I Really Am Creating!!

I know it seems like I may be doing nothing...but honest I am!! LOL  I have a number of projects coming up next week and the week after and I can't wait to share them with you!! But for now I'd like to share some of my crafting I did while I was on the east coast of Canada, having my first visit to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island! I took some supplies with me, picked up a couple of small things while I was there and just used the quiet evening time to play and relax. Sometimes it was at the little kitchen table we had in our cottage or it was on the kitchen island in the big house we all stayed in, or the coffee table in my pretend bedroom(really a second living room but worked out great for us). I worked on fun tags, tags with trip stuff on them, a thank you card for my cousins and a birthday card for my Uncle Jim.

This was the birthday card for my Uncle Jim for his 70th birthday. So glad I grabbed a handful of my TH Paper dolls and threw them in my little travel bag.

For the map piece, I just trimmed it down, rounded the corners and then drew the hearts on. One around Nova Scotia where my Uncle lives and one around Vancouver where the rest of us live.

And these paper dolls were perfect. The two boys represent my Uncle Jim and my Uncle Rick (who passed away in July a number of years ago), the two girls represent my Auntie Judy and my Mom (who passed 4 years ago) and the lone show off girl is my Auntie Barb, who is 16 years younger than her oldest sibling. I think my Uncle liked his card.

I also did a thank you card, attached to a bottle of vodka to make more vodka slushy, for my cousin Ken and Nancy and Kaley, the owners of Hope River Farm. Be sure to check out the facebook page to follow the antics of farm life in PEI. They fed us so well while we were there and their table was full of family, 12 of us total!!

I seriously just threw in handfuls of TH Paper Dolls and other cards, some stuff from the Prima St. Tropex line and stamps that I loved like the Dina Wakely one that I used to border this card. Colour is from my DW Scribble Sticks and my Wendy Vecchi Minis.

 

These tags were from our first days of heading out to the east coast, from our dinner at the airport in Vancouver to our first night on Cape Breton Island. The Lighthouse Cottages were probably my fave little cottages. And if you go to the site and let the pics run  through, we had the 3 cottages closest to the green space. What a view and lovely beach space.

This piece was from a brochure and the top piece was my receipt from the Glenorra Distillery that we visited.

One of my sassy girl tags! It was just nice to sit and play after busy days of driving, sight seeing and beach combing.

And this one went to my Auntie Judy due to a conversation, over dishes, in my Auntie Nikki's kitchen after some wine and my made up on the spot poem that consisted of "Sassy, Sassy, kiss my assy" Yup...you had to be there to find this as hilarious as we did and yup...my family is batshit crazy!! LOL

And these three tags were done one evening while crafting on the kitchen island while we stayed in big house on the Bay of Fundy. Even though there were 10 of us, it was always kind of quiet i nthe evening, I was crafting, another group was playing crib at the dining room table, another group sitting in the living room reading. Everyone doing their own thing but still all together as a family.

 Thanks all for stopping by! One day soon I'll post some pics of the amazing scenery we saw on the east coast and some of the places we stayed. 

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Cathy

Another month comes to an end

It is hard to believe April is almost over! I am still without a computer but hoping I will be picking up my son's laptop tomorrow. There were some installations issues so we had to take his in too!

I am amazed at everything I used my laptop for, before it crashed beyond repair!! But it seems that all my files were able to be released recovered from my hard drive......and I am very thankful for that!!

I have managed to get a second job, needed to try to get ahead of bills and fix the no computer issue. I never thought at this stage of my life that I would be struggling so hard and having to take a minimum wage job on top of the one I already have, just to try and survive and only have one day off in 10. I truly thought with my college education and experience I would be in a much better position and not having to do such physical work (my back is not doing well).
I haven't been doing too much at my art table lately but completed an ATC swap and my part in The Traveling Art Project started by Joyce van der Lely I will share those pics after they arrive at their dest
inations.

I did do a 12X12 piece using colors way out of my comfort zone of....purple LOL I used my Faber Castell Whipped Spackle, Gelato and some Prima Color Bloom Spray and my embossing folders, punches and my Big Shot.

I can't wait to share more with you....works in progress, finished pieces, backgrounds from my art journal.....so many things!!

Thanks for stopping in!

Have a great week!
Cathy

An Arty Kind of Day

The whole day wasn't arty.....I did spend the morning and part of the afternoon with my Dad and my nephews. The boys are on Spring Break here so we went and did the walk around Fort Langley. The boys climbed the tower, walked the wall, watched the blacksmith and the wood carver, got to hammer and bend their own small piece of metal and climbed up on a large stack of barrels. It was a busy day, then out for lunch and home to have some quiet time. Pretty good start to the day, time with 3 of my favorite guys!

Then I walked home from my sister's, and was just in time to catch Art Anthology and their live tutorial on Ustream. Such a great page made by Lanette today and I am so glad to have caught it. And while listening to her teach, she made a comment about NOT over thinking everything....which I do, often! But she said in the video, see Cathy no over thinking, when she did a page showing us the amazing Dimensional Gems colors. So I listened! And didn't over think and just went and made some backgrounds in my art journal. Not sure what is going over top of them yet, but they are ready to go! Lanette Erickson was a great teacher today and you can check out her blog and her designs HERE

I did these two pages with DecoArt Fluid Acrylics and splattered with rubbing alcohol to give it the mottled look. They didn't turn out like Andy Skinner's did, but I'm going to work with it and going to try the same technique on different paper.

This was done was done just using some Liquitex Inks and water, in a few colors I love.

I also caught the Live with Prima class with Bona Rivera-Tran. It was her very first tutorial and she did this amazing tray with Prima's Bella Rouge line. She did an amazing job and was so fast at all the fussy cutting, so glad I managed to catch this one! Bona also used one of Julie Nutting's doll stamps and it was gorgeous!

So it ended up being an arty day....and I haven't done my project yet but I did watch my Life Book 2015 lesson with Jane Davenport...again :)

Also on my desk right now are two canvasses, one is going to be for my sister with a picture of her boys on it and the other one is just hodgy podgy right now and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I am finding that I like having more than one project one the go...we'll see how long that lasts for LOL

The one in shades of blue is going to be the one for my sister, did the background with my Gelatos and water then sealed it with clear gesso. The other one has paint, collage, modelling paste and stencils and bit of Dylusions.

Thanks for popping in and hope a wonderful weekend is waiting for everyone!

Cathy