Sunday, October 26, 2014

Dia De Los Muertos

My niece is enthralled with everything day of the dead, so when I saw this digital image from Aurora Wings a couple of months ago: Las Calaveras Digital Stamp I knew right away it would be perfect for her.  Being a complicated drawing, it took a while to finally get brave enough to try and color it for her birthday.   This one was a long time in the making, it took me several weeks of coloring with copic markers and another week just to figure out the design of the card.

Despite the "creepiness" surrounding the imagery of the holiday, it is actually about celebrating loved ones that have passed so I wanted to go more toward reverent than dark, but without making it look too light and frilly either.  With the help of the Ranger distressed inks and stains, this is what I ended up with:








Thursday, October 23, 2014

Been Awhile....Yeah, Understatement!


It's been months since I last posted anything.  The summer was a busy one, I finally put together my craft room!!  When I bought this house >7 years ago, it's what I wanted with that 3rd room but, without any real storage or garage, the room quickly became filled with everything from a bicycle to painting supplies (the house kind), unpacked books, Christmas decoration,  gift wrap even a chainsaw!  Essentially, it was the catch all room, with all my crafting supplies packed and lost underneath.

Well,  I finally got the steam (and ankylosing spondylitis back under control) to be able to do something about it.  It took several weeks just to get the room emptied to as close to empty as I could get it.  Things I thought I really wanted to keep became really easy to toss and give away once I finally got tired of looking at it AND realized that it was all seriously in the way of my crafting haha.

Following the purge, I had to pull the 70's harvest gold carpet...at least I think it was gold at one time.
As icky as that carpet was and as hard as it was to pull it, I'm really grateful for it. The hardwoods underneath were preserved, beautifully.  Next came painting and getting all the electrical updated.

Posting just a few photos of what I've finished so far, Mom wanted to see the hardwoods :)
I haven't got much on the walls yet.  I'm pretty set on decorating with things I make and not going out and purchasing a lot of stuff.  Plus, after taking the mixed media class with Wendy Vecchi at Betty's I really want to have a reason to do more of it...like I need a reason!



Camera Corner with Cleo.  My hubby gave me the lightbox and lights for my birthday.I have to keep it zipped up because Cleo discovered that it makes an awesome hideaway.



Stitching storage.  This is the other side of a credenza I got from a consignment store.  I didn't know how much I liked mid-century modern until I saw this.  It's now housing all my cross-stitch, hardanger and crochet supplies.  I had totally forgotten just how many beautiful patterns, threads, beads and linen pieces I have.  I'm looking forward to getting familiar with it all again.




Coloring corner with Faith.  The desk is another mid-century piece, it looks much nicer in person.  It's small but a really nice size for coloring.  The hubby is working on building me a larger table for the middle of room to do all the crafty stuff.



Nifty baskets from IKEA.  I really like them but I have to admit I was a little disappointed when they arrived, I had no idea that IKEA had started off-shoring everything to China...yes, I'm one of those...I prefer to support local when I can.
The item hanging on the left  is the journal I made in Wendi's class.


Paper cupboard.  I found this little piece in the same consignment store as the blue credenza.   It has several shelves in it and the 6x6 pads of paper fit inside perfectly.
I'm not fond of the 80's style paint job so it's on the to do list for a make-over.  


And finally, a close up of the Art Journal hanging from the baskets:

Front Cover of Art Journal

Back Cover of Art Journal