

Lots to do. Meanwhile don't forget to live in the moment.