Kristin's

So the title of this blog comes from a little contest my friend Chrysti is having over on her blog.  She challenged us to really take in the world around us.  Since I'm currently waiting to go back to work at Michaels after the kids go back to school....my world is pretty much my home...and when I'm at home I'm usually in my bedroom.  My bedroom acts as my living center and well basically my studio as well.  I have pretty much all I need to be, my little creative self, right here in my room. It's all pretty close to my finger tips. 

Chrysti challenged us to, "Turn just a part of your otherwise ordinary day - and make it extraordinary!"  So I took some pictures of things that I see everyday...things I LOVE and cherish and things that I take for granted.  And you know what....I learned something about myself. I HATE TO DUST!! So guess what...I NEVER DO!! Well...actually now I might because it looks horrible how dusty my room is in places...ICK!! So ignore the dust in the pic's if you really must look at them!! PLEASE!!

I also learned that it doesn't take much in life to make me happy and content!  Just give me my nice comfy sleep number bed to sleep in and to sit on and my two kitties and my hubby and I'm good to go...but then throw in some of my favorite creature comforts on top of that...and then I'm a HAPPY CAMPER!!

So my first picture is of my side of the bed and the book that I'm currently reading.



I can't go to sleep at night without reading...and it varies what I'm reading, but it's usually something fiction...a novel of some sort.  I'm currently reading Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer.  It is the last book in her Twilight series. My teenage daugter Sarah and I started reading this series when it first came out in 2005, and we're both avid readers and share books all the time!!  We were attracted to this series because I've passed on my obsession with all things Vampire.  Not sure why I have it, but I DO!! I love movies, books and TV shows about vampires!!  And I find that I almost always get inspired by reading one of these books and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  And I have to add that I have quite the crush and would gladly offer up my neck to one vampire in particular from the Buffy series and that would be Spike. So now I must add a pic of Spike here.....



IDK why but there is something about his bad boy, rebel without a cause, brit punk look that I just find so SEXY!! The hubby and I always say that he'll dess up as Spike for me and I'll dress up as Princess Leia for him (you know in the gold bikini outfit).  Anyway...I'm getting off track...ah one look at Spike does that to me...LOL! So now I need to throw in the hubby and the kids pic's here too! My hubby is quite the nerd/geek, and typical at that with the love of Star Wars, he's a computer software engineer (computer programmer) as a profession and he loves pretty much anything nerdy and geeky, but HE'S MY GEEK and I LOVE HIM!!



And these are my precious kiddo's Bryce & Sarah. 


Aren't they beautiful kids?  Well I am a bit biased....LOL! This pic was taken during their senior protrait session. I get asked all the time if they're twins since they're both in the same grade, but they're not.  Bryce is currently 17 almost 18 and Sarah is currently 16 almost 17.  So they're a year and 2wks apart in age and because of Sarah being able to pick things up quickly she started school early.

So.....moving on......

My next thing that is so important to put pictures up next of are my two kitties...well really cats..they're far from kittens now!  First is our Princess....and yes that is her name and yes she thinks she is.



We adopted Princess when we lived in California still...back in Feb of 2003.  Our cat at that time was another cat named Lily and when she ran away we started going to the local shelter to see if she would show up.  Well Lily never did, but in the mean time we fell in love with Princess and the feeling is mutual.  She's one of the sweetest cats I've ever had. And I've had MANY cats through the course of my life.  She thinks and acts much like a dog at times in that she hates to be left alone, and she begs for love, attention, lap time and to be picked up when you return home after being gone during the day.  OH and she thinks she's my hubby's girlfriend....you should see the google eyes she makes at him when he pets her....LOL!

Our other cat is Rosie and she is our big dopey Maine Coon cat.  We call her dopey because well...she is...but it adds to why we love her so.  We adopted Rosie about a year ago now.  A co-worker of my hubby's kinda inherited her when he bought his house.  The previous owners were an older couple and the husband sold the house when his wife passed suddenly and well Rosie was her cat and he just couldn't stand to have her anymore because she made him miss his wife too much.  So we ended up with Rosie once the co-worker figured out he was way too allergic to cats to own one.  And we love her so much!! Well except when she desides to show us how much she loves us and leaves us bloody presents at the front door (makes me thankful Princess is an inside kitty.) So here she is getting ready to drink from her glass of water.  And yes....I said glass....sometime about 2 years ago Princess desided that glasses left out on the counter of the bathroom or the kitchen were for her drinking pleasue and the water bowl was just too beneath her to drink out of anymore! And when Rosie moved in she figured out pretty quick that was where she was gonna drink too!



Next comes my night stand....it is home to my many favorite pens that I use in my art and art journals and is also the home of my paint brushes, TV & DVD remotes and also my much loved OTT Light to help me work on my art!  And in this pic you can also see some of my current projects.





When you look on the floor next to my bed you'll find some of many other cherished art supplies.  I moved them onto the bed to photograph because it was less cluttered that way...











And the floor next to my bed is also where I keep my tablet. I LOVE this thing because it makes it so nice to do graphic art, edit my art I scan and also to edit pictures I take of my family and other things.



You will also find along side my tablet some of my inspirational magazines/books and my art journal.  I only took a pic of some of my fav magzine's/ books (there is far more) with my art journal opened under it all....



OH and while I've got this pic up I'll take the chance to share some good news!! Teesha Moore has said that she will publish my skinny book pages in her next issue of Art and Life!! WOO HOO!!  I'll be published in issue #13....which I think will come out around November sometime.  And it's so KEWL to mention this in this blog entry because Chrysti hosted the swap I made these skinny book pages for over on her site Altered Abbey.
 
So back on track again....(boy I blog like I have ADD....mmmmm) back to the topic.  My other important things to add here are the things that help make my day be less ordinary. The first one is my bookcase with my fav books, novels, art books and my collections of inspirational magazines (like Somerset Studio and Art & Life to name a few), and a few other random things thrown in....



Second comes my desk, which has nooks in it that I use to display some of my favorite art by friends, and some special items that I hold dear. Like my teddy bear FUZZY that my grandparents gave me as a kid (they are now deceased), my Hello Kitty stuff, some of my other teddy's that are part of my teddy bear collection and a lot of other clutter I didn't show in the picture...LOL!!







Chrysti you'll see one of your pieces of work propped up in front of a snowman....LOL!

And  then third comes my side table with all of my paints (the ones that aren't watercolors) on it, and other misc. supplies....and the drawers in this hold my stamps.  But I didn't take a pic of those.



OH and those were some of the pic's you needed to ignore the dust in....OK?! LOL!

So it wouldn't be right to not put in a pic of my WONDERFUL color laser printer.  This baby has added so much to my art work and my art journal!! Life just wouldn't be the same for me if I had to get rid of it for some reason because it really does play such a HUGE part in my work now.  So here it is....



Please don't ask me what model it is or anything...because I have NO IDEA!! My geek hubby bought it for me....did all the research and knows all of that geek type stuff. I have NO CLUE!! I just know it works like a dream and I used it yesterday to help me make this piece of artwork!



I used it to print out the hands/arms you see in this piece.  I made this to put in, on the Final Friday show that I'm participating in the last Friday of this month.  I did this Final Friday thing last month for the first time along with my daughter and some friends from church.  It was held at a local coffee house called The Daily Grind. It was a lot of fun...and I made some good local contacts! I'm hoping that I actually manage to sell something this month!

So last, but certainly not least, in my book, since this is a source of much inspiration sometimes.....is my TV. My TV is hooked up to my DVD player and the DVR we use to record all of our favorite TV shows. And it is also how I listen to my digital music sometimes too!  Along the top of it is part of another collection I have (besides Hello Kitty and Teddy Bears) and that is my Jadeite - Fire King stuff! I love this stuff because it's vintage....from the 40's and early 50's...and it's a time period I just LOVE!! My little brother and I always said we were born in the wrong generation when we were kids because we love this type of stuff so much. He loves it so much that he even collects this stuff and is into the whole Rockabilly scene complete with hair and clothes.  Oh and ignore the ick factor in this pic....PLEASE!!



I hope you all had an enjoyable time taking a glimpse into my little world and my cherished surroundings!  And Chrysti...I hope I win!! LOL!! Have fun at the ZNE convention....I'm gonna be there with you next time!!

Here's a glimpse of our new graphic to use for being on the team this year.

Well that's my first BIG news....now on to 3 other news items also related to the Design Team.

My next bit of news, is to let you all know, that I was pleasantly surprised to see a piece of my work, from last year's Design Team featured on the ZNE Design Team Blog in the form of the banner appearing at the top of the page.  It looks like this....

The "E is for Eclectic" card on the left, pictured above, is one of the cards I made on last year's team.   We did a little project where we created ACEO's/ATC's for the Design Team using letters of the alphabet (see post dated 5-14-07 below).  All 3 of the above art cards were created at that time.  The one in the middle was created by Susan Tidwell and the one on the right was created by Tiffany Jane Marshall.

The next exciting thing to share, is that all of the art cards pictured above along with all of the other ABC cards created by the Design Team are featured in a wonderful YouTube video that our fearless leader Chel produced for us.  It was created back in June of last year (yes...I know...I'm running behind on my news about this....)  And by clicking the link below you can go watch it.

ZNE Little Letterz


OH and a little tid bit I noticed over on Chel's Blog....is this little nifty gif she has up to direct you to the ZNE website...and well it has a little bitty part of a piece of my art blinking on it as well.  It's the bit with the ladies face. So you can see it too...and click on it if you want to (to see where it takes you) I've included it below!

Thanks for stopping by to check in with me!!  I'll be back again soon with news about an art show at church for the youth group, Clayhouse.   There will also be more news on the Desgin Team and on the ZNE book club too!!

So I finally took the plunge and have opened a store on ETSY!!  I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but just haven't sat down to do it.  A while back I scanned in these backgrounds that I painted to cut up for little 1x1 collages that I made way back in February (I think...) with the intentions of using them to resale as preprinted ATC/ACEO backgrounds for sale.  So....I've finally done it!!  You can get them as digital downloads as either a PDF or a jpg file that I'll email directly to your email address so there is NO SHIPPING costs!!  And they're only $2.00 a piece!!  My DH is in the process of helping me set up a website as well...and once we've done that, I'll also be offering my collage sheets printed out on a color laser jet printer, and printed onto high quality and acid free papers.  I'll keep you all updated on the progress of that happening in upcoming posts.

Right now just the digital versions of my collage sheets are available for sale. Soon....I'll also be making collage sheets available with highquality 300 dpi images of pictures from my personal collection of vintage images.  Some of you will probably recoginize some of these images because I've already used some of them in my own art.  Again, keep watching this blog to find out when those will be available.  It should be within the next week or so!

So without furter ado....here's the direct link to my Etsy Store!!  And here are a few examples of what the collage sheets look like.

There is a total of 7 ATC/ACEO background collage sheets available right now, but these pictures above, are just a few of the examples. Please leave me some comments here to let me know what you think of them.  And please be sure to go and "HEART" my Etsy store while there as well!!

Now onto some other news....my kids are officially driving on the road!! And it has me scared to death!!! But at the sametime I'm excited for them too!!  Bryce got his learners permit on Friday and Sarah will be getting her's on Tuesday (if she passes......).  And on Wednesday they officially start the behind the wheel portion of their driver's ed class.  Their Dad took them out today for their first official driving lesson and he'll be taking them out again tomorrow night as well.  Sarah is currently only driving around in the parking lot at the highschool since she does't have her permit yet.

In other art news...I've also been working on some art for swaps.  I sent out my Altered Journal for the AAO Altered Journal Round Robin at the beginning of June.  And here are a few examples of what I did in my journal before sending it out.

In a later post I'll share what the cover looks like, and how I made it and all that fun stuff!!!  I'd love to hear what ya'll think of what I've done in it so far.  I decided to do this journal in the theme of Zettiology because I fell in love with this style when we did it for the AAO Style Try Fatbook.  If you're not sure what I'm talking about you can go look at this post to refresh your memory.

I also recently made some mermaid themed ATC's for another AAO swap.  I really liked doing these a LOT!!  And I used some palette paper that looked really KEWL after it was used under the baby wipes that I used water colors on (see previous post).  In fact I actually liked the the way the palette paper looked better than the wipe did, so that's what the backgrounds of these ATC's is made of.

I'll be back in a day or two to share what I've made for the ZNE Design Team this month, and also to share my latest stuff for the ZNE book club as well.  I also hope to be able to share some other new collage sheets for my Etsy store as well.

Soooooo.... that brings me to May's assignment for the ZNE Design Team!!  This month we're all making ATC's (artist trading cards).   Each person on the team has two letters from the alphabet to work with.  We then have to make one ATC for each letter.  My two letters are "K" and "E."  After picking our letters we were given backgrounds to use on the ATC's.  To get a preview of what these look like you can click here.  Of course mine didn't have the copyright symbol on it, but I thought you'd like to see an example.  So, we printed out the backgrounds, and picked two of the four that we wanted to use.  I used the ones on the upper right and the one on the bottom left.  Then we had to pick a word that we wanted to illustrate on the card that started with the letters we picked.  For the letter "K" I used "Kitty" and for the letter "E" I used "Eclectic."  We then had to go to this website and type in our letter and our word to make labels to use on the ATC's, with the settings Chel assigned to us.  And here is what the cards looked like when I was done.

"K is for Kitty"

"E is for Eclectic"

The above images are of the wipes I just put random color onto. If you'd like to see more detail you can click on the thumbnails.

This is the one I folded in half.

This is the one I folded in quarters.

This is the one I tried the tie-dye effect on.  I really like how this one turned out.  I think I'm going to use this one on the cover of a journal I'm going to be using for an altered journal round robin for AAO. 

 

This is the one that I cut up into quarters and then did the tie-dye effect on.  These are the ones that I actually turned into ATC's.

 

This is the ATC that I made with the background that is in the lower right corner of the image above.  I call it "Hugs and Kisses."

For this one, I thought the little magenta shape in the middle of the background already looked like a heart (refer to the image above, of the baby wipe I cut up).  So I used a brush pen to outline it and then added the quote to it.  I don't like how the brush pen bled a bit, but I guess it was just because a baby wipes texture is a lot like fabric. so that's why it turned out like that.

The last thing I have to share today is what we were working on for Book Club last week.  It is techniques using magazine clippings on our ATC's.  You can find the techniques for magazines on pages 24 - 33 in the Artist Trading Card Workshop book.  I decided to try the method on pages 32 & 33.  For this method you pick a magazine image.  (I picked a neat looking ad for lipstick.)  You cut it up to fit on an ATC back measuring 2.5 x 3.5 inches.  After adhering it to the background of the card you add Elmer's Glue-All to the image where ever you'd like.  I added it along a lot of the lines in the image.  Then you use this stuff called "Nevr Dull", which is a metal polish.  When you rub it on the magazine image it rubs off the ink on the page.  Where the glue is on the image it leaves behind the ink, so the glue acts as a resist.  After I took the ink away I went back in with my water-soluble pastels and added color back in.  Here are the examples of what I got....