Altered By Me

It has been awhile since I have had a chance to make any art. It's not that I haven't wanted to get down and dirty with my craft supplies but life has been busy. We moved at the beginning of August into a bigger rental. I now have a craft room. Woo Hoo but things are still packed and shelves and storage need to be figured out. I have been recycling packing paper for a while now and have a big stash of it. It was conveniently located so when I was looking through the new Paper Imagery Designs Halloween sheets I knew I wanted to use some to make a mini altered book. Pages 1 & 2 pages 3 & 4 pages 5 & 6 

Altered Bottle Caps for a PID swap I got these bottle caps done along with some altered match boxes for another swap on the PID Facebook page. I am putting the final touches on the match boxes and then I have to find some goodies to stuff them with. Then off to the post office they go!

  I made this altered mini book for the February jackpot on the PID yahoo group. It is 3 x 3 and the base for the pages came from an kit I bought from my local Dollar Tree store last year. At the time I figure how can I go wrong for a buck and bought a few of the kits.   The pages were already decorated with the checkerboard pattern. I colored the pages with distress ink after randomly gluing piece of dictionary pages and music sheets to them . The theme for this month was purple, green and gold. I used a gold gel pen to highlight the edges of some of the checkerboard. I also used it to highlight some of the areas on the Paper Imagery Designs images that I used. Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

Occasionally I get a chance to play in the Rangerinklink yahoo group monthly challenge. This month the challenge is to use one of Tim Holtz's techniques from his 12 Days of Tags. If you haven't seen Tim's blog you just don't know what you are missing. Check it out. This years Tag's are coming to a close but there is a link for the 2007 + 2008 tags on his side bar. I made this 4 x 4 piece using Ranger & Paper Imagery Designs products. All of the purple elements and background are from Ranger products. The image, clock transparency and watch elements are from Paper Imagery Designs . It is one of my favorites and is relatively new so if you haven't checked out the website lately go check it out again. There is also some great Christmas images sheets available. To see some artwork made by the Design Team using Paper Imagery Designs images check out the Paper Imagery Designs blog Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

The deadline for the mixed media charm swap I am hosting is getting close. So far I have received charms from 8 of the 18 artists that signed up for my swap. The charms are all beautiful and there is such a wide assortment of styles that these charms are going to make an awesome charm bracelet. I'll post pictures after the charms are swapped out. This weeks challenge on the PID yahoo group is metal. The above atc is what I made for the weekly challenge. I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture but in the upper left hand corner is a purple metallic rose. The roses are available from Paper Imagery Designs and come in a five different colors. The rose worked very well with the theme. Oh and yes I seem to be on a purple kick this month. I think this is the 3 piece of art I have done where the color is predominately purple. Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

Paper Imagery Designs is looking for a few new Design Team members. If your interested and would like to apply please see the Paper Imagery Designs blog post here. The above 4 x 4 was done for the Altered People challenge on the PID yahoo group. If you'd like to see how I did the background technique check out the post here . Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

Comments are now closed! Contest winner will be announced on July 4th in the Paper Imagery Designs Newsletter! Paper Imagery Designs Blog Roll Contest! For a chance to win the ATC above leave a comment on my blog. Then check out the other Paper Imagery Designs Design Team members for a chance to win a piece of their art. Contest ends July 3rd Stop by each of the designers blogs listed below for your chance to enter their give away. Leave a comment and a way to contact. Without contact info you cannot be notified of your winnings. Angie's Art Full Life Linda Cains Eileen's Art Saves Lives Carla's Collage Cat Melissa's Altered Imagination Once your done visiting the design teams blog check out the Paper Imagery Designs blog for a bigger give away! Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

I recently joined a mini banner swap on one of my yahoo groups. I haven't received the swap back yet but I had so much fun with the banner and the background technique I used that I decided to make some bigger banner pieces and maybe host a swap on the Paper Imagery Designs yahoo group. If your interested I haven't posted the swap yet so join the group and more info will be coming soon! These pieces are not done yet. I still have some decorating to do but I thought I would share the before and after, once I finish them anyway. I'll also be posting the background technique to the Paper Imagery Designs blog in the near future. Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

Remember a few posts back when I told you about the design team image sheets from Paper Imagery Design?? Did you run over to the PID website and buy some? If you did let me know when you use the images in your art work! It is such a compliment when someone uses the images I designed for the sheets that I felt it necessary to let them and the world know I appreciate the compliment by posting their art work to my blog. Here is another fat book page from the PID fat book swap where my image was used. Melissa Huber is the artist and you can see more of her fat book pages from the swap at her Altered Imagination blog. Melissa is also one of the owners of Paper Imagery Designs so this is an extra special compliment to me because she thought my image special enough to use on her fat book pages. Thank you Melissa!!! Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

A couple of posts back you might remember my mention of the Paper Imagery Designs Image sheets made up of images designed by the design team. You can read that post here and find a link directly to the images sheets there also. Well today Dayle posted some of her 4x4 fatbook pages for our swap and what did I see??? Dayle used one of my images from the Design Team Sheet. Here is a picture of the 4x4 page she made using it.   Her 4x4 pages are beautiful! And look how sweet my image looks on top of her technique. Thank you Dayle!   Technorati Tags: Design Team Image Sheets , 4x4 fatbook  

There have been a few things that I have been working on the past few months that were for publication and I haven't been able to share them. Here is a sneak peak at a couple of pieces of art that I've done for the Daily Window website. If your not familiar with Daily Windows bags click on one of the icons at the top of this post or the link and you can see some of the great handbags they sell. These bags are a great way to showcase your artwork or to even show off pictures of the grand kids.     This second piece is a little different from what you are use to seeing from me. I have worked with fabric on and off for years. I even did the quilt thing for a while. I recently scored a bunch of vintage lace and trims at an estate sale and couldn't wait to do something with it. Another fabric piece I made has been accepted for publication but you will have to wait to see that. I'm so excited I can't wait for the book to come out.   Both images used a...

  Doesn't it feel good when you feel like you've accomplished something? I've been busy this past week finishing up some art projects that I committed myself to. One project is way over due in my mind. There was no time limit set for this project but I've been feeling like I've had something hanging over my head just knowing that I promised two pieces of art. So hopefully they will be going postal next week.   On another note I can't believe my six months is up with the Paper Imagery Designs DT team. These six months have just flown by. Technically my six months aren't up until the end of this month. So I still have some work to do.   I've decided to apply again. Lori and Melissa are two of the best people I've ever worked with. Their image sheets are top quality and I'd be proud if they decide to have me again.   If your interested in apply for the new designs team go check out the blog . Lori is taking applications until the end o...

For a couple of months now I have been posting a new technique on the Paper Imagery Designs blog . If you'd like to learn how to do the technique I used on this and the previous post atc background go check out the blog. Paper Imagery Designs is looking for some new Design Team members. If your interested you can find that information on the blog also. Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

I've had a very boring un-arty weekend so last night around 1 am I decided to check out some of the challenge blogs to see if I could find anything that might interest me. For awhile now inchies have been big. Then came along twochies and now trinchies. I enjoy working in alot of different sizes so when I saw that trinchie was the theme this week at the Mixed Media Monday site I grabbed up a piece of background scrap and cut it down into the proper size. This piece came together pretty fast. Sometimes I struggle over a piece and other times a piece seems to go together surprisingly quickly. I loved it when I was done so that was a bonus as far as I am concerned. All images and the clock transparencies are from Paper Imagery Designs . Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

Technorati Tags: Altered Art , Mixed Media , Collage , Paper Imagery Designs , Challenge , Gothic Arch I had so much fun making the Gothic Arch for the weekly challenge at the Paper Imagery Designs Yahoo group I decided to make another one. The image is from Paper Imagery Designs . I also decided to share the before and after of my background piece. I loved the background piece before I added my elements and why I decided to cover it up with cheesecloth I don't know. But while I was in my artistic zone I thought wouldn't that look cool with some dyed cheesecloth on it. So I pulled out a baggy of dyed cheesecloth and cut up some strips. Then I took my little mini misters full of dye reinkers and pearlx and hit the cheesecloth with a couple of squirts. At first I was only going to add the cheesecloth to the left hand side. But when I was trying to lay it on the side of the arch to see what it looked like I didn't care for the way it looked. Finally...

The weekly challenge over at the Paper Imagery Designs yahoo group for this week is Gothic Arch. The image used on my arch is Mia 112 Check out the Paper Imagery Designs Blog to see more art work done using the beautiful Paper Imagery Designs images. Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

Theme Thursday's theme for this week is hearts. I used two embossed die cut hearts and an image from Paper Imagery Designs . Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

Here is an ATC that I made for the whitewash challenge on the Ranger group. I used the new Inkessentials white opaqued pen. I am really loving this pen! The image is Mary Beth from Paper Imagery Designs. Isn't she the sweetest little thing you've ever seen? Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

The challenge this week over at Mixed Media Monday is monochromatic colors. Here is the atc I made for this challenge. I used an image from Paper Imagery Designs . My background is a piece of watercolor paper that I painted with pink paint and stamped gesso on with a flower stamp. I probably should have used a pink gel pen to do the outlining and dots but I don't have one and I really wanted to try out my new Ranger opaque white pen. I am happy to report that the pen worked great. I did hit a few rough spots on my atc and had to go back over a few lines but otherwise the pen glided over my wc/acrylic paint background. Matter of fact it wrote so smoothly it took me a minute to get use to it compared to the sharpie and other white gel pen I have used. Thanks for stopping by! Arlene

Well for the past week I have been missing in action. Internet problems that were very weird. For some reason my computer just wouldn't connect to the internet. There is more to the story but it is pretty boring so........ Any who I wanted to let you all know that the membership drive for Paper Imagery Designs yahoo group only has a few days left. See my previous post for the details. Currently I am in second place for the membership drive. I need a few more people to join the group and put my name in the comment section when they join. Just add something like I saw Arlene's blog post and would like to join the group. That way I'll get credit. You can't join the group and then post that you saw my blog and joined. I won't get credit that way. If you'd like an idea of the awesome art work that the members have been doing using PID images please check out the blog where some of the members have been chosen to showcase their art for last weeks Polka Dot Challenge. ...