Summer Of Color...Lemon Fairy Cupcake

Kristin's Summer Of Color challenge is all about yellow this week. Hummm...yellow....not usually my favorite color to work with. But after a few crumpled sketches I came up with this and had fun doing it. I might even like yellow, a little bit more now. Bring it on orange! ( my least favorite color of all!) I thought I'd share a bit of my creative process with you this week too. I think it's fun to see how people come up with their ideas sometimes. Can't wait to see what everyone does this week.

ICAD Perhaps Collage Tonight?

I am still just making an instant decision about my index cards. I sit down and do the first thing that comes to mind. Tonight it was collage with scraps left from the weeks work on my table. The birdhouse was inspired by a scrap piece shaped like a roof. I have been singing Blackird by the Beatles all day long so there you have it.... Imperfect Index Card # 20. I am enjoying this. The link is is on my sidebar too:) Nan

Summer Of Color...He Lives Behind The Green Door

In A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) Christopher Robin lives

"behind a green door in another part of the Forest" (the 100 Acre Wood).

This week's color on The Summer Of Color challenge is green and the above verse was my inspiration for this green fairy door.

Boy did I have a mental block today!!! I woke up thinking about green things but just couldn't see the end creation. Finally just sat down with some green stash and started cutting up dictionary paper and finally got moving toward a finished project. I used some of my favorite supplies like Lily Pond glimmer mist, non smear pastels (the absolute best), tissue paper,and my new favorite spray paint for chipboard and paper. It's called Design Master from Michaels. I think it was intended for silk flowers but it is wonderful on chipboard. The chipboard really looks like it came from the factory in whatever color you use. The doorknob is an old old screw back earring. It is hard to see but it is iridescent & pearly. All the things a fairy doorknob should be. I used a butterfly barrette for my pop of citron. Had to look that color up! "Citron is lemon coloured ~yellow with a slight tint of green"
I also included a picture of some of the supplies I used on this project just in case you wanted to see. Hope everyone had a great weekend and I can't wait to see all your green creations! :) Nan

The Summer Of Color- Sweet Friends In Blue

I made this little blue piece for the Summer Of Color challenge. Sharon at Wildflowerhouse inspired my hue of blue :) with her beautiful delphinium painting. I had a bottle of Tattered Angels delphinium mist and used it on my dictionary page and the vintage crepe paper. Yum! I used an old vintage photo that I have had forever and I'm sorry but I don't have any idea where I got it. Lot's of favorite stash around here. But I have been saving it for a special project and when I found the little enamel bird I knew that this was the project. Thanks Kristin...looking forward to next week! :) Nan

The Summer Of Color

I'm looking forward to participating in a new challenge called The Summer Of Color hosted by the very creative Kristin at Twinkle Twinkle. Every week she will give us a new color theme and we will interpret it in the artform of our choice. I plan on continuing with the series of 4" to 6" mini mixed media collages that I've started recently. I've really enjoyed thinking of ideas for these and I think doing a color challenge piece every week will be lots of fun. We will start posting our art on Mondays beginning next week. Go check it out! :) Nan

Three Muses Blue

When I saw the Three Muses were celebrating 2 years I had to make something blue just for that. I haven't done many challenges recently but Three Muses is one of my favorites and I appreciate all the inspiration they've given me! Thanks Bev, Ann and Marie!

What I Did This Month :)

I've been taking a painting class called Paint Free with Wyanne. It's a wonderful class and I'm learning to stop being such a perfectionist......I think...maybe! Anyway it's been such a great learning experience and I recommend it to anyone looking to grow creatively. Wyanne is a wonderful teacher and very patient :) Anyway here's a look at my 30 minute quick painting above and my collage piece below.

Believe it or not this painting above turned into this collage piece below! I've really enjoyed this process. I was surprised to find that I like this Kitty very much, even after my struggle to create him and he sits above my art table to make me smile.

Life is a Verb...The Generosity Of Friends.....

Today I realized how good it is to have friends...the kind who don't mind dropping you at the front of the store if your knee hurts.....the kind of friend who stops and get you tea because they couldn't get a tea and not bring you one.... the kind who inspire you with their creativity...the kind who give you that perfect discontinued piece of red and teal polka dot paper from their stash.....the kind who listen when you have an off day and don't think less of you for it....I feel so lucky to have some of these wonderful women in my life.

I'm on day 4 of my mini collages......I have struggled with the "Life Is A Verb" lesson of quantity vs. quality in my little creations. It's hard to just do a quick piece and let it go! So I'm a little behind...still learning :) I used a piece of a master sheet that I did at Gail's shop....hated to cut that but they are meant to be used. The polka dots are my pencil eraser dipped in a chalk ink. Then took a piece of light weight brown paper and spritzed it with Shimmerz Red-y or Not Vibez to make the ruffle at the bottom. the glitter stamp is from River City Rubber Works and the flower stamp is from Penny Black. Love that stamp! That's all...hope everyone had some fun this weekend! :) Nan

He Feels Sometimes...

It's been a long day! I decided to go into the "big" city and do some Christmas shopping today and just got home. Phew...I was ready to return to the forest where I live. No crazy drivers, no bright lights, just a very calm quiet place with lots of trees and animals. I almost ran over a little cottontail coming up our drive. My headlights must have confused it and it took a while for it to head into the woods. So even though I had some great photos of lights and people to inspire me, rabbits were the thing I thought about when I sat down to my drawing table tonight. Always loved this part of the book Secret Garden. Hope you all are enjoying the holidays and finding the things you enjoy about this crazy time of year. :)

Baby It's Cold Outside...

This is a the first of 37 small mixed media pieces I'm doing for a series I'm calling "Notice". As I mentioned earlier I'm reading Life Is A Verb by Patti Digh. She has a series of 37 day challenges to help your creativity and one of them is to pick an art form and create one item for 37 days, no exception. The thought being that quantity not quality is a good thing at times to get you going if you get in that perfectionist mode. Don't know if I'm explaining it well but can't imagine anyone not enjoying this book. So I'm off and running. Here's to 37 days of imperfect but heartfelt art. :)

I used a bit of netting and a Tim Holtz snow stamp I bought from Gail. Everything else is from my scrap pile. I used his mini stapler and now have a new favorite toy. I will be keeping it out on my desk and reaching for it often. The back of each piece will have a place to write something about the day and a pocket for a daily photo.

The cold weather has definitely caught my attention. It's going to be in the teens here which is very cold in December for North Florida. Hope everyone is keeping warm!

Three Muses Take The Wheel

This is for Three Muses....the challenge was wheels. I instantly thought of one of my favorite stamps from Acey Deucey that I never get a chance to use. I thought of her forging ahead at the ships wheel. I used a little 4"x4" canvas painted with some OLD MM paint that I was sure was a goner but it worked. Then I used my favorite Golden color Nickel Azo Gold. Love that color!!!! The wheels are an old Judikins cube stamp. That's it I think. Can't wait to see what you did and thanks for looking!

Three Muses Postal Art Letters

The Three Muses had a postal challenge this week and I decided to use one of my favorite stamps from PSX. The image is a Flickr photo from a library in Miami. I used chalks to color,

TH fired brick, spiced marmalade, mustard inks and another stamp from A Stamp In The Hand.
Now let's see if I can do a hyperlink tonight. My photo gremlin invited his hyperlink cousin to visit this week and I could not get any of my links to work! Period. It is possible that I may have forgotten how to do all these things in the year I was away but I prefer to blame the gremlins. :) Thanks for looking...

Compendium Of Curiosities 6 Play Collage

This week at Linda's Compendium Of Curiosities we worked on collage tags. I used a a chipboard frame as my covered piece. I am hoarding my TH numbers...I know, I know...to quote one of my favorite rubber stamps "You can't have everything..Where would you put it?"

This was great fun and when I use my favorite colors teal and green I also do not know when to stop. I can imagine this little cartoon animation of myself with blue and green ink, flowers and stamps all flying around my head as I go into a frenzy of creative joy! Also in this frenzy of creative joy I managed to make it a tag that must be read from 3 angles. My little interactive gift to you...LOL! Can't wait to go see what everyone did!

PlayThings MMM

This is my piece for Mixed Media Monday. The theme is Play Things. I used an image I had from Flickr but I don't know the source anymore. The cartoon figures are from old tin whistles

The background is a Tim Holtz paper and an old harlequin SU stamp.

On The Go.....

This was my first magic carpet...I felt like I could go anywhere! Unstoppable! This is my entry for Three Muses. This is a page out of my journal. I am a too little foggy headed from my cold to be as creative as I would like today but thought this page was just right!

The Mad Hatter's Other Hat

Gingersnap Creations is having a Once In A Blue Moon challenge this week. I'm guessing this is because there is an extra Wednesday in the month and they do something different and fun. This was a CASE...copy and steal everything... challenge. We picked our favorite design from one of the GS designers and copied it. This was a really a fun challenge for me. I loved Lynn Steven's Mad Hatter card the moment I saw it and instantly knew it was what I wanted to do. I took her idea and decided to make it very bright but with the high contrast I loved in her piece which you can see here. This is the Mad Hatter's Other Hat which he keeps in the closet for those very special occasions.

I also used this for Mixed Media Monday because their challenge is Something Borrowed and I not only borrowed this theme from Lynn but I borrowed the skyline stamp from Isabelle and the idea to use it on MMM from Willie. Thanks! :) I have missed doing MMM a lot and will be doing many more of the weekly themes there!

Sorry for the crookedy photo but it's night as usual and I'll put a better one up tomorrow if we have a sunny day and then this sentence will magically disappear. :) Thanks for looking!

TGIF A Day At The Beach

I was so pleased when Sandy at TGIF asked me to be the guest designer for this week's challenge. Can't wait to see what everyone does! :)
Almost forgot..my image is from Suzee Q's wonderful Flickr site! Thanks!

TGIF Pears

This is my piece for TGIF.....the the theme was pears and or apples. I saw this paint chip booklet at our home improvement store yesterday and had to play. I'm a bit late but it's been a busy weekend! Hope everyone here is having a wonderful 4th and everyone is having a good weekend!

When Life Permits I have A Little Fun

This just about sums up the new art adventure I'm doing. It's a Flickr group called CollagePlay and it's run by Nancy B at Something Two Crow About.We get a sheet of very disjointed images and you would be surprised at the wonderfully creative collages that come from this. These are my 2 first pieces and I love doing this. I'm at a point on my journey to being healthy that I have no idea from one day to the next what I will be able to do. So I am rolling with the punches and this is such a fun type of art to do and I can do it whenever I am feeling good. Love it!

Postcard Theme Gothic Arches

I never realized how much postal related ephemera and stamps I had until I started working on this challenge for Gothic Arches. I do tend to collect things like that and suddenly the collection takes on a life of it's own. That's why I've spent a good part of the year sorting and purging! I've been busy today playing in my cool art room after a blazing morning clearing off my back porch. I've just relaxed and played with paper, glue and stamps.....no big expectations....just having some fun !