Pretty in Pink Mixed Media Canvas Painting

Mixed Media Canvas Painting "Pretty in Pink"

This project has been lying in wait inside my head for a while. I finally finished it tonite after starting it four or five days ago.  The bottom of the skirt is made from breast cancer ribbons.  I made them myself and let me tell you, it took A WHILE! My sister Dana has breast cancer. It has been very hard watching this horrible disease ravage her body and soul.  She finally finished chemo though and starts radiation this week.  I used tiny staples to make the ribbons as a statement about breast cancer. They represent the fact that the patient of breast cancer, no matter how fragile and feminine they are before diagnosis, must become  rugged and tough to make it through the harsh cancer treatment. 
I inked the dozens and dozens of ribbons with two colors of Tim Holtz ink, then used crackle paint in two colors on them.  I attached them with YES Paste.  The top part of the painting I painted using artists acrylic paints.

done and done!

UPDATE:  I ended up buying the Chevrolet Traverse! It was between that and the Cadillac SRX. I love it, but the Traverse had a few more options and less miles on it (they wre both 2009).  The one we got is a dark grey, it has OnStar, sattelite phone, very low mileage, and looks and feels brand new. I love this car! Check it out!

On the Hunt

Hi to all my amazing friends and followers!  The last couple days I've been on a mission to find my new car! My husband John and I decided a couple of weeks ago we might need to start looking for me a new car since mine's got about 70K miles on it and I do quite a bit of driving for work. Besides that I've been wanting an SUV for a while. There are several on the road that I like, with a Buick Enclave and the Cadillac SRX in my two five.  Now, that is not to say I can afford one of those, but I am going to check it out to see...if not then I'll be looking at the Traverse and a Murano, which I like as well.

I'm getting ready to head into my studio and see what I can get into now! Hope you are all having a very happy and relaxing Sunday!

BLESSED

Well my mojo has been playing tricks on me but the past couple weeks it's come back full force! I have been eating, living and literally dreaming about paint, ink, canvas, papers and all things art!  I have a HUGE canvas sitting on my art table waiting on it's second coat of gesso and I've just finished a small canvas.  Here are a couple of my latest projects!  Wish me luck on the giant canvas!

This is my husband and sweet granddauther Sydney.  I love pictures of big burly guys with tiny little babies...so sweet! I made all the flowers, inked everything up with Tim Holtz turquoise and painted and distressed Dusty Attic scroll at the top of the circle...I got the piece at the Scrappy Chic Online store (see link to the left of my page to get your own!)  I will soon be adding a tutorial here on how to make the flowers...

This is a little box with magnetic lid that opens to hold small treasures.  It's for my granddaughter's nursery and it was so much fun to create! Lots of torn and distressed patterened paper and bling...

The last one is the painting I finished last weekend.  It's a abstract floral and I am soon going to paint two more similar to go with this one, which is hanging solo in my bathroom right now.

Hello friends! I hope your Sunday's were as relaxing and creative as mine! I spent almost the entire day in my favorite chair scooted right up to my art table creating a few projects and enjoying every minute!

If only every day could be so easy!  Iwanted to wish my friend Paula McClane a happy birthday! I know I missed a good time at your Mystery Weekend and I can't wait to see pics and pages of how it all went and especially whodunit!!!

So, I'm working on a page for my Secret Sister Swap's Circle Journal..(on Scrapbook.com).  Anyway, I started on one page in which the owner of the page wanted me to scrap about the best advice I've ever gotten. A fun and interesting topic for sure.  Her color theme was black and white with one pop of color (I chose orange).  I decided that the one piece of advice I would use on this page as this:

Direct your thoughts,
Control your emotions,
Ordain your destiny

I first heard of this quotable advice while working for an insurance company in the sales division where I was Branch Manager for the Houston, Tx territory,  Once I learned the meaning of this quote, I took it with me in all aspects of my life and it helped me through many a hard day and lots of rough moments in my life.  I think it is right on the money! So many times when faced with frustrations, hard decisions etcetra, we let our emotions get away from us and end up making spur of the moment, heat of passion decisions.  But if we could find the gumption (I love that word!) to stop and focus our thoughts ON the things we want and OFF the things we don't want, we can make decisions from a better place than when we allow our emotions to get the best of us! 

I got stuck on the layout though because part of the requirements was to include a graphic and for some reason I, with all the millions of choices out there, I haven't found what I wanted to include..so, the project is STILL not complete!  I hate when mojo takes a leave of absence like that!

Here's hoping YOUR mojo keeps flowing like a river!

MISS YOU

I'm working on a tutorial for my Design Team work over at Scrappy Chic Cafe...this is a layout I did using three different techniques...Lacing (FUN!), masking, and something I call 'crystalizing' because of the look of it when I finished! (The mosaics and the rose, plus the corners of the page).  Here's the layout...be sure to cruise over to Scrappy Chic Cafe March 1 to check out my step-by-step how-to tutorial:

Journalling reads:  I love this photo of Rafe and Sydney. Even though he's blind he obviously likes the touch, sounds and smells of his new little sister.Makes my heart sing with joy to see it! I miss them so much!

Lean on Me

This is the first layout in a book that I'm making to record my sister Dana's fight with Breast Cancer. She was diagnosed September 21 and will be having a double mastectomy November 2. Our Mother has been so stricken by Dana's situation she can barely think of anything else. She gets up every day now and gets dressed and goes over to Dana's house to try and find a way to help...cleaning, helping paint the kitchen, which my sister had started right before the diagnosis.  As hard as all this is emotionally, I hope I do the book with as much detail and I'd like to.