Clay owl magnet and FREE PNGS

Good morning,

Another clay creation to share this morning.  I made this little owl magnet.  The owl sits on top of a background I made and is surrounded by a silver oval frame I purchased at Ollie's.

The frames came in round, oval, square, and rectangle, shapes and in several sizes.

Ollie's is a discount store, fairly new to Columbus.  It is much like Odd Lots, but our store is VERY BIG.  There are so many deals there, that it's just nice to go and look around on a regular basis.  Definitely a place to find frames and even photo paper.

I love their book section, too, and they often have lots of inexpensive computer games that are lots of fun.  I bought my share of books and games!!!  They have a huge selection of DUMMY BOOKS.

I love making owls, and I try to make each one a little different.  I have a collection of them now.  This particular owl hangs in my office on a steel rod 3-way lamp I use -- so I can see what I'm working on.  Underneath him is a pom-pom face.  I'll post his picture at another time.

In the picture up top, on the right, the picture came out looking like it had a gold rim, but it is silver.  I edited it to make it look more like it truly looks.

Along with loving clay creations, I still love doing my artwork.  And since this blog is basically about that, here are your free pngs for today.

This could be a quote box, a title box, or a photo box.  You pick how you want to use it.

I love the bright colors in this, and hope to use it myself soon.

You could also use it for a card front or inside the card with a message.

Here is the png again, with a different colored rim.

This is inverted.  I always like to do an invert of all my creations.  Sometimes they look more spectacular to me that way.

Anyway, it gives it a different coloring, and surely one will be just right for you.

I am off of work today.

And tomorrow ... as I work for "the man", and if you've read any of the news, you know there's a huge segment of people taking mandatory time off, without pay.

This really hurts ... for me ... as my husband lost his job in March of this year, and the income that went with it.  He's working again, but at a much lower pay, and it is through a temp agency, even though he's permanently on that job.  If he gets hired, hopefully, he will have enough of a pay increase that we will be doing okay.

So, to lose 20% of my income per pay period during this change in our life is quite a chunk, when you consider us as a couple.  Believe me.  I am watching my pennies every day.

I let my website go due to this.  I just couldn't afford to do it anymore.

Hope you all are having a wonderful morning, and this proves to be a productive and energizing day for you.

Enjoy!

Cj

Wild West Hair Doll 3 and Free PNG

Good morning!!

A quick post this morning.

Here is my third Wild West Hair doll, only the second with a paper body.  I featured her yesterday in my post, but wanted to have her own post.

These are the face steps I did.  Each is numbered.  In the first, I formed her face shape.  In 2:  I had already made and baked her eyes, nose and mouth.  In 3:  I pushed the baked face features into her unbaked face.  In 4:  I added cheeks and chin.  In 5:  I worked and smoothed her face till I got her looking the way I liked her.

I was not looking to make a beautiful face, but one with some character.  I really like how she came out.

Of course, her skirt is scrapping paper, and I glued pearls around her neck, and glued a clay decoration on her dress.  Her crown was made from paper, and glued into her hair.

And here's a free png for today for all your creative needs.

Hope you have a terrific day.

Cj

Look back to see the Wild West Hair Doll 2.

Wild West Hair Doll and clay creations in a picture PLUS FREE SNAGS

Good morning!

This weekend, I was working on making a clay background for a mixed media project.  I just had to take a picture of it to play with it in my graphics program.  It no longer looks the same, but I built this picture from its base.

The picture features more of my clay sculptures.  You see my new Wild West Hair Doll in the lower left hand corner, followed by the snail, the blue owl, the little butterfly with quilled wings, and the flower face under the quote is also a clay face that was edited and added to complete it.

I chose a quote I like about art to finish it off.

The little Wild West Hair Doll has another clay creation on its front dress.  She has pearls around her neck, and a crocheted trim around her base.  On top of her head is a paper type crown I made.  Her face is not a "pretty" face, but the face of a character.  Big eyes, big nose, and a really big mouth.

I'm very happy with how she turned out, and I will feature her alone one day, as I took pictures of building her face as I went.

She sits in my living room with my other red headed Wild West Doll.  Her dress is a scrap paper I bought long ago.

Today's free pngs are above and below.  This is a flower face I created this morning.  I'm always looking for "sayings" for my cards, and just don't have enough with messages on them.  Here is one I plan to use on "girly" cards.  I can print her out, put her on a stacked base, and add her to my card/s.

Feel free to snag and use her, if you wish.

Here is the face again, without words.  I may want to use just her, or her with another saying.

Both are free to snag and use.

Hope you have a fantastic Tuesday!!!

Cj

Refreshing Flavored Waters, Clay bird, and free snaggable pngs

Good morning,

It's Monday, and the start of another work week.

I made this creation above after visiting www.theyummylife.com.  She has lots of yummy items on her site.  I loved her flavored waters, and they are so clear and delicious-looking, but I have a hard time not blending the berries.

So I made my own, blending the whole berry.  It was delicious!

You should check out her site though.  It is full of wonderful recipes.

In the creation above, I made the flower, took the picture of my cocktail, and the little bird with a flower is one of my clay creations.

Here are the png items.  They are free snaggables.

Enjoy.

See you tomorrow.

Have a great day!

Cj

Png Flowers and a Clay Butterfly with Quilled Wings

Good morning,

This is actually Sunday's post.  Getting it up now.

Above are the flowers I talked about in yesterday's post.  It's the same flower, but each was done using different special effects, but they all started from the first black flower.

And here is the biggest flower.  All of the flowers were done at this size, and reduced way down for the flower summary in the first picture.  If you are interested in any of the others in a larger size, let me know.

Here, I put one of the other flowers into a common phrase.  The little butterfly is a clay creation that I made a few days ago.  His wings are quilled, and under the clay are two quilled circles to hold his body above the wings.  He actually stands up on my desk.  So cute.  Little movable eyes too!

And here is the quote without the butterfly.

These pngs are free for you to snag and use in your art projects.

Enjoy.

Cj

Clay items in a clay collage plus free quote box pngs

Good Saturday morning!

I know I've talked about the clay creations I've made over the last couple of months.  It's well over 350 items and maybe more now, as I just keep creating.

So today, I thought I'd feature some of the items.

In the above picture, you see six individual items, 3 off to the left, and 3 more off to the right.  There's a little girl looking slightly up, and big flower (for a magnet or pin), a small box with a lid and off to the right is a heart, a lion, and another heart.  The center item is a clay bunny.

The center items are a bunch of individual clay items.  This is a clay collage, and the items are attached to a base.  It has many hearts, flower faces, a little slug on a base, a little clay block and just some other fun things.

In this picture, you see a close up a the bunny face.

Another close up, but angled down a  little to see some of the items better.

For today's art, here is my example showing how to use the quote boxes below.  Same design, but one is an invert of the other.  The quote boxes are available to snag and use in your art or scrap booking projects.  Also would make a great card front.

The quote box is in png format, so if you have a graphics program, you can download them into it, and there will be no backgrounds.  Of course, the top one is an invert, so it will have a black background,

This quote box  has no background, so you can choose what colors you want to use yourself.

Not a fan of black and white.  Tip!  The easiest way I know to add color is by using a drop shadow at 100%, all settings at 0-no blur.  After you choose your color, duplicate it to deepen your color.

To make it extra fancy, you can always bevel a black design to get an interesting look or use special effects to make them down right fantastic.  Try unsharpening it, too.

I also like to use black and white in cutouts and then use special effects on that as well.

Tomorrow, you will see some flowers and a common quote that I did using a black and white design, using the cutout method and then the special effects.  Every flower on tomorrow's post will be a different special effect.

These can get quite creative and colorful, so stop back tomorrow, to see more clay creations as well as pick up some new pngs.

The weather this week has been in the 90's.  It is HOT!!!!

It is so hard to understand how many reports you hear of parents leaving small children or pets in a car while they run into a store somewhere.  So many die needlessly.

As a young mother of three, years ago, I can't fathom this.  If I took my kids with me, they always went in with me!  Our children should be our greatest treasures and blessings.  They were NEVER an inconvenient, wherever I was.

Taking your children with you teaches them to be socially-acceptable, if you are doing it right!

MSN had a voting poll several weeks ago regarding a child/ren being in a restaurant, and asked if they belong there.  The answer is yes, as long as you've taken the time to teach them proper behavior.

My children learned early, that it didn't matter whether we just arrived, were mid meal, or what!  If they got out of control, we were leaving.  Why do so many young parents today, not know how to handle their children?  And once we got up to leave ... WE WERE LEAVING!  And when we got home, they spent time in their rooms.

Getting back to the weather,  my work place even sent out an email on Thursday, reminding us how hot it is this week, and NOT to leave children or pets in our cars.  C'mon folks!  This is a no-brainer.  Talk about the "dumbing down of America"!

Okay, enough said.

Have a terrific, and SAFE Saturday!

I'll be back tomorrow!

Cj

My fresh blackberries in the back yard

Good morning again,

Just a quick post to show off my blackberries from two blackberry bushes we planted about 2 years ago.

I just love blackberries, and in the past, I've bought them at the store.  The prices just keep going up and up, and I hate paying their prices.

So two years ago, I bought two blackberries bushes, and my husband was kind enough to plant them in the back yard.  I know the bushes spread.  I watched as new shoots came off the plants.  We are trying to contain them to one corner of the yard in front of our shed.  There is still plenty of room for them to spread their way back to the shed.

Last year, we saw a few tiny blackberries, but didn't bother to pick them.

Last year was a hard year for me, since I had my whipple surgery at the end of July, and then had 2 months of recovery off from work.  I don't think I made it into the back yard all last summer.

This year, I could see from my deck window, lots of red berries, and they were huge!

My husband mowed the yard last Saturday, and he decided to pick the first three blackberries of our season.  One was ready, and really sweet.  The other two still had a tint of red, and were sour-sweet.  I told him we needed to let them get completely black.

I took this picture beside a quarter so you can see how huge they are.  With all the rain this year, they are very juicy!

The two bushes are full of fruit, so I should be picking berries soon.  No more buying them at the store this year.

If, perchance, the birds begin to devour them, I will buy some type of netting to cover them.

Cj

P.S.  When I was growing up, my neighborhood friends and I often went in search of fruit and nuts.  There were plenty available on open plots of land on the way into town.

Even though it was HOT HOT outside, we'd bundle up to protect our skin from the thorns and spiders we found in wild blackberry bushes.  And off we'd go.  We gathered apples, blackberries, and walnuts throughout the summer and early fall (for the walnuts).  We'd take brown paper bags from the store and fill them up.  We took a red wagon with us to put all the bags in.

This was always days of fun!  And sweating!!!!  (And, of course, there was always the "tick" search, once we got home.  It was great to have a sister to help with this!)

I loved making apple pies, and often did and sold them to neighbor ladies for their card playing groups.

The blackberries were always mine to eat alone.

The walnuts would drop from this huge walnut tree.  They were in their green, thick skins, but we always picked them up.  I used to peel the thick, green skin from them, which left my hands stained all brown.  And then I'd lay them out on the ground, side by side, under my back yard bedroom window.  I'd leave them there, drying in the sun, and occasionally open one to see if had dried out enough or was still moist.

Oh how I loved those times.

I also took in ironing from neighbors, earning extra money.

Did you ever do this when you were a kid?