Grace and Glory!

Good Friday all my crafty friends! Are you ready for the weekend? I am!!! It's been a crazy week for me at my job, plus trying to get back into the swing of things in my art closet! I think I am back on the "art wagon!" You know how it is, you fall off and it takes a bit to get back up! But I've had some projects to work on that pushed the issue and made me not only get back into the swing, but took me out of my comfort zone! Woot woot!!! LOL It was all good though!!! LOLOL

Today, I am going to share my journal spread that I did for the "Pick a Stick Challenge" that I was invited to over on Facebook!! Nothing like skidding in at the ninth hour!!! LOLOL  It was a fun challenge, but definitely took me out of my comfort zone!!! the gist of the challenge is the administrator for the month pulls ten sticks out of a bucket that have instructions on them and we are to follow them accordingly!! Boy that was hard!! Now, let me just go ahead and fess up that I followed as close (close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, LOLOL) as I could, but I AM SURE that I broke the rules on more than one occasion!!! LOL I just couldn't see how to do some of the steps otherwise, but, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!! LOLOL

I will try to explain my process going with the draw of the sticks. First off, since I already had acrylic colors on my desk from a previous challenge, I decided to stick with that color theme, which was yellow. I was to create a title using my on font, which I did and chose Grace. I love to doodle/Zentangle, so I doodled the "G" and just finished the rest with a Pit Pen on card stock. That was first on the list BEFORE we did anything else!!! Well that is usually the LAST thing I do, so this is where the "fudging" came in!!! It said do it in "order" but not "how or when" you lay it down!! LOLOLOL I realize that was probably not the intent, but again, that's my story and I'm sticking it!!!

We were then to use some gears, add a verse from a song and then build texture with a palette knife. Check, check, check, except........I did the build a texture with a palette knife first with some heavy gesso through several different stencils here and there. We were then supposed to create borders/elements with scrapbook paper. I had some free scrapbook paper that I had downloaded at some point and time and I simply cut it into bits and mod podged to create a border around the pages. We were then supposed to use sparkles and then add paint with a knife or card. So, fudge again, I laid down acrylic paint in various shades of yellow with an old hotel room key card and then while it was still wet sprinkled some Ranger Rocky Candy Dry Glitter all over and then dried with a heat tool.

We were next supposed to journal so nobody can read it and add a picture. So I journaled and put the picture over top of it and then pulled out some more acrylic paint close to the purple in the picture and an orange and dredged my card through them and scraped them on the pages here and there and on the picture so the picture blended in better. I then added more sparkle from Finnabair's glitter sets onto the wing of the butterfly.

I pulled the pages together by distressing the edges with Distress Ink in Spiced Marmalade (not on the list, but I couldn't help myself) and then hot glued the gears on and a Prima flower I had spritzed with a lavender color from Tattered Angels. I then added some more sparkle with Finnabair's glass beads and a little heart. I then adhered the verse from one of my favorite songs by Planet Shakers, "You are Holy," and added the last item on the list, which was write on masking tape and add to page.  I love my Pitt Big Brush Pens, so I couldn't help myself again and shaded here and there with various colors. I know, I know, I'm probably disqualified somehow!!!! LOLOL Once a rebel, always a rebel! Hahahahaha! I had so much fun doing this spread and look forward to next months challenge!

On another note, I want to share what a blessed, blessed person I am!!! I am not a bragger, but I just wanted to share God's love to me through another! Yesterday evening I was in my art closet and my girls came in and said mom the UPS guy just brought you a package!! Me? Why? It's not my birthday or anything????? I saw it was from my sister and so immediately I ripped into it, like a kid at Christmas, and lookeeeeee, what I got!!!!!! I was STOKED!!!! Is she not the BEST SISTER on the planet????? She is currently moving to another home and was cleaning things out and thought I might enjoy these!!! Some have never been used! What a blessing indeed! I can't wait use these amazing stamps and create, create, create! The Chinese stamps are just phenomenal. Each character has a meaning and I just love that! I'm a blessed sister! Thank you my Lolly from the bottom of my heart!

Going back to my journal spread, the lyrics that I snipped come from one of my favorite songs, You are Holy, by the Planet Shakers and can be listened to on YouTube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbcvLtkBvJE. You can probably cut and paste it into your address line. It expresses my own heart to my King and Savior who sure enough offers me more grace that I deserve! He is the King of Grace and Glory and if you need some grace in your life, I encourage to seek the Father's face! Through His Son, Jesus Christ, grace flows down abundantly and not only that, it's FREE! God loves you today and wants to bring you under the shadow of His wing! Won't you enter in?

I pray you all have a blessed and glorious weekend!

Artful New Year!

Happy Monday and Happy New Year to all my crafty friends! I have been on an art and blogger hiatus for what seems like FOREVER!!!  The holidays were so crazy with traveling and trying to get all my homemade gifts finished and in the mail on time and then just the general bliss of it all!! There was really no time for arting and blogging! I pray you all had wonderful Christmas's and have had a great beginning to a new and fresh artful year!!

Well, I will be playing catch up this week with a couple of challenges. One challenge, the one I will be sharing today and a new one over on Facebook that I put in to follow this year! Today's share is from my Tag It Tuesday Link Party over on Sheri Whitfields blog, Cards and More by Sheri! I love doing this challenge because Sheri comes up with some great ideas and I love January's idea of using that yummy yellow! It is really bringing me "out of the box" so to speak because although I like yellow, I don't necessarily use it a lot! I know, it doesn't make sense, but there you have it! LOLOL Mine isn't necessarily "pantone buttercup," but can we say it's close? And kicking off the year with a bright, happy color is awesome! :)

I wanted to also start my year off with a bright and happy word as well....HOPE! For this lost and dying world, the ONE thing we do have is a Hope and that Hope is the Lord Jesus Christ! Now more than ever in this world that we live in, people need something to hole on to for a future void of the mayhem we seem to be surrounded with. In God's word in Colossians 1:26-27 He says "The mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." The mysteries of the Old Testament were fulfilled and revealed through the Son of Jesus Christ. It has been made known to all and made available to all who would receive - ETERNAL LIFE! Life eternal, hope eternal, love eternal, glory eternal! What more could you want? That security is waiting for you today as well dear friend should you reach out knock on that heavenly door and receive!

It felt so good to get back in the saddle with all of my artsy stuff! I loved doing this tag. I began with some gesso as this tag was a green color and, as always, I am never really sure where I am going with these creations, so its a good start. I did in fact use about three different acrylic yellow paints and started with the light and worked my way out with the dark and just smooshed around with my fingers. I then distressed the edges with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink.

I then took one of my favorite script stamps with some Wendy Vecchi Dandelion Archival Ink and stamped for some back ground texture and I then used some Silks Acrylic Glaze in Sunflower through my favorite Bubbles stencil from Donna Downey here and there for further texture. I took this great flower stamp from my Unity Layers of Life kit from November 2015 and stamped with StazOn in Saddle Brown as a shadow flower in the background. It was perfect.

As a Christmas gift to myself back at the end of November or early December I ordered some wonderful things from Heather over at the Kraaft Shaak that I love, love and have been enjoying. One of the things that I knew I wanted were some of the Mini Virtues Pocket Stencils that I have been in love with for a bit, so I finally got them. I use the Hope stencil on this tag with some of Finnabair's Copper Crackle Texture Paste.  I love that stuff. I had to let it dry, so while I was doing that I got my tag fixings together.

I found this really great old stamp that was given to me in a RAK from one of my Google+ buddies that had a yellow back ground on it. The stamp, coincidentally, is of Helen Hayes. I think finding the stamp was timely because Helen Hayes was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award, which is America's highest civilian honor, for individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interest of the United States and world peace. How fitting. In addition, I also added one of my homemade flowers, lace, Prima flowers sprayed with Heidi Swap and blinged up, some metal from Sheri Whitfield's Etsy Shop, and some emphemera, twine and ribbon. Voila! I think it all pulled nicely together! :) 

I'm on a roll and it feels good! I actually cleaned out my art closet this past weekend and reorganized! It was a mess!! But it looks great now and I have so much more room! I will share my Facebook Pick a Stick challenge this week as well! I'm back in the saddle! :))))) Yay me!

I hope you have a fantabulous day my friends! :)

Be blessed