Romance Magnets and Back to School for Yvonne

Here are some new items available in my Etsy store.

The marble magnets combine two things I love: Fluffy romance novels and making collage magnets. I used text from one of my own previously read fluffy romance novels as I made the magnets. I have to admit that I also read the book again (at least the good parts!) as I was searching for the perfect words to match the images. Once again, the images for the magnets were from takeabreak's Flickr page.





Below, we have Yvonne again. You may remember her from her day as the Queen of the 4th of July Parade. Now she's heading back to school. And she's not very excited. Poor Yvonne. At least she has a cool lunchbox and some fun new dresses!

La Dama's Christmas in July Gift-a-Way

Hello, everybody. And a Merry Christmas in July to you all!

I know that a lot of people are shocked to already find Halloween items in our favorite craft stores, and in some ways, I feel the same way. However, I love Christmas and I really am ready to start thinking about it now. So, I'm going to start celebrating now by having a gift-a-way for you all, my friends. On July 25th, I will have a drawing for 3 lucky people to win something handcrafted by me. All you have to do to enter the drawing is to leave a comment to this post about what you would like for Christmas (and if you also tell me what items I make that you like, if you win, I can tailor your present to your likes!). This contest is open to close friends and family members as well to people whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting.

So, let's get in the holiday spirit. And to all, a good night!

Queen of the 4th of July Parade

Happy 4th of July, everybody!

This little collage idea just came to me about two hours ago. It's amazing how sometimes I'll go days and weeks (or even longer!) without creating something and then BAM!! inspiration hits and I can't wait to play. This is my first holiday inspired collage.

I first started thinking about making a collage with a picture of a child holding a sparkler and then I started looking for an appropriate picture. I stumbled across this little girl, Yvonne, on divas and dunces Flickr photostream and she called to me. I thought that she would look fabulous with not only a sparkler in her hand but an American flag in her other hand as well. The background is a copy of "America the Beautiful" and cool papers. I colored Yvonne's dress with chalks and enhanced it with a gold pen. Her flag is made of an image I found online and a toothpick while her sparkler is hand-drawn (that's about the extent of my drawing ability!). The buttons are ones that my mother-in-law let me have, and the trims are from Marilyn at Outside the Lines (check out her Etsy shop; it has lots of fun things to create with). Um, as I finished up, I knew that the little girl would need a crown, but I don't know where my little crowns are, so, I, um, took one off an ATC I got awhile back. *gulp* Sorry! As soon as I find my crowns, I'll put it back, I swear, but Yvonne needed a crown!

So, I hope you enjoy your 4th of July, if it's a holiday you celebrate. If it isn't, I still hope you have a lovely day!

These magnets are now available in my Etsy shop. Keep your eyes out for more fun-filled items.

"House in the Sky" Collage

"House in the Sky" Collage
Originally uploaded by La Dama de Collage

I'm not really sure if I'm done with this collage, but I really like it the way it is now, so I'm going to leave it for a little bit and then go back and decide if it needs any other embellishments to finish it up.

This collage definately started with the picture. I found this picture on *Playingwithbrush's Flickr photostream and it really stuck with me. I thought about it a lot before I started working with it. I then decided that each of the girls (and the dog!) needed a crown, so I printed off the crown transparencies from jack and cat curio's Flickr photostream and then colored in the opposite side with a gold American Crafts Metallic Marker. I then adhered them to a piece of cardboard that I had covered with a sheet of Amy Butler scrapbook paper and then added the text from a vintage children's book which I aged with chalk ink.

So, like I said, I'm not sure I'm done with this one, but, for now, I like it!

My Kissing Blocks

Several weeks ago, I bought a box of 100 1.5" wooden blocks from Twice-Round Beads and More's Etsy Shop. I thought they might be fun to play with. And they are! I've just made my first set of collage blocks. They're the smallest canvas (for lack of a better word) that I've used in my art. I've thought about inchies for a long time now, but I've never made any. Maybe now that I've made my "kiss" blocks, I'll be adventurous and make some inchies. But here are my "Kiss" blocks:

Hmm, it looks like Blogger isn't letting me upload my image due to an "internal error." So, here's the link to it on Flickr.

I started these by painting them first. I then chose four different pieces of coordinating scrapbook paper and traced, cut, and glued the pieces to the blocks. The images are from takeabreak's Flickr page. I then adhered the letter stickers to the blocks along with some other embellishments. And now I have a fun little set of blocks for my bookshelf. Maybe I should put some of my fluffy romances on one shelf and use these to decorate that shelf. Hmm, sounds like fun!

"Direction" and "Breathe" Art Journal Pages

Well, May didn't seem like it was flying by when I was still pregnant and wondering when I was going to have that baby, but looking at my art journal, my last page was done on May 1st and I still haven't blogged about it. "Direction" was my word from the Art Journal Challenge Flickr Group. This page didn't turn out quite like I wanted because the paint pen wouldn't work. But I do like the legs without bodies walking down the golden path.

This is my "Breathe" page for the Art Journal Challenge Flickr Group . It's mostly done with Sharpies with a photo of the baby, a piece of torn scrapbook paper, and the word "breathe" rubber stamped to finish it off. It's my first art journal page that I didn't paint. And everything except the Sharpie coloring was done standing up since I don't have a place at my table right now to do anything. Believe it or not, I'm actually almost done organizing my stuff...but the table is still covered. I don't get it.