Altoid Tin Ornaments

Here are some Altoid tin Ornaments I had fun making this week. Im going to use them to put some gift cards in. I got the images from my free Christmas Images on my Blog from Go make something. I had a hard time finding long beaded trim. Surprisingly the best I found were at wal mart today. Have fun Creating this Holiday Season!!

Traveling by Train in Alaska

I wanted to finish one more spread in my book before I took it home to Christmas to share with my family. They all went with us to this trip in July. Here we are getting ready to get on the cruise in Seward. We took a train from Anchorage where everyone flew in to meet. We had 24 family members go on this vacation celebrating my mom and dads 50th anniversary!
The picture is a sketch of me and my son inside the train. I did this on watercolor paper. The pictures to the left were pics seen on the way. It was fun to have the whole car full of our family trading seats and catching up with one another. Merry Christmas!!

Alaska board book spread

I finished another spread in my board book from our Alaska trip this past weekend. We took a ferry trip across the Prince William Sound from Valdez to Whittier. Unfortuneately the weather was not the best so we didnt see as much as we could have. We did see some seals, and otters. I collaged a map of the land next to the sound where we went with paper of glacier photographs. I drew in the glacier areas with a white paint pen and labeled the many glaciers we passed. This is a photo of my son on the hull of the ship with a thin jacket as teenagers do. I thought it was funny with the oldsters all bundled up.

Zentangle Doodle

This is the first Zentangle I tried to make. I worked on this all weekend during the downtime of my three choir performances. I hate to set around without keeping my hands busy and this was a great use of time. I wanted to try these out on my middle schoolers. After I finished and did more research on this art form, I realized the size is supposed to be 3 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches. So the next one I did the official size.







How many of you have tried this "doodle" style?
It is supposed to be relaxing and stress relieving.

Marie Antoinette Award!! My first blog award!

Thanks to Val from Val's Altered HeART Journey who gave me this award. You can see her link on my favorite sites. Im so excited and told all my friends and family. I still have some friends Im trying to convince to start a blog too.
Link to the award: http://valsalteredheartjourney.blogspot.com/2008/11/oh-my-goodness-ive-been-given-another.html

I started this blog 5 months ago and it has been alot of fun. I encourage all you lurkers to start one. Its a great way to meet other artists online and to see others who have similar art interests.


I love many kinds of art and its so hard to decide what type to concentrate on. I love sketching and watercolor and also mixed media collage. Since I teach middle school art, I get to try out some things on them. After Christmas break, Im teaching two new electives: 1.Collage and printing , 2. sculpture. So I will get to post some new subjects as I go.

Thank you Val for giving me this award. I love all your collage work and all the textures you show on them. Go see Val's amazing work. She is so talented and lives in Colorado too. Maybe some day we will meet in person??

The people I chose here are supposed to post the award on their blogs, link to the person who gave it them, and then pass it on to seven other bloggers if you are so inclined, and link to them. Congratulations, all you fine artists.

1.Margaret Storer-Roche
http://waterblossoms.blogspot.com
I love her artwork sketching and painting of all the beautiful places around where she lives in Arizona and her travels. She is amazing how she is always creating something and her blog layout is gorgeous!! I dont think she misses a day. I didnt realize she was a middle school teacher as well. I love checking her blog and you will too!!

2. Martha Brown
http://m-is-for-martha.blogspot.com
I love all her great altered art of many varieties. Check out her blog!

3. Sandy
http://myfiddlestix.blogspot.com
I love her sketchings with color. Such great perspective and a variety of subjects. Always fun to check out!!

4. Anne Cough
http://bullesdorees.blogspot.com/
She has fantastic altered art . I especially love the houses. She videos all her art to see it from all views. check it out.

5. Anita Davies
http://artbyanita.blogspot.com/
I love her sketching and painting. She has so many interesting journals. I enjoy seeing all the architecture and scenes around her UK home.

Collage Finally Finished!!

Here are some finishing touches:
I found a tropical plant ( bird of paradise?) and cut it out as a focal point for the center of my collage. I added another fish picture and some mulberry paper torn to look like organic elements in the lower left. I glued on a real shell. I found a red matisse shape and cut that out on the top area. I put some rice paper (lacy type) over some hard edges to soften and bring the colors together. A little bit more tissue paper to fill in and its done!!