September Start Up

I can't believe it's already September!  The year is flying by!  Up today is a back-to-school blog background which will be changed to a Halloween one tomorrow.  When I was little, I always enjoyed going to the store to buy school supplies.  The smell of Crayola crayons when opening a new box still makes me swoon.  

I'm making some changes to my blog.  It will be expanded to include some of my other artistic interests. I also will be cleaning up the sidebar and only posting the badges of challenge sites where I've won.  The sidebar is so overloaded that it no longer serves a useful purpose.  This may sound self-serving, but the sidebar is long right now and I doubt anyone scrolls through it.  So the badges don't really serve as a marketing tool for the challenge sites.  I will post the challenge badge and what I made and will update it so that it only covers the past few months.

THIS MONTH'S HOLIDAY

Happy Labor Day!  Here's one of my previous makes that celebrates the working woman and her important role during World War II.

MEDIA MONDAY

I've been dabbling in digital art so I found this book totally fascinating.  The dh found it at the local thrift store.    Bright and Early Thursday Evening: a tangled tale dreamed by Audrey Wood, imagined by Don Wood.  I found the story delightful in the Alice In Wonderland absurd kind of way.  But I was mesmerized by the beautiful digital paintings.

The local movie theater finally had something playing that I wanted to see.  The Giver with Jeff Bridges was excellent.  It conjoured up all sorts of ideas for journaling art work.

CYBER CHALLENGE

Here is a new art project that is starting today.  I've made ATCs using playing cards but never really altered an entire set of playing cards.  It sounds like an interesting project.  You can find all the details at Claudine Criner's blog HERE.  She says the project will last 26 weeks.

DESIGN TEAM WORK

GECKO GALZ

Please visit the Gecko Galz blog to participate in our September Customer Challenge which is School Days. The prize for one lucky winner is a $25 shopping spree at Gecko Galz and a prize pack from Rhonda's Originals (this month's cross promotion sponsor).  You will find all the challenge details, as well as more design team makes,  HERE.

Here is my design team make for inspiration.  My digital collage was printed and colored, then placed on an old-timey mini composition book.

The Gecko Galz September 2014 digital image releases used in this make are:
School Days digital stamps (school banner, girl holding blackboard)
Chalkboard Sentiments collage sheet
Other Gecko Galz digital products:
School Days collage sheet:  postmark
AlterMe collage sheet: Word Search digital paper

I cropped and made png files with the images.  I erased the skin on the girl so that when placed on the paper the pattern would show through.
Starting with the word search paper, I layered the banner, girl and postmark.  I placed on top of her chalk board the chalkboard sentiment.
After printing out the collage, I used watercolor pencils to add some color accents.  I then glued it onto the composition book cover, leaving the black binding exposed.
I printed a second word search paper to cover the back of the book.

I would like to enter this notebook altered cover in the following challenges:

Craft Your Passion Challenge #229 Back to School

Creative Moments:  Challenge #50Anything Goes with Back to School twist (new challenge for me which I found at Paper Playful--list of challenges)

Just Us Girls: Challenge #256 Wild Card:   (new challenge for me which I found at Paper Playful--list of challenges)


Sentimental Sundays: Challenge #222  Back to School  The sentiment on the chalkboard says "whatever you are be, be a good one"

Shopping Our Stash SOS# ABC's  I used the mini composition book that has been in my stash for a couple of years and the Stampin' Up watercolor pencils that I've had forever and just starting using again this past week.  A=alphabet background paper, B= banner, C= chalkboard and composition book

The Cheerful Stamp Pad Challenge #94  Anything Goes

Please come back tomorrow for more design team news!