It is finally home...

About a year and a half ago, the editor of Somerset Home, requested my wooden Home Shrine for the upcoming spring issue of the magazine. And, while the piece did not make it into that issue, I was delighted, none the less, by the request. Yesterday, the Fed Ex man left a box for me and inside was my Home Shrine. Welcome home!

Each of the four panels are from a repurposed mini album by Genuinely Jane Studios. I covered these with crumpled tissue paper that I had 'aged' with inks and attached with a spray adhesive. The lace is vintage, the frames metal (and source unknown)that I also 'distressed' with a combination of alcohol inks and Krylon ink pens. The heart at the top and the two medallions on the top most frame are from pieces of vintage jewelery. The photos are free downloads from the internet and I used the iridescent water color paints by Yasutomo to highlight them.

Each panel has a tribute to home such as "Where the heart is", "a port in the storm" etc. Smiles that this has come back to the nest! Thanks for looking

Creative Therapy

When I worry, I clean. Unfortunately, I don't worry enough or my house would be in the House Beautiful magazine or one of those How to Organize your Home mags. But, I've been on a cleaning/ reorganizing jag since our friend has been in harm's way with his health.

One of the things I set out to do was purge my work room. I started on one side and worked my way down drawer by drawer, shelf by shelf and have only finished about 1/3 of the room so far. In the process, I have also been finishing small things that I had left unfinished...and this wire dress form was one. I wanted something a bit "Carman Miranda" but with a touch of vintage. She is done and has joined her sisters perched on top of the shelves on what E believes to be "his side" of my work room!

Still cleaning and reorganizing...and two big boxes ready for the multi-gal crafty garage sale to be at my house.

Hope your day is scrap happy...and our friend is doing great!

Gingersnaps' Yahoo group challenges for Feb.

This month the theme is royalty and Gingersnaps is doing it up right. The yahoo group has a sketch challenge, a technique challenge and a recipe challenge each month. This month, the recipe challenge was to use 1 sparkle, 1 crown and 1 red item. The tag is my example. To view the other challenges and to join the yahoo group, please click here

Gingersnaps Creations Coffee and Cream Challenge

Use this simple but elegant combination as the basis for your own creation!

When the challenge closes on February 20, 2011, we will pick 10 Ginger Gems - fabulous creations that we feel really exemplify that challenge's objective. The Ginger Gems will appear in our wrap-up post and in a slide show in the blog bar for an entire week and their creators will have the honor of displaying our Ginger Gems blog badge.

For your chance to be eligible as a Ginger Gem or as a Home Page Artist, just follow the simple guidelines below:

1) Make a paper crafting or mixed media creation using coffee and cream (dark brown and ecru) as your main color palette;

2) Post your creation to your blog or online gallery with a mention and link to this post; and

3) Come back to this post and leave a comment including a DIRECT link to your creation or use the linky application below. Remember to make it a link to the specific post or picture and not just a general link to your blog or gallery. We need to be able to find your art!

For more information on our challenges and directions on linking, please check out our FAQ page.

One random winner and seven Ginger Gems will be announced from the qualifying submissions on February 22, 2011. You have until February 20, 2011 to enter!


Can't wait to see what you create!


Be sure to link to your post and not just to your blog.

To see the amazing work by my fellow designers, please go to the Gingersnaps blog.

Artist's Trading Cards (ACOT Jan. Reveal)

My reveal for this month was about creating Artist Trading Cards with the hot new Art-C products available at ACOT. I had a blast designing these 2.5 x 3.5 cards. For the full article, click here.

Gingersnaps Challenge and two layouts

I had such fun creating these roses from brown coffee filters. To see this challenge and the other creations by my fellow design team members, check out Gingersnaps Creations blog.

As I said on my main blog a bit over a week ago, I attended and taught at the Cause for Paws fund raiser crop held in Sebring Florida. I did six single page layouts and one double pager. I can not even remember the last time I did a double page layout but I had taken so many pictures of the market in Barcelona when we were there, that I could not decide which to use, so I used them all. I'll post that one at a later time. Meanwhile, here are two of my favorites...more the subject matter than the design. Look at those funny hats on my little men! and, while the professional photos the kids had taken did not turn out as well as they were expecting, I loved these of the boys in the coveralls!


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Thanks for looking!

Happy New Year

On the first of each month, the designers at A Cherry on Top, post challenges to the membership on the site. I do an altered object challenge and focus each month on using something commonly found in the home to create something else...re-purposing.
This month, the object was paper plates. I used Tim Holtz flowers die and then sprayed the flower cut outs with Glimmer Mist. I love how soft the colors show up on the absorbent paper plate bottom and how crisp the petals remain. Layering is a snap with these.

To see the rest of the challenges, go to ACOT and on the home page use the pull down menu on the right top and click on contests and challenges.