Spare Time Designs by Stacie

A journal of my artful journey.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Made a move

Well, in keeping in line with the name of my website that I'm working on- I've moved my blog to a different address. Here's where I'll be now:

http://creativejunque.blogspot.com/

I've moved over all of my entries & turned off the comments on this blog. So come visit the new one! See you there ;-)

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Oh So Charming

Here's a sample of the charms that I made for Dawn's charm swap on Art.e.Zine. There are 25 for the swap. I started with a scrabble tile. Adhered paper from a vintage dictionary page then sealed it. Drilled my holes & added sealer. I added some color with various Caran d'Ache Neocolor II crayons then smuged and blended. Then sealed again. Then I added the image, and sealed again. Some images have accents of color from the crayons that are also sealed. The sides are finished with metallic paint pens. I needed large jump rings & I wanted them to be sturdy so I made them out of 18 g wire & work hardened them with a rawhide mallet, then tapped them with a hammer for decorative purposes. These were fun to make & I hope that people who get one will enjoy my charms.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Copper Hearts

This is a scan of the hearts link bracelet that I finished last week. It really looks nice on my wrist. I wanted to do it in copper first because I was having "issues" with the jump rings. First they were too small & it didn't lay flat, then they were too big & they stuck up too high. Then they were just right. As soon as I finished this, I started a silver one. I think I'll add a couple more links to this & turn it into an anklet. Maybe a bead danglie by the clasp too. And in my typical "overdoing" it, I've got plenty of heart links left. In silver & copper. I like copper, it's got a very warm feel to it.

Seriously I need to stop scanning the jewelry & take photographs. LOL. But the scanning is so much faster. I have another bracelet made. I'll try to photograph it today. If not, I'll scan it tonight.

I'm not really sure why this picture seems so small. If you click it you can get a bigger view.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Forty Two

Today is my birthday & in a way that seems kind of old when I write it like that. LOL. But I only feel old sometimes ;-) Went on a bit of a shopping spree today & had some yummy chocolates after my delicious steak dinner. It was a nice day. No art to post though- didn't do any.......didn't do any laundry today either so that's a good thing!

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Happy New Year


I love the new year. I tend to spend the first couple weeks of the year (up till my b-day) reflecting on the year past & planning for the year ahead. Still in that mode I guess. And watching my DH work on his website so much really makes me want to add some finishing touches to my own so that I can share the address with my friends & family. Right now it's just too......empty. LOL. Anyway- I needed to post my lottery entry to the group so I thought I'd post it here too. I scanned it instead of photographing it (I'm on a deadline here & taking the picture, playing with lighting.....it would just be late!), so it looks a little wonky to me. (They are both circles, not wonky like the one on the left looks in the picture) A pair of sterling silver hoop earrings, hammered for stability. The theme was winter & I thought the colors of the beads with the silver helped convey that. At least winter in my mind. LOL. Realistically- it was 82ยบ today. Doesn't feel much like winter. I digress.....
I'm working on a bracelet right now. I'll post when I've finished it. LOL- just remember that there's a bunch of different projects going on in here so I'll probably finish something else first.

Friday, December 29, 2006

Geeze.....Another one?


Yup, more on the Paris theme. LOL. I might have mentioned that there's decos going around in round robin style & they've all got the same theme. Honestly I did this one weeks ago. But a dear friend mentioned that I'm not updating my blog enough so I thought I'd post a pic of this. Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays so far. After New Year's I think that things will get back to normal around here.

The background was some hand painted paper. There's an old postage stamp from France & some french text. The picture & some scrap paper, the eiffel tower cut out is leftover from my chunky pages, then a bit of ink & some neocolor crayon for the blueish. I love those things ;-)

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Pendants & Herringbone





Lately I've been bitten by the jewelry bug again. There are some things that I want to learn & some techniques that I want to do over & over again (until they're second nature to me). So I've dug out my jewelry things & have been playing a bit. Well- until the whole family got sick- that's not left me with much time. Although I've got a lot to learn, I still thought I'd post some pix. LOL- Easier said than done. These little buggers are hard for me to get a good shot of, I'm not a very good photographer to start with. So, blurry pix aside- here's a few. Quite a diverse group I know. I'm thinking I need more beads- LOL. Actually there IS a class that I want to take next month, we'll have to see how it goes. Until then I'll just keep on playing as time permits.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Remember Paris

Here's a preview of my pages for the Paris Chunky book on BookArtz. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. Acrylics for the background, inks, reproduction of a vintage postcard, vintage paper from a dictionary, more acrylics & neocolor II crayon. I'm excited about this book. I just love chunky books. The thrill of opening the envelope & looking through the book over & over just soaking in all the details & the love that went into the pages. Sigh.....I'm looking forward to this.

Just posted a mini book swap on BookArtz tonight. I love to have a reason to make a book, otherwise I don't seem to make the time for it. But that was the point of posting the swap- many people that I know are like that.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Teeny Tiny Collage

After seeing these tiny 1 x 1 collages on Christi's Blog- I just had to give it a go. Boy oh boy.....this is small! There's not much room for anything & I found the hardest part to be- cutting out the images. When time permits.....I'll make more. ;-) I see them popping up on various blogs so I'm sure I'll be swapping them soon. It is certainly a great way to use up scraps! And I need that since I save even the tiniest pieces.

Saturday, September 30, 2006

More Paris


My mind has entered a fantasy world for a little while. Well not so much fantasy because I did have the good fortune of visiting the city of lights when I was younger, in the early 80's. It was a long time ago. But.....my mind gets to go back there because of some projects that I have coming up. A Paris Chunky book, which I have been painting backgrounds for the last few days. And a deco RR with the same theme. I know.....normally I don't like deco RR's, but it's on BookArtz & some wanted to do a deco but have never done one before- so that's the way it was set up. Here's my deco.

Did you ever finish a project then want to change something? For some reason I thought that piece of paper should overlap the black piece......till I was done, now I don't like it. But it was too late to change it. Now I know next time I won't do that! ;-) But I did like all the layering on this.

The binding was new for me but I really liked it. I've got another one started but it's on the back burner right now so I'll just work on it when I'm in the mood. Really want to finish this chunky book first.