This Week's Art

My dream of regular posts here on my blog has not really come to fruition as I had hoped, but here I am with a little art update.  Hopefully by the end of today I will have another post ready with a little garden room update, because I am sure you are waiting with baited breath to see our progress! :)

This first piece is 6X9 inches.  It started out as the back cover for the last art journal I made, but was too thick to go into the machine that punches the holes for a spiral bound book.  So, since it was already taped and paper covered, I decided to make it into something else.  I had signed up for a "letter writing project" that turned out to be anything BUT letters, and my partner in that was the recipient of this bit of collaged mixed media.  She said it was, "the most beautiful thing anyone had ever given her."  Made me happy that she liked it! :)

These six Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) are for a "jam" or "round robin" where three artists collaborate, then each one ends up with two completed cards in the end.  The first is a young man in Michigan with whom I have been swapping ATCs for a couple of months.  Great guy!  I put on the second layer, then sent them on to a pen-friend I met on Instagram with whom I am doing all sorts of swaps including both art journals I have sent off!

This is one of two ATCs (both shown below) I made for a swap-bot swap with a Valentine's Day theme.

The Facebook group I am part of (Mixed Media ATC Artists) does two swaps per month.  This one is Red or Pink with a heart.  We make three cards to swap, this and the next two are my offerings for this swap.

One of my Instagram friends is a teacher in Neosho, MO, and is doing a handmade postcard swap with several of her students 5th-8th grade.  She asked for volunteers who would be willing to swap with the kids, so I did this one. I recycled the cover of a calendar I received from my daughter who faithfully brings me all sorts of crap wonderful crafting materials. :)

This picture is my first art journal page in one of the traveling journals I am participating in.  The owner of the journal likes purple and blue, butterflies and outdoors.  It was a tremendous learning experience for me, and while it was not what I would have made had I known at the beginning what I learned in the process, I think she will be happy with it.

And, lastly, more giftings from Elizabeth (Victoria Secret packaging) turned into post cards.  I covered them with vintage maps, used washi tape, modeling paste, some new stencils, embossing powder, Dylusions inks, Stickles Glitter, some stamped tissue paper I got in a swap, embroidery floss and found letters. One is a thank you card for a RAK I received in November, and the other is for a mail art swap.

I took these postcards to the Post Office to make sure I had sufficient postage on them, and Ornery brought the boxed mail up to the counter while I was there.  Apparently there had been wild speculation among the postal employees as to who the recipient of all the wildly decorated mail was.  :)  I think they were disappointed that I was just an ordinary patron, not some Casanova with lots of girlfriends from all over the world.  :D  However, they seemed to be enjoying all the colorful mail I get.  Sadly, they don't get to see much of the wild stuff I send out!