Thursday, August 28, 2008

When you teach your son, you teach your son's son

SON: "Mom, I'd really like to ride the bus to school this year."
ME: "Ok, we might be able to do that. Will you take care of your sister on the bus? Make sure she is safe, has a seat, and knows where to go?"
SON: "Yes. And if any kids bigger than her pick on her, I will find them in the halls (if the school has halls), and I will tell them, 'HEY! That's my sister! If you mess with her, you have to deal with me!'"
DAUGHTER: "But what if the kids are bigger than you??"
SON: *shrugging* "Then I kick 'em in the balls."

We are making progress in the field of Big Brother Responsibilities. We have never encouraged ball-kicking, though, lol...

STAMPS!

1. My son had been asking me to carve him a worm stamp for a couple weeks. I didn't realize that he wanted a worm coming out of a hole int eh ground, so I taught him a simple masking technique, using POst-It notes =]
2. I carved this deer stamp for my partner in the Hand carved stamp #2 swap at Swapbot. isn't it fantastic?! ^_^
3. I carved a whole bunch of little stamps while at work last Saturday. Some of them are SO tiny! hehe I really like the nautical star, and the hammer and wrench =]

My kids got their hairs cut for school (today is their second day of school, btw). My little girl went through about a half dozen magazines at the salon (if you can call Fantastic Sams a "salon", lol), and settled on a picture of Rachel Leigh Cook that she fell in love with. She was very assertive in the chair, telling the stylist exactly how she wanted her hair, and how she DIDN'T want her hair, hehe.

She had about 7 inches cut off her hair. I was fine with it, but slightly disturbed at how fine SHE was with it. She kept saying, "I'm FINE, mom! If I don't like t, it'll grow back. It's just hair!" It now only takes about half a minute to brush her hair in the morning (down from about 10 minutes!), and we think it looks really great on her ^_^

Friday, August 22, 2008

Inch by inch

Really? Another hobby?? I wonder how many hobbies one person can have. I mean, mine tend to be *pretty much* in the art-ish department, but, like, am I gonna start forgetting how to tie my shoes, or something? Something has to go, to make room in my head for all this stuff

I took the dive into inchies today. An inchie is a piece of artwork that is one inch by one inch. Sounds pretty rediculous, no? ;)

I joined some swaps for Alphabet Inchies. 26 inchies depicting something relating to each letter of the alphabet. Oh, plus a wild card. And I joined a Love & Romance Inchie swap.

I completed all the inchies for these swaps today. The alphabet inchies are all watercolored, and the love inchies are a mix of watercolor, stamps, and gel pen.
Love & Romance Inchies

Alphabet Inchies




The alphabet, according to Kyla:
Acorn
Bomb
Crown
Dress
Earth
Fingerprint
Gift
Hand
Insect
Java
Kiss
Lime
Moon
Notes
Owl
Pumpkin
Quail
Rocket
Skull
Toadstool
Umbrella
Veggies
Wings
X marks the spot
Yummy
Zen

*WHEW!*
I really like the way the watercolored inchies came out. I'm not so sure I like the collage ideaa on such a small scale. It makes me feel stifled, or something =X I don't think I will really start collecting these things...I'm not sure what I would do with them (lose them, most likely, lol).

Here is a picture of how I watercolor. I press my inkpad onto the (outside) top of the lid, and pick up the ink (pigment ink...dye inks dry too fast to paint with) with my aquabrush. I love my aquabrush, but I need a new one after all this painting. The tip is getting kinda fuzzy =X Oh, and aquabrush is a paintbrush that holds water int eh handle...so, no need for a cup. This is good for messy kids...and their messy mom ;)


Finally, here are some ATCs I made for the Four Seasons ATCs swap.

I spent a lot of time watercoloring the backgrounds of these...and then I went and covered them all up, heh X]

Okay, hubby is telling me that it is bedtime. I've had a cough for a couple weeks now, and had a fever today...although, I don't really feel sick O_o Just tiredd...and a little annoyed *cough*cough*

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Give it away, give it away...(blog candy!)

I went looking for some plastic canvas today, to use as paper piercing templates. The plastic canvas works well, because it has evenly spaced holes, and has more rows than some of the specialty templates.



I marked the center of my 4in square template with some StazOn ink to make it easier to count out rows. I had intended on color coding every other row with Sharpie, so that it would be REALLY easy, but the Sharpie rubs off easily =/



Anyway, my store only sells these shapes in packs of 10, so I have NINE SETS, one square, and one circle each, to give away! First come, first served, please leave a comment on this post, let me know if you would like me to mark the middle of your square, and I will email you for your address =]

4in square, resting on top of a stack of (approx) 4in circles.



I don't get a lot of hits on my blog, so if you happen to stumble upon this years from now, don't hesitate to ask if I have any of these left. I probably will ;) lol

Friday, August 15, 2008

WOW WOW!

My peartree atc was featured as the Artist Trading Card of the Day on Squidoo!



grinning ear.to.ear. Seriously ^_^

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

An un-partridge in an un-pear tree! *tutorial!*

Clicky the picture to go to my collage tutorial on Flickr.



My Greatest Tip:

Know when to quit!


I tore up this ATC because I just couldn't stop futzing with it. I'm still pretty happy with it, though. You can see a bit there on the left, where I tried to roughen the edges with my sanding block, and ended up tearing the paper =X I tried to blend it in with some green chalk...I think it worked alright =]

Monday, August 11, 2008

This is...a work in progress

This is a stamp I am carving. A wild rose, the image is from Cornish Heritage Farms.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

For those about to rock

...we salute you! Seriously, I love this Jack Black movie, School of Rock. I love it even more after getting sucked into the Nickelodeon programs, iCarly, and Drake and Josh (by my kids, of course ;) I should really buy the soundtrack to this movie; it makes my heart smile ^_^

Anyway, I have been carving my little fingers to the bone this weekend! I worked on Friday, and had to go in 2 hours early (bee-yoo-tee-ful wedding reception!) on Saturday, so I spent a lot of time sitting behind the bar, cutting up rubbah ;) I'm starting to get into the holiday groove, started with a couple of Christmas-y stamps (a deer, and holly leaves/berries). I already have some Halloween stamps drawn up.

Side trip: did you know that I have almost three whole sketchbooks full of designs? I also have countless pieces of scrap paper tucked into my sketchbooks, with even more designs on them. I can't remember the last time I had to buy a sketchbook. Somehow, they keep coming to me. Like, the one I have just started came to me in a bag of crafty things given to me by a friend who was moving (and downsizing). I prefer smallish, unlined sketchbooks, with smooth, but not glossy, paper. I always start on the 2nd page in the book, and end up decorating the first page a little at a time, as I fill up the rest of the pages =]

Back to the stamps! So, I've carved a deer, and holly. I also have about 425974296379276 friends and family that have either just given birth, or are due in the next 3 months.

Really, I've been trying to get pregnant for 2 years....making baby cards and gifts for EVERYONE ELSE really exercises my "grace" component.

So, here are a baby onesie, and a stroller/carriage/buggy THING. I think they are super cute ^_^

Finally, a tree, that made me cross-eyed for two days - that's how long it took me to carve it! I carved the tree for a specific ATC I have in mind =]

On to the pictures!!


Stamps I carved this weekend (Aug 8th & 9th). I drew the tree myself, but the other images are from a stamp company called Cornish Heritage Farms.

There's a leaf at the top of the tree that looks cut off; it's just an incomplete print =X

I colored the images in quickly with my Prismacolors.

Speaking of Prismacolors, I just found that there is a bigger set available than the one I have. I have the 120ct set, and I see on the website a 132ct set! O.M.G! My husband doesn't get it; he thinks I should just find out which colors in the 132ct set I do NOT have, and go buy those individually. Well, I mean...that's what he thought after I told him how much the 132ct set costs ;)

Oh, and here is the final version of the card I made for my friend, Michael =]


The inside of the card. Cupcake stamp colored with Prismacolors.

It's 11:00pm (just about), and my kids are still awake. That happens when their daddy doesn't bring them home until 10:00pm =[ Oh well, maybe I'll get to sleep in tomorrow, heh *sigh*

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Slowdown the birthday train!

I have so many birthdays coming up! TWO close friends, brother, nephew, husband, brother-in-law...yikes! Also, an ooooold friend of mine form my high school years is coming to town on a research project, and she will be staying here on our sofa for a week. She's been living in Scotland, going to school there, so, like, I've only seen her once in the past, ooooh...8 years? =X It will be interesting, but I am excited =]

Okay, onto the fun stuff!

Doodlebug stamp for my mom:

There was a book that I used to read to my kids every night, called "Daddy is a doodlebug". I don't know what happened to that book...
My mom designed this little guy, she calls a doodlebug. She had appliqued it onto some aprons she made for the kids last Christmas, and requested I carve a stamp of the doodlebug for her.

Birthday card for Michael:

The browns match better irl than this pic shows.
I made this card for my friend, Michael. I got the layout and colors from this card. I had no papers that were even close to what I wanted, so I made the striped and brown papers on my computer (at 300dpi). Oh, I made the "Happy Birthday" piece on my computer, too, and gave it several thin coats of acrylic medium to give it a glossy look.
Now that I am looking at it, I have an even better idea in mind for his bday card, lol...too bad I've already signed the inside -_-

Christmas Candies:

Little felt candy ornaments made for the Feltbots: Christmas Ornament #4 - Candy swap at Swapbot.

Birdy tags!

Been practicing with my Martha Stewart circle cutter.
Tree and bird stamps hand-carved by myself. I sponged a slightly darker blue ink around the edges of the circles, and then sponged on some prown ink lightly over that. I dabbed black and brown Versacraft inks on the trees, and embossed them with clear ep. I printed the birds in brown Versacraft ink on yellow patterned paper, cut them out, and glue-sticked them onto the tags.

I have another bday card that I have already finished, but haven't photo'd, yet. I'm off to pick up my Stampin' Up! catalog today (only 4 more days left on this catalog!). I have many more cards to make this week...and it's already Thursday! =X