Floss giveaway......

You have to go check out this giveaway............It's AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!
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Big Ole HUGE Mess............

I posted several, several months ago about my new craft room/studio and said I was going to post pictures.  It's really a great room and I would love to show pictures of it all nice and neat and clean, but it usually NEVER looks that way.  This is the way it looked this morning...............

 This is my Paper/painting area.  I hit "pay dirt" at Michaels; they had ALL of their ATCs marked down on clearance and guess what?  I bought them ALL :-)  I'm sorry for anyone else that lives in this town cuz I own them all now, heehee........

This is my cutting/sewing counter.  I'm trying to sort my fabrics and wrap them onto chip board like little tiny bolts of fabric.  I wanted to use comic book boards but they were too tall for my bookcase that I store my fabric in, so I bought 5x7 mat board (like you'd use for framing pictures) that didn't have a hole cut out.  They were 5x7 whole pieces.  (does that even make sense???)    Hopefully soon I can get all of this mess cleaned up and then show you my "play room" as DH calls it.

Of course, picture quality is not the greatest.  I snapped these with my phone quickly before I slammed the door because I got overwhelmed :-)

Google Reader????????

Now that Google has decided to delete the Google READER..........how do you keep up with your favorite blogs? 

What are the alternatives to Google Reader?  I miss my READER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and when they did away with it, I LOST TONS of bookmarked sites. 

I've thought about Blog Lovin'................
I want a place I can bookmark my favorite sites, go to one site and see their latest posts.  It sure is alot easier to keep up with my cyber friends. 

I know I've lost contact with alot of online friends due to this.  and not that anything I have to say is all that important, but I get very very few comments on my blog any longer.  I have changed my interests some but basically it's still the same blog, but I might get 1-2 comments when previously I might get 12-15 comments.  I know that's not alot for some people but right now, I feel as if I'm just talking to myself! :-)

What is the best alternative to Google's reader?????????? need suggestions please.
Thanks.

Just a little DYI

I try to walk every morning about 5am and I LOVE trash day.  You just never know what you'll find out by the curb.  WE live in a neighborhood that has alot of older couples and they just don't want to deal with hauling their cast aways to the Goodwill or elsewhere and alots of times, it's just out by the road.

I found this stool not too long ago.  I walked our circle once when I spotted it, went around again and didn't hesitate one second.  I picked it up and toted it all the way back home.  Hubby doesn't ask silly questions any longer, like, "what are you going to do with that?"  He knows better, haha............

Here's my road-side trash-to-treasure in all it's rusty, worn-out goodness

 After a few coats of LIME GREEN Rustoleum spray pain and a remnant of fabric I had left over from another project.................This NEW stool is going in my Studio/Craft room.  I just love it!  and to think someone was going to throw it away!  Never! :-)

I think I'm addicted to Mixed Media now.......

I signed up for Carolyn Dube's A Colorful Journey workshop several weeks ago and I absolutely LOVE IT......we are almost finished with the workshop and this was my very first online "artsy" workshop and I just love her teaching style.  She's teaching different techniques to use with the Gelli Arts Plate.  I got so excited about this workshop that I started searching for more and I stumbled upon Christy Tomlinson.  and OH. MY. GOODNESS.      I guess I've been under some sort of internet rock or something.  I had NO IDEA that there was such wonderful Mixed Media Goddesses out there like Carolyn and Christy (and I'm sure thousands of others but these 2 are the ones I've found recently)

I signed up for 5 (YES, FIVE ok, maybe I'm a little obsessive, but oh well!) of Christy's workshops.  She was having a 1/2 off sale and it's mine and DH's 28th wedding anniversary today.  I told him he didn't need to buy me anything because I had treated myself to some "art classes online" :-)
He was COOL with that because that saves him from having to shop and I'm cool with it because I get exactly what I want.  heehee.....  (BTW, he did cook me a fabulous dinner tonight after we spent a wonderful day on our boat playing out in the bay - LIFE IS SO GOOD)

But anyway, I have been watching Carolyn and Christy (I use first names only like we are some sort of best friends, but I've You-Tubed them so much I probably am on some sort of stalker's list now) on You Tube and I've gone Mixed Media Cra-Cra!! (our family abbreviation for CRAZY!)

This is something I made over the last couple of days that I am exhibiting at our Local art association's Member's Only show for May and June.
I actually have incorporated several different elements including papers, paints, wool fibers, gelli printed papers (flower backgrounds), beads, hand embroidery, vintage buttons, ribbons, trims and whatever else I could think of that I liked.

Oh, oh, I almost forgot, Sue Spargo is another designer I recently found (she's a quilter but she does some AMAZING things with embroidery and beads and fibers; I bought her latest book too)

Index Card A Day

How many have heard of this?  Create "something" using an index card each day; you can paint on it, draw on it, stitch on it, doodle on it, cut it up and reglue it, whatever strikes your fancy.........just use a 3x5 index card a day.

 

 

Tammy over at Yellow Daisy is hosting this challenge for 61 days............I plan to be a part of it.

I know I've said this over and over, but my "real" job during the work week is Medical Coding.  I get to read physician's dictation, determine which codes to bill to health insurance and when the insurance company decides they don't want to pay, I get to call them and sit on HOLD for forever, waiting to get a real person to ask, "why didn't this get paid, blah, blah, blah".  I actually love my job.  I've been doing this for the past 11 yrs.  10 spent at the same facility (a HUGE teaching hospital in Birmingham, AL and the last year in Panama City, FL where DH and I relocated cuz we LOVE THE BEACH!!! and we were both lucky and blessed to find great jobs here!)

Ok, I'm rambling, but back to my point above, since I am on the phone on hold alot, I tend to doodle.  Sometimes I doodle on work papers that I probably shouldn't doodle on :-)  (oops!), so I have index cards in my desk just for this purpose.  I need to replenish my stash and also make sure I have plenty of colored pencils, markers, pens, etc in my desk also (and yes, I do buy my own supplies for this, I don't use my work's resources heehee)...............I actually have a pencil pouch (like the kiddos use) in my top desk drawer.  Need to make sure it's got the necessary stuff I'm going to need for this challenge!

Here's one index card I made yesterday, just to get a jump start.  The background is printed with acrylic paints using my Gelli Art Printing Plate, which I'm seriously in love with!!!

 

 

And these 2 are doodles I did while on the phone at work.............in an notebook of index cards.  I did these before I knew about Tammy's challenge, but just wanted to share for a bit of inspiration :-)

Hope you'll join the fun!

More Gelli Printing..........

After making a huge muddy mess with my Gelli Printing plate last night, I decided to go back today and see if I could "salvage" my OOPS pages or was I going to gesso over them and start over.  Well, I'm happy to report, I turned my OOPS into AAAAAAAAAAHHs.  :-)


This is an ugly, muddy mess to me............................

And this one, yuck!..................

 Muddy Index card.............

One more ugly index card..................

But now I'm starting to see some positive changes..................I used a foam flower stamp in pink........

Next, I outlined the flower petals with a white paint pen.  After it dried, I came back and outlined in black to make it sorta sketchy.  After that, I used the white gelly roll pen and "doodled" it up. 
I doodle alot at work (I call insurance companies alot during the day so I sit on hold ALOT, so I doodle on index cards). I cut a few pieces out of the index cards and used my matte medium to adhere it.  I had to be sorta careful because the colors I used to doodle the words were just random markers and highlighters (stuff I keep in my desk)  and they would smear and smudge, but I think it turned out pretty darn cute.  :-)

This is the stamp I used (on sale at Hobby Lobby for $1.00!)

 

This next print is on a 9x12 journal page (I cut my journal apart because both front and back covers were coming off/apart, so I cut the pages out to make them just random art pages and I'll prob use 3 ring binder rings to hold it all together once it's "done)

 I tried a bird stencil I had and it looks awful!  Looks like just an orange blob to me..............so I cute out another word I had doodled and glued it down over the blob-iest part (is that a word??? dunno but it's what I'm saying it is)

Did the same random outlining with gelly pens and black pens................

And lastly, this is an 8 1/2 x 11 upcycled magazine pages............................

 

 

So to follow Carolyn's advice, your "oops" pages CAN become something you're proud to display!!!

Now, do I put these into a journal?  into multiple journals?  frame them altogether?????????????
(The Gelli Art  prints are like a potato chips, you CANNOT have just ONE!!!! hahaaaa and oh so addicting!!)

Gelli printed to-be-wall-art

Gelli printed to-be-wall-art, a photo by thirtyone13 (robinpich) on Flickr.

I am having so much fun with Carolyn Dube's Gelli print workshop (see sidebar for link). Watching her videos is like crafting with a friend....she's so down to earth, so "real" and she even shows you her "oops" prints and how to make something wonderful from them.

This is my latest print/art page. I have plans to adhere this to a black artists canvas and use it for wall art. But I feel like it's lacking something. Not sure what. Need to let it "sit" for a few days and then come back to it later. I would love any suggestions or comments or ideas!

Pictures of Gelli Arts Printing Plate in action!!!

Ok, I've had tons of fun with the Gelli Arts Printing Plate.  I blogged about it earlier but got so excited and had so much fun that I didn't take any pictures.  Well, I remedied that!!!
The Gelli Arts Plate comes in 3 different sizes; I bought the 8 x 10.  I like the size of it, it's not too big, but big enough to make a good size print on just about any type of paper/mixed media surface.

These pages are just random papers I had previously gesso'd.  Most are magazine pages (3-4 layers thick with a couple coats of gesso). DO NOT USE GLOSSY PAGES WITH THE GELLI PLATE..............REPEAT------NO GLOSSY PAPERS.

I saw on Alma Stoller's Blog, her tutorial on how to use magazine pages as your canvas.  She explains that you take several pages, tape together with double-sided tape and then machine stitch thru all of the layers to get the thickness you want.  I love using up old magazines (UPCYCLING!!).  Sometimes I just use gesso as the "glue" between the pages since it dries fairly quickly.  But gesso can 'warp' your pages, so place them under heavy books so they will lay flat.  But by the time you get done adding layers of paint, stamps, papers, etc, you'll have a pretty good, thick layer that should lay flat (mostly) when done.

Anyway, here's just a few of the gelli printed papers I've made.  HOpe you enjoy!!!

This was a children's softback book.  I glued two pages together with gesso and then gesso'd over the glossy print to use as my canvas.

 Here's one layer of gesso.  I usually have about 10 "canvases" going at one time in various stages of drying.  I have hung them from a drying rack with clothes pins also.  They will curl up but they dry pretty quick and then I can stack them under heavy books later and flatten them out.

 

 

 

 First coat of paint on the Gelli plate, used the rounded end (nothing sharp!) to draw wavy lines thru the aqua paint. 

 

Here you can sorta see the wavy lines pattern on this page.  The first "pull" is the most saturated with paint and the least amount of pattern.  I'm like Carolyn Dube, (which I'm taking her online class and I LOVE IT!!!, see link in my sidebar),  I like that 2nd pull the best.  Usually it's more pattern, less paint saturation and you can really see the first "layer" of many that you'll add to each sheet

 

 

 
Still lots of paint on the plate, so I'll put another paper down to pull more of the paint/pattern up. 

 See how this is less paint, more pattern.  Now you start to build layers. 

 Adding a second color of paint.........and no, Carolyn says "don't clean your plate each time, you'll love the results you get" :-)  She is SO RIGHT!!!

For this pattern, I used a plastic drinking cup to make circles.  So cool!!!

 See how you can see the layers of the first color and pattern underneath the yellow circles of the 2nd pattern and color.  I love this!!! It's so fun, but VERY ADDICTING!!!!

 

 Here I had just a tad of yellow left on my plate.  One note here, since you are using acrylic paints, they do dry quick, so you need to pull your prints sorta quick.  I didn't know I didn't have to clean off after each color (except colors that will cause "mud"), so I cleaned between colors and I didn't get as much of the random bits and pieces, but I know now, that cleaning it isn't 'NECESSARY' each time. 

 This plastic was part of a paint brush packaging I bought at my local big box craft store.  Cheap-o brushes to use with gesso and matte medium since they are my "glue" and I don't want to use my good paint brushes for that.  I just rolled on pink over the the other layers, pressed this plastic into the paint and then put my paper on top and smoothed it out............

 

This last piece was a piece of scrapbook paper that I had been using to clean my brayer off (roll it a few times after rolling it in paint and you'll clean most of the paint off).  I decided to use this sheet also, but you can see right in the center is a small tear.  This paper was pretty thin, so the wetter it got with paint, the more flimsy it became.  But I didn't mind, I just used some matte medium once it was dry to "glue" that spot down.  I think it actually got cut up and used in my art journal......see last photo......

And I apologize for the sideways picture.  blogger will not let me turn it, but it's saved correctly in my picture folder.........dunno, but anyway, tilt your head to the right or turn your screen upright; you get the idea :-)

And here, I stamped on part of the gelli print, used some stickers and adhered the words to my art journal page..................

Hope you enjoyed this gelli arts tour...........there WILL BE MORE, I PROMISE!!!