Wednesday,January 13

Here's that green again that I love! The other image that really caught my attention is the Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey piece. I love how the frame is made from dominoes. I'm on the lookout now for the game from my childhood to frame it in a similar manner! Because that game only came out for birthday parties I added the celebratory broccoli cupcakes. I couldn't resist the three little kittens--this is another reminder of the three of us as little girls celebrating our birthdays with cake and candles, party games, and friends seated around the dining room table. The old paintbrushes were just fun--that's another item I seem to be collecting--there are brushes of all sorts in vases and coffee cups all over my studio room.

Tuesday, January 12

I have a fascination with clocks of all kinds and often use them in the cards I make. I began today's page with a large stopwatch from a magazine and added clock-related papers and stamped images. I finished up with several clear overlays of clock faces (or parts of them). Can you find all seven?

Monday, January 11

Acorns, oak leaves, and squirrels. I LOVE them! I collect squirrel figurines. I hoard acorns--a leather acorn change purse; a wooden acorn hand-turned on a lathe that hangs above my table; an amber glass acorn ornament on a ceiling hook in my closet; a giant resin acorn on my desk--they are everywhere. I have boxes of rubber stamps that are just acorns, oak leaves, and squirrels. When I started this page, I began with the strips of paper, the punched squares, and the circles of leaf-embossed papers which I inked up to show the leaves more. I added the "totally nuts for you" squirrel, acorn circles, and then stamped and tore out the larger oak leaves. I wanted a bit more green on the page so I added the stamped leafy image. I went through my box of alphabets to find the letters to spell out oaks and acorns. The last thing I added was a cut out from a card of a squirrel inside an acorn. This was a really fun page to create!

Sunday, January 10

For this page, I went back to the October issue of LIVING and started by tearing up the cover--all those great images of pumpkins and squashes and gourds turned into snails and toadstools. Then I found the Eye of Newt boxes and the assortment of jars and labeled bottles. I just kept layering on images from the magazine. The stamped image of the chandelier and spiders is a Memory Box stamp. My favorite part of the composition: the orangey luminaria bags that are the cautionary message. And I like the way the number 1 and the O from October created today's date. Halloween is my least favorite event in the calendar year. I usually take myself out to dinner to a very nice restaurant where people are not in costume and there are no tricks, only treats.

Saturday, January 9

Today's page is for the hundreds of cats each month that are euthanized in animal shelters across this country. Did you know that black cats are the hardest to find homes for? My cats--Tinsel, Miss Joon, and Mr. Jones--were all rescued cats. They have lived long lives (18-20 years each) and have brought me great comfort and joy and companionship. If you have room in your heart--and your home--consider adopting a shelter cat. This page is the inspiration for cards I will make for a local animal shelter.

Friday, January 8

Still working with magazine pages, I started with the coffee cups and added the woman made from coffee grounds. I stamped the coffee rings/drips over the cups and the words "enough said" before adding a strip of scrapbook paper and a couple of magazine phrases and the cookie. I finished it up with stickers to spell "coffee" and a coffee tag. I'm not much of a coffee drinker at home--I hate instant which is all my parents drink--I do have a French press single cup coffee maker but no coffee for it. The last time I used it was Christmas 2008 when Andrew was here. I do purchase coffee, medium, just cream, at Dunkin' Donuts. And I love a good cup of coffee, decaf, black, with a rich dessert when dining out. And I'll drink coffee at Your Maine Stamper as long as I don't have to make it. (I've never really figured out what to do to brew a good cup of coffee myself.)

Thursday, January 7

I've been following Kelly Kilmer's blog for a long time. She is a collage artist, working in a written prompt daily journal format. She usually chooses a magazine image to be her focal point on each page. In one of her posts she talked more about this. I decided to take a Martha Stewart LIVING magazine from last October and another from last spring to see what I could find. I started this page with the cerulean green paint and assorted items and placed it in the center of the page. Then I found the bird people! I couldn't resist the cat either! Something about the big cat watching the bird people caught my imagination. Once I started arranging images on the page, I realized that the circle was a primary form and that the yellow eye of the cat was also reflected in the owl mask and in the color of the bird people masks. The green in the forest also echoed the greens I started with. I added a few other punched circles and the captions to finish the page. When I look at the collages I create, they seem like happy accidents to me. This page was not planned. It evolved as I looked through the magazine and began selecting elements to add to the page.