This is the last of the collages in the challenge for my round robin! This collage came with step 2 completed and I was to finish it with step three , adding embellishments and completing the look! I love the quote-I hope the owner Karen does too! :0)

Things got ugly here in our little happy South Milwaukee last night! The winds were horrible and the snow predicted kept going from snow to rain, which created an icy, ice covered crunchy heavy wet mess on everything. The yards are litered with branches from the trees and some big ones too(in front of the bench).We have more snow and sleet coming today and it is just plain ugly out! We had shoveled late last night and this morning it was a glaze of ice over the snow that fallen...along with the branches that are frozen into the mess! WI. in the winter!

In the midst of our winter storm here, many mothies were born today! I have some rak-backs to take care of and a couple for special friends here, so I hope they will enjoy them! Thanks to Laura for sending me the cute little HAIR pieces, that adorn their heads! :0) Fun stuff! Hope your weather is better than ours here! Stay warm and hot chocoloate hugs! Patti

This is the collaborative collage round robin I am in! The background here, was created by the owner of the collage......Marilyn H. The second step was created by Kristen, and the third and final step in this collage was done by me! I wanted to show all the steps as we went along......this was a fun and interesting process, to see what others had done and try to compliment that! I looked at what Kristen did and found that her piece of a ruler there and ASPIRE tag.....took me to the quote, To measure a man, measure his heart! And from that I added the washers spray painted black with the word ART inside...and HE in front of that to spell HEart....and then the added stamping and I also gave him a crown and a heart! Had to do that! :0) I hope the owner Marilyn likes it!

My blog is glitching below! If I remove the html stuff.........that is appearing in my note to everyone, then 1/2 of the message disappears! So please excuse the crazy.......face blah blah, arial, number 33333 stuff, as that is the blog doing that .........at least my message is still there.......I wanted to be sure you knew who created these beautiful items! Jeanette and Jo! Fabulous! Hugs,Patti

Amber and I got the SWEETEST RAK

(Randome Act of Kindness) today from Jeanette(on the left)!! Ohhhhhhh this little mothie has a new loving home! Her wings are irridescent and she has a sweet beaded halo on her head.....her fibers and beautiful butterflies adorn her and that sweet flower and velvet leaf are there to remind Amber and I that SPRING is coming! What a wonderful little mothie surprise for us! Just precious! THANK YOU Jeanette! <3 face="arial" color="#333333">From Jo W, I received our 1/1 trade today also! What a wonderful artful mail day for me! :0) Jo has hand painted fabric as the body, with cheesecloth and other fabrics, beautiful hand stitching and findings added for jjjjjjjust the perfect touches! If you think these Mothies look happy ........you should see ME! Wheeeeeeeeee, I love them!!! I am one lucky girl to have such artsy kind friends!!! Yes yes!

The new background arrived today! This is it! I will be musing with it a bit and getting my images together to do the step 2 on this....and then I have two OTHER backgrounds coming for this round robin, where I will be doing step 3, which is adding embellishments! :0)

Well, this is the way I go......musing done and when the idea hits......run with it! This is my step two for the background! The quote says: Cherish your vision and your dreams as they are the children of your soul!

INCHIES: a one inch square of art, are the newest rage! You can go here......
http://dotslifeandart.blogspot.com/2006/12/1-collage-swap.html
and see what can be done once you gather enough inchies to make a collage...in a given color scheme or theme! This swap is a FABRIC inchie swap and the theme is WHITE! You cannot really see well what I have done, but I have two layers of fabric, and then the imageand art are head bonded on with fusible web and a small piece of lace at the bottom too! The bees are a metallic beads-- stitched on! They are really fun, but oh so small! :0) This is a 6 for 6 swap, so I will get back 6 different white ones to start my collage! I will be joining more of these for sure! Happy Fat Tuesday......yes I had a paczki(polish donut) today! Cheese filled!Mmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!

This is the second step in the round robin! I was to chose a main image and add stamping and whatever I wanted and the third person will continue and finish the embellishing! I stamped with black on the right edge, and gold brilliance (which does not show much) added the image, the vintage music sheet halo, the flowers and believe in yourself! I used some oil pastels around the halo too and added the rhinestones! The next person will finish it up! That was fun!

I received my first background for a collaborative rr that I am in with a yahoo group! The first person(owner) creates the background! The second person......ME on this one, creates the focal image and adds stamping etc! The thirld person...after me, will add embellishments and then it returns to the owner! I showed the backgrounds that I created for myself that I had to send out in a previous post! This is what I will create step two on! FUN!! I like this idea!!!!

Amber got spoiled today too!!!! She deserves every sweet tasting treat and pretty flower, and dancing monkey......but that is just a MOM talking!!! :0)

Look at the fantastic sweet treats Nikki (from work) made for each of us today for Valentine's Day! Isn't that something special?? There is everything on this platter, chocolate and carmel covered pretzels rods with nuts, chocolate covered cherries, truffles, a pecan round cookie sitting on a bed of chocolate, the heart cut out cookie dipped and drizzled, chocolate minicakes with as sweet rosette topping, a bag of granola and dried fruit mix tied with a pink bow, and blond bars with pretty Valentine M&M's on them! Just sooooo pretty and tastey too!!! :0) YUM!

Here we are this Happy Valentine's Day!! :0) Covered in WHITE! This is a shot of our house...shoveling the driveway onto those mounds is NOT easy......and then the other view is facing East and that is LAKE MICHIGAN this morning at the end of our block! Somewhat gray...today,but still an awe inspiring beautiful thing to wake up to each day! Those ducks are happy....they are in the little opening left to the pond that is in the parkway as I drive Amber to school! The one WHITE duck is an escapeY from a farm we think! The wild ducks are starting to accept him now! :0) Anyways, hope everyone has a love filled Valentine's Day! <3

These are 4"x4" pages for a swap on a yahoo group! The face is a transparency, stitched over foreign text, red and pink mulberry papers (Red and Pink is the theme this month) with some added stamping, and flower and brads! The words are also stamped from a large rubber stamp from Stampin' Up..and cut apart and added! These colors just get one in the mood for Valentine's day! <3

Two more simple Rak back cards for friends that I needed to catch up on! I love that sweet image of the two kids! Vintage images are such fun to work with! Basic Grey papers area favorite of mine and some sweet swirl stamps to finish it off!!!!

Here are two more Mothies for a Swap! Create 2 and get 2 back! This is Faith and Hope. Hope is light colored and more unusual for me, and yet my daughter Amber likes her best! She said she makes her see the sunshine...so I put a sun on her as well! I will upload a picture of Amber....under a blanket today, you will see why she is yearning for the sunshine!!! Brrrrrrrr! Hehehehe! We are still so vvvvvvery cold here, it is not nice!!!!! Blankets are our best friends!!!!!

This was an especially challenging swap for me! We received a grab bag of material from an unknown swap player. We were to take the items and create an art quiltie, whatever inspired us with what came in the baggie and we also could add a certain percentage of our own items, no smaller than 18x18 inches and no bigger than 24x24"! In my bag came this wonderful picture of the woman's Great Grandparents! It was printed on fabric, you can see the bag in the shots here! And their names where given and that the picture was taken in Slovenia! So from that, I went with my idea! They are sitting in the tree...with wings and the moon behind them is the map of Slovenia! I did free motion quilting on it, hand drew the tree and added all sorts of little touches until my muse told me to stop! It was fabulous and scary at the same time! We included an artist statement with the quiltie when we were told who to mail back to! This helped them see the process we went through and the thoughts that encompassed us as we created the piece for them! It was tremendous fun!
The quote I chose is.......What lies before us, and what lies behind us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us! I also sent a bag of fabric and got back a very wwonderful piece which I will post soon! Hugs,Patti

These are two altered cabinet cards for a Valentine Themed swap. I went with the young men who have their hearts on a young lady in the upper corner....that I sealed into an old finding of metal. The background has been sanded and lots of color applied with inks, and paint too, and papers. The quote on the bottom says........"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."

We have this switchplate on our wall when we walk in our door. It has 6 plugs.....and it was completely broken and old looking....you have to special order these if you want a new one, so I decided to collage mine with some fairies and see how that goes! I used napkinsand tissue paper in the background, the images, some fancy "hairy like" off white specialty papers, and then stamped around the edges with a swirl! Amber wanted a little glitz, so I added some rhinestones and metal charms.....now we have a one of a kind outlet! You cannot see the pieces that were broken either! I sealed it with diamond glaze! Fun stuff!!!!!!