My OLD sketch and thoughts book

I've been trying to do some of the Big Picture Classes' "Big Idea Festival" challenges and today's kicked my butt over to my shelves to dig out my long-forgotten sketch and thought book.  It's a simple blank book my BF from high school gave me at graduation.  Pathetically, I've never filled it entirely but I do enjoy pulling it out and periodically adding to it and perusing my history.  It has things from college, grad school and beyond in it.  Thoughts, project ideas, sketches, weird dreams I had, Christmas lists, AFI Top 100 movies for several themes, notes I took when industry animators came to visit at school, etc.

Here's some random images/pages from the book.  You can see it's been through the ringer- I had to put masking tape and then electrical tape on the spine to hold it all together.

This is the page I did for the BPC "School Lunches" challenges.

Poisoned Peas Please! Steampunk Inspiration

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you all had a great weekend!
This month over at Poisoned Peas Please!, we're using Simply Betty stamps for our Steampunk challenge.

I chose Betty's "Child of Morella" image after figuring out who Morella is.  Turns out she's "a" character in a very short Edgar Allan Poe poem.  It's a 10 minute read if you want to have a looksee.  She appealed to me because 1. I liked the image (THAT was easy!), 2. I'm from MD and Poe was a Baltimore boy so there's that whole thing and 3. I've just always liked Poe.  Of course, there was the high school English teacher that read "The Raven" to us in a dark classroom, reading by flashlight and periodically shining the light on a very realistic picture of a raven above the door.  I guess that helped too.  LOL.

In a very prosaic nutshell, Morella is a brilliant woman and has extensively read "forbidden and mystical writings."  Her husband, the narrator, at first thinks it's fascinating and then eventually is completely skeeved by it.  Morella dies giving birth to "the child of Morella" who dad never names.  She grows to adolescence VERY quickly and reminds dad hugely of mom.  When he has her baptized, for reasons he doesn't know, he calls her "Morella" and she immediately dies.  When he puts her in the family tomb, mom's no longer there- it's as if she were simply reborn as her own daughter.

Hey!  It's Poe.  What did you expect?  Sunshine and roses?  Well, maybe three roses mysteriously left on his grave but that's a whole different story.

Anywho.  I used the image on a heavily steampunk-embellished tag.
Note: The first image is my updated tag, the 2nd image was my original.

Thank you Betty for the chance to use some of your fantastic images.  Please join us in this challenge for YOUR chance to win some of these great images yourself!  The winner will receive their choice of 3 of these images:

1. 
   

Ingredients:
Paper: (Kraft Glassine): Tim Holtz
Coloring: (Fired Brick, Black Soot, Vintage Photo): Tim Holtz, Copics, Watercolor pencils
Embellishments: (Pin, Clockface, Gears, Metal Flower, Flower die, Watch hand): Tim Holtz, (Typewriter key, Brads): ?, Watch parts, Vintage lace

Happily Hoppin' for Aletha's Birthday

I received an email a week or so ago asking if I wanted to be part of a surprise blog hop for Aletha Williams' birthday, Sept. 9.  Well heck yeah!  Aletha is the immensely talented lady who's not only asked me to be on one of her design teams but now two.  Heck yeah!

Before I get into this, here's the Lady of Honor as well as the blogs on the hop.  You should have arrived here from Susan's fab space.  If you didn't, you may want to start back at Kristy's, the organizer of this whole celebration.

Aletha’s Birthday blog roll:

KristyLee
Christine
Sugar
Anita 
Patti 
Susan Salyer 
Jen
Sandy
Melissa 
Ike 
Julia 
Rhonda
Tracey
Suzi
Aletha

So.  A birthday card for Aletha.  I felt like a traitor for this one- one of the teams I'm on is Aletha's ippity DT.  I didn't really use ippity.  I have the Mixed Bunch Stampin' Up set I've been looking for an excuse to ink.  I even have the matching punch that I've been wanting to try out.  So Aletha, while I didn't use MUCH ippity (the leaves!  I didn't totally disgrace myself- I used ippity leaves!), I broke out brand new supplies just for you!  :)  I wanted to make a fairly clean card with a purple flower on it, maybe a bit of ribbon. 

But WAIT!  Based on a short conversation we had last week, I deduced (just call me Sherlock!) that Aletha likes to read... BOOKS.  Actual paper books!  Wouldn't a bookmark be nice?!  So.  You'll notice that the flower looks like it bulges a bit strangely off the page and, well, it does.  That's because a polite little pull (well, maybe a firm twist and tug) should release the glue dot from the ribbon, allowing the ribbon and flower to come off the card and be used as a bookmark.  I tied a ribbon slide to the end to keep the ribbon from fraying and to add a bit of weight to the far end.  That's about the end of my grand ideas for the week!  LOL.

Aletha, I hope you have a WONDERFUL birthday and have some time to enjoy family, friends, crafting and maybe even a bit of reading.  Your card/bookmark should be arriving on Monday.  :)

Before you move onto Sandy's, we have a gift for all of our hoppers!  Tracey Malnofski, a fabulous Unity artista and owner/designer at The Stamping Boutique, has given us this digi to share with you for free because it's one of Aletha's favorite TSB images and is appropriately names "Fairy Aletha."

9/15/12: SORRY.  The free image was removed after the hop.  Please see TSB if you'd like to purchase the image.
   

Thanks for joining us on the hop and don't forget to stop by Aletha's, the last stop, and wish her a very happy birthday!


Ingredients:
Stamps: (Mixed Bunch, Sincere Salutations, Antique Background): Stampin' Up, (Now & Always): ippity
Ink: (Pale Plum, Elegant Eggplant, Eggplant Envy, Basic Black, Green Galore, Certainly Celery, Garden Green): Stampin' Up, (VersaMark): Tsukineko
Paper: (Whisper White, Eggplant Envy): Stampin' Up
Misc: (Ribbon slide): Stampin' Up, (Clear EP): JoAnn's

Challenges: (I feel a bit odd entering this in challenges but I'm SO happy with how it turned out!)
Unique Crafters' Challenge: Anything Goes
Stampendous: Embossing (Unfortunately, it doesn't show up well but the flowers were all stamped with the purple inks, and then VersaMark, then embossed with clear EP to give the bookmark a bit of texture and shine.)
Craft Your Passion: Floral images
DYSU #88: Birthdays

Dad's birthday card

My father's birthday is coming up this weekend.  We won't see him and we actually gave him his presents about 2mos. ago (when we last saw him and knew he could use them immediately... why wait?) so I definitely needed to get a card in the mail to him.  I ordered The Open Sea from Stampin' Up just for masculine cards- I think it'll probably see some definitely use.  If you're familiar with this, you may notice that the sea seems... extended?  I added a bit more to make it fill the square a smidge more.

Sorry for the blue tint- I was able to get a picture during one of the rare bits of sun we've had the past few days but it was definitely blue shadows at the time.

Ingredients:
Stamps: (The Open Sea, Sincere Salutations): Stampin' Up
Paper: (Basic Black, Whisper White): Stampin' Up, (Deep Turquoisey paper): ?
Ink: (Basic Black): Stampin' Up, (Broken China, Faded Jeans): Tim Holtz
Twine: ? (received unlabelled in a blog candy pack)