July Shoebox

My friend Bonnie and I have been getting together on a regular basis to make cards, eat dessert, and "gab." She recently was able to find a job after being laid off for quite while, and she has made some new friends who are interested in making cards. Bonnie called the group "Shoebox" because each of us designs a card and brings all of the materials for each of the others to make the card. We added a new member, my friend Chrissy, who attended for the first time in July. Here's what we made:

Chrissy's Happy Birthday

Jane's Levis Inspired Card

You can tell that Jane is very detail oriented. She also paints Christmas ornaments.

Bonnie's Elegant Lady

Ashley's Birthday Card

I haven't colored in the candles yet.

Reverse Nestabilities

This is the technique card I brought in my shoebox. Rather than layer elements on top of each other, they are layered underneath. I love using the Spellbinders Nestablilies dies. Unlike punches, they will last forever!

And the evening concluded with a decadent chocolate peanut butter pie!!!! Thanks, Ashley, for hosting, and also to everyone else who brought projects.

Arrtiscape 2009

Last April my friend Barbara and I attended Artiscape, a wonderful art convention with outstanding workshops in Ohio. We had so much fun that we are going again, this time to Columbus, home of European Papers which sponsors and organizes everything. I discovered this year that there is a Yahoo group associated with Artiscape; members may sign up for various fat books (hand made books whose pages are 4" X 4"). The theme this year is "The Age of Innocence." I made 44 pages, all similar but not ecactly alike. Here is a sample of some of the pages.

For more information on Artiscape, go to www.europeanpapers.com.

Quote Swap

This is the February quote, a swap on CCSwaps which will continue through the year. The collage was done on a canvas board using acrylics, a paper napkin (the flowers), and an image of Frida Kahlo. I tried to incorporate her use of bright colors and tropical themes. I am really enjoying this swap.

More Challenges

I am still trying to do the weekly OSA challenges, incorporating the theme into the layout. The Lantern theme really had me puzzled - I just couldn't figure out what to put in the smaller circle until I came across the large Oriental coin - perfect!


The blue card uses a quote from Confucius which I thought works well with the image as the lady is not particularly beautiful. It is, however, one of my favorites and I have two versions of it.

As soon as I saw that the theme for this week was "Harmony," I knew exactly which stamp to use. The lady with her cat is from Cherry Pie - one of my absolutely favorite stamps.

OSA Challenge #5 - Winter

I again combined the theme challenge "Winter" with the design challenge. This time the design was, indeed, a big challenge - 12 squares layered over a narrow piece of CS surrounding the image. The three layers include silver paper, but it looks gray in the scan. The snowflake is also metallic. Enjoy - winter is almost half over!!!

IT Girl for Pauline

One of my groups, Art Ventures, is doing a long-term swap called "IT Girl." Each month one of the gals who has signed up is designated "IT," and she chooses a theme. January's IT girl is my friend Pauline who lives in the UK. She chose "Women" as her theme, not surprising because both she and I love that theme! I chose to make a collage of magazine images. The final canvas is 9X12. Unfortunately, my scanner cut off the bottom of the collage so you can't see that the decorative corners on the top are repeated on the bottom. Hope she enjoys this.