I’m participating in a mail art project called Message In a Bottle.  It was started by Lisa Vollrath of Ten Two Studios and Go Make Something.  It is a very fun project where you send plasic water bottles, filled with goodies, through the mail.  I received my first bottle and I’m getting ready to send out my first set.  Here is a picture of what I received from Lisa…

[image:225:c]

I found this fun little contest through Claudine’s blog and I had to enter.  I submitted a picture of one of Dex’s crazy upside down sleeping poses in the “My Pet Loves Sleep” contest by the Sleep Institute.  Go HERE to check it out and vote for your favorite.  Hint, its the silly upside down orange and white fur-ball. :)  (You can vote once a day until next Tuesday)  heehee, I know.  Not to subtle but how can you resist the twist and the pink nose?

 It is hard to believe that this tiny, little sweetie…

[image:180:c]

Has turned into this monster…

[image:186:c]

More pictures are in my gallery.

This is a stunning look at some of the Masters work.

My art history is not as complete as I would like it to be so I wonder as I look at this… Are there any women artist represented here?  Is it only the art of ”dead white men” included in this 500 years of western art? 

I did another quick altered magazine image today.  After dry brushing on the gesso, I redrew the image with a black gel pen.  Then, I used markers and colored pencils to fill in the color.  Both were pretty transparent so next time i’ll put on a little more gesso.  The first image is the magazine before the alteration.  And then after alterations.

[image:175:c][image:176:c]

These are so much fun and really a lot easier than they look.

Here is my spread in Ivy’s book for our Board Book RR.

I used about 8 differnent napkins to make this collage.  The image in from the Ten Two Studios ‘Femme Fetale’ collage set. 

I’m doing another Round Robin with the same group as the Things Book.  We added 4 more people to our group and we are basing the RR on the True Colors Book by Stampington.  I LOVE this book!  Whenever I’m stuck and need some inspiration, I pick up this book.  I always see something new in it that I didn’t notice before.

So, everyone in this RR picked a color scheme for their book and we will all work in that scheme when the book comes to us.  We tend to have a lot of brown/tan/ivory going on but I think it will be fine.  I picked White for my book.

Here are a couple of shots of the spread I did in my book.

[image:150:c] My Sign-in Page.  I stamped in gesso on muslin for the hinges.  Turned out great and I’d like to add more of this to the book when it comes home.

[image:152:c]Another shot to show how the sign-in tags work.

[image:155:c]My first Spread.  The title of the book that I used was “Revelations” so I thought it might be interesting to carry that through as a theme.  This bride has a secrete…

[image:156:c]You can lift up her skirt and see her read petticoat underneath.  I used a bunch of different magazine images to create this spread.  The bride is made up of three different brides and the groom’s pants were from a picture of a woman on a sailboat.  Jayson wanted me to make it so that you could open the groom’s head and see him thinking about the red petticoat.  :)  That would have been awesome but the book was kind of small and i didn’t have time to do it.

Ten Two Studios is sharing more free images with its St. Patrick’s Day Countdown.  I love these countdowns because she shares some wonderful vintage images and her own digital creations totally free.  I have a nice little collection of images from countdowns for Valentine’s, Mother’s Day and Christmas.  Also, be sure to check out her FAQs for the images.  Some people blow this off but I think it is really important for us to respect copyright and acceptable use for anything we find online.  Now, go get the images because they go away after St. Patrick’s Day!

Here are the pages I did in Laurie’s Book for our Board Book RR.

[image:147:c]  Inside the door, it says “Fairies Dance”

[image:146:c]  This is my first attempt at altered magazine images.  I collaged the dancer and flowers from magazine pictures and then painted over them.  It was fun.  I wanted a more whimsical feel but the images were too small to do much.  I’ll have to try again with larger pictures.

I started a new board book round robin this week.  Our theme could be either Artful Goddess or Home.  I went the goddess route and did some muses.

[image:134:c] I used my favorite fresco technique for the cover.  I might do a little more to it when my book comes home.

[image:137:c]Garden Goddess.

[image:136:c]Muse of Music.  This spread needs something but I don’t know what.  I had a real block with this one.

Mom’s big Christmas gift from me this year was a sketchbook.  It’s based on a book from a class I took with Beverly Sizemore of B-Line Designs.  Wonderful class.  hmm… I should go photograph the book from that class and a few others I took around the same time.  I knew there was more to add here but couldn’t think of it.

Anyway… Here is my Mom’s new sketchbook…

[image:143:c][image:145:c]

It had to be purple… here favorite color and mine.

[image:142:c][image:140:c]

At the front of every signature, I laced in either one big envelope or two small ones to hold lose stuff.  I also decorated a few tags for her to use where ever she wanted.  There are a few more pictures over in my gallery.