Living in a small town has its advantages.  Its slower paced.  There is less crazy, less commotion, less movement and confusion.  I feel swallowed whole when I live in a big city.  When we were in Fort Worth, I thought I was drowning in all the every day movement.  What everyone else finds exciting and stimulating, I find debilitating.

But, There is something to be said for the occasional trip into the "big city".  That is exciting!  I look forward to the days I get to go spend shopping in stores I don't have access to locally, visiting with family members, eating at places I don't other wise get to enjoy.  Its quite lovely.  Yesterday was one of those days!  My Mother in law and I drove into our "Big City" of choice, my three youngest kids in tow, and hit a few stores picking up supplies.  It was a challenging day, and though I wish it had gone a lot better than it did..... it still had its enjoyable moments!  We spent some time visiting with my sister in law, which is always a delight.  We had lunch with my husband on his lunch break, which I never get to do since he works an hour away.  We visited a craft fair in an assisted living home, and had a crazy good time there with the residence!  My mother in law bought the cutest crocheted pink hat that is going to be the talk of the town this winter, I swear!  The "store" shopping wasn't even the highlight of the day!  Though I did come back with goodies that I can't wait to use!!  And of course, because this is me, I took pictures!!!!

See Goodies!  I've got all kinds of stuff here, just waiting to play! I've already used the Freezer paper to print directly onto fabric with my new epson printer, and WOW I'm in love with that method.  Seriously.. way cool.  I bought some more canvas, trying to give that more of a go.  Those are pencil bags that I am going to but some pictures on.. back to school item for the coming craft fair!  Under the paint are two place mats that I love and want to cut up and use as texture in some of the art work!  Found them at the dollar store!!!  Don't even know if that will work, but I'm gonna give it a go!  also in there some were are some gripper pads that are made out of that shelf lining stuff that I'm gonna use as paint stamps!  too much fun stuff!

 New Paints!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  But I totally forgot the white!!! Thankfully my Sis is picking that one up for me tomorrow morning.  How in the word does someone forget white paint???  No, that isn't white standing there, its a nice lovely shade of cream.  :)

This is my one cool find at Goodwill.  I have a rule when I go in there.  I can only buy the thing or things that WOW me.  If it doesn't WOW me and I can't think of how I can use it... it doesn't get bought.  So.. I went in, and walked and walked and walked and NOTHING was doing it... and then I found this tucked into the napkins.  And yes it WOWed me instantly.  How am I gonna use it.  Well first, I have to protect it from my mother in law who is trying to take it, then I think it will end up in an art work of some sort.  Or scanned in, or both.  Not sure yet.  But I love love love it.  And you know how much this wonderful piece of beautiful linen cost me????   $.53!  Can't beat that!


Till next time!

If you would have asked me a couple months ago, if I would be elbow deep in paints... I probably would have laughed.  I've always wanted to paint, but never thought I could or should.  But here I am creating in a whole new medium, which is not really all that far off from digital scrapping, if you break it down to its basic form.  You have your base, your papers, your elements..  one is just a whole lot messier than the other!

In the last three days, I've done three mixed media pieces.  And I've had a blast.  I have mixed feelings about each piece.  I love them and there are things I would change about each piece too.  That's how I feel about most of my scrap pages as well.  I didn't feel the stress I thought I would, that I felt when I tried paper scrapping.  Maybe its because I knew I could paint over or reprint if necessary.  At one point, on the last piece, the quote just wasnt working.. so I pulled it off leaving behind a mess of glue.  And it totally washed off with out messing up the paint.  I thought that was majorly awesome.  And a learning experience for me.  I don't have to settle.  I like that.

The first piece, is a Rose Collage.  I extracted Roses from pictures I took in my Mother in law's Garden.  The Center Rose is not extracted, but I did take it through Lightroom  and apply a bright preset on it to give it a vintage feel, then when I transferred it using a transparency, it gave it even more of a wispy feel.   I used a newspaper print paper from Cilenia Curtis's Summer's Edge kit, and tore that up into strips, glueing that down along with strips of paper with Rose quotes on them.  This piece took me a good amount of time as I let each layer sit and dry.  But it was worth it, even if I was overly cautious.  I think it turned out rather lovely.  The little block at the bottom was added at the end.  I thought the bottom looked empty, so created the rose block using Cilenia Curtis's Vintage Love Alpha, added some rose font behind it with some more extracted roses.. glued that down to a painted wood block and attatched that to the piece with wood glue and walla! The piece was done!

This next one, I did for my Husband.. or inspired by my Husband.  He said that every time I looked at this particular picture I took of the lake, it reminded him of hope.  So we started calling the picture Hope.  So I wanted to expand on that.  I found the paper behind it online, printed it out and tore it up in strips.  I tried to paint the hardboard to look like the picture, but I'm just not a good painter.  My husband says it looks cool, so there is that!  I printed out that picture of the lake and the strips of words on sewable inkjet fabric sheets my mother in law had left over from a quilting project.  After getting everything glued down I glazed over it with gloss medium to give it a shine, but have since decided it needed more and have added some poly to it.  I have mixed feelings about this piece.  Sometimes when I look at it, I really like it.. like it just hits me and looks awesome.. and then other times, I just don't know. 

This next piece, I did just for the fun of it!  I first did this as a post card.  I actually have it printed for sale, and its adorable!  I wanted to work with fabric, and I thought this would be a good test of that.  So, I pulled out the post card as a visual, got some blue fabric and went to town!  I did this one on an 8x10 canvas instead of the 12x12 hardboard.  The fabric actually glued down wonderfully and stiffened with the glue, which I wasn't expecting and actually really liked.  I added the little green grassy things by cutting up Styrofoam to make stamps, which was a ton of fun!  I printed the pond sceen on fabric that I ironed to freezer paper and ran through my printer!!  That was pretty awesome!!  I wish I had used a heavier fabric though.  This one became rather fuzzy as I used it, and I didn't like that.  I decided because of that to paint over it.  That ended up being the sinker that tied it all in.  I reprinted the little froggy on just regular printer paper and reattached him ontop of the now painted pond sceen, and a cute little froggy fishing hole was born!  Oh you can't see them, but there are little beads in the water that I sewed in the canvas to look like fish peeking out of the water!  Way too darn cute!  ;)  (added the up close and personal photos so you could see the little beads)

 

Pond Scene up close

Quote, written by me :)

The little beaded fish, see them poking out of the water? 

It feels like forever since I sat down and just scraped.  It felt good to be able to do that over the last two days.  Here are two pages I completed.

First up, is Drive Big Cars.  This is a layout inspired by a conversation between my now 15 year old son and myself in the car.  He informed me that now that he is 15, he could get his permit to drive... and it totally took me by surprise.  Not in the "I didn't know that" sort of way, but in the  "oh my I'm not ready" way.

 I scrapped this page using Beautiful Mess 2 by Cilenia Curtis.  Such a Wonderful kit, that was perfect for the page I wanted to create here.  I love all the colors, the browns and teals (not sure that is the exact name to give) are some of my most fav combinations, and all the texture in the kit is awesome. 

The Second Layout is on a more fun side.  I've been wanting to scrap these photos for over a year now.  When I opened this kit, and started searching for a photo... I knew they were the ones!

I created this page using Betty Jo Martin's Fascar kit.  Geared perfectly for little boy layouts, I found that it was also perfect for the inner children that came bursting forth in all my grown ups in this layout!  Love the flag string element, I think its my favorite!  I had to use it!

An interesting find today!

A few months back I was approached by someone from GingerScrapstreet Magazine asking to publish two of my layouts.  I submitted them, and then checked the edition they were suppose to be in.  They were not published.  So, I figured she decided to pass on them.   Today, I decided to check the latest edition of the magazine, which has been out almost a full month now, and guess what I find?  One of my layouts was indeed actually published!!  A nice little exciting find today! 

So If you have an interest to see, take a look!  It is in GingerScrapStreet Magazine, Page 11 at the very bottom!  Can't miss it, its the Hipstamatic app layout.  Has my name, and my style screaming all over it!  ;)

 

Why I couldn't have gotten this bright idea to start this new adventure in say, um, October or maybe even March, I will never know.  But I didn't.  I started it in July.  In the Hottest July in Texas History.  The local craft fairs are not indoors.  They don't have facilities.  They take place usually around the court house square in the small Texas towns I live near.  So, we set up in grass mostly and if we are lucky have an awning.  I was not so lucky this week.  Thankfully, there was a lovely breeze that kept the temperature from feeling not exactly as bad as it was.  Until 2.  Then it was war with the sun.

 This Saturday was Trade Days try Number 2.  This time, My Sister's Weekend City.  We both enjoy the same lake.  I live on one side, she weekends directly across from me.  I could build a bridge from my place to hers and probably build it in a straight line across the lake.  But I won't.  I'll just keep driving around the lake to get to her place because its much cheaper on gas to drive the SUV than to try and drive the pontoon boat across and back again.  Plus, then I can stay longer!  I'm not too fond of crossing a stumpy lake at midnight.  No thanks.

So, for this trade days, we are centered in the middle of town around the court house.  Online it says "show up and set up and a member of the chamber will come by and collect the booth fee from you"  Ok then, small town stuff here remember?  So we show up at a little before 9 am, which I am thinking is way late (I need to work on getting out of this house faster!), but see that everyone else is actually just setting up too.  There wasn't very many vendors to show up.  Maybe 20 or so total.  Small in comparison. (But at 2 pm, I understood why.) As the web claimed, the ladies did come around and collect the fee and it was the craziest thing ever.  No joke.  Probably one of the funniest, and adorable, east Texas events to happen to me yet!  We settled in, kids and all, for the long day ahead.  Our goal for the day was mostly just to see the difference between the two shows.  My sister claims the shoppers were totally different, and that being more of a "craft", my items would probably do better at the smaller venue.  She was right.  I didn't sell much.  Didn't walk away with a ton of money, made enough to cover the cost of the booth and our gas.  But, experience.. We gained some really good info.  I had people actually talk with me.  I had them stop and hold the items, discuss the pictures, ask if I would be back.  At the first show, most every customer that entered my booth was after the jam. At this show, hardly anyone even noticed the jam.  They went straight to my table with the art.  I sold two prints, and even though they weren't a high dollar item (HAHA Highest dollar item I have is $35), it felt really really good.  I've still got most every item I've made so far, but that is ok.  I've still got items to create, and that is ok... even great.  I've decided, to not give up too easily.  I'm easily discouraged and two shows, in the crazy heat of dead summer Texas should not be my deciding factor on whether or not this will work out.  Now, ask me again after Christmas. I may, by then, have a totally different answer.  But I am hoping that things start to look up.

  So what is all this talk about 2 pm.  OH MY GOSH!  I am not kidding, I swear it was like the sun realized it had forgotten to beat us up all day and decided to make up for lost time.  By 3, it was unbearable. I can never get over how something so beautiful, can be so deadly!













Some pictures of my products. 

Prints.  One of my Favorite pictures ever taken of my daughter, actually.  I mostly printed it out as an Eye grabber.  The other is a hipstamatic of a birdhouse in my mother in law's garden.  Then a print I did and framed with a wonderful pic of a fishing pole I toke.  The bottom picture is my husbands favorite lake picture of mine.  He says it reminds him of hope.  So that has become its name. Hope.

Photo albums that I put a cover on.  Mostly roses and a few lake photos.  More prints and this awesome little treasure box that I transferred the picture of the humming bird onto.  In the corner there you catch just the edge of the cool rose box I did.  Oh and those cat ears.. LOL.. that is a cute card that has a pic of my sis in laws cat on it, then when you open it up she is walking at you with only one eye open and it says "I've got my eye on you" Way way cute! 

I wish I had gotten the top of that pond picture, there is a serenading frog in it! Under that is one of the lazy fisherman transfers.  Then you see how I hung up the prints this go round.  I'm coming up with a better plan.  It worked nicely on the first show, but looked a bit unorganized this go round with out a canopy and side railing to the lot.  oh and that round pizza pan looking thing, thats a chalk board.  :)  I made several, round and rectangle metal (magnetic!)Chalkboards!  They are pretty awesome! 

My new Printer is on its way.  It should be here some time today.  Some time today.  SOME TIME TODAY!!!!!  Its like Christmas morning, yet I still have to wait for Santa to fall down the Chimney wearing a brown suit!  Part of me wants to sit at the door with my camera ready and take a picture of the UPS dude as he shows up, just to document of course, but then I think that's just a little over board for a printer.  But, its an awesome printer, and it is going to allow me to print everything I need and no longer have to go to the local printing place for the laser prints.  Which is gonna be super duper wonderful!  I spent all of yesterday preparing a good majority of my surfaces so that when it does arrives, I can just print, print, print and have a lovely acrylic medium heyday hoedown!  But until then, I sit here waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.  Painting more wood, gessoing more cavases (cause I like em better gessoed and I like saying gesseod cause I can), and preparing tiles for coasters and magnets.   So hopefully it shows up soon, because there's only so many objects I can prepare before I have to move on to the walls. 

Valeri

Transparencies, oh how you plague me.

Today, was the first time I've tried to do one since deciding to focus on the paper transfer that was successfully working in order to have enough product for the upcoming show.  Its been a nightmare from the beginning.  All the you tube videos claim how easy it is, how quick and effortless... ha ha ha I say.  Who are they kidding.  They don't have my printer, apparently.  Or my brayer.  Or my Acrylic Medium or whatever the deference is that is making this not work for me.  But I am determined that this is the technique I am learning this month.  So, I gathered up my supplies this morning, printed out a transparency sheet on my Kodak printer (which I do not recommend for this technique at all, I will be switching to an Epson Stylus as soon as money allows), and take a deep breath and plunge in.  

Supplies:  Apollo Transparancy, printed on Kodak 5100 printer, Liquitex Acrylic Matt Medium Gel, A pallete knife to get it out just cause, the lid was to put the little bit of meduim in cause I was tired of throwing out paper plates.  I was going to use the foil as protection for my desk but didn't need it.  Scissors, Card stock and an Acrylic paper note pad I picked up in the art supply at walmart.  oh and a bowl of water and a rag! 

After running the kiddos to bible school, I decided to jump head first into this while the house was nice and quiet.  I don't get a quiet house very often.  The first two attempts went a little wonky.  I'm not sure exactly what it was but am guessing at too much medium and not giving enough time to let the medium dry.  

first and second attempt.  Sad Sad Sad.  Hardly any ink transferred at all.  At this point I was thinking it might be a waste of time to continue, but I did continue.

 After the second attempt turned out much like the first, yet worse... I got to wondering if maybe the paper didn't like the acrylic medium.  So, I pulled out my paint and painted the rest of the paper with my white paint.  I just so happened to pick up a new blue color called Lake blue while at hobby lobby on Monday, and I thought "What a perfect time to see its color!" so I painted the edges of the page with it.  I mean, why not!  The white had to dry, didn't it? 

I love love love the color!!!  I wish I could have bought more paints as they were 40% off, but another day right?

 While I waited for the Paints to dry, I tried another on just card stock, with a little better results.. confirming my belief that it was the acrylic paper.   So, next up back to the acrylic notebook with the addition of my beautiful blue paint and white under painting.  First, I tried a zinna picture which actually did decent.  I was shocked.  I was like ok here we go!  But then, came the picture of my kiddos.  Have you all ever wanted to just steam roll your children?  I mean, really truly roll over them with a steam roller?  I got to today.  Seriously, look!

 And enjoyed every single second.  I think I might have taken a few hundred extra passes over, just to make sure the ink transferred of course. Right.  That's my story anyway.  ;)  And most of it did.  Things seemed to get better with each transparency I worked.  By the time I got to the last one, I decided I could call it success.  Its not perfect, by any means..   not by a long shot.  But its way better than where I was with it last week.  Those were positively scary, horror film worthy even.  I kid you not.  Here is my last two transfers.  I'm proud of these, even with all their little specks and missing teeth.  At least they arent competley bald or missing faces all together! HAHA

 So There ya go, you can say you knew me in the beginning when she posted her very first post about learning to do transparency transfers.  So when I make it big in the craft fair circuit, and become some famous transparency transfer lady making millions traveling fairs and selling fig jam with cool labels, you can say "I remember when she was just that girl who couldn't figure it all out!"  Hopefully, I figure it all out before then!  lol.