Little Big Man Tip-In with a Twist Page

Foir my latest partner in this swap. She had always said she wanted a big eyed bird of her own so I thought I should do not one but two for her. I thought it would be fitting to have the big brother teaching his little brother how to go about daily life, you know, like dancing.
Here they are learning the new steps

Another Creative 4x4 Page

I'm finding it harder and harder to be "creative" for the Creative chunky page swap. The tip-in with a twist swap has seemingly sapped all my creative juices. That being said I still really like the direction this one took. I found alot of really neat stuff at the construction site to use on this one.
First is the corrugated paper. I love the way this stuff paints up, especially with torn edges. I found the tiniest piece of gold leaf from a project and applied it to the upper left corner and the insides of the tires are, I believe, plastic pieces from some board game whose name escapes me.

I love the little girl with her bike and I placed her on a section of map as she's going to be traveling places on her bike.
The back is the same scrapbook paper that I used in the bee page. What can I say, I worked on the two pages at the same time, hehe. I also used some of the same papers here that I used on the front with a really cool old time picture that my eyes just can't quite make out. I also added a few of my favorite circles and a hand drawn word.

I really like the added chunk that the tab gives it.
I may have to make more of those.

Bumblebee Tip-In with a Twist Page

My partner for this next round was a little difficult to figure out so I had to do a little wist stalking. There I found my inspiration for this page. She liked bees!
As I'm loving doing the inchies on these pages using a bee inchie was a natural. I love the way the bees came out, so much so that I made myself an extra one and another for a private inchie swap.
I like how I was able to create something without my 'signature' big eyes, hehe.

I looked up bee quoates on the internet and thought this one suited my needs. The author was unknown. The buzzing is my own...haha.
I glazed over a sheet of music and then painted the flowers on and collaged the words and the inchies.

I like that you can still see the sheet music slightly in the flowers.The back was done with some pretty scrapbook paper I found and some material I found at the construction site again. I love the way the drywall mesh tape looks on these pages and the white paper on top of that is wallcovering backing paper I peeled off. I used my prismacolor pencils to write the words. Another bee inchie and lots of z's.

ATC Quarterly

My Reginald made the latest issue of ATC Quarterly in both the online centerfold and the print version. The online centerfold isn't up on the ATC Quarterly website yet but is on Ronna's own blog. Not sure yet when she'll have that posted but am extremely excited nonetheless!

The print version is in my hot little hands and I couldn't be more thrilled. Two of my online friends made it in as well with their fabulous creations.

Painting

After running out and purchasing more stretched canvas panels that one body could possibly need and stacking them neatly in my studio to look at I finally actually painted one.
I was asked to participate in an "Invite Your Partner" swap on Craftster.org by someone I had been in a different swap with on Flick'r. To say I was floored would be to put it mildly. I was very honored that she had asked me to be her partner. She wanted a big eyed bird painting and who was I to deny her that. I love doing the big eyed bird. I think he develops a little more every time I do another incarnation of him. Little did I know the day when I first doodled him how well he would be received. I would think people would be starting to get tired of him by now. I'm glad that they are not.

This canvas is a 12"x12" stretched canvas and I painted the edges black. I used acrylics on him and did some fine tuning with the Prismacolor pencils

His wing is a piece of old foreign language text I received in an ephemera swap. I'm not really sure which particular language it is though. Let me know if you do know. I would love to have that knowledge.

I actually scanned this piece on the scanner and then photoshop stitched the two halves together for one outstanding glareless view but for the life of me cannot get blogger to accept it. Darn.

Some More ATC's

Months ago I saw a swap on a now defunct ATC swap board that I totally wanted to join in on and was appropriately titled "Funky Zetti ATC's". I had been a member of this group for quite some time but had never done any swapping there soo I thought I had better start so I signed up.
The one bad thing about this site is the very long lead time between sign up and mail out. Basically, what I'm trying to say is I hate having 3 months to get an ATC swap done because I'm inevitably going to put it off and then forget.

In the meantime the site went off the air and people banded together and got another site up and running, I think in about a week, and this swap went there as well. ATC's for All. Nice place. I need to get there a little more often I think.
At any rate I waited until the very last minute before finally getting my cards done and ready to send. These are my version of Funky Zetti.

Psst, check out the frog legs on that little dude...

Another Chunky 4x4 Page

I had a blast with this one as well. Lots of "stuff" I've picked up at ye old construction site.
I used a piece of corrugated paper and the grid on the back is drywall mesh tape. I've been using that stuff in alot of pieces. I love the way it comes out.

The letters that spell out 'Art' are all hand drawn and cut out. I did cheat and use a ruler but I did freehand them. Brings me back to the days of my sign painting. I miss those days...

A couple more of those industrious little inchies rounds it all out.

New Puppy in the Family

This little guy ended up coming to live with me yesterday quite by accident.

I went to pick up two rescue rats from a woman who had decided she needed to re-home this 2 1/2 month old puppy as well. Apparently he had choked on a treat and had stopped breathing when her husband decided to get the treat out of his throat and in the process destroyed his relationship with this dog. The woman said the dog now hated her husband. *shrug* Not sure if it's true or not but I'm here to tell you this puppy is just the sweetest thing ever and has completely made himslf at home here.

I was really worried how he would get along with my other dog, Cooper, who is a very young 1 1/2 year old yellow lab who loves to play....alot. I was worried he would use this little guy as a chew toy. I'm here to tell you that the little guy loves to pounce on Cooper and bite him and pull his tail. I do have to keep an eye on Cooper as he really does get too rambunctious but overall they are getting along great. The puppy even had his first night in the crate and did fabulously.
Hooray for crate training!

He came with the name Herbie. I'm thinking he needs something a little more fitting.

I am taking any suggestions...

Tip-In with a Twist Journal page

I had two partners on this go around. The first partner is in Finland and the second partner is in Germany. It's rather exciting to think how far your artwork travels sometimes when you stop and think about it. It's going places I will probably never visit. I hope it doesn't forget to pick up some souvenirs to send back.

I didn't realize this until I was done with this page. This looks exactly like a picture of my sister and I that was taken when we were younger. We even had red outfits. I'm trying to remember where I've put it to put here so you can see. It's rather uncanny. I wasn't going for anything quite that specific. I love the quote that I found for it.

"A sister is both your mirror and your opposite" by Elizabeth Fishel

How true of my sister and I.

The back page. The number 2 is actually hand drawn and cut out. I'm pleased that it turned out so well. The red flowered background is from a Scrap booking store I recently discovered. Spent more in there than I thought I would but did buy lots of really pretty papers.

This next page went to Germany. When I started on the background I had absolutely no idea what I wanted this page to be I was just having fun with it. I love the way the blues and browns came together. More inchies and the sheet music I used for this actually was from a sports related song that the title now escapes me. Don't the fellas look excited to be there?

Here's the back side. The colors ended up a little brighter on this side for some reason, not so muted. I don't like circles, do I?

The bird is like an extra large inchie. I decided that because it was a three inch square that I would call it a thrinchie...yeah I know, sounds dumb, lol.

Here's a close up of him, just because he amuses me so. I've named him Phillipe.