Sketch

I love making sketches using Photoshop.  Mostly I have been using photos of landscapes to create the sketches. Today I tried a  new technique and made a sketch of a face.
I used a photo of my son taken several years ago. I'm quite please with how it turned out.

Crafting for Christmas

Now that all of my hand made Christmas cards have arrived at their destinations I can post photos of them. I was inspired to make cards this year by a video tutorial  that I watched on Joggles.com you can see it here.

The first card I made was of and gas lamp post, I  added a Christmas wreath, painted it and then sprinkled with glitter and it was good to go.

 The three cards above were  made with  3 new Tim Holtz stamps I treated myself to. I used watercolour to paint them and cut the edges with a rotary blade. Glitter was added as a last step to the card and background.

 In some of the cards I sent out I added this little Christmas bird. My friend Lorraine showed me how to make them one afternoon a few weeks ago. I had a wonderful time with my little granddaughters one day after school having them make their own.

I made a dozen of these round ornaments to give as gifts. Again it was Lorraine who show me how to make them. I used paper from an old book and the centers came from antique Christmas cards photos that I printed out. I kept a few for myself and they look wonderful hanging on our tree.

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas holiday.

Oh My!!

Oh Me, Oh My two in one week! This page was choosen as a Gallery Stand Out here.

 "The purpose of the Gallery Stand Out blog is very simple: to showcase some of the most outstanding digital scrapbooking layouts posted in the galleries, every single day."

 Wow! what an honour!!

Christmas Bells - Featured Today

It's a wonderful feeling to have a piece of  digital art that I created noticed and featured on a web page. It's always a thrill to have that recognition.

Today I am featured on Oscraps Blog for my digital page Christmas Bells.
The background paper I used came from Anna Aspnes Designs at Oscraps, the bells were found on the net and then digitally manipulated to give some dimension.

However you celebrate the holidays good wishes from me to you.

Stuff

Last night when I should have been  counting sheep I was counting the number of Christmas stockings we needed to hang up this year. Yikes, I realized that my youngest granddaughter did not have a stocking! What to do, what to do, as it was almost 3am I figured I should wait until morning to solve this problem.

Morning came too soon and after a quick breakfast I checked the Christmas box where we store the stockings. Sure enough there were only 8 stockings and we are 9 this year. I had made stockings for the two older girls and felt I could not possibly buy a stocking for the little one,  it might scar her for life if I did.

What to do, what to do? I checked the closet where I store my stash of fabric and what do I find, a beautiful plaid silk dupioni ( I have no idea what I originally bought it for), and the perfect piece of green silk dupioni to use as a lining. I checked the draw where I keep trim and  found  a piece of green and gold braid just the right size to use for the edging.

After a couple of hours I had a new Christmas stocking made and I did not have to buy a thing, every bit came from my stash of stuff!

 

This true story just goes to prove you can never have too much stuff!

As I was thinking about stuff  The Rule of Stuff came to mind:

 

The Rule of Stuff (as revealed to Susanna Oroyan)

You can never have too much stuff.

The stuff you have is never as good as the other guy's stuff.

The stuff you have is probably too good to use anyway, better save it.

Any stuff you need is always too expensive.

Your stuff is never where you thought it was.

Stuff multiplies exponentially on its own.
Stuff cannot resist gravity, it prefers being in piles on the floor.

Stuff mutates, the stuff you thought you had is not the stuff you do have.

The natural state of stuff is chaos, don't even try to organize it in plastic boxes.

Stuff stored in closets will always fall on your head.

If you see good stuff, better buy it because you will never find it
again....always buy twice as much stuff as you might need.
Really good stuff is irresistible to cats.

Copywrite 1997 Susannah Oroyan.

She who dies with the most stuff wins!!