Vintage bottle snowman

While searching for some Christmas inspiration I came across last years copy of Cloth Paper Scissors, December issue, and I found it! On the cover no less, but just had to try it. I ran to some nearby antique stores in search for some vintage bottles I thought would work. Some were quite pricey, but managed to find seven for around twenty dollars. ( the artist in the magazine stated she found six for three dollars.) Guess it depends where you are and how good you are a negotiating. The most expensive bottle was marked nine dollars, but I did get it down to seven fifty. Next was a trip to a local Michaels, cupons in hand, and bought some white "Delight" air dry modeling compound for the heads, and some filler beads for the inside of the glass bottle ( I cheated and used some fluff at the bottom) I had most of the other items from my stash of goods at home. The noses are polymer clay and eyes/mouth are small brads. The "hats" are cake decorating tips, that are decorated with junk jewelry. Add some tinsel /fabric and letter charms and Ta-Da, vintage glass bottle snowman!
Oh don't forget to cover head (and wherever else you want) with glue and sprinkle with flake irridescent glitter. All in all it took me a afternoon to put them together and let dry until the next morning when I added the finishing touches and glitter. Enjoy

Alpha Stamps Haunted House Swap

One more bit of Halloween business to post. I finally received my swap pages from the Alpha Stamps Haunted House swap. I now have a complete Haunted House with pages from different artists. (you can see below my pages I submitted for this swap). I was thrilled to "death" (pardon the pun) with these pages and I think everyone did a great job. You may visit http://alphastamps.com and click on thier gallery to view more Haunted House pages or from other swaps. Perhaps you'll be inspired to join in on the fun.

Altered Art Junkies Wicked Halloween Swap

Well speak o' the devil!! I just got this delivered after posting my Halloween book. This is from the Altered Art Junkies "Wicked Halloween swap" player Kathryn of KV Designs. I love them! I got this wickedly wonderful black wooden photo album that I am "dying" to add to, a vintage style Halloween jack-o-lantern pin which I am defiantly going to wear on Halloween day at work, a "Bad Blood" jar label, three different Halloween ribbons for my art projects, a Halloween ATC, a decorative pumpkin, vintage Halloween postcard, and a wooden ?cigar? box with a cool latch I can't wait to alter. Wow, thanks Kathryn!

Art Group Halloween Book

This is my Halloween book I made when I attended a local art group meeting. We each could pick our own style of book, I chose a blank pocket/flap book as I thought this would be fun to do. We each were asked to make six identical tags so we could swap, and have a different tag from each artist to add to our book. I don't have my tag included as I posted it in a previous posting.

This particular book is from Piggy Tales, and I purchased it last year from QVC. For those who are interested, I also know Archivers carries it. There are 10 pages in all. I tried to do something different from my dark/creepy Halloween style. So I thought I'd try a little bit of  vintage/traditional layouts

I have a couple of swaps still out that are Halloween related, so when I get them, I will post those as well.

Happy Haunting!

Halloween Swap goodies

Here is some of the swap goodies I received from one of my Halloween swaps.
Rebecca out did herself!!! Love Love Love. Thanks so much Rebecca

Welcome little one

Yeah, I know this is a art blog, but just couldn't help passing along the newest addition to my family.
Meet, Aaron Jacob Lynch, born October 18 at 10:51 pm. 7 lbs, 5 oz; 19 1/2 inches, and one p-o'd little guy when he made his debut. Looks like the Lynch household will be busy in the future!

Halloween event blog party

It's here!  Stop over and check out http://afancifultwist.typepad.com and get a spooky surprise!  not only can you visit there but on the left is a list of partiers which you can spend a whole day full of eye candy from other like bloggers!  I hope everyone has a mysteriously wonderful Halloween, I know I will..

afancifultwist.typepad.com

Halloween Tags for Swap

It's been a while since my last post, but finally got around to posting one of
my latest projects. These are Halloween tags (front and back) for a local art group I belong to. We are meeting in a couple of weeks to get together to make a Halloween book. We each had to make x amount of identical tags to swap so each member could add them to their book we will be working on.
The text on the front reads "Black Magic Woman" which is hard to see due
to the ribbon and the creepy hand charm. On the back is a recipe to make flying ointment you could apply to a broom perhaps? I hope they like them as they was fun to do. I will post my book when I get it completed.
Until next time, Happy altering!

For Susie

Yesterday, I lost a dear friend of mine, who had battled cancer for two years. Susie was a
friend, daughter, mother, grandmother, nurse, artist who had a wonderful fun personality you'd love
to be around. I admired her courage and her tenacity to live her life to the fullest, while all the while
never once stopped being there for friends or family. I will miss those stamping classes and lunches
with friends who loved to get together just because. Every time I see my hydrangas bloom, I will
think of you. Goodbye, my friend, until we meet again.

I made the Alpha Stamps Yahoo group home page!

Woo-Hoo! I am featured on the alpha stamps yahoo group home page art! The "page" was for the haunted house swap and you can view it yourself below in my post about the AS haunted house swap. Just look for the creepy skeleton in the grave yard. Thank you to all the folks at the Alpha Stamps yahoo group,, you made my day!

Halloween sprial book

As promised, I wanted to show what I was up too while visiting my sister
in Chicago. It took a better part of the week to put this Halloween book together. It is a mixed media collage work with rubber stamping, computer aided photos/text; glitter; a lot of halloween printed paper and glue! The book itself is from making memories (last year). The book is bound with sprial wire and the covers were of chipboard. It measures 7 inches x 51/4inches. The spider webs were already on the cover. I added the spider and used distress inks to give the cover some color.
There were about 9 paper pages in this book that I decorated front and back and embellished. Whew a lot of work, but worth it I think, and now on to the next project!

middle pages

middle pages

The last 7 pages

Halloween Door Hanger

I've been on vacation these past few days, visiting my sister, who lives in the Chicago area.
When we get together, we always have a crafting fest! I made this little hanging witch she can hang
from her front door to celebrate the season. We had a "frightful" good time during my visit, but alas,
all good things must come to a end, it's back to home and work (ugh!) tomorrow. I will post more of our
adventures next time. Until then; Happy altering!

Wicked Halloween Swap

This is a little spooky table top witches hat I made for a swap hosted by altered art junkies.
It will be just one little goodie my swap partner will receive from me for this wicked swap. The hat is made from black linen and lightly stuffed and all kinds of spooky embellishments added. It is hard to tell from the photo, but on the front is a glittery spider and a distressed hang tag that says "Hocus Pocus". It was a lot of fun, I just might have to make me one too!

A S Haunted house swap

This 7 page chipboard book set from alpha stamps was the foundation of the Haunted Halloween swap
which I am participating in. All or most of the images were from alpha stamps. All of the "pages"
will go to different artist and I'll also get 7 pages from different artist to complete the "set" to make
up your own haunted house book. It was fun to do, but also difficult because it was a vendor required
swap, I am use to just going where my muse takes me. Had to think about this one!

These were the first two I made for this swap. These were images used from
a collage sheep I purchased from alpha stamps. I can't make anything flat
so I popped out the circle and wizard (hard to tell in a photo) with foam squares and
placed over orginal image. The second image is a wizard that I again embellished and
added deminson .

Creepy grave yard scene, perhaps he stepped on something?
Just cutsy halloween props

alchemy sphere and extended painted background of wizard studing astromy

Haunted house front,, creepy doors will open to reveal inside

Now you can see what's going on inside the house,...a anatomy class?

One of my newest favorite places to shop for rubber stamps

http://stampfrancisco.com

http://stampfrancisco.blogspot.com

New Background

I thought I'd add a bit of Halloween to my blog for the season. Think I will do the same with all the seasons like I do for my front entryway! Enjoy

Halloween Rules Tag Book

I made this tag book last year, and I think it is my favorite. I used classic horror pictures that I did image transfer
techniques to the tags and found some quirky little halloween rules to use as a theme for this little tag book. Just couldn't help posting! Since the pictures are small and you couldn't quite read the rules, I have posted each with their picture. Enjoy

Halloween Rule #1

When it appears you have killed the monster, NEVER check to see if it is really dead!

Halloween Rule #2

Don't search the basement, especially, if the power has just gone out!

Halloween Rule #3

Don't take anthing from the dead!

Halloween Rule #4

If you find a town which looks deserted, it's probably for a reason. Take a hint and stay away!

Halloween Rule #5

If your car runs out of gas at night, DO NOT go the the nearby deserted looking house to phone for help!

Halloween Rule #6

If you are running from the monster, expect to trip or fall at least twice, more if you are from the female persuasion.
Also note that, despite the fact you are running as the monster is merely shambling along, it is still moving fast enough
to catch up with you!

Halloween Rule #7

Beware of strangers bearing tools: such as chainsaws,staple guns, hedge trimmers, electric carving knives, lawnmowers,
butane torches, soldering irons, band saws, or any device made from deceased companions!

Halloween rule #8

If your compainions suddenly exhibit uncharacteristic behavior, such as: hissing, fascination for blood, glowing eyes, increasing
hairiness, and so on, get away from them as fast as possible!

Halloween Rule #9

If you are searching for what caused a noise, and find out it isn't the cat. Leave the room immediatly if you value your life!

Halloween Rule # 10

Stay away from certain geographical locatins, some of which are listed here: Amityville, Elm Street,Transylvania, the Bermuda Triangle, or any small town in Maine!

More space art painted with spray paint. There are many different kinds of spray painting, I just happen to like painting planets. Perhaps you can be inspired to try for yourself. Try googling spray paint space art.

Spray Paint space paintings

Early this spring, I was looking around you-tube for some painting tutorials, and ran across a man painting a landscape completly with spray paint. I was fascinated, so I researched some more. I came across some of the space art paintings, painted with only spray paint! I had to try it. Here is some of my works. I will admit, I have thrown away more than I kept, but its a technique like anything else, the more you do it the better it gets. And the best part? It only takes a couple of minutes to complete a painting!

I found a picture that looked similar to this, here is my interpretation. The sky and moon are done with
spray paint. The tree was added with acrylics later

Alchemy tag book

It's time for me to think "Halloween" so I dug out my stash to see what I could come up with.
I did a class earlier this year in where we made a tag book with a large tag as the cover. I used this idea to make this little Alchemy tag book. Alchemy is the science of magic and there's no better theme to use for Halloween than magic!

another peek inside at different pocket pages

A peek inside the book, there are 4 pockets that hold the tags

This is the reverse of the tags that are in the "alchemy book"

Hogwarts

I am a big Harry Potter fan, I painted this picture in 2007 of Hogwarts castle. Yesterday I went to the opening
of Harry Potter and the Half blood prince which was excellent, although the books are much better. This past May, in Chicago, I got a chance to visit, the Harry Potter exhibit located at the musem of science, which included most of the sets and props used in the films. It was a great time.

My son, Jake. Love you and I am so PROUD

A peek inside Jakes' book

Military Altered Book

I am a military mom, my son, Jake, is a Army national guardsman who deployed to Iraq in 2007 I made him this book to remember is deployment and service

I added a different element, drawers! And filled them with little trinkets.

Angels Altered Book

This book was the first one I kept for myself about angles among us. I guess I felt the need of a guardian angle.The original book was all about angles with beautiful pictures, so I couldn't bring myself to completly redo it, much of the orginal book remains.

Queen of the Fairies

Introduction to fairies spread

The Green man spread

Here is a peek inside of my fantasy story book. As you can see, it reads like a real book.

Altered books

This is some of my older works that I just wanted to add to my blog. I fell in love with altered books about
4 years ago, and have done many. This one is my latest, it was a labor of love and most of the artwork was painted by myself. For those who don't know what a altered book is, it is just a old book with a new life breathed into it. The subject/content can be whatever the artist chooses. In this particular book, I wanted to do a fantsay book, a story book with faires, mermaids, and the like. It is very textural and something my grandchildren will perhaps want to read someday.

Steampunk jewelry

Man in the moon steampunk style pendant made from old pocket watch case. Elements
watch gears, swarovski crystals, silver and brass charms.

Steampunk jewelry

This is a smaller piece. I love the etching over the watch workings. Elements used: brass bee charm; handmade polymer clay rose; vintage porcelain cameo, swarovski crystals; silver plated charm, and fresh water pearl

Steampunk Jewelry

I love charm bracelets, so I designed one with a neo-victorian feel. Elements used are photo charms with added handmade polymer clay roses, freshwater pearls, faceted smoky quarts beads, and brass charms.

Yes, another ideaology piece, with a slightly different twist. A cuckoo clock was the inspiration here.

Steampunk Jewelry

Time itself was the inspiration here. Full of brass gears and actual watch parts in this funky necklace

I love Tim Holtz, and I have used his ideaology pieces to make a lovely nature steampunk style necklace. Fresh water pearls serve as the eggs in a hand made wire birds nest

You might recognize this piece from my header photo. Very vintage and victorian

steampunk jewelry

This is some of my more recent works, Steampunk style jewelry, made from old watch parts. I love the eclectic feel . What is old becomes new again.

Slowly comming together

I am not very savvy in the blogging world;...yet, but I am learning. Less savvy at trying to put together this blog. Check back as I am still working out the content, getting everything I want and how I want to "expose" my other side.

Under Construction