HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

When the kids were little I made GREEN pancakes every St. Patrick's Day.  My daughter is home from Nashville this week so I made them again.

COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES

CLEAN SHAVEN!

My son, Ben, shaved his head to raise money for St. Baldrick's Foundation and Cancer Research. He said there were about 200 people at Ri Ra's Irish Pub in downtown Atlanta getting their heads shaved. He was representing his fraternity, Phi Kappa Tau and together this location raised over $100,000 tonight. I'm so proud of him!

NEW STAMPS

I carved a couple of new stamps today. I wanted a curly fern-like stamp. Then I looked up and saw all of my paintbrushes in a coffee can and decided to carve a paintbrush stamp also.

I made a new Artist Journal out of a 22" x 30" sheet of watercolor paper. I've used watercolors to paint each page, then I will add collage leaving room to journal.

NEW ART JOURNAL PAGES

NOTECARDS

New notecards I made with my hand carved stamps of Woodstock City Park.

ALTERED BOOK ARTIST JOURNAL PAGES

Today I started a new Artist Journal to keep track of my art projects and journal about them. I wanted to print out the stamps using the different stamp pad colors so I have a reference point. If you look closely at the background of the pages, you can see the original print page bleeding through. I bought some discarded books at the library and glued (using a glue stick) three pages together. Then I painted over the top with white gesso. A great way to recycle and reuse these old books. Some of my friends asked me how I choose which books to buy. I usually go for size.........these were almost square and the pages were sturdy.

Saturday Art

On Valentine's Day a patron at our library brought all of us a rose. It was so touching especially because I know she doesn't have a lot of extra money raising two children by herself and also having health issues this year. I think it is a PEACE rose and I put it on my desk in my studio. I just had to start painting it and turned the painting into a "Thank You" card for her. I hope she likes it.

I decided I wanted to make some stamps of local landmarks around our little town of Woodstock. I decided to start with Woodstock City Park. I first sketched a pencil drawing of the gazebo and then placed it face down on the stamping material. I rubbed it several times with a bone folder. You can see how well it transfers.

Here is the finished "Woodstock Gabzebo" stamp.

This is the clock that stands near the gazebo in downtown Woodstock city park.

If you decided to try making your own stamps, be very careful. It is really easy to cut yourself!

HAND CARVED STAMPS

After a very left brained morning in a QuickBooks seminar with my husband at the Perimeter Apple Store, I had to come home and get creative. I've wanted to try carving my own stamps after being inspired by GENINNE and her beautiful hand carved stamps. I used a Staedtler Carving Block and a Speedball carver. I drew a pattern on a piece of paper, flipped it onto the carving block and burnished it. I started carving trying to stay on the lines. It was really a lot easier than I thought it would be. I can't wait to try some more tomorrow.

VALENTINE'S DAY HEART PINS

I decided to make a couple of pins for Valentine's Day. I took the idea of the recycled book page rosettes and incorporated them into a pin using felt and glitter. I added a safety pin on the back. Here is another idea using RECYCLED BOOK PAGES.