ALTARED ART RETREAT INFO & A BUTTON FOR YOUR BLOG!!

Greetings, dear reader!

I am THRILLED to give you the final details of the Second Annual Paula's Palace of AltAred Art Retreat Weekend! After hearing from many of you regarding your preferences of location, I have procured the Bed and Breakfast in historic, St. Charles, MO. for the weekend of March 20-22. The cost of the retreat will be $250.00 which includes:

• 3 days and 2 nights lodging in an historic bed and breakfast
• Meals, Snacks, and Chocolate!
• A Field Trip to a local Altered Art store
• 7 Workshop Projects and Supplies
• Transportation for 8 to/from Retreat

$75 non-refundable deposit (via paypal) due by Friday, February 20th. Balance to be paid via paypal by Friday, March 6th.

VERY LIMITED SPACE! RETREAT WILL FILL UP FAST...SECURE YOUR SPOT BY PAYING YOUR DEPOSIT RIGHT AWAY!

Retreat Weekend Fees

Deposit $75.00 Balance $175.00

Here is a button created for you to use on your blog! The incredible Rebecca Pritchett from Etsy's Monbonbon created it for me! Isn't it completely perfect?

Help spread the word! Right click and choose "Save".

Come prepared with your essential, basic supplies to help you complete in-class projects:

· Favorite pair of straight-edge, micro-tip scissors
· Personal 12" x 12" paper trimmer
· Favorite adhesives, both wet and dry
· Black archival journaling pen
· Paper piercer and mat
· Stapler
· Regular hole punch or Crop-o-Dile
· Black and brown distressing ink
· Corner rounder

More info on specific class projects and location information will be available via the Palace AltAred Art Retreat Weekend Blog. Registered attendees will be given the access code at time of $75 deposit!

SMOOCHIES!

More soon!

XOXOXOX



Paula Clare

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Greetings Friends! So have all of you survived the holiday hooplah?

I have received (thus far) some FABulous gifts for Christmas...one of which is an acrylic album...behold this AMAZING family album made by Sharon Manning:

AND (prepare to eat your hearts out) the much-coveted Tim Holz Grungeboard:

PLUS I got TONS of rub-ons, embellishments, etc. etc. (and I found out (via a little bird)) that I will be getting one of these:

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?! I feel SOOoooo spoiled...I'll be spending the rest of my holiday vacation completing my acrylic album...pictures to come!

7 DAYS: 7 FUN PROJECTS! DAY 3

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

If you would PLEASE indulge this first-time gramma a bit of "Brag Time"...I MUST share with you the most darling Christmas picture so far...and then I'll tell you how YOU can make one just like it!

Note the darling little Elf-like fellow in the corner...HOW CUTE IS HE??? Anyhoo, for those of you who are digitally saavy...here's a list of "ingredients" for making said layout...and then I'll include a "how to" for those who are of the "non-digital" persuasion...

Created in Photoshop Elements 5
A Joyful Season Digital Christmas Kit by Erica Hite at Scrapgirls (Link in sidebar)
Blank Fireplace: by Margot Miller at Un-BLOG-evable
FIrelogs and Hardwood Floor: pictures found on internet
Bohemian Bird Stamps: by Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals
For the Not-So-Digitally-Saavy:
Buy some festive scrapbook paper...embossed will make a great tree! Use either a die cut machine, ready made embellishments, or free hand a tree, packages and ornaments.
Scour magazines for pictures of fireplaces and hardwood floors (ads are everywhere!)
Look on the internet for some pictures of little birds and print them out (winter birds like Cardinals or Chickadees would be cute)
Find an ADORABLE picture of a child in a santa suit and copy it (a pose of a child sitting is easy to incorporate, but a child standing would work as well)

(It's important to try and keep things in scale...otherwise the picture will not look life-like...OR make a whimsical picture that is intentionally OUT of scale, like the ornament in my picture or the heads in Claudia Hellmuth's Poppets)

Cut out pictures so they are individual elements in the design. Begin assembling pictures, working from the back (think in layers) forward. For example, the first layer I would work on would be the fireplace, then the logs and fire, then the floor. Next, begin adding elements, gluing some flat onto the background, and some raised from the page by using adhesive foam dots or squares. Keep adding individual elements until you are pleased with the results. (very often, leaving everything else flat and then raising the baby or main focal point off the page looks fab...VERY eyecatching!)

Have fun and be sure to email me what you come up with...I'll gladly post them here!

The Hunt for AltAred Art Goodies

The mad hunt for AltAred Art goodies continues...today a friend and I discovered two scrapbook stores we did not know existed...one of them, Sunkiss Scrapbooks is located in a coffee shoppe (Java Joes!) How completely perfect is that???? Putting the "obsession" in the same building as the FUEL for said obsession...well. That is just a stroke of genius in my estimation!

The second store, Treasured Memories, (which we discovered (ashamedly) has been in town for over 5 years) is right next door to a new and used bookstore! Can you fathom it?!?! AltAred Art WAITING to happen...AND THIS place has a HUGE area for cropping, creating and general mess making every Friday evening!

SO MUCH fabulous stuff, so little time (and money) but alas, here are the treasures I came away with:

Groovy stuff from Heidi Swapp, 7 Gypsies, We R Memory Keepers, Daisy Ds and Elsie.

I got these dandy little hinges from Daisy Ds for altAred art HALF PRICE!

More tomorrow...and photos to come when creations are completed!

"A" - Advent AltAred Art Book

So, you remember my post yesterday? I am writing about things for which I'm grateful...and today's letter is "A". (T-H-A-N-K-S) The "A" I'm thankful for today is "AltAred Art!" Surprised?

I am creating an advent AltAred book for each of my two nieces. As you may recall, yesterday, I had the project completed up to and including the coin envelopes. I had them hot glued together (by the way, I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but only put a line of hot glue down the middle of the envelope...do NOT glue the sides completely together. The "honeycomb" effect will not happen if you do this...trust me.

The next thing I did was to glue little bits of ribbon at the opening of each envelope. This is what makes the sideview so wonderfully colorful! I then glued the 3 stacks of 8 envelopes side by side in the center of the book, gluing the bottom envelope and the top envelope of each stack to the center pages.

Snazzy, huh? Next I began covering each exposed page with papers, embellishments, and tags. Each page is different, and kind of evolved organically. I didn't have a particular theme or title in mind when I began gluing! These are the first two pages...I just LOVE the Candy Cane papers!

Page 1 Detail Page 2 Detail

Page 3 Page 4

After I finished these pages, I took the 24 sticks of gum, and cut 24 strips of paper (each about 3 inches long) and then taped the paper to the end of each foil wrapped stick of gum. I then numbered the paper, 1-24. (Just like the ribbons glued to the envelopes, I staggered the colors of each paper "tab" so the finished product would be more interesting. Below is a detail of the ribbons and paper tabs)

Back Cover

Front Cover

Paper Beads, Buttons, and Ribbon Trim

Voila! The finished Product!

And since I had some left over paper, I decided to make my sister a Christmas Planner out of a regular, school theme book. Here's the cover:

And the inside of the front cover:

To finish the book, I glued a red, polka dot ribbon in the center of the book as a bookmark.

If anyone would like instructions with greater detail, or if you don't understand something, please email and let me know...I'll be glad to walk you through it!

Digital AltAred Art!

Greetings, Dear Reader! I thought I'd share with you one of my FAVORITE ways to scrapbook and create AltAred Art...DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING. I get most of my stuff from 2 main resources: Designer Digitals and Scrapgirls. There is a scrapbook link for Scrapgirls in the sidebar. There is also an ad for a FABulous FREE e-book: "15 Things You Need To Know To Be A GREAT Digital Scrapbooker." If you're starting the digital process "green", by all means download this book. It is one of the most helpful things I've read AND it gives you step by step directions for Photoshop CS2, Elements and other popular digital software.

Here are some of the Christmas Cards I sent out last year from Scrapgirls digital kits:

Their digital kits are just yummy...I can spend HOURS browsing through their store! Oh, and 1 of the perks of digital is that you can mix and match kit pieces, and use them over and over again. It's truly an EXCELLENT use of your scrapbooking funds and resources! AND (this is a bonus benefit) The Scrapgirl gals (many of them) are all Christians...the daily newsletter, besides having a daily freebie (DAILY, can you believe it?) often has an inspirational writing from the CEO or from one of the designers. It's truly one of the best resources I have run across.

THEN, Designer Digitals, has truly cutting edge, artistic and unique scrapbooking kits. Look at these two for example:

This one is called "Little Robotiks"...isn't it adorable? (That's my month old grandson in the carriage)

This precious little kit is called "Little Birdy". Honestly, when you start out with such adorable papers and embellishments, even a goofy looking "aunt" can't ruin the layout! (This is my great nephew Gavin...what a sweetie!)

Are you SOLD yet? If you want to know more about digital scrapbooking, or if you want to see more examples, just leave a comment...I'll be glad to point you in the right direction!

Blessings! Happy DIGITAL scrapping!

LET THE CREATIVE MADNESS BEGIN!

This is the Pile-O-Treasure I'm going to begin crafting with...I just LOVE this part of the process! Psychologically, this is known as "Gathering". Apparently all artistic types go through this stage, but some actually make the process of GATHERING an art form in its own right.

For me, it's kind of the same process I go through when blogging...I "blog in my head" pretty much all day, then finally get the words down on the blogsite. As I'm gathering stuff for my AltAred Art projects, I keep a running list/picture in my head of the colors and materials I want to use. By the time I actually get around to laying the stuff out, everything is color coordinated and a feast for the eyes.

WOOHOO! Arrrrrrr....I feel like a Craft Pirate!

Remember the FAB journal I showed you a day or two ago? Here it is with a pattern I've created for one of my felt projects. Cool, huh?

It's really satisfying to have everything together to begin the creative process...I'll keep a photo journal of of my progress...and post the pics here!

Oh, before I forget, stay tuned for an EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT tomorrow in my Friday Find!

RETRO STIR FRY!

Good evening, dear readers! I have a simply new ETSY purchase from Scrap Fu to share with you...I am always astounded at the creativity of the independent artist! Check this out:

Besides being amazingly fun eye candy, THIS, my friends, is the kind of stuff AltAred Art is made of! I'll be sure to post whatever it is I create with these fun, retro supplies!

More soon! PEACE OUT!

HAPPY NATIONAL DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKING DAY!

This is my 3 month old grandbaby in his Halloween costume...as you can see, he was not really "down with the holiday" but the picture was so adorable I HAD to scrapbook it! Digital scrapbook stuff from DesignerDigitals (the amazing Katie Pertiet)

Greetings, Dear Readers!
I thought I'd begin the Halloween madness by posting a few layouts I've created. I was inspired by both a song: Some Kind of Zombie by Audio Adrenaline...and by Elsie's (A Beautiful Mess) zombie cookies.

Here are the digital layouts I've come up with...

I thought the "Christian" take on zombies was novel...I also think that the irreverent work of Edgar Wright in "Shaun of the Dead" pays perfect homage to the "zombie movies." A few personal faves are the Evil Dead Trilogy starring Bruce Campbell: The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness. All are hilarious spoofs of the bad "spooky wannabe" low budget movies. HILARIOUS!

Which reminds me...only one day left to check out the poll and vote for your favorite kind of scary movie! Psychological Thrillers are thus far the runaway favorite!

Have yourself a SPOOKTACULAR night!