ArtCricket

Making Art and Hanging with my Fur Babies!

I'm back - feeling much better! And hope to be back to posting regularly!

Concroption DT submittal for this month. I first used the Heidi Swapp dots mask on the kraft background paper. The paper is all from the the 7 gypsies Savannah Collection. The lettering is Tim Holtz Grungeboard and all the inks are from his Distressed collection. I did this last night...not sure why the creative urge hits me so late in the day!

I made 30 of these for Marilyn's Fiber Inchie Valentine's Day swap. It's the 3rd swap of hers that I have participated in and they are lots of fun. I drew and colored each inchie separately. 

Here's a photo of Miss Lucy mooshing herself into Rosie's bed! Lucy has one her own size, but of course Rosie's bed sleeps much better!

But Rosie's quite content on her sheepskin rug from Ikea. I can't even believe we debated for one second about buying it for her. She absolutely loves it. 

Inchies Trade

Found out yesterday that my alternate position in an inchies trade was activated - so 21 holiday themed inchies are completed and on their way to the east coast tomorrow...

Have a Creative Day!

Michele

Fetish ATC

I've been having a blast trading ATC's with the other gals on the Concroption design team. These ATC's are from the September "fetish" theme...can you guess which one is mine? 

Yup, it's the one in the upper left hand corner using a Hero Arts stamp and of course a tiny bit of bling. 

I am so happy Daylight savings tme has happened - I hate getting up when it is dark so my spirits are much better this week - LOL!

Have a creative day,

Michele

Creative Escape Part One

I thought before I head up to Portland for Art and Soul and 5 days of classes, I should post my photos from Creative Escape, sponsored by Bazzil and Heidi Swapp....a pic of Patty, me and Tracy arriving in Phoenix. My red suitcase weighed 47 pounds. going to Phoenix... so note to self, put the Big Bite in the smaller suitcase going back...

After we checked in at the Wild Horse Pass resort, we headed out for some shopping. Our first stop was Mystic Paper in downtown Mesa - totally my kind of scrapbooking - altered, shabby chic...

There is sooo much Public Art in the Phoenix area and downtown Mesa is no exception... this scrapbooker is outside Mystic Paper...

Then it was off to Scrapbooks, etc. where everyone, it seemed, told us to head over to the Bazzil warehouse for their sale...

They sort their paper by brand ...here's the Basic Grey...of course I searched for the new Sassafras Lass, but to no avail - even this huge store hadn't received their shipment yet...

Here's Tracy checking out with her loot at the Bazzil Warehouse - notice her BIG smile - she scored lots of cardmaking stuff, pizza boxes of paper for $20, buttons, brads, etc. for a quarter each....it is not busy because we literally closed the place up - by time we got there we had about 15 minutes to shop...it was like a scene from that old show "The Price Is Right" 

Thursday morning Patty and I went horseback riding at 8 a.m. the resort. It was great fun! Our guide was quite the character. We saw a burrowing snowy owl and heard a rattle snake, which sounded like crickets...

Later that afternoon we registered and took part in the Technique Boutique, which i have to say, i personally should skip next time because there's always some unanticipated breakdown in the process translating into loooong lines to stamp something...but there were some things that made me smile like this button on a CE attendee's purse...

After the dinner we came back to our rooms and found presents on our beds, a trademark of Creative escapes...this package held a very cute apron

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Thursday am we woke up bright and early to strt our classes at 8 am. Since we all had Heidi's class that day we wore our chandelier shirts that we had picked up in Reno over the summer....

More later!

Scrapbooking the new Jenni Bowlin Collection

Here's a layout I did with Jenni Bowlin's new collection. 

The yellow complements Bocce's grey coat perfectly!

Back from Creative Escapes - update and photos to come.

Have a Creative Day,

Michele

Last weekend in July

OK - I am trying to post for the third time. I now have learned that once you upload a photo, the only way to delete it is to delete the entire post. With that in mind, if any of these photos look,= goofy, it is because I did not want to delete my post one more time...argh! Anyway, can you believe it is almost August....like in a few days it will be the last month of Summer! here's a few photos of how I spent my last weekend in July or how I am on a hamster wheel and can't catch up...

This is an ATC I made for Nancy's book for the California Art Girls Round Robin

These are my pages in Nancy's Round Robin Art Journal. the original book is a child's vintage reader...very cool!

 

 

Pic of my pages in Roberta's book. The ATC was going into Nancy's book and then I decided the flowers in the lower left hand corner matched the flowers in the grass and I thought there must be a reason I hadn't mailed Roberta's book yet...

 

had to take some time to play with Linus, who I am sure misses sweet Miss Bocce. He's lounging on his "kitty chaise," which I bought him last weekend at Target. It is a chaise/scratcher/catnip holder extraordinaire. He loves it and knows it's for him...I have yet to see Tootsie try it out.

California Art Girls has monthly ATC trades and I signed up for 'earthquakes," of course. I lifted the background from UNR's seismo site.

 

Here's Rosie smiling because she loves the weekends. Sleeping in with mom and dad, walks, extra treats, rides to the park in the Miata. it doesn't get much better when you're the world's cutest terrier!

Toodles. Tomorrow is Monday, which means work and five days till we can play again...by then it will be..yes...August! The last month of summer! What are you plans for August?

xoxo

Michele

Photo editing Progrms - what's your fave?

Hellooooo....

check out these photo editing sites ..are there any you use or would recommend? Picasa is not on the list - it must be so yesterday. i was down at the Apple store on Sunday for a one-to-one lesson and found out that I have a "bad" version of Photoshop Elements which is why 9 out-of-10 times my computer crashes when I use it. i think Apple should stand behind the product and offer to replace. What a dreamer I am! 

I think I'll try a few of the photo editing sites on the list instead.

Have more fun with better photo manipulation!

Michele

Garden Photos to Scrapbook Someday

Hey there, Hi there...

I really, truly am promising myself to keep a garden journal this year. Maybe I will just scrap a few pages. I have all "the stuff" - I've been collecting it for a few years and it sits in a nice 12x12 plastic envelope titled "garden." At least I've got some photos started this year...here goes:

This is a concept I've been using for a few years with my tomatoes. I bought this little gizmo (actual 5 of them) from (enabler alert) www.gardeners.com You fill the tube with water, which sits in a plastic dish and is absorbed via special soil to keep the soil moist for about a week, or so. The white thingy in the middle of the tube is a straw of sorts.. with a plastic sponge on the bottom of it. When the tray is full of water, that straw bounces above the fill tube.
OK, that is enough of my Mr. Science-self for this evening! Next photo, please:

Here are my beautiful flowers from Moana Nursery anxiously awaiting to be planted. Half of them made it in last night...the others...well....before Saturday! I always plant later in the day, after dinner, to give the plants time to get use to their new surroundings and face the day a little stronger. Next photo:

I snapped this looking out my front door and noticing how Mr. Bunny's view of all the going-ons in the cul-de-sac has been obliterated by the much-bigger-than-last-year coreosposis. (I am sure I misspelled that!) And here is a close-up of said coreosp.....

I am insanely busy at work but am planning a full-on scraptastic art weekend...so I'll be catching up with you then! See you soon and enjoy the beautiful sunshine!
Michele

P.S. Now that I am using Firefox, Typepad is once again fairly intuitive!

Dad's Day Workshop on Monday, June 9th

Father's Day Mini-Book Workshop on Monday, June 9th from 6 to 8 p.m. Scrapbooks Atelier: 824-9444 Just $15! This is a handsome little 6 page mini-book for Father's Day. The base is a Maya Road chipboard book. We'll embellish with Tim Holtz paints and inks, stamps and Basic Grey papers and Tim Holtz tags and gears. If you want to use a name instead of the word "Dad' on the front, no problem, I'll bring the Quickutz.

Perfect for Dad's Day! Class size is limited, so sign-up early. Thank you! .

Father's Day Mini-Book

This is a sweet little 6 page mini-book for Father's Day. The base is a Maya Road chipboard book. We'll embellish with Tim Holtz inks and gears, Memory Box stamps and Basic Grey papers. It's the perfect size and a great gift. If you'd like more info on the workshop, send me an e-mail at artcricket@gmail.com

Thanks!