watercolor madness

these watercolor arches are turning into potato chips - you can't just have one! so here is another one i made today and it's filled with doodles. there is something about doodling that just makes me happy. this arch is just basically about a house of love. my family is full of people i just adore. so this one is for all of you.

always love yourself

one of the first few entries when i started off this blog showed pictures from my "doodle journal" that i was doing, so it should come as no surprise how much doodling intrigues me. i wanted to do a few arches with watercolor to take a break from the collaged ones i've been doing. so i used some doodling on an arch for the private trade i'm in with a few other girls. i dug out my watercolors and used a technique for the background that i learned from a friend at an art weekend i was at a few months ago. some may say that i got carried away with the doodles, but really, can you ever have too many?

sunday post card challenge

there is a new site open called sunday post card art. you can visit this site at http://sundaypostcardart.wordpress.com to see what everyone else has created. my little art friend, mandy, invited me to join in this challenge. at first i wasn't sure what i would do for the first entry, which was themed "summer". as much as i love the warm weather that summer brings about i have to admit shamelessly i am deathly afraid of bees. i believe this fear came about due to being stung at the top of my steps when i was little and when i jumped and screamed i fell down the stair case. i guess i just never got over that traumatic event. so i felt it only fitting that my summer theme should be an ode to the bees.

making art

i did another arch this morning. this one is for a friend that i trade with on the mail art site. she asked for an arch...atc size...but i did a larger one for her. i think i'm picking up traits from my dad. if you ask him for a 2 x 2 box he makes you an 8 x 10. he's always been like that, too. i hope that never changes about him. it makes me chuckle. this arch uses quite a few products from alpha stamps. they are now carrying the atc spinner and supplies. if anyone has one and would like to set up a trade please let me know.

the backyard

after many years of begging for a fish pond my husband finally announced he'd build one. so about 4 or 5 years ago we started digging it out by hand. we thought we'd build one about 8 foot x 10 foot but as we dug we kept hitting rocks which kept the hole growing. the more we dug the bigger the rocks got. so after days of digging we were so proud of ourselves and then his brother came over and said, "did you plum it?" we said, "huh"? who knew. so the bottom end had to be built up quite a bit. it took us almost 7 weeks from start to finish. it was quite the project. what was even more amazing then it turned out to be 10 foot x 20 foot was that only once he had to quit because i was miserable and only once i had to quit because he was miserable. i believe this was the first project ever that we worked well together on. here it is, not really in all it's glory because many of the flowers don't bloom until july, but the fish don't care. they had babies!

altered spoons

i'm sure anyone who collects arts magazines had to see the altered spoons in one of those magazines. someone on the mail art site is having an altered spoon swap. i found two old spoons at the salvation army but that was all that was in the bin there. i am going to keep one for myself and turn one in for the swap. i think i'll put magnets on the back of the one i keep and put it on my frig.

passing time

i am so tired from gardening and cutting bushes today. we have these huge shears that are built for a massive muscle man that my husband gave to me to use. i laughed right out loud when he handed them to me but he said these are the best ones. until i finished pruning just the one side of the house my arms felt like jello. i couldn't do anymore. i took a break that lasted for the rest of the day! i did have time, on my break, to make another gothic arch. it seems like i am consumed with these things. i have to blame my friend mandy. she is the queen of making arches and i loved hers so much i decided to give them a try and now i can't stop. of course i'd rather make an arch then lift those pruning shears!

saturday's art

it seems that i am on a gothic arch roll these days. this arch actually depicts a few of my most favorite things; birds, flowers in bloom and the mail box. i just love to get mail art! i actually did make a few other things inbetween the last arch and this one. i am trying to make a few arches to get a jump start on a swap with three other women that starts in june. it seems that my days go so fast lately. i haven't been as productive as i had been. i find that this nice weather tends to lead me towards house cleaning, gardening and walking in the park. i just love my life.

another arch

after hours of stripping wallpaper in my bedroom i really needed to take a break. so i started to work on another piece of art for alpha stamps. i love doing these arches. it's just a bigger format than atc's and a different shape from 4 x 4 chunkies. the mice are from a sticker collage sheet from alpha stamps. the little cat is from one of their regular collage sheets. and the poison images are from their rubber stamp collections. if you haven't been to their website recently, feel free to check it out, as they have lots of new things posted.

alpha stamps project

i've been working on a gothic arch that i could use a great many of the alpha stamps supplies on. on this particular arch i was able to use a great variety of their rubber stamps, collage images, and a new item they have, which is the ability to make a collage sheet into a sticker collage sheet. the black vine along the bottom gives you an idea of what the collage stickers are like. i think they are quite fabulous myself. you cut out around the image on the sheet, peel and then stick it to your artwork. it blends in very well and you don't have to be exact with how you cut. i can think of a friend who might actually like that idea as she hates to cut out images. personally i love the tiny intricate cutting. it's sort of like therapy for me. well not that i need therapy, or do i?