Friday, May 29, 2015

Stop and Smell the Coffee!!!

Good Friday ALLLLL my crafty friends!!! It's a great day to be alive!! It's Friday, it's  beautiful outside, I'm healthy and God surrounds me with His amazing love!!! What more could I ask for??? Ok, well maybe a Hobby Lobby gift card, but that's beside the point!!! LOL I'm truly blessed to have woken in a comfortable bed this morning in my beautiful home surrounded by my loving family! A day doesn't go by that I am not SO VERY THANKFUL for ALL that my Father in Heaven has given me!! Thank you Lord!

Today, I want to share a cutsie page! I like to do them every now and again!! It takes the edge off, you know what I mean?? I have had this journal spread in my mind for a bit because of a digital photo I had downloaded quite a long while ago and was waiting for the right moment to use it in my journal and this week was the time! I had so much fun making this spread!
This spread was inspired by an AWESOME artist, Vicky Papaioannou, whose blog I follow and love! She has such an eye for detail and I love her techniques and art journal style! She has one technique in particular that I love and use from time to time. It's time consuming, but effective! She will cut up tiny pieces of paper in various sizes and make a patchwork collage for her background. It ALWAYS turns out lovely in her journals! Mine is similar at best!! LOL So I knew I wanted to do it with this particular spread.

I am very fortunate to work for a municipality who has their own engineering department. Engineering, like many other skills, have turned pretty much digital. So, the old days of physically drawing engineering plans out have been replaced by the computer! A whole lot easier for them, I am sure. That being said our engineering department did a spring cleaning and got rid of a lot of "ancient" things that they don't use anymore and one was architectural drawing paper. A WHOLE box to be exact!!! I jumped on it like hot coals under my feet. That paper is simply AMAZING. It's something like heavy rice paper if you can imagine. I got it thinking of using it with my jelly plate. It doesn't work so well, with that, but it does great with sprays and stencils and stamping! SCORE!!!
All that said, I stamped all over a sheet of it with one of my new Judikins Bollio stamps that I got from my friend Peg Robinson's over on Google+'s craft room sale! I think she still has some cool stuff available if you want to go have a look see! I haven't used these AWESOME stamps yet for what I intended them for, but I used it for this background in the interim and it worked great! I then just sprayed various ink sprays around until I got the effect I was looking for. I then just set about cutting strips and pieces to do my background. I glued them all down using Mod Podge.

When I was done I distressed the edges with Distress Ink in Vintage Photo and then because I knew I was going to be doing some things on top, I obviously had to spray a fixative over so that all that yumminess in the background wouldn't move. After I did so, I then took my Faber Castell Big Brush Pen in Cobalt Blue and shaded the pieces for a more vivid effect. I then fussy cut the digital image and adhered with Mod Podge and then shaded with my Big Brush Pen in Nougat. On the opposite side I knew I wanted to do tiny coffee cup balloons to complement the big one, so I just drew some out, colored them with some Sharpies, fussy cut them and then added them to the page. I drew the basket and cable lines afterwards because that would have been too hard to cut out. I then added my sentiment and some fluffy clouds with some heavy gesso through a stencil. Voila! 

Coffee is one of my all time FAVORITE things so I loved using this "theme" to express my thoughts out of Genesis 1:31 that says "And God saw everything that he made, and, behold, it was very good." In today's society and world we have all become so preoccupied with what is going on around us that we don't take the time to be thankful for TODAY! Just to be alive in the Creator of the Universe's awesome creation! Each day is filled with so many amazing blessings that God has provided for us to enjoy! But often, people miss the every day blessings that are right before their eyes because they are "too busy!"

Today, STOP and take the time to give reverence to the Creator and His creation and all the many blessings they afford! We aren't assured another day, EVER, therefore offering up your thanks for TODAY is a wise thing! Our Father in Heaven is the Master Craftsman so we should take the time to mindful and consider His workmanship in our lives and around us and be grateful!!

Blessings for a glorious weekend! :)

14 comments:

  1. Love the page Felicia :) I think you did Vicky's style proud :) I like watching her too..she is so precise and clean with what she does. I am envious of your special paper find too :) Paper is like gold to me! TFS <3

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    1. Shel, you are the sweetest! Thank you so much for that encouragement! She is so inspiring, so I am glad that her influence shows through just a tiny bit!! LOL That paper find was seriously awesome She, I'm not gonna lie!! I don't usually stumble upon the good deals, my sister takes the front seat in that!!! LOL But this time I did! I will be happy to send you some of those lovely pages. I will have to cut them down because they are so large, but shouldn't be a problem my friend! Thanks again and blessings to you! :)

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  2. Oh, Felicia, your blog post is soooo inspiring! ! I love it's Message, I love the journal page.!!! You set my day right, thank you! !

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    1. Sylvia, your lovely comment warmed my heart! Thank you so much for your sweetness!! You are so very welcome and I pray your weekend is wonderful as well! Blessings! :)

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  3. Love your page, Felicia. I love coffee too :) Shame we live too far away to share a cup together :) To stop and be still is essestial and we really need to do it to appreciate all around us.

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    1. Susan, my sweet friend, I share your sentiment as well.....I would LOVE to live closer because I feel like we would definitely be great coffee mates....no pun intended!!! LOL Thank you so much and I pray all is well with you and that you have a wonderfully blessed weekend! :)

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  4. Felicia, I love reading your blog posts. They are so inspiring and really make you see all of the things you should be thankful for. Like waking up in a comfortable bed. That is something to be so thankful for. Many people do not have a bed at all to sleep in. Thank you for reminding me of the simple things we are blessed with, and sometimes don't even think about. I love your journal page!! I love the coffee cut balloons.They are just too cute. Amazing job as usual my friend!! Have a blessed and safe weekend.

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    1. Penny, my friend, I have been offline for a bit, but I still don't know how I missed these last few comments to my page! I am so embarrassed when I miss someone who took the time to reach out! You are always so precious to me and leave such uplifting and encouraging posts! Thank you so much! I try to remain thankful for everything Penny, you are sooo right! We are a blessed people to be sure! I hope you have a blessed and safe weekend "this weekend" after the fact!! LOL Bless you Penny! :)

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  5. What a fabulous Journal spread my friend! I feel the same way about coffee, but I have never expressed it in such a lovely, creative way!

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    1. Becky as I told Penny, I hate I missed your comment and failed to comment back! Thank you so much for your sweetness! Coffee ALWAYS does my body good! LOL Blessings to you! :)

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    1. Thank you so much Karenliz! I am late in responding to your comment, but just as thankful you stopped by! Blessings to you! :)

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  7. I love that subtle tone in the background. I haven't seen that video of Vicky's - I must look it up. That collaging technique sounds like something I might enjoy. And have I ever told you how much I LOVE hot air balloons? I don't mean flying in them, of course, that would freak me out - but I love the images of them. (OK, that's it for today - I'll stop stalking you for now, LOL! But I'll be back soon! - hahaha - evil laughter)

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    1. LOLOLOLOL, you crack me up!! I LOVE, LOVE reading your comments! I will have to remember that you like hot air balloons my friend! It would pretty much freak me out to ride in one too, hence I will not!!! LOL But they are gorgeous to look at up in the air! In Albuquerque, NM, close to Santa Fe, which is where I moved back to Georgia from, they have an AWESOME hot air balloon festival every year! You should look it up, the pictures are GORGEOUS!!!!! And, you can stalk me anytime!!! The encouragement is always well received! :))) Blessings

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