CCC Week 3...

Well in case you had already forgotten, CCC is the
Compendium of Curiosities challenge being hosted by
Linda. This week the challenge involved using alcohol inks
and as it is a little messy I decided to do more than one
attempt at this. I had a hard time deciding which one to
submit but am going with the pink one.
Not sure if it was the alcohol ink or the glossy cardstock
but I had a few issues when I was stamping on it, it is
a slippery surface and I could feel the stamp sliding
around so my stamped images are a little fuzzy :)

 

This is the other one I did, which originally was my
favourite but now I seem to have changed my mind, lol!
If you have the book and would like to join in the
challenge then go to Linda's blog, the more the merrier.

Compendium of Curiosities challenge...

The very talented Linda came up with the idea of having
a challenge based on Tim Holtz's book "A Compendium of
Curiosities".
The whole thing started 2 weeks ago so I am a little
behind but still wanted to join in the fun. The idea is
that you must have the book and then on Monday
mornings Linda will pick one of the techniques in the
book and we all make a piece of art or tag or whatever
we choose using the technique.
There are a couple of companies who very generously
donated some prizes but it is not about the prizes but
about trying out new things and enjoying art together.
The first week's challenge was called Water Stamping,
that is all I can say about it as you need to have the
book remember :)
My piece is above and for my first attempt I am pleased
with it.

This is the challenge for last week so I am up-to-date now
that I have done this one. All I can say is it involved Tim
Holtz's fragments.

Both of these were done very quickly so that I would be
all caught up and ready to start with everyone else for
week 3's challenge, so they may not be as detailed as I
would have liked but hoping I will do better from now on.

I decided for this whole challenge to use the same thing, a
die cut from Stampin Up, and then somehow bind them all
together so I will have a little resource of techniques. I am
trying to decide if I should very nicely type out the
technique and attach it to the back or not, what do you think ?

Bon Voyage...

Well last night we took my youngest off to the airport for
his grand adventure to the South Pacific. Of course there
were some last minute issues with the airline and so they
had to get all 20 of them on a different flight, not much
time to say long goodbyes which was a good thing.
His plane is scheduled to land in Auckland, New Zealand

in the next 10 minutes or so, I will be glad when I hear
they are there safely.

Well I am going to have to distract myself for the next
couple of weeks with some art projects otherwise I will
be worrying about him all the time. Might have to start
doing some more work in my art journal...

A new obsession...

 

This is the sample board for the class I took this Saturday
with Mike and Lesley. This class was all about using UTEE
and the Melting Pot. I have had one of these for over a
year and have been a little intimidated about using it,
mainly the chance of burning myself has been putting me
off using it. Well after this class I can see myself getting
obsessed with using UTEE, thanks Mike!

These are the ones I made in class, I really enjoyed the
last part which is where we got to choose different colours
to mix. We were given a couple of pendants by Amate to
use. My friend Lisa took the class with me and we had so
much fun coming up with different colour combinations.
Once we found out that we could pop out the hardened
UTEE from the pendant blanks we went to town making
lots of them, could have been there all day playing with colours :)

There were a couple of other techniques we were taught
but did not get to try out but now we are on a mission to
stock up on the clear UTEE and some of the fabulous
colours they have.

So who else has a Melting Pot and what do you use it for ?

It's the thought that counts...

This is a picture of something that my husband loves that
we could not find last summer when we were in England.
For those that do not know these are crisps, or what you
call here potato chips.
This flavour is my husband's favourite and whilst my son
was in London recently he found them and sent me a
message to say he was going to bring them back for
his dad. Well he bought them at the beginning of his trip
and after packing and unpacking his case, travelling on
buses, a ferry, a train and more planes they did not hold up.



Unfortunately this is what they arrived like, totally flattened!
However, my husband opened them up and enjoyed
every last crumb of them.

So what do you crave from your childhood ? For me it is
something that I know can never be found again, a cake
my dad used to buy for me called a Marzipan Apple. I
know it sounds weird but it was a round cake that was
covered in a thin layer of marzipan that was coloured to
look like an apple. It was delicious, but you have to
like marzipan!

We have a winner...

So I must have been really boring last week as I only
had a few commenter's, 5 in fact. Well I had my youngest
pull out a name from this lovely little bucket and this is
the name he pulled. Lori send me your address and I
will get the bracelet off to you in the next few days.

On another note I felt like a winner when I met my son at
the airport Saturday night. So glad to have him home and
he had a fabulous time in England, France and Spain. My
youngest wanted to dress up to meet him and I think he
looks very spiffy! My son bought a few clothes whilst he
was in Europe. I had to laugh though when he asked me
to wash one of his other shirts and I checked the label for
washing directions, I tried to photograph it but it was so
small it came out blurry.
This is what it said "Wash this when dirty",
those European's get straight to the point, lol!

Art Journal page...

Here is my latest page, I did it on Monday after I had got
off the phone with my son, he is in Paris at the moment.
Listening to him talking about the wonderful sights they
have seen and the delicious foods they have been eating
made me wish I was there with him. Particularly the part
he told me about getting freshly made chocolate croissants
for breakfast, mmmm...

I have not had a lot of time to play in my art journal so
was glad that I was inspired to do it. How about you,
what have you been inspired to do creatively lately ?

Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered in my
blogiversary drawing :)

Monday musings...

Last week was kind of weird here in my house. My oldest
left for a trip to Europe and my youngest was doing his
Scuba diving certification. We had a lot of long trips to get
him up to the diving school and that involved late nights
coming home. This weekend was 2 really early mornings
to get him up to a lake to do the open water dives for 7am,
luckily my husband is OK with doing this and letting me
sleep in. Although I was really nervous and got up about
5:45am Saturday to see them off. So now at the grand age

of 14 he is now Scuba Certified, yay!! The reason for this
is that in a couple of weeks he is going on a trip to
New Zealand & Australia and will now have the chance
to scuba dive at the Great Barrier Reef, how cool is that !

With all the stuff going on last week I completely forgot
that it was my 1 year anniversary of starting my blog,
or do they call that a blogiversary nowadays ? I was
encouraged to start a blog by a friend of mine and even
though I do not update it on a daily basis I have enjoyed
posting and showing my few readers a little glimpse into
my life. I have a little something I would like to do as a
giveaway to one of my commenters, so if you leave me a

comment between now and Friday I will pull a name
to win this.

In case you are wondering what it is, it is a do-it-yourself

bracelet kit by Creative Imaginations.

A couple of years ago I was at an event in Nashville called

Scrap etc., they had a few of these for sale and I bought

a couple to give as gifts. Well as I was doing more
re-organizing I came across this one and thought it was
just perfect to give away.

Artful curio is finished!!!

Well I finally finished it, I was done with it really until I
tried to take photos of it. Then I saw I needed to make
some adjustments to it.

Again, trying to take photo's of things with a glass front
is impossible, I moved it and myself all over my house
and this is the best shot I could get. As you can tell with
the door closed you miss out on seeing all the details,
I knew that and did the best I could with fitting everything in.

I definitely changed direction with this after I got it home.
At the class I really was just playing around with things
but after having it on my desk for a few days I discovered
more of what I wanted to put in it. It really was a very fun
project and can be made in any theme, doesn't have to
look old and distressed. In fact I think mine is one of the
more colourful ones of the ones I saw in class.

I know that Tim got the cabinets from Hobby Lobby so if
anyone wants to try it go and check there.

If anyone has any questions about the project please ask.

Quick Update...

Well I sent my son off on a trip to Europe on Monday, so
Sunday & Monday we were just getting everything sorted
out for that trip and so I had no time to work on my
curio cabinet. Once I managed to talk to him and know
he was there safely I got back to work on it. Happy to say
it is almost finished, pictures will be coming soon...

In the meantime I have seen this new deal-a-day site and
thought I would share it with everyone, click here, we all
need bargains don't we ?