Monday, November 16, 2009

New Items Added To My Etsy Shop

I had time to add two new items in my Etsy shop http://www.donnagoss.etsy.com today. It took me awhile to finish this scarf. I do not like to knit when it's warm and it has not been cold (until today LOL) so it took longer than usual for this one. it's great to wear casual or dressy.

This glass house is a Christmas theme one. It lights up with battery operated tea lights so there is not a fire hazard. Done in pink and green colors for a fun and whimsical style. The other end has a transparency in it of a girl sitting on Santa's lap. I do happen to know the little girl and she is not little anymore, but just as sweet. On one side of the roof I applied punched out reindeer. You only see them when the light is on though. Kind of a neat effect. There are more photos of the other sides on my site so go check it out.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Marie Antoinette Soiree

Marie Antoinette has been a popular character in the stamping industry for a long time now. Five other artists and myself thought it would be fun to do a journal swap with the theme being her. I decided to be the host and did invitations and a schedule for the traveling journals. I also wanted us to make some extra props to go along with our journals. So we each had to create a cake, shoe, bodice and crown too. You were to interpret the extra pieces however you choose and we had some very creative minds at work! The journals could be hand made, altered books or whatever you wanted to work with. Everyone's work was beautifully done.
We started in May of this year and just finished a few weeks ago. In conclusion we had a soiree at my home on Nov. 1st. November 2nd is Marie's birthday. We had lunch and then looked at all our fabulous creations. What is a Marie party without cake? You know she really didn't say "Let them eat cake." but it's fun to say she did. My wonderful friend Mary made these cupcakes
and the cute stamped and colored Marie picks. She also made some great candy coated pretzels that are to die for! Plus a crown shaped cake! She is wonderful and helped me make the soiree run smoothly.



This is April's bodice. We each bought a wire bodice from Stampington and Company but she cut hers up and attached it to a tomatoe cage. What an out of the box idea that was! Her shoe, cake and crown are below. Speaking of out of the box...look at her crown. Base is made from wire then wrapped with fabric. Wire was them spireled on one end and a beaded charm added. Then stuck into the base. Very different but ingenious.

Below is Mary's contributions. Love her crown and the head it's displayed on! Her cake was a masterpiece. Three tiers of paper and glitter topped with a shoe! Her bodice was covered with stamped and collaged tags. She spent a lot of time on it. Lovely little shoe made of paper.

Pink was Melody's color choice for her pieces. Her crown is a metal one covered with fibers then topped with a flower. Fibers were included on all her pieces and it helped tie her pieces together. Her cake is topped with a bird on a nest of fibers! Very cute! She also was generous with her time in making things
run smoothly at the party.
Anne's pieces are very elegant. Her bodice is drapped with marbeld paper that looks like fabric. Very nice! Her crown is made from metal mesh and embellished with flowers and feathers. The shoe is created with paper and her cake is topped with feathers and Marie. Just a note...I think she had trouble keeping her cats from playing with all the feathers. Everyone knows cats love feathers! LOL


Here are my pieces. My bodice was covered with tied on strips of fabric, soldered charms and there is a bird inside the hoop skirt to be like a cage. I think Marie was sorta like a caged bird not getting to fly and be set free to have fun without being critazized. The cake is covered with paper, curled pipe cleaners, glitter and a copy of Kirsten Dunst as Marie from the Sophia Coppella movie. My shoe was paper and the crown was a tiera embellished with pipe cleaners and leaves.
Here you can see the bird inside the cage.
These are all the journals. All done in lucious colors and fabrics.

These are favors for three guests we had come and I made digital collages for the fronts of the bags. I received some wonderful gifts for favors as host and each of us made some type of favor for each other. There were rhinestone frames with a Marie collage inside, faux postage of Marie, ceramic shoes and several other great ones.

I made a fabric wall hanging as a door prize. I forgot to photograph it by itself and only got a photo of April who won, holding it. I need to ask her permission to put the photo on here so you will have to wait to see it later. It turned out great though.
It was a fun day and good to see what everyone had done in each other's journals. Swaps make you stretch your creativity and go outside the box so to speak. I highly encourage people to do them but they are a lot of work.
We will be displaying our works of art at Stamp Asylum in December. The date is the 5th from 2:00pm - 4:00pm. So if you are in the area please come by for some refreshments and enjoy feeling and looking at all of our creations in person. It will be well worth your time.

Friday, November 13, 2009

New Moon Party Next Week

One of my best friend's is giving her daughter a New Moon Movie Party next week. On the 19th seven girls are meeting at her house to eat pizza and watch Twilight. Then later in the evening go to the theater to get in line with every other "crazy about Edward and Bella girl" to wait for midnight and the NEW movie New Moon to be shown. Then everyone is coming back to the house for a sleepover! I just hope I can stay up long enough to watch the complete movie at the theater. LOL
I made invitations, book marks, treat bag toppers, cupcake picks and tags for t-shirts for the event. Did you know there are rubber stamps for Twilight? Yep there is! Barnes and Noble has them if you need them.
Above are the toppers, bookmarks and cupcake picks.
This is the tags for the shirts and you can see still see the book marks. We all will be wearing matching t-shirts. FUN FUN FUN!! The girls also got rubber bracelets to wear. One of them says "runs with vampires".
Here is the invite. The words are printed on vellum then below is a picture of Bella, Edward and Jacob. It was fun to make all the items and I got lots of compliments on the invites.










Monday, November 9, 2009

Whimsical Christmas Card Class This Weekend


My class at Stamp Asylum still has a few openings left in it. Call the store to sign up 972 596-1224. It is on Saturday November 14th from 11:00am-1:30pm. Cost is $55.00 and you go home with 6 different cards for the holiday season. I supply everything so you do not even need your tool kit. Really great cards!

My Newest Book

This is the cover of my newest book published by Design Originals. This one is not all mine though, there are several other artist's projects inside. We were to use Tim Holtz products for making the samples. So that included any of his
Stampers Anonymous, Ranger, or Advantus lines of product. It was fun and my projects did make up part of the cover artwork. The doll, cabinet and dress form are mine.