rubber stamping, collage, mixed media & altered art

I have been doing less and less art lately. Mom visited for a week and then we took her to her sister’s house in Carbondale and spent last weekend there. I’ve also been trying to catch up on work (which exploded) this past week while she was out there. Auntie and cousin and small cousin (once removed) and tiny dog brought mom back yesterday and we had an evening and morning of hilarity. They’ve all headed home and the house is fairly quiet again, but Mom’s still here for a few more days before life gets back to normal. We have a little crafty itinerary, so I’m hoping I will post something yummy here in the next few days. Later today, we’re going to The Artists’ Nook, since mom hasn’t been there yet and I’ll probably teach mom some techniques tomorrow. She’s already collected some fallen leaves from my yard, so we’ll do some prints, I think! yay!

For now, I’ll just post this collage I did the week before last as a part of Collage Play With Crowabout. Clicky to see a larger version.

It’s been crazy lately — work has been busy and I was prepping for a visit with mom and then mom arrived…I haven’t had much time for myself. But Wednesday I whipped out two quick stamped thingies.

First, Tim needed a wee giftie for a woman in the office who was celebrating her 60th birthday. They all got her ‘60′ themed gifts, or 60 of something. Tim chose 60 Lifesavers. So I used the new Cats Pajamas stamps to create a bag topper (click for larger image).

Then, Thursday was my sister-in-law’s birthday and mom wanted to get her a gift card. Well, mom was too tired to make a birthday card in which to put the gift, so I whipped out a card, again, using the new Cats PJs stamps.

I am hoping that this weekend I will be able to have some down time and get some journaling done. I will be spending some time with my cousin and her 4-year-old, so I don’t expect a TON of down time, but there will be some fun window shopping and oogling in Aspen and who doesn’t like that?

I am so excited, I can’t even wait until tomorrow to do my weekly post! Tonight, I finished my second art quilt. I got a little more into this one than the last one because I added batting and all sorts of fun charms and embellishments. The hanger is a stick from our yard and noodly copper wire with some beads. The background is a piece of canvas I painted in Lisa Englebrecht’s workshop.

I really like the idea of mixing up all of the things I love: paper, scraps, transparency, rub-ons, charms, sparkly paint and now….stitching! It is so rewarding to add some stitches to my work. I feel like something has been missing for a while and this might be it! I know I’m a little late to the bandwagon, but I don’t care — I am hooked!

Huge thanks to Fran for helping me understand the steps in the process and talking through the hanger thing with me over IM tonight. I seriously couldn’t do half of the stuff that I do without her encouragement.