New Class was a Hit!

I have been designing now for a couple of weeks after mulling around ideas in my head. I can thank my muse for some of the inspiration and a couple of fellow artists and the class I took earlier this year and the lovely artist's who share their templates on the web. The flower ATC is my favorite! And a 2am just crawling into bed gift from my muse. You can view the complete class here: http://www.orientalstampart1.com/ TechniqueClasses/atctwist.html And while you're at Oriental Stamp Art, be sure to fix a nice drink and a snack and have fun checking out all the wonderful oriental artwork. It's my home away from home and I enjoy being a member.

Pagoda ATC

Iactually wanted the pagoda to be a diecut attached to the half circle to begin with until I realized I didn't have a stamp that would create a decent pagoda shape for an ATC. So I went web surfing and discovered that Dee offered 3 sizes of pagodas from her popular card pattern, the smallest perfect for an ATC. You can view her website here:
http://www.hardcastle.net/crafts/projects/

Kimono Under Glass and Companion ATC

The Kimono Under Glass ATC was also inspired by a fellow artist's work and it was a shame to waste the cutout so naturally I create another ATC with it.

Flower and Half Circle ATC's

The half circle design came about after seeing something similar on a fellow artist's gallery. I wanted a variation of it and so my muse dropped the idea into my brain about 2am just as I was snuggling into bed. The flower is my favorite ATC from this class.

Door and Flap Fold ATC's

The door ATC was patterned after the one I did in a class a few months ago.
The Flap Fold ATC was a redesign of a Technique Junkie technique that I miniaturized to ATC size.

Here's my coveted pictures

Here they are as they appeared in my daughter's Senior Art Show and now reside on my artroom wall. These images are copyrighted of course as they are her original work but mom can share pictures. Eeyore is awesome in his original form as he has gold leafing that doesn't show on the reprint. We are very proud of Christi as she graduated with a Bachelors in Graphic Design and Summa Cum Laude.

Front Cover Done

I finally got started on my class at Joggles. This is the cover for my book. It's a combination of paper napkin, fabric, felt, applique, trim and a coin I've had for ages. I of course did my own version of the cover and varied from the class notes. I spotted the heart applique in Hobby Lobby and decided I really wanted it for my book, so I designed the cover around that piece. My back cover will not have a window in it. Haven't quite decided what I want on the back cover yet. Off to work on some more pages. The "shadow" in the left corner threw me when I was taking the picture until I realized it's darker shading on the napkin pattern. It's much more subtle in real life.

Busy couple of days

As usual I've been busy with family type stuff. On Tuesday we went to the pool, our regular instructor is on a trip and Maria decided since it was a holiday week to work us extra hard. Mind you most of the ladies in this class are at least 20 years my senior since it's the arthritis class. I appreciate a good workout but not to exhaustion. Popped in to visit my best friend, Lara, later that day and got the beginnings of my 6x6 scrapbook pages started for our monthly swap. Lara is a Stampin Up demo and has the monthly club. I'm usually her designer for the projects. Then Colton and I headed off to the commissary and BX.

Wednesday I cleaned bathrooms and washed towels. Have to keep my household of 6 running. Our oldest daughter dropped off 2 huge buckets of fabric for making garb, now to figure out where to store it since I've been trying to pare down. Christi just graduated with her bachelors in Graphic Design and brought over some of her prints from her senior art show. I now have a copy of Eeyore and her strawberry diving into chocolate for my home. She did the prints from her originals and rescued them for me. She really is quite talented.

Then it was off with the guys to see Transformers the movie. Good show. My boys are ten years apart, so Matthew did Transformers when they originally hit the scene in the 80's and Colton did them a few years ago when they regained popularity again. So mom here has been a fan all along too. I have Matt's original Bumblebee car, he's always been my favorite character. Now Colton is shopping for the new version of Bumblebee so I have it also. Yes, I'm an artist with toys.

We tried the new restaurant in town. The food was so-so, overpriced and the service was lousy. We won't be returning there. Then home to watch the fireworks from our backyard. The city park where they set them off is less than a mile away from us.

Today is was back to the pool for more exhaustion, literally. Colton stayed home, smart kid. Then the dentist, yuck. Colton has to have his wisdom teeth removed before we can even think about braces. Just what we need another medical expense. So now we have to figure out how to work that into the budget. We are very fortunate that out of 4 children only one needs braces. Christi had her wisdom teeth removed, Matt has his fully grown in just like his dad, Shyloh's are growing in just fine so far but Colton had alot of trouble and now it has to be repaired or he'll have jaw problems for the rest of his life. Not something a teenager looks forward to and he got my oversensitive teeth. I took a pain pill before we left for the dentist and still had significant pain afterwards. Of course it doesn't help that my TMJ has been giving me h*** lately.

I yacked with Lara this afternoon, caught up on emails and finally got my pages cut out for the class I'm taking at www.joggles.com. Tomorrow I'll play with starting to put the book together. I'm still at week 1 and it's week 3 of class. So I'm hoping to spend a good portion of the weekend working on my book. Right after I get some sleep.

I finally got my cat card finished for June's Adopt a Cat Month, a wee bit late but done:

July 1st, 2007

Time to get this blog started. It's been a lazy weekend. Got some more organizing done. I started rearranging art supplies about 6 weeks ago. I'm not just organizing, I'm seriously out of room so I'm weeding out too. It's hard to decide what I want to stay with my current art interests and what I want to part with. I'm about 1/2 way there and what's organized is nice so pushing on.

We had good news today. Shyloh our youngest daughter won another photo contest. This time it was the doors of Norman. She was one of 12 winners and happily tucked her $50 prize away towards the new SLR camera she is saving for.

Off to finish dinner and do some artwork. Posting pictures will be the toughest to do but what I'm aiming at.