Altered By Me

Sorry everyone I meant to get this posted last night but I am dealing with a sick child. I just got back from the doctors and the pharmacy. So I am extending the giveaway an extra day! I am happy to be a part of the first International Charm Day hosted by Amber Dawn. Check out the blog to find more Charming goodies International Charm Day 2009 At first I thought I would just post some pictures of charms that I have made in the past. And then I got to thinking what fun is that? So yesterday afternoon I sat down and made these charms for this giveaway. The give away is for ten vintage button charms that I made just for this give away. The charms are pictured above. ( The chain or the vase is not included in the give away ) So here are the details. My giveaway will run from Tuesday April 28th to Saturday May 2nd. There are a number of ways to get your name in the hat. 1 Leave a comment on this blog post today or the blog post tomorrow. 2 You'll get another chance added if you blog a...

I've decided to host a give away tomorrow for the 1st International Charm Day celebration. Here is a sneak peak at some of the charms I made today for my giveaway. Tomorrow I will post more pictures and the charming details. Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

Amber Dawn is hosting the first International Charm Day on April 28th. This is sure to be the first of many more. Please check out the blog for more information and to find out how you can win some really cool prizes. http://internationalcharmday.blogspot.com/

Like most of you who read my blog and create mixed media I have a huge collection of old books that I pick up here and there when I am shopping the local thrift stores. Matter of fact my collection of books that I plan to one day either use the pages or the covers in my art has started to take over my life. When I started out on my trip to the thrift store this morning I told myself that I would not go near the books. I did not NEED anymore books. This particular thrift store is only open three days a week, Thursday being one of them. I don't shop there every week but today I was looking for some clothes hangers and I knew they usually had some. So off I go after I drop my daughter off at school. This shop is very small and can get very claustrophobic if there are too many people packed in there at once. For some reason the store was packed today. I wandered around for awhile checking out the glassware. I usually find some great vintage china there for very cheap so I always chec...

Spring has always been very special time for me. Every year I look forward to planting flowers and growing vegetables. I have been a gardener for years and this will be the first year I do not get to plant a vegetable garden. I couldn't live without having a tomato plant or two so this year I will be a container gardener. I think because of that I have really been creating a lot of spring time art. Here is a 6 x 6 piece I completed yesterday. My background is a piece of watercolor paper. I glued some vintage sheet music to it and colored with distress ink. I didn't like the way it looked so I then use some blue gouache paint to color in the sky. Then to make my colors blend from the top of the background to the bottom I colored in with some yellow, red and green watercolor crayons. I used gesso to blend the paints. I stamped some flowers with black stazon ink before I started painting and to make the flowers pop I then used colored pencils around the edges. I like to get my b...