Tales of Experimentation

Do you ever feel like stepping out of your comfort zone, trying something outside your regular crafting? Well I have done just that!

I love the look of altered art and have made some jewelry using graphics and words to make necklaces and things, but I wanted to try something larger. I had seen "inchies", 1x1 inch canvases, on Squidoo and Etsy but thought that was way to small for my taste. Then I heard about "twinchies", 2x2 canvas and thought that might be for me. Well I am way to instant gratification for that, so I went up to 3x3 watercolor paper and made this.

This canvas is a surprise gift for my niece, Afton. She has a darling little house that she has decorated in Aqua, Cocoa Brown and Silver. Her place is full of vintage silver tea pots and old chandeliers. My sister, Nanette, is very talented in interior decorating and she has helped Afton pull her vision together. This 12x12 Cocoa Brown canvas is adorned with 16 3x3 watercolor paper canvases painted Tiffany Blue and Aqua. Each canvas has pieces of an old book and distressing ink pounced over the top. Then I applied the black and white graphics of 16 different women, including her mom, grandmother and greatgrandmother, and sayings to fit each one. Afton has such a dry sense of humor that this will be right down her alley, at least I hope so!

This canvas was a lot of fun and something I had never done, I usually stick with the things I like and do best.

I have been very busy trying to finish up a lot of small projects that I want to have at my craft shows this fall. I found this great wooden tray and painted letters to Santa on it. I love making "Trash into Treasure". People just eat this stuff up at my shows. Because of the weak economy I have decided to do many more small things to fit into every budget. I have finished Santa cake plates, wooden Santa candle lamps, Snowmen heads and this cute wooden Snowman bowl.
I find many of these "Treasures" at Goodwill or thrift stores. Now that the weather has turned warm, Garage Sales will be full of useful items. My girlfriends have my phone number on speed dial on cell phones so that when they are out for their early morning walks,they alert me to stuff left for the garbage man. If you call in a siting you get right of first refusal to what ever I make from it. It's a win - win situation for everyone!

As you can tell from the photos the Altered Art Canvas was a true Experiment for me and one I am glad was a success. I will let you know what my neice thought of it!



***Just an update, my neice got the collage and loved it. Now her sister wants one! I guess I was right to try something different!

See ya!

Tales of Creativity

Well it is April 1st and I swore that I would have a big chunk of my craft show items finished by Easter. Now mind you I wanted to have all my big wooden snowmen ready to go by this date, but as usual I always think I will get more done than I can possibly finish in a set amount of time. I have been working on prepping items for painting and coming up with new ideas, but I am a long way from hitting my goal for Easter.

I guess I could blame this on rain and unseasonably cold weather. Who wants to get out and work when it is cold and rainy? I could blame it on family commitments like going to Oklahoma for a surprise 30th wedding anniversary for my sister and her husband. That did take a full weekend, but it was worth every minute spent on that trip. What I really need to blame is myself. I think I work better under pressure and I have a habit of coming up with a million ideas and thinking I can get half of them done in a long weekend!


My real problem has been I have been on a creative roller coaster ride lately. I seem to find too many things I want to try. I took a coarse in jewelry soldering and loved the necklaces I made out of microscope slides.

I have become fascinated by vintage scrabble tiles and have spent way too much time on www.Squidoo.com and www.Etsy.com! There is a whole new world of creativity out there and I feel like Dorothy in the land of Oz. I know there is "No Place Like Home" but the journey is half the fun. You know that Dorothy looked at Kansas a little differently after her wild ride, so sometimes these creative tangents make me take a new and fresh look at my own creations.

Another wild thought I had was I wanted to expand my website, www.MySpareTimeDesigns.com, so I bought a digital tablet and have been taking a course in transforming my sketches into digital patterns. Like I needed something more to fill my spare time. So as you can see my snowmen have been pushed to the back burner right now and I have been busy dabbling in many different art forms.

Creativity comes in many forms. One time someone said I had so many creative ideas and asked what it was like to be in my head. I told her it was like cable TV, a bunch of channels, but all of mine played at the same time! So this is my tale of Creativity and my lack of self-discipline. Check back next month to find out how close I came to my goal!