12 Days of Christmas Swap-CC Swaps

This is a journal I made for a "12 Days of Christmas" swap. The covers are painted with golden fluid acrylic paints, then textured by either removing paint with a cosmetic sponge & sequin waste, or adding additional paint with textured wallpaper. The image is a transparency transfer as well as the words. I bound them with the Bind it All which I just Love!

The top 2 pictures are of the front & back, the bottom 2 are the inside of the back and the inside of the front covers.

Christmas Recipe Tag Book Swap

This is the front & back of my recipe tag book swap. The background of the front I created with tissue paper, images, scraps of music all collaged on with white glue. Then I stamped over it with gold & silver stars. I scanned the background & printed for the 21 tags, then layered with the music, gold "ribbon" and the reindeer.

The recipe is one that I have made many many times and people always seem to love it. It is a nice option for a non chocolate dessert. Just for a change. :-) I have made it in different molds, depending on the season and used different fruits & berries. I don't usually add all of the liquor to the berries which makes it quicker. And the recipe itself takes just 10 minutes to put together, then just refrigerate & unmold later. :-)

Art & Soul - LK Ludwig class

This is actually the Back of my book, which I uploaded last. I'm still having problems figuring out how to Blog. It came up first. I didn't decorate the front of the book yet. Following are the pages I got done:

This was a nature journal class taught by LK Ludwig. We started with a Very FUN metal mesh technique. Laying items on the mesh & spraying with acid left beautiful images on the mesh. My friend Debbie came up with another thought...to stamp the mesh with a rubber stamp & Versamark pad which acts as a resist. The results are Wonderful!

I was a little disappointed in this class as it didn't really have a direction for me. LK's books are Wonderful! But we brought transparencies, pictures, poems..........most of which we never used. Plus it was the final day & I was tired. So I did get some pages done, although I did not start sewing them into our book covers.

Art & Soul - Angela Cartwright class

This was my project in Angela Cartwright's "Dance of Life" class. It is not finished...I have not yet decided how to color (if at all) the "border". I enjoyed Angela's vision of this project, however there was no class sample and I was never sure where we were going with it. I finally stopped trying to figure it out & just started working. Although I didn't have the pictures I might have wanted, I found images in my baggies of goodies that all related to my life in some way. OK, so the bottle of wine is the biggest image! LOL I Did enjoy finding images however to work with, having not printed any that we were Supposed to bring. I wasn't Thrilled with the embossing powder I brought either. I didn't know exactly what we were going to do with it, so I just grabbed some clear & some gold. My gold turned out to be Very Glittery. So this is Quite a Shiney piece! I actually like it though....it reminds me of the vintage glass glitter cards.

Art & Soul Leighanna Light class

This class was "Vintage Metal Treasure Deck" taught by Leighanna Light. I have made ATC's before, but didn't think I would ever make a Metal one. I got a slow start in this class, mostly trying to do the rusting technique which didn't really work well for me. I preferred the gesso techniques. Once I got started, I got quite a few done and bought 2 more metal "decks" to hopefully make more in the future.

Art & Soul - Traci Bautista Class

I have taken many of Traci's classes and Always enjoy them. This was a small book we made using Traci's painting techniques. I have several additional signatures painted, but I need to add those yet.

I Enjoyed the patchwork arrangement of our papers on this book. And I always seem to love books with beads & fibers attached. I used parts of old earrings I have stored in a box for my projects. And I still need to add some more.

Art & Soul Portland - Misty Mawn Class

I went to Art & Soul in Portland in October and had a Wonderful Time! I came home to an income tax deadline for extension tax returns and am only now getting to finally post some pictures and reviews of the classes I took.

MISTY MAWN Class: This was the first class I had taken with Misty and I found her very sweet, helpful and Talented! She gave us so many techniques I Wish I had taken notes! I just kept trying them all and of course, now that I'm home & back to work, I forget many of them. But I enjoyed the class enough that I have signed up to take more classes from her at Asilomar in April. Along with more of the background techniques, I Hope to learn how to shade a face to make it look like a face & not a flat, whiteface mime. :-)

The 2 top pictures are of some backgrounds. The picture to the left is one I drew the face on, then Misty "fixed" my shadowing & made it look like a real face! I was Thrilled to see the transformation. The picture on the right is another one I started. My shading is actually Much better than the first one, but I had just started & need to do more work on this one.