art junk girl

10 things....

self-portrait, originally uploaded by artjunkgirl.

10 things you should know about me...

1. I'm not the best emailer in the world. That doesn't mean I don't care, it just means I like to respond in longer prose, and I usually don't have time to do so, so I wait. When you do get an email from me, it will usually be long. You know this if you've gotten one from me, right?

2. I worry alot about my weight. I think about it too much. "Am I fat"? "I'm fat." " I'm going to be fat." I know I shouldn't, but I do. We all have our "tissues", that's one of mine. It's just one of things that's never left me alone.

3. I am generally a happy-go-lucky person. I smile at people I don't know. I sing in the grocery store. I look people in the eye when I talk to them. I really, really, don't like when people are mean. I take it personally. It makes me angry. I don't like being angry. That's another thing you should know.

4. I think children are the most magnificant beings on the planet and that we should do everything we can to protect, nuture, love and support them as much as is humanly possible. Children have everything to teach us. Just talk to one today. They will teach you something. I promise. Tell them they are awesome. They will remember it forever. I promise.

5. I think I talk too much sometimes and it's gotten me in "trouble" before. It's taught me alot about people and life though. It's also taught me that sometimes it's a good idea to be quiet. There is a time to speak up and a time to be quiet. That's why I like doing art, I can talk there all I want and no one get's mad at me....at least not yet...

6. I like to drink coffee, tea, and CrystalLite lemonade. More than I should.

7. I eat icecream. Late at night.

8. I watch Nancy Grace.

9. I think Mark Harmon is Hot, but I can't watch NCIS anymore because of all the graphic violence that really freaks me out and the guy with the accent get's on my 9th nerve.

10. I am not very good at math. Not at all.

~LK

I'm dreaming of a crafty christmas...

I'm dreaming of a crafty christmas..., originally uploaded by artjunkgrl.

...Please note: I'm only a " little" obsessed with pom-pom's right now (Im just sayin'...) and will be making some garlands for the girls smaller tree's..and anything else I can think of...I love all the colors! I need to finish getting the house tidied and then I'm gonna craft my little heart out.
I'll share more soon...hmmm...now what did I do with the upholstery thread...it's here somewhere...
Hope you are having a fun holiday season. xo

Charmed, I'm Sure...

Ok, so this is what I learned after making jewelry charms for my first jewelry charms swap. (I've made fabric charms, but not jewelry one's). For this swap, I used existing charms in which I inserted and glued copies of my "inchie" collages. I then added some glaze on top. Here's what I learned from my brief experience with charms~

1. You have to really, really pay attention to fine
detail. You have to use such things as exacto knives.
You have to risk, like, cutting your thumb. I need my
thumb. I can't have a bloody thumb because I cut
paper. I cut pretty paper all day. I need clean thumbs.

2. You have to have really good eyes. If you need
reading glasses, and consequently (don't have them,
erm), you will have to take them on, and then take
them off, and then work some more, and then look for
them, and then put them on to see if what you did look
right, etc. etc.

3. If you are OCD (which I am not, cough, cough), and
that little, itty bitty hairline imperfection bothers
you....well, it behoooves you to 'leave it alone'.
Either that or go try to fix it, fritter the
imperfection away to nothing and ruin the good part
and have to start all over. enough said.

4. epoxy smells. have a window open.

5. tools have to be *clean*. if your hoosband does not
clean his tools, do NOT go get them from the garage.
If you do, first clean them thoroughly with a scrub
brush, brillo pad and gunk scrapper tool.

6. Last but not least, I learned that if I count a set
of charms once, and then count it again, they won't
magically double in number. I will still have to make
more charms than I think.

7. I'm still not very good at math.

8. The good news is that I can use all those inchies I
made for charm making. I think I want to learn to
solder though. I wonder what my list will look like
then?

stay tuned.

xo Lia

paper doll fun

paper doll fun, originally uploaded by artjunkgrl.

This was too much fun. Template can be found on marthastewart.com from this week's episode featuring Claudine Hellmuth. I feel so silly playing with paper dolls at my age, but I just can't resist! If cutting paper is involved, I'm in! Have a great weekend all! xo Lia

Update! Ohmygosh! If you missed the show, the "sitting pretties" video can be found online here! If the link doesn't work, just go to MarthaStewart.com and look it up under Tv episodes (click on sitting pretties). He he...this is really fun!
P.s. I did not make mine with the roof flashing and fabric, as per tutorial. I made my sitting pretty with cardstock and she sits just fine on my crafty tote. :)

Thinking outside of the square...

Ok, friends, I want to start by saying that I have by NO means left my square friends for circle friends. Let me splain. I am still a very square girl. I'm just thinkin' of things to make with my squares as I will be preparing for my first craft fair booth at the Creative Bazaar. Can you say run on sentence? Ok, so I'm not the best at grammer here. I try my best, but anyhoo, I'm rather chatty so it's hard to stop when I get started. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, the lump in my throat thing (see last artjunk episode)..I'm still feeling very, very wierd and things are so different here at home. It's hard to adjust to such a huge change. I've still been crafty, but in a different sort of way. You see, when I feel kinda out of sorts with my art routine and my brain is all mush, I turn to the most mindless (but fun) part of being a paper and collage addict: I cut paper, then I cut some more, then I cut some more. That's a lot of cutting this last week with my son gone and all and me feeling weird and all. My immediate reaction to any stressful situation is to want to change everything about my life. I mean like, everything. Like crazy person kind of stuff. Like up and moving to another town, city, state, country kind of crazy. Like painting my whole house a different color kind of crazy, like I wanna go dye my hair bright red kinda crazy and have it all wierd and spikey and totally not conservative, homemakerish, prudish kind of me that I am. So, I digress. Back to the circles meeting the squares. I went and visited Martha on Monday (well, the next best thing...her "isle" at Michaels) and I decided that my square puncher needed one of her nifty circle punchers. So, some people get a pet to replace a child leaving the nest. I adopted a new puncher. So anyway, I started punching and cutting and punching away my stress while watching depressing movies on TV and eating klondikes and wearing sweats and not combing my hair. well, swooping it back with my hands, but not combing it...and going around the house with a permanent sad puppy look. So, back to my story, I printed out some of my squares to see if the collages would fit in a circle so that I can use them for my new magnet or button machine that I want to buy, but haven't yet because my husband, (aka Bruno the Tuition checkbook) will blow a puncher gasket if I do so... So I'm thinking outside of the square and what I can have to offer at the creative bazaar, etc. etc. So, the long and the square of it is that my cutting/punching party yeilded two new collage sheets with images cut from my ephemera and old magazines, perfect size for inchies. I will be offering these in the shop soon. In addition, I've been movin' along on my square goal (722ish) and I'm also going to get some of my inchies printed up into postcards. I think that all of that has kept me busy enough and out of trouble, or at least out of the hardware store, where I would go and stare at new colors to paint my house in. So, that' all for now. One big mind dump. Goes to show I shouldn't skip too many days on my blog as I usually chronicle most of my shananaghans on here. I'm sure I totally botched that word. Hope everyone is having a good week. xo Lia