New Stuff

  I have not been very chatty online lately but I have been doing plenty of talking to my journals. Here are just a few of the pages.   I had a blast using the funky stamp people by Jill Penney and Daniel Torrentes which can be found at Stampotique.com. (To get a good closer look just click on the image)

Home Sweet Home Cover

Home Sweet Home Cover, originally uploaded by themixiepixie.

Via Flickr:
Come see all the amazing pages....I chose "Home Sweet Home"as my theme for this Ten-participant Altered Book Round Robin (hosted by Sallie Rodman) . I love this image (don't know why) and chose her for this piece because to me she represents the protectiveness I feel as a mother, and many feel about family and home. The text represent how our life story begins with home, the old rustic feel - - the age-old universal idea of home and the rusty heart - the age-old love home holds, the fancy door knob -the magic of entering into the story of the lives behind the door as well as the magic of entering this book and the pages to come.

Dreams Come...

 My entry for Simon Says Stamp Blog Weekly Challenge: "Stamp and show a word".  The winner is chosen at random.  I have my fingers crossed! Would love to get $50.00 in new stamping stuff! It is fun to do anyway. See details here as well as find links to the other entries:  http://simonsaysstampandshow.blogspot.com/2011/06/simon-says-stamp-and-show-word.html

Blissful "Work": Journal Pages and backgrounds

I spent some happy hours in the sunshine this weekend  outside at my local Caribou coffee - painting away, sipping iced coffee, and listening to the birds, with my furry companion laying at my feet. It was so blissful! I came home happy but so very painful. It's the price I must pay, but some days it's worth it.  I have been a long-time admirer of Kate Crane of "The Katheryn Wheel" blog, and the amazing journal pages she makes. I just love doing backgrounds (I find it very therapeutic), and I have tried to emulate hers, but just feel something's missing.  She's in the U.K. so her classes aren't accessible to me. Fortunately, she just released new dvd's revealing her secrets, and I must have them!  I have my fingers crossed that I will be the lucky winner of her giveaway, cuz it will be a while before I can fit it into my disability-income budget. So here is some of my accomplishment: (click on pics to see larger image/details)



This quote is borrowed from Marsha Salyer-Jorgenson of Tumble Fish Studio



A Collage Completed

This is a collage I recently finished. It is full of symbolic imagery, inspiring quotes, and whimsey. It would be perfect for an office or child's room, or even a family room, and can be arranged in different configurations.  It sat partially done for a long time. I felt it needed something more, but I felt stymied. Does that ever happen to you?  Then I got these spinner hands for card-making and inspiration hit me. Soon I was adding all kinds of metal embellishments. You can find the spinner on the largest (main) piece, on the compass image.  Sometimes that's how I would like to travel. Spin the hands and then set off in that direction!  I am pleased with how it worked out.  I hope someone will like it well enough to buy it once I upload it to my Etsy shop (along with a bunch of other stuff I need to get pictures of ).

Stampotique Challenge

Click on image to see larger size

This is my entry to the current "any stamps" challenge on the Stampotique blog, which is to use newspaper or old book pages in a stamped design. See all the entries here:  http://stampotiquedesignerschallenge.blogspot.com/2011/04/sdc28-newsprintold-book-pages.html
I just love their stamps, and hope I win the gift certificate, so I can buy some. Then I will be able to enter their "Stampotique stamps only" contests as well.  Living on a (tiny) fixed income does not allow for many "nonessentials".  This birthday card is made from one of my all time favorite Stampin' Up sets called "Penguin Paradise".   I want to do more stamping in my art journals, and I am a follower of The Katherine Wheel blog, where she does a lot of that. In fact, that's how I became aware of Stampotique.  I bet you'd find her journal work as inspiring as I do.

MAGIC JACK - DON'T DO IT!!!

Okay, I just wasted 45 minutes on "live chat" regarding an account I cancelled a year ago!!!! I used the device less than 48 hours!  It sucked BIG TIME"  So I cancelled my account, but they failed to tell me that you have to do a separate cancellation of the auto-renew feature. Wouldn't you expect that when you cancel an account all activity related to it would cease?  Or if not, they would tell you?  But no-o-o-o-o not scammers like this company. They just keep charging you, maybe hoping you won't notice, so that they keep getting money for absolutley NOTHING!  But then, if you do happen to catch it, they will give you the stonewalling, runaround kind of crap we have all, sadly, come to expect from "customer service". I just kept "hanging up" and trying back 'til I found someone who could understand English and make sense. That took 4 tries!!! One guy was walking me through the cancellation process, which I did, and then when he saw I had finished it he got all sarcastic on me, asking when I was going to tell him I was done doing it, or was I hoping to surprise him? WHAT!!!!!  I told him he's a jerk, and wanted to speak to a supervisor.  He said he is the supervisor. So I tried again.   I saw warnings all over the internet about this company, and deeply regret I didn't listen.  Please learn from my mistake, and save yourself the insanity.