Sunday Slumber Party Artventures

Today was supposed to be all about organizing this.  In fact, so was yesterday now that I think about it.

Somehow dusting, vacuuming, and sorting boxes just didn't appeal to me.  My biggest excuse for getting out of this was this big guy.

I salvaged "big guy" from an alley in my mom's neighborhood.  It's got good bones but a few of the drawers needed a bit of repair.  In stepped my personal handy man.  He's so good.  And cheap reasonable.  He doesn't charge me.  Sorry.  He only does work for ME.  LOL!!!

Most of the drawers have this decorative embellishment on the front but some of them are cracked, off-centered or have a portion of the resin-like swirl that surrounds the blue background, chipped.  This will obviously take a little creativity.  These drawers are big and deep and are going to hold a lot of my boxed items.  Oh, did I mention that they've been airing outside for the past 5 weeks caused they reeked of perfume and cigarettes?  Yes, BIG EWWW but this was such a great find I HAD to bring it home.  The smells are gone according to those who don't have the horrible sinus problems as I do. 

So what did I do instead of cleaning/organizing that room I call my art space?  I made ATCs of course!  These are the final four of the Twenty-Four ATC Summer Challenge between Joss and I.  One of the themes she chose for me  was Africa and it was my biggest challenge of the bunch.  Once I put my visions on paper, I was DONE!  On the way to London they go!

So what, I didn't get my art space cleaned and organized.  I had a Sunday slumber party instead.  And that was a lot more fun!  

Fun-ky Friday

If the weeks continue to rapidly speed by, for sure it'll be summer once again!  Yay for speedy days!  But wait.  Do I really want the weeks to turn into summer so quickly?  It seems like only yesterday that a group of us girls were walking back to the school yard from Gym Class (that's what we called P.E. back then) and someone had her transistor radio planted to her ear but it was loud enough for us to hear The Supremes singing "The Happening."  Remember that one?  It's one of their hits that rarely, if at all, gets played on the radio.  Even the oldie stations ignore it.  Anyway, we were walking back to our class when the subject of make-up came up.  We were in the 6th or 7th grade and we weren't allowed to wear make-up cause of our strict Catholic school rules.  I thought of this moment as I was tugging at my eyes with my mouth sideways looking as if I'd, God forbid, had a stroke!  The conversation of how silly our mothers looked as they applied make-up hit me like a ton of bricks!  It seemed that we ALL had mothers who made faces as they applied make-up and we all giggled at how silly they looked.  Fast forward 40 something years and there I was yesterday morning making those same silly faces before heading off to work.  LOL!!!  So do I really want summer to arrive so quickly?

Fast forward a few more years and I'll have that same crooked eyeliner I used to snicker at whenever I'd visit certain family members.  LOL!  When that time comes, and please, it's gonna happen to all of us even if we swear that the contacts will save us from crooked eyeliner, I'll be au natural.  Yeah right.  I'll be that old lady with the heavy hand.  An old Cleopatra, if you will.  LOL!!!!  Scary.
Talking about scary, it's almost Halloween!  YAY!  My favorite of all holidays.  I joined this postcard swap and it's an open theme.  Gotta get working on those and I think I'm doing Halloween cause it's almost here and ooolala, I love it!
While sitting at my desk the other day I found my set of beautiful Frida coasters that my pal Jolene made a few years ago.  I had them sitting up on a shelf but they fell with the last earthquake and I haven't put them up since.  Aren't they purty?

I recently traded ATCs with my friend Joss.  We've decided that each summer we're going to challenge ourselves to a swap of 20+ cards!  Locas?  Well maybe  about ATCs but that's a good kind of loca position to be in.  Right?  We presented each other with six themes and we were to make four ATCs from each theme.  Here are just a few of those she made for me.  I love birds so naturally I challenged her to make me some birds.  Love them!

The sixties decade was pretty special to me and so I asked her to create some ATCs with that theme.  

Another theme I requested was journal ATCs.  This was her challenge but I think she did great!  I love her baby picture.

Women and texture are the last themes featured here.  I wish you could feel the roughness of these cards.  She used gel medium, acrylics and tissue to create some of the texture on the ATCs.

I hope you're all having a fun-ky Friday;  I am!  

TGIF

Thank God It's Frida!

How time flies when you're having fun.  Where oh where did the summer go?  The calendar says that summer's last day is on September 21 but for me it ends the day school begins. 
My summer was filled with celebrations.

My summer was filled with a surprise that led to the end of an 18 year friendship. 

My summer was filled with late night artventures.  Which brings us back to TGIF - Thank God It's Frida!

I got the urge one night to burn holes into an ATC.  I did this once before but not on an ATC.  And since I had a few left-over candles, I decided to drip some wax onto the card as the candle melted.

I knew I wanted "HER" eyes behind the holes.  Additional wax was dripped onto the card and gold paint was rubbed over the entire surface.

I wanted Frida's eyes to be an element of surprise to anyone who viewed this ATC so I decided to place a strip of movable cardstock across the card to cover her eyes.  A decorative brad anchored it down in place.

Peek-a-boo, I see you!

So much for late night artventures.  It was fun while it lasted.  Yeah right, like getting up early for work will stop me.  LOL!!!