Saturday, February 28, 2009

What a Week!

It was not my intention to wait so long between posts - but last Tuesday, I was felled by a high fever/sore throat combo that I could not shake, so I spent most of the week in bed. The docs said it was viral - so antibiotics wouldn't touch it - got some pain spray for the throat, and went home to let it run its course. It pretty much has...and I don't care if it never comes back!

Anyway - BIG NEWS!!!
My baby afghan has made it through another round!!! YAY!!! Now, here I am - asking yet again for anyone/everyone to go to:
www.caron.com
Then click on the by now familiar green circle to go to the voting page....and please vote for mine!! You can refer to my Feb 20 post for a picture - I do SO appreciate it!!




Friday, February 20, 2009

Arty Girlz "Wire" Challenge

Wasn't quite as quick this week as last, but I did want to get in on the "Wire" challenge by the Arty Girlz over at the Arty Girlz Challenge Blog

Having lots of bits of colored wire around, the idea of music notes was right there....along with a stylized rainbow of different colored papers. I got to use my Gesso for the first time, to fade out the music on the background paper, then added musical notes I made from my colored copper wire.

What took me so long was to get the words on there! I have a laptop in my studio, but no printer - and in the house I have no crafting supplies...so it was a back and forth thing through the week....but finally....

here is my ATC for the "Wire" challenge:



I am really enjoying coming up with something for each of the challenges - making me 'think outside the box' - a good thing!




Baby Afghan Contest Update...News - Again!!

I am SO excited! I have survived the first round of voting - and now there are only 10 entries.

I am asking that everyone go again to www.caron.com
and vote! I don't know how long they are going to do this elimination thing - not too much longer, hopefully!

This time I think I am #6 - and would truly appreciate your vote - again!

Just in case, here is the afghan again


Thanks to everyone who voted last week - and in advance for everyone who votes this week!




Monday, February 16, 2009

Baby Afghan Contest Update...News!!

At long last - it has happened - the final entries are up for voting!!

Instead of the 6 I read about originally, they have 12 finalists - and will be eliminating them one by one, based on votes.

I was astonished and so thrilled to learn that my afghan is one of the 12!!! Believe me, that was worth the wait!! So...now a little shameless self-promotion....I would love it if you would go over to the Caron site and vote for me!!

Here's a picture of my afghan:

To vote....go to www.caron.com

On the front page there is a green circle - saying to click to vote for the baby afghan contest - my afghan is # 7.
You will need to vote yes/no for each of the twelve entries - to either move them to the next week or not.
I truly would appreciate your support!!




Wednesday, February 11, 2009

ArtyGirlz "Flowers" Challenge

Had so much fun with my very first challenge - I decided to give this one a try too.

This one is also an ATC - but is made of illustration board, so it is quite heavy and stiff. I used my watercolor crayons to make a background in black and pink. After that dried, I took some silvery bead caps and pounded them flat - they made quite nice little silvery flowers! I glued them to the ATC. Then I took a peyote stitch beadwoven panel I had made earlier, and had no idea what to do with it - to the top of the ATC.

I'm not fond of black at all - so am not so sure about this one - but I wanted to tie into the border on the beadweaving (have no memory of where I found the pattern for the pretty flower in it).

It was fun, and it was something I ordinarily wouldn't do, using colors I usually don't use....so was a bit 'outside the box' for me....be interested in hearing what you think!!

Here it is:

I'm getting quite addicted to these challenges, and to finding new uses for the materials I have on hand...

Monday, February 9, 2009

Mixin' It Up!

February has become the month I am playing around with paper - using it in all kinds of forms, in all kinds of ways....had some rather nice failures already - but that's ok - learning what works and what doesn't...

Today I played around with melting was in the Melting Pot - coloring it with Dollar Store crayons (that worked!), and then applying it to a card....got a lot to learn here - this was a failure. But....I learning a bit about the Melting Pot and beeswax!

Moving on....I keep going back to the perforated paper and miniature petit-point. I have all these truly cool variegated threads/floss/cotton - Watercolours by Caron - had them for years. So today, I combined that with some other things - punched paper, layering metal punching....and came up with a card I really like. Now I have to find a lovely saying for the inside to print on vellum....and I'll be set to give this to my sweetie!

Here 'tis:

The card itself is just cardstock that I cut in half - the heart-shaped doily is from the grocery store (!), I cut the dark pink square from a wonderful book of huge paint samples that my brother in law gave me...what a find they are! I then punched out the heart shape, cut the perforated paper to fit behind it...colored it with my Prismacolor markers and did my petit-point with a variegated pink/blue/gold thread. When I put the layers together, I used sticky dots to raise the heart-cut-out above the petit-point. Then I punched out some cool little hearts from metal and glued them on in random spots on the dark pink. I'm quite happy with the result! What do you think?






Short Baby Afghan Contest Update...

Still waiting.....

First, the contest was extended til January 31 - and according to the Caron website, the six semi-finalists would then be chosen - and posted on the "Sponsor's" website - it was not real clear to me if they meant the A.C. Moore website or the Caron website. The voting on the 6 semi-finalists was to commence on February 7, 2009.

And here it is....February 9 - and there is NOTHING posted on either website regarding the semi-finalists of the Project Linus contest. I am truly disappointed with this whole process. There is a lot to be said that if you say something is going to happen on date such-and-such, it really ought to happen. Not to think that my afghan will be among the six lucky semi-finalists - but it would be nice to see who is....and to vote for the one I like the best.

I'll keep checking back - and let you know when (or if?) the afghans ever get posted, and if we can then go vote for a winner. Of course the true winners here are the babies that are now wrapped up in all that wonderful softness ...



Friday, February 6, 2009

Been Awhile.....Now a First!

I know it's been quite a while since my last post - combination of truly frigid weather here, making my new studio equally frigid, and at times it's just too long to wait for it to warm up....that combined with this creative wall I've been trying to climb over...sigh...

But...then I came across a challenge - and it just seemed I needed to get in on it. I read this blog
and they put out this challenge....so I decided to participate. I went even further - I tried making my very first ATC, my first of most anything having to do with paper. For such a tiny piece of paper, it took me long enough to get anything on it - trouble with one of those minds that wants 'order' - and I was trying not to be 'orderly'. Did I succeed? You decide....

Here it is:

The reds here came out much darker than they are in reality - the large heart is actually red foil, covered over with some scraps of really lovely lacy white paper. Then I found a whole bag of buttons....and there were these tiny heart buttons... Last, I added my favorite word.....Love...