Life of the Party

It's the Grand Opening Celebration at Red Rubber Designs!

As I mentioned in my last post, there's lots going on this Friday and Saturday at Red Rubber Designs, so you'll definitely want to check out their site and blog (link below) to get in on the fun with contests, prizes, store specials (EVERYTHING IS 20 PERCENT OFF TODAY AND TOMORROW)and the like. 

One thing that's going on is the first ever RRD Design Team blog hop.  All design team members have created something using this fabulous Life of the Party stamp from RRD.

Details of the Hop:

A Red Rubber Design prize package will be awarded to one lucky person.
To qualify: Leave a comment at all the DT blog stops on the hop. 

To complete the hop - Come back to the RRD blog Sunday, April 15th for a special prize post and leave a comment that you completed the hop.  Comment Deadline: Sunday, April 15^th at Midnight (Central Time)
Winner Announcement: All qualifying names will be entered into a random drawing. The winner will be announced on the RRD blog Monday, April 16^th. Good Luck and Happy Hopping!    

Hop Here:

Red Rubber Designs 

Sarah 

Paula-Kay  
Louise 

KC  

Kate  
Diana  
Debra  

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My project details:  My framed piece opens up to include a place for photos -- to share exactly who the life of the party was:):)
In addition to using this cool RRD stamp, Life of the Party ~~ I just love this stamp by the way ~~ my background paper is from the Uptown Girl collection which you can also find in the shop.  I black embossed the stamp over this polka dotted paper, which I think sort of added the look of balloons falling to the floor.
The bling is from my own personal collection -- now doesn't that sound fancy?  What it really means is I grabbed it from a junk drawer overflowing with all manner of crafting odds and ends!

Well, have fun at the hop.  And make sure and check in frequently at RRD to see what Pam is adding to the store.  I see some amazing stamps coming up on the horizon....I think you'll like them as well.

"Art" Swap

I participated in an amazing swap with four other very talented artists and fellow bloggers.  Our assignment was to create a 6x6 canvas with the theme of "Art."  The idea is we could assemble our canvases into a book if we desired.  Here are the five projects all together:

Lynn Stevens piece was the first to arrive.

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This "timeless" piece came from  Pam Upper .

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I almost used the exact same artist stamp for mine as Sarah Hemphill did here.

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I decided instead to go with these little art angel.  Sorry for the funny angle, but I didn't want to get the reflection of me taking the picture in this little mirror I used in my project..

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And finally this steampunk piece from Lori Hessler..

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I love each and every one of these pieces of art and am so honored to have them all!

Thanks again, Ladies!

Happy 4th of July

After spending 10 hours cleaning up my craft areas (yes, that's plural), I felt the need to sit down and actually create something.  So I pulled out my Artistic Outpost patriotic stamps (Hero set) and went about altering this vintage Bingo card.

Good story about the Bingo card.    When I was down in Alabama with Sarah, Pam & Lori we were out junking and came upon a town rummage sale.  I happened upon a box of these Bingo cards (there are some in black as well).  They were marked "Free."  I doubled checked with the woman whose booth it was and she replied, "Yes, they're free.  Can't imagine what anybody would want with them."

Happily, there was more than enough to share with everyone!

Father's Day Canvas

To create the background for this chipboard canvas I started out by layering color from the new Distress Strains from Tim Holtz.  Love these for covering large areas!  And so much easier on my hands then using the Distress Ink with the applicator. 

I added some white gesso over that to mute the color.   I then applied a variety of stamps in various colors of Staz-On using the Generation Redux set from Artistic Outpost.

The rusty flourish was created by first applying some pumpkin Staz-On.  Over that I layered Distress Embossing Powder from Tim Holtz.

Another Book To Share

And this time it's an altered book I am creating for Christmas as a round robin project with Pam and Sarah.  When they visited in October we decided now would be a good time to work on this when all our Christmas stuff was still out and about.
I chose for my book the theme of "Words" which is essentially words that reflect something about Christmas.
It took me a bit of time to get this book going (Sarah and Pam both thought I'd have my part done way ahead of schedule), but I did struggle a bit.

Now that I've got my cover, sign-in page, and one other page done, I think I'm on a roll.

This is my "Noel" page.  
I had a few false starts because I chose books with very fragile pages.  I then came upon this Christmas book that for some reason already had two pages attached  together throughout the whole book.

No Tags, No Flowers -- Just Spoons

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels overwhelmed trying to keep up with Tim and his tags!  Whew!  So I'm just going to go at my own pace and make them as time allows and I feel inspired to.  Working has kept me very busy this week so that has come into play, too.  

Today I thought I'd share some altered spoons I made a few weeks ago.  It's my first attempt at them.  On Black Friday I scored a fabulous deal on a new set of silverware, so I made use of some of the spoons from the old set.

Saturday's Workout -- Finally!

I'd been wanting to participate in Saturday's Workout all week. The challenge was to alter a bottle. I couldn't find a bottle initially and then when I did I was uninspired. It was also a very busy week getting ready for my first craft fair next weekend. But last night as I finished a Diet Snapple I noticed the unusual design on the bottle and thought how this was too pretty to just throw away. And that's how I arrived at this altered bottle. Which is just barely making it in time for the challenge, but that's okay.

Details: I altered this very easily by taping a portion of the bottle at the top and bottom that I didn't want to cover with alcohol ink. Then I applied some plum, blue and green alcohol ink which didn't turn out well. When I tried to take it off with the blending solution the glass just left a black color behind it. So I went with that and added some brown alcohol ink, creating a black and brown color scheme for the middle instead. I then removed the tape and added gold sticky-backed lace on the bottom and a gold rim around the top of the alcohol ink border. I had some gold stick-on embellishments from Prima which we got on the cruise, so I added four of them towards the top. Finally, I added a beaded embellishment which came with a ribbon on top that fit exactly around the opening at the top of the bottle. Added a gold ribbon and that was it!

Altered Cabinet Cards

These cabinet cards are a few of the flea market finds I showed the other day. Just took a mind to alter them a bit. The frames around them are from the Crafty Secrets postcard kits. This is the part that was left after you punched out the chipboard postcard. They fit perfectly onto the cabinet cards.