One Color Crayon Challenge: My Purple Went Exotic

Here she is...my little tribute to the purple crayon:

I think it looks like some sort of tile or carpet from an exotic land.  I created a kaleidoscope image in Photoshop Elements using an original painting and a Kim Klassen texture.Here's a little background on the hop...~Sally Russick decided to host a little monochromatic challenge on her Studio Sublime blog.

~ She invited 65 of us to pick one of eight basic crayon colors:  red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown or black.

~ Then, we had to create a monochromatic design with the color we picked...focusing on a few or a lot of that color's hues.

~ The cool part is that it's not just about jewelry...she opened it up to any medium!  That's what got me started thinking about painting and mixed media

I pulled out everything I have in my arts and crafts supplies that could be anything close to purple.  I posted about that earlier this week.  I spent lot of time with ink and acrylics coming up with some cool designs.  My favorite ended up being this one:

After studying it and thinking about using it as the background of a collage, I decided to go down a different path and try something I've been wanting to do for a while:  make a kaleidoscope image.  I used this tutorial from the Scrapper's Guide that I found a few months ago.  I was scared to try it, but it ended up being pretty easy and I'm tickled with the end result.

There are 64 other blogs to check out today...see how many took the deep dive into just one color!

hosted by: Sally Russick  http://thestudiosublime.com Purple Tracy Mok   http://bumblebeadsdesigns.blogspot.com Jennifer Judd Velasquez http://jenjuddrocks.blogspot.com Marti Conrad  http://marticsclay.blogspot.com Lori Anderson  http://prettythingsblog.com Donna Bradley  http://strandedbeads.blogspot.com Courtney Breul  http://beadsbybreul.blogspot.com Linda Younkman   http://lindysdesigns.blogspot.com Susan Kennedy  http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com Lisa Liddy   http://Lisaliddy.wordpress.com Tracy Stillman  http://www.tracystillmandesigns.com Dawn Doucette  http://designsbydawnmarie.blogspot.com Red Therese Frank  http://theresestreasures59.blogspot.com Rochelle Brisson  http://acreativechelle.blogspot.com Lisa Lodge   http://pineridgetreasures.blogspot.com Malin de Koning  http://beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com Bobbie Rafferty   http://beadsong.blogspot.com Orange Linda Landig  http://LindasBeadBlog.com Cherrie Fick  http://designsinthelight.com Beth McLarnan http://threetrees-art.blogspot.com Cece Cormier  http://thebeadingyogini.com Renetha Stanziano   http://lamplightcrafts.blogspot.com Tanya Goodwin  http://pixiloo.blogspot.com Jean Welles  http://jeanawells.blogspot.com Amy Severino   http://amybeads.blogspot.com Rebekah Payne   http://treewingsstudio.com Lola Surwillo  http://.beadlolabead.blogspot.com Judy Turner   http://silver-rains.blogspot.com  Yellow Jennifer Justman  http://soulsfiredesigns.blogspot.com Rose Brisson    http://ahteesblog.blogspot.com Kim Bender  http://www.kimmykats.com/ Heather Powers   http://humblebeads.blogspot.com Shelly Joyce  http://www.aujourlejour-shelly.blogspot.com Blue Cherie Reed  http://creativedesignsbycheri.blogspot.com Rebecca Anderson  http://songbeads.blogspot.com Hope Smitherman  http://craftyhope.blogspot.com Patti Vanderbloemen  http://myaddictionshandcrafted.blogspot.com Michelle Buettner  http://MiShelDesigns.blogspot.com Alicia Marinache  http://allprettythings.ca Charissa Sloper   http://blog.obsidiansoda.com Sonya Stille  http://dreaminofbeads.blogspot.com Maria Grimes  http://mariagrimes.blogspot.com Nancy Saccoccio  http://risingdesigns.blogspot.com Sandi Volpe   http://sandivolpe.com Joanne Tinley  http://daisychaindesignsjewellery.blogspot.com Catherine Pruitt  http://boobeads.blogspot.com  Green Mary Harding  http://maryhardingjewelrybeadblog.blogspot.com Karin Gilman http://www.qaygee.blogspot.com/ Jayne Capps   http://mamasgottodoodle.blogspot.com Lorelei Eurto  http://lorelei1141.blogspot.com Melissa Meman http://melissameman.blogspot.com Alice Peterson  http://alice-dreaming.blogspot.com Jenny Davies Reazor   http://www.jdaviesreazor.com Cynthia Machata    http://antiquitytravelers.blogspot.com Melissa Essenburg  http://chinookdesigns.blogspot.com Regina Santerre  http://reginaswritings.blogspot.com Lauren Streets  http://ornthoughts.wordpress.com Elizabeth Auld  http://beadsforbusygals.com Brown Diana Ptaszynski   http://suburbangirlstudio.com Shannon Chomanczuk  http://formysweetdaughter.blogspot.com/ Janice Everett   http://JLynnJewels.blogspot.com Karen Williams  http://Baublicious.blogspot.com Black Kashmira Patel  http://sadafulee.blogspot.com Heidi Post  http://expostfactojewelry.blogspot.com/ Birgitta Lejonklou  http://lejonklou.blogspot.com/ Holly Westfall  http://silverrosedesigns.blogspot.com/ Karin Slaton  http://backstorybeads.blogspot.com

One Purple Crayon Preparation

Purple.  I like it.  It's a good color.  I picked it as my "one crayon" in Sally R.'s challenge that's due to post on Saturday.  So, for the last several weeks, I've been focused on purple.  I want to go mixed media...not just jewelry.  So, I started with some painting.

I actually had a ton of liquid media in purple--ink, markers, and dye.  But, alas, I needed an excuse to run to Michael's late on a Saturday night so I decided to try some acrylics and bought about a dozen different hues of purple.  I then went to town with some experiments on several different surfaces.  Determined that I'm a bigger fan of paper and watercolor-y-inky styles than acrylics.  But, that being said, I have some kinda cool effects to use as backgrounds that I was able to come up with on some wood pieces.  Now I just have to figure out where to go from here.

I made a few sketches and then went shopping in my second-bedroom/craft-disaster-room for anything I could find that's some version of purple.  I was able to come up with a pretty significant stack of goodness which, of course, has been piled up on my kitchen counter now for two weeks.  Apparently if I look at it 50 times a day it will inspire me more.  Uh, not exactly.  

 Instead I just take pictures of the pile and dust around it.  All those round shapes and soft yard and ribbon edges make me want to do something linear.  Is that strange?  I found that while I was in my collage class at Art & Soul a few weeks ago that I tend to put things in straight lines.  I guess it's a throwback (or throwover, since it's still there) to my military side.  We tend to line things up in straight lines.  Or, for those of us who've been around a while, we used to...nowadays the youngsters aren't quite so straight and narrow.  haaaaaaaaaa  Now that I'm over 20 years, I can talk like that. 

 Anyway, I'm excited to sit down with this mishmashmosh of goodies and see what comes out.  Think amethyst rocks, bright purple coils, and a delicious painted background.  Will it work?

Crawfish and Yuengling

I spent yesterday laughing.  Seriously laughing.  I haven't laughed like that in ages. 

My lovely friends, Tommy & Dyann, celebrate their ties to Lousiana several times a year with a huge crawfish boil.  They are always fun events as we dig through giant tables of crawfish pulling handfuls of spicy goodness out of those little tails.  

There's something simply joyful about spicy, juicy hands holding on to a crumpled up paper towel and a cold plastic cup of beer.

 Yuengling always makes me think of home, so it was nice to see a big ass keg of it.  We were having some trouble with the tap, though, it wasn't pumping very smoothly so I went on a hunt for some WD40.  I couldn't find any, but Dyann came through with her suggestion to use Pam on it.  The boys standing around nearby were skeptical and wondered about the potential butter-flavor impact, but it worked beautifully!  

Tommy cooked up over 200 pounds of crawfish and all the fixin's.  There were about six rounds of them, I think...I lost track.  He orders them up from Louisiana and they're alive when they get here.  In prep for the pot, they go through a bath step and that's the part all the kids were loving.  They basically got to fish for them in a big tub.  I'm not sure how many kids were traumatized when they saw their new friends go into the boiling water.  

I just couldn't find the wherewithal to actually suck on the heads.  I know it's the best juice, but if chunks come out with it, I get a little grossed out.  I'm not the only one who felt that way as we sat and picked and cleaned these babies to get out a little bit of perfect meat.  I used the heads, instead, as props for my little iPhone photo shoot.  :)

 After a certain point in the day...and into the evening...we were laughing so hard that I actually had to take a knee in the muddy grass.  Then, I thought that was so funny I actually took a picture of my one dirty knee.  haaaaaaaaaaaa  

My bud, Crackin', took this shot as I got ready to enjoy the last lemon cupcake.  These cupcakes were handcrafted by my friend, Vanessa, and she is an icing goddess.  Seriously.  It's the best icing ever.  She said these were an experiment and they ended up being a complete success...so much so that I carried this last cupcake around for 15 minutes just so no one else would get it.   

Then, after the damage was done I took this shot and call it:  "sadness"  haaaaaaaaaaaaa  

A lonely, empty cupcake cup.  I think that's going to be my shot of the week.

I wish I had one of those cupcakes right now. :)  But, I couldn't really enjoy it because my abs still hurt from the laughing...and that is a wonderful feeling.

Macro Sunday...You'll Never Guess

It's my fave close-up shot of the week.  Wanna know what it is?

The lint from my hairdryer!  haaaaaaaaaaa

I know it's kinda gross, but when I pulled it out to clean it there was a pretty spiral pattern of pink fuzz. I couldn't resist getting a shot of it.  I have bright pink towels that have been a complete lint nightmare even two years later.


Enjoy my lint and have a fabulous week!