New Years Eve.

Where has the time gone. I just realized that I had not posted for a month.
So to bring you up to date:
Trip to St. Augustine went well. The town had lots of things to do and see our accommodations a house built in 1793 was just fine. The slow trip ending up being a not as slow as expected. I worked on my journal each day and came home with a very full book.
This is what it looked like at the beginning of my trip.

And this is what it looked like at the end of the trip.

One of the days that we had the most laughs was on my friend Cynthia's birthday. Cynthia talked us into having our photo taken at a studio and here is the result.

What can I say except we did laugh a lot.
I've also been busy making Christmas gifts. The book below is one that I made for my daughter. It was made from a template by Heidi Swapp & Jessica Sprague.

I must say some of the instructions left a bit to be desired, but the finished album was quite a hit.
I've also completed two more Art Journal Caravan challeng layouts

This one the challenge word was Shelter.

And this one # 53 the word was Love.
My Christmas card looked like this with two of my darling Granddaughters in it.

Template Tuesday over at Jessica Sprague also got some attention from me with these layouts.

And the Heritage and Out of the Box challenges got these Layouts.

And thiat it for 2011. Wishing you all a very Healthy and Happy 2012.

Bless

This weeks Art Journal Caravan challenge #47 was the word was Bless. Thinking about the word I thought of friends that I am blessed with and found a quote by Charles Kingsley that said it all.

I am off on a holiday  to St. Augustine in a few days with some friends to help celebrate a very special birthday for one of them. We have rented a house in the historic district and plan on a "slow" trip enjoying the little things. I'm bringing my camera and a journal to record the trip. I am looking forward to warmer weather, the ocean and a little adventure.



It's a first!

As you all know I've been participating in the Art Journal Caravan for the past several months. This week one of my layouts was featured as a highlight of the week by Tangie Baxter on her home page.
I'm thrilled and smiling ear to ear.

She Dreams

Another digital page. The layout  was inspired by the photo of a women in such a beautiful dress. I thought she looked a bit distress and I imagined her distress was from  dreaming of castles in the sky and waiting for a prince to come and rescue her. Poor girl needs to get a life.

Art Journal Caravan #46 - Protect

The  challenge word this week from Art Journal Caravan was Protect.
What came to mind as soon as I started thinking about it was a women's need to protect their home and loved ones. I found the spell for protection on the Internet.

The background came from Mystic Morning, Unicorn from Naughty Girl Graphics
and the figure of the women from a P.G. Woodhouse painting.

New York City

I thought I share another day in New York which started with a street fair outside of our hotel.  We spent the morning wandering along Lexington Ave. which was closed off for the day looking at booths and buying some Christmas gifts for our family. We bought lunch from a booth grilling Italian sausages that had the most delicious smells.

We continued walking south and then west to 6th Ave. to have a look at M & J Trimming.

 This photo was a wall of ribbons in every size and colour you could ever want.

 And this one was just one of the many walls stacked with trims

My husband appreciated this.

Our next stop after a short subway ride was Central Park.

It was a lovely day and the park was filled with families out for a stroll. After  all of the walking, we gave ourselves a treat and our feet a rest with  a carriage ride.

And then fed a carrot to Pedro at the end  of our ride.
More photo to come.......

Crafty Day

Yesterday I purchased the latest issue of Stitch Magazine put out by the Embroiders Guild in the UK. I had some free time this afternoon and decided to make a Brooch which is one of the projects in the magazine.

It was made using the Embellisher Machine, cotton fabric over cotton velvet. I then added bits and pieces of silk mohair cut it out, zig zaged the edges and added beads.
Done! A nice bit of play on a gray afternoon.

New York, New York Day one

I was in New York a few weeks ago to take care of some family matters. And thought I would share with you some of the high lights of my visit.
One of my favorite streets in New York is 57th St. I love the varied architecture and shops. One of my favorite shops to visit is MacKenzie-Child.

They offer a mixture of decorative items and furniture, using wonderful colours and patterns.

Don't you want to just sit yourself down in this chair with a cup of tea and a good book.

I bought this colander there  that I had noticed on my visit in June and was sorry I had not purchased it.

I loved walking along the street looking up and seeing these soaring buildings.

Interesing architecture.

Great window displays.

Bubbling fountains, this one in front of the famous Plaza Hotel.

And trying to figure out if this was a 9 or a E. Ah, New York is wonderful.

Nest #45

This week's challenge from the Art Journal Caravan was the word nest. I found it a easy to relate to,  and I immediately  though of  our home and family.

Once our  children grew up and few away, I like to think of our home as nest that they can always come back to for comfort and a support.

Life's highway

I've been dealing with a lot of small but challenging irritants lately. I created this  layout to  expresses some of my frustrations.

And another one

I have been having so much fun making up this fantasy layouts.

This one is called "All Dressed up and Nowhere to go"

On a Roll

I played hooky this morning and worked on this layout.

                  Cinderella gets a little help from her friends getting ready to go to the ball.

Sunday Play

Lazy Sunday and I had  time to play making these fantasy style layouts.

Fairy Tale

Someday my Prince will come.

The Shadow Knows!

There was a radio program in the nineteen thirties called The Shadow  it's hero was Lamont Cranston. Each program would be started with an ominous voice saying "Who know what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Only the Shadow knows!" Not that I'm old enough to have heard the program but somehow saying "Only the Shadow knows" is  said around our house when we can't give an answer.
This all leads into writing today about  a self paced  class I have just started called Shadows. Shadows are so important to be able to created drama and realism in art work. Here are my first two completed assignments.

Very basic shadows were added to the cup and bottle to created a feeling of depth in the picture.

Assignment two was a bit more complex working with moving figures and sunlight.
How did I do? Do you think the shadows look realistic?

Last Assignment

Our last assignment for the Fantasy Style class was to use all of the different techniques we have been taught over the past 5 weeks,  extraction, blending, masks, texture, shadows, gradient shadows and perspective. I managed to get them all in except for texture which just did not work with this scene. I've really loved learning all this stuff and being able to creating this type of art work. Watch for more to come in the next few posts.

Another lesson finished

Lesson five is finished and I'm awaiting feedback from Miss Behaving. This lesson was to create a composition thinking about perspective. The main elements or model should be the focus while everything else added to the canvas should  complement and support it's roll.
How do you think I did??
P.S. The darling baby used in the layout is my newest granddaughter.

Doubling up

I spent the last two days taking a workshop with the British Fiber Artist Sandra Meech.
Day one of the workshop was spent discussing themes and  preparing and painting  the various bits and pieces we were going to use in for making a  cloth collage. Today day two we spent the morning preparing the collage using the painted fabric and paper we had prepared. After a delicious pot luck lunch we stitched our pieces together using machine free motion embroidery. Quite a few of the participants finished before the end of the day. I was not among them and still have quite a bit of work left until I could call the piece finished.
What I did finish was the homework  from the class Fantasy Style Workshop part one of lesson five  working with perspective. If you look closely into the crystal ball you will see a small fairy captured there.

Mega Collection trying again

I had a look at the Blog today and realized that I had not posted the photo of the Mega Collection but of an earlier kit. So here it is, 21 papers and 56 elements all created during the class The Art of Digital Design II over 5 weeks.
The other class that I have been taking Fantasy Style Layouts has just finished week 4 and I'm enjoying it immensely. I am have fun learning how to cut, blend, shadow and extract photos to create a whole new landscape.

This coming weekend I'll be back to real paper, paint and stitching with Sandra Meech.
Sandra is Canadian born textile artist now living in the UK. She is giving a two day workshop for my Guild. Sandra has published several books over the years combining mixed media with quilting for some stunning results.

Another Class

I love taking on line classes and was temped into to signing up for this one at Deviant Scrap called Fantasy Style Layouts.  I am just loving it!
Here are my some of my assignments.

With this assignment I blended the two top photos together to create an new landscape

The next assignment I extracted my granddaughter from one photo and added her to another one.

This assignment was to add shadows to the figures we added into the landscape.
Learning how to extract and blend is just too cool! An added bonus has been the feedback from the instructor which I find so helpful.