Circles You Say?

Well GOOD Friday all my crafty friends!! It has been a HUGE gap of time since I have posted! It has been crazy for me for the last several weeks. We went on vacation and then when I came back it was, catch up and then after catch up its been budget, budget, budget at work!!  So needless to say, it has been busy for me and I haven't had a whole lot of spare time! But as has been my norm to "ssskkkiiiidddd" in at the last minute (that was for you Zsuzsa) so today I will be FINALLY sharing my Tag It Tuesday challenge tag from over on Cards and More By Sheri blog!

Sheri's challenge this month involved us using the Pantone colors of Serenity and Snorkel Blue. Well since I didn't have either of those colors, it allowed me to get out my paints and go to town mixing and playing! I came up with the closest I could with both colors.  Then we were to use circles in some way. As a rule, I don't like things like polka dots, but since doing mixed media, I have grown to love using circles in projects in any fashion. They have become FUN!!!

I began this tag with a coat of gesso and then laid down a few pieces of book page and washi tape.  I then took my mixed version of Sheri's Pantones and just started layering down with brush, fingers and art knife. I love seeing what kind of texture I will come up with. I then knocked it back a little bit with a little bit more of watered down gesso.                                                                                                                                I then took one of my favorite stencils, which is a bubble stencil from Donna Downey and put some of my homemade texture paste through for some texture and the required element. I then took some of my all time favorite Daler Rowney Pearlescent Ink in Galactic Blue and some Inka Gold in Steel Blue and dripped scraped and shaded here and there.

I had some emphemera, scapbook papers and gelli print papers that I used to make further circles and the took the cute little wooden element, and metal heart and added as well. I added the stick on "Hope" with some ribbon and voila!

This was a quick tag this month, BUT I guess it had to be huh? LOLOL  I feel terrible because I didn't get to do my Pick A Stick Challenge, but I've got a whole other month coming to me....they just keep coming! LOLOL

I feel very blessed because I had a lady at work that commissioned me to do a large canvas for her son and soon to be daughter-in-law's wedding! I'm so excited and I hope I do it justice. I will be posting some snips from it or at least the finished project. 

I will be flying home next month.....YIPPEEEEEEE.....to see my family in Santa Fe, NM and I am so, so excited. It's been three years since I went home so I am about to bust something! LOLOL I have been working on some projects that have been taking a lot of my time as well to take home to my stepmom. I did her a piece a couple of years ago and at that time she wanted me to do three more and I was like, oh sure, no problem! Well.......that was three years ago! LOLOLOL So I am making it good and going to take them home with me when I go! I will be posting those soon as well!

I hope everyone is gearing up for summer! It's full fledged here in Georgia! It was 92 degrees when I went out earlier! Yikes!!! Imagine what the dead of summer will look like???? GULP!

I hope you guys have an AWESOME weekend filled with lots of fun! Blessings

Surprise in a Box!

Good Monday all my crafty friends! I pray you all had as beautiful weekend as we did here in Georgia! It was perfect Spring weather all weekend!! It did, however, come following terrible storms in our part of the country! It's terrible when you are in a storm but God brings all things a new after the storm!

Today I want to share a surprise for me in a box! What box you say? A Quaker Oatmeal box!! LOL I was pulling a last pack of oatmeal from the box last week at work and rather than throwing the box away, I just cut the panels out of the box and thought I would just paint on them in lieu of any canvas right now! To my surprise, it went quite well! Hence, surprise in a box! LOLOL

Coating the box panels with the gesso was probably the hardest thing to do and it wasn't necessarily hard, I just had to coat it three times and even then I could see a little through, but it worked for texture anyway. I decided just to work on the two bigger panels for now and use the smaller in another project!

I have a drawer, as I am sure all of us do, of gelli print paper stash that I rip up and use from time to time, so I went through and just pulled from the color scheme I though I wanted and just collaged here and there with Mod Podge. I love collaging, it is so much fun! Messy, but fun! :)

I didn't take pictures in between the layers, but the end result turned out pretty good. I various Paper Artsy Fresco paints as well as some Silks Acrylic Glazes with fingers, old credit cards and through some stencils. It has been pull old stash week for some reason. I often forget about some of my stencils, so I had to pull out the oldie but goodies and it was fun. I did distress the edges with some Distress Inks and did some shadows with my Stabilo pencil and then of course added my stamped sentiment words and some stick on phrases from my Illustrated Faith word collection. I really did like how they turned out, just from an old oatmeal box! LOLOL

The two words I used on the panels were brought to my remembrance in our services on Sunday at church. Thrive.....Emerge....Both of those words resonate through me because I KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt, that I can "Emerge" through ANYTHING and "Thrive" in life because of my relationship with my Lord and Savior! In Romans 15:13 God's Word says "May the God of hope fill you will all joy and peace as you TRUST in Him, so that you may OVERFLOW with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit!" That says a whole lot about thriving! You have to "just believe," trusting in an Almighty Savior that fills you with that joy and peace to sustain you through ANYTHING that would come your way! You can't thrive if you don't KNOW His promise concerning you and His will for your life!!!

In Psalm 40:2 God's Word says "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand!" WOW, what a promise! You can "Emerge" victorious "out of" ANYTHING if you have this promise written in your heart! He IS your Rock, He IS the Solid Foundation by which you stand! You can't KNOW that unless you have a personal relationship with Him whereby the Holy Spirit ministers those truths to you on a daily basis!

People in this day and age get hung up on the word "Success!" How do you know you are successful? I may not be what "you call" successful from a visual point of view, but in my heart I am successful in every way that I want to be, FULL of His grace, love and mercy which usher's me into every day living, preparing my steps, correcting me when I need it and honoring me when I follow His path! That very thing is what enables me to "sing His praises" every day! :)

Well, we are off on our wild adventure camping trip! We always look forward to our trips! We would stay ETERNALLY camping if we could! LOLOL We always have extra kiddos with us and other couples. It makes for soooooo much fun....I always say, the more the merrier! LOLOL If you are Spring Breaking it too this week, I hope you have the best of times making wonderful memories!!! 

Have a blessed day! :)