Kit Pondering, Art Journaling and more...

Okay, so I'm looking for a kit club to subscribe to. My favorite kits have been the SiStv collections, because they always included things that you couldn't find anywhere else - you know like imported felt flowers, bits of vintage fabric, thrift store stuff, etc. They haven't made many kits lately tho, so I'm looking for somewhere else to get kits, at least for now. Here's what I've found so far...

Studio Calico. Beautiful kits and a lively, active online community, which I love. The only downside is that they don't seem to include unusual/odd items. They seem to be exclusively scrapbooking supplies. Still - they are beautiful kits, so I may go that way.

Cocoa Daisy. Amy Tan is their guest designer this month, and when I saw the beautiful things she's been creating and posting in the SiS gallery, I had to check them out. The gallery seems to be filled with things that lean a little more towards untraditional, which fits my style. I don't know what their online community is like, but it looks friendly.

Does anyone have experience with either of these kit clubs? And if so, what is your opinion?

Also, if you have any other unique and funky kits that you have found - I'd love to hear about them. If they have an online community it would be a plus. It's fun to be able to get excited about the kits with other people. Not that this would replace SiS of course - just in addition to it.

Anyhoo, on to the creative projects. Last night I went crazy working on my homework for Dina's Masterful Art Journaling class. WOW - that class is DEFINITELY worth the money. The first lesson alone has about 7 different projects, and they all are fun and thought-provoking at the same-time. I finished all but one of them last night. I didn't take pics yet, because it's just backgrounds that will be built on in the next lesson. I will share as soon as they are finished.

I do want to share the art journal I created in the Collage Couture class at SiSversary - WOW this one was FUN! We were given a piece of plain, natural canvas, with fabric stitched to the inside. Then we created the journal in class. Here's how mine turned out...
The texture comes from a paper towel, stuck on with gel medium! So Cool - I NEVER would have thought you could do that! It becomes really stiff and durable once it dries because of the gel medium. Other supplies I used (some in class and some when I got home) include acrylic paint, drywall tape, stamps, book pages, sharpie, spray ink and gaffer tape. I bound it with a strip of fabric that I got from my secret sister Andrea.

Here's how the inside looks...
the striped fabric was already sewn onto the canvas, but I glued on the houndstooth with regular old craft glue.

And this is the back cover...
I can hardly wait to fill it up! Yeayyy!!!


Oh, and I also wanted to share a pic of my Project 52 ATC ribbon which is now completely full!!! Yeayyyyy! As it turns out, the ribbon holds EXACTLY 26 weeks of cards, which is perfect because I can add one more ribbon and that will be the full year! I am loving this process!!!

I guess that's it for today. I've got so much to share, but it will have to wait til tomorrow! I hope you have a fabulous Friday filled with fun and inspiration!

Thanks for stopping by and for your comments - they truly make my day!

Project 365 Week 27 and Goodbye to Michael J...

Another week gone by and I'm still taking Project 365 pictures! Here's how the week went...

Monday, June 29: Backstage tour at the Grand Ol' Opry with Marissa and Vicki! What a great way to end the vacation!

Tuesday, June 30: Michael and I saw a Little Blue Heron on our walk! So exciting! He almost didn't look real - like some sort of magical creature sitting there...

we also saw these beautiful red berries on our walk...

Thursday, July 2: I moved the recliner to the other side of the scraproom - near the window. Johnny approves...

Friday, July 3: I got this beautiful image in my email as a summer greeting from the Ministry of the Arts - I love it!

Saturday, July 4: I took a pic of the new journal I got from Andrea at SiSversary...

Sunday, July 5: A late night Bomb Pop for me. Willie couldn't resist licking the stick...

and now last, but definitely not least, I want to say that I am sad about Michael Jackson's passing. There are some people that balk at the idea of celebrities getting so much attention when they pass away. My feeling is that it's just human that we grieve. When a non-celebrity dies, the funeral is as big as the amount of people that knew the person and mourn for them. The same is true of famous people. It doesn't make them better or worse. They are just known by many more people. Whatever you think about Michael Jackson's life, he still touched a lot of people for many years with his music. I grew up listening to the Jackson 5. Michael was my dancing idol. When I think of Michael Jackson, my fondest memories are of sitting in front of the tv, singing along with Michael in the 1970's. Here is just one example of my Jackson 5 memories...





Rest in peace Michael.

See you tomorrow my friends.

Gettin Sketchy With it...

It was project day at our house on Sunday and I was so productive! Michael worked on a renovation project for our bathroom closet, and I scrapped the day away! I finished all three layouts from Gretchen McElveen's "Gettin' Sketchy" class! I didn't get to actually take her class at SiSversary, because the time conflicted with another class I was taking, but I was able to buy a class kit and bring it home with me. It was so much fun to do these layouts because I had all the materials cut for me, and sketches right there in front of me - easy peasy lemon squeezy!!! I thought the most appropriate thing to do with these sketches was to make layouts for my SiSversary yearbook, which meant I had to adjust each of the sketches to fit an 8 1/2 x 11 size (they were originally 12 x 12), which wasn't hard to do. Here is how they turned out...

These first two are almost exactly the same design that Gretchen used (click to read the journaling and/or see more detail)...


and this last one I ended up changing quite a bit. I changed the colors of the cardstock from Kraft and white to Maroon and Pink - just because those colors were speaking to me at that moment. I also discovered how fun it is to write on transparencies with a sharpie, and that's where things went awry ... By the time I was done doodling and writing all over this, there was no room for the rest of the embellies Gretchen had included! LOL. In fact, I think I have enough stuff leftover that I can make another layout - yeayyyyy!!!

I also finished making my art journal from the Collage Couture class, but I will save that to share with you tomorrow.

Speaking of art journaling - I signed up for Dina Wakely's third art journaling class, called "Masterful Art Journaling" and I'm so excited about it! I am a week behind so I have some catching up to do, but that's okay - it's going to be fun! You can still sign up if you are interested. Click here for more info.

Hey, did you see the new thing we've got going over at Scrapping The Music? The first week of every month we are going to have a TV Theme song for the challenge. This week the song is the theme from "Cheers." There is going to be a special RAK given away to a random participant which will be in addition to the monthly RAK we already give away. Come on over and play along - we'd love to see what you come up with!

Now it's time to clean my scraproom and get to bed. Morning will come early! Take care and I will see you tomorrow my friends!

My First Circle Journal is Completely and Totally Complete!

It's so exciting to have my first circle journal all done! Yeayyyyy! I took some time today to put the finishing touches on - such as divider pages, intro and ending and such. I'm so happy with how it turned out! I know I have posted pieces of it before, but I want to post it all together as a whole.....

Here's the cover (again)...
I added the guidelines to the inside of the cover, and also a pocket page to hold everyone's tags (click on any of these images to see the details)...

And then - here are the awesome layouts the participants added! (sorry for the glare on some of these photos - I didn't use a flash but still had some problems)

Here's Lori's...

Denise's...

Tracy's...

Peggy's...

Becca's...

and mine...

Then I added a divider page...

and included color copies of all the layouts I made for everyone elses journals...






and finally - a pic of our group (minus Peggy and CeCe who couldn't be there)...

and the back cover...

It's so exciting to have a piece of artwork from each of these wonderful women! I love how different they all are! I will treasure this little book!

So, now - I have a layer drying on a new art journal cover, and I'm working on my layouts from Gretchen's SiSversary class. I didn't get a chance to take the class, so I purchased a kit from Gretchen, and it looks like fun!

I wish you a super-terrific Sunday! I will be back tomorrow with another update!

Secret Sister Fun!

It's a hap hap happy Saturday! My scraproom is all clean and organized and I have the whole day to scrap - yeayyyyy!

But first, I want to take some time to tell you all about how the Secret Sister Swap went at SiSversary! First - I can finally reveal that the person I had as a secret sister was Stacey Fike. It was great having Stacey because we like a lot of the same things - she's into mixed media, so I could send her fun stuff like canvases, fabric and mediums! She was so sweet and said she really liked it all - so that made me feel great! I forgot to take a picture with Stacey - darn!!!

Next, here's how it went for me...

Our Secret Sister Reveal wasn't until Saturday at 3:30, but on Friday during one of my classes, I received this fabulous handmade journal....
how ADORABLE is this? It had all different kinds and sizes of papers on the inside....


and the front and back covers are a vintage children's book! I was so surprised and delighted!
I can't wait to turn it into a minibook or journal! I haven't decided which yet.

Then, on Saturday, before the swap time, I received ANOTHER fabulous present from my secret sis! Look at all this fabulous vintage stuff!!!
Just so you know, the package didn't say "from Andrea" on it when it arrived (LOL). I added that later. There are so many fun things in there it's incredible. Cute playing cards, game pieces, library cards, and so many different kinds of ephemera!

Then, on Saturday we gathered for the big reveal, and I was so surprised and excited to find out my secret sister was Andrea - (aka Scrappinandrea)!!! We had been corresponding on email so I felt like I knew her already, but it was so fun to find out who this sweet person was! So this was her final gift to me - it's a huge bunch of scrappy stuff - all in the theme of my favorite color - ORANGE !!! Gorgeous ribbons and fabrics, papers and embellies! OOH and one of my fave things - 7 gypsies gaffer tape!!! I love love love love love it!!!
This is me and Andrea at the reveal - she is such a sweetie! Thank you Andrea from the bottom of my heart! Not only for the ultra-cool gifts, but also for taking the time to get to know me!

If any of you ever have the chance to be in a secret sister swap, I highly recommend it! It's a lot of fun - especially if you make a new friend!

Okay, I'm off to have a full day of cropping now! Happy 4th of July my friends!

Photoswap Layout from Karalyn!

I arrived home from SiSversary to a super-fun surprise in my mailbox! My layout from my photoswap partner Karalyn! I had sent her these photos of Wilbie meeting the soft-sculpture frog for the first time. I just LOVE what she came up with (click to see more detail)...I love how she made two of the photos black and white, and the fresh, clean white background. Fun title too! Karalyn also sent me two fabulous Hambly transparencies as a gift!

Thank you so much Karalyn - I love love love my new layout (and the extra gift)!

I am feeling so inspired from SiSversary! I loved all of my classes, and didn't finish any of the projects (of course - ha); so now I have LOTS to work on! Yeayyyyy! And it's a long weekend - double Yeayyyyyyy!

Oh, and I can't wait to share all the awesome layouts I got from my circle journal group! I am going to finish the rest of the journal before I share tho, so I can show you the whole thing at once. It was so much fun to do a circle journal this way, I can't wait to try it again! I am thinking of hosting a CJ swap on SiS sometime soon...

OH, and I also can't wait to share the super FUN stuff my AWESOME secret sister gave to me at SiSversary! Andrea - you rock!

All this is fodder for future posts - and now I'm off to finish unpacking all my scrappy goodies!

Oh and p.s. there's a flickr group where everyone is posting pics from SiSversary! Check it out here if you're interested. It will probably have new pics added to it daily for awhile.

Thanks so much for stopping by! See you again tomorrow with another update!

Friday Nite ATC Festival/Project 52s for June...

On Friday nite at SiSversary, we had an ATC festival of sorts - it was really fun! Each table in the banquet room was turned into an ATC-making station, run by a fashionista. Each ATC demonstrated a different technique or product. I am bummed that I didn't get to all of the tables, but since I am what you might call a sloooowwwww scrapper, it was no surprise. LOL. Anyhoo, I did get four done, which works out really well because I want to use them for my June Project 52 ATCs. Once I got home I added some extra tidbits, plus the journaling on the back. Here are the ones I got done:

This one was at Gretchen's table. It was so cute I just copied her design exactly...


This one was fun because I got to use modeling paste for the first time (the blue star)...

(sorry for the blurry photo here)

On this one I added the pic of Johnny when I got home...


and for this one I painted a second sheet of the sticky-back canvas with the blue-green color; then drew and cut out the heart. I added the doodling and the word Art when I got home...


Another fun thing we got to do was decorate a little pouch to put the ATCs in! This table was run by Jeannie, the awesome intern at SiS...
I really like doing the Project 52 ATCs four at a time! This was my second month doing that, and I think I will continue. Now to think up a theme for July...

Thanks so much for stopping by, and for your comments! I look forward to reading them!!! Have a fabulous Thursday my friends!

New Projects...

Happy Wednesday! Today I want to share with you a few of the projects I worked on for SiSversary.

This first one was my entry for the plate decorating contest. 20 people were given a 3" tin plate and told to decorate it any way they choose. For some reason I envisioned a woman's face when I saw the plate, and here is what I came up with. I call her plate girl...
To make her I used acrylic paint and a sharpie for the face, punched holes in the plate with my crop-a-dile and added spray-inked pipe cleaner hair. Her dress and hands are made with Claudine Hellmuth's Sticky back canvas, which I painted with acrylic paint. Her shoes are made from SiStv gaffer tape. Plate girl now has a new home with my friend Julie Weiss!


My second project was a layout made from the Moo cards I received in our Moo Card swap. I made the layout on a transparency so you can still read each artist's contact information on the back...
Materials used include hambly transparencies, glossy accents clear adhesive, Jenni Bowlin cow image cut from her journaling card, SiStv red houndstooth gaffer tape, and some patterned paper from the SiSTV "Girl Next Door" collection.

This layout was completed in a Round Robin circle on Saturday nite. It was a lot of fun! Round Robin is a game where everyone sits around a table and each person starts a layout. Every 4 minutes the layouts get passed to the person on your left. Each person gets to contribute something to each layout. The game (and layout) is done when you get your own back. I wanted to make a layout to say thank you to my sweet hubby - the trip to Nashville was a birthday gift from him - he is the greatest!
I started the layout with the background paper, plaid paper, photo and journaling block. I am so happy with how it turned out! After it got all the way back to me, the only things I added are the words "Thank U" and the journaling. All the artists that contributed signed it on the back. I'm happy to say that Michael loves it!

I have lots more projects that I started, but have to still finish before I post.

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone! I will be back tomorrow with another update!