God's Masterpiece!

Good Tuesday all my crafty friends! I pray each and every one of your weeks has started off with a bang!! Yesterday was the first day of summer....WOOT WOOT! Except, who is Mother Nature trying to fool? It's BEEN summer in Georgia!! It's been gastly with temps up to 100 on some days for weeks!! Nice try on that score, but fall seems so far away, ALREADY!!! LOLOL I love summer, don't get me wrong, but even temps would be sooooo much nicer! At any rate...Happy Summer!!

Today I will share my journal spread as part of the Pick A Stick Challenge over on the Facebook group!  This month the stick pull looked like this:

"Challenge" is a great word for these exercises!!! LOLOL There always seems to be one if not two things in there that I have never done or if I have, you wonder how you are going to make it work in the way and the order they require!!! I guess that's the fun of the whole project, huh????

Last week I shared a snippet of the beginnings of this with you guys that you can go look at, but basically it was just a smorgasbord of various acrylics "messing and blotting up" the spread to fulfill number one.. It really looked neat when I finished, so I was pleased with the beginning.  The next step was to add numbers and I really went on some prompt words from an online friend of mine, Zsuzsa, who last week noted to me that I was not old and basically was saying I shouldn't say that! Well, point well taken my friend....YOU were the inspiration for my spread this week! :) LOLOL 

I have never really been set back about my age or it's never really been a "thing" for me. I am 51 and proud and blessed to be here! Many opportunities were thwarted by the Lord in me not being here, but THANK YOU LORD that you "kept" me every step of the way for Your purpose! I just believe it is something that we should remind ourselves of DAILY how He never leaves nor forsakes us, FOR HIS PURPOSE and call on our lives!  First and foremost we were made in His image and that makes us "His Masterpiece!"  An exercise for you daily should be to reaffirm to yourself that "You are precious and honored in His sight and He loves YOU!" Isaiah 43:4 That all being said, THANK YOU Zsuzsa for the gentle reminder, and even though it may not have been in your intentions, God worked through you to speak His truth to me!

So I pulled out some Tim Holtz's numbers and threw a coat of gesso on them and then used one of the acrylics I had used in the background on the numbers. I then had a script stamp in my stash that I stamped on top of the numbers to give them a little texture.

Ok so, glorious number three!!! Ugghhh! Have never done resist and most certainly didn't know how to do that with acrylics.  I think they are usually done with watercolor, so I winged it! I took a piece of Tim Holtz tissue paper and doodled on it with a a white Daler Rowney oil pastel crayon.  I then heat set it thinking it would actually "set it" being that I was using cheap acrylics, not having and high glow. I then took one of the acrylics I used in the background and sponged over it and it worked out pretty good. It still wasn't the "resist" that you would get with the correct method, but it worked. I then decided to use my white gel pen to highlight it even further because I knew that I wanted it to be a design to use in the dress for my image that was the requirement in number ten.

Number four was write something with love. As I expressed previously, I had already found out what I wanted to write, which were God's love notes to me to encourage me daily for who I am in Him and who He has called me to be! Thank you Lord for your unconditional love! :)

Number five was create a tag to use on your page. I had that cute little black tag in my stash and then I had a package of those cute little ticket tags in my stash that are from 7 Gypsies. The ticket tags all had different sayings on them, but I thought the "beautiful" one fit for the them of my spread.

Number six was my fave! It was to add a fashion element! I have this zipper roll in my stash that I got from Maya Road in a grab bag one time that I have surprisingly been able to use in several projects! So I thought it would be so cute to use on this spread acting like a "mouth" spitting out the numbers and those love notes from God! That took me to number seven which was to stitch! HA...that one made me laugh the loudest! Anyone that knows me KNOWS that there is not a sewing fiber in my bones! LOLOL I can do a button in a pinch, but boy howdy, don't ask me to do anything else! LOLOL All that said, I have a faux stitch stamp that I cheated and used to look like I sticked around the journal as a "frame" an around the zipper element.


Ok, so number eight was the WORST!! I have never done the alcohol technique either. And not sure that I was very successful with it either. I did drops here and there and used a paper towel to blot and it pulled up a little paint here and there, but I really don't think it did what it was supposed to do! Oh well!! LOLOL

Number nine was to draw something, so I drew that flower to mimic the pattern I drew on the dress of the image of my lady that was the requirement of number 10! I fussy cut her out and put her looking over the top that the tag and the word "beautiful" to remind myself to believe in that and claim it! Voila!

That's it for my Pick A Stick Challenge this months folks! I encourage you to play along with us each month, it's a lot of fun to challenge yourself.....even if you make some blunders!!

Blessings to BEAUTIFUL YOU today! :)