Vintage Button Rings

I'm sorry it has been awhile since I last posted an entry. I've been creating, I just haven't had the patience to play with photos on my new laptop...the new Windows drives me crazy--I can't figure out where all my files are going! So much for organization. Anyway, pictured above are one of the few things I've been working on for Christmas gifts this year. I'd like a little something to put in all the teachers' mailboxes at the school where I TA and these ended up being simple and cute enough to produce in bulk. Jeff and I went on a trip to NYC several weekends ago and a vendor stand in Bryant Park was selling similar rings for $18 each. I came home and went on ebay to buy the silver plated adjustable ring blanks and scoured my button collection and a local antique store for interesting buttons to layer on. I used E6000 glue to attach the buttons to the ring base so they should hold up pretty well I hope. Now the hard part is just letting them go when I could have a different ring for every outfit and every day of the month now! :o) Hopefully the ladies at work will thing they are fun and enjoy them too.

Halloween ATCs

These are the ATCs that I created for my Halloween Swap in the In My Vintage Room Yahoo Group. I used a collage sheet from Lisa's Altered Art along with various trims, papers, stickers, and doo-dads.

Summer Twinchies

These are the twinchies that I created for my swap in the In My Vintage Room Yahoo group. Little pieces of summer in two inches square!

Day 1 of Beeswax Collage Spree

8x10 Beeswax Collage Group Shot
Pansy Cupid 8x10 Beeswax Collage

Lilac Princess 8x10 Beeswax Collage

Garden Reader 8x10 Beeswax Collage

Dreamy Rider 8x10 Beeswax Collage

These are the 8x10 Beeswax Collages that I made to sell at Wisteria Lane Gift Shop in Galway,NY. I'm lucky I found someone so close to home that supports local artists and that my style fits into her shop. I'm hoping she'll meet with success in reselling these pieces and that someone will really enjoy displaying them in their homes! I think they all came out great, except Garden Reader--whose composition is actually my favorite--I tried something new and it caused some buckling of the image. Still lovely in person with the texture of the beeswax to hide some of the imperfections that the flash of the camera caught. I might have to keep that one for me.

Day 2 of Beeswax Collage Spree

group shot of the 5x5 beeswax collages
Pondering Beauty 5x5 Beeswax Collage
Soar 5x5 Beeswax Collage

Post Card Robin 5x5 Beeswax Collage

Believe in the Beauty Bird 5x5 Beeswax Collage

These collages were created this morning to sell at the Wisteria Lane Gift Shop in Galway,NY. I couldn't sleep, so I decided it was a good morning for art. These are truly mixed media as they display a variety of german scrap, k&co die cuts, vintage french music paper, vintage keys, amusment park tickets and coin, buttons, tin letter, cameo and more. Fun to make, and I almost want to keep them all for myself!

Wisteria Lane Trinket Box Order Filled

Puppy themed trinket boxes
Kitten themed trinket boxes

Bird & Butterfly themed trinket boxes

Circle Trinket Boxes

Wisteria Lane Gift shop in Galway,NY requested an additional order of a dozen trinket boxes and I happily made two dozen more thinking I'd let Karen pick out the ones she liked best to fill the order. She was so thrilled with them, she bought them all from me! They retail in her store for $4 each and come with a square of cotton batting inside to safely house your jewelry and treasures. If you see one you like, go pick it up soon, for a gift or for yourself, before its gone! I did not create these from collage sheets, I cut up the Cynthia Hart Victorian Calendars my grandmother gave me awhile back...so each trinket box is one of a kind as I will not repeat any of the images in the future.

Altered Domino Pendants

I decorated ordinary white dominos with alcohol inks, vintage french music paper, and victorian die cuts. The two to the right are just stamped with staz-on after the alcohol ink dried. Something different to play with.

Mini Accordian Albums

I made this album as part of Jeff's birthday gift so he could take it to work and display it on his desk. I used some more recent photos of us at the park with the dog, and others from this past winter outside, and made it a collection of photos of us and our pets, which for now in our lives, is our little family.

I made two of this album to send to my grandma and my aunt and her family as thank yous for our visit. Some great family photos that were ten years over due...since that was the last time I've seen this part of my family the time was very special. I got the idea for these adorable, affordable and easy accordian albums from Maura & Sheila's blog. These ladies are full of helpful tips and awesome ideas for paper crafting! I chose not to use the pockets in my album, but they are envelopes to store tags for journaling and extra photos!

Albums, Albums, Albums

I may have disappeared from blogging for a few weeks, but I've definitely still been creating. From wedding cards to a wedding album, to birthday cards and birthday mini-book, to two travel albums and a few family photo mini books--I've been back to my scrapbooking roots for awhile. Above are photos of some of the layouts in the 8x8 wedding book that I made for my cousin Gabe and his new wife Kate for their wedding gift from me. Their colors were blue and green, and the wedding was outdoors on an old farm in Virginia, so I kept the look clean, simple, casual and elegant with pale blue, olive green, white and silver accents. I scrambled to take good photos at the wedding, went from the wedding to a CVS to print photos and make them a photo cd, put the photos in my other-wise pre-assembled album together that night, and had it sent back to them with my dad for his visit the next day. Whew! It was a little crazy, but I think they really enjoyed it.

CTMH Card Workshop @ Wisteria Lane

My first card workshop at Wisteria Lane (1525 State Highway 29, Galway, NY) will be on Saturday July 31 from 1-3 p.m. Cost per person is $18 for all the materials to make 6 cards with envelopes and a surprise goody bag. I'm psyched. Space is limited to 10 people so I might have a follow up workshop the Friday after if I get enough response! Participants also will get 10% of any Wisteria Lane purchases on the day of the workshop. Call Wisteria Lane at (518) 495-5931 to sign up.

Goddess Zentangle ATCs

These are Goddess ATCs that I created for my In My Vintage Room Yahoo Group Gods & Goddesses ATC swap. I used the Zentangle technique for the the first time and enjoyed trying something different and outside of my vintage-feel comfort zone.

LFB Inspired by The Beatles

Miriam, from In My Vintage Room Yahoo Group hosted a Beatles LFB swap this month. Her hope was that the titles of the songs and the lyrics would create some great art...and it was a neat idea for sure! I created these LFBs with a 12x12 collage technique at our Captured Moments LFB club...then it worked out that the Blackbird lyrics fit perfectly with them.

Fun at Captured Moments LFB Club

This is the LFB page that I created during this month's meeting of of Little Fat Book Club. Peggy brought in these clear little chalk boxes which we filled with beads and doo-dads and inchies we created from Melanie's collage sheets. It was a ton of fun, and I'm so pleased with how mine turned out! I layered papers, images, and patterned napkins with gel medium for the lfb base.

Another Collage Sheet!

These images and ads are from The Housewife September 1913.

More June Birthdays

This is for my boyfriend's sister's boyfriend Matt. I used my Cricut to cut out the Happy Birthday sentiment, but I hand cut and inked the bowling pins and turned a large black brad into a bowling ball to dot the "i" in birthday.

This card is working double-duty as my dad's birthday card and Father's day card because I'm sending him an I.O.U for when I get to visit him and my mom and Elise in July. I used a page out of a book about game trivia as background paper and brayered on inks that coordinated with the word fetti and metal stickers.

I made my own Collage Sheets!!!

Earlier this week, I went with my sister to an antique store in Ballston Spa, NY and we happened across a drawer full of century old women's magazines. Immediately I thought of cutting them up for collage ephemera, but as I flipped through them I found the ads and articles too fascinating, and such a glimpse of women's lives of the time, that I won't be able to bear cutting them up. I purchased them anyway five for $10, figuring I'd bring them home and scan in the pictures I'd like to make my own collage sheets. Above are some of my results so far. Both collage sheets were created from images that I found in the October 1903 Woman's Home Companion. I still have four more magazines to go through, and now that I've gotten the hang of my scanner, I believe I will have a ball creating more to share in the future. Stay tuned!

Cricut Critter Creations

"Bee Yourself" LFB Page Front & Back

"Smile Squirrel" Card for Aly

Well, I have a very generous friend who came to acquire a Cricut machine that she did not need and passed on to me. I won three cartridges on Ebay, and we decided we would share our collection between the two of us...and two of the cartridges that I ordered came in the mail today so I pulled it out to play. I figured it out pretty quickly and made a pile of cut-outs for future use, and put a few to work on the card and little fat book page above. The trees, branch, and clouds are from the "Serenade" cartridge, and the Smile sentiment and animals are from the "Create A Critter" cartridge. The Bee Yourself stamp and bee and hive are a CTMH Petite Perks incentive stamp set.

I NEVER thought I'd own a Cricut because I never wanted (or really could afford) to foot the expense. I'm so lucky to have someone to share my passion with, and someone who knows I will put to good use and appreciate "hand-me-down" items. I feel very blessed. I've enjoyed exploring some of the creative options of the machine today.