A 1920's Christmas

 Not a new project today, but one from the archives several years ago. This was one of my favorite holiday altered books, a 1920's Christmas in Paris.
I liked it so much that I thought I needed to do a re-post with some of the pages.

It was a great way to use holiday stamps and  ephemera and non-holiday stamps and ephemera together.

I found this great set of French holiday stamps which worked out perfect for this project. They are from a French company called Aladine. I also used a bunch of these bought glittered shaped cut outs. 

I made this book by cutting out the pages of an old book and adding water color paper pages in their place.  They gave me a good solid surface to work on.

I LOVE this angel page even though it doesn't quite fir the style of the rest of the book. 

I look back on these pages and it is interesting to see how much more paint I use now. Neither is good nor bad, but maybe it is good to switch things up a bit. (That seems to be a theme with me lately.)

This gentleman is a favorite stamp of mine from B Line Design. He's got so much personality.

Not much exciting with me. This week has been busy with all kinds of things-work, keeping the house clean enough to keep it from feeling totally out of control, listening to Christmas music and singing loudly,  making art, making cookies....

Hope you are enjoying your day!

More Creations from Christmas Past

A fun Northwoods stamp, colored and then decked out with stars, glitter, some candy canes, postmark and sentiment.

Love this card. The Toybox NorthPole stamp, Hero Arts eskimo and blue snowflake trim and sentiment. Martha Stewart trim punch too.

Technique Tuesday words, Hero Arts white snowflakes and some punched penquins.

??? Not sure who did the wreath, maybe Inkadinkado!

I made the trees out of paper, drew on the  hills, added glitter glue and white trim, saying is Hero Arts and Clouds are Stampscapes...distressed the sky with some light blue.

The background is CHF, Hero Arts words, green sticky tape and a Prima star embellished just a tad. Love it!

Not my favorite, but Hero Arts angel, sentiments and holly backrgound...punched holly. (Hmmm, didn't even remember I have a holly punch until I saw this card...is that a sign of too much stuff???)

(the answer to that question is OH YEAH!)

So its our last day of school until next year!!! Love saying that. Should be a totally useless day overall with too much junk food and kids who are unfocused. As long as I can get my grading ALL CAUGHT UP though, I will be happy! And yesterday, we actually got enough snow to turn the ground white-our first accumulating snow...so maybe, it will be a white Christmas. That's a good thing!! (Then the snow can go away! Yeah, right!)

And Visions of Sugarplums

Yummy! Tis the season for gingerbread...Here's more snaps from Christmas past.

Katie made this gingerbread train in 2008.

Don't know if we shall have snow for Christmas (we have BARELY a dusting right now though yesterday was an ICKY drive to work-light snow and icey roads...), but in 2008 we did! LOTS and LOTS of it, along with the BIG icestorm. 

No, I was NOT naughty! I was NICE!

Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa's elf!

A handsome elf guy too.

2 cute Santa's helpers. Christmas Eve, 2008.

Its always a Snoopy Christmas in our house.

And for the puppy dog Santa's helper...a cat he can chew on!

Two more days of school...counting the minutes!

Old Man Winter Arrives

Today winter arrives. Its windy and a VERY light snow is blowing around...they say only a dusting...and we kind of got that last night...nothing major...but Dave had an icky drive home as I guess it was slick. But so many places have SO much snow compared to us...even Cape Cod. Will it be a long cold one? Will it be short and sweet? Will we get much snow? Living in New Hampshire one never knows the answer to that question until after its over.

This card  welcomes the COLD with this great little Stampotique girl on a punched blue circle, my doodle snowflakes drawn in and the sentiment stamped. Plain simple but complete. I love this little girl. The stamp is named cold...apppropriate I think.

Papers Art from Christmas Past

Here's some more Christmas past photos to share...this time some art from the past couple of years. Starting with above-

 A cool tag made with stamps, some clip art, felt snowflakes, and punched paper.

Another cool tage made with Stampington/Michelle Ward mini-clear stamps, a Hero Arts stamp, some Martha Stewart cardinals, a Hero Arts branch, punched corners and cool holiday paper . Think the edges should be distressed a bit and colored? I do.

Joyeux Noel...a non Christmas Eiffel Tower stamp wth holly and a wreath stamped and added, red speckled stamped directly onto a white card, some red background paper and some red German foil scrap trim, a stamped postage seal by Paper Artsy.

Postmodern Design stamped saying with a cool cooled Stampers Anonymous stamped image colored and cut out...the background which I love is a Hero Arts stamp in light brown stamped on lighter paper. punched diamond, embellished as shown. Think I added the key stamp in too.

Background is Hero Arts holly with the berries colored with red sparkles. Staying is also Hero Arts as are the 3 pointsettias along the felt trim at the bottom. All is distressed and bottom is trimmed.

Love this one a lot. Its an old ToyBox North Pole stamp and a great Santa in his sleigh stamp (maybe PSX???), holly stamped and the berries colored, words stamped along with the postage, deckle cut and put on a red card.

Another great card by Artistic Outpost stamps, colored with pastel pencils and then trimmed out on red paper with gold pen and some green paper trim.

Ho-Ho-Ho- al of these cards were fairly quick and simple to made.

Last 4 days of work until a weekend of busy holiday fun coming up...Friday we go to my family's in Massachusetts, we're home Saturday (new Dr. Who that night too) and then Sunday off to Maine-I think, to visit with Dave's family.  Then a down week-love the idea that next Monday I won't have to be up at 5 a..m. Its such a "merry" thought this morning. I don't think I'll get much done this week as far as baking or studio time...but we got to Costco and Trader Joe's yesterday- had a blast out with Dave...and so I feel at least like ALL my holiday shopping is done! That's a "merry" thought too.

Happy Day!

We'll Try It Again

Yesterday we started out...got a long, long, way towards our destination- 9Trader Joe's and Costco are over and hour away) and then had a dog acting so weird we ended up back at the Emergency Vet clinic (after 1 try and him being normal when we arrived). Come to find out he's hurt his back and in pain, just couldn't get comfortable...so nows he's drugged up a bit...POOR Harley. Merry Christmas for another $250 bill. YIKES!!!!!

So here's some more pages from my Paris book...as I haven't gotten into the studio to do ANY new art...nor have I even gotten around to writing Christmas cards that I made...YIKES...ok, so the photo on the top of the  page, LOTS of paper layering...some 7Gypsies tape and some cloth trim...woman stamp is from Stampers Anonymous...gingerbread men and house from Martha Stewart...the tag is a Melissa Frances stamp and there's lots of those gold glittery cut outs from EK Success (I believe since I throw out the packaging. There's also some gemstones and some tinsel and some green duct tape...oh yeah!

Page 2 is some made with  Anna Griffen background paper, EK Success reindeer punch, some 7Gypsies tape, Jennie Bowlin buttons and some clip art. The Joyeyx Noel is made with sparkely Making Memories stickers. Ass a little bit of finishing touches with some red marker and some gold ring stinkers...and there you have it! The page has been distressed with red and brown inks...but might be game for a bit more of something...but at the rate I've been working lately...think it'll just be as it is.

So think we're going to try it again...we did get out to a few store yesterday after the vet's...but not Trader Joe's, why they won't build one in southern NH or even Maine closer than South Portland is beyond me. And Dave and I went to IHOP for pankcakes for supper...not the greatest but tasted good to me...still we'll laugh about the day later.

OK, that's all for now...have a great Sunday!

I LOVE it when...

So here's more altered book since it is Friday and I have NOT spent one moment in the studio since last Sunday, and even then it was for about 15 minutes. I did spent time last Saturday....but as usual, the pre-holiday BUSY has set in...last minute items to do...work being insane...today is our field trip to the Museum of Science in Boston with ALL the biology kids...(like 140 kids)...but there's 4 of us and it'll be another busy and hopefully-FUN DAY!!!!

Anyhow...this is the double spread and I showed you the gals on the left earlier on. Right page is mostly B Line stamps, except the trees in the Jennie Bowlin tag (which are from Aladine stamps) and part of a postmark from Stamp Francisco. I stamped and embossed the snowflakes and added a bit of "snow" just flying loosely around.

Speaking of snow, now they're talking maybe a BIG snowstorm Sunday night into Monday- maybe a snow day...maybe a white Christmas? We've had NOTHING but a few rogue flakes so far.

Next page...I created this Santa list which I like. The envelope is by Hero Arts, not sure about the Santa but he's great, and all the toys are B Line. Paper is Anna Griffen. Really looks 1930's which is the theme of the book.

And the mate page...more B line toys, the 3 other images are from CHF, stamped, colored and layered with mica to look OLD.

+++++

So I do need to mention what I love when I get to do it, as its the blog's title...and since its Friday...you might guess...but the answer is

I GET TO SHUT OFF THE ALARM!!!!

YAHOO!!!

LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another morning already? You mean I have to get up, already?

These pages are suppose to show the Glitzy side of Paris...or maybe the more seedy side since Montmatre and the dancing girls are the artsy side, not the high class side. Lets see, I used a Tim Holtz speckle stamp and white paint to make the snowy look (yup, right off Tim's 12 Tag of Christmas 2010).  On the left, I went with stickers...some Penny Black ones and a Hot off the Press chandelier which I colored a bit. The stamp is Oxford Impressions, there's an Art Chix emphemera and some Prima jewels. On the right page...The dancing girls are a stamp from Postmodern Design...I collect their stamps since they're no longer in business and won this one on eBay a while back. I stamped on sheet music and colored with Copics...on the bottom is part of a tag stamp from B Line Design. And then there's Art Chiz and Prima gems and Martha Stewart punched snowflakes and gold fabric trim and even a piece of Martha Stewart Halloween sticker trim.

 Below is another couple of pages...I LOVE this man- he is a B Line stamp called Frenchie, with some snow on him... clip art tag, words are Stampington and Aladine, big snowflake is from Tattered Angels-LOVE the size of their HUGE stamps...7Gypsies tape, clear plastic snowflakes from Michael's, not sure who makes the French music stamp...hmmm.

I haven't been in the studio hardly at all this week...between the grey when I had no ambition (I'm so tired lately...Dave even had to wake me up this morning...that never needs to happen)  and then the "chores" I needed to do, like wrapping Katie's gifts before she comes home from college Friday and trying to get somewhat caught up on my grading...eeks...plus nights out this week-hair appointment, iPad class at work, finishing up my shopping...art just isn't in my sights...but HOPEFULLY this weekend I might feel a bit inspired. Because right now I will admit...not much isnpiration is flowing through me...not a bad thing nor am I having an artist's block- just don't feel like doign art and taking a break is NOT a bad thing at all.

So I will be showing you more of my altered book...are you sick of it yet? 

Matin de Noel, well no, more like Matin de Mardi

Monday was the DARKEST, DREARIEST day. At least it was rain, but at 4:30 when I got home from work it felt like about 8:30 at night. I could have gone to bed then, quite seriousy, and slept all night. I did take a nap, it was hard keeping my eyes open. Makes part of me SO depressed...the dark that is...but I will say after my nap I did perk up.

So here's some more photos from my altered holiday book. I found these sparklely die cuts at Michael's this year- I think they're by EK SUCCESS, and I love them. I also used the white wreath by Melissa Frances, white snowflake trim by Making Memories, saying stamps by Aladine stamps from France, some Tim Holtz stamps, Hot off the Press stickers, Making Memories trim tape...lots of fun supplies. That's what great about making these books, being able to play with all these cool things...

Hopefully today will be a brighter day than yesterday, but I think they're still saying grey...but I get my hair highlighted and cut today and you know what, I CAN'T WAIT!!!!! Nothing better than getting your hair done, don't you think? (especially when its dark and dreary and you cover up the grey at least 1 place!)

Happy Day!

Post TWO for a Monday

Rudolph is Welcoming Us  to enter the magic door to the North Pole. If you enter you can find Santa's workshop...he's rushing to get ready for Christmas since its less than 2 weeks away. Wow, seems December arrives and you think you have SO MUCH time until Christmas, and then, before you know it, its just about here!

Stamps are Stampotique (deer and door) and Inkadinkado (sign).

A Day Closer to the Holidays

Here's another photo from my NOW just about finished Noel a Paris altered book. I don't know who made the angel stamp, but there's a felt background by Prima and beautiful flowers by Prima, some gold paint, some gold German scraps...it could use a word or two...

So its been a GREAT weekend so far. Friday when I picked up Katie we went to see the Tourist...it was OK...then came home and we had a great UMO hockey game on tv-versus UNH, a little home rivalry going on...and unfortunately...the better team lost in overtime...thanks to that goal by UNH in the last 28 seconds...GRRRR. Yesterday I finished some school work, finished the blanket I'm sewing for Dave for Christmas and basically finished my altered book-YAHOO-love finishing projects!!!...then last night went to a holiday get together with some people from work. Was a lot of fun. Today we have grey and its spitting something out of the sky...plan on a relaxing day though...so looking forward to it...something about a cloudy Sunday that lets you feel its ok to sit in your pjs until really late...if not all day...having a yummy breakfast...maybe doing some baking...(think I might make some holiday fruit bread...not fruit cake! but like a German stollen.YUMMY!