Thank You Marty

for giving me this award. Marty also belongs to the Chunky Book Artist group. Check out Marty's blog.
You know I love going to the blogs in my sidebar.
Here are some other blogs to check out:
Dans ma maison il y a.... if you liked my houses, see what other bloggers are creating and posting at this site.
The Last Door Down the Hall Elizabeth has lots of lovely art to look at, tempts us with delicious recipes and I love, love her gorgeous photography. It makes me want to travel cross country to North Carolina. She also provides copyright free images throughout her blog. Well worth an extended visit.
Crazy Art Girl's Musings Belinda has a variety of art talents. She has paper arts, jewelry, fibers and recently added art quilts and there is so much more. She frequently reviews art books. Go, visit, peruse the older files, be informed, inspired and entertained.

Chrissy's It Gift Nature Themed ATC holder

Chrissy is the "IT" girl for Oct in the Art-Venturer's Group. Her theme is nature. I made her a nature ATC holder. I used the tyvek paper I just did for the covers. For the inside of the covers I picked out a piece of paper I had at the bottom of my spray box when I was making my House of Blues pages.
I cut the paper to size and ran them through Cuttlebug folders. One in a floral folder, the other in a bird with cattails folder. Each was colored with a green Brilliance ink pad.
I wanted to make a butterfly embellishment for the cover. I cut out the butterfly shape with the same blue paper as the inside covers and a recently made worksheet wonders paper.
I ran the worksheet wonder paper through one embossing folder and highlighted the raised areas with a light green Brilliance ink pad and the blue paper was run through the dotted embossing folder and then the collage folder and colored the raised areas with the dark green Brilliance ink pad. I like how the dark green ink toned down the brightness of the blue while keeping the shimmer.
I glued the blue image to the back of the worksheet wonder image and then used a black Sharpie pen to color in the body and the edges of the butterfly. Here's the front:
Here's the back:

I choose three printed quotes that I received from Sweetpea when I was the IT girl and added some stamped flourishes with the light green Brilliance ink pad. I used the Zutter Bind-It-All to make the ATC Holder. Here's the front of the holder:
The back and front:
The inside front cover:
The inside back cover

More Tyvek Paper Fun

I had some tissue paper left over after I had cut out all the yellow flowers for another tyvek paper project. I followed the basic instructions and colored the tissue paper with green acrylic watered down with acrylic glazing liquid and silver Lumiere paint.
I cut out two pieces and ran them through Cuttlebug embossing folders. First through a large leaf folder and colored with a dark green Brilliance ink, then ran it through a bird & vine folder and colored with a lighter green Brilliance ink pad.

House of Blues

This is my second house of the In My House Swap for the Chunky Book Artist group. I choose the theme House of Blues. I bought some light modeling paste to add texture to the front of the house without adding a lot of weight. I spread a thin layer of the modeling paste over the house shape (cut out of mat board) with a plastic card.
I used a paste paper tool to create texture and let it dry overnight.
I painted over the whole front with a medium blue acrylic paint. After it dried, I watered down black acrylic paint and rubbed it over the surface.
Here's a close up of the painted texture.
I heated yellow fun foam with a heat tool and stamped it with a moon image. Cut out the moon shape then ran a black/gold Brilliance ink pad over the surface to color.
To make the shutters, I stamped a window image on scraps of mat board, ran a light Distress pad over it and colored the frame areas with a marker. I cut the window in half to make two shutters. I ran a Distress pad over the words and stamped musical notes with a darker Distress pad on top.
I added an image of a woman to some card stock colored with the same marking pen as the shutters to create a window frame. For the guitar player image, I erased the dark background in photoshop and added in a smokey curtain as the backdrop. Here's the finished front:
I cut out black card stock in the house shape to cover the back. I randomly sprayed on dark blue and pewter sprays.
I had trouble with my sprays, the blue came out of the nozzle sideways and backwards and occasionally came out in large drops. Although these backgrounds have a large variety to them, they all remind me of the night sky, which is what I wanted.

I cut out long triangles of light blue card stock and randomly sprayed with blue & pewter Shimmering Mist sprays.
While the ink was still wet, I randomly sprinkled on Teal Moon Glow two tone embossing powder and heat set. This is the first time I used this product. I like it!
I added icicle glitter glue to wing images and holographic glitter glue to the star and dress of this woman image.
I stamped some flourishes over the words with pearlescent blue Brilliance ink and layered all the pieces to the back. Finished back:

Art in Progress: Board Book: Page 4 step 1

Continuing in Trish's board book challenge. I realized I did not remember all the steps and left one out. So mine will be different. 1. First step was to gesso pages, let dry. Done. 2. Squirt cheap pva glue randomly all across both pages, don't do too much. Like the gloopy glue backgrounds done in the background noise series. (Mine, Trish's). Eek, my glue was so watery it ran all over the pages, so I dabbed some off with a paper towel. (Didn't take a picture as it was white on white and hard to see). Allow to dry overnight, done. 3. The next step was the one I forgot: apply another layer of gesso all over the top of the book pages and the glue mess, let dry. My page did not get that gesso layer. 4. Brush the brightest red acrylic paint you have over the surface of the board book and the glue. Be generous fill in all the nooks and crannies. Let dry overnight. Done. When I looked this morning, the red paint had cracked and separated, see picture:

I think it's because I skipped the gesso layer, but who knows. My Mom says it's beautiful, her favorite of all I've done so far. I'm not starting over on to step 5. Pour a little blob of metallic acrylic paint into a container (I choose gold). Dip your pointy finger into the paint and using your finger very lightly rub the gold paint across the surface of the book. Aiming to create gold highlights, paying particular attention to the raised glue ridges and let more of the gold paint fall upon those textures and ridges. Do not completely cover the page in gold - less is more. You want to see mainly red on the page. Let dry. Oops! I'm not good at lightly and am a bit heavy handed. Here's a picture:
You won't see much of a change, but I took a baby wipe and wiped off some of the excess gold paint:

Northern Olympic Penninsula

Took a few days off and drove along scenic highway 112 from Port Angeles out to Neah Bay along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Hiked down to secluded Shishi Beach on the Pacific Ocean. Drove up to Cape Flattery and hiked out to the NW tip of the lower 48 states. The next day we drove up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park. Hiked up to Hurricane Hill where we could see across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria on Vancouver Island and across Northern Puget Sound to see the San Juan Islands and Mt. Baker. Beautiful views. Pleased to see wildflowers were still blooming this late in the summer along with signs that fall is coming soon.

Art in Progress: Board Book: Page 3 finished

Today I worked on steps 2 & 3 to finish page 3 in Trish's ongoing board book project. See here for the instructions we were given.

For step 2, we were to sprinkle gold embossing powder over the page and heat set. I tried to start with the heat gun up high and slowly get closer. I got embossing powder all over the room LOL! So I decided to pretend the edges of the torn pages were still wet with glue, and applied a glue stick to them, sprinkled on gold embossing powder. Since most of the embossing powder was now all over the room, when it ran out, used Ultra thick gold embossing powder.

For the final step we had three things to do. We were to tear masking tape, ink up a stamp and lay the masking tape down and rub on the tape to pick up the ink. Then lay it down on one side. I like how the image shows through the masking tape.
We were to create a heart using one of four methods and use the same stamp that was used on the masking tape. I choose to use fun foam, because I had some fun foam at hand (only blue fun foam). I cut the fun foam into a large heart shape. When fun foam is heated it takes a great impression from the stamp pressed on it.
We were to paint the fun foam with red acrylic paint, and when it dried rub on gold acrylic paint to highlight the stamp image. I had trouble coloring the fun foam with my inexpensive acrylic paints, they kept rubbing off. Adrienne suggested I try Lumiere. I had some red on hand and painted it on. It looked great, but when I rubbed on gold and tried to wipe off the excess, the blue fun foam was exposed in parts (not shown in picture).

I decided to repaint the fun foam heart red with the Lumiere paint and then re heat it. I like how the paint bubbled and dried quickly.
While the fun foam heart was still hot, I pressed the stamp into it.
I rubbed on gold Lumiere paint with my finger and tried to rub off the extra with my finger. I didn't think enough of the red showed through, so I carefully ran a baby wipe over the surface to reveal more of the red paint, trying to be careful not to rub too hard and expose the blue of the fun foam as I had done earlier.
To complete the page, were to add a heart saying over the masking tape stripe, and layer the heart on the opposite page over some transparent layering medium, I choose cheesecloth. My board book is 6"x6", I felt it needed more to it. I added an image to the side with the masking tape and more words on the side with the heart.