Using Up All That Stuff

It Has Been A Long Time

2011-11-26T09:11:00.002-07:00

I am playing around with the IPhone and seeing if I can blog from it.....well I know other people can but the question is....can I?

Here's my latest find....all 700 pages of it....for cheap. I don't know what it is about these ledger journals but I love having and using them.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Remembering 9/11....I Will Never Forget

2011-09-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, I remember that day very well and where I was........ I was in Oregon taking care of my Mom who has now passed away.

I had gone upstairs for something and when I came down, I could hear her trying to get my attention as she was unable to talk after having a bad stroke. When I walked into the living room she was waving her arms and pointing at the television trying to tell me that something awful was happening on tv. When I looked over at the tv, I saw one of the towers coming down.

We sat there all day shocked like everyone else as to what unfolded on that horrible day where so many lives were lost, so many lives were changed from losing loved ones and life, like we once knew it, had changed from that moment on.

I hope we all have a few minutes to say a good thought or prayer today.

Come On Baby Let's Do the Twist....Round and Round We Go......

2011-09-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

Had a fun night out at the 50's Diner.........a car show.......an old fashioned root beer shake.........lots of great music and fun with friends. It was tolerable being out since the sun was down but it was still in the high 90's.

Some highlights..........

Poodle skirts is the attire for the restaurant.

55 Nash Rambler

Pontiac

1967 Volkswagen

Corvette

In the 30's but don't remember what flavor it is.

Early 70's Chevelle

65 Mustang

Sorry about all the hoods up but that is a requirement if you want your car considererd in the run for a trophy.

Hope you have a great Labor Day weekend.

From This to That......Gears Anyone?

2011-08-22T12:15:00.001-07:00

Some days, it just doesn't pay to go out in this horrific heat but then some days it really does. I took a class with Tim Holtz at least two years ago altering this wooden bird with gears on it. I not only love the whole piece but I fell in love with the gears on top of the bird but never was able to find any that large until last week. Well I take it back....I did find some on the internet but they wanted an arm and a leg for them and I just told myself to wait. Tim had a huge collection of gears for us to choose from which was a lot of fun and I just kept it in the back of my mind hoping that someday I would find some for myself.

Then the other day when I walked into a thrift store, I saw these clock pieces. I wished I knew exactly what kind of clock they were from but I don't have a clue. If you know, please leave a comment for me. When I picked up one, all I could see inside were gears of all sizes. My heart did a little pitter patter sound and I took a deep breath and then I said "thank you".

It went from what is on the left side to the pile of gears on the right. In some of the clock pieces, some of the gears were as large as three inches across and went down to a small size. I was surprised at how relatively easy it was to take these clock pieces apart. I did have to ask for assistance at the very end when he had to cut a couple of the gears off but for the most part, it was all a matter of unscrewing some little nuts and washers.

This is what it looked like inside one of them......not the best picture but you get the idea.

Some of the smaller gears.

And here is a mixture of the large and smaller gears.

The moral of this story is to never give up on something you want.........whether it be something insignificant as this or something much more important............ I truly believe it is out there for you.

I truly hope you have a great day and a wonderful week.

From Table Runner to a Book Bag

2011-08-16T16:20:00.001-07:00

In the last post, I showed you my Leather Antique Photo Album that I made into a journal thanks to Mary Ann Moss' class, Full Tilt Boogie.

Yesterday, as I was sewing up some other items, I decided to make an appropriate bag for the antique photo album journal. I cut up one of my vintage table runners and thought it went so well with the journal.

It was actually pretty easy to do and I liked how it came out.

I worked on other items all day yesterday but will show at a later time so as to not spoil some surprises for a swap I am in.

Have a great evening everyone and thanks for stopping by.

Antique Leather Photo Album Journal

2011-08-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

This started out as one of those very old Antique Photo Albums which contained cabinet cards. This one is all leather covers which were really in good shape considering that the spine wasn't. The spine binding was all torn so this was a good album to use for the open spine binding method. I cut the photo frames which were all intact and used them for the journal I just posted about yesterday.

In this journal, I used watercolor papers, vintage ledger papers, vintage music sheets, vintage wallpaper, some heavy Tim Holtz paper packs of heavy cardstock and vintage papers with vintage fabrics on them. I also made pockets out of vintage wallpaper and vintage papers to add to the pages so I can store items. And one last important thing is that all this inspiration of these books is from Mary Ann's classes Remains of the Day and Full Tilt Boogie.

Here are some pages of the seven signatures that are in this book. A lot of them are from vintage papers, vintage fabric, vintage wallpaper, vintage music sheets, vintage catalog pages. The only papers that are not vintage are the watercolor and Tim Holtz paper packs.

Vintage Fabric Over Vintage Papers

Cut Out Pieces of Vintage Fabric that was glued to Vintage Papers.

Some More Vintage Fabric Over Vintage Papers to Make Pages

Vintage Wallpaper

A Fold Out Page Using Vintage Ledger Paper

A pocket made out of Vintage Fabric Over Vintage Ledger Paper

A page made with an old page of a Sears Catalog which glued onto heavier paper.

A pocket made with Vintage wallpaper.

Vintage Music Sheets

A pocket made using a Vintage Doily which was glue to Vintage Paper. The whole thing is sewn on even though there is that wonderful ruler tape there.

On the other side of this ledger paper is some old fabric that I fused together.

Thanks everyone for stopping by and I hope you have a great day.

Antique Frame Journal

2011-08-08T13:22:00.001-07:00

I made this journal using a block of antique photo frames from an Antique Photo Album that was in pretty bad shape except for the fact that all the photo frames were still all glued together so I cut them from the covers. I am using the covers of this book for another project which I am almost done with. I just got sidetracked making this journal. This is one of the many style of books we are learning to make in Mary Ann's class called Full Tilt Boogie. This is really a great online class.

This is the front cover but not the best picture in the world. I used a page of a Sears Catalog and attached it to a manila folder to make it more sturdy. Then I added a layer of lace on top of that. And then on the inside I added another page of a Sears Catalog. I did the same for the back of the book.

For the spine binding on the book I used a strip of black leather and sewed a piece of lace on top of it.

For decoration, I added some fancy buttons to the spine leather piece and also added some mannequin form die cuts to the front of the book. The ribbon is tied around the mannequin form before I glued them to the front of the book.

This is a picture of the inside of the front cover using a page from an old Sears Catalog.

This shows the Frame Block better. Sorry for lousy picture.

Now that I have the covers and book put together, I will continue to work on each page/frame. This book is by no means done. I can't wait to have more time to work in this as this is going to be so much fun to collage, rubber stamp, paint, stencil, etc. each page.

Fabric and More

2011-08-03T10:03:00.001-07:00

For some reason, fabric is slowly coming back into my life........who knew that I would use a sewing machine again. It actually started a couple years ago when I took an online class with Mary Ann called Remains of the Day. It was a fabric journal........I loved it as it combined my love of paper and fabric. I made several of the journals and will always love the concept of this class sewing all kinds of things together. I know I have said this before but it truly is one of the best on line classes I have taken and our yahoo group continues to flourish. I learned to sew when I was in grade school/high school. I can still remember that reversible pleated wool skirt that I made........a lined yellow suit and a fancy brocade dress among many other things. Then I got back into sewing many years later when I would take a week off work and sew up a bunch of outfits on my old Kenmore sewing machine. Then I got away from it for many years until a couple years ago. Who knew that I would be looking at and loving fabric again.

Last week I went to this thrift store that I don't go to a lot just because of its location.......so glad I did because I found some neat things and one of them was this beautiful piece of fabric...........which was so outside my vintage followings but I loved it. It was marked that it was a 70's piece of fabric.......I don't know if it is.......I was just drawn to it so I got it.......... Maybe the reason I liked it so much because it reminds me of Hawaii.........

Then I picked up a a couple old Look and Life magazines from the 50's and 60's to use for collage and some other things which I will mention later on. I also got some old Bingo slider cards which are quite heavy.........the first thing I saw when I looked at them were that they would make great covers for a book with an open spine binding that I learned in Mary Ann's new class, Full Tilt Boogie.....they will be a lot of fun to work with.

Hope you all have a great day. I need to get going and do a couple errands and some grocery shopping.

Paper Tape on Vintage Wooden Spools

2011-07-26T16:19:00.000-07:00

I've had these Vintage wooden spools that are about 7" tall and it just hit me today that they might make a great holder for some of my handmade paper tape. I know there is a lot of paper tape out there but it just never seems to be in the style I want. I wanted some done in some original ledger paper so I made it today. All I did was cut strips and ran it through the little Xyron "X" machine that is 1.5 inches wide. I also made some with some license plate cardstock and then tried it with Vintage wallpaper. They all turned out great. I just took the film off and left it on its backing and rolled it onto the Vintage wooden spool. I like how it turned out. Might have to do some different designs on another spool.

This is how it looked with the thread on them.........

This is how it looked with the tape on one of them. It holds three different designs.

That's it for today. Hope you have a great afternoon/evening wherever you are.

Treasure Hunting

2011-07-24T16:42:00.000-07:00

If I could go treasure hunting everyday I would but I can't and besides right now it is just way too HOT. I actually haven't done as much of this as I usually do but thought I would just share a few items that I have picked up recently. For the spare time that I have, I have been spending it working on my Full Tilt Boogie classes and making books as they are so much fun to do. Here are some of the items.........

I have never seen a Sudoku game like this in a wooden box with drawers for both the little number wood tiles and the large wood number tiles. I love it.

Quite a collection of paper items that I will use on my Remains of the Day pages. I love this old wide ruled paper probably very old and used in school to learn writing. I love it. The Sukoku calendar is brand new too and lots of room to write on and will be used on pages for journals. The brayer was brand new....can always use them. The Watercolor Sketchbook Kit was quite a find and still wrapped up like new and looking at the paints, the kit appears relatively new.

All of these items will be used for Remains of Day and Full Tilt Boogie journal pages. They are all big tablets and the box of postcard labels is brand new and full.

Who doesn't like to find vintage patterns, big spools of good thread and a jar of buttons.

The one cigar box is vintage and the other is relatively new but was different inside so I picked it up.

Here are those same two cigar boxes filled with stuff that can be used in altered art. Notice the dividers in the second cigar box....kind of different.

Well that's it for today. Hope you have a great week ahead.

Goodies From Down Mexico Way

2011-07-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

I feel so incredibly blessed to have met so many nice people from Mary Ann's classes, Full Tilt Boogie and Remains of the Day. Donna is one of them. She is not only a very nice person but a very talented one (click on her name to see her artwork).

She sent me these three beautifully decorated envelopes filled with art goodies. Am I lucky or what. I feel so blessed to be a part of this wonderful group of artists and friends.

This is the front of the envelopes.

This is the back of the envelopes.

On the left side are pieces of beautiful oil cloth and a bag of gorgeous fibers. In the center are a lot of pages from an old Montgomery Ward catalog and sitting on top of them are an optical lense, metal frame and a ton of charms. On the right side is a ton of Mexican ephemera and other items....just wonderful.

Thanks again Donna, I love and appreciate everything you sent.

SUDOKU GAME BOARD BOOK

2011-07-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

This is my third book I have made with an open spine binding for my FTB class. This time I cut up a Sudoku game board and used it for the covers. I am pleased with how it came out although it is not perfect but good enough for me.

It measures about 7" square and is just perfect for a little book to journal/collage/write in. For the binding tapes, I used black leather pieces and then sewed Cavallini paper tape on top of it. Then I added some Sudoku wood numbers on the edge for decoration because they are a part of the game. For a closure I just used a girl's elastic hairband which was the perfect size to hold it all together. There are seven signatures in it mainly comprised of watercolor, cardstock music sheets and ledger papers.

The front of the book without the closure.

The front of the book with the elastic closure

The Spine

The Back Cover

The following pictures are some of the pages in the book.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to visit my blog and I hope you have a great day.

We Have a Winner

2011-07-18T14:31:00.001-07:00

Boy that week went fast.  Thanks for stopping by my blog everyone and entering my giveaway.

The winner of the Japanese Screw Punch is..........

DRUMROLL PLEASE........


                                     NANCY FRISCH

Who Said:

"I am definitely one of Mary Ann's FTB craft monkeys! Wow is this a great class. I used a nail and the phone book for ROD class thinking I should wait on the screw punch to see if really need one. I really need one! Thanks for you thoughtful giveaway!
Nancy"

Please contact me Nancy via email with your mailing address and I will get your Japanese Screw Punch out to you this week.

A Special Gift

2011-07-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

Through my Full Tilt Boogie class, we have a great Full Tilt Boogie Yahoo Group.   It is just one of my favorite groups (along with Remains of the Day one) ever.   I have meant a lot of great people and learned a ton of stuff.....all thanks to Mary Ann Moss of Dispatch From LA.   You can read all about her wonderful classes on her sidebar and if you do, you won't regret it.

One day I posted to the group about needing some elastic cording with the barbs on them.   Susie responded to me and offered to send me some of her stash but said that she would go looking for some as she is in an area (lucky her....I am so jealous) where she has all the big art stores.   Well it was just incredible how many places she went to searching for this for me but wasn't able to find any so she sent me what she had in her stash.    She went way above and beyond the call of duty on this one.

So, I told her I would send her some of my Vintage Die Cuts that she liked a lot and some vintage papers, etc.

On Monday, she related that she had mailed me a package and included a "little something" with the elastic cording.

On Wednesday, I received her package and just about fell over when I opened it up this package of a "little something' and saw this beautiful handmade bag.   And inside it was a bag of ephemera goodness.   I got to thinking when I received this that I was the one who is supposed to be sending a fabulous gift to her for all that she did for me.    Wow....I am still beyond surprised at her unbelievable kindness to me.

Here is a picture of this beautiful bag Susie made.   As you can see she is a very talented mixed media artist and makes some gorgeous pieces of art.   Click on her name and it will take you to her blog.

Isn't this just gorgeous. Wow, I love it. I am going to make a journal that will match the bag so that I can put the journal inside it.

And all the ephemera she sent along with some of the elastic cording she sent. Way too cool.

Thanks Susie.......I love it and it means a lot to me.

Have a great day everyone.

Another FTB Book

2011-07-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

This is my second practice book for the Full Tilt Boogie class taught by Mary Ann Moss over at Dispatchfromla.   I just used a children's book which works great to practice on before I try it on my nice Antique Photo Album.    I went into this class thinking I was going to learn how to do three different kinds of books and ended up with learning how to do five and a lot of journaling tips.   I absolutely was crazy about her Remains of the Day Journal which is completely different from this new class but I am even more excited about this class.   And what is really cool about this class is the Yahoo Group that goes with it.   We do swaps, share information and connect with people all over the world.   I have made so many new friends from this group and look forward to making more.

In order to get the straps wide enough for the book, I sewed two pieces of ribbon together and them sewed some decorative tape on top of the ribbon.   And then once I had everything glued down, I glued on some buttons that matched everything perfectly.   I am still thinking about what closure I am going to do for this book but might not do any.   Will have to see how fat it gets after I start journaling in it.

Here's some pictures of the cover, the binding, the back and a lot of pages that I sewed together using all kinds of leftover items and thrift store finds.    No journaling has been done yet but once I start doing that, I will show what I did.

This is not all of the pages but will give you a random selection of some of them I made. They are so incredibly fun to sew up and I am sure will be fun to journal on. You will see that there are a lot of spaces to write on, there are a lot of pockets to put things in and spaces for photos. If I find I need some more clear space, I will just gesso over something so I can write on it or put more pictures, postcards, etc. on it. I just used stuff that I had on hand from thrift store trips, some paint chips, some cardstock, vintage papers, telephone message pads, security envelopes, etc.

If you haven't already, please leave a comment on this post for a chance to win a brand new Japanese Screw Punch.

JUST BECAUSE.....GIVEAWAY

2011-07-10T17:02:00.001-07:00

I belong to this great group of ladies who are taking Mary Ann's class, Full Tilt Boogie.   We are learning so much and having so much fun.   About a week ago, Mary Ann gave away a Japanesse Screw Punch for one lucky winner and, at the time, I thought that was such a cool thing to do. You can use an awl to punch the holes for the book binding but it really is so much easier to use a Japanese Screw Punch.

After thinking about it for a few days, I thought I needed to do something myself so I purchased a Japanese Screw Punch on my own to give away.    I got it at Bonnie's Best, an online store, which sells a ton of stuff and it is all fantastic.   I am not affiliated with her at all except for the fact that I have gotten some great tools and supplies from her for over 12 years.

The Japanese Screw Punch comes in a neat case and has 7 bits from Size 1.0 to 4.0.   There are fakes out there but this is the real deal.

The only thing you need to do to enter this giveaway for a chance to win a brand new Japanese Screw Punch is leave a comment by July 17th. I will use the random generator and announce it here on my blog on July 18th.

Good Luck everyone.

Boogie On

2011-07-05T17:54:00.001-07:00

Well this has been a long time coming but I finally got a book done for my Full Tilt Boogie on-line class with Mary Ann Moss. This is an incredible class and I highly recommend it. What's nice about this online class is that you can go at your own pace and the videos are available for a long time after the initial four weeks of lessons are presented.

This is practice book #1 and I have practice book #2 started. After I do a couple practice books, I will then do my vintage photo album. Then I will go on to the next style of book.

In this particular book I used a children's book called Anne of Green Gable from a thrift store. The binding strips are of fabric. The pages are a combination of pages I received from my Remains of the Day page swap and some vintage papers I added. I also added some heavy cardstock pages for the beginning of each signature so I did not have to glue the decorated swap pages together. There are six signatures.

I hope you all have a great evening. We are having monsoon rains and lots of wind.

The Little Things Really Do Mean A Lot

2011-06-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

I hesitated about posting this because I don't want it to come across like I am "the cat's meow" or "tooting my own horn" etc. I am not. I am just a person who has faults, does weird things, and very much a free spirit, etc........but I am posting this because I was reminded the other day that you just don't have to do a lot or have a ton of money sometimes to make someone's day.

The other day I was at a thrift store when it reopened after being closed for a month. I try to visit this store once a week as I occasionally find some really neat stuff here. On that particular day, I had a few items in my arms and was looking around when a lady came up to me. She pointed at the remnant piece of fabric I had and asked me where I found it and related to me that she had been looking and looking for some of that fabric to finish a project. I told her where I found it but that I didn't think there was anymore of it. She said something like "oh shucks and oh well" and started to walk away. As she started to walk away, I called out to her and said, "here you can have this fabric". She was shocked and said, "are you serious" and I was. As she walked away, I heard her say to her friend how surprised she was that I gave it to her. She was happy and trust me I was happy. I was reminded again that it just doesn't take a lot to make someone's day or mine either for that matter.

I hope it is cool wherever you are because it is blazing hot here.

Thanks Bryanna

2011-06-24T20:08:00.001-07:00

If it wouldn't have been for my IPhone I probably would have missed out on this trade with Bryanna Lenan of Fayettville, AR. About one week ago, I was in the car and ready to pull out when I just had this thought of looking to see if there were any interesting emails. I belong to a yahoo group for our wonderful class called Full Tilt Boogie by Mary Ann Moss and I saw this email message from this lady who wanted to do a one on one trade so I instantly replied to her and said that I would love to trade with her. Lucky for me, I was the first to reply to her message. The quality of the trades/swaps on this group and Mary Ann's other class group called Remains of the Day are wonderful and a step above a lot of them that I have done in the past on other groups. Mary Ann has just posted a few of the albums/journals that have already been made in the Full Tilt Boogie class on her regular blog and they are spectactular.....go see here....you won't regret it.

Bryanna and I talked back and forth via email and decided to get our packages out right away. It only took a few days to get that accomplished and received our packages within a week. Yesterday in the mail, I received the most awesome package from her. We sent them on Tuesday and both arrived on Thursday. Just incredible. There was not one item in that package that I did not already have......and she related the same as far as what I sent her. My only problem with this is that I am going to have a hard time using some of it.

Here are some pictures of what I received...........

She made this beautiful bag, which this picture doesn't do it justice at all, just for me. Wow....what a kind gesture that was and so meaningful to me. It is actually two layers of fabulous fabric goodness with those beautiful roses on the front. Inside was a stack of the most beautiful pieces of fabric ever.......all tied up with a beautiful piece of lace. Wow is all I can say. Here are some pictures of the fabric.

The fabrics are all high quality and just beautiful. I had mentioned to her that I would be interested in some fabric pieces because she related that she sewed a lot. She is, indeed, a beautiful seamstress.

Vintage Greeting Cards..........all tied up with a beautiful piece of lace. I may have a few of these but really not anything like this at all. She sent a lot of them. The ones pictured are only a select few of the many that she sent. Unbelievable.

Here is a picture of some of the other items I received. What was so wonderful about everything is that she so beautifully packaged everything. She sewed old vintage wallpaper to make envelopes that contained vintage ephemera, clear packaging with ribbons and bows that contained wonderful items such as old flowers, a beautiful bird she made out of clay etc. It is just impossible to adequately give her the proper credit she deserves for all the work she put into this package she sent me. The larger envelope made out of vintage wallpaper at the bottom of the picture contains a wonderful assortment of vintage items. I love it all. The smaller envelope at the top of the picture also contains wonderful vintage cards.

On the bottom left side of this picture is a package containing a Swan. She made these in memory of her daughter, Swan Grace, who she lost. It will have a special place in my art studio.

I just can't figure out how I got so lucky meeting her and doing this one on one trade with Bryanna. Thanks for such a wonderful trade. And thanks to Mary Ann for this wonderful yahoo group and class that is bringing all of us together.

The Beginnings of My FTB Vintage Photo Album

2011-06-20T13:05:00.000-07:00

There are just not enough hours in the day lately. We are all having a great time in our Full Tilt Boogie Yahoo Group. The swaps have started and some people have actually completed their first journal already. Not me. Too much is going on here, too many things to do, too many social functions, etc. So what else is new, it always happens that way.

I have chosen my album I am going to use.....I have cut the straps from my black leather scraps I recently found and starting to assemble some of the pages that will go into this journal. This is going to be an exposed spine. The reason I chose this journal was because the spine was gone so there was no loss as we needed to get rid of the existing one anyway.

This is the front cover of the Vintage Photo Album I am using for the first journal we are going to make in our online class. Alongside it are strips of back leather that are going to be used for the binding.

These are potential pages that I am going to use. They are all different but they are all vintage linens I got last year at a friend's estate sale. They are all at least 100 years old and I have adhered some of them to old papers just to see how they would look.

And all of these are adhered to something else to make them more sturdy so that I can use them as pages in the book.

So there you have the beginnings of my journal. I think at this point, I am going to keep this pretty neutral in the colorway of the pages, etc. We will see as I gather up more papers for the signatures which I will do next.

Hope you all have a great day.

Vintage Paper Die Cuts

2011-06-19T16:05:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, I am a big thrift store person.   Well, I am always looking for old newspaper articles, old Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs, old books, old ledgers with beautiful writing, old ledgers with accounting pages, etc.  The more aged and tattered they are, the better they are to me   While I find most of these items at the thrift stores, I have never found the large ledger books there that are full of wonderful handwriting, etc.   So a few months ago I found a really good deal on three large ledger books from the 1880's on E-Bay and have been using them to use in my journals and then realized they would make great die cuts.    The one problem with some of them is that they are fragile and really need to be glued to something for support.    Here are a couple links where I solved that problem by gluing them or adhering them via fusible webbing to manila folders, cardstock, fabric, or other fragile papers thereby making them very usable for pages, etc.

There are two ways that I have been doing this.   I started out using the Collage Pauge by Traci Bautista and then, after discussion on the Remains of the Day Yahoo Group, I started playing with the Pellon Fusible Webbing.   This is what I found

Using Fusible Webbing.    This can become pretty expensive if you do a lot of it like I have been doing   It is much faster than the Collage Pauge though   I will say that when putting the two side by side, they really look the same.   I used Pellon 807 Wonder Web Fusible Web.

Using Collage Pauge.     This method takes a lot more time because of the drying time, having to flatten them out and give them time to dry.   The fusible webbing is instant gratification but more expensive.

I actually started doing this so I could cut out some tags, labels, frames and other items out of old papers to use in Mary Ann's class, Full Tilt Boogie, using Vintage Photo Albums.   I just thought it would be the perfect fit.    These items will also work well with her Remains of the Day online class

So I set about making up a bunch of papers and then die cutting them in my new Vagabond Electronic Die Cutting Machine designed by Tim Holtz   What a difference this was compared to my Sizzix Big Kick hand cranked machine   You can cut more paper at a time and it takes thicker items than the other machine.

One thing led to another and I ended up with all kinds of ziploc bags full of frames, tags, flowers, leaves, labels, tickets, you name it.

So one day I decided to send Mary Ann a package of vintage papers and lots of die cuts because I wanted to just thank her in a little way for all the work she has done in her fabulous classes that I have enjoyed so much.   Of course, she was surprised and thankful and related that these would really work great in the new vintage photo album journals that we were going to do in her new class.    So I got busy and made a bunch more and sent her some of her favorities    Now I am busy making some for me and also to include in other packages that I send out either as a trade or as a Random Act of Kindness

Here are some pictures of the items I ended up with.   There are tons more but time and energy ran out.

This is a Sizzix Die called Regal Crest designed by Tim Holtz.

These are little frames from the Tag Die designed by Tim Holtz

This is the Sizzix Flower Die designed by Tim Holtz. This is fabric that was glued to a Sears catalog page.

This is the Form Die designed by Tim Holtz It also comes with a spool of thread and a button.

This is a Sizzix Mover and Shaper Label Die designed by Tim Holtz Some of these were cut out of a crocheted granny square that had been glued to manila folder.

I believe the top die is Tim Holtz and the botton is a Sizzix die. The top die is cut out of Irish Linen that was glued over a piece of Sears catalog page.

This is a Tim Holtz designed die called Cabinet Card which I think is perfect for our FTB class One is out of a Long Island Express ledger sheet and one out of an old Sears catalog.

The top one is cut out with the Cabinet card die where a granny square was glued onto manila folder The bottom die is a Sizzix die cut out of ledger paper over manila folder

These two fram dies are from Sizzix.

I believe these are also Sizzix Dies cut out of ledger papers.

This is a Leave Die designed by Tim Holtz The one is cut out of ledger paper and the other is some exotic paper I glued to a manila folder to give it support

A gear die and a tag die designed by Tim Holtz and cut out of ledger papers.

I believe this is Tim Holtz die and I used a granny square that I had glued to a manila folder

Here is the form die again designed by Tim Holtz and the granny square material was used for this one.

Pictures of some of the insides of the frame dies use Sears Catalog papers and Long Island ledger papers.

Here are some tags cut out of manila folders, dictionary paper and linen glued over a ledger page. These are #8 Size Tags.

These are the insides of the cabinet card die designed by Tim Holtz.

This is an Altered Trading Card Die designed by Tim Holtz. And the negative of it makes a great frame.

So this is some of what I have been doing of late......a lot of gluing, ironing on fusible webbing and cutting up a bunch of items to use in our journals or for trading/giving away.

I buy all of my manila folders at thrift stores. I used old cardstock that I have become disinterested in. I used vintage linens and other fabrics. Anything works and especially if it was cheap.

And remember the negatives of all the die cuts make great frames too.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Some Thrift Store Fun

2011-06-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

I did not go to as many stores as I normally do on a Wednesday but a couple of them lended themselves to some fun stuff and not all of it is pictured here. I will probably do another post on the other stuff. I got tired and it was way too hot to be out anymore even though there is air conditioning in most places. No thrift store shopping today.....I want to work on a couple projects and it is so nice and cool in the house too. I think the high is going to be 104 today....Ouch.

I just love it when I come across an old Bingo game. This one was dated 1960.....good enough for me. The price was even better considering what they are selling for on Ebay or Etsy. I got this from a job I don't frequent a lot but I think I did to start going there more often as it is not that far from my house. And their prices aren't all jacked up like some thrift stores do these days. That ole' supply and demand thing.

This is an old tin filled with old button vintage. Way too cool. Love the tin as much as the buttons.

I am attracted to old boxes, etc. and this caught my eye as it was quite different from anything I have seen before. I guess that is what I liked about it. I don't know if it is old or not. When I opened it up I was really surprised to find a ton of seed beads which all are not showing in this picture. There were also some more old buttons and a set of 12 vintage crochet needles. I have never seen them come in a little box like this before. Way too cool.

This picture doesn't adequately show how much there was in it but it is a plastic grocery bag filled with lace, belt buckle kits, rik rak, seam binding and at the bottom of it was another set of those old crochet needles. There was a price tag on the bag that said $1.25. And surprisingly enough that was the price of it. Another good deal.

A bag of old metal cars from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Thought they would work well for different applications or displayed in a shadow box. One of the cars is a 57 T-Bird.

One other item I got from this store was a ream of white cardstock which in the retail stores goes for about $14 or so. That is my favorite kind of cardstock as you can do so much with white. Combine some ink sprays, acrylic paints and stencils and you have very nice paper to make things out of. I can spend a whole day just doing this. The packaging was torn but that was the only thing wrong with it.......all for a mere $2.

These items were all from one store........you know the one I told you that I rarely go to.......well I guess I will change that and check this place out more often.

When I checked out, the gentlemen looked at me and said.........boy you just got here at the right time as we just put out all of this stuff just a few minutes ago. And I looked up at the Heavens and said Thank You.

I hope all of you who stop by today have a great day.

IN TEN MINUTES.....

2011-06-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

I've thought about doing this in the past but decided to sign up for the Sketchbook Project 2012. The theme I chose is "In Ten Minutes". I am going to do my pages in Remains of the Day style. In fact I have started some of the pages so hopefully I will keep on track so it will reach its destination in plenty of time. This will be challenging to me in the area of not being able to put bulky embellishments in it but I am looking forward to the challenge.

What a Great Idea---Make Your Own Tape

2011-06-14T04:20:00.002-07:00

Well, I woke up early today. Guess I had enough sleep so I started to catch up on some of my blogs I rarely get to read and found this. What a great idea and oh the possibilities. And she even made some with Ledger paper. I can't wait to try this. Go to Cathie Holden's blog and check it out.

P.S.: Ten Minutes Later.........the mounting tape is ordered and I will be posting about my own handmade tape as soon as the mounting tape gets here. And, of course, I will be using some of my new Ledger Paper and other things of course.

The Principles of English Grammar 1837

2011-06-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

This is a little gem of a book.   Dated 1837....New York.   I was going to use it for my artwork but after looking at it at length, I don't think I will be able to cut this one up. It tells you everything about Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs and Adjectives, etc. and the proper use of them when speaking and writing.

I don't have a clue why this book fascinated me but I think the reason is because it brought back a lot of memories of an English class I had in high school where we diagrammed a million sentences and learned abut the past present and future tenses, etc.  This book is presented in the same manner that this class was. What was special (well that's one way to describe this experience) about this class was the teacher.   Her name was Miss Fay Sparks. She was as old as my grandmother.   She had taught my mother at the same high school and you can be sure that I heard about it too when I didn't get the best grade ever.    She reminded me how smart my Mother was, how smart my brothers were, etc. and, of course, she did it in front of the class. And of course it worked because then I pulled the "A" just to show her that I could if I wanted to.

Here are some pictures of that book which took me back in time.

Who knows, maybe Miss Sparks studied from this book. LOL

OH MY GOSH..........

2011-06-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

I was just flabergasted at the size of this Ledger and more shocked when I went to pick it up. It has got to weigh at least 30 to 40 pounds. It measures 18" tall, 11" wide and 4" thick. I think it had something like 800 plus pages full of vintage accounting and writings. I keep looking at it in dismay and wonder. I love these kinds of old books and the more discolored and aged they are, the better they are. Wow. Be still my heart. It doesn't take much to put a smile on one's face. I will take this kind of paper anyday over the boughten printed stuff..........sorry......it just doesn't compare in my world at all. Here are some photos of it.

Boy, this ledger is going to be a lot of fun and afford me many great pages for my Antique Photo Album Journal and/or Vintage Ledger Journal that I will soon be making in Mary Ann's class called Full Tilt Boogie which starts this Friday, June 17th. There is already a Yahoo Group for this class which is going to be so much fun. A lot of us have already connected and enjoying each other's blogs, flickr groups, etc. I will just be using pages out of this ledger.....not actually altering this particular ledger as it is way too large. I have smaller ones that I will be working with.

Hope you all have a great day.

Full Tilt Boogie Class

2011-06-08T14:50:00.002-07:00

I just wanted to do a shout out for Mary Ann's latest class that she is going to teach starting 6/18/11.   It is called Full Tilt Boogie and she is using those Vintage Photo Albums and/or the old ledgers.   You can read more about it here.

I have taken all of her classes and loved them with my favorite being the Remains of the Day class.   I loved the Stencil classes too.   Oh shoot, they are all my favorites.   One of the things I really like is that she has a yahoo group associated with her classes and we trade ideas and do swaps, etc.   Just way too much fun. Oh, and she has a flickr group just for pictures of what we make too.     To read more about all her classes, go here which is her main blog, http://dispatchfromla.typepad.com/

Not only is she giving a reduced rate to twenty people but she is donating a nice sum of money to the Red Cross.   It just doesn't get any better than that.

Fusible Webbing.....Who Remembered!!!

2011-06-08T14:32:00.001-07:00

A while ago, I posted a blurb about making my own vintage cardstock with Collage Pauge and manila folders and old vintage papers to a yahoo group I belong to called Remains of the Day.   There were two people who I don't remember their names (here we are at that memory thing again), related that they used fusible webbing to bond paper and paper and fabric together.

After much thought, I remember my Mom doing this with fabric and cardstock for her cards. And actually after more thought, I remembered making Christmas cards using this method many many many years ago.   I used Christmas fabric and then added a silk poinsetta to the top of it.   Oh well, they say the memory is the first thing to go........not to worry.

Well I finally got to Joann's and bought some and tried it again after all these years.   WOW.......I liked it a lot working with the fragile vintage papers......no drying times, no pressing under the large books, etc.     It is just amazing how it re-energizes those old crumbly vintage papers.   You can fuse it to manila folders, fabric, cardstock or put two vintage papers together such as ledger sheets, Sears catalogs, etc.    Once you do that, you can fold it for pages or die cut it, etc.   I think the sky is the limit really.    I will say that the Collage Pauge method and the fusible webbing method really look the same.........the latter is just faster.

This is the front and back of one page. The paper on the left is very very old and very fragile but once I adhered with fusible webbing to the 1880's ledger page, you can fold them, etc. or make die cuts out of them.

The front and back of one page. The left is fabric and the right is old ledger paper.

This is a very fragile page from a Montgomery Wards original old catalog adhered to a vintage hanky.

This is a vintage piece of linen adhered to a page from a Sears, Roebuck catalog that was very fragile but not now that I used the fusible webbing. It is really neat how you can see the catalog page through the vintage linen.

I used fusible webbing to adhere two fragile vintage papers together.....one is an original page from a Sears catalog and the other is a page from an 1880's ledger. This is the front and back of one page.

I hope this gives you some ideas. The sky is the limit as to what you can do with this.

Thanks Sherry....I Love All of It

2011-05-31T11:56:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to take a minute here and thank Sherry Goodloe of GotArt4u for my package I received today. This was a runner-up prize from her blog but I don't consider it as that at all. It was a lot of good stuff for being runner-up. I received a bunch of very large playing cards, two vintage hankies, a punch, a package of Rainbow foil, two small canvases and a wonderful vintage Prince Albert tin. I love it all and appreciate your generousity.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

2011-05-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

I hope as we all gather to celebrate this wonderful holiday that we remember all of those who have fought for our freedom.

I am remembering my father who was a World War II Veteran, U. S. Navy. He was a gunner on a Victory ship in the Atlantic and the Pacific. He survived the war but he did not win the battle with Cancer.

My Vintage Cardstock

2011-05-22T08:59:00.002-07:00

I have a real love of the old ledger books with writing, accounting or whatever in them.  The darker the pages are, the better it is as far as I am concerned.   The only drawback to them is that they are pretty fragile to use for certain applications so I combined them with some manila folders I had picked up at the thrift store, of course, and glued them together with Collage Pauge to make my own vintage cardstock.    The Collage Pauge is by Traci Bautista and you can get it at Joann's or online.  I love working with this stuff.....a very nice and economical gel medium.   I might also add here that, depending on what you want to use it for, you can use a lot of things for a substrate to adhere the old papers to.   I had a bunch of 12 x 12 papers that I really didn't like anymore so I used them up.   Also, it works well to adhere the old papers to Tim Holtz's grungeboard and grungepaper.  If you are working with old fragile paper, be sure and apply the Collage Pauge on the manila folder or any other substrate you might be using  and then lay the paper onto it.   After I applied the medium on the substrate, I initally hand press everything down and then brayered it in all directions.   I dry it out in the open first (would you believe I laid it on top of one of the classic cars....shhhh.....don't tell him I did that) and then I let them sit under my heavy old books for a couple days.   That way you have a nice flat piece of vintage cardstock.    I know you can buy cardstock that resembles all of this but I love having the satisfaction of doing it myself and having the real thing for projects, etc.

The ledger papers with the accounting and writing on them are from 1880's ledger books.   I think the Long Island Express ledger book is from the early 1900's.   The newpaper clippings are from some 1917 newspapers I found at a thrift store.   The Sears, Roebuck catalog is a 1930's and was in pretty rough shape but perfect for me as I love the "aged" look and feel of the old books and catalogs.

The following are some pictures of the books, newspapers and catalogs I worked from.   I did not take a picture of the 1880's ledger books again as I already posted them on my blog sometime ago.

The following pictures are pages from the above books that are glued on the manila folders. Some have already been trimmed and some aren't trimmed yet. Once they are thoroughly dried and pressed for a few days, I trim some of them up so they are ready for future projects and leave some as they are as they make great pages for my Remains of the Day journals. Once the fragile papers are glued onto other substrate, they are sturdy enough to fold, etc.

This is time consuming but very addictive and worthwhile if you like having the real thing in your projects. I will be doing a future post as to what I used some of these papers for.

Full Tilt Boogie

2011-05-20T11:11:00.002-07:00

Where does the time go.     I am such a bad blogger.    I have been busy with classic car events and car shows.   And would you believe it was almost two weeks that I did not even go thrift store shopping.   Oh My Gosh, the world is really coming to an end...........not really.........just been busy working on a project which I will show at a later date.

Now onto the purpose of this post........a new class that Mary Ann Moss is going to do online called "Full Tilt Boogie".   Click on that link and it will tell you a lot about it although she hasn't set a price or date yet but I understand it is supposed to happen sometime in June and I am sure a post will be forthcoming on that soon.   It sounds wonderful to me as she is going to be using those Antique Photo Albums that hold cabinet cards.   I have taken all her online classes and have loved all of them.   You can read about all her classes on her blog.

Here are some pictures of the antique photo albums I have gotten in anticipation of this class.   The first two are about 8 x 11 inches.   The third one is about 5 x 7 inches which I really love the size of this one a lot.   The fourth one is only 3 x 5 inches......just a little baby one and not a lot of pages in that one.   I know I got a little carried away with getting these but I couldn't help myself.   And, I must confess I have a couple more that I didn't post.....I'll be the first to sign up for Antique Photo Album Anonymous.

As I get more information about the class, I will post it here as I am way beyond excited about it.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM

2011-05-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

I love this photo of her. It was taken in 1939......her high school graduation picture. She was a very hard working and intelligent lady. You are always in my thoughts. This was a picture she had given my father....if you look closely you can see she wrote on it.

Happy Mother's Day to all my friends and family. I hope you treasure everyday you have with your Mom.

A 45 Minute Errand Turned Into Three Hours of Fun

2011-04-29T18:09:00.001-07:00

Well I was going to make a quick trip to Joann's to pick up some Collage Pauge for a big project I am working on and then stop at Starbucks but that all changed when I ran into some friends at Joann's. I was so surprised when I saw her as I had not seen her in a long time and we just chatted and chatted. Would you believe they were out shopping not only at Joann's but thrift stores. Oh My Gosh not another one like me. She told me about a thrift store that was opened today so I decided to run there instead of getting a Starbucks.....oh my.......even surprised me because I had been thinking about that White Chocolate Mocha all morning. I found a few things and while I was checking out, guess who came in the door.........my friends. When they saw what I found, they both looked at each other and said, "boy did we make a mistake in telling her about this place". We had a great lunch together and boy was the food good. I had Green Corn Tamale Pie........yum is all I can say.

Here is a picture of what I found..........one of those little blue cabinets with drawers filled with all kinds of stuff like large resistors, neat parts, little fuse bulbs, electrical components, etc which will work great in steampunk art or jewelry; a very old cigar box and two very old card games.....one of them being a very old Old Maid card set which was way too cool.

Oh well, so much for working on that big project but it was so great seeing Eliza and her friend. The project will have to wait until tomorrow because I am so tired right now after being up half the night watching the Royal Wedding.

Hope you all have a great Weekend.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE

2011-04-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

Here's wishing all of my friends and family the Best and Blessed Easter ever.

We will be going to our friends today to celebrate this wonderful day. We will be eating outside until it gets too hot and then inside where the air conditioner will be running to cool all of us off. Yes, it is indeed HOT here in the desert now. Will post pictures when I get home this evening.

Aren't These Cute Old Metal Toys.......Love Them

2011-04-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

As much as I tell myself, I don't need anymore stuff, a person just can't pass up these old metal toys. I already have some of the cars but was surprised to see the little airplanes. Now, how cute are those. These are the real deal, small, and pretty old. Also, in the mix were some old small skeleton keys which I love. I found a bunch of old Tootsie metal cars awhile back which I put in some cigar boxes I recently found. They used to give away the cigar boxes but not much anymore where I live so whevever I see them, I pick them up. In the last box, there are three cars sitting on car trailers........way too cute.

Hope you have a great day........I guess I had better get back to doing what I am supposed to be doing instead of fooling around on this computer.

A Day Out In The Fresh Air

2011-04-10T18:08:00.001-07:00

It was a great day to be out in the desert's fresh air with classic car friends, good food and a nice fire. We had a cool front come in yesterday where it rained and cooled everything down which was really nice for us desert people who have been experiencing abnormally hot temps in the high 90's the past week or so.

And of course you can't have classic car people gather without the cars.

I was going to show you a picture of all the food but the picture taker (guess who it was) had a problem with the camera so we will just imagine how good it looked until it was devoured by the hungry attendees.

And a good time was had by all.

Layered, Tattered and Stitched

2011-04-09T05:06:00.001-07:00

When I was out yesterday doing errands and all that happy must do stuff, I stopped at Joann's and found this wonderful book by Ruth Rae, Layered, Tattered and Stitched. Since I have been doing more sewing in my mixed media work lately, I was fascinated by all the projects in this book. There are 18 artistic projects ranging from unusual greeting cards and gift wrap to art dolls, banners and apparel and some really neat patterns for some of these items.. So refreshing to see some different projects that combine all kinds of mediums and materials. I woke up early this morning so have been going through this wonderful book and the more I look at it, the more I like it.

Oh My Gosh.........What A Transformation

2011-04-08T16:09:00.002-07:00

Oh My Gosh..........it doesn't look like the same blog does it. And if you think I had anything to do with this beautiful design, you need to go have another drink. Doing something like this is so out of my league. I have Karen of Karen Valentine Design to thank for my beautifully designed blog. She was so easy to work with and after my telling her what I wanted, she just took it from there and in no time, she had it done.

Wow, is all I can say Karen. Thanks so much for making it just what I wanted it to be.

Who Knew......Everyone Probably

2011-04-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

Well, every day is a new experience.....in more ways than one. LOL Who knew that I do not have to print out those coupons anymore........thanks to the Smart Phone. Probably everyone knew but me. I am a little behind in all this technology stuff. How many millions of years have I been printing and clipping those coupons.......too many to count. Where in the world have I been? Certainly not up with the latest trends. And, of course, I got the same story at all three stores.......Michaels, Joann's and Aaron's.

I didn't do a lot of shopping but I like going to those stores ever once in awhle to see what's new and I usually always run into friends........that is the best part of it all. And today was no exception either. I picked up a few things but really don't need a lot at this point. I did find this great book by Lynne Perrella, Art Making, Collections and Obsessions. Now does that fit me or what! I started scanning it and couldn't put it down. I don't know how I missed this book as it was printed three years ago because I have all of her other books. Well, of course I had one of the printed out coupons so off we went. What I found so interesting in it was that I have taken classes with a lot of the Artists who are featured in this book and knowing them a little puts a personal touch on reading about their collections/obsessions. I can't wait to sit down and really read this book and see what I am missing out on as far as collecting neat stuff.

Since I was looking for a particular magazine, I decided to stop by Barnes and Noble. Well, they didn't have the magazine but this called my name.........a White Chocolate Mocha with a Pizza Pretzel so I sat outside in the shade and caught up on some emails, net surfing, etc. Yum is all I can say. That gave me strength so I could go to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner tonight. And what a way to ruin a perfectly nice day too..........I really don't enjoy cooking anymore and everything it entails.

So a big pot of stew is cooking, just need to put garlic bread in the oven and Blueberry pie is waiting thanks to Fry's. You know I am not going to be doing a pie from scratch these days. Been there, none that and don't want to do it anymore. Thank You Very Much.

Hope everyone has had a great weekend and enjoying your evening right now. I finally had to put the air conditioning on as it has been so HOT lately here in the desert.

Grooving to the Oldies

2011-04-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

First of all, I can't believe it has been two weeks since I posted.   A lot of things are going on around here and just not enough time to do it all.

Well, the first evening show of the season started last night at our local Five and Diner.   I had every intention of taking more pictures but just got too busy.

It has really been hot here lately, way too early for us even........would you believe it has been 96 degrees the last couple of days but when the sun goes down, it makes for a perfect evening.   And that is what it was last night.........classic cars, friends, some folding chairs, lots of water and good food.

In the picture below is a 1960 Chevrolet Impala hardtop and belongs to a really good friend of ours.   Next to him is a red 1960 Chevrolet Impala convertible which belongs to another friend and is a gorgeous car too.

The car below is a 1965 Mercury Comet Cyclone, four speed with white interior. This is what we went to the show in. This was bought in 1965 with only 12 miles on it and has been in his possession since then.....it is his "baby".

Just way too much fun and it will be this way now for several months every other week grooving to the Oldies.

Some Help on Blogging

2011-03-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

I recently found out about an E-Book that is entitled "Building Better Blogs", A Beginner's Guide to Blogger by Karen Valentine.

I was very intriqued as it sounded just like something I needed as I don't have a clue about all of this blogging stuff. So I ordered it. Wow, it contains a wealth of information. I have already learned a lot and it is going to continue to help me out a lot as it explains everything in detail and with pictures. It has a great Table of Contents so you can just go right to whatever you have a question on. I highly recommend it.

To find out more about it, just click on the above highlighted area or the picture of it on my sidebar.

What A Day Yesterday

2011-03-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

The day started off by my waking up at 3:30 am.  What's with that?   So finally I just got up and went about having a cup of coffee in my relatively new Keurig (love love that machine), and read some email, facebook, blogs, etc.     Then I decided to do some cleaning, dusting, etc. since I knew I was going to be gone most of the day...that way I would feel better about goofing off all day. LOL

I can't even remember when I last attended a rubber stamp convention.........probably in 2006 or 2007 when I attended one in Phoenix.   There was a small one here in town this weekend so I decided to go as I knew a lot of my old friends would be there whom I had not seen for years.   I really only intended on staying a couple hours but ended up there all day because I just kept running into friends.   What was really interesting, I ran into people from our classic car clubs and people who I had worked with, someone from a Yahoo group I belong to and a person who I had cruised with a couple of years ago.

I have a special friend, Sally, who lives here in the winter and on the Oregon Coast during the summer.   She was there with some of her friends who I also know so I spent some time with them and had lunch with them.   I don't see her a lot as she is so busy at her RV Park so this was a real treat.

I started out as a rubber stamper but don't do a lot of that anymore but I am so thankful for all the friends I have met through that media. I do a lot of mixed media and altered art work now so did not buy any rubber stamps at all.   In fact I did not buy much at all except this one booth had these incredible silver bottle caps with jump rings soldered to them.   I have never seen them available like this before.   I think they are silver plated but don't quote me on that one.    They had a bunch of other nice bezels with jump rings but my eyes focused on the bottle caps.   Well, of course I bought them all which weren't that many but hopefully they can get some more for me.   And the quality of the jump rings and how well they were soldered is incredible.   I have soldered jump rings before and what a "pain in the toot" that was.   I had to do several before I was comfortable with it and just not something that I love doing.   The picture is showing that they are dark in the center but they really aren't.....I don't have the best of cameras and not a good photographer at all so bear with me in this area.

And I found these cute little things.........they were at booth where they were selling rubber stamps that made into shirts and sweaters. Way too cute but not really my thing but very unique. They also sold tiny zippers (which I kick myself now for not buying) and the tiniest buttons ever to use on the shirts and sweaters. Way too clever. I still can't figure out why I didn't get some of the zippers and buttons but "oh well" I think I will live. I am going to use these hangers in Letterpress printer trays for wall art or Tim Holtz' configuration boxes.

And the only other items I bought which I did not take a picture of were some Tim Holtz embossing folders (three different sets) and two large Cuttlebug embossing folders of gears and numbers as the prices were incredibly reasonable and you know me, I am all about a bargain. Can't wait to try them out on the Vagabond die cutting machine which I love.

Well, that is enough for now. I hope you all have a great day. It is yet another very warm day here in the Southwest.

A Little Something Made Just For Me

2011-03-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

I have been following Ginny Carter Smallenburg for quite sometime. She was the original owner of Stampers Anonymous Stamps; however, has sold that company some time ago. She also ran a wonderful art retreat called Art Continuum in Cleveland, Ohio. And if that wasn't enough, she is a great artist and so is her husband, John. I have enjoyed following her life at rubber stamp conventions and on her blog, Small Studio for many years now. While reading one day on her blog, she announced that she had put a lot of items in her Etsy Store. So I popped over there and, of course, found several items I liked. I usually only buy supplies, etc. but something caught my eye that John had made. It was a necklace done on a black domino with the letter O on it. So I sent them a message and asked if he would make one with the letter N on it. He did and I love it so much that I wanted to post it here so you could see it and to thank John.

Thanks John so much for making this for me. And I have seen some of his other work on Ginny's blog and it is awesome.....some bigger pieces of art.

I hope everyone has had a super day...... Oh my Gosh, it is still so warm here.......in the 80's. And trust me, I am not complaining.

Washers, Nuts and Bolts, Door Plates and Door Knobs

2011-03-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

I found this sack of miscellaneous nuts, bolts, washers, gear-like items in a sack at the thrift store.....way too cool. So I put them in one of my cigar boxes and intend to add to it as I collect that kind of stuff. Some of these items will go on necklaces with other stuff I have found.

One day I was rummaging through a lot of junk and found two sacks (only one is showing) of these door plates. Haven't decided what to do with them but I am sure I will or perhaps trade them for other items. Who knows. Time will tell.

So then I found these really cool old door knobs and they are really heavy too. They have potential, I am sure.

I can't believe the kind of weather we have been having the last few days. It has been in the high 80's. Wow. A little early for that I think but we will keep it here in the Southwest. And the prediction is for a lot more of it too. Bring it on. Time for the summer clothes and sandals.

Old Books and Magazines

2011-03-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

Several people have asked me where I find my stuff.    One thing is for sure.....I don't shop at the antique shops.   I find my items at thrift stores, estate sales, flea markets, etc.   I buy for cheap or I don't buy it.   And sometimes, even at the thrift shops, I walk away from some really good old stuff because the price is so high.    I am thinking of one particular thrift shop recently that must have found out that there is a real market out there for these things and are pricing their items really high now.......what a bummer.   LOL

You know, I am my father's child through and through.   He was such a great shopper of the things he loved at those places I just named above and, trust me, he got it for the lowest price possible.   It is my duty to follow in his footsteps.   Now I know why he enjoyed it so much.    When he passed away, he had twenty of every tool known to man.

I occasionally shop on Ebay but I don't find real bargains there much anymore.......just occasionally and it is usually for big lots of a particular item.     I recently started checking Etsy out but not really to find bargains but to find unusual items or items I think I need for a particular project.   And I love it when people tell me about a particular seller who is selling neat items.

Here are some books that really struck my fancy and I found for cheap........ I love the old, yellowed, tattered and torn ones a lot. I definitely won't use the Betsy Ross Flag one but probably the others for ephemera. And I have some old National Geographic magazines that are great for ephemera or my Remains of the Day journals. These date from the 30's to the early 60's.

Now this is one book that is up for debate as far as using it in my artwork. I about had the "Big One" when I saw it at a thrift store. It is 770 pages of 1880's Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog goodness.

Here are just a couple pages from it.

Have a great day everyone.

Wood Laser Cuts

2011-03-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago while looking at Sherry Goodloe's blog, she was showing a wonderful necklace she had made and on it were little playing cards. I fell in love with the necklace, of course, and wondered where she got those little playing cards she used. When I asked her about them, she related that she had purchased them on an etsy shop called PorkChopShow. So I went there and asked him about the playing cards so he made up some so I could purchase them. When I got them, I was so thrilled with them that I went to his etsy shop to see what else he had. He does all kinds of items. I got some flapper girls, skeleton keys, typewriter keys, wheels, canning jar labels and some Brownie cameras. He has a lot of other things which I will eventually get but am very happy for right now. A great way to see what all he does is to look at what he has sold, i.e., his sales category. I am not affiliated with him at all........just a happy customer and wanted to show some pictures of what I got. And for those of you who know me, know that I love embellishments of all kinds and always on the lookout for them. And, of course, you can drill holes in these to use as charms which I am going to do for some of them.

Here are some pictures of a "Garage Sale Lot" that I purchased to just get a sampling of what he does. It boils down to what he calls his "seconds" or "rejects" from doing his orders. They looked pretty good to me and I liked seeing the variety of items.

Here are a some pictures of the other items I ordered in sets.

Well, it was another beautiful day here. Hope it was a great one for you. While I was out doing errands, of course, I had to stop at a couple thrift stores. Found a few items which will come in handy.........always love finding Monopoly and Scrabble games for $1.00.

As always, wishing you the best that life has to offer.

Anyone Got The Time

2011-03-08T16:38:00.000-07:00

Back in the day when I thought of pocket watches, I thought of my Grandpa wearing one on his overalls on the farm. If you looked out in the field you would oftentimes see him pull it out and look to see what time it was. What wonderful memories. Maybe that is why I love them so.

Nowadays, I think of pocket watches as something to use in my art. I had been wanting to find some that were old, etc. Well ask and you shall receive. I found this bag of pocket watches and they will be perfect to make necklaces out of them. I want to make more of the one I posted about a few days ago. I will probably not use Resin on all of them though.....just mini collages or whatever strikes my fancy at the time.

I took a closer up shot of the porcelin watch faces that were included.......all fifteen of them. Way too cool.

I hope you all have had a great day. I went thrift store shopping and found a few neat items.

Copper Goodness

2011-03-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I have never really done anything with copper strips or bezels before but I took this wonderful class from Jane Salley at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in February. Pictured below are just a few of the beginnings of some of the bezels. It was in the evening and I was just tired and already knew about the Ice Resin part of it so I did not finish them then but hopefully will soon. I picked up a lot of tips about starting with copper strips and making bezels and also using a strip of copper around the bezel to hold the jump ring. This is just way too cool and not hard to do at all. The next three pictures below show different views of an opened copper bezel with the strip of copper formed around it to hold a jump ring. In one of the views you will see that you can decorate it with a design before putting it on the bezel.

In the picture below, I made this oval bezel out of a strip of copper and joined it with a rivet. Then I layed the bezel on a piece of decorative paper and put a clear glue around the outside of it so it would stay for when I finish it off with the items and the Ice Resin.

Then one day while I was out shopping at my local thrift stores, I spotted a piece of 1/4 inch copper tubing and it just hit me that perhaps I could cut it into copper beads. Perhaps this isn't something new to you but I had never seen it done before. So off I went to Ace Hardware and asked the gentlemen if there was a tool that cut copper tubing.........well of course there was so I bought it and came home and got to work cutting it up. So you know, I am looking for pieces of copper tubing now. You, of course, can buy it new but why would I do that for so much more money than the thrift store kind. Here is a picture of the tool, tubing and beads.

So here are some more projects for me to finish up. I just need to organize my time better so I can get more done.

Hope you have a great day.

Charms/Pendants Using Ice Resin

2011-03-03T14:43:00.000-07:00

At the end of January and beginning of February, I took some classes using Ice Resin.   You can see more about this product here.   I had been curious about it for some time and when I read about the classes being held at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, I just had to sign up for them.   It is a product created by Susan Lenart-Kazmer.   Susan also has a line of Industrial Chic products that are available at Michaels.  And yes, I have quite a collection of it and hopefully will make some things with it soon. I love all of it and it just inspires me to create some of my own with all of the found objects I have collected. I even have some golf cleats that I want to do something with that I found at a garage sale.

I took three classes with Barbe Saint John.   I just loved the classes and got so much out of them.   And what a hoot Barbe was.  She is such a great teacher and person and the classes were so much fun and informative.   Thanks Barbe....for the great time and memories.

Here are a few of the pieces I made in class using a lot of my favorite found objects, game pieces and watch gears, etc.    They had a lot of stuff available to choose from but they had also told us we could bring some of our stuff so I did.   There were some in the class who liked what I brought so, of course, I had to share.

This is one of Susan's Bezels. It is quite substantial in size and weight.

I brought this pocket watch case from my stash that still had a few parts in it but I added the key and the watch gears. My intent was to add the resin to the whole thing but I had a happy mistake and some of the resin ran away. I am sure it would have been great full of resin but I love that only part of it is there. You really have to see this in person to see what I am talking about. I absolutely love how it turned out. And since I love it so much, you know I probably won't be able to duplicate it in a million years.

This is one of my flattened bottle caps that had been colored with alcohol inks. I put down some papers inside and then added the gears and resin. And, in this one, some parts of the gears are actually above the resin which I like a lot.

This was a bezel that was provided to us in class. I used some of my Tim Holtz papers as backgrounds. It is one of the Bingo papers and where the real bingo piece is was a picture of a Bingo chip. The dice is actually sticking out of the resin which looks cool.

I can't tell you how much fun this was and I can't wait to do so much more with what I learned in Barbe's class.

Have a great day everyone and would you believe it is 80 degrees here.

Those Wonderful Old Ledgers From years Gone By

2011-03-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

What don't I love about those old Ledgers/Journals that they kept long ago. I was introduced once again to their existence during an online class I took. About two months ago, I acquired three large books. The ones that I have pictured below are from the late 1800's. Each of them have about 400 pages and all the pages are filled with writing. It is just fascinating to read through them. I got them to use in my art but once I got them, the question was whether I could tear them apart to use them. Well, I got over that and have torn into two of them and having a great time using them and giving away some of the pages to share with friends. They look great in my Remains of the Day journals, They also look great as backgrounds for collages and altered art. I have also been making tags and various die cuts out of them. In another post I will show you what I have done with them. So many possibilities, so little time. Once these books are actually empty, I am going to make journals out of the covers.

And here are a page from each of the books. The last picture is one of the books where it is just all writing from taking notes from Lodge meetings.

I find myself more drawn to wanting to use this kind of paper, along with old sheet music pages, in my artwork than actually buying other kinds of paper. The paper in these books are actually pretty durable but I know in some of my other ledgers, the paper is much more fragile.

I hope you all have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Getting Back Into Blogging, Creating, etc.

2011-02-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a long time.........seven months to be exact.   Life happens.

I am ready to get back into what I love most........my art stuff, thrift stores, flea markets, etc.   I have found lots of good stuff and hope to post about it soon.

I am also taking an E-Course on blogging.....see the badge on the sidebar.   Very excited about it and hopefully I can grasp it and make this a much better blog.

And I am trying to master an I-phone too...........  Oh dear me.   Finally getting into the 21st Century.   As to the I-Phone.........why didn't I do it sooner........I love it.

Wow, can you believe it.........snow in the desert early this morning........it just didn't stick.

Using Up Some of My Graphic 45 Papers

2010-08-02T12:55:00.000-07:00

I have been such an absentee blogger.........sorry about that.   Will try to do better in the future.

I use all different kinds of substrate when I sew my Remains of the Day journals but for this post, I used Graphic 45 papers as the base as I recently won a bunch of them on their blog.   Other things I use are magazine pages, dictionary pages, cardstock, graph paper, music sheets, sewing pattern catalog, atlas books, old art books, my decorated papers and the list goes on.

I have a ton of stuff that I use from my studio and items I get at thrift shops and flea markets.   What I put on the pages is not planned.   I just grab items from file folders of stuff or things that are in a pile next to my sewing machine.

Here are some pictures of my ROD work area and then of the pages themselves.

I have had the grocery cart for a long time but just recently realized that it was great to hold all of my paint chips I have accumulated over the years.   There are eight different sizes and shapes in there.

The little grocery cart is so handy holding all the different sizes of paint chips I have collected over the years.

Trust me on this one...........this is just a very small sampling of all the different things I use on my ROD pages. The huge ceramic hot air balloon reminds me of all those trips to Albuqurque

I added a pocket with a piece of atlas map which was appropriate for the paper.

Here I added some vintage ephemera I received from OWOH.

I made a pocket of a piece of G45 paper. I sew a music page in so you could collage pictures on it or glue paper on it to write a journal entry.

I made another pocket using some vintage ephemera for the front cover of this G45 paper.

A page of a hymnal made another great pocket. On the right side is a memo sheet sewed on to the sheet music. I found a whole book of these memo sheets at Goodwill. Way too cool.

On this inside page, I recycled a window envelope which I sewed so that there would be one pocket on each side of the page. I also found a package of "Hello My Name Is" at a thrift store so attached it to the window envelope.

On the left page there is actually two pockets, one where the Gaslight Theater paper is and one where the Mickey Mouse paint chip is. I also made a pocket out of the atlas paper on the right side.

Another pocket with some sheet music on the left. On the right I sewed a piece of ephemera to write on and I think below that is another pocket.

I found a whole box of these labels so I thought it would be cool to use them to write on. On the right is a paint chip sewed on for a pocket on top of a "Did You Know" book page that I found at a thrift store. Lots of interesting information on a bunch of things when they were first discovered, etc.

On this one, I put the paint cip pocket right on the cover of the page. I always add other pages inside so there will be places to collage and write journal entries.

There are two pages inside this one. One with graphic paper and one with an atlas page. On the right side is a little book sewed to the graphic paper.

On the back cover, I sewed a security envelope so that there was a pocket inside and on the outside of it. I recycle all the window envelopes I get from junk mail. I also found a box of new security envelopes at the thrift store for 99 cents. Can't beat that, can ya.

Here is the backside of the above picture........something to write on and a pocket to put stuff in.

These pages make a great travel journal because there is so much area to write on, collage on and pockets to put stuff in. The Remains of the Day Journal is one of my all time favorite online classes........probably because I have so much ephemera and paper. I think the G45 papers worked really well for these pages.

A Wonderful Gift

2010-07-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

I follow the Graphic 45 blog as I like their papers a lot and like seeing what they and their design team creates. Would you believe it on one of their giveaways, I won all of this wonderful paper. I have not photographed it all.........only a sampling. I tend to hoard these papers but probably not as much now as they sent me a couple sheets of some designs and they were very generous in the amount of paper they included in my package. Way too cool and it really makes one's day a little brighter.

Many thanks to the Graphic 45 Team.

LET'S CELEBRATE OUR FREEDOM

2010-07-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA

I know a lot of you have seen this but I thought it was appropriate to post a picture here of the American Flag Purse I made out of bottlecaps.

I hope that as we celebrate today with picnics, barbeques and family gatherings, that we all remember the Service Men and Women who have fought for our Freedom and the ones who continue to do so.

Rusted Fabric

2010-07-03T12:08:00.002-07:00

A really great gal, friend and artist, Jane, and I have been talking about rusting fabric so it inspired me to play a little with it. I told her I would post some pictures of what I have done so here you go Jane and anyone else who might be interested.

I got an old piece of vintage fabric that was torn out of my big box of old linens. Another reminder to never throw anything out as this was perfect for this project so I decided to rub it with rust randomly. I then wet it completely and put it out in the Hot Arizona sun to dry..........boy that was a fast project.........dried in minutes. I was going to heat set it with an iron but found that was really not necessary now. I even sprayed a little color on it and the rust remained intact. So here are some pictures of it. I think on my next piece of fabric, I will rub more rust on it.

I haven't exactly decided what to do with it next but I probably will add some stamping to it and some color and use it for a cover of a fabric journal which I learned from Mary Ann's Remains of the Day class.  Now I need to rust some of my lace.   Oh dear the possibilities are endless here once I start thinking about it.   I have tons of pages already done so it will just be a matter of finishing the cover and assembling.     Here's a link to one of the ROD journals I have made.

I just put a couple paper towels with water and rust pieces and took it outside to see what it does.   You just never know.......maybe wonderful.........maybe a piece of cr*p ready for the landfill.....who knows until you try.

I have been doing some more experimenting with rusting keys.   I put some keys, pieces of rust and water and took the container outside in the sun.   Oh my gosh, does it really rust out there in this heat but it looks different than the other keys that were rusted inside.    Also, I found out that if you put just the brass keys out in the direct sunlight, it really tarnishes them and gives them a bluish/redish patina which will be great to have just as they are or to then rust them.

I hope all of you are having a wonderful Holiday weekend.

I've Been Experimenting........

2010-06-25T13:28:00.001-07:00

A while back I got a bunch of keys and wanted to experiment with them to get them rusty. I have read many ways to do this but I just decided to grab a bunch of them and put them in a container with water and some already rusted pieces. I was talking with my "rusty" friend this morning and remembered that I hadn't looked at the keys lately. Well, of course, the water was all gone (being in AZ and over 100 degrees everyday) but there was a lot of rust at the bottom of the container. I poured the keys out and this is what I found. A lot of rusty goodness. Love it when a plan comes together.

It is hard to see in the picture but some of them have a bluish and redish patina on them........very cool indeed. So, I am going to do another batch of these. You can never have enough rusty keys in my world.

I purposely put them on white paper so I could get some rust on it to use for making background papers.

Hope you all have a great weekend and stay cool.........Good luck here in the desert.

More Rusty Goodness From My Friend

2010-06-21T17:08:00.001-07:00

Well, I haven't posted in a long time about Artsy stuff but I so need to get back into it as it really is what I love and think about most of the time when I am not otherwise occupied with everyday life.

A while back I received another wonderful box of rusty goodness and some other items from my friend, Julie. I am just so lucky to have her as my friend and trading partner. We have been having a lot of fun trading items. She is also a big time thrift store, garage sale, swap meet person like myself. I would so much rather do this than visit any Mall around.

How about a game of horseshoes....way too cool........all rusted up.

That heart piece is really great, and the buckles, springs and odd pieces of rusted goodness will be nice for certain projects.

All different kinds of things in this box including some rusted wire.

Flat pieces of rust and such. On the side of the cigar box is an old rusted frame and a really cool old rusted rake. Way too cool and long flat pieces to work with.

Oh my, look at all those faucet handles, knobs and such. Way too much fun.

You can never have enough old bottle caps.

The mesh that she sent is just so cool. Will look great in an altered project or two or three.

Now I need to get going and make some things with all of these goodies that my friend sent me. I hope it is cool wherever you are because it is Hotter than Heck here. Oh how I miss the Pacific Northwest on days like these..........it is over 100 degrees in the SW Desert.

Happy Father's Day/Happy Anniversary

2010-06-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

It has been ten years since Dad passed away.   There are many things to say but the most important one is that "I Miss You" everyday.    And I am really a chip off the old block as I am so much like him.
My thoughts and prayers are with you today Dad.

On the 22nd of June, it would have been their 71st anniversary.    Their last anniversary celebrated together was their 60th.   What an accomplishment.

Here is one of the pictures that I like a lot.   It is taken with their best friend, JeJe.   It makes me laugh because this picture was put in their church directory.   After both my parents passed, I brought JeJe from Oregon to live with me as it was my father's wish.    We had so much fun with him. JeJe has passed also so I remember all of you today.

I Honor You Today Dad

2010-05-31T12:30:00.003-07:00

My father served in World War II.   He was a gunner on a Liberty ship.   He was with the Armed Guard, a division of the U. S. Navy. He served in the Atlantic and the Pacific. He had to leave his wife and three children to serve our country.    He never talked about his time in the service until the last few years of his life.    He was and should be proud of his Service. I honor you today Dad.

Upon my parents passing, we found a large box of correspondence between the two of them while he was at sea.   He sent a lot of V-Mail to Mom and she corresponded by letters.    It gave me goosebumps to read the mail.

My father is buried at Willamette National Cemetery in Portland, Oregon.   This is a picture of the Boy Scouts putting 140,000 flags on the Veteran's grave there.  They do this every year for Memorial Day. My thoughts are there today for not only my father but all the Veteran's who served our country.   And a special thanks to all the Boy Scouts who give of their time to do this.    It is a breathtaking sight and we appreciate all the work involved in putting the flags up.

I would also like to honor a really good friend of my father's, Bud Abbott, who was also a WWII Vet and is now laid to rest at Willamette National Cemetery.

And I would also like to honor my cousin, Alvin Schmid, who served our country and is laid to rest at Willamette National Cemetery.

And I would also like to honor my nephew, Gene Haun, who is in active service in the U.S. Navy and has to be away from his family for long periods of time. We love you and appreciate what you are doing for our Country.

Thanks to all who are serving now and who have served our Country in the past. We Honor You, We Respect You and we are forever grateful for what you have done and are doing for us.

You Can Never Have Enough Resistors

2010-05-12T10:02:00.001-07:00

The other day a friend gave me a box and told me to look in it..........guess what was there.......more resistors for my collection.   I love these guys.   These will make a great addition to the ones I recently got at an estate sale.

Here is a link to a March post I did about making bracelets with these resistors.

Also, check out the piece of linen.   This is actually card table size.   It was white and I colored it.   Love the way it came out and how the crochet lace looks too on it.   It is another piece of very old linen that I got from my friend.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T09:49:00.003-07:00

I would like to say a Happy Mother's Day to all of my family and friends who are Mothers and who are not as I am sure you have helped and brightened someone's life while traveling down the highway of life. I hope you have a wonderful day of rest and relaxation or doing whatever you like to do best.

In Memory of my Mom, here she is in her Senior High School picture.

You are in my thoughts today Mom. Thanks for everything.

I want to also say a Special Prayer for a friend who lost his wife and her children who lost their Mom yesterday in a freak car accident. She had just said goodbye to her husband and son when she was leaving a car show in her 1955 Chevrolet. She hit a curb trying to avoid another car and it flipped over and killed her. Her and her husband were high school sweethearts. She was only 68. It happened not more than a block from where her husband was loading another car on a trailer. I hope everyone who reads this will say a prayer for this family.

Golf Cleats, Plumber's Tape, Sewing Machine Parts

2010-05-08T12:07:00.001-07:00

Well I got a call that there was an estate sale just a few blocks from my place so I went down to see what it was all about.

They had a lot of nice stuff but I thought it was priced high and there was so much that I was not really interested in, i.e., furniture, dishes, knick knacks, linens, etc.. You just never know when you go to one of these what you will find and that is the fun of it for me.

I found a little box of old sewing machine parts which one can always use in assemblage, some plumbers tape which I have used before for a book spine and some golf cleats. I bought the golf cleats because I had read on a yahoo group some time ago that someone used them to make jewelry with so since these were so cheap, I picked them up.

Sewing Machine Parts

Golf Cleats for Found Object Jewelry, Etc.---I have never done anything with these before but I saw some really nice altered jewelry pieces that someone did but I don't remember where it was now so will just have to come up with something on my own. Or, I am sure they would look great on an altered piece too.

Plumber's Tape---Sometime ago, I used this kind of material for a spine of a glass journal I did. When I saw this roll of it at the sale for 25 cents, I grabbed it up.

I don't know how old this is but it was neat and it now sits on top of the refrigerator.

Old Food Scale

I just ran across this wonderful blog and giveaway at Bluebirds Living in the Meadow. When you have a minute, check it out.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. It is really warming up here in the desert now.

More Stuff I Found Along the Way....

2010-05-07T12:11:00.001-07:00

Well it has been awhile since I posted some thrift store finds that I couldn't resist...........all very cheap, of course.

The following four pictures are pretty self-explained.......unused great items for the artist.

A whole set of charcoal pencils and stixs and graphic pencils in hard and soft sizes.

NuPastel color sticks

Colored Charcoal Pencils

This was all packaged and never been opened. All new watercolors paints and paper and instruction book. And another piece of hand embroidered old linen.

One day I found a package of wood chop sticks which contained 50 sets......all brand new and each set wrapped individually. Then on my next visit, I found a package of new real Ivory chop sticks. Never seen something like this before. I just know they both will be handy in some art project.

On the left side are some sacks that normally would be used to hold a quarter of beef, venison, pork, etc. I loved the soft, open-weave fabric and thought they would be good for some art projects or to layer it for collage, etc. There were four of them and very large in size. The next items were a set of three shadow boxes from IKea. The roll is 250 feet of laminating paper.........and the far right items are three flat panel canvases which were a downright steal.

Have a great day everyone.

Paintchips and Pockets

2010-05-05T12:50:00.002-07:00

Well, I know we have all used paintchips for various art projects but I decided to use them for pockets for my journal pages for my Remains of the Day journals which I am addicted to and have talked about in other posts.

Here are the various sizes that I got at the big box home improvement stores on a few visits picking up a few at a time so they wouldn't put out a warrant for me to the paint chip police. I love all the varying sizes that they had. The ones in the back of the picture are really bigger than they look.

Eight different sizes and shapes.........way too cool. The ones in the back are quite large.

A friend of mine gave me these old sample books which work great too.

Also, take a note of the pretty crochet item and the wonderful linens that were in my linen box. I will try and showcase some of the different ones I got as I take pictures of projects, etc.

You can easily erase the paint names and numbers with a white Staedtler (sp?) eraser if you want to but for my journal, it didn't matter if they showed.

Before you put the item in the pocket, you can always write on the outside what, where or why about the items inside.

The window envelope is going to be a page in a book.

The second page is a page from a magazine with a pocket on the outside.

The far left one is sewed onto a security envelope and will be a page for my journal

In the middle one, I cut up a long strip to make a small pocket.

I put a long strip on the edge of a magazine page which is sewed on a cardstock page to write a note or whatever. That way this page has the cardstock page with the Bingo card sewed to it and then the magazine page sewed to the other side of the cardstock page.

This paint chip matched so well for this page so I just sewed it on. Thought it would be good for an area to write a note. This is a magazine page sewed onto a used large priority window envelope. What a great way to recycle all those window envelopes and magazine pages.

A very nice large pocket sewed onto an old magazine page. Lots of room to write on the outside of this too before filling it with items.

Three of them sewed together to make a big pocket for a journal page.

I love this crochet piece which was done over 100 years ago.

Three different size paint chips for pockets and for writing on.

These are smaller and will be sewed on a journal page.

So if you don't want to make pockets for a journal, another thing you can do with these paint chips is die cut them into layered flowers........use whatever flower die cuts you have........also leaf die cuts would work well too with the larger solid color paint chips. Have fun everyone.

My First Moleskin Journal

2010-05-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

I have heard about moleskin journals a lot but never have picked one up. While visiting Rice's blog, Notes from the Voodoo Cafe, I noticed she had a giveaway so I entered it and to my surprise won one of the moleskin journals. I received it today in the mail and just love it. Can't wait to actually work in it. The pages are quite heavy so I will be able to put a lot of ink and/or paint to it and lots of other things too. Thanks a lot Rice. I just love it.

Take a look at the linen piece I photographed this on. I folded it in the center so you could see the beautiful tatted edges done by my friend's grandmother. This was one of the many linen items I got at her recent estate sale. Isn't it just gorgeous.

A Wonderful Giveaway at Trash to Treasure Art

2010-05-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't done much in the way of creating lately to post about but wanted to let you all know about this wonderful giveaway by Lynn Stevens at Trash to Treasure Art Blog. She has a lot of yummy stuff that I know a lot of you would love to have in your stash.

Beautiful Bottlecap Embellishments

2010-04-15T12:10:00.001-07:00

The pictures really don't do these justice as they are so much more beautiful in person.   I wish I could take credit for these but I can't.   I received these from a friend of mine, Marisa, in a trade we did.

I am so thrilled with these and being such a bottlecap lover...........it doesn't get much better than this.   She used seed beads and sequins.   There are just so many uses for bottlecaps and I love what she did with these.

I think it is so cool to receive other people's creations.   Marisa is a great person and a great artist.

Thanks a lot for the awesome embellisments/charms........they can be used in so many different ways.

Don't You Just Love to Trade Stuff.......

2010-04-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

I just have to show you all the wonderful items I traded with my friend Julie. We met two years ago on an art cruise to Alaska. She is such a hoot and our interests are so similar. She loves to shop for bargains like I do. She might even do it more than myself or it could be a toss-up on that one. One thing she does that I don't do is to dig for treasures and lots of rusty things. I didn't have a lot of rusty things but I do now. Look at this wonderful box of rust.

Aren't these cabinet cards just wonderful. I can't wait to do something with them. These were just perfect because I had been wanting some.

Here are a few miscellaneous items that are wonderful too. I love the pottery pieces with all the beautiful designs on them. One of the packages of bottlecaps is from Alaska.........how cool is that and the other package is from Big Sky Country.

And in trade, I am sending her items that I have a lot of and she doesn't. I have a package ready to mail her now full of vintage linen, etc.

It Really Is a Small World After All

2010-04-07T14:28:00.001-07:00

At the first of this year, there was a wonderful event called One World, One Heart. In a previous post, I just told you about all the things I won. Well, the way it works is that you also give a gift to someone randomly...........and I emphasize randomly because you will see why when you read this little story posted on Anji's blog, On Ruby Hill. When I went to her blog to get her email to notify her of her winnings, the name stood out and the location. It was then that all the memories of that wonderful store owner came back. I just remember how happy and pleased she was when we gave her things. Please click on the link and you will see what transpired.

The Birdie Had a Safe Flight Going West

2010-04-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

The other day when I was reading Lori's blog, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had won her gorgeous Birdie in a Cage wall hanging. The picture just does not do it justice. It will hang in my studio reminding me of a wonderful person who spent all this time on it.........only to give it to me. And I love the colors she used too.

The Birdie had a long flight from Ohio to Arizona but she arrived in good condition because Lori had packed her really well. In the one picture you can see what she was wrapped in and the fabric strips were stuffed in the cage so the bars would not get smashed enroute. And, of course, the wrappings will be used in a project in the future as it would be a shame to throw it away.

Thanks a lot Lori.........it means a lot. I really feel honored to have it.

OWOH Gifts

2010-04-06T13:24:00.001-07:00

This was my first year in doing the One World, One Heart event where people have a chance to visit over 900 blogs and make new friends. I actually think I made it through all of them but did not sign up for the giveaways on all of them. And I found many that I wanted to follow too. Here are the gifts that I received. I am a little late in posting this but as they say, better late than never........... I appreciated all the items so much.

The first one is from Patsy who lives in the Philippines. It is a beautiful necklace and a calendar she made. http://patsypat.blogspot.com/

This is a beautiful handmade tote made by Alice Regan, http://adventuresinaliceland.blogspot.com/ filled with all kinds of wonderful items to use in my art. She did a gorgeous job on this tote and has a beautiful lining and pockets inside.

This gift are three packets of ephemera from Jennifer Pearson Vanier, http://jenzart.blogspot.com/ Oh my...........I love this stuff. Have already started using it in one of my journals.

And last, but not least is a coffee pot and mugs and a knitted cover for the coffee pot from Kelly of Java's Whimsy, http://javaswhimsy.blogspot.com/ Very very nice.

Thanks a lot ladies..........it was a lot of fun.

Templates Become Awesome Stencils

2010-04-05T16:51:00.002-07:00

Well, I hope you aren't tired of hearing about all the stuff I find because I have another find to tell you about.

There was this over-stuffed package that was taped up in the house/auto repair section at Goodwill. I didn't even notice it until someone picked it up and I saw something interesting sticking out of the package. Well, I thought that one is "history" and continued to look at other stuff. She sat it down and I proceeded to check it out once she left the area. Oh my Gosh, there were tons of templates in different shapes and sizes. Maybe they were used for graphic designs...... You know it doesn't matter what they were originally used for because all I saw was stencil material to decorate paper and fabric with.

Aren't these just wonderful and they will be full of paint or ink soon.

And guess what, I haven't been to a thrift store in three days............. I know it sounds like I am there everyday but believe it or not, I'm not. Would I like to go everyday..........probably.

The Cutest Paper Cutter Ever.........

2010-04-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

After breakfast one Saturday, we went to the swap meet. When we drove in, we noticed that there weren't many cars and sure enough when we got inside the gate, there were not many vendors either. One bad thing about this swap meet nowadays is that there are a lot of people who have set up permanent little businesses. I like it when they put all their stuff on the ground. You know, it really is all about the Hunt. Well we decided we needed the exercise and since it was a nice warm day (again) we went walking. I guess the numbers of vendors didn't really matter because of the ones who threw their stuff down on the ground, I found a few things and, of course, for cheap. The vendors hate it when I come up to their spot because I am a barterer big time and, yes, it really works except for one item.........the apple did not fall far from the tree as my father was the King of bargains. He was almost embarrassing.......maybe I should say he was most of the times. Boy did he have the time of his life though and yes the big garage (no room for cars though) and his tool building (supposed to be a cabin) proved it.

Anyway, on we went and the first thing I spotted was the cutest little paper cutter you ever saw. It is 3x4 and it works really well. I just love it.

And the next spot rendered one of those neat old folding rulers that look so cool on altered art. Then I found a Sudoku game. I love these because they have wooden tiles with numbers on them. Very similar in size to Scrabble pieces. And the game board folds in quarters and makes for nice heavy substrate pieces for wall hangings. Then I found a United States puzzle where the pieces are in the shape of the States. I always pick these up because I like to personalize a piece for friends. And next was a Word game where different words were on a large flash card......always looking for stuff like this to use in my Remains of the Day journals and other things. Last but not least was a container full of mostly glass beads, a section of baby springs and some clips which is really why I bought the container. I've never seen little springs like that and I know I will find a use for them. Oh my gosh, I forgot two more items.....three notebooks of ledger paper and a Funny Bones game which would make great altered cards because they are heavy.

So there you have it. Did not get to go to the swap meet today as I needed to help a friend out. Much more important.

I hope all of you have a great Easter Sunday. And, of course, enjoy all that food and the desserts.......always eat dessert first. I have a lemon meringue pie and a large cheesecake sampler platter just waiting for tomorrow.........sure hope I can wait that long.

Some Finds Before an Estate Sale

2010-04-02T14:15:00.001-07:00

I am finally getting around to letting you know what I found from an estate sale before it happened. That"s right, she let me to go in and pick whatever I wanted before the sale occurred for helping her out.

In an earlier post I related that she gave me 39 pieces of Irish linen material and a whole box of other linens, silk scarves, doilies and such from the family room area. What a treasure this box is. Everything in this box was hand crocheted, embroidered or tatted. And they are very old. Here are a few pieces of the linen material and some items from "the treasure box" I colored. Just the beginning of another project or two.

Another find was a set (29 volumes) of the Enclopedia Britannica, 1911, Eleventh Edition with soft leather covers. Originally I was going to use it for artwork but I don't think I am going to do that now after doing some research on it. It has a little wear on it but in pretty good condition. They measure 11 x 8 1/2.

Don't have pictures but I visited the tool room and found two of the old folding rulers that are great to use in mixed media work, a jar of old washers, a ton of brown round resistors in various sizes and a whole board of keys (I am mad at myself for not taking a picture of this before I destroyed the board). There were over 500 keys hanging on it.

In the music room was some really old old sheet music.......and I was thrilled about this because I did not have any at all. There was more than what is pictured here. I have already used some of this and I absolutely love it.

In the office room, I found this wonderful old photo album. It is a hard case and just beautiful.....never seen anything like this before and had some wonderful pictures in it. I don't know if I can bring myself to doing anything with it or not. I was thinking about altering the inside.......will have to see about that.

Another item I found in the office room was this "Album" although it looks more like an autographed book and is dated 1881. The size is about 3 x 5. It reminded me of some autograph books we found from my father when he was in the service where he had his shipmates write in it.

I am sure I am forgetting some things but this gives you an idea of the fun I had.

Have A Great Holiday Weekend Everyone

2010-04-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

Long time no hear from the sunny and warm desert........it's been in the high 70's and low 80's. What a hardship this is........NOT. The paybacks will be coming in about two months or less when it is 100 and over. And, hopefully, I will get better at posting regularly.

I hope you all have a great Easter holiday and have fun in whatever way you celebrate. And, if you don't celebrate this weekend, have fun anyways. I wish you all the very best that life has to offer now and always.

So Excited About My Irish Linen Gift..........

2010-03-24T18:06:00.000-07:00

Well, of course there is a story to this gift..........

I have been helping out a friend who is clearing out her parents home.........   I have been through this process so understand her situation a lot.

So she has let me look around and see if there was anything that I needed before she had her sale........the better word should be "wanted".    I found a lot of old neat things which I will tell about in another post.

I saw this stack of beautiful Linen fabric and asked her about it.   She proceeded to tell me the story about this being her mother's and it was handmade in Ireland and is over 100 years old.     She said that she was thinking of keeping it so I encouraged her to do so.   She sat it down and about 30 minutes later, she came back and untied it and counted out the pieces (which are a little over a yard each).    She counted out 18 pieces and handed them to me and said "thank you".   The thoughts were rapidly going through my head as to what I could make with it.........I was so happy.   This happened a couple of weeks ago.

Fast forward to this morning.   I get a call from her this morning and this is what she said......."I've decided not to keep the remaining 19 pieces of the linen fabric so I brought it down with me so I could give it to you."     Usually I am up and at it and ready to roll for the day by that time but not today...........that quickly changed as she said she was only going to be there for a little while and she didn't want to leave it sitting around in case someone thought it was a sack of rags.........   So I now have all 39 pieces........what a friend........what a gift.   Now I need to get busy and make something with it but I want to research and find out the best way to color and decorate a couple pieces of it.

So if that wasn't enough, I got a whole box of old doilies and linens. I haven't a clue as to what I will do with them or use them for but I love them. And what is really neat is that I had known my friend's wonderful mom who made them and embroidered these items.

That Was Easy

2010-03-23T16:49:00.001-07:00

At my Goodwill stop today, Robin brought out another patch of goodies for everyone to the area where she lets everyone pick through it.........hoping that everyone will buy the stuff so she doesn't have to put it away. She is one of the friendliest Goodwill employees I have run into and we have become friends.

As I was grabbing for the graphic and art pencil sets as I spotted them while she was wheeling the cart out, she came up to me and punched this item and said, it really is that Easy. I looked up and saw the Staples Easy Button and got to laughing and before we knew it, we had a crowd. So of course I had to buy it.

It was funny but the other day when I saw the advertisement that I thought it would be a lot of fun to have that Easy Button.............well my wish was granted for a mere 80 cents today.......you just had to be there to see how funny it all went down. The boss came out, whose name is Brian, and was teasing with Robin and said, "Don't you know, it is against the rules to have fun at work" and then smiled, laughed and left. He is a great guy. He looked at me and said, "oh no, you got the button"......... We are also on a first name basis.......funny story to that happening too.

Sorry, I haven't posted in awhile..........haven't created anything in a long time. Sometimes, life happens and there are more important things to focus on..........I can't imagine, in my world, what that would be but it does. Have a great day and I hope to post soon.

The Beginnings of Some Altered Patchwork Wall Hangings

2010-03-12T09:55:00.002-07:00

I can't believe that it has been a week since I posted.......WOW......Life has been busy.........Obviously I have not been doing anything creative but doing more important things like helping out some friends of mine who needed a helping hand.

I did these awhile back but just haven't posted them.   They are the beginning stages of some wall hangings, altered art or whatever I might use them for.

Some of the pieces are from cut up strips of canvas that I painted and decorated with stencils.   Some are a combination of grungepaper (designed by Tim Holtz and manufactured by Advantus) and decorated canvas pieces.    These were all sewn with a sewing machine.   I really love grunge paper to incorporate in a lot of my artwork as it is so easy to work with and very flexible and paints/inks up well too.   I just love the texture of it.   It works well for Altered Trading Cards and great for embellishments of all kinds too.   I use this a lot in place of chipboard nowadays.

This first piece is a combination of grungepaper and my decorated canvas.  The grungepaper is all inked up with either Distress Ink or Adirondack Color Wash Sprays. And if you look closely, there are areas where I have started putting a second layer on here and there.   They are two inch squares.   This piece is 12 x 12.   I might cut this down to fit in a 9 1/2 inch frame I found as I think it would make a great framed piece of art.

Here are some other pieces that I have sewn together and some are all canvas and some are canvas and grungepaper. These two pictures show the front and back of one piece. When I paint and decorate my canvas, I always do both sides. For that matter, I usually do both sides for paper, canvas and grungepaper........that way I have more choices on designs when picking a certain piece for a project. I just might cut these two pieces up in two inch squares or perhaps three inch squares.........who knows but it is just nice to have these things handy for whatever flips my switch that day or hour.

Two more pieces that are front and backs of the same piece. It looks like I did some fancy stitching on this one. On all the other ones I just did a zig zag stitch.

If you look closely at this next one, I stamped word sayings on it and then did a zig zag stitch all over it in many directions. I think this piece is all grungepaper. I really don't like it a lot but I can just dry brush over it with acrylics or spray it with inks or whatever until I like it.

I don't have a clue what I am going to use this piece for but who doesn't need some red, white and blue available to use in your art. This is canvas.

Believe it or not, the next two pieces are fronts and backs of each other.

The piece below was done on grungepaper. Don't have a clue what I will use it for but something will come up.........trust me on that one.........it always does. It is so nice to just have the unfinised pieces around just wondering when they will be put to use.

Check back soon as I will be posting about a really neat shopping adventure I had last Sunday.......a friend is having an estate sale at the end of this month but she let me in early so I could pick out whatever I wanted..........oh be still my heart. The whole house was full of stuff but a lot of it I just wasn't interested in (been there and done that unfortunately) but there were some really cool things that I found to use in my art and some things that I just might not use and just look at. I need to take pictures, etc........stay tuned.