Look who I met this weekend...

Yes none other than the Cricut from Provo Craft!! I have no
idea who was in this outfit but they were very hot, I could
feel the heat just standing next to them.  Provo Craft were
one of the sponsors for Creative Escape this weekend and
were making everyone happy with the Cricut mascot
showing up in all sorts of places.

This is the lovely gift that was left for each participant in their
rooms on Friday night. Not sure if you can see but we all
received a Pound of Paper from Bazzill Basics Paper, a
custom set of Creative Escape Glimmer Mist colours,
a gorgeous bracelet that was made in this year's CE colours
of Turquoise, Black and Silver, a Quilting Arts magazine and
a Fairytale Brownie - if you have never tasted one of these
they are heavenly :)

Here I am with Claudine Hellmuth at the meet the teacher
trunk show.
This event happens on Thursday and you get to meet all of
the teachers and see some of their work on display.

I had a wonderful time there this year, it was better than last
year but I have really enjoyed all 4 of the ones that I have
attended. We had some projects that were a little ambitious
but we have a fabulous book that has photos and instructions
for all of the projects so that we can finish them off at home.
We got to make a gorgeous necklace with
Margie Romney-Aslett, and had a photography lesson with
Maggie Holmes.
We also made a really cute album with Teresa Collins, and
got to try out the Cinch machine from We R Memory Keepers.
There were also great projects with Pam Black, Trisha
Ladouceur, Jessica Sprague and of course Heidi Swapp. The
event ended Saturday night with a delicious dinner that
started with dessert first - a tradition of Creative Escape.
There were tons and tons of raffle prizes given away, a live
auction to win some of the fabulous mirrors that were
created by teachers past and present and then a talk by
the key note speaker, Jaimee Rose.

It was a weekend of making new friends, meeting up with old
friends and sharing the passion of creating and saving our
memories in ways that are meaningful to us.
Looking forward to being there again next year...

Compendium Challenge Week 11...

This week's challenge up on Linda's blog is something I have
never done before. All I can say is that I love, love, love this
technique and cannot wait to do it again.

It is called Blended Batik and that is all I can tell you, so if
you have not got the book yet go and get it so that you can
try this and all of the other wonderful techniques that are in there.

I honestly didn't think this would work first time for me, I

usually have issues, but this worked like a charm. If I can do

it then anyone can :) 

I used Stormy Sky distress ink to colour it and 2 different
Japanese masking tapes that came in a set. Sorry I do
not know what it is called but I am pretty sure I got them
from Etsy.

I am leaving early Thursday morning to meet my friend and

then we are off to Creative Escape. Will report back after the

event, looking forward to having fun and making some
fabulous projects!

Can't stop melting...

and no, not because I live in Arizona!! although it has been
hotter than heck here this week. After taking a class the other
month with the wonderful Mike and Lesley I have finally
broken my melting pot out of it's box. I bought it after
watching a DVD that I got called "The Journey Continues"
with Tim Holtz.
Now it must have been a year and a half ago at least but I
was very intimidated by it, really the likelihood that I would
burn myself is what has put me off. Well not any more, lol!
I went over to my friend Lisa's earlier this week and the
photo above is what I made there after only being there a
couple of hours. This was done by melting clear UTEE
(Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) and then adding in different
UTEE colours. We had so much fun doing this that when I
got home I dug out the DVD and watched some of it again.

This led me to another project which Tim demoed on the
DVD, picture below.

This project was title Glazed Mosaics, and although mine are
not quite as good as Tim's I am very happy with the results.

So my next step was to find video's by Suze Weinberg who is
the queen of melt art. I found one where she made a whole
bunch of tiles and used them to decorate a plain mirror. I was
really keen to try this but had to go out and purchase a
silicone ice cube tray for this project. Well I finally found one
and this morning I made these:

So now the question is what am I going to do with all
of these ?? Well I am not exactly sure myself but I think
they will be added on to some of my art projects. Right
now I am just enjoying trying out something new, and
for me that is part of what art is all about.

Compendium challenge week 10...

Well after throwing away my first idea here is my piece
for this week's challenge. The challenge this week
involved the use of Distress Stickles and the lovely Linda
wants to know what colours we used. On my piece I used
some of Tim's Shabby paper stack and then used some
7 Gypsies stamps on the background, a grungeboard
butterfly and some bling. I used Fired Brick and

Worn Lipstick distress stickles on the butterfly and
liberally applied the Rock Candy distress stickles
over the swirls and stamped butterfly. I took 5 pictures
of this and I cannot see the Rock Candy stickles,
but trust me it is there :)

I want to thank Linda for putting this challenge together,
every Monday I look forward to seeing what we have to
do for that week's challenge. Also I am definitely going
outside my box with some of these pieces, particularly
today's. Anyone who knows me knows that pink and
butterflies are not my thing, so today is definitely a
change for me. Looking forward to seeing what
everyone else does.

It's that time again...

Back to school this week, where did the summer go!

So my oldest is now a Senior in high school and my
youngest just started as a Freshman. They have not
been in the same school for the last 4 years so it will
be interesting to see how this goes. It has been a tough
week having to get up early again and they have been
bringing home lots of forms that I need to sign. I much
prefer the end of the school year :)

Last year and the year before I did something called
Project 365, I have now heard it called Picture of the Day.
After spending 2 years with my camera as my constant
companion and trying to find interesting things to
photograph each day I decided to take this

year off. Well my husband and oldest son were not happy
as they loved looking back through the months to see
what we had been up to.

I have decided to bring this project back, I had the idea

to document the senior year of my son as it is probably
his last year at home with us before college. I hate to think
of it this way so I am looking for ideas of a title for my
365 album. I had several thoughts that involved things
like "Life with a Senior","365 days of living with a Senior".
Seeing it like that made me realise it could be construed
as an actual senior, as in an older person, lol!
I would like to put the title on the front of the album so
everyone will know what it is about before they open the
album up. My first album was titled "2008 - A Year in Pictures".
I know there are a lot of very creative people out there
and am hoping for suggestions...

Compendium challenge week 9...

Here is my entry for this week's challenge as posted at
StudioL3.

I had a few issues with the crackle paint and I have had
problems before. I love the idea of the crackle paints but
have to say that the product does not last long at all
before drying up completely.

I wanted to use the Picket Fence crackle but it was totally
solid with the brush stuck in the middle. I had to use the

white paint dabber and then the Rock Candy
Distress Crackle instead. Despite the issues, I do love
using the Rock Candy crackle and now have several
jars of that so I can use it on anything.

Have a look at this :

As you can see it is way passed the add water to it stage.
I found another 2 of my crackle paints the same so now
that makes 6 I have barely used and then had to throw
away. Am I the only one having this issue ? if so then
what is everyone else doing to keep their paints useable ?

I'm back...

Well I came home last night from a couple of days at Art Unraveled.

I was going to stay one more night and attend the
shopping extravaganza that was held this morning but
decided to cut it short due to something that happened
earlier this week. So here is a quick report.

This is my workspace in Traci Bautista's class where we
got to play with paints, we were shown lots of demo's by
Traci and then went off to try them out. We were to
make background papers and then had to cut them up
to make a collage, it was so hard to cut up the papers
we had just made, I had to choose the ones I did not
like as much so I could keep all the ones I did like, lol!

This is me with my cruise mate Michelle both having fun
in Traci's class. If you ever get the chance to take a class
with Traci I highly recommend it. She has so much
information to share and the class is so stress free and fun,
I am looking forward to making more background papers.

This is from my class yesterday with Karen Michel. I love
how it turned out but may still add a little more to it.
You would not believe the colour of the paint that was
used as we used India Ink to make a patina on top of it.
A very fun class and I actually have a bigger piece that I
made which needs finishing, although I am tempted to not

embellish the wood blocks - will have to think about it.

It was a very brief experience of Art Unraveled for me
but I did enjoy my daytime classes.
I also met a very nice lady from Austin, TX - hello Susan!!

We were sat next to each other for the Weds night class,
which all I can say was not a good class, but we had a
really nice time chatting and maybe will get to meet
again at another event.

Compendium challenge week 8...

Here is my week 8 entry for the challenge going on at
Studio L3. This week's challenge required the use of
grungeboard or grungepaper, that is all I can say about
it per the rules.

I have not really used grungeboard much before, which if
you saw the amount I had you would find that hard to believe:)

My die cut note card was cut from grungeboard and I
tried several colours on it before I found one that seemed
to show up well. It really does require a lot of inking as it
seems to really suck up the ink. My tip is do not even
think about using light colours on it.

The heart die cut was from a set I got in a kit from Heidi
Swapp, which I sprayed with some Smooch Spritz, just
started trying those out and I really like them.

I am lucky enough to be going to Art Unraveled here in
Phoenix this week for a few days, it is back to school next
week so cannot be away for too long. I am looking
forward to taking a Zentangle class,  also taking a class
with Traci Bautista and a class with Karen Michel.
Looking forward to learning some fun new things,
hopefully I will remember to take some pictures!