Happy Haunting!

I picked up this sweet kitty and pumpkin yesterday at a market on a farm. It was the only thing I purchased. I couldn't leave without it once I saw it. LOL

Since we are on black cat and pumpkins and I have been trying to keep up with the 31 Days Of Halloween blog hop, I decided to check out the Lost Coast Designs challenge #29 for October Scary or Weird. This is one of my favorite background stamps. It is the large Perspective background. I added scardy cat die cut and some ghostie punches and a cut out of vintage pumpkins. 

Lost my marbles!

I should have posted this weeks ago but I just never got around to it. I decided to do a watercolor of marbles for my sister because she had me frame a picture of marbles for her many years ago and I wanted to make something that would be special just to her. I did a lot of practice on small pieces of  watercolor paper and looked up different kinds of marbles on a marble collectors site.

This bit was done on a bit of I believe 100% cotton because the colors just seemed to sink in and not spread. The reason I don't know what kind it is for certain is because I sometimes grab stuff at yard sales or estate sales, but it is very different from the paper I usually get from the craft store.

Here I made a whole variety of marbles. I used a small circle stencil to draw in the shapes. I actually had so much fun making marbles I think I used several sheets of paper just for marbles. I cut a bunch into card size and then drew the circles as I went. 

I just got a nice calendar from Allie Cat Allies and decided to try my hand at water coloring a cat. I used tracing paper to get the shape done and then transferred it to my water color paper. The first one I did is the one without the yellow halo. It turned out much better than the cockeyed kitty I did before on my own. LOL  I do like the eye shine I did though. It is just unfortunate I didn't get the eyes straight. Practice, practice, practice. Still, I rather like my deformed kitty ;P

A few weeks ago I got one of those wonderful clear stampers and some real live stamping polish. Wow! What a difference. I was able to double stamp that feather. Actually, that was not planned, I just didn't like the color I stamped it in the first time and decided to test out how well I could line up the stamp. It worked great and the stamping polish I got made a huge difference in the pick up. I had ordered a set of 6 from the Born Pretty Store. The wavy pattern is a light blue although it doesn't show up well in the pictures. I had such a great time with this that I ordered the other 2 sets of stamping colors this month. It takes almost the whole month to get them because the store is in Hongkong. 2 to 3 weeks is not unusual. I have ordered from Ali Express before and that is about the amount of time it takes. I got cracks in my thumb nails this week so I cut them all back. I don't like to have some long and some short nails so they will all grow out together. 

Finally, I also got another adorable set of stamps from Stampendous recently.Whisper Friends Christmas Perfectly Clear Stamps Set. I used my new hot air balloon die from X=Cut to make my ornament. I used a couple of metal snowflakes on the card. I also used some gold stickers to make the chains and top of the ornament.

Some nail design shots

Tequila Sunrise- yellow orange and hot pink sponged on until it is nice and deep in color. All three colors are from Broadway Nails #9, #46 and #17. They are a dollar at Dollar General. Then it is top coated with a nice layer of Salon Perfect #611 Mother of Pearl. What Simply Nailogical would call Unicorn Skin. After that I top it off with Salon Perfect Top Coat. Love that stuff and it dries really fast.

This horrid picture is an octopus for my version of Under The Sea. For this I used Broadway Nails #47 and Catherine Ardley #807 This a light gold color. This is also topped off with Salon Perfect #611 Mother of Pearl and Salon Perfect clear top coat. I stamped with fish, starfish, sea weed and an octopus. Sadly my pictures are horrid, because this was so pretty.

Back to the 50's. Base coat is L.A. Colors #892 Blushed. A gorgeous soft pink. The other colors are also from L.A. Colors Sea Foam, Atomic, and Frill. That is topped off with Sally Hanson Aisle Be There #140. The top coat is Salon Perfect.

Long time no see

Well, shortly after we moved my lap top died. When we had moved my computer was already dead. So since then I have been using my friends lap top. I have been hoping to get mine back before I loaded any pictures. Well, that has yet to happen. My computer is never gonna come back. It is just too old. So, I am still waiting for my lap top to get fixed I decided to finally post some pictures. I can transfer them when I get fixed up.

I have been so lazy since we moved. My body schedule is all off.  I feel like I just climbed out of a blender. When I went to visit a friend at our old apts. I was so energized. I feel like I left an energy vortex and have fallen into molasses.

Ok on with the pictures!

I made this card for my sisters birthday with Docrafts X-Cuts Build A Scene Dies- Vintage Hot Air Balloon 22 piece. There are a lot of parts to these die sets. I don't know that I will ever use all of them. I also have the Nautical set. I want a few more. They are a lot of fun to play with.

Lindsay has been doing several watercolor style videos with the Peg Stamps like this: Easy Freehand Watercolor Pots to go with your Small Flower Stamps! So I decided to pull out my tiny floral stamps and play with them for a bit.

Sadly my pictures didn't turn out very good but you get the idea.

This one turned out really cool. I do have several small pots in my collection.

My camera has an attitude. LOL Or I really need to get a tripod. Also a serious possibility.

This one is a stamp done with water soluble crayons.

This feather was also done with an online class by Lindsay's  Holbein Watercolor Review

and this one too  Mission Gold Class vs. Mission Silver Class Review/Comparison/Demo

This is Lndsays Plein Air Postcard #4: Secret Beach

and this one is from Live Rock painting Tutorial!

These are done with rubber stamped flowers, stamped with Memories Soft Rose and then water colored. After they dried I used my small tip Pitt pen to draw in the outline. 

This one is my favorite. 

This is what a water colored stamped flower looks like just stamped in black ink. As you caan see it looks much less natural and hand made.

Well that is all I will share today. Thanks for stopping by.

Worst Move In History

Anything that can go wrong did, I just got internet yesterday. So happy. Let me say, I have moved many times before. I am organized and pretty darn good at packing. We got the truck on the 28th of  April and had our move out inspection the next day. The truck company wanted to charge us $800.00 to leave our stuff parked in the truck for the weekend so we could stay with relatives and unload on the 2nd of May because when dealing with low income housing they won't let you move in early because they won't get credit for the couple days, it has to be a full month and the other building wasn't going to let them have a month of their time. Ok, not going to pay $800.00 for leaving a few days of leaving our stuff in a truck when it is only $60. per day so we got a storage unit. That was $200.00 for a months rent because you have to pay for a month. At east it was cheaper. On the 2nd we finally got our keys to our apartments. My friend realized that she had left her meds packed and they were some where in storage. Ug! So she got a few days from the pharmacy. Now we needed to get our stuff moved. We couldn't find helpers and were out of money for moving our stuff anyway. OMG! What a mess. A friend offered to send us the money we needed and used Pay Pal thinking it would be quick. Nope it took 14 days. In this time I realized I would run out of my meds. I got a few days from the pharmacy and made daily trips to storage to retrieve all the boxes I could and search for our meds. I was on my own since my friend got the flue, I only got the head cold part for a few days. I made 2 trips a day grabbing boxes and found my friends meds first and it took a few more days to find mine. Our apartments came with cable so at least we had that. We finally got movers and got our stuff on the 19th of May. Meanwhile, I had no phone because I just got a phone from Safe Link and it didn't work. I used my friends phone to call and try to get it fixed. I, er, we spent an hour on the phone trying to get them to send me a new phone. They kept giving me the run around and telling me to turn on the phone and I couldn't. I think these places intentionally hire idiots to mess with you.
Our apartments are smaller than we had before so we need to et rid of some things. I am getting rid of my kitchen table and chairs in order to keep my 2 desks. I have my art desk and a few million art supplies. Then I have my computer desk. Right now I am having to use my lap top because my computer bit the dust. I have needed a new one for a long time now.
I love our balconies. My plants are enjoying the out doors for awhile and I got a hammock set up. It is tied onto the tops of the rails at an angle. It is just a hair long, but I managed to tie it so it hangs high enough. Most of the things I am keeping are put away now. I need to find space for my bottle collection and I have a ton of pictures. I managed to save a few spaces for my paintings. My bedroom walls are covered top to bottom. I still haven't put them on the ceiling yet. LOL
So there we have it. The worst move ever. Not to mention how expensive it ended up being.