Phren Men

Having a blast doing an ATC series with altered ancestors and a phrenology stamp. Add some acrylic paint, stamping, embellishing and I'm addicted.

Here are my PhrenMen so far:

OOOOHHH I love them. Gonna do more......

Sweet Forgiveness

This ATC size canvas is for Lorri from Australia. Check out Lorri's blog, her work is phenom. We are doing an ATC trade, as soon as I can decide which ones to send her! You will understand the significance of the spoons when you read her blog.
Stretched canvas with tissue, acrylics, stamps,Goldens soft gel, antique tin spoon, doily, chalk pencil, sticker corners, rub n buff, vintage jewelry rose, and Judikins DG3 Art Gel in the bowl of the spoon. I was happily surprised to see the heart shaped center the couple made around the spoon handle. The couple is from a tissue collage sheet from Blackberry Designs. Be very careful before you visit thier site. I spent an unbelievably large amount of money there last year!! Love their variety.

Sweet Forgiveness

Sweet Forgiveness, that's what you give to me.

When you hold me close,

And you say: "That's all over."

You don't go looking back,

You don't hold the cards to stack.

'Cause you mean what you say.

Sweet forgiveness, you help me see.

I'm not near as bad,

As I sometimes appear to be.

When you hold me close,

And you say: "That's all over,

"And I still love you."

There's no way that I could make up,

For those angry words I said.

Sometimes it gets to hurting,

And the pain goes to my head.

Sweet forgiveness, dear God above.

I say we all deserve,

A taste of this kind of love.

Someone who'll hold our hand,

And whisper: "I understand,

"And I still love you."

Performed by Blues Goddess Susan Tedeschi.

Taking Flight

I received a wonderful surpise in the mail from my Soul Sister, Diane. On a day in a week of a month that has drained my creative spirit, I opened a package with Kelly Rae Roberts' new book, "Taking Flight: Inspiration and Techniques to Give Your Creative Spirit Wings".


It is a lovely book full of great writing, beautiful artwork and creative techniques. The loveliest part of the package was Diane's sentiment :

To my inspirational friend, Susan. It is YOU who helped start my wings to grow."

Who's the blessed one in the room tonight? yeah, that would be me. Thank you, Diane, for your friendship, advice given with love, and plucky, humorous, Texas arty attitude!! Visit Diane's blog to see her stunning jewelry. Speaking of which, I am sending her something I own that I want her to have. This is a decorative planter I purchased years ago from my friend, Tracey, who was having home parties selling Southern Living products.

I have earrings Diane has made for me displayed on the bottom and some charms I bought from Sally Jean on the fenceposts. Diane has her jewelry displayed in several shops and I thought this would be a fabulous way to show her Mexican Calendar Girl jewelry (which I covet most covetously). Anyhoo, I'm including some different fabrics to cover the styrofoam block which seemed the most "mexican" to me. I hope she likes it to use as a display. If not she could always put a plant in it and hang in on the RV wall. wink wink.
Keeping the Taking Flight theme going...... I'm taking flight to Art and Soul Hampton ,Virgina 2009!!

The workshops I signed up for:

LK Ludwig- Decorative Nature Journal

Traci Bunkers- Surreal Uber Paintings

Leighanna Light- The Scarlet Onion- Adventures in Clay Texture and Design

Leslie Riley- How to Grow Wings

Sas Colby- The Transparent Book

The theme is "Rock and Roll" this year. That's got my wheels turning......already thinking about trades......

Sunday I spent most of the day organizing stamps. I started with a safety eyeglass briefcase from my real life.......

Stamped the bottom papers, and voila , organization. I have another one to fill, and lots and lots more that are unmounted but stuck to binders.....it's a sickness, folks, and I don't want a cure....



How awesome is that, must maintain....must maintain.....

Birds of Sadness Happily Finished

"Birds of Sadness" is quite happily completed. I added little birds with tears to the front and words, glitter and Iridescent UTEE to the sides of the canvas.

This last photo really shows the colors well, I just hate that flash reflection on the flower.

So there you have it. While struggling with issues, we can all hope to "prevent birds of sadness from building nests in our hair." Unfortunately I have a nest in mine as we speak. Therefore I have immersed myself in cleaning, cooking and art this weekend. Along with finishing this canvas, I did some glueing on my 9 ATC's based on a White Stripes song. I also came up with another idea for my Yankees canvas. It will be a one of. I was originally going to do a series of three, but I really can't face it right now. Instead of giving it as a gift, as it was originally intended, I will most likely open an etsy shop and sell the darn thing. Nuff said.

Anybody got any etsy advice? I'm not a prolific creator, so maybe etsy is not the best venue for me??

Changed my header again. This time I used my Photoshop Elements and layered for the first time. Layering virgin no more. I dropped the celtic quote, although it was very true in my case, I think it may have carried some really bad juju into my current love life!!

Sisters Cabinet Card

Do you remember when I posted several cabinet cards from my collection for everyone to Art Up? (if you missed it scroll WAY back and get to WORK!!)


Remember the one I called " Two Sister's" :

Well, look what Kelsey did with it!!!
I stumbled upon this beauty while perusing Kelsey's blog, which is in my top 3 favorite blogs I stalk, er , I mean enjoy with obsessive inclinations......Thank you, Kelsey. Visit her blog for techniques galore and charming repartee.

If anyone else used Two Sisters, or Grumpy Guy, I'd love to see your creations.

Ode to a High School Freshman

I spent 8 hours last Sunday cleaning my daughter's bedroom. It was Art of a different kind, the Art of organization!! I hadn't REALLY cleaned her room in about 3 years. So on the eve of her entering high school, I decided that the kid games, air brush tattoos, Hogwarts plastic thing, Cinderella bank, elementary school books, etc had to leave her wardrobes to make way for hoodies, tight leg jeans and tank tops.

I threw out a lot of trash:

Took toys out of the wardrobes:
Washed all the clothes on the floor, folded them and put them in the now empty wardrobes:
That's Ikea furniture. Looks like a store display doesn't it. Unfortunately, that won't last long.
Room now for teenage books. Boxed up all the childhood memories books, and gave a lot away with the toys.

And what girls bedroom is complete without Teen Vogue and Napolean Dynamite? Although, I think SuperBad is the new Napolean Dynamite. Or that could be so last week, IDK.

Her makeup shelves were the most fun to organize. I used drawer spice rack thingys.
And here is my soon to be 15 year old, high school freshman on her first day:
As to real Art, that involves paint and other costly supplies, I have been working on the Birds of Sadness canvas. I used a black Charcoal pencil to accentuate the quote and am going to add 2 or 3 little birds to the right side of the canvas. Not enough new to photo and share. Probably by early next week. Stay tuned.......xo

Birds of Sadness

I puttered with this canvas today, adding embellishments to the bird and the words. My heart is very sad today, because of issues with my Heart. Nuff said, back to Art.

Am debating whether to add UTEE in an iridescent color around the words. Thoughts?

His Heart Ache was Real- Revised

I used my artistic license to revise the finished version of this cabinet card. I kept looking at it, thinking, something is not right.....and with the addition of a few more threads, it looks just right now.

Working on the yellow Bird canvas next....

His Heart Ache Was Real completed

Worked a half day at work today, shopped for a birthday present, came home to lay down for a "minute" and yup, just woke up at 9pm. Decided to put the finishing touches on "His Heartache was Real" and share them. I cut little roses out of scrapbook paper, distressed them, used UTEE on the heart, ripped it. And after a wash of gesso, some glitter glue, (Stickles) Voila, finished.

I love my japenese screw punch. It works wonders on these thick cabinet cards.
Hope you like him!!!

"Yankees Collage" Continued - *Spoiler Alert*

Moving right along with my Yankees collage. I'm loving the creative process and the results, so I'm going to do a series of 3 collages. Below are the results of : cutting several pieces of acid free tissue 8 1/2 x 11, glue sticking the edges of card stock, laying the tissue on top, and running it thru my printer. There was a tiny bit of running on the red logo, but nothing that won't be hidden under several more layers of paint, anyway. I cut out the logos, and used Golden Soft Gel to adhere to the canvas. I edged them with some Paynes Gray to blend.

Printed Lou out on an Apollo Ink jet printer Transparency. Painted the back of his face and neck with Titan Buff. He's not glued on yet, I still have numbers and words and I'm thinking of having another player standing on his shoulder.
Let me know what you think!!

KoKo Taylor- QUEEN of the BLUES

I spent the best part of this weekend at the Riverfront Blues Festival in Wilmington, Delaware.
I was thrilled to get the opportunity to see the Blues Legend, KoKo Taylor perform.
But First!!!
We jammed to the Larry McCray Band.

Ok, I'm cheating, this photo is not from the concert, but we were right in front of the band and I didn't want to lose my place because of course I left my camera back at the chairs. duh. He is a great guitarist. On his website you can hear cuts from his new CD. Of course, my favorite song is called "Big Black Hole" (where once was a heart).Gotta have it!

Then: Li'l Ed and the Blues Imperials.

OMG Li'l Ed is totally and completely amazing. He plays to the crowd, is Majorly charismatic and an amazing guitarist. Again, I didn't have my camera so the photo below is from his website. He wears a fez, is about 5 foot 5 inches tall, but is so full of energy you won't believe it. He dances on his toes too. Great voice.

We were bummed to have missed Micheal Burks, who went on stage before we arrived. Lucky for us, Li'l Ed called Michael out on stage and they jammed together. Michael was the greatest guitar talent of the day, IMHO.

Now for the QUEEN!!!! KOKO TAYLOR!!!

KoKo is 80 years old and appears very fragile. She needed assistance on and off the stage. BUT, then she got the mic in her hand and HOLY HELL BATMAN she WAS the BLUES.

Here's the Proof:

These photo's were taken by my Heart, as we stood up to the very front of the stage. oh yeah.
KoKo's husband hovered around on stage with hanky's for her to mop up with, and water to keep hydrated. She also had another assistant watching her from the sidelines who made sure the Blues did not overpower the Queen. KoKo was so sweet, expressing her gratitude and love for the audience, and we gave it back to her tenfold. You would not believe the power that comes out of this 80 year old Legend.
We were also very fortunate to get to hear a duet between Sharrie Williams and KoKo.
For an encore KoKo did "Wang Dang Doodle" .

It just doesn't get any better than that.
Keep the Blues Alive.

His Heart Ache Was Real

I'm having a great time altering Cabinet Cards. I love it. This one is a work in progress. I've used Sharpies, Portfolio water soluable oil pastels, plastic corners, white gel pen, little roses cut from scrapbook paper and a heart stamp from B-Line Designs. I was fortunate to take a "Metals" class from Beverly, the talented owner of this company, at my local scrapbook store, The Scrapbook Station". We pounded wire, used 10 Seconds studios tools, played with duct tape and mesh. It was a great class. I stamped this image during class and brought it home with me. Beverly ran out of the stamps before I had a chance to purchase one. The stamp is called Torn Heart duo, and some day I will buy it!! More to come on this one.....

New York Yankees Collage *Spoiler Alert*

For my next ACT: A collage in honor of the closing of Yankee Stadium. I am a baseball plebe, and can only hope I do the Yank's proud.
Using an 8x10 stretched canvas, started out with some Goldens Hansa Yellow Medium Acrylic.

Added acid free tissue for texture and washes of G's Transparent Oxide Red/orange etc.
  Yankee's ticket sales brochure in which I found the poem and dated image of Yankee Stadium. Sanded the image and did a wash of Payne's Gray.

Printed out a pic of Lou Gehrig with Babe Ruth onto a transparency. Cut it out close and gel mediumed that sucker on. I like the way the texture and colors show thru.
Added more paint and a photo of Lou Gehrig with some other Yank's.
The focal point is going to be a gel transfer or painted transparency of a very young Lou Gehrig. Lou happens to be my favorite Yankee.
Stay tuned.......