Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Two New Swaps

Here are some ATCs I made for 2 new swaps I joined. First is 'Turtles" and the second is "Goth"...








Friday, May 22, 2009

More ATCs

I found the scans of my Andy Warhol cards, plus recently finished my Paper Doll and Time Flies cards. Here are some of them:






Let me know what you think!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Skeletons in my Closet

Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine had a reader challenge called 'Skeletons in Your Closet' and I submitted this piece. I didn't get selected for publication, but it was fun making my piece and now I have a decoration for Halloween. I must admit it was pretty weird sewing a skeleton when it was 102 degrees outside here in AZ, but it was fun anyway...

This is the front...



This is the inside.....

First ATCs

About a month ago, I became very interested in Artist Trading Cards. For those of you that don't know what they are, they are 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 mini works of art. You can use any medium you want, but the majority of the ones I have seen contain some kind of collage. The best part about these cards is that when you are finished making them, you get to swap them with other artists. So not only do you end up making your own art, you get art from other people. I think it's the coolest thing ever, and it gives me something new to use my art and scrapbooking supplies on.



So far I have participated in 3 swaps. The first was titled 'Psychadelica', second was 'Andy Warhol' and the third was 'Eiffel Tower'. I've signed up for about 6 more so I've got a lot of work to do.


I have been making a few extra cards to keep for myself for each swap theme. Here are some pics of what I've done so far....





Hello, My Name is Laura...

Hi Everyone! (I say this assuming I will have followers someday)

I thought the first post on my new blog should tell you a little about myself and my history with arts and crafts. I have always loved to be creative, ever since I was a little girl. I got this trait from my parents who were always making some kind of craft. My father had his own wood shop and loved to make furniture in his spare time, and my mom was an avid crocheter, sewer, and needlepointer (I also like to make up words). I started off with coloring and drawing and had more crayons and markers than any little kid should have. We would rent a table at my school's craft fair every year and make all kinds of silly little crafts to sell. I even set up my own 'store' in the corner of our basement and would make anyone who visited our house (mostly sisters and nieces) come down and buy the stuff that I made. It was called Laurie's Handcraft Corner and I got made fun of by the other kids on our block (who would be outside playing kickball every day) for having it. I didn't mind much though, since I would take paint and papers over a stinky, sweaty game of kickball anyday. I can sit for hours with art supplies in front of me and never get bored of making things.

In high school, I took every art class our school had to offer. I was pretty good at painting and drawing (or at least I was told I was), and won a few awards in art shows I was featured in. Even though I got good grades in all subjects, what I really wanted to go to college for was art, and I was accepted into Montclair State University as an art major.

Because I was a real brat during this time of my life and didn't want anyone telling me anything, I decided I didn't want to go to that school or be an art major about a year into the program. I didn't like having to complete projects by a certain deadline or having to make them in a certain way, and art history class was enough to make me want to shave my head with a cheese grater. Plus all my friends were going to Rutgers and I would spend most of my time down there visiting them. So I decided to transfer to Rutgers and become a biology major, which was my second favorite subject and one I thought I could make a decent living with.

I stopped creating art for a long time after this and graduated with my biology/marine and coastal sciences degree, moved to AZ where there is no ocean, and got a job in the grocery industry. So changing majors was a really good choice (dripping with sarcasm).

In the last 5 years or so, I have totally been reunited with my love of art. Around that time, I signed up for a ceramics class at the local community college. Since then I've taken the class about 10 more times and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I also discovered the fabulous world of scrapbooking and have collected enough supplies to last me two lifetimes.

In the last year or so I've become completely obsessed with almost everything artsy. It's all I want to do. I have been refinishing furniture, making and stringing beads, signing up for ATC trades like a madwoman, entering mixed media challenges in art magazines, altering everything I can find, garage sale-ing to find things to alter, making tiles out of real and polymer clay so I can mosiac stuff, cleaning Amazon.com out of their craft instruction books....I even turned a room in my house into a craft room and put a TV and computer in there so I can multitask.

Looking back, I should kick myself in the butt for not continuing to be an art major back in college. Then maybe I could be making a living doing what I love instead of trying to sell truckloads of peanut butter and salad dressing to the local grocery store chain. Hopefully one day that will all change. But I digress...

Anyhoo, that's pretty much it about me. I look forward to showing you what I've made, hopefully you will like it.

Catch ya later,
Laura