WORKSPACE ORGANIZATION

If you haven't seen the great Tuesday Tutorial presented  January 17th on the  Operation  Write Home Stars and Stamps  site  entitled "Organizing Your Space", check out the ideas presented by Jen Muller from The Sparkle Within and the response photos from other crafters sharing their craftroom ideas. 
I am a bit jealous to say the least as I don't have a room dedicated for crafting, but have a small sunroom dedicated to my painting, which gets mighty messy.  So since cardmaking needs some clean space,  I use just a small corner of my dining/livingroom with a 6ft. narrow table that holds my tools and supplies for cardmaking, and fashioned a perfect workspace with a TV tray table:

As you can see, it holds a 12x12 Martha Stewart scorer, with a cutting mat on top of it, and the Martha Stewart papercutter fits perfectly next to the scorer.  The supply table is on the left, so I can sit at the tray table to work on a card, plus still have the diningroom table on the right to spread out papers or emboss with the cuttlebug.  It's more compact and handy for me this way, and easy to clean up when I'm finished. 

I wanted to share this with anyone who might be like me with limited space for cardmaking.  We all must organize the space we do have, so hope this helps someone out there.

Till next time.... thanks for stopping by and leaving your comments.

~Dolores~

HAPPY 2012

As the new year begins, I'm realizing that I haven't added my good wishes here for any visitors.  Do hope the past month since Thanksgiving have been filled with your family/friend celebrations, and that you were blessed with a happy Christmastime.  Now we must look forward to the new year and what it might bring.

I have been busy not only with Christmas preparations, finishing some paintings for an exhibit, and getting those Valentines ready for Operation Write Home heroes which had to be on their way in time for them to write their love messages to family and friends as February is just a month away.

The Frederick County Art Association's exhibit begins the year at the local art center, and I am entering the Alaska oil landscape that I've posted here last July...it was finally dry and ready for entry.  

I've taken a photo of the small solo Foyer Gallery exhibit for you to see which has five of my pastel and acrylic paintings.

The new year is having a good beginning for me as far as exhibiting my art.
Here's hoping you all will be blessed with good health and happiness in this new year....and as always, would appreciate you comments and visits again.

                                               ~Dolores~

Summertime

We are in the midst of a scorching July summer here, and it's best to stay indoors to keep cool.    I've been keeping myself busy with painting, cardmaking, reading, etc.....anything that doesn't require much effort to stay cool.

Way back in October I posted a blog of some of my paintings, and in particular a work-in-progress of  Alaska--an oil on canvas.  It's been a frustrating piece that I've been picking away at all this time.  Well, being forced to stay in the cool house, I vowed to finish this painting, and happy to tell you that I did.  Here's the result:

It's still drying before I can frame it, but would appreciate any comments.   I feel it's finished and don't dare to touch it again. 

It's also been a good time to work on upcoming holiday cards for Operation Write Home, but all I can get in the mood for now are fall themes.

The "Grateful" card in front was actually done with a piece of an acrylic abstract painting I had set aside for more work, but decided instead to crop pieces of the rich fall colors as background for a couple cards.  Sure didn't need much embellishment, and I'm kinda happy with this.  May try it again
soon!

Thanks for stopping by..... hope you all are enjoying your summer.

~~Dolores~~

Welcome Spring!

Spring greetings everyone!

It is not officially spring...yet....but it is looking like it today as it's a pleasant 50 degree Sunny day here in Frederick, MD and hopefully, where you are as well.  

As many of you probably already know, the celebration of spring is being kicked off by Operation Write Home this Saturday, March 5th, with the Spring Bunny Hop on their Stars and Stamps blog,  and I'm sure all the cardmakers are geared up and ready for this marathon of inspiration.  I look forward to checking out as many of the blogposts as I can, but am not actually participating myself.  However, thought I'd better put out the welcome mat anyway in case some of my blog comments entice one of you to visit me here too.  And here's  my greeting card of welcome to you in honor of spring's lillies and approaching Easter season.  The photo doesn't really show up the green base or the gold embossed cardstock.

I believe I mentioned in a previous post that I had planned to attend a pastel painting studio at our local arts center, which I have been doing the past few weeks.  It's been great to get me motivated as I've been hibernating too much all winter and needed this inspiration to paint again.  So, thought I'd share a couple of the pieces that I created.

This is done from a photo of a fall scene with a chapel tower, and I liked the layout design so tried my best with it.  I haven't titled it as yet, or framed it, but plan to do that soon.

Another one I completed was also taken from a photo at Loch Lynn, Scotland, and the foreboding stormy sky inspired me to want to paint it.

I completed another woodland scene and am still working on a floral, but will share those with you at another time.   I was pleased that I was able to get these done in the past few weeks, and now with spring coming,  hope to keep this going. 

Thank you again for stopping by to visit me,  especially if you got here during the OWH Spring Bunny Hop, and hope you'll continue checking out the creativity there.  And in that spirit, here's a card using Sandy's great little

digi bunny.

Bye bye now!

~~Dolores~~                                  



OWH Birthday Bash

Heard there's a party going on, right?  So, I'm back again to join in on the big Birthday Bash at Operation Write Home.  I haven't been around for a while as, for me, it seems difficult to do very often since I'm still learning about this blogging thingie and it takes me too long to decide what to tell you, then to take the photos that I want to share, and post them here, etc. 

Since it's been such a sweltering summer in these parts, I've been hibernating with my A/C going full blast.  Have lots to keep me from going stir-crazy, not only with my painting, but also devoting evenings to making cards for our heroes and sending them to an Operation Write Home (OWH) shipper to forward on to one of the military units.

This month of September already has been quite a busy one, especially with the big Birthday Bash going on at OWH during the entire month.  There are daily challenges for cards to create for our heroes, with many prizes being offered if the cards are published in a blog and linked to OWH or one of the many sponsors.  This is all so new to me, but I want to join the party with at least a few of the challenges.  So, I'll start by showing you the one I created for the Stamps R Us challenge for a child's birthday card using Elizabeth Dulimba's cute digital stamp of a birthday bear. 

You might like to try it yourself, as even if you are not a card maker, there's a great video here that will lead you through the process of making a simple card. Who knows, you might enjoy trying this, and join the rest of us crafters for this wonderful cause.

I did manage to meet another challenge for the Mid-Week Throwdown to create a happy Halloween card, and here's what I came up with.  This little owl is a Studio G clear stamp.

Well, I have to say I've been busy trying to catch up on a few of these challenges, cause here's another that I managed to do for sketch #34 that was to be a thank you card with yellow in it.

Last but not least, I also met the Family Challenge by Ciara, the OWH mascot.   My talented daughter, Sandy, did some great sketches of Ciara for digital stamps that were free for use in making cards for OWH, and I used this cute one of Ciara sitting beside her snow buddy. 

 

I think that's about all for now, but I'm on a roll here this weekend, and hope to meet a few more challenges that I'll post later.  Am so glad we have until the end of the month to keep creating lots of cards for our heroes.

Thanks for stopping by today, and hope you'll return again to see more in my little corner studio. 

~~Dolores

P.S.  Forgot to mention when I wrote the above, that my thoughts and prayers were with all that were affected by the 9/11 disaster.  We should never forget those that were lost to us and the heroes that resulted from it.  May the Lord bless them all. 

Christmas Cards for Our Heroes

As cardmakers, I think we all know that now is the time to get ready for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, not only for our personal card use, but to send to the troops overseas, which requires extra time for the mail to get to them, and for them to write and send the cards home.   The mid-week throwdown challenge at OWH this week is Christmas in July and was a great idea, as well as a nice cooling thought during this hot summer.  Here's the first card to get me rolling:
 

If you didn't see last week's tutorial on paper punch characters, you have to check it out as it is a lot of fun to work with.   I got the hang of making Elmo, Grover, and Big Bird, and decided to try other cutout shapes.  Here's two that turned out pretty cute, I thought, and plan to send them  along to OWH for a hero to send to his kids.

While I'm on this roll today, want to continue getting some Halloween cards made as well to send to Dixie soon as the Sept. 20th due date is not far off,  and I know the shippers like to get them earlier if possible. 

Thanks for stopping by, and do come back in the next couple days as I'll have some more paintings to show you that I've been working on. 

Happy Holidays!