Somerset Life's Tart Tin Challenge

Hi guys! I loooove the whole group of Stampington's Somerset magazines! They are total eye candy and inspirational. They are $15 each so I have to control myself a bit. If you are not familiar, go to their website at www.stampington.com and prepare to spend some cash! They have back issues and faboo art supplies..love their site. Anywhoo..one of my goals for this year was to submit something to one of their wonderful magazines. I saw the tart tin challenge in Somerset Life and figured it was right up my alley. I made a bunch of tin ornaments last year when I ran across an old stash of vintage tin can lids at a sale. Old tin is much shinier than new. Alas, I used up my supply! Earlier this spring, I got the idea to substitute old tart tins for the lids. I already had some of these made when I saw the challenge posted in their magazine! Yay! Anyways..the basic instructions are that I hammer the tins flat, snip them with tin shears ( an accident waiting to happen..cut tin is as sharp as a knife!) and bend them to the shapes I want. I add old photographic images from my stash (one of these is also from the Graphics Fairy) glitter, beads, old chandelier prisms and vintage metal Christmas tree reflectors on some for a pop of color. I finish them off with a vintage taffeta ribbon to hang.
The tart tin theme made me think of the old nursery rhyme"The Queen of Hearts" so that is the direction these ended up going.
This guy is cuuuuute! He looked like a lady's man so I dubbed him the Knave of Hearts.
I found an interesting button in my stash to incorporate.
This little guy's image is from an antique tintype I have. This one reminded me of some sort of antique memorial piece. I added antique German text from a bible study book and a polymer textured heart bead I made.
I hand tint all my images to add a bit of color.
I have 2 Queen of Hearts, this is the French one..
This is the Graphics Fairy image.
The other Queen of Hearts..
I really like this pic. I found her in an antique store in South Dakota last year.
These are more Asian inspired.
I have some antique Japanese cabinet cards that I love to "play" with.
Different shaped tart tins make a different shaped final piece.
She is one of my favorite images..I love her parasol.
I made this flower brooch clip to top my package that I put the ornaments in. I love making flowers from alternative materials. The center is an orphan vintage Weiss earring and the "leaves" are mercury glass Christmas garland beads. I wrapped my box in color copies of playing cards and glued a copy of the Queen of Hearts nursery rhyme under the lid. The ribbon was hand stamped with the nursery rhyme text. I wanted it to catch their eye and have noticed from reading the magazine that they appreciate over the top packaging..I should have taken a picture! I don't know if I will get a magazine feature or not but I had fun making these (obviously, I could not just make one!) I feel better for crossing one of my goals off my list too! I submitted a wreath for their newspaper challenge also, and I will post that later. Thanks for stopping by! Til next time! Julia

Sturgis Bike Week 2011

Last week I flew to Denver and met up w/ my sister Janet and her friend from work Judy. We packed Janet's little red Chevy HHR (like a PT Cruiser) and set off for Sturgis South Dakota to meet my other 4 sisters for a sisters week. We had to make difficult choices..beer cooler or lawn chairs? Beer cooler or lawn chairs...BEER COOLER! We met up with the other 4 sisters at our campground for the week Hog Heaven. I must totally recommend this place. It was grassy and shaded by trees and had many nooks and crannies to pitch your tents. There were good bath/shower houses, they cleaned the porta potties daily (yay!) and the food was good and HUGE. I got nachos supreme one day and 3 of us couldn't finish it and I was starving! They came in an 8x10 pan! Also good coffees every morning and the other campers were the quiet, non scary sort. We spent the week laughing our heads off, shopping, and hit the bars every night. This is little old me who never goes out anymore so I was a bit tired when the week was done and my feet were killing me! I know we walked 5+ miles every day. I wore my shoes out and had to buy a new pair!
This lovely little joint was the Dungeon bar. The walls are covered with graffiti and the ceilings are covered with bras and underpants of former customers..thank goodness they did not serve food!
The graffiti was amazing to me..it covered every square inch of the place.
Here I am looking rather hammered, but it is really just that I am not very photogenic and when I smile, my eyes turn into catty little slits. Now this is NOT my regular outfit for the grocery store or the post office, but when in Rome..yada, yada, yada..I am the oldest sister and at almost 49, I had the joy of trying to keep up with all my younger, thinner, firmer sisters! "Hoist yer main sails Ladies!" LOL
This was the Loud American bar. The bars were packed every night and they all had bands..it was great.
Post bar food....It smelled great but by this point I had the hiccups and passed on the food!(Then I ate off my sister's plates and the hiccups went away!)
This is Deadwood. I really loved the old architecture there.
Random people on the street..
This is inside the bar where Wild Bill Hickock was shot..fab back bar and tin ceilings!
More Deadwood..
Parked bikes..there were thousands of bikes parked and driving by.
Ok..I have a thing for old buildings!
This is John, a guy from England we met. He was camping at the Buffalo Chip next to one of my brothers-in-law and he adopted him. He was quiet and sweet and danced like one of the kids from Charlie Brown..his feet never moved and he bopped his upper body about and just never quit smiling! He flew to Denver and rented a Harley and drove to Sturgis all alone. We were impressed by his spirit. I asked him about it and he said his friends weren't into bikes as much as he was and he had recently gotten divorced after 15 years and was now doing whatever he wanted to! LOL
The Oasis..we were in here a couple times. One afternoon a couple of the sisters entertained us with their Karaoke singing!
The Buffalo CHIIIIIIIPPPP! That is how the dude that runs it would say it when he was onstage at the concert. We stayed one night here and went to Buck Cherry and Def Leppard. The Chip is a huuuge campground..no shade..questionable portapotties and crazy people. They partied, screamed and reved their bikes nonstop all night long. Fun but not restful!
My sis Laura, Judy , me in red, my BIL's friend Dave and my sis Janet at Def Leppard. She is a huge fan and had a VIP pass to get right up front. She sees them as many times as she can. I like Def Leppard..a blast from my illspent youth, but they were a bit rough vocally on some of the songs. Buck Cherry I had seen before and they were as good as ever..I think Josh has some new tatts since the last time I saw their show!
The bikes were parked right in the crowd and there were thousands of them there. If they liked a song or wanted an encore, they just started rev-ving them up..it was insanely loud and totally cool! Judy got to sit on the biker next to us's handlebars..she had fun!
My 2 youngest sisters Jess and Aron
Here we are at the Full Throttle at Ted Nugent. To say Ted is right wing is like saying the sun is hot, but DAMN can he and his band still rock it! They sounded fabulous. This is me & my sisters Andrea and Janet
The Full Throttle was huge and packed..there were thousands of people..and 30 portapotties..baddddddddd. The line was 3 blocks long, it was ridiculous. People stopped buying beer because they didn't want to have to get back in that line! Bad business practice..they needed twice as many at least. I also had the joy of not quite getting my door latch slid to occupied and had the door ripped open by a burly biker. I may have shreiked a bit..or a lot..
Uncle Ted..the man is crazy.
This was a tiny portion of the bar..packed.
A couple bartenders.
Main Street Sturgis..bikes for blocks and blocks.
Judy found a man! She was the only single lady and anytime we were hit on we would tell her to "take one for the team"..she wasn't very cooperative! We did have a semi stalker in the form of a 65 yr old dude named Fitzie who owns 3 liquor stores and 3 convenience stores in Atlanta. He was funny and naughty and just kept popping up where ever we went. We decided he must have put a tracking device on one of us!
Not sure that I will have a return trip as I am not much of a camper..ok..this was my first time in a tent..and by the number of times I mentioned the word "porta potty" you may have come to the rightful conclusion that they are NOT my fav (or even close). It was great fun though with my sisters..soooo much laughing. I shared a tent w/ my sis Janet and her air mattress had a slow leak so every night she aired it up and every morning we were bottomed out in the middle like a double hot dog! It was damp and cold at night..I usually wore my clothes to bed and one night, my coat. I did survive though and made it back home in one piece, back to no sisters close except on facebook and my loving family who missed me as much as I did them. I told my husband he is officially the best brother in law of the lot. My 8 yr old Jack said he was" broken hearted and was missing a piece of his soul" while I was gone..such drama! LOL Now back to my officially boring mom life..and I love it! Til next time! Julia

Out Behind the Barn

Hi guys! I have been soooo bad lately about posting! I have been busy working on some pieces to submit to one of my fav magazines, Somerset Life. If you haven't seen any of Stampington Company's gorgeous magazines, hie yourself to the book store ( or internet www.stampington.com)! More on that later. This odd looking pic above is one I took on "vacation" at my folks this summer. When I was little, the grain elevator in town was the tallest thing for miles around..still is! You can see it from my dad's farm and I was always comforted to know my grampa and gramma's house was just a few blocks to the south of it. When you say "elevator" in South Dakota, this is what you are talking about. The only people elevator was (is) in the court house that is all of 4 stories counting the basement. It was a big deal as a little kid to ride that elevator whenever we happened to be in the building. I seem to recall a crabby little old lady who worked there giving us the stink eye. Anyhoo..I still have a soft spot for the GRAIN elevator and took a few pics.
The cement part was the original part but they have added some huge metal bins in the last 10 years or so.
They are just so big and silver and purdy! LOL This below is the back of my dad's barn. It used to hold lots of sheep and the occasional cow and calf but now that they are retired it holds barn cats. They tinned this back side quite awhile back..it takes quite a beating from the north winter winds. There is a big door under that tin at the top. We spent many hours in the hayloft building forts out of the bales and swinging on the rope swing. It has a ladder mounted on the wall in one of the bunks and you have to climb up, open the trap door and make a leap of faith as you transfer your grip from the ladder to a crack in the loft floor and hoist yourself up.
Not for the faint of heart or the "little kids". If you were too chicken to do it, you didn't get to come up. The climb down was even a bit more nerve wracking as you had to drop yourself back down the trapdoor and back onto the ladder. I had one sister who would get up there and then always wanted us to "go get daddy" to "save" her. We spent hours playing in this barnyard and the pasture out behind it playing "Laura Ingalls" and Little House on the Prairie. I always got stuck being Mary who was either bossy and Miss Perfect or blind depending on the story of the day. We always had 2 Laura's if my cousin Becca was over ..neither she or my sister Janet would give in and NOT be Laura.
My mom and dad have resided most of this barn themselves just lately and it makes me nervous as hell to hear my mom talk about it..they are 74 and 70!
Some of the new siding..
The front. I love this one and the next one..I need to get them enlarged and framed.
So many memories! My dad's shop is the sliding door to the left. I always have to go in there and poke around when I am back and just SMELL things..that unique scent of barn, wood and grease.
This used to be the chicken coop back when we had chickens and there is also a grainary section. It has sort of been let go and dad was making noises about knocking it down but I told him noooo! We used to go up in the grain bins on hot days and play in the wheat. It was always cooler and we buried each other in it like we were at the beach. You didn't play in the oats bin..way too itchy!
I was messing around with weird angles.
My mom used to feed the barn cats in here and one of my nephews when he was about 3 came into the kitchen and loudly announced with his 3 yr old speech impediment that gramma "Had titties in the titty barn!" My brother's in law all laughed and asked here what kind of place she was running!
This one is a fave too. Tomarrow I leave for the Sturgis Bike Rally. All 5 of my younger sisters are going also and we are going to camp and go to concerts and laugh and drink and tell and re-tell stories . Girls trip only! I will be away from home for 10 days and am both excited and dismayed to be leaving my husband and kids at home. I have never been away from my grandson who just turned 3 for more than a day! It will be a rude awaking for the rest of my crew I believe. I think they think I sit about eating bon bons all day. I will take pics and I shall return with stories to share! Hope you have a great week! Til next time. Julia