OMG!

I have actually stumbled upon my blog .... yes, guilty again of blog abandonment .... just life getting in the way .... mostly in a good way!

I have been wanting to post this little project for a while now to the Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge Blog ... they have a wonderful little challenge called "fold it"!

I made this lovely little domino book .... plenty of folding here!  The cover was made with a domino, painted and covered in paper with a small ribbon on the sides.

 The little nest is crafted from burlap strands and faux pearl beads ....

 I loved these bird illustrations the minute I saw them, they are made from vintage drawings.

The little prints are on the front and back of each of the folded pages so there are several images to see!

I hope you enjoyed this little post!
Thanks so much for stopping by!
peace love and paper
Jo

mini ATC's ... a delightful little swap

So .... I did another spring swap over at Vintage Dragonfly ... The time my swap partner was JoAnne of Vintage Dragonfly, and our fabulous swap hostess!

WE each made a little matchbox chest, which is two matchboxes joined and covered together.  We filled one of the drawers with little treasures and the other drawer contained 3 mini ATC's.

I loved doing the matchbox drawers, such fun ... the ATC's were a true challenge ... i have not worked on something so small before.   This is the box JoAnne sent to me ... it was a joy to open!

 and the little chest, with its matchbox drawers open ... look at how pretty her project is, i just love all of the bits that make this chest up!

 JoAnne sent me adorable mini ATC's and lots of sweet goodies!

 Even more goodies came with the chest, i will have lots of yummy things to play with!

This is the matchbox chest I sent JoAnne ...

 It's funny that we were both thinking of nests, but it was a spring swap and nothing says spring like a nest!

 I sent her some goodies to play with and a few Purdy's eggs to nibble on.

 and these are the ATC's i sent to her.

I have to say, this is one of my favourite swaps to day ... it was fun, tiny and challenging ...

thanks so much for stopping by

Peace love and paper

Jo

Simon Says - We Love Stamps Challenge

Today I am participating in the Simon Says challenge ... I do love stamps .... and I think that almost everything i do has stamping on it in some way ...

For this challenge i did stamping that is not very obvious ... but it adds texture and interest to the project as a whole ... I also used my two all time favourite stamps on this project, the French Script background stamp by Stampin Up, and the french script stamps that comes in the French Market stamp set by Tim Holtz ....

I started by stamping a piece of white cardstock with the spun sugar distress ink, I only used a small portion of this paper in a die cut,  but i have saved the rest for future projects.

 I also stamped an old piece of chipboard that has been painted and inked ... i stamped the image while the ink on the heart was still wet, and it all kind of smudged ... which was what i was going for ...

 and here we are!  the white paper is die cut into a snowflake rosette shape (this is one of my fave dies of all times) and i attached a little cherub that i printed, fussy cut, then glittered ... i then attached the whole thing to a lovely set of wings!

Not all stamping needs to be close up and in your face ... I love how this subtle stamping took the "whiteness" out of the white cardstock, and added some extra visual interest!

Once again, thanks so much for stopping by!  and make sure you stop by the Simon Says Monday Challenge to see all of the wonderful stamping art!

Peace, love and paper!

Jo

What's my style?

arrrrg, if you follow my blog then you know that my style is a tad bit undefined ... I like bright, colourful, happy, textural, muted, layered, simple, easy, grungy, vintagey and kind of white .... yeah ...

so when i decided to join the "what's your style" challenge at Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge Blog  ... i grabbed an old battered bright pink heart shaped box and decided to let "my heart" do the picking ....

This is what happened ....

I covered the box top in patterned paper and layered it with doilies an image from Graphic 45 paper and some hand made flowers, and all things pretty!

This box wax actually quite high ... to get the texture i wanted i painted the box in clay paint (which is very similar to chalk paint) in an old white colour.  I trimmed the side of the box top with satin ribbon and then layered it with vintage white lace.

Just a wee close up of the top ... i like a lot of depth so the flowers  much higher than the surface heart box top.

So, apparently my style is layered, textural, vintage and kind of white .... or at least my heart said so in this challenge ....

I can only wonder what my style will be on my next project!
Thanks so much for stopping by
Peace, love and paper
jo

3 little houses ...

A big hello to you!  

for some reason, I have been thinking about houses and homes since the beginning of the year ... I have kind of made an informal plan to focus a lot of my art work around the them of houses this year.  I was thrilled when my brother cut me several, like many, little houses from scrap wood.

I have taken three of the houses with very short roofs and worked on them for a week or so ... finally they are finished ... well almost, i still need to sign them and finish the bottoms.

3 little homes, free hand cut by my brother.   The roofs have varied pitches ... each roof has a thick layer of texture paste, i used a dry brush to apple the paste and created a lumpy shingle look.  I mixed up black paint with a pear green paint to achieve a mottled black colour.  I also lightly swiped parts of the roof with green, then quickly wiped it off ... just to make them look a little dirty.

Each house was covered with gesso, white paint, tan paint and vintage paper in varying layers.  The windows and doors are cut freehand from illustrations from a vintage french encyclopedia ...

I actually love the way they turned out ... you can still see the grain of the wood through them which allows them to maintain a very natural feel despite the treatment given to them. I hope you have enjoyed them as well.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

peace, love and paper

jo

the last of Christmas gifts ...

Here we go ... the last gift i made this Christmas.  This one was made for my Mom and Dad ... Growing up we always had large family and friend gatherings on the the night before Christmas ... food, fun and festivities and singing.  The hi-lite of these evenings was always The 12 days of Christmas.  My mom and dad would diviy up the group and assign numbers! and then the hilarity began as each little group stood up and sang their part.

So when i found this Tim Holtz configurations box with 12 boxes, and Graphic 45's 12 Days of Christmas paper, well I just had to make a memory gift for my parents.

The outside front cover of the configuations "book"...

close up of the dangling crystal and the hand died ribbon...

and a little close up of the flowers and buttons adorning the cover page ... i hand coloured and tinted most of the flowers and added wee bits of glitter to them...

 This is the book when it opens up ... I cut each image from the patterned paper and used a lot of dimension in assembling the little boxes ...

 A close up of the inside ... the lantern is also Tim Holtz and it really works ...  i used bits of glitter ... a vintage necklace, bottle brush trees, mini deer (okay i know there are no deer in the song but they were soooo darn cute!) and various other bits ...

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a peak ... I really was thrilled with the way this piece turned out!

peace love and paper!
jo

wishing you Joy!

... and peace .... love and laughter .... light and being .... and all of the beauty each moment of the day offers ....

I kind of had those thoughts running through my brain when i met up with a friend to make picket houses ... you know ... you just have the wood cut in the shape of a picket ... in this case we were working with 2 x 4 pickets ...

So i was wanting to make some vintage styles winter white houses to go with 2 houses i made last year ... but sometimes,  the company of a good friend, and a lot of laughter, changes your art mid course ...

 this is my "joy" .... plain wood with layers of vintage hymnal paper, gesso, acrylic paint and patterned paper.  The words were originally cut out of Christmas scrapbooking paper, but that all changed witht he addition of paint ...the hand was painted about 4 times ... then i decided on white ... this shares the table with a very old quilted table runner i made about 15 years ago ..

detail ... some floral patterned paper still shows through ... there are many flowers in joy!

I think my favourite part is the eyes ... the all seeing house .... looking for joy and it is right there ... it just has to see it ...

the second house ..."the daily dance" ... sometimes this is what my days feel like ... I have a bright pink key to wind myself up (really .... just strong coffee does the trick) and i am walking on fragile little pearls all day ...

the pair ... not even close to what i had in my mind but i am so glad they turned out as they did!

and back to my original thought .... "wishing you joy and peace .... love and laughter .... light and being .... and all of the beauty each moment of the day offers ...."

thanks for stopping in, and have a very merry Christmas!
Jo

happy heart ...

.... it is so good to have a happy heart ... to be able to laugh and smile and play!  creating while hanging out with good friends ....

 Kathy .... creating with a gelli plate, stencils and paint

 my journal page (happy heart, unfinished)

 closeup ... love creating lots of soft layers

Izzy, stopping by for some conversation and beer!!!

I hope you are all getting a chance to laugh, create and play this summer ... it does wonders for the heart!
peace, love & paper
Jo

Hello World ...

it's me!  your less than faithful blogger ....

I have been totally inspired by the latest Simon Says Stamp Challenge ... which is to incorporate something ... well almost anything ... old into a project ... of some sort ... "Embrace the Old"

Well one thing i have a lot of is "old" .... but I was totally stumped on the challenge ... it took days and days of rifling through my stuff to decide that what i really wanted to use was something new and put it into an old set of tea cups.

The tea cups were a bargain and i was drawn to their low, wide design when I saw them languishing in local thrift store.

so ... here is what I came up with ... my daughter calls it "creepy in a cup" ... but I love it ... it's representative of me reassuring my daughter that i will always be there ... oh and the heart in the background, found that already painted and stamped in a stash of old chipboard ...

hope you don't think it's creepy ... and it's actually in 2 cups ....

 From atop ... life is never a bed of roses, but I will be there ....

 It might be a bit of a wild ride, but I will be there ...

 when life is topsy turvy and nothing is quite right , I will be there ...

when you have those waves of discontent, I will be there ...

 giving you a soft place to land!


peace and love to all of you that stop by and visit ...

The last little bits of 2012!

I was lucky enough to participate in a fabulous Christmas banner swap over at Vintage Dragonfly!  We were all to make banners from a shrine template turned upside down, in soft muted vintagey colours, tones and images.

This is the banner I submitted for the swap ...

I used lots of texture with burlap, lace and vintage lace ... I had a blast doing this swap!

And this is the completed banner that i received!  I was thrilled to get this, it looked so lovely draped over the doors of my china cabinet.

 This banner was made by JoAnne of Vintage Dragonfly.  Love the soft soft colour palette.

 This one is by Michele of Nook and Cranny.  The fibre around the edge was actually crocheted onto the cardstock.

 This little blue beauty was made by Melinda (no blog) love love love the lace she used.

 This one was made by Karla (again no blog) and wow, i just love it to bits!  love the little white resin angel at the top  and the giant bling ball at the bottom.

 this one by Sandi (why don't these people have blogs?) omg, the bling, the glitter the dots of pearls ... so pretty

and finally one by Linda (you guessed it ... no blog)  sorry it's sideways ... what a cute image she used!

I was totally gobsmacked this year when i received a hand made ornament in the mail ... this ornament was created by the uber talented Lynn Stevens of Trash to Treasure Art ... Lynn is an amazing artist and if you have never visited her blog, you should ... you will be inspired!

 I know that these photos do not do this tiny ornament justice ... it is a teeny tiny church in a field of snow captured in a tiny salt shaker ... little vintage bells adorn the outside of the bottle ... it is amazing in real life.

and finally, Do you all know about the Ikea Monkey?  If you don't just google it ... basically it was a little monkey wearing a shearling coat, trying to get into Ikea.  My niece Alyssa used a still photo from the internet, and photoshopped it and created a background for it ... all done in Ikea colours of course!  She then printed it off and used it to wrap a friends Christmas gift in.  Well, that friend put it on facebook and from there it migrated into that whole great big World Wide Web thing!  LOL!

I was thrilled to see it on MSN just before Christmas.

Thank you so much for sticking through this rather lengthy post ... may the new year bring you peace, health and happiness! hugs to you all