This is a cute little "Thank You" card I made for a friend. I was really happy with how cute I thought it turned out. I love this background paper by Scenic Route, and I'm sure you all have seen these trees made by Jolees By You for sale in Michaels or one of the crafting stores in your area or on-line? I altered this tree some by adding Distress Ink for shading all over it and I then cut out little tiny leaves to add to the tree for dimension. For some reason I have always loved this particular tree embellishment and I always keep plenty of these on hand.


I'm not sure if any of you know, but making cards was kind of my first love within the mixed media world (if you want to call card making part of mixed media). I so enjoyed and still enjoy making a card for a friend &/or relative to show them that I care. I like making cards that are far from a store bought card and look nothing like what you might find in a grocery store or in a Hallmark store. But of course over time my cards got more and more elaborate and I then got into larger collages and real mixed media pieces. But I will always enjoy making cards for loved ones. For awhile there I actually made quite a bit of extra money selling my cards. Unfortunately, after I really got into submitting my work to the magazines, working on this blog and doing swaps, I no longer had the time to keep up with all my card making. Like I always say, there's just not enough time in the day to do all I want to do artistically.


I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend filled with only joy, laughter and smiles.

It's the weekend, yeah!!!

Good Friday afternoon to you all. I hope that everyone had a wonderful week that was filled only with smiles, joy and laughter.

Can you believe the Fourth of July is next weekend? Wow!! Us artist's and crafters better start getting ready for Christmas.

I wanted to show you all the original version of "Whimsy Lane" which I made as a sample for my friends at Crafty Individuals. I used only their products for this piece. This is of course also the piece that became part of my blog banner that the incredibly talented Trudi incorporated for me. She then added her unbelievable artistic touch and low and behold we had a blog banner.

I'm so sorry it's been a week now since I have posted. I got a little bug that was going around. I also happen to be very busy for some reason right now as well. I've said it before, there's just never enough time in the day.

This is a piece that I made for a friend who went above and beyond for me. It's called "Happy Dream" and it features a couple of Victorian dancers (who I just love by the way) having the time of their lives. I made the background paper by using bleach and a stamped image on this really dark boysenberry cardstock I have. Once the bleach has done it's work, I then colored it in with the Distress Inks in Peeled Paint, Orange Marmalade and Fired Brick. The chipboard frame around it is on foam dots to give it some more dimension.

And the winner is...........

Laura Haviland!! I have to tell you all she really went out of her way to help me in this endeavor. She contacted everyone she knew in her Yahoo groups, she sent e-mails on my behalf, she did a whole new post on her blog about my giveaway and she just really outdid herself trying to help me get more viewers for my blog. She happens to also be an incredibly supportive fellow artist of my work. She is also very talented herself, check out her artwork on her blog at: http://www.creativewhispers7.blogspot.com

Laura's name was mentioned the most times within the comments so she will be receiving the grand prize from me (hope you like it Laura). Laura I will get that package out into the mail to you hopefully by the end of this week.

I do also have an honorable mention as well. Gretchen from http://mimitoriasdesigns.blogspot.com Gretchen is an extremely talented jewelry maker. She is one of those artist's who brings life back into old, vintage trinkets. Her work is breathtaking and it would be well worth your efforts to check out her blog. Gretchen I will be sending you a little something as well. However, since your not a paper artist I'm not sure if you'll get any use out of it, but hopefully I will have a few things in the package that will interest you.

Thank you again everyone. Just so you know my followers have increased and my counter jumped by over 200 hits since I started this experimental giveaway. So I definitely benefited from doing this.

Shabby Chic

I have always loved the whole "Shabby Chic" look that Rachel Ashwell brought to the forefront. I love to be able to take a piece of brand new paper and tear at the edges, ink it up, wet it, crumple it up and iron it back down to make it look like an old piece of Grandma's fabric. That's what I did with this card. And in staying with the whole Shabby Chic theme, I incorporated sewing, velvet leaves, buttons and lace. One of the buttons is even an old Mother of Pearl button that was on a handmade sweater of my Grandmother's.

Giveaway Deadline

I decided that closing the giveaway on Monday evening at midnight (Arizona Time) would be plenty enough time for any referrals to come in. If I was going to get any more, I'm assuming that they would have come in by then. If anyone disagrees with that and wants me to wait a few more days, please just let me know.

Once the giveaway has closed, I will then announce the winner and within a day or two I will mail out your package.

I want to thank everyone who made any attempts in helping me to increase the readership on my blog. I wish you knew how much I appreciate your efforts? There were a few of you who really went above and beyond trying to get my blog mentioned out there, and I am forever grateful. Also, if any of you just randomly told an on-line friend to check out my blog, I want you to know that I really do appreciate that as well. Even if no comments were made you still thought enough to mention my blog to another person.

In the course of doing this little experimental giveaway, one of my followers gave me a useful tip. She suggested that I make comments on the blogs that I follow and/or like, because that too will bring viewers to my blog. I'm going to try that, however, I will only do that because I enjoy someone else's work and I want to comment on it. I'm not going to comment on someone else's blog just to get them to come over to mine, I don't work that way, it's not genuine.

So thank you again for anyone who participated. I think I already know who the winner is but you'll have to wait until Tuesday morning to find out.

Adjustment to the GIveaway Rules

Jo Capper-Sandon brought up a good point to me. Not everyone adds their name to a blog follow list, but they can still get e-mails of when that particular blog does new posts each time.

So, in light of realizing that, the person who gets mentioned the most in a comment to me as being the referral person to my blog by the new third party, will win the giveaway. Does that make sense?? Basically if you want to participate, tell whoever you want to go to my blog and make a comment, and within that comment they should mention your name as being the person who referred them to my blog.

So there you have it. Trying to write that so it doesn't sound completely confusing wasn't that easy.

Hey, if I only get one comment that's ok, then at least I got one more person to check out my blog right?

Thanks everyone!!

SaturdayVille's First Giveaway

Since my blog is pretty new and I obviously want to get some more followers, I have come up with an idea that I hope my current 16 followers will take part in.

What you need to do is tell as many people as you can to post a comment on my blog and within that comment they should tell me who referred them to the blog. My hope is that they will become followers once they view my blog.

Whoever refers the most new followers will get the prize. The prize will consist of: 1) A couple different pieces made by me. 2) Some ephemera &/or collage sheets 3) Some fibers &/or ribbon and 4) Some different sheets of paper. Think of it as a kind of kit to make your artwork with.

I hope this is incentive enough for each of you to participate. Good Luck!!

Little Boy ATCs

I love trying different background techniques for ATCs. Because they are such a small platform to work on, you can really commit to trying some crazy, different backgrounds and you haven't invested too much product into it. If you do happen to stumble across a technique you like or a background you like, you can then incorporate that into a larger collage or mixed media piece.

For the backgrounds on these three ATCs I used Polished Pigments from LuminArte in a couple different green's and blues mixed with some liquid medium. I then went around the edges with Distress Crackle Paint in Picket Fence. Once that all dried, I went over it with some Diamond Glaze so it wouldn't flake off. I then used some copper acrylic paint and bubble wrap to make some random impressions. I was very happy with the outcome of this background and I fully intend on doing it on a larger scale.

"Dream House"

Art Dolls seem to be one of the newest rages going on. Or maybe they have been going on for quite awhile and I'm just now catching up, that's probably it.

I made this little Art Doll from the miniature Maya Road chipboard people. It's kind of nice to start with one of those as oppose to starting a doll from scratch. This at least gives you a starting point for the main body parts like the head, legs and arms and torso. My little Art Doll is standing next to her "Dream House".

Last weekend I went to the Public Library and went to the section where they sell the old books. It was great because they actually had a section marked "Antique/Old Vintage Books". Which for any of us mixed media artist's is like hitting the jackpot. The books from that section were great obviously because the covers were falling off, the pages were that yellowish/brownish color and they all had that old smell. I also picked up some old romance novels and they even had some French books. The flowers on this "Dream House" card are made from the French Dictionary I found there at the Library. It's just such a great way to find some inexpensive ephemera. None of the books I got were over .50 cents. They are so great for so many different things. If you get a book that has large print, you can cut out individual words to add to the front of a card, ATC or tag. If you find a book that has poems, you can cut those out to add to your artwork. You can make flowers like I did or you can rip a page out and cover it with a color wash and then add it to a collage. The possibilities are really endless. Check out your local library if you get the chance.

Never enough time...............

I have to commend many of my fellow bloggers. There are so many of you who post artwork everyday and I'm starting to think that those of you who do that are all superhuman. Where do you find the time? I don't even work a full time 9 to 5 job anymore and I can't seem to find the time to create some new artwork to post everyday. At any rate, my hat is off to those of you who can.

Lately I have an obsession with how time flies anymore. I mean we are now into June already, half way through this new year, it's amazing to me. Wasn't it just Christmas the day before yesterday? When I was younger and people would say "when you get older time just flies by", I always thought "what are they talking about?" Now I know.

Just for fun, I made this "Shabby Chic Paris Tag". I love the combination of the blues and purples. I used one of the new stamps I got from Stampington that has been re-released by Acey Duecy, and I also used some images from Stampington that Mary Mata made. I would love to hear what you think of this style if you get the chance. I always welcome comments.

Don't forget, hurry up and enjoy the summer because it will be over tomorrow and it will then be Halloween.