November 2012 calendar spread

I've been intrigued by this idea since I came across Kathryn's blog. When I got my duct tape journal back from the swap, I decided to give it a try (in a small way) by doing the last half of November. I managed to write something most of the days but then at the end, I forgot for three days and couldn't recall a single interesting thing that happened on the 28th. That's how lame my life is sometimes. One day is so like another that it's impossible to think back and find a difference. I'm not sure whether that's funny or sad.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and do December, and see if I can get in the swing of this cause I can see where it would be fun to go back and see how one year compared to another, or what happened on a given day. A lot of people journal every day, but I don't, so I presently have no clue what happened last year on this day.
I prolly just went to work.

I stenciled NOV, then wrote a haiku for the right side of the spread.

ornament swap

My mail art buds - Jewels and Beth - and I swapped Christmas ornaments. Here are the ones I sent out. After I get both of theirs, I'll post them.

Little birds made from Starbucks cup sleeves. I try to cut out the wings
so that I get a picture or a word or two. Rub some glue on the edges.
dab in glitter, and wa-la - birdie ornaments.

Some folks don't like glitter, and I'll admit it gets all over the place,
but I think these little guys are really cute.

I glittered them in non-Christmas colors so that they can stay out all year.

Layered, stitched circles. Saw these online or in a magazine last year
and really liked them. I've made a few different batches
and used different materials each time.
This time I stuck a few stamens between the layers for something
different.

From the back: upholstery fabric, lace from an ancient shawl, satin from
a very old thifted slip, crinkled pattern paper, old book text,
messy black stitching.

Handmade card too! I went all out. The image is from a postcard
sent to my maternal grandmother in 1909. It's layered onto old
ledger paper, then glued to a piece of folded kraft card stock.

thank you...

this image is a PNG that you're welcome to use in your art

My mother's first sweetheart, the one she would never admit to when I found out about him and asked her, was a sailor, killed while they were engaged.

This image isn't him, but this guy was someone's son, some girl's sweetheart, a friend to his buddies.

I don't know who he is, if he made it thru the war or not, which makes him perfect to stand for all service people on this Veteran's Day.

Thank you.

freebie vintage images

This is my aunt Carolyn, my mother's younger sister, around 1939.
A bit blurry but I have a whole collection of kids on ponies,
so I love using it.

Had time today to scan and fix up some more images to share. 

A couple of them are PNG files, which means if you're a digital artist, you can download them to use in Photoshop or Elements or other art software. They can also simply be printed out and used. 

All scanned at 300dpi. If you don't have an art program and need one of them re-sized so you can print it out, let me know.

As always, please do not sell the images, but you're welcome to sell items made with them.

Someone saw fit to stick this baby in a tree. ???
Whatever the  reason, he seems ok with it.
Cracks me up every time I look at it.

An unknown woman in front of a barn.
Not sure why I like this one so much, but something about her expression,
the dark barn, and the bare tree branches just grabs me.
I'd love to know who she was, why the picture was taken...

A PNG frame from a cabinet card.
Print it out and cut out the center or use it digitally.

Unknown smiling child.
So many old pics show solemn, if not downright grim, kids,
so I thought this one was really fun.

doorknobs, earrings, scarf

Weather's cooling off so thoughts of knitting and crocheting are beginning to surface. Instead of finishing one of the 6 or 8 UFOs stacked up on the shelf, I, of course, started something new.

When I was in Ohio, the first little store we stopped at on Friday was a yarn store in Tipp City. It was in a little old house with a cool doorknob. The shop lady and my cousin both wondered what in hell I was doing bent over zoomed in on the knob, but they make great pictures and I'm developing quite a collection of them.

The next shot is a door plate from another old building we went in to. An old motel, I think it was, that now has each of the rooms filled with goods from various local artists and hand crafters. I bought a pair of earrings.

The yarn store had a interesting spiral scarf made up in several colorways. Turns out the pattern was free when you bought the yarn so next thing I knew we were picking yarn and hauling out the credit card. One skein makes two scarves and I've got Dea's done already.

The yarn is Rozetti Marina, crazy stuff that looks kind of like knobby novelty yarn in the skein, but spreads out into a web-like structure about 3 inches wide. You knit into the top edge and it makes a long, loose spiral. Very cool.

MWO challenge

Another month, another challenge from Gail at Shabby Cottage. Here's mine, digital again. She supplied the digital collage image in the frame - the woman, roses, Eiffel tower, "Paris". I added the frame and all the other stuff.

I debated doing this because of the voting. I have a problem with being one of the losers. Not that I have to win everything, but years ago I quit entering contests because it was depressing to me to not do well. Comparison is the thief of joy, as the saying goes. However, I liked this image and figure I just won't go look at the blog while the voting is going on. Check the link above in a few days cause it's a lot of fun to see what everyone did with the same image. And you can vote, if you're so inspired.

Click on image for a bigger view.

JCP envelopes for mail art

Cruised thru a bunch of mail art blogs the other day and, as usual when I indulge in a particular thing for too long a while, I had a burning urge to make some envelopes. So I grabbed the junk mail for the day and made the following 4 envelopes from the JC Penney catalog. They're shown in order of front, then back.

I found four full page pictures as the main paper for each, folded them up, double taped the sides closed, then started cutting out smaller images and parts of images to decorate with. I cut the stars freehand from various clothing pics.

The jewelry pages yielded all sorts of good stuff - bracelets that became barrettes, earrings that became raindrops and eyes, diamond rings for some bling. The eye shadows from the makeup page made good color strips.

I kept trying to make a set of the legs wear the pair of gloves but couldn't get it to work, so used them separately. I love the odd leg here and there...

Considering the schlock that shows up in my mailbox everyday, mail art is a wonderful thing and I'm going to do more of it.

If anyone of my whopping ten followers (not including Beth and Jewels!) would like to get one of these (or possibly a different one if more than 4 of you reply (image!!!))  in the mail, maybe with a goodie or two inside, leave a comment on this post.

The only catch is that you have to reply with a hand made envie or postcard of your own. It can stop there, or you might get something back but with no obligation to respond a second time.

Any takers? You can shout out a fave envie to receive if you're quick.

freebie vintage ephemera

Some old ephemera from my husband's side of the family. Check out the hospital bill - it cost $60.75 to have a baby in 1931. Unreal. I don't expect that you can have anything done in a hospital these days that costs only $60.75.

Double click on an image, then right click to save the largest size. All were scanned at 300dpi. Please do not sell these images, altho you may sell artwork made with them. Try printing them on vellum or tracing paper, then collaging with them. The tracing paper, especially, lets the background show thru.

More coming tomorrow, including some png files for you digital folks.

bookmarks for swap

10 followers! Whoopee!

Back in blogging mode again after a week back East visiting my cousin and the week before that trying to think of every conceivable thing that might happen while I was gone and writing out instructions on how to do it. I'm not indispensable at work but damn close LOL.

Karen at Mail Me Some Art has various swaps going all the time. One of the current ones is bookmarks, made any old way you like, as long as they fit in a book. I got fired up at the last minute and made a couple. Started with 140lb watercolor paper, then collaged with old and new papers, some inking. Punched a hole and strung some old wrinkled cotton lace thru.

The woman holding the baby pig is my mom, circa 1940. The brown ad paper is a bag from a shop in Ohio where I bought some earrings. The map is an old map of Oregon. The little farm scenes are from a page from and old French(?) agriculture book. The number circles were something Mary Ann Moss offered on her blog a while back.

I actually don't use a regular bookmark like these because they can fall out of your book too easily and nothing ticks me off more than losing my place. I use a paperclip. So maybe I'll attach a paperclip to the back of the bookmarks I get back.