Donna B Miller

Tag: I'm It

My dear friend and fellow SBG Crew member, the LovelyMissKait, has tagged me with the following message:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here goes, you can check out Kait's blog and see her lovely layouts at LovelyMIssKait's Place.

Seven Random Facts About Me

1. I'm the oldest of five girls. We were all teenagers at the same time. My poor parents!
2. I was once editor of "Kentucky Living" magazine.
3. I just illustrated the book cover for Patti Digh's "Life is a Verb" (now available for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
4. I love the color yellow.
5. I met my husband in journalism school.
   
6. I have a collection of about 300 Kentucky cookbooks.
7. I once worked as a butcher's assistant.
   

If you have a chance, please check out the following blogs.

1. Jen Ulasiewicz Designs
2. Greetings from Robin
3. Canay's Corner
4. Helen's Journal
5. Melissa Scraps
6. DecoMom's Dalliance
7. Kori's Lilac Dreams
   

Life is a Verb: My First Book Cover

I've been dying to tell all of you about my most-recent project, but I had to keep mum until all the details were worked out. I've designed my first book cover! And it's going to be on the shelves of your local bookstore this fall.

The fabulous Patti Digh, writer of the award-winning blog 37 Days, and her editor at Globe-Pequoit asked me to design the cover for Patti's new book, "Life is a Verb."  It's a wonderful collection of 37 essays on how to live a joyful and meaningful life. It's illustrated with ATCs from artists all over the world. It's truy an honor to be a part of such a wonderful project.

So you can imagine my excitement when I received a copy of the finished cover in my e-mail yesterday.

LIFE IS A VERB is already available for pre-order at a discount on Amazon. It will also be available for order on the 37 Days website in the coming weeks.

Finding Inspiration In the Stars

Kim Gabriel, my quirky co-host of the Frameworthy challenge at Scrapbookgraphics, has chosen the Zodiac Series by Carolyn Quan for our inspiration this week. You can check out Quan's gallery here.

With a birthday in January, I will be trying to put together a Capricorn piece. Here's my Quan inspiration.

I've been on the Internet looking for resources to use in my work. If you feel like playing along, you might want to check out these Zodiac freebies.

Janita at Seishido.biz  offers Written in the Stars Photoshop brushes, which includes large brushes for each sign.

Kirsty at 500 ML also offers Zodiac brushes, featuring 24 different brushes.

There are several fonts that focus on astrology, including KR Astro Font and  AstroGadget. Both are available at Dafont.

You can even download free  Zodiac clip art at PC World.

I'm really looking forward to seeing some out-of-this-world art in the gallery this week.

Finding Inspiration: Maggie Taylor

I'm so lucky to be one of the hosts of Scrapbookgraphics' weekly Frameworthy challenge. I love sharing some of my favorite artists with the challenge participants. This week, I selected the oh-so-talented Maggie Taylor as our inspiration. Taylor produces prints by scanning objects into a computer using a flatbed scanner, then layering and manipulating these images using Photoshop to create a surrealistic montage. The resulting work is full of vivid colors and magical images.

I found my inspiration in her work Crazy Faith. The photo she used in this delightful piece reminded me of a similar photo of my great grandfather. Living in rural Kentucky, and trying to make a living during the Depression must have been incredibly difficult. I've entitled my piece, A Hard Day's Night.

Photos of sky, landscape, and lightning from stock.xchng. Photo of building from Stephanie O'Neill's Simpler Days stock photo kit; overlay from Sausan's Pixies Overlays. Font is Goudy.

Fun Friday Freebie: Online Word Processing

I'm really excited about one of Adobe's newest projects, an online word processor called Buzzword.

Buzzword is web-based. That means the document you are editing is not stored on your personal computer, but rather, on secure servers. You can access your document from any computer, anywhere.

And, this is the beautiful part, it's designed so that you can easily share these documents with editors, other designers and artists, and friends and family.  It's ideal for collaborations -- you can work together with others to create, comment on, revise and publish your documents, without the need to e-mail back and forth.

And the artist in me loves how easily you can insert pictures of your work. What an ideal way to share ideas for articles, books, and exhibits.

To use Buzzword, simply go to www.buzzword.com and click "Sign Up" to open your free Buzzword account.

One Photo: Dozens of Interpretations

The Stock Photo Challenge is back at Digital Art Quirks. The idea is simple. Members take turns choosing a stock photo for others to use in their art. Past challenge photos have included everything from melting ice cubes to mosaic tiles to rust. This week was one of the easier ones. The challenge was to use a photo of an old notebook, uploaded to stock.xchng by Stefanie. L.

I ended up doing an art journal page, using lyrics from the Paula Cole song, Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

Photos of journal, boots and horseshoe are from stock.xchng. All other papers and elements are from Kathryn Balint's Little Jake kit.

If you'd like to participate in this week's challenge, you'll find the assignment here.

Just Plain Silliness

The theme for the December ATC swap at Digital Art Quirks was "What's Black and White and Red All Over?" All the stupid responses to this riddle ran through my head (a newspaper, a blushing nun, a skunk that's been run over), but I finally settled on the sun-burnt zebra.

Zebra and sunglass images from stock.xchng. Word labels made at Atomic Cupcake.

I had even more fun doing the back of the card.

Stock.xchng image; Lisa Dozier ATC Build a Card brushes; JSL Ancient font.

Fun Friday Freebies: Holiday Fonts

Just four more days till Christmas. The presents are bought and wrapped, but my house is a mess and I still have lots of baking to do. So what am I doing? Working on a new art project, of course.

Kathryn Balint just released the Little Jake collection, and I couldn't wait to begin a new art journal using it. If you like vintage, be sure to check it out. In addition to the beautiful floral papers and elements shown below, the collection also includes a vintage alpha, an amazing torn journal, and a set of stamps.

For this week's Fun Friday Freebies, I've been searching the web for holiday fonts. Here are some of my favorites.

For just plain pretty, you can't beat Santa's Sleigh by HypoTypo

 

Feeling a little Scrooge-like? Check out Grinched by SharkShock.

 

St. Nicholas by Scriptorium is a little more traditional.

Here's a great font that can be used year-round, Holiday Leftovers by Font Diner.

 

Two Peas is offering Gift, a festive little font perfect for titling.

 

And, finally, for those who are crying "Bah, humbug," here's Christmas on Crack from Font Garden.

 

Fun Friday Freebies: Templates

You're the crafty one in your family. That means your gifts, your tree, your packaging are expected to be a little special. Use these templates, and you'll be getting oohs and aahs with a minimum amount of effort.

If you've bought gift cards, be sure to check out the Scrapbookgraphics blog, Studio Matters, for a free template to make these beautiful gift card holders. Designed by my buddy, Karen Maggie, they're easy-to-do, and oh so elegant.

Mirkwood Designs offers dozens of templates for everything from envelopes to boxes to wine glass shades. There's even a template for an old-fashioned fan. Wouldn't this look great on a package wrapped in Victorian papers?

If you're feeling crafty, be sure to check out Stampington and Company's Tempting Template page. Wouldn't this purse, designed by Holly Tondre, make a beautiful gift for a young girl?

 

And, I'll end with a special site, indeed. It just wouldn't be Christmas, if you didn't visit the Toymaker. This is simply one of my favorite sites of all time. Designer Marilyn Scott-Waters has created a magical place, filled with art and papercrafts ready for downloading. Perfect for children, and for the children in all of us, these projects are ready to be cut out and assembled. It doesn't get much easier than that. Click here for the Christmas templates.

   

Quirkle Challenge: Season's Greetings

Ruthpics outlined the parameters for last week's Quirkle Challenge at Digital Art Quirks. Create a 6x6 work using snow, wings, and an emphasized word of meaning to the creator.

I've been thinking a lot about the word joy since my recent trip to Disney World. In the "happiest place on earth," I saw so many people who looked stressed, tired, and just downright angry. What a shame. Sometimes I fear that our society has lost its ability to find happiness in simple things. So that's what I'm wishing my blog readers and fellow Quirks: I wish you joy.

 

Photo from stock.xchng; background paper (blended) and wings from Lie Fhung's Soaring kit; snowflakes and stars from Fhung's Lumoz Whimsy 2.