Altered Bottle Swap

These are two votive jars for an altered bottle swap. I've used these lovely white milk glass jars before for votives. Last time I stamped koi on vellum, colored them from behind and wrapped them around the jars. This time, I lined the inside with colored tissue paper and pasted more stampted tissue on the outside. I like the Buddha one better, I think.

I've been Tagged!!

By both Autumn and Annie!! YIKES! I better get cracking.

Seven Interesting Things About Me

1. I attended eight different elementary schools, lived in five different states (CO, CA, WA, HI, VA), on both coasts.

2. I've had four different careers (printing, retail, corporate/telecommunications, education).

3. I have an outdoor shower in my backyard complete with hot and cold running water.

4. I am Japanese, Korean, and French.

5. I have a large collection of nude stamps.

6. I was a hippy kid who's father rode a motorcycle and who's mother churned butter, sewed our clothing, and did all the baking.

7. I want to either live overseas or cruise on a sailboat...and I'm trying to figure out how to do just that!



Now, I have to tag two others:

http://theartfulmama.blogspot.com/

http://deniseslittlebirdiestudio.blogspot.com/

Altered Canvas - Final

After some fiddling, this is what I came up with. I glazed it with a mix of golden lumiere and matte gel medium. I added an additional blue Greek key in the bottom right corner. I put together some watch parts to recreate an Antikythera device. Lastly, I stamped a Hippocrates quote on vellum and created the small scroll. Now I think it's done!

For those who gave me suggestions, thank you so much! It really helped the creative process.

Altered Canvas Swap

A canvas that I worked on today for a swap. Not sure if it's done yet or not. I started by painting the canvas with a golden color and then deepening/darkening the edges with a darker golden/brown color. I stamped the harlequin pattern in the corner and along one short edge. Then stamped text, hieroglypics, and ancient Greek randomly around. Then stamped the images on tissue paper, cut them out and layered them on the canvas. The coin on the right was created using UTEE and then metalic rub-ons.

I like it, but not sure if it is finished or not, or how to "finish" it.....any suggestions?

A Clean Space

Whew, good job done!I ended up with four bags of trash, a shoe box of stuff to try to sell on ebay, and found a bunch of stuff that I didn't even remember I had. I'm so pleased with the new stamp storage as well. I just have to stop buying mounted stamps!!!

Cleaning up the Artspace

A few years ago, the partner and I decided to renovate our office. This room, just off the kitchen, has two closets. Since we turned the smallest bedroom into a dressing room, we really didn't need the closet space. I was granted permission to turn the 6 foot closet into my art space. Prior to this time, all my creative supplies lived in what we affectionately termed "the martha closet" and everything had to be hauled out and then put away. Needless to say, I didn't art much in those days.

I built a desk and shelving and lit the space and had a wonderful space. Then, we found a great old oak school desk at a yard sale and we put that next to my artspace for added creative potential. Well, I've been creating so much and never stop to clean up before starting a new project, that the whole corner has turned into a disaster area.





As you can see, it was high time to clean up. So, to get me started, I went to the garage and made this shelving unit to hold my mounted stamps.


I'm hoping it will help me see the stamps and use them more. I still haven't figured out a good way to store unmounteds. I have some mounted on foam self stick in notebooks by company but I have many many more in plastic bags, some indexed, some not. In any case, my job for this eveing and tomorrow is to get the space clean, organized, labeled and then get started on an altered canvas for a swap that is due too soon.

Miscellaneous Swaps

Yahoo isn't letting me upload pics right now, so I will put them here.

The first one is part of a Sudoku ATC round robin swap. These are Jesse's backgrounds. I had step 2. I sewed on the eyelet scrap.


This one is the front of an altered beer mat swap for CC Swaps.

This is the back of the beer mat.

Finished the Altered Book

Here are the completed pages. Overall, I'm pleased with it. I only hope my partner likes it. She sets the bar quite high....I'm skeered!
The Cover

Completed Title Page


A completed interior page

Another interior page

One of the main pages.

The last interior page before the shrine.

The shrine itself with a William Blake poem.

The book closes with the sunflower ribbon ties and has a shrink plastic pair of ribbon bookmarks built in. I do hope she likes it.

DC Trip & Flowers

Last weekend the Significant Other and I made an impromptu trip to DC to walk around the Smithsonian. I got to wander through the sculpture garden in front of the Hirshorn Museum, one of my favorite spots in DC. I took lots of pictures with the digi camera.
I also took some pics of the flowers in the yard this week too. I'm really tickled with the way they came out. I hope you enjoy.






Tamisha