THE CHALLENGE & CARDS SENT

SENDING CARDS :The altered vintage cards are done and sent! I had great time doing this swap, I hope I can find more swaps to do. This is a pic of the cards and envelopes I sent them in. I did not want to put them in the mail as is because I had too much stuff on them. I figured they would get damaged. I got my first card today. Not sure if I will post them as they come in or wait till I get them all.

THE CHALLENGE BACKING: This is the hand painted backing that Pearl gave me for our challenge. It was so pretty I hated to cover it up! I did not add any more paint to it.

MINE: This is what I have done so far. I don't feel like it is finished yet. I seen this pretty Victorian lady in and add and new that is what I was going to use for this. But what problems finding other stuff to go with it. I kind of wanted to stay with the blue,pink, lavender colors and don't have much of those colors. When I took the pic I had to turn the camera to take it , so before I post had to turn it in my photo edit. Well while I was there it had some fun things to do with your photos so I did some things to this. I will show you on a different post soon. You can click on the pic to see detail. PS I have added a few more things to mine.

PEARL'S: Pearl thinks hers is done. She added more paint to her back ground and sprayed some lacy stuff, I like it alot. She hand painted her girl, and added lot of different things . WEATHER IN MELBOURNE FL. Temp today 80's and muggy with storms coming thru. Bad Florida storms. I don't think I want to see a hurricane.

I got a new Droid phone and had to go back over to Verizionwirless to ask a few questions, and went to Jo-Ann's its just across the road. The biggest and nicest Jo-Ann's I have ever been in, I think its new. Any way, grammy went wild in Jo-Ann's ( my version of girls gone wild lol). While at Pearls she introduced me to acrylic stamps. AKA jelly stamps by me. Wow I had a great time in that store.

Don't forget to comment to join my give away. Not to many have done so yet :(

If you want to read more about grammy n maggie go to my other blog. Here is link

http://grammyandthepapillonprinces.blogspot.com/

Thats it for now thanks for looking

Blessings

Donna

VINTAGE POST CARD SWAP ----PART 2

LOVE BIRDS: The vintage post card use here is one with graphics on it. Glued a strip of vintage sheet music then I distressed it with ink. The birds were cut from note cards, punchanella and a flower brad was also used. The heart I cut from some of my hand painted paper then a rhinestone was added. More distressing and its was done. I think they look like a couple love birds separated. What do you think?

CARD SWAP SUNSHINE: The first card is one of the blank vintage post cards, with a copy of a 195o-60s' dress pattern. I have the original and copied it and cut the little girl out. Found the sun in a magazine, a flower brad, stamped a few flowers and added tea died lace at the bottom.The card then was distressed all over.

The vintage post card on the right is one of the Railway Express graphic. I distressed it and glued a vintage music sheet punched out flower over that a couple of flowers I cut from a garden magazine, butterfly cut out and colored with chalk pencils, with rhinestones added. Then mesh ribbon at the bottom.

MORE : The card on the right is another RRE card first distressed, then a doodle flower I did and colored with the chalk pencils again. Put some rhinestones in the middle of flower. Same with the cut out butterfly with rhinestone. the envelope at the bottom is an advertisement for Martha's punches. I cut it out of a magazine. I added a sequin to the flap. The post card on the right distressed all over, a repo of seed packet cut out, butterfly stamped and cut from old atlas, colored with water color crayon, a few flowers were stamped on the back ground also. The three flowers at top are part of a vintage necklace. Also flower brad. I put a rhinestone in the middle of one flower on the seed packet.

ONE MORE: This one is RRE vintage post card distressed all over, cut out sun flowers from garden magazine, a flower brad in the corner with a game piece ( a little fairy princess) hanging from it with a piece of bakers twine.
I really had a great time doing these post cards. I still want to do the give away, with my extra post cards I did. Leave a comment on any of these post about the card swap and that enters you in the give away. I will draw the name on the 31st of March. So far I have one comment. Hmmm

Please join in the give away. Tomorrow I will show the altered vintage post card to give away maybe more will join in.

That's all for now thanks for looking and come back soon

Blessings

G&M

GIVEAWAYS X 2 (TWO)

I am going to have a give away, celeberating my first altered art swap and having over 10,000 hits on my blog. Pretty good for a no-body blog. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and or the next couple that I will show you the post cards. That easy, if I only get one comment then that person will be the winner lol.

Give away # 2 is from this site I found just today go there and comment to win her great give away. http://manonpopjes-manonpopjes.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-giveaway.html

Good luck!
Blessings
Donna

POST CARD SWAP ...PART # 1

10 SWAP CARDS ! : Here are 10 altered vintage post cards that I made for i Hanna's post card swap. http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/ Go check it out. This was so much fun and I had mine done in two days last weekend. I made more than 10 ! TWO CARDS: For the first card I used the WW2 post card from what was then a POW camp. Camp Reynolds in PA. The name of the "town" back then was Victory PA. Now it is Reynolds Pa. The camp is no longer there of course housing was developed in the early 50's . The post card is one that my dad used from the Railway Express when he worked there at that time. Some have delivery dept. graphics on them and some are blank. I posted pic of these a few posts ago scroll down and take a look.
So now to what I did to the post cards. The first one is a blank card, first clued down piece of old ledger paper , piece of old had wrote recipe, piece of mesh ribbon, part of an old doily, vintage buttons and a May graphic from old almanac from 1942. And distressed it all with Ranger distressing ink pad. And stamped part on top with Just A Note stamp.
The second post card is another blank card I first distressed it, stamped it with a fish stamp, kinda reminds me of Nemo lol. Then added some sea shell cut from a deck of cards, a mermaid from a game, piece of old world atlas with a pic of had made shell girl from the 50's in Florida. Mesh ribbon along the bottom. Stamped with Just A Note stamp on revers side.

TWO MORE: The two above first one is another blank vintage post card I stamped it all over with the Just A Note stamp, distressed it, then added the negative of a couple tags I punched out of and old book. Then added a butterfly i cut out of same old book and colored with chalk pencils and added rhinestones. The flower and pots are cut from a greeting card. I then distressed it all. Stamped Just A Note on reverse..

Next one is a blank vintage post card it has a pic of a late 1800's Victorian home in Mercer Co. Pa.

I stamped it all over with the Just A Note Stamp and distressed it. The added old paper doily with some antique buttons and did an all over distress. Stamped Just A Note on reverse.

More to come!

Check out http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/ to see other peeps cards!

Blessings

Donna

ALTERED ART DAY & A CHALLENGE

PEARL & ME: A pic of us working on our project. What we ended up doing was working on an altered book. Pearl had one she brought along with her that she had started last summer. I have not done a book yet so figured this was as good as time as any. I found one in my stash, and proceeded to rip out some of the pages. I guess you have to remove some of them or the book would be way to fat, it will be fat as it is but worse if no pages were taken out. I really did not get very far along with mine, not much gluing. I had to prepare the pages with some kind of a back ground like painting, inking, adding other paper to page, etc. I got some painted, a few I did with water color crayons, & water color pencils. Pearl said that she spray painted some of hers so after she left I went out in the back yard and went spray wild! We worked out on the patio since it was a nice day. And not much wind. Behind me is the Florida room where I have my art studio set up, but can't work in it much. To hot and muggy. Or too cold in winter. You can see grandpa in the back door window taking the pic

PEARL WORKING AWAY I took my rolling cart out on the patio filled with supplies to use and a 3 tier thing I got at a yard sale, I keep my stamps in that.

SPRAY PAINTING: While I was at it, went ahead and sprayed a few pages in some of my other journals i have been working on. Also use some cheap stencils I found at a thrift shop last week. Like 25 cents each.

CHALLENGE PROMPT BY PEARL: This is a sheet of vinyl like paper that Pearl hand painted and brought along. She has two of them, giving me one she challenged me to do some altered art on it and she would do the same. It will be fun to see what each of us come up with. I began last night looking to see what I have, and think I got a good idea already.
WEATHER IN MELBOURNE FL. : Temp today in high 80's Sunny and hot.

The paper Pearl brought is a vinyl like paper that she gets from a local printer when he discards it. Free paper can't beat that.

That's it for now thanks for looking come back soon.

Blessings

Donna & Maggie too

DISTRESSING, and VINTAGE POST CARDS

DISTRESSED BINGO CARDS

MORE CARDS
DISTRESSING TOOLS

VINTAGE POST CARDS WEATHER IN MELBOURNE FL. Beautiful weekend temps 80 and 58 low.

This weekend I spent some time prepping a few things for altered art projects. Mostly distressing bingo cards from games I got at yard sales. I did not know there were so many different kinds of bingo cards ranging, from card board to paper. Colors mostly blue and black with some red and green.

Tools used was Jim Holtz, Ranger Distressing Ink, colors Vintage Photo and Walnut stain. Also use old decorative painting brush, sand paper and a Jim Holtz inking tool.

A couple of cards I distressed with sand paper before applying the ink. If you click on the second pic you can see the effect on the bingo card in the middle. I like the way they turned out. And not very hard to do.

In the last pic there are a couple vintage post cards, they are the ones I used in my post card swap. I cant show you them yet. But let me tell you they are addicting to make! So it seems with a lot of this altered art.

New artist friend Pearl is coming over on Tues. and we are going to start a project. I think it is going to a wall hanging. I will show you next week what we got done.

Guess that's it for now thanks for looking come back soon !

Blessings

Donna

LACE JACKPOT & FUN DAY

LACE JACKPOT! I hit the jackpot yesterday on my way home. I stopped at the Goodwill store and found all this lace for about 3$. I could not believe my find neither could the check out girl, she said they hardly ever got lace and when they did it went quick. I was there at the right time.I will have to share it because with another lucky find at a yard sale a few weeks ago I have more than I will ever need. Unless I am going to make an altered art wedding dress. LOL

POCKET WITH TAG: This is the first pocket tag I made on a page in my Art Learning Journal.

It might be a little hard to see, wont you be glad when I get a new camera? Above it is some punchanella.

WEATHER IN MELBOURNE FL: Temp 80 with sun and few clouds this afternoon.

Yesterday I went to visit new altered arts friend Pearl and her family of pups, so cute little things. I forget what they are.

Anyway we talked for a couple hrs. She showed me some more of her work, great stuff, and we traded a few things. I gave her a packet of ephemera and she gave me an old wall paper book and a large sheet of paper like stuff to use for back grounds. I think I got the better of the deal lol.

We traded a few of the Somerset Books to look at. Made an "art day"date for next Tues. at my place to start an altered art project. I think we are going to make a large collage to hang using a wallpaper book front. Sounds like a fun day to me.

Well that's it for now thanks for looking come back soon.

Blessings

Donna

CARD SWAP & JOURNAL PAGE

LEARNING JOURNAL PAGE: Did this one a couple weeks ago. Named page Nature Inspires, to create new styles and ideas. Hand painted back ground punched out flowers with old buttons. Cut out butterfly on old sheet music, vintage pearl and few beads embellishments. Other flowers were cut from a garden magazine.

CLOSE UP OF FLOWERS: They were punched out of some of my hand painted paper. They embellish a piece of old world atlas. All the words were found and cut from magazines. I really like doing these pages.

POST CARD SWAP: Well I did it, joined my first swap! I got them all done this weekend even tho I don't need them till April. I cant show them to you yet, because someone in the swap just might read my blog and see them. They are much more fun with the element of surprise. So here is a couple of pic's, just the corner of 3 post cards. Sorry the first one is so blurry, flowers with cut butterfly colored with chalk pencils.

CORNERS OF TWO POST CARDS. The one on the left is victorian, and the one on the right is sea/beachy, that is a mermaid in the corner. I had so much fun doing these post cards, that I am making more! I can tell you I made them by altering vintage post cards I already had. I will show you pic of them after I send out minHere is a link to swap.

http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/

That's all for now thanks for looking! Make any comments you like!

blessings

Donna

KEEP IT SIMPLE & OLD MAID

KEEP IT SIMPLE LEARNING JOURNAL PAGE: This is a page in my learning journal that I worked on a couple weeks ago. I guess it might be done but you never know! The Bunnie was take from an old child's book I got at a yard sale. I only had to color in pink ears and nose. Flowers were punched out of a colorful magazine add, with old buttons. The stems are bakers cord that I got at Michael's. At the bottom of the stems is a tag with a bow tie with the bakers cord and the stems attached to that. I guess I did not do a good job of pic taking, The back ground is hand painted paper. OPPOSITE PAGE IN JOURNAL: Bunny pic from the same child's book with some other decopodged paper from various books and mags.Fun springy thing to make.

MINI OLD MAID CARDS: I got a bunch of these old maid cards at WM after Christmas sale. They are 2''X 1 1/2 " I want to do some inches but find the inch is a little to small for me to work with yet. These will fit the bill perfect.

OLD MAID "INCHES" STARTED: I painted one side of the cards with gesso in this photo. I have been working on them so I have more done on them. I will post progress and finished product soon. Harder than doing large pages, trying to find smalls to put on them. WEATHER IN MELBOURNE FL: Temps cold this AM 49. Up to 70 with sunshine today!

We had rain most of the day yesterday.

I found a blog last night that is having a hand made post card swap. I think I will do it. My first swap! With altered art that is. When I had my craft room on MSN years ago we were always swapping hand crafted things. Anyway with this swap you can make the post card or alter one. I have these old Railway Express post cards that my dad had. (when post was only 3 cents) Dad worked for Railway Express. So I think I will be using these for my post card. I would like to do something beachy but don't think I have enough stuff to do that.

All for now thanks for looking

Blessings

Donna

SHE ART (new site) HP PAPER

SHE ART MY TAKE : I found a web site the other day with some great altered art. The artist had a class named She Art. I wanted to take the on line class but I really can't with this old sluggish puter. So I just did my own thing with what I could see what others were doing. Making a 'SHE" with a blank face and or arms and legs. I picked out one of my hand painted back grounds in my art learning journal and just went for it. On the evening I first started it, I just had the journal and a magazine in front of me, and the puter. I seen this cute cartoon head in the mag and cut it out and stuck in on the paper. Her dress is a piece of note pad sitting on my desk. That was my start. Next day I cut her face and arms from and old book. Put lace at the bottom of her dress, her legs are arms from a lady in an advertisement in the mag. Her cute shoes are from the pretzel M&M guy. Advertisement. I went over her hair with a black Pit Pen adding a little to it.
I had great fun doing this She Art! One thing I need to learn is about layering making the back grounds. There are lots of on line classes about this and cant wait for my new puter!
FLOWERS FROM MY HP PAPER: I used some of the paper flowers I punched out using my hand painted paper. Put a rhinestone in center. I cut the stems and leaves from green foliage that was in a garden magazine.

CLOSE UP OF SHE ART

HAND PAINTED PAPER SORRY ABOUT BLURRY PIC

MORE HP PAPER
WEATHER IN MELBOURNE FL: Temp in the 80's today and sun shine. :) Sorry about the dark blurry pic's I can't wait until I get a new camera and puter. Going to work on more art today, went to gym already, now I am going outside and wait for the Shuttle to land. I don't think I can see it from here as it is coming in over Orlando and that is an hr away. But I know I will be able to hear that big boom! Space program is a very big thing here. So sorry the shuttle is coming to and end.

That's it for now thanks for looking and come back soon

Ohhh .....almost for got here is link to the web site I have been going on about

http://christytomlinson.typepad.com/christytomlinson/

Blessings to all

G&M AKA Donna

STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL & ALTERED ART ARTIST

HAND PAINTED PAPER UP DATE ON THIS POST : I put thinned down craft paint in a small plastic spray bottle from WM and sprayed this paper, then mushed it around a bit. Then stamped it with a dragon fly pattern. Added some dip dots also. I like the way it turned out. This one was panted with old credit card. I drew some hearts on and splashed on some gold paint.

Squares done with the credit card technique again, I like using the credit card because it covers a large area and fast.I will stamp and do some more to this paper. You all should try painting some of these papers to use, in your art work and even scrap booking. If they curl a little on you , then just iron them a little. With a dry iron, not steam.

PEARL SMITH ALTERED ART ARTIST : I went to the Strawberry Festival here in Melbourne yesterday. I enjoyed the event and met a couple neat ladies. This first artists is Pearl Smith a local altered art artist She had a booth full of framed collages and other painted altered art. She is doing some things with "the girls" she learned how to paint on the Internet. Kinda like I am trying to do, but hers are much better than my early attempts. lol I hope to be able to get with her so we could work on some art together. What I really would like to do is get a group going or join up with such a group. Anyone living in Melbourne Fl and would like to do this feel free to contact me. ONE OF PEARL'S COLLAGES

OTHER ART WORK OF PEARL'S WEATHER IN MELBOURNE FL: Rain some yesterday with in and out sunshine. Temp 70's

Today cloudy so far and temps to be in the 70's Nice :)

I wanted to add pic's of some more of hand painted paper I did this week but having problems with this computer Grrrrrrrrrrrr! I will try later to add to it. You can click on the pic's to get a better peak at Pearl's great art!

I will post tomorrow about the other artist I met.

I want to thank all those that are following this blog. Welcome to all of you! Also please feel free

to leave a comment they mean a lot to me.

If you want to check out other adventures of Grammynmaggie check out our other blog.http://grammyandthepapillonprinces.blogspot.com/

Thats it for now thanks for looking and come back soon!

Blessings to all

Donna & Maggie too

VTT, A FAIR BEAR, AND PLANTERS

FAIR TEDDY BEAR VTT PLANTERS

CLOSE UP WEATHER IN MELBOURNE FL.......70's and sunshine today.

Here are a couple things for my VTT......The teddy bear is one from the early 60's ...they were given away as prizes at local fairs. They came in a variety of colors and were a coveted prize. I do not remember any of my boy friends ever able to win one for me! This one my DD found at a yard sale for a buck. Good bye I think. I think I would like to have a blue one.

The other VTT is 3 planters that were my maternal Grandmothers. She had them in her dinning room for many years, I think she got them in the late 40's. I don't know what they are or where they came from. I would say just looking at them and the time frame they came from that the gold on them is at least 18 K gold. That is something you don't find much today. She used them as planters putting some kind of ivy in them. Anyone knowing what they are please leave a post.

Went to see the last discovery launch, to see what else we have been up to ...please check my other blog http://grammyandthepapillonprinces.blogspot.com/

And don't for get to check out our host blog http://coloradolady.blogspot.com/

Thanks for looking and come back soon

blessings

Donna