End of Week

It was the perfect ending of a busy week. I couldn't have asked for a better time. I was able to work on my AB (Altered Book) and get a few pages prepared. The attached photos show the difference in paints used: the blue pages I used a gel medium matte with a beautiful blue acrylic paint. I absolutely love the color. I also used the gel medium gloss and a yellow acrylic and came up with a beautiful glaze. I then used Adirondack Acrylic paint daubers, red and loved the even texture and last I first covered a page with gesso, partially dried it and then used a green pigment ink pad and wiped the page. Not sure if I like that coverage or not. But the object of this AB is to learn about more about art and myself, then it's all about learning.

I also worked on cards for Operation Write Home (OWH) and have a few prepared to send to Celeste. Celeste gathers all the cards and sends them from ARTHaven to the OWH address.

The last project I worked on today was a birthday card and journal for the daughter of a friend. The young lady is turning 10 (as she says double digits) and several of us decided to send her cards. I'm also sending a little journal. I took pictures, but can't find them-actually I see them in the camera but can't get them to upload to the album!

That's about it for today. Thanks for looking. Please leave a comment.

The Start of My AB Journey

The wonderful group ARTHavenCreations_Friendships that I belong has a project this month called the Altered Book Journey. Those that want to follow along and do an altered book will have the guidance of Diann Scholl and Eileen Bellomo. Diann and Eileen will show us techniques to use and how to do them. We can work at our own pace, do as much or as little as we want.

This has been something I've been very interested in doing. I've collected all kinds of "stuff" over the years from ticket stubs, and old photos to Green Savings stamps! So what I'm going to do is show you my progress as the project moves along. I'll post a picture or two of what I'm doing. I hope you enjoy the process and project as much as I'm going to. Attached are the first of two photos, my book after I've ripped out a large chunk of pages, and a picture of the pages and my next job - to prime my pages with gesso.

Good Day

When I awoke this morning my goals were to do something creative. For several days I had been thinking about some tags, so I sat down and made a tag that reflected traveling through Europe. Since I had done a lot of traveling throughout Europe while stationed there in the Air Force, I've always dreamed what it would be like to have visited these wonderful and romantic places in the early 1900's.

As I was rummaging through my paper I found a piece that I thought would go well on another tag I made, "Give your imagination wings" and has butterflies, dragon flies and a hummingbird - all the wings for your imagination.

My last two pieces were a couple of cards that I had been thinking about. A birthday card that would do well for a male and a "under the weather" card. I never seem to have one handy when I need it. It was a good day, I had fun and I loved dreaming about traveling in the 1900's. I hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think.

Busy Month

It has been a very busy month for me. I've had several medical appointments to followup with a problem I've been having. To keep my mind off these tests, I've had to find ways to keep busy. Since we aren't on the road traveling, my other keep busy projects are to shop! I don't think I know anybody that doesn't like to shop and especially for craft supplies. There were some good deals on Cricut cartridges at CricutMachine.com, so I picked up Batman, Superman, Old West and Dinosaur Tracks at $22.95 each. I'm hoping to make more children's cards with these cartridges! While blog-hopping and looking at other art pieces I noticed some wonderful paper - Graphic 45, so I was able to find a good on-line shop for that, Zutter came out with the Distrezz-it-All, a wonderful electric tool for as they state "achieving that shabby-chic look" without using sandpaper, and files! More browsing on-line and was able to find Tim Holtz products of clock faces, sprockets and gears, keyholes, keys, etc., wonderful embellishments. I finally found this wonderful paper - Mariposa. It is gorgeous - I'm really going to have a hard time cutting this paper!

When I wasn't busy catching up with e-mail and shopping on-line, I participated in a couple of swaps with my Yahoo group, ARTHavenCreations_Friendships. One swap was to create a blue tag no bigger than 5.5"x3" and embellished in blue. That was fun because blue happens to be my favorite color. The other swap was to make these wonderfully easy corner bookmarks. You take a sealed envelope, measure down 4" on two sides (forming a triangle) and cut across using your decorative scissors to make a fancy edge. Decorate the object in anyway you like and then swap with the assigned partner. These were fun, so easy and make wonderful RAKs. You can also make them using your favorite paper, make your own envelope, or cut a strip of paper roughly 8" long and 4" wide. Fold over, forming a triangle and seal with your favorite glue and decorate as you like. I'm going to attach pictures of the bookmarks and tags I made and later I'll upload pictures of the ones I received.

That's it for me today.

Always,
Kerry P.

Sooo MIA!

I'm so sorry to be MIA. Just when you think you've got a handle on things, life gets in the way! We are finally home and unloading the RV. It was a fantastic trip, we had a wonderful time and saw some awesome sites. Now to get back to crafting. I've been working hard to get my ARTHaven back up and running. Now I will work hard on posting every day and getting some of my pieces posted.

I was lucky and bid on some cartridges- picked up Independence Day and Summer in Paris. Both of the cartridges look like they have loads of interesting items. I also got most of the new cartridges - Just Because Cards, Create a Critter, Serenade, and Nursery Rhymes. I also picked up good deals on Give a Hoot, Preserves, Straight from the Nest, and Serenade. And finally, the long awaited pre-order for Picturesque - it was shipped and I received earlier this month. I'm anxious to try all the carts out and have ideas for quite a few.

So that's about it for now. Thanks for following.

Sunny Sunday in Arizona

Good day all! It has been a beautiful day, mild temps, clear blue skies but some quite strong winds. Fortunately they have calmed down as the afternoon winds down. My husband and I spent the afternoon putting things away, packing up the outdoor chairs, cleaning the grill and basically getting ready to bring in the slides and get on the road tomorrow. The sad part is leaving the friends I've made over the winter and I had to pack up the Cricut and crafting stuff while we are on the road.

I heard a wonderful tutorial that Capadia Designs made on Cricut Design Studio Hide, Select and Contour - I've attached the link here, http://capadiadesigns.blogspot.com/2009/07/video-hide-selected-contour.html. It really was very helpful in learning how to cut an item that has several layers and only cutting once in all the colors you want.

I am still working on getting pictures of the cards I've made on my blog, and changing a few things around. I am not very computer savvy so need some help on these new things. I'm adding more pictures that I've taken of Grand Canyon, Sedona, blooming cactus and other beautiful sights along the way. I hope you enjoy them.

That's about it for today. I'll see you tomorrow.

Winter is Just About Over!

It seems like such a short time ago we left Maryland to spend the winter in Arizona - land of warmth and sunshine! Unknowing to us, it was one of the worst winters on record for Maryland with a total of 65 inches of snow in two storms and the coldest and wettest winter on record for Arizona! Nonetheless, we managed to have a good time, see the sights of Tucson and surrounding mountains. We spent an afternoon with Wyatt and the clan in Tombstone and lunched at the Long Branch Saloon. Then a visit to Boot Hill to see the residents. I managed to find some beautiful turquoise jewelry and will come home with a two beautiful necklaces, two bracelets, five pair of earrings and three rings. And we found some wonderful Mexican food and it doesn't come in mild or spicy! It only comes in one temperature! We also enjoyed watching many air shows the air base (Davis Monthan AFB) put on with the sorties they flew daily. We really did have an Air Show this past weekend when the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds put on a show that is fantastic every time I see them.

The weather in Arizona is like any other place - it can be severe at times. We had many storms but the worst part is the wind. Wind gusts of 60-70 mph sound like nothing, but in an RV they feel like you are flying through the air to Kansas! The rains can be light or heavy but after every rain, we've had the most spectacular rainbows and one time we had a double rainbow. I'll will miss the beautiful sunsets we've seen just about every night. But most of all I will remember the wonderful friendships that were made and we hope to see these folks again on the road.

We do have a short trip to take up to the northern part of Arizona, we'll be spending a week or so visiting Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Montezuma's Castle and then to Las Vegas and Hoover Dam. After that the long trek across the country to home. I'm kind of anxious to get there and get back to my craft room! Oh, I can imagine the shape I left it in. Thanks for stopping by. I'm attaching pictures of a few of the places.