Freebies - Collage Sheet - Woman in Red 3

This is the last of the Woman in Red collage sheets that I have made. I think this is a pretty well rounded series of images. Some from Renoir, Botticelli, Rossetti, Comerre, etc... I might have to do something with blue next. Anyway, I do hope you have enjoyed these and are already thinking of creative ways to use them. Hope you are having a great weekend.

Four Letter Words - Fall

Three Muses Challenge - Charlie Chaplin

This week for the Three Muses challenge was Charlie Chaplin. He is such a great character in his films and in real life. He certainly brought a lot of joy and laughter to the world in a time when it was sorely needed. I knew I had to do this is black and white - just like his movies. The quote is his and the layout is something I have been practicing for another project.

Freebies - Collage Sheet - Woman in Red 2

Here is the second collage sheet freebie of Woman in Red. Yes, there is one more. This sheet doesn't have a bunch of images because I thought it might be nice to just have a few really good images. The next sheet has more.

I have found that these are working out really well as images for my blocks. I have been resizing images and playing around with them for a couple of days now. I hope you can find a use for these images in your art.

Digital Collage - Five

I made this collage this morning. As I sat behind a school bus yesterday, I was remembering something my grandmother had said to me. School is a privilege, use your time wisely. She was so smart. It is hard to believe that in her lifetime school was not something you had to do. Most kids worked or tended the younger ones so the parents could work. There were no day cares. Young children like these were on their own most of the day. How lucky we are.

Welcome September!

Can you believe it is September already? Where did summer go? Unfortunately this marks the worst part of Hurricane season for us. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we miss any big action or else it is a total wipeout. No in between for this girl.

I am using these magazine covers in my Journal to mark the new month or a special day. I will share them with you as I use them. I thought they would be sort of fun. They might also make great calendar pages.

A Little Antiquing

Last week I took my company up to the Big City to do some shopping an antiquing. We share the love of the hunt together. We hit all the thrift stores, a couple of antique malls and then a few antique stores. I had a great time taking pictures and talking to the owners. I was good, I had found a whole bag of stuff at one of the thrift store for $2.17 it seemed a shame to spend my money on anything else.

One of the things I enjoy about going to these places is seeing how they decorate and combine different odds and ends. I always find such good ideas for displaying my things. For instance one of the stores had taken a lace panel and hung it on the ceiling. Then attached ribbons and hung some lovely ornaments on it. I am going to share an assortment of photos with you. Maybe you will find some ideas or just enjoy the browsing.

Freebies - Collage Sheet - Woman in Red

Do you ever get a tune stuck in your head that you just can't get rid of? Well, I awoke to the sound of thunder, rain and the lyrics...."woman in red....." I figured it must be some sort of sign after about six hours and I should just go with it. I went through my various folders of images and decided to make a new folder of "Women in Red". Then, I decided to make some collage sheets. So, here is the first of three. Enjoy and make something fun.

Theme Thursday - Quote - Digital Collage

I worked on some challenges yesterday and came up with this for the Theme Thursday's Challenge. This week it is Quotes. We are to make a piece of art and use a quote on it. I went to their site after we had had a huge discussion at dinner about quotes, writers, literature, etc. Dinner was filled with everyone's favorites, the inane, and the life's lessons. I decided to go with Shakespeare. He had such a way with words. The house is from the mountains, the girls are cabinet cards, the negative is just an old negative scanned and resized.

Things that Smell in the Night

Mama Skunk with young

Daddy Skunk

I hope you all have a friend you have known a long time and can call anytime. They are the best. These prints are for her, you might want to use them to remind someone of their own personal hygiene issues or not.

The other day I got a call from a friend and she said - "I have a problem - a couple of times this week I have been woken up in the dead of night by the smell from a skunk." She has several acres that her house is snuggled into. There are woods and a beautiful pond. I asked for more information. Then she said - we have a solar bug zapper - "Do you think that when the zapper goes off that the skunk is spraying?" Yes. "So any ideas to stop it. " Turn off the zapper for a couple of nights. Isn't it nice to have a friend to figure out life's little wonders with and just let you Hoot out loud?

My other thought when this conversation was going on was how long it had been since I had smelled that smell. I can remember when we lived on the farm smelling the smell almost every night driving home. I wonder if they don't do well in the heat or sand here. So, how many of ya'll smell skunks? Is this another thing that is slowly dying off? A friend in Alabama had a Mama and five babies under her deck that the wildlife people came and relocated. In probably ten years those are the only two skunk stories I have heard.

Digital Collage - Remember Me

I am starting to think about Halloween - one of my favorite holidays. I did this small digital collage today. These two sisters remind me of some haunted by what they have seen kids. The older one in particular. I am wondering if she has a cast on her arm. She looks so sad. I want to thank Viola for the little girls image.

Quote - Inner Child

Banner Art

I am still doing the Tip in Monthly Swap in one of my groups. This month I had the lovely Tamara's banner to do. What fun. I have not done a lot of banners. I did a swap just last month but mine were lost in the large vacuum called the Postal Service not to be heard from again. So getting to do a larger banner and one for such a wonderful artist was challenging.

Tamara loves orange and pink, Zetti, and winged things. This of course made it very fun for me. I used several shades of orange paint, some yellow and pink oil pastels to do the backgrounds. The zetti girl is from Teesha Moore and the young princess is from Paper Whimsey. The castle is from an antique tea card. Add a little ribbon, some glitter and some jewels and we have a banner.

Front of the banner

Back of the banner

ATC and Tag from Scraps

ATC

My goal this year has been to recycle my scraps and buy less. So far I have been doing really good at sticking to my mantra. I took the scraps from the sheet of paper I made Tamara's banner with and was able to get one tag, one ATC, 5 moo cards and 5 inchies. I haven't done anything with the moo's or inchies but, I thought I thought I would share these with you. Click on the tag to see it larger.

When I copied and printed my castle I did several different sizes. I was not sure what size would look the best on the banner. This also gave me several different sizes to play with for something else. The tag is actually quite large - larger than the ATC, but in scanning it and including the ribbon it does not appear that way. I used a large castle with the tag and a much smaller on for the ATC. Both of the girls are from Paper Whimsey. The wings are from Collage Visions. I needed something that would show up well with all I had going on.

The ribbon on the tag is leftovers from the banner. I have been in a real lime sherbet green mood lately. I love the combination of the green, orange and pink, with some yellow. I feel like I am in a container of rainbow sherbet. Yummm.

Four Letter Words - Wave

Watch Your Step

This is a little something - about the size of my whole hand - that I found right at the shore line on Friday morning. It is the second one of these I have found. What caught my eye was the fishing line glimmering in the sun. I went over and looked and saw something brown sticking up with some of the fishing line. I gave the fishing line a pull and found this hook. Amazing, isn't it?
Can you imagine stepping on this with out shoes on? This could really do some damage. It is for catching flounder off of a pier. As the closest pier is over a mile away and up stream you do have to wonder. It is going into my bowl of odd things I have found on the shore. Please be careful.

Weather Channel in Town

Path to the beach

Tide is coming in

Beach strewn with shells from all the wave action

Waves are beginning to grow

Surfers leaving to go to designated surf area with life guards.

It is never a good thing to wake up to the weather channel in your town. Both Friday and Saturday mornings I awoke to the live telecast from our beach. Of course we had to run down to the beach and see what was going on. Friday morning - early - it was beautiful. The beach was strewn with shells, no one but surfers and one lone fisherman. The surf was agitated. It tore one of my flip flops off and the toe thingy right out of the shoe. I was only up to my calves, too.

As the tide began to come in the waves began to pick up, turning sort of greenish. In my experience green in the weather is not good - the sky having a green tinge - tornado - water green tinge - undertow and riptides - hurricanes and tropical storms. The surfers began to come in and move down the beach where the life guards were. No swimming on Friday and Saturday.

Found Beach Treasures

Here are a few of the treasures I found Saturday morning. I love the glass with "coc...a" on it. The marble was unexpected. I wonder if it was someone's "lucky marble". I usually don't pick up too many shells any more. I have large bowl and vases filled with scallop shells, olives, arks, etc... Now I pick them up to five to people or to use in a journal or as an embellishment for something I am working on. I often find a whole bunch of cool shells and will leave them above the tide line for someone to find.

Shell Offering

Back Home, Laundry and Such...

It seems like forever since I have posted. Lots of things going on. I love August but it is long. It is like you have to fit in everything you thought you were going to do in the beginning of summer into one month. I am home! yeah! doing loads of wash. Towels, sheets, blankets, clothes.... In between loads and folding I am going through a week of emails, answering emails, and trying to get some new things up on my blog. Plus waiting for coats of paint to dry for some backgrounds I am doing. Whew...

I had unexpected company this week. A friend going through some hard times who just wanted to play. She helped me get ready for the storm, then we played some more. Took a couple of day trips and took a lot of walks on the beach. Unfortunately, it is hard to post with all of that going on. I have lots of pictures though and I did get a couple of arty things done. So, today is my blog day and lets see what all I can get up for you. I missed you all.

Digital Collage - Back to School 1905 by Miss Kelly

Isn't this just wonderful? Kelly from Artsy Visions and Collage Visions emailed me that she had used the freebie I posted. I immediately went to her blog and found this awesome digital collage. Everything Kelly does is wonderful. Seriously, she is just one of those artists that has the knack of design and color. Plus, she is varied and not afraid to try something new. There is always growth in her work. I hope you will take some time and visit her. p.s. in the south we call everyone "Miss".