In the Spotlight + Mini Challenge... Rupa

Hello everyone! It’s June and I am in the spotlight this month which means you get a sneak peak into my life and my works! Always a pleasure to share both with you all. With that said…read on!

I am Rupa from Bangalore, India and am 43yrs old married for 20 years now and blessed with 2 kids (a son and a daughter).

My interest in arts started when I got married and had to set up my own house. I had a flair for interior decoration but no formal training, which is when I started learning various forms of art and painting just to decorate “my home”! 

After the birth of my first son ( a child with special needs) I was forced to be a stay at home mom and that’s when my passion and hobby became work too.

I started taking art classes from home and have been doing so last 15 yrs and still do. My son now is 16 yrs and I have a 5yr old daughter too and my entire family is very supportive of my passion.

Here are a few of my art works…

My entry into crafting was accidental 2 years back when I just bought the Big Shot machine in an impulse. I discovered my style was Vintage with lots of textures and most importantly, altered art. My USP is up cycling and have hoarded a lot of trash at home and they all get their time to get pampered and have a new lease of life.

A few samplers here on those!

An old clothes iron that was defunct..but not NOW!

An altered book.

An altered plastic eye case.

To view more of my works, do visit my blog here.

My project share with you today is mini journal that I made with my daughter’s old note book pages and an old pair of jeans that I had outgrown!

Though I am not a coffee drinker I just loved using coffee in this project to stain all the papers to give a vintage look. The entire process of staining paper scraps and PP from the stash and making signatures is so therapeutic and the end result is that you have something functional and it smells good too, lol!

Here are a few pics of the journal… I love the little surprises it throws up as you turn the pages. Lots of stamping and little journal tags and quotes.

I also found an old diary from my grandmother’s cupboard and it was from the same year that I was born! So I tore a few pages and also have my birthday page sewn in here.

Just made this journal extra special… I don’t have a heart to write

on this one bit I do carry it where ever I go!

My challenge to you for this week

is to create anything

VINTAGE BUT must also RECYCLE.

Yes, I want you have at least one up-cycled item in your project.

Come on its easy and have some fun!

Do visit my blog "Together for Arts" to see a lot of trash to treasure make over’s and let me know if it inspires you to play along. Until my next creative journey – Happy Crafting and recycling.

Cheers.

An InLinkz Link-up

In the Spotlight + Mini Challenge... Diana Fernandez

Hello crafting friends. It's my turn for a spotlight challenge. This is where you all get to hear a little bit about me, and maybe a little bit about my crafting journey as well! 

I will start with me...

Yep, that's me when I was just a little tyke!

I loved cats back then, and I have a cat now that looks a lot like this one, only my baby boy is wearing a tuxedo!

I live in (almost always) sunny Arizona. I am married to this fun loving guy, (there were 10 corn dogs)! And we have a houseful of furry "kids." Six to be exact, 3 dogs, and 3 cats. Our oldest is an 18 year old calico who has never really liked me, but loves my husband! 

I work a full time job as a 911 operator/ police dispatcher. Its a fast paced and fun job, I literally love going to work! It's always interesting, and it's always a fun environment. There is a lot of stress in my job, and I use my crafting to help alleviate some of that stress. 

For my crafting journey, I began as a child, I did cross stitch with my mom, and have always been enthralled with colors and patterns. 

So for Valentines day in 2008 my husband got me a sewing machine. Yes it's sort of like buying a mixer for a housewife in the 1950's right? But I really wanted to work with fabric. I made a couple of quilts, and bought A LOT of fabric, and I soon moved on to paper, but I brought my sewing machine to paper, and I've never looked back!

Now who wants to see some of my work?

Yeah, me too!

I have a slew of art journal pages to share with you. Art Journaling has been my passion for a while now. It seems to permeate much of my crafting now. 

I love to get paint and ink all over, and to work

with adding color and texture to my pages.

A small wall hanging with a mixed media butterfly.

I do hope that some of my work and my story has inspired you.

Please feel free to check out my blog HERE.

I do just love love love all the mixed media goodness that is out there. And I hope you will take some of my work and create your own art journal piece. Whats that you say... you don't have an art journal. Well you don't need a specific art journal to do an art journal page! You can use any sort of heavy weight paper you have to get some inky and painted goodness down! 

This is my challenge to you...

create an art journal page, try something you've never tried,

you just never know what you might find! ~ Diana

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In the Spotlight + Mini Challenge... Toni Burks

Hi fellow crafters, my name is Toni and I am happy to share this month a little bit about myself and my creative journey. I live in sunny California and was forced into retirement 6 years ago. I had been working at GTE / Verizon for 35 years when the news hit my whole office " We are sending your job function to Florida". It wasn't really a shock as much of our company had been out sourcing many jobs either to other states or countries due to the high costs to run a business here on the west coast. But I was still fairly young (53) and full of spunk so I hit the employment search road and have been very blessed to find fairly good jobs. I'm currently a manager at a retail clothing store and boy it's nothing like sitting at a desk from 8-5 but it pays the bills.

The same year I lost my job I also ended my marriage of 36 years. Oh 2009 was a year of many obstacles and changes but I've always tried to look at life as "the cup is half full, not half empty". 

My faith in the Lord, my guardian angel (my daughter) and my puppy Bubba definitely kept me going. 

In regards to my creative journey, I have always done some sort of crafting from the time I was little. I have a very artsy family. Father is a musician as well as my brother, my mother an artist and definitely a huge influence of all my crafting endeavors, and my sister also is a scrapbooker, I think I have always scrapbooked... even before it was called that. When I was small we would travel and take photos and I would save napkins, hotel keys anything to keep as memorabilia. I dabbled in macrame, soap making, candle making, ceramics, watercolors, crocheting and sewing. 

About 20 years ago I got real serious about scrapbooking because my daughter played travel softball and I was constantly taking photos and wanted to create keepsakes for her. I purchased a paper here, a sticker there and well you know that was history. I now have an entire room devoted to my studio, my bedroom walk-in closet, my dining room hutch, linen closets filled with bins, and part of my garage. Though this craft can be costly I am thankful for it daily because it allows me to escape. I can turn on some music and get messy until wee hours of the night.

Now when I say messy I mean just that. I love paints, inks, anything mixed media. Paper is often ripped and distressed. I have the most difficult time with CAS (clean and simple). It's not uncommon for me to have to climb over things to get to a tin full of metal embellishments or an apothecary jar full of ribbon. It's kind of funny... I tend to be super particular that my living space is orderly and clean but if my craft table isn't a disaster when creating then I don't feel I've given my all to the project I'm working on... go figure. Therefore, I would describe my style as grungy, old, vintage, with layers of texture and yummieness. I adore steampunk but I also love ribbons, lace and bling. 

Where do I get inspiration???.. it's all around me, I am inspired by nature, the textures of brick on the side of a building or the patina rust on an old can. I'm inspired by emotions or music that I'm listening to, and the plethora of talented artists on the web that so graciously share their work to inspire. Currently I'm on two design teams and this allows me to create in several different directions. My most favorite (at this moment) is altered art and mixed media. I have taken some art classes but for the most part I am self-taught and tend to approach my projects in a very unorthodox manner. I think that's why I love mixed media. It allows you to bend the rules and think out of the box. Some of my most favorite things happened from "oops". 

This first project was a wooden artist palette that I applied many mixed media techniques. Layers and layers of goodness including egg shells for texture. 

This is an Christmas advent calendar box that I altered into an embellishment holder for all my T!m Holtz Ideaology trinkets. 

This next project I used the back of the canvas to create the shadow box for my steampunk butterfly. I love the quote from Albert Einstein "If at first the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it"

And this clock was altered especially for my studio. Purchased in the clearance section for next to nothing I added embossing, stains, rust activator, paint, gears, chains etc. to make it my own. I think that's why I love altered art, because you make it your own, it's custom, one of a kind. 

And for my last project I was involved in a scavenger hunt at a scrapbook store crop... lot's of fun. We had a list of items that we needed to go find around town and create something from them. Really got those creative wheels turning. Some of the items on the list were, nuts & bolts, nails, aluminum foil, concert tickets, paper clips, cardboard, metal, envelope, doily, rubber bands & feathers. I decided to take an old book, cut a deep niche in it and alter it with photos of my brother whom is an amazing musician.

This was such a fun way to take items and transform them into something artistic and use them in a way that they weren't intended for. 

I think the title of this project fits it well...

"DON'T JUDGE A BOOK BY IT'S COVER".

So now that you've learned a little about me...

my challenge to you is to go around

your house and find something to alter.

Whether it's an old teapot, an empty paper towel roll, perhaps a broken frame, get out those paints, inks, stains, glue... turn up some music, get yourself a cup of coffee and let's get messy ! xoxo Toni

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In the Spotlight + Mini Challenge... Neva Cole

Here we are in the month of March and it is my turn for a spotlight and mini challenge. My name is Neva and I live in Central Oregon. I’ve been a West Coast girl almost all my life moving between Southern California, Alaska, and Oregon. I spent a year as an exchange student to Japan while still in high school. I will also admit to a short stint in Texas, but made a beeline back to the Northwest after my year teaching in a private school. By training I am a High School Science teacher, mostly Chemistry with a little Biology and Biotechnology mixed in. I married later in life at 45 because I waited for Mr. Right! 

Crossroad Layout Created in 2009 for my All About Me Album

When I married just over ten years ago I left full-time employment to substitute teach, do all the paperwork for running a small business, and raise our children. My husband has a daughter who is now away for her freshman year in college. We adopted two boys from Russia 5 1/2 years ago, and have enjoyed the journey of raising our boys. 

Created in 2012 for each of the boys' albums

Our older son is now 15, a freshman in high school and active in sports. We are very proud of the progress he has made academically; and watch him play soccer, wrestle, and high jump/long jump/run track. Our younger son is in third grade as a 9-year-old and is working very hard to overcome some of the speech and language delays. We are thankful for his great team and he is progressing at a rapid pace. He enjoys his riding his bike, doing flips on the trampoline, wrestling, and Cub Scout activities.

As my blog mentions I find Snippets of Time to Craft in between the entire goings on of life, raising kids, running a business, and caring for our home and property. We are fortunate to live on six acres and raise two steer each summer, usually 15-18 or so chickens, a couple of turkeys and one noisy duck. The grandparents help us with a garden; although it is challenging to raise veggies with our short growing season here in the high desert. It is lovely to have fresh eggs, produce, and organic beef from our little farm. We also raise German Shepherds and have a litter or two of pups each year. Right now we have 8 wonderful puppies, you can learn more about them on our Facebook page, vom Kaskadenberge. 

Can you believe I still have this! 

I was raised by a crafter, and have many memories of crafting, sewing, ceramics, and other assorted hobbies. I can trace my first red rubber stamp purchase along with clear embossing powder to 1983... even have the sales slip! I started paper crafting in earnest in 1995, as part of my two year-long healing therapy following a car accident and closed head brain injury. I was intrigued with paper engineering and created a pop-up resume for a job application at our Museum of Science and Industry. Fortunately there was a small local stamp shop within a few blocks of my home and I became a regular shopper and took a few classes. This started me down the path of my paper and ink addiction. In 1997 my sister and a Creative Memories workshop introduced me to archival scrapbooking. It is hard to believe that I have been at this wonderful pastime for 20 years!

I am blessed to have a huge room in our home dedicated to my crafting endeavors. I have many collections to indulge in from paper, inks, dies, stamps, stickers, specialty paper, paints, alcohol inks, ribbon, embellishments, glitter, fibers, chipboard, and so on. Over the years I have learned so much from online forums, classes at local stamp and scrapbook stores, and at conventions. Last fall I dove into blogging regularly and entering challenges. I applied to a few design teams and fortunately was selected for Anything But a Card and Retro Rubber Challenge Blog. 

I would describe my style as fairly eclectic and sometimes elegant. I am not much into grunge or shabby chic, but just about everything else is game. I would like to learn play more with different media forms, but know I already have plenty to keep my occupied for a long time!

My favorite thing to create is probably mini-albums. I like to have little albums that commemorate an event or trip. I have been known to make albums as gifts, especially for the crew of my husband’s sailing adventures! I like little books, and have a few that I’ve created over the years in many different styles. Here are a just a few!

Just a few of the mini books and albums I've created in 20 years. 

Created in 1999 as a gift for my Grandparents, it has since been returned to me.

Created in 2006, one for my DH and one for his crew on the sailboat.

Created in 2007 – two copies : )

Created for my daughter in 2007. Lots of pockets and flaps.

Gift album created in 2009 for a friend who coordinated a forum. 

My interior contribution and the back of the album. 

Part of a birthday album created for DSD in 2010.

Started as a kit from the Button Farm, but grew

into a much larger acrylic mini album in 2013.

My most recent acrylic mini album is one I created of our trip to Colorado for the Buccaneer North American Championships, which can be viewed in this post on my blog. If you just want to look at the photos and not read all the instructions, click on the first photo and go through them slide show style! 

Created in 2015, actual size is 3" x 3".

My challenge for this week is to make

a mini-album or mini book of any style.

My sample made for the challenge commemorates the year 2014 in photos and is done in with a Meander Album like the one created here in the Split Coast Stampers Tutorial. Come check my full blog post over at Snippets of Time to Craft on how I created this little gem! Dear Husband likes the album, but the photos are too small for him... however he wants me to digitize the album so he can share it as well.

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In the Spotlight + Mini Challenge... Pallavi Iyer

Hi! This is Pallavi and today its my turn to take the spotlight and post a mini challenge for you.

Here is a little bit about me:

I am 30 something, happily married and live in the western part of India. I started my crafting journey a couple of years back. I have always been interested in beautiful things,be it art, crafts, décor or writing.

With my full time job though, I did not have enough time to pursue anything seriously (that's my excuse and am sticking to it). 2012 was a bad year for me because I lost my father due to cancer and had to deal with a scary disease myself. After that I suddenly lost interest in the corporate rat race and looked for solace in arts and crafts. I resented the time I had to spend at work and couldn't wait to get home to work on my craft projects.

I quit my job exactly two years back and that was the best decision ever. The plan was to take a sabbatical and go back, but I love being home and being able to indulge in my passion so much that I don't think this is going to happen.   :-)

As far as crafting goes, I am still trying to find my style. I have tried my hand at Cards, tags, altered projects, canvases etc. My problem is that I am interested in too many things and want to try them all, so my work is all over the place. For now, I know that I gravitate towards a shabby chic style and creating textures, mixed media and altering things are my favourite works of all. This year I am focusing on art journaling and honing up my sketching and water colouring skills. I write about my crafty endeavours on my blog which is appropriately named " Dazzled by life ". Do come and visit me if you feel like it. I would love to see you there.

Now enough about me and onto the challenge!

Lately I have been fascinated with Black. It is such an important component of any artwork. A little touch of black automatically brings the whole project together, don't you feel? However, I have lately been enamoured with the combination of black and metallics. I feel that a black background provides the perfect base for metallic paints/mediums or glitter to shine through and do their thing. 

So my challenge to you is to create a project with a combination of black and metallic components. You can use metallic paint, gold leaf, mica flakes, glitter. The options are endless.

Here is my project for the challenge: I altered a wooden mini chest of drawers. I used modelling paste and stencils for the texture.

Everything was given a coat of black acrylic paint. Once that dried, I used some Decoart antiquing creams to highlight the textures. Using the antiquing cream gave a nice patina to the whole texture but something was missing. I could not figure out what was wrong , just that it was dull and not what I had envisaged in my mind. Next attempt to salvage the project was to use Silks acrylic glaze to add some more color.

Still not happy! In my frustration, I decided to try using Viva Décor Inka gold as my last attempt and am glad to say that I am finally satisfied with the whole look.

I hope my project gave you some ideas and really hope that you play with us in this challenge. Would love to see your projects.

Please join us next week for a brand new Challenge!

Till then,

Cheers

Pallavi

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In the Spotlight + Mini Challenge... Elaine Langford-Pugh

Hi everyone! I am known as Elaine aka Ellapu in Blogland. I am 54 and live in Hampshire, UK. I work full time as an Investigator for Revenue and Customs, UK. I have been in the job for 15 years and love it. 

I suffer chronic pain through having 2 types of arthritis and also suffer with bi-polar - some days I don't make it to work and for the rest I struggle to do so.

I have had 3 abusive marriages - so much so have lived on my own for 16 years. In this time I went University and studied for a degree in Social Policy and Criminology, graduating in 2003.

Not all bad though as I do have an indoor rabbit (Bluebell) rescued from a breeder of snake snacks- I spend much of my time talking to her however without response (much like a man I suppose - hmmmmm!

I have 3 grown up children of whom I am very proud, all trained chefs but not one meal has been made for me but I think that's because I don't like a messed up kitchen lol. My gorgeous children combined have given me 7 beautiful grandchildren - ranging from 8 to 2. The youngest 4 include a set of twins but not identical. Real fun when they all in same space lol. I just love them all so much. (They wear me out!) Pics below.

Alanna aged 8, Blake aged 6, Aiden aged 4,
Harvey and Lili-Mae aged 2,

Freya aged 2 and Mason aged 2.

Recently, November 14th, for Children in Need, I was sponsored to have my hair clippered and wet shaved in my place of work - I raised £2000. The pic below shows myself, being silly along with a colleague who was partaking in ''Movember''.

I have only been into crafting for approximately 7 years starting with card making and I then dived head first into mixed media/altered art. I just love to get messy but not so keen on getting the paint from under my fingernails. Just thought I would share a few of my fave pieces.

All can be found on my blog - HANDCRAFTED BY ELLAPU

I will never be able to sell my creations on a regular basis as I know many people do not appreciate and look down their nose at ''Handmade Gifts''. I will never be able to afford to set up my own business so for the long term I live in hope that someone out there will like my stuff enough to be recognized. No hope and Bob Hope as they say - so many talented people out there. That's fine through as I find it relaxing and therapeutic-so gratifying for oneself.

Anyway that is enough about me and now onto

the mini challenge for January 2015.

I have chosen the theme of  ''SHABBY CHIC''.

I chose a mini ornamental shoe to alter. I painted it with gesso for the basis and over top with rose chalk paint. 

I covered the front, parts of the sides and the sole using mod podge and a paper napkin (beautiful tiny rose design) I used inka gold over the raised bobble part to make it pop. 

I adhered some mini guipere lace and pearl string. 

I then decided to make the shoe practical by covering some wadding with a print fabric and the same lace for the end product - a pin cushion!

Well that is it ladies and gents - I do hope you come join us here for this mini challenge. I for one need to see your creations to inspire me. Please link up your projects below via Linky.

Remember you only have ONE WEEK for this "Shabby Chic" Mini Challenge.

I would love to know how my post inspired you!

~ Elaine

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