Letting herself Laugh in the Sunlight

For today's Retro Cafe Art design piece, Mary Lou is showing off this antique white heart shaped piece. She has missed you all and is so happy to show  this necklace for me. You know that hearts are one of my favorite themes and when I saw this Shadow box heart Shrine from RCA, my heart melted and  I knew it was mine!

I started by painting the heart shrine antique white, removing the plastic cover then adding the hand cut text sentiment to the edge. The sentiment says: "She told the story again; letting herself laugh in sunlight and hearing music drifting over her emotions.". I then lined it with cream colored lace, placing the flower part in the corners. The tiny clay bisque roses and leaves came next. A yard of lace and two pearl heart buttons finished off this sweet piece today.

Hope you will laugh in the sunlight this week.
take care, gerri

Dream it Up Little One

Trying a different style today with a little steampunk inspired tag. Most of the supplies are from Retro Cafe Art and also a surprise supply that I will tell you about later in this post!

I started with a manila tag that I painted it with lots of acrylic paints, crumpled it and even hit it with a heat gun to give it some texture. The little Gothic Arch Shrine frame was painted next and swiped with red glitter. I even scribbled with red pencil in the background. The child image is from the Lucy  collage sheet printed on vellum from RCA that was fussy cut and edged in black. The silver dimensional circles are the surprise 'cause they are actually tires from my husbands model car art! I layered them with RCA mini steampunk gears painted red .Some tattered fiber and the sentiment "Dream it up little one!" finished this tag.

Hope you too will dream it up this week!
take care, gerri

"Dream it Up Little One"

"Dreamy details"

Why not Paris

Yes I am still in a Parisian mood so for this weeks 100 Proof Press design team piece, I am visiting my favorite city again. This time its the dancing girls of the Moulin Rouge with a card I call...Why Not Paris!

The center piece is the hand stamped Caberet Line with Signs # 2971 from 100 Proof Press that is water colored and I added the little feather headdresses. The letters  say "Why not"  are are gold colored glitter letters. It is layered on black polka dot paper edged in gold. It is surrounded by two lovely ladies, a feather from their costumes, Graphic 45 paper images of Paris, and the golden word "Paris". The accents include black rhinestones, gold German scrap and of course lots of Stickles.

Hope you will find time for dancing this long  Memorial day (USA) weekend!
sincerely, gerri

"Why not Paris?"



"Dancing Details"



A night to remember

Bonjour......One of my favorite color themes is black and white and of course, you all know that j'adore anything Paris. When I heard there was a challenge over at  the  Gecko Galz  Yahoo Challenge site....I knew just what to do. I used their gorgeous Parisian Dream collage sheet with the beautiful jeune femme and their divine Paris Flea Market stamp set to create this ATC.

I placed the lovely woman image collage under the curtain and Eiffel tower on transparency. It is layered on some patterned paper sprinkled with Stickles. Some tulle, diamonds in gold settings, lace rub ons and a pearl frame highlight this beauty. The sentiment reads , "a night to remember".

Hope you will have a night to remember.
artfully yours, gerri

"A night to remember"

"Paris details"

My people have belonged to the sea

Starting a bit late today, so here is my Retro Cafe Art design piece. Of course it's my favorite topic...the sea. I am so lucky to live my the ocean now and even if I don't walk on it's shore, I know it is nearby and always whispering to me. I am including some photos from the Atlanta Aquarium too for some inspiration.

To make this underwater tag. I started with creating the background with the RCA Onomotoholes stencil using luminescent twinkling H2O watercolor paints and Tattered Angels mists to create the illusion of bubbles. I layered two watery images including mermaids and delicate fishes from the RCA Sand and Sea Squares collage sheet that were over painted. The top layer was the beautiful RCA sea horse stencil also using H2O twinkling paints with a tiny pearl eye. The corners are layered with pastel shells and pearls from the ocean deep. Some seaweed (really multicolored fiber, LOL) to tie it all off and finally the water colored text "All my life my people have belonged to the sea.

Hope you can get to the sea this week, even if only in your dreams.
take care, gerri

"All my life my people have belonged to the sea"

"Sea details"

"Coral Reef"

"Yes, these are seahorses!"

Does she still come back to haunt you

Just a quick post today, since we have guests here in lowcountry. It looks to be a beautiful day in mid 70's so we will be out and about enjoying ourselves. Had fun playing with my  Gecko Galz  images again. This time using the May sheet called Ethereal beauties.

I started the piece making the background of the tag. It is layers and layers of golden paints and shiny glitter, then edged in purple. The fabric  purple and black flowers came next which were cut into squares and then edged with gold paint. The flowers mimic the fussy cut Gecko Galz image that with hand painted  details. I like layering the paint over the prints for more depth and dimension. The final touches were Stickles in her veil, sequin ribbons and the hand cut sentiment "Does she still come back to haunt you?".

Hope you will think of someone in your past this week.
take care, gerri


"Does she still come back to haunt you after so long?"



"Haunting details"

Your fate and mine are bound together

  It's been a rainy week here in lowcountry, hoping it will clear up for the weekend. We are planning to go to a garden tour and would love it to be a nice sunny day. In honor of this, I created this woodland tag using Gecko Galz  May image sheet called  Ethereal beauties.

The background of this tag has been stamped with a fern stamp using olive paint and swiped with oranges and rust paints. It is layered with dimensional paper ferns and a soft yellow fabric flower. The beautiful woman image came next and is detailed with Liquid Pearls and Stickles accents including the tiny necklace. The last touches were the shear polka dot ribbon and the sentiment "Your fate and mine are bound together."

Hope your week is filled with people that you are bound to.
take care, gerri

"Your fate and mine are bound together"

"Ethereal details"

She who plants a garden

Hoping you had a pleasant Mothers Day weekend.We  went out for a drive to a pretty spot on the river. I spent the day catching up on some movies and tv shows while cleaning my craft studio.  It really needed it. I watched the Sherlock Holmes season 2 on PBS...totally amazing. I do recommend it.  I was also able to make a few things, but mostly I cleaned! LOL.

Today's creation for Retro Cafe Art is a Shelf Shrine with scallops. I painted it a rich purple and added a paper backgrounds I created with stamping, luminous paints and acrylic paints. It is trimmed with shiny pink German Dresden Foil papers, pretty pink and purple pearls, painted paper flowers and green velvet leaves. The lovely lady is from the RCA Vintage Belle  collage sheet.The sentiment says "She who plants a garden plants happiness"...an old Chinese saying.

Hope you will plant some happiness this week.
take care, gerri

"She who plants a garden plants happiness"

             

Earth fills her lap with Pleasures of her own

First of all .....Happy Mother's Day everyone. Whether you are a mother, have a mother or just have someone special in your life who acts like a mother, this is your special day! Enjoy. Me, well I'm going to send the entire day watching movies while I play in the crafts studio. It will be a restful day since yesterday my husband and I did the Bluffton Village Festival with my collage art and his Classic Wrecks. We spent last week working hard designing our booth, making art and  figuring out all the logistics. It was a gorgeous day and we met all sorts of fun and interesting people! Photos later this week..

Todays project is an altered chai tea box using beautiful bookmark images from Gecko Galz and potpourri! Yes I took the pretty dried leaves and branches right out of my china bowl. LOL! Frilly and Funkie is sponsoring an "Alter It" challenge so,  I'll enter it there too. I also am including some photos of The landscape that I promised I would show you from our historic house and gardens tour. You can see how  the lowcountry landscape here is so inspiring.

Well, the box was really simple to make by first covering it with vintage music paper. The potpourri and the images came next. A different image  on each side. Of course there is hand cut text and Stickles accents too. The top and feet are acorn tops that I picked up. The text in the top acorns says "Glory to the Earth".

Hope your week will be filled with earthly pleasures.
take care, gerri

I'll teach you some tricks

For today's Retro Cafe Art  design piece, I knew I would be using this cute tv piece cause I love watching certain television.  My favorite shows this season are Once, Game of Thrones, PBS Downton Abbey- now Sherlock, Lost Girl and Mad Men.  What are you watching? And then for me it's all about the story and getting lost in another world another time.....this is probably why I adore reading books too. Now that I think about it, my art has such a narrative quality too and always tells a story! LOL.

 The center piece today is the silver painted Retro TV trinket from Retro Cafe Art. I have accented with the 50's cat eye glasses and the  sentiment "I'll teach you some tricks." I set it into a mod patterned white and silver paper in a chunky white frame. The final touch were the corners that have dimensional painted circles and tiny black stars.

Hope you discover some "secrets" this week.
take care, gerri



"I'll teach you some secrets"



"TV details"

I'm in excellent company

I'm in excellent company when I think of you dear bloggers! Thinking of you and so I created this shrine with the pretty Gecko Galz May sheet Girls of the Moulin Rouge and Oh La La stamp set and of course it is pink so Ill be sharing on Beverly Pink Saturday. I'm off to a historic house tour and lunch in the beautiful historic city of Beaufort, South Carolina today. I hope to share photos with you  all this week.

So to make this piece, I started with a patterned chipboard shine that I painted  with pink and white acrylic paints. It was tied together with lime rayon and pink velvet ribbons. The Moulin Rouge dancers were fussy cut Stickle accented and then layered on the Oh La La stamp set that I printed on transparency paper. The hand cut watercolored sentiment text, some black and coordinating pleated sequins, bright colored pearls and colored fabric roses top off these lovely dancers.

Hope you will be in excellent company this week.
artfully yours, gerri

"I'm in excellent company"

"Folded Shrine"

Pink Dancer



Orange and Yellow Dancer



Lime and Pink Dancer

You know youre everything to me

Over at Unruly Paper Arts the Month of May is dedicated to Weddings... we are celebrating the wonder of weddings and everything that goes with them.

From our editor Sharon:
"If your social calendar is anything like mine, Summer is also known as "wedding season" with joyous unions popping up in my datebook from June through September like lovely blossoms. 

For May, we are set to give you a number of ideas for everything from unique wedding cards to awesome tags and mini albums and from altered items to save all those wonderful memories to some fashionable additions to the wedding day itself. May is  packed with marvelous projects from our creative columnists and our glorious guest artists."

There are also two Reader Art Quests (Challenges). Please stop by an add your link with your creation from May 1-15 then come back and vote between May 16-30th....maybe your creation will be featured ! The RAQs are: One- Anything Wedding Inspired except a card  and Two-"Lace"

My piece was for the"Lace RAQ" and it is  a Fantasy Ring Bearer Cage inspired by the lovely skies of pretty blue and puffy white clouds here in the lowcountry. It has my trademark hand cut text and netting, but alas no glitter.  LOL. On the top part with the circling doves, it reads: You know you are everything to me. Around the outside there are lots of wedding inspired sayings like: O dearest, Glad Hearts, Us in the churchyard, Joy delights my heart and serene will be our days. Inside the netting white nest are two pearls and other words like heart of hearts, wedding and one delight. Two golden rings hang down the center. The white doily is attached so you can actually carry this down the aisle.

Well I hope you have found "you're everything".
sincerely, gerri

"You're everything to me"

 



Can't stop it

There's so much happening at Gecko Galz this lovely month of May. Here's some of the  fun.
The Challenges are:
Little Miss Spring Challenge .......May 1st(winner gets a digital paper doll set from Gecko Galz)
Pretty Little Pixie Challenge........May 10th(winner gets Gecko Galz "Fairies" digi stamp set & an
exclusive set of fairie stamps by Leanne Seed)
Darling Dominos Challenge........May 15th(winner gets 2 sets of Gecko Galz collage sheets of their
choice)
Steam Punk Challenge.........May 20th(winner gets a a set of Digi papers by Pink Paslee & 1 May
Gecko Galz collage set of their choice)
May Color Challenge.........May 25th(winner gets 3 digi collage sets of their choice from Gecko
Galz)
Pretty Little Plaque Challenge.....May 25th(winner gets a digital paper pack from Echo Park)
Sew Cute Challenge.........May 30th(winner gets a digital paper pack by Jodi Lee "Home Sewn" &
Gecko Galz collage set Crazy Maniquinns)
Click link below to discover all the fun challenges!http://groups.yahoo.com/group/geckogalzpapercrafting

Here's an ATC using the May Parisian Dreams Collection Collage sheet and Stamp set called Oh La La. I started with a black base ATC then added some sky blue foil paper. The pretty Woman image was layered with the cupid digital stamp printed on a transparency.This is under a copper painted watch face that I stamped with some French script. A shiny ribbon, some copper paint trim and the hand cut text sentiment "Cant stop it", (time that it!) finished this project just in time.

Hope you will have plenty of time to do all you need this week.
take care, gerri

"Can't stop it"

Happy Home

We are lucky to live in a very nature influenced area, with our huge pond in the back and we are surrounded by acres of forests and swamps with very few homes. There are always birds including a great blue heron, egrets,  our bald eagle, barn swallows and woodland birds twittering about. They are difficult to photo so today I was delighted to find two baby morning doves sitting next to our porch. They are protected by bushes but if you just look down  from our porch they are there. You had to look closely cause they are the same color as the ground! I was able to take a quick photo before they hopped away. No, they didn't fly away just slowly hopped away. LOL. All these birds make this a Happy Home and that was the inspiration for my ATC today for Retro Cafe Art.

To make this this ATC I started with a black base and added the RCA Vintage Steampunk collage sheet. I added some copper paint and dimensional pearls for accents.  The sentiment Happy Home came from the RCA Collage Words sheet by Cassandra VanCuren. The little bit of tulle(for trisha!), a printed paper flower, a  RCA painted copper tiny Masonite house and a  RCA black painted tiny heart finished this little piece.

Hope you are blessed with a 'happy home".
artfully yours, gerri

"Happy Home"

"Our little friends"