For the Joy and Hope of it All!

Oh Happy Friday!!  It's been a crazy week for me with so many things that have been on my plate, but with Friday, comes Saturday.......cleaning day!! Ugghh!  But I am so very thankful for the provision of a wonderful home that I can clean!  Still not my most favorite thing to do, but I can have a joy and a hope even in cleaning!!

The joy and hope in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is available and abundant DAILY!!  Isn't that encouraging?  In God's Word it says "May the God of hope fill you with ALL joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit!" (Romans 15:13) That makes my heart so FULL that I could bust!  Imagine being FILLED with SO MUCH joy and peace that you are just OVERFLOWING (or I like to think of a cup that has a crack in it and its so full that it's OVERFLOWING and OOZING out the cracks, it's so FULL) with hope!!!  That hope that comes from the Holy Spirit not only edifies your spirit man, but it filters out and can only edify others!!  That's how our Heavenly Father operates....you TRUST in Him and the work on the cross through His Son, Jesus Christ, and He will FILL YOU UP with ALL His goodness!  He wants to bless you BEYOND what you could EVER think or imagine!  Why?  Because He's about bringing ALL His children back into the Heavenly fold!!  Glory!  

I have been on a tag kick lately!  Do you ever get like that?  Sometimes all I want to do is journal pages and then sometimes all I want to do is cards or tags, etc....  Well the last couple of weeks (a lot of it because of lack of "art time") I have been doing tags.  I can do tags in a little less time than a journal and that makes me feel like I have had my "art time."  I do love doing tags!

The two tags I want to share today are left overs from a recent DIY project and were totally inspired by one of my FAVE artists, Limor Webber!  There are so many incredibly talented artists out there that I identify with or who have the flow I am looking for, so Limor is just ONE.  But I think I have watched ALL her YouTube and Ustream vids! Not only is she talented, but she just cracks me up! Her latest Ustream on mixed media tags is what inspired me here!  That being said, I am STILL learning AT BEST!  I still have a quirkiness with adding elements.  I don't have an ABUNDANCE of elements like she does (and she shows her hoards in the Ustream vid, LOL!!) but what little I do have, I am still learning to use.

Both of these were shipping tags I bought at Office Depot in a box of 100 for next to nothing...can't beat that!  I white washed them with gesso and then stamped one with one of my favorite script stamps from Inkadinkado and the other with a polka dot background stamp from Inkadinkado and then a number stamp from Unity.  I then pulled out my yummy Silks Acrylic Glazes in Pink Azalea, Pretty Peridot, Sky Blue, and Sunflower and dotted them out on my craft mat and then watered them down a bit.  I just proceeded to smear and drip them over both tags.

On the "Hope" tag, I used a butterfly stamp from Prima on just plain paper and then painted it with some of the same Silks and then sprayed a Tsukineko's Goosebumps sparkle texture spray.  I really have enjoyed using that product, although from the picture you can't really tell what sort of effect it gives the butterfly.  I experiment on everything with that stuff! LOL!!  I then just had some scrap coffee filter paper that I had sprayed with Dylusions, Bubblegum Pink (I think), that I put down with Mod Podge and then stamped the sentiment "hope" on some book page that I had white washed with gesso and adhered it to some chipboard with Mod Podge.  I just took some of that leftover Silks on my mat and just put it here or there on it.  I found some cute little flowers in one of my drawers that I had forgotten about and thought it would be nice with it all.  I hot glued it all down and tada!! Turned out cute!

The "joy" tag I just ripped apart some cardboard I had saved and tried to distress it with sandpaper and some Peeled Paint Distress Ink.  I found a piece of cross chipboard in one of my drawers, again that I had forgotten about, and white washed it with gesso and then smeared some of the Pretty Peridot Silks on it and then tried to distress it as well with the sandpaper and Peeled Paint Distress Ink.  I then sprayed it with the Goosebumps sparkle texture spray.  I had a piece of "joy" emphemera that I distressed with the sandpaper and Peeled Paint and Vintage Photo Distress Inks.  I added some cute little flowers with a gem embelishments and hot glued them all down and added a little piece of Washi tape I had laying on my craft mat!  Whatcha think?

There is such a freedom and joy when I do my artsy things.  It may never make it out of my art closet and that's ok, but when it FILLS me with so much joy and peace, I want to try to give it to others, because I want to bless another with a piece of the joy, freedom and love that God blesses me with!

If you are FILLED UP today, why don't you OOZE on out and bless another!!

Blessings and have a GREAT weekend!