Art Abandonment in Boston

If you haven't heard of Art Abandonment take a look a Michael de Meng's site.  I printed off the gift tags from the site yesterday and bagged up some ATCs to take into Boston.  We were picking up some weekend guests at Logan Airport and meeting up with some of their friends in the North End for dinner.  The first ATC was abandoned in a Starbucks at the airport.  It was picked up and opened within minutes.  I watched as a smile flashed across the face of a big burly man when he opened the tiny envelope and looked at the butterfly.

Another was left in the ladies room of a wonderful restaurant called Florentine.  It, too, was found within minutes and hung in the workstation area for all the waitstaff to see.

The only one that I did not see picked up was this one.

I'll wait and see if the finder posts a message on the Art Abandonment FB page.   I hope she went to a good home.  We're going apple picking sometime this weekend.  Pie will be involved at some point.  Wish we had smell-o-vision for that one.  I love the smell of apple pie baking in the oven, don't you?

Day 2::Class 3 with Dina Wakley

Hello!  I'm almost back to normal, 10 hours of sleep and two shots of espresso really help.  I want to share the other classes I had with Dina.  The third class was called "Encaustic Tag Book".  This tag book is a beautiful golden color and smells like beeswax, because that is what it is coated with.  Lovely.   After building several layers of ink, tissue paper that had been stamped, acrylic and spray inks, beeswax, we fitted the tags into an accordion structure made from watercolor paper.

The ribbon was dyed with Dylusions spray inks and attached under the front cover of the book.  Also ribbon was attached to the tags.  Voila!  Pretty and it smells good, too.  One more class to share another day.  Have a great weekend.

Day 2 with Dina Wakley::Class #2

My first class yesterday with Dina was called "Dyeing For Dylusions".  Dina describes the tiny book we made as an homage to Dyan Reaveley.  You know what that  means......"come on spray it like you mean it!"  So we did and we made giant inky messes all over the tables.  Great fun.  We started with a sheet of watercolor paper, acrylic paint and Dylusions Spray Paints.  Tags were also involved.  I took photos of Dina's samples which I have shown here:

Dina is amazing!  She has so much ENERGY and somehow manages to keep everything moving along.  With 20 or more crafters in a smallish space this is quite a feat.  Here is my "finished" mini book.  I will probably keep playing around and adding things to it.

I will share the second class with you tomorrow.  I have my last class today from 10am to 4pm on Art Journaling.  TTFN.

My Garden

When we first moved to Mass. from Calif. and realized that we could actually have a yard that was bigger than 30' by 40', I told my husband I really wanted to have a garden.  I had never grown anything.  In fact my gardener in Calif. had forbidden me to plant anything in the yard.  He told me if I wanted anything changed out just set the new plants in the general area and he would take care of it.  It seemed like everything I stuck in the ground died.  I had a purple thumb.  I was too afraid to argue with the gardener, I was afraid he would quit.
When Joe installed my garden here, being the tidy little guy that he is, he built boxes for the plantings.  He was careful to measure how far I could reach (you know how he is) and then made sure I could access each box from either side.  He measured the walk ways in between the boxes so the wheel barrow could roll through without difficulty.  Then he installed a fountain in the center so the birds would come and take a bath in the summer.  Perfect.
I have enjoyed that garden for 11 years now.  Every year I try to plant it out in different colors.  Sometimes in purples and pinks, one year it was all white flowers, this year it was pretty miscellaneous.  It is starting to wind down now that the seasons are changing.  We're putting a few of the beds to rest and cleaning up all the tomatoes that the chipmunks have dragged and stuffed everywhere.  Last night we built a fire in the fire pit and made S'mores with Lanie and her parents.  Lanie, who is four, thought we were camping out.  Nope, just looking at the stars and listening to the tree frogs for a little while longer.

In about another month the rest of my flowers will be wiped out with the first hard frost.  Then I'll dig up the Dahlias, store them in the basement and put everything to bed until next year.  I'm already thinking about what color my garden will be next year.

Stampotique Challenge::SDC 65 Color Challenge

Jane is hosting this week at Stampotique and it is a color challenge.  The colors to use are mustard, navy and orange.  I came up a couple of ATCS using Dyan Reaveley stamps and Ranger's Distress Markers.

You still have time to enter a project!  So what are you doing this weekend?

Teaching Schedule

Happy News!  I shared my metallic ATC today with my LSS and I am booked to teach a class on how to make it.  So I will be teaching a three hour class on Saturday morning October 13th at Ink About It in Westford, MA.  This is my second time teaching at this store.  I'm so excited!

Inkssentials Foil Tape Sheets

I felt sad that I didn't get to do the Tim Holtz Tag with the real Foil Tape Sheets so I went to my LSS, Ink About It, and bought a pack of the sheets.  I really love this stuff!  I thought instead of doing another tag I would do a chunky ATC and see how it works on wood.  It works great.  I decided to emboss the foil tape before I started distressing it so I measured the pieces out to cover all six sides of the ATC and then used one of Tim's texture fades to give it some character.  After I glued the paper to the wood I followed his tutorial and distressed the surfaces with alcohol ink, etc.

If you look closely you can see the watch parts in the tiny bottle.  The handle is made from distressed grungeboard.  The images are stamps and G45 paper.  This was a fun project!

My Studio Space

My husband has been working on a few projects for me lately.  His goal, being the neat freak that he is, God bless him, is that nothing remotely connected to crafting is seen anywhere in the house other than in its designated spot.  That means on or in the space that he has so carefully measured out for that object.  Seriously, he measures the items that will fit into each space.  So clever.  This is my craft room so far:

He measured the heights of stamps to make sure they would fit on each shelf.  Then he was given this old map drawer which he refinished for me to store clear stamps.

As soon as the clear stamps had a home he found the library card drawer seen underneath the map drawer.  He refinished that so the Copic Pens had a home.

There is plenty of table top space to make the dining room table look less inviting, good natural light.  Not to mention all the can lights he had installed overhead.

Overhead shelving for miscellaneous projects.  My laptop.  It is beginning to look like I never need to come out of here.

More shelves for stamps and the closet is all built out, too, for embellishments.  Now he's working on the armoire in the guest room since I had started laying finished projects out on the bed in there.  When he finishes that project I'll share it with you.  It is pretty awesome!

We just celebrated our 19th anniversary and I am still amazed at what a wonderful, sweet husband I have!

SDC64::Combining Stamps

I love the fact that Stampotique has a new challenge every week now!  This week the challenge has been given to us by France Papillon.  Wouldn't you love a name like that?  My favorite country to visit and a butterfly.  What a lovely image.  So pretty.  Any way, the challenge is to use 2 or more stamps to create a new image.  First I started off by making some background paper with watercolor paper and Distress Inks.  Ranger's DIs are activated with water so it is just a matter of applying color to the paper and spritzing it with water.  Color, spritz, blot, repeat.  Just do that until you like what you've done.

The colors used here are Worn Lipstick, Ripe Persimmon, and Picked Raspberry.  After spritzing and blotting, I allowed it to dry and applied some white Gesso and a few lines of black acrylic paint.

The teacups are made from 3 stamps, Stampotique's Pretty Party Dress (turned upside down and pieced), Smushallaum's hair (teacup handles) and Dawn Houser's steam from a latte.  The phrase is from Stampcamp.  Tablecloth hearts are Stampotique's Hanging Hearts.
This was a very fun challenge!  Now I shall go brew myself some tea.  Have a great weekend everyone!

The Artistic Stamper::Splatters & Speckles

The Artistic Stamper has a new challenge for the month of September.  I've never posted anything there before but the challenge this time is "Splatters & Speckles".  I love to splatter paint, water, ink, etc., so this is a good challenge for me!  I used a piece of watercolor paper and applied distress inks to it.  The colors I used are Broken China, Wild Honey, Mustard Seed, Shaded Lilac and Ripe Persimmon.  After applying them to the paper I sprayed water on the inks to activate them.  I mopped off some color, then reapplied ink, sprayed water, mopped off excess again until I liked the results.  The beauty of using a large sheet of paper is that you can choose the portion that you ultimately want to use.  I cut a piece that would fit on to a blank card so it measured 5 x 6 1/2".  Now it was time to start splattering and speckling.  Lots of drops of water were involved in the process.  The lady is Dina Wakley's Lonely Girl stamped with Ranger's Coffee Archival ink.  I dotted some speckles with the same ink.  I added some white circles with acrylic paint and the lid of the container.  Lonely Girl's eyes are covered with a tiny piece of Ranger's 1/4" aluminum tape and then I gave that a little texture.  The phrase is Dyan Reaveley's from the Quintessential Quotes.  I wrapped a piece of brown waxed twine around the card and glued the panel to a blank card.

The colors are a little more vivid IRL.  I'm happy with the result.  You might want to have a go at this challenge, too.  Here is a link to the site:  http://theartisticstampercreativeteam.blogspot.com/2012/09/september-challenge-splatters-and.html

The Artistic Stampers DT have some beautiful and inspirational samples.  Enjoy!

Tim Holtz 12 Months of Tags::September

Now that it is September Tim Holtz has published his tag for this month.  I did the best I could with what I had in my stash, I never seem to have all the right components on hand.  I had about half of the supplies so instead of putting the number 5 on mine I put 1/2.  To see what Tim came up with check out this link:
http://timholtz.com/12-tags-of-2012-september/.  I was able to take his class a couple of months ago at Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA so I was acquainted with the metal sheets.  Unfortunately, I liked it so much I used up my supply and haven't replenished it so I substituted electrician's tape for the metal background.  It was downhill from there.  Anyway, the key of the monthly tags is to have fun playing along.

Make a tag with what you have and join in the fun.

Ipswich, Essex & some Art Abandonment

Yesterday we took a short road trip to Ipswich & Essex.  It's about 90 minutes from where we live but it feels like a different world.  It is a very old and charming area full of antique stores and historical sites.  We walked on the beach, had lobster for dinner,  and checked out several antique stores that are full of things that can live another life in a mixed media project.  Here is a sampling of our day.

Howard's Flying Dragon Antiques
136 Main Street
Essex,  MA  01929

This place had the BEST stuff I've seen in a while!  It looks small but it has 3 stories of items from the floor up to the ceiling and more things outside.

Once you're inside there are tons of smaller items.  I couldn't resist buying a few of these bobbins.

This guy was screaming my name!  But, no, he had to stay there.  So sad.  What a hunk!

Woodman's is the place to go for lobster.  You can eat inside or out.  It is wonderful if you love seafood.

And right there near the restaurant I placed my piece of Abandoned Art.  If you look closely you can see it is a book marker with a small Eiffel Tower on it.  It was there for only 30 minutes when someone spotted it and gave it a new home.  Art Abandonment is a fun thing that thousands of artists are participating in world wide.  If you haven't heard of it check out Michael de Meng's site:  http://michaeldemeng.typepad.com/art_abandonment/2012/06/art-abandonment.html
It is very fun and a lovely way to give the gift of art to a stranger no matter how small the gesture may seem.
With the Labor Day holiday on Monday my weekend is off to a great start.  I hope you are all having a terrific weekend and some well deserved time off too!  I hope you enjoyed your taste of New England.