Heat Wave!!

Happy Thursday all my crafty friends! It's HOT up in here! Can I get a witness????? LOLOL It's safe to say that Mother Nature is carrying this global warming thing just a little too far these days!!! LOL From the many posts that I have been seeing from online friends, and not just in the States either, it's HOT EVERYWHERE! Some of you have a great need for rain as well! It is hot here in Georgia, but THANKFULLY we have been blessed with afternoon showers every now and again! For those of you who are STILL waiting, I pray you will have relief soon!

I've been puttering around in my art closet with various projects, but most recently I have been doing quite a few ATC's, so I wanted to share a few more with you today! As I have noted in other posts, I love doing them because you can do many at one time, which who doesn't like more for the bang!? But I just also love doing ATC's in general....they are just fun!

This little guy was fun to do! I started with a coat of gesso and then pulled out my Caran d'ache Crayons and just went to town! I "smooshed" a little bit, but ended using a water brush to finish moving the pigment around. Again, since I've had my Daler Rowney inks on my table top for a few projects, I just pulled the Galactic Blue and tapped it through my Tim Holtz Harlequin stencil and then pulled a TCW stencil and tapped through some black acrylic paint to get this cute arrow. 

To keep in theme, I've had these Tim Holtz letters and arrows set in my stash for awhile and use them here and there, so I pulled one of the arrows from the set. Since it is a shiny plastic I decided to sand it down a little bit with a sandpaper block so that I could swipe on some Viva Decor Inka Golds in Lava Red, Cobalt Blue and Gold and it would stick.  I then put on some Tim Holtz this and that words and had these cute little alpha bubbles in my stash as well and then distressed the edges with Distress Ink in Salty Ocean to finish it off.

The next little guy that I did I loved because I am an owl lover and I had these chipboard owls in my stash and wanted to use it!

I adhered Tim Holtz tissue paper to the ATC and then put a light coat of gesso over top. I then took some of my homemade paste and put it through one of my script stencils and then took that same Daler Rowney in in Galactic Blue and dripped on the top edge and then spritzed with water to get a nice drippage effect. I then took the Viva Decor Inka Gold in Cobalt Blue and rubbed it on the raised script to give it a cool shiny effect. I then put some of the same Daler Rowney Ink on my craft sheet and tapped through a TCW stencil and then used the same stencil with some black acrylic paint. I then distressed the edges with Distress Ink in Salty Ocean.

When I went home a couple of months ago I went to my favorite craft store in Santa Fe which is Guadalupe's Fun Rubber Stamps. They have a great staff and carry some wonderful product there as well. OF COURSE I made a purchase, hee hee, and the cute little bag had this stamped on the front. Since I save EVERYTHING, I saved this little bag knowing I would cute that out and use it. So I did so here and then distressed the edges with the Salty Ocean and then used some pop dots to pop it up on the tag. I then used my Daler Rowney Inks again in Waterfall Green, Sundown Magenta and Galactic Blue to paint my owl and then topped him off by giving him some bling eyes!

Such fun and quick projects to do when you have a full plate like I do! Well, I hope you have some weekend plans in the oven! School starts next week for those of us who live down south, so I will be doing the proverbial school shopping! PLEEEEZ say a prayer for me....I'd rather mop the floor! LOLOL Ok, maybe not, but close!!

Happy day my friends! :)

WOYWW #373

Woop Woop, it's WOYWW all my crafty friends!!! That means, "look at my work space at your own risk, Wednesday!!" LOLOLOL It has been worse than it is today, meaning only a 8x5 space to work because of the clutter, so I feel pretty good about that! LOLOL So.......all that said, I do have some "actual" projects in the works on my space, so the "clutter" is justified!!! LOLOL Hey, we can all find a way to make it sound good can't we! LOLOL If you've got clutter to share, pop on over to Julia's blog, Stamping Ground, join in and share your mess, I mean creativity! LOLOL

As you can see, I have this and that on my desk this morning. In the foreground I have some ATC's I am working on and then behind them to the left a little, I am working on some tags. I do several swaps and challenges, so I am having fun making ready for some swap pals!!! To the left is my VERY FULL journal. I have a few pages left in that guy, although it has become increasingly hard to work in that journal because it is so FULL. Next journal, I will be trying a trick that I saw online somewhere, not sure where, that if you start in the middle and work your way out, it would lay better. Not sure if that is so, but hey, I will try anything! LOLOL I'm saving my pennies for a new journal (seriously thinking about putting a journal fund can on my desk at work...hee hee) because those guys are expensive! Phew! I love Dyan Reaveley's journals the best! This time around, I want to get the new square one. It looks like fun to play with! I've been a good girl this year, maybe Santa has been watching! LOLOL

Just above my journal is one of my coveted Stampin Up: Itty Bitty Background stamp sets. I saw that set last year over on a blog that I follow from Rachel over in the UK. She did a Christmas Card Series on her blog and each card was gorgeous!! She used this stamp set, but noted that it was a retired set. Well, that's all I needed to hear (you know what I am talking about crafters). I went on a mad search for those stamps because Rachel just made those cards pop with those stamps! Well I found the whole set on EBay for like a couple of bucks! What???? Yep, I felt like I had hit pay dirt! LOLOL I love those stamps! Thanks Rachel!!

Also on my desk are those gorgeous acrylic inks from Daler Rowney! I love, love using those inks! There are also a couple of Liquitex inks as well, but Daler Rowney has a Pearlescent line and they are just a dream to work with and the color and pearlescent effects are just dreamy! I had them out for the challenge that I did this month, but I decided to continue to use them for some of the other projects I am doing. Love!

The rest of the goodies on my desk are just things that I haven't put in their proper places. Probably things that are my "go to" items that, in my mind, if I put up, I will just be dragging out again, so hey, why put them up! LOLOLOL Kind of the same theory my husband uses for our bed! Why make it up, he says, we are just going to get back in it tonight!! LOLOL Men!!!


That's it for me today my friends! I hope your mid week is finding you being blessed of the Lord. If you feel like things aren't going exactly your way, talk to Him! He loves hearing from us!! In His Word He says, "Before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear." Isaiah 65:24 What a comforting promise from our Father in Heaven!! Abide in Him and He WILL abide in you! That scripture in John goes on to further say that no branch can bear fruit by itself, that it must remain in the vine! You tap into the Father DAILY and you WILL begin to bear fruit! It may not look like what you think it should look like, or happen when you think it should happen, but God has His own timing!! For me, I would much rather have all things in His time because I know it will then be blessed of the Lord!

Have a FANTASTICALLY BLESSED Wednesday! :)

ATC Challenge!

Good Friday all my crafty friends and TGIF!!!! LOLOL Although it has really been a quiet week for me, I am always happy to see Friday! LOLOL Saturday's find a wee bit more sleep than my usual "crack of dawn" rising and weekend activities - sometimes, fun, sometimes....not so much....toilets and floors, oh my!!!! LOLOL But, all in all who doesn't love a weekend! I hope you have some wonderful plans!

Today I will share my ATC Challenge that is new on the board. This challenge came out of another challenge that I am a part of over on Facebook, which is the Pick A Stick Challenge that I shared
yesterday. Shel, who was the "stick maestro" for the month on the Pick A Stick Journal Challenge picked 3 sticks from the 10 picked for the journal challenge and started an ATC Challenge. As in the journal challenge, you have to follow the order of the pull and the directive on the sticks. The pull for the month of July's ATC Challenge was this:

Since I love doing ATC's and because I am also involved in an ATC Swap, I did quite a few at a time. All different, but if you do one, you mine as well do several!!! The two I will show you today are the one's I did for this challenge and then maybe next week I will share the other. I will show the one's I did for the ATC after my partner receives her (Don't want to spoil the surprise! LOL)

I started this ATC with a piece of thick scrapbook paper that I had in my stash that had the colors on it that I was looking for. I cut it down to ATC size and then put a thin layer of gesso over top. Then to fulfill my Step one - use ink, I pulled out my Daler Rowney Pearlescent Ink in Waterfall Green and dripped and spritzed with water to give it a good wash. I love using those inks, they are so yummy.

Step two - add tissue tape or masking tape came next and I pulled out some Tim Holtz tissue tape and used it to frame my card. I love mushrooms and I had this cute little picture of a cluster of mushrooms in my stash. It was black and white, but since I had my Caran d'ache crayons already out from my Pick A Stick Challenge, I used them to paint the mushrooms using the same colors that were in the background paper. I then had another little card in my stash that had this saying on it with that little heart, so I fussy cut the mushrooms, the saying and the heart out and then adhered to the card with Mod Podge fulfilling Step three - use something transparent! After I did that, I did some shading here and there and then used some stickles on the heart to give it some life!

This other ATC I did, was completely different in that I took a piece of cardboard and cut it down to ATC size and then put a light layer of gesso over top. I then again pulled out my Daler Rowney Pearlescent Ink in the same Waterfall Green and in Galactic Blue and dripped and spritzed on the card in the same way fulfilling Step one. I then took a background stamp and stamped it here and there using Archival Ink in
Watering Can just for a little texture.

I then decided to rip pieces off here and there to expose the cool part in the middle of cardboard! I love that stuff! then to fulfill Step two, I used some Washi Tape that I had in my stash and dotted here and there and then accented with a Faber Castell Big Brush Pen. I then again fulfilled Step three by using Mod Podge over top.  I've had this cute little butterfly and flower in my stash for like ever, so I to finally use it on this guy! I had this tiny little sentiment stamp in my stash as well and simply stamped with Archival Ink to finish up! Voila! They were both very fun!

Well guys, that's it for today! Again, I hope you all have something wonderful planned for your weekend. But whatever you do and whomever you are with this weekend, "Let all that you do be done in love." 1 Corinthians 16:14

Be blessed

Challenges.....Challenges!

Good Thursday all my crafty friends! The consensus, around the world it would seem, is IT'S HOT!!! LOLOL I'm hearing it even from areas around the world that normally don't see high temps! Phew!!! All I can say is bring on the lemonade, watermelon, mimosa's......whatever tilts your overworked sweat glands! LOLOL It's times like these that we can thank the good Lord for giving those amazing men and women who invented the air conditioner, wisdom and knowledge! Oh hail you scholars! LOLOL

Across the board with all my online crafty friends it's challenges, challenges, challenges! I, unfortunately, can't take part in most of them because I work full time as well as hold down the job of resident maid, waitress, cook, animal trainer, launderer, yard boy, school marm, and the list goes on and on and on!!!!!! LOLOLOL Can I get an amen out there?????? God really did make us the superior gender or how else would we be able to tackle all that???? Thank you Lord for my super hero powers! LOLOL So, all that said, I do take part in a few that I squeeze in time for and today I will show you my July Pick A Stick Challenge over on the same named Facebook Group! There is still time to get it in, so if you want to pop over and see what the hoopla is all about you can watch Shel's video who was the maestro for July's challenge.

I can say, YAY for me because, for once, I got this done BEFORE the very last minute! LOLOL This spread was so much for me. It was challenging, but in a good way! I didn't get perplexed about this or that like I usually do. It just all fell into place.  The picked sticks from Shel that have to be followed in order were as follows:

I did pretty good this month. I only deviated from one request, just a smidgen! Number One was to collage with napkins, but alas......I have none! I had gotten a RACK one time from a pal that included one, but I have since used that wonderful napkin on other projects. So....I improvised. My sister, sent me some glorious paper from L.A. that I use sparingly, but I thought would be perfect because the feel is so fine that it is like a napkin. It even ripped like a napkin, so I decided to use it and ask

forgiveness later! LOLOLOL I showed this picture yesterday where you can see the paper and Number Two, which was add tissue tape or masking tape. I used Tim Holtz tissue tape.

Number Three was use a sticker, which you can also see on the upper right hand page. It was some pretty cool stickers that I got one time at a discount store before they closed out.

Number Four was add a quote and I simply used various alpha stamps that I had in my stash with some Archival ink on card stock and adhered with Mod Podge, which incidentally I used throughout which pretty much covered Number Six, which was use something transparent. As I had nothing like that, I thought hey, Mod Podge is transparent after all!!! LOLOL

Number Five was add dictionary text, so I made some hearts that I wanted to go along with my quote on dictionary paper and then also fulfilled Number 9, which was use neocolor II crayons, which is what I colored them with. I adhered them down again with Mod Podge and then fulfilled Number 7, which was write random words in at least three places, so I wrote them around the hearts.

Number 8 was use ink, so I pulled out several kinds including Tattered Angels, Distress Inks, Dylusions and Daler Rowney's Pearlescent Acrylic Inks. I diluted most with water so that I could channel the ink around the pieces already adhered down. Number 10 was to emboss something, so I took a background stamp in my stash with Versa Markink around the edges for a frame and then embossed with WOW black embossing powder and then did some doodles and splatters! Voila! I had fun!

HEY, I'M SOX!

Hey, what's this stuff?

Guess what? There is a new princess in town!!!! Yep, remember the part where I am also an animal trainer...hee hee hee, well this is why!!! Meet Sox!!! Yep, my loving husband feels the need to continue to indulge both of my daughters' desires to own every stray cat and dog in our community!!! This little gal is a ball of fire and has ALREADY weaseled her way into my heart (obviously since she is on the coveted art desk)!!!! She really is quite the cuteness and the other two cats that live in our home Big Kitty and Tigger are getting adjusted. Well, Queen Sheba, better known as Big Kitty, will have nuttin to do with her, but Tigger is in hog heaven! They sound like a herd of elephants running through the house! Lots of fun! Hey Zsuzsa, you can just start calling me "The Cat Lady!" LOLOL Oreo would have a ball with this little lady! :)

Well guys, that's it for me today! I will share my ATC Challenge tomorrow! Here's hoping you are keeping cool and fun!

WOYWW #372

Good Wednesday all my crafty friends! It's a beautiful day in my neck of the woods. HOT, but beautiful! I hope your day is lovely as well!

It's that time of the week that we post a peek at our crafty spaces with WOYWW over on Stamping Ground! First of all a hearty welcome back to Julia who has been out, but thank goodness is making a healthy recovery! Thank you Jan for filling the shoes while Julia was out! I think we, none of us, missed a bit as you did a wonderful job!! :)

So, yep, this is what is on my work desk today! This is the beginnings of my Pick A Stick Journal Challenge that I participate in every month over on the Facebook Group!  I encourage you to come on over and participate, we have a lot of fun! In addition, out of this challenge, a new one has arisen to come along side it! I love it...the more the merrier! Of course for me, like everyone, I have to find, yet again, more hours in the day somewhere to put in time for another challenge! LOLOL Oh well, you only live once! LOLOL

I have a whole lot of mess going on on this desk, by the way, as I am doing several challenges at once and so it gets quite cluttery when that happens! You can see some of the clutter for my ATC Challenge peeking in view just above the journal. All the reveals will come shortly! I really have to get a move on...it's already the 20th of the month! YIKES!!!  So as I am not through with either of these challenges, I can't really share anything else with you today! If any of you have found some more hours in a day, please send them my way! :)

Speaking of challenges, life is FULL of challenges.  Have you ever felt like everything was going right as rain and then all of a sudden, kaboom, you get side blinded with a challenge in your life that makes you feel weak, small or ill equipped to handle it? I believe God allows those challenges in our life to see where our hearts are. Will our first thought be to turn to Him or to jump on the first rabbit trail leading you down the lonesome road of stress, worry, confusion and/or grumbling and anger?  God's desire is that we should lean TOTALLY on Him!

In God's Word, He reminds us throughout that He knows what our needs are BEFORE we do and that He has provided for and equipped us with the tools to handle ANY situation, if we would but seek and ask!  Our job is to remain in that place of faith as we take Him at His Word and wait on His marvelous timing! 

God the Father reminds us to count it all joy when we meet trials and to not be anxious about anything because we can do ALL things through Him who strengthens us! Not in and of ourselves will we withstand the trials, but through Him, Jesus Christ His Son, lest any man should boast! God will receive ALL the glory! After all, trials come forth that Christ be revealed! How you say? Through our great witness of the things He hath done through them, because He WILL! If we but wait on Him, rely on Him, stand strong in Him, He WILL be revealed and we will be eternally blessed!

I pray as you go throughout the rest of your week, you allow the Creator of this Universe to stand with you through and bless you as you come out!

Have a great Wednesday! :)

WOYWW #371

Hey, hey, hey it's Wednesday all my crafty friends! I feel like so many others whose blog I've read this morning...IS IT ALREADY WEDNESDAY AGAIN!!!! LOLOL That only comes from folks who have done minimal crafting and know that they have to give a peek of what they aren't....ummm...ARE doing! LOL  Fortunately for me, I have been doing a little, just not anything to get a Pulitzer for! LOLOL

So here is the state of affairs on my work desk this morning after I finished a project last night that I will share in a minute!  I LOVE ATC's and I am currently working on a couple for a new Mid Month ATC Challenge that is being held in conjunction with the Pick A Stick Challenge that I participate in every month over on Facebook.  I was so excited when Shel, who picked the sticks this month, announced this new challenge because I used to do ATC Swaps and had gotten out of it and had been missing it, so yay me, I'm back on the wagon! LOLOL Any excuse to have art fun!

Shel, as the stick picker this month, picked three sticks from the ten that were pulled for the Pick A Stick Challenge for us to use as prompts and guidelines. She will then post her ATC's reveal on the 15th for all to see and then at the end of the month, on the last day of the month, the Pick A Stick crew will pick four winners to receive the ATC's that Shel made.  Three of the winners will be someone who participated in the Pick A Stick Journal Challenge over on Facebook, because that is the main challenge, and then the fourth winner will be someone who participated in both the Pick A Stick Journal and ATC Challenges. Woo hoo! I love it! :)

So the project I finished last night was my other monthly challenge, which is also over on Facebook, which is Tag It Tuesday from Sheri Whitfield! Truthfully tags and ATC's are my fave things to do, but let's be honest ANY mixed media project is awesome sauce to me!! LOLOL As I said earlier, I don't need ANY excuse to have art fun, but we all have our faves!

Sheri usually gives us prompts, but also this year, has been giving up Pantone color prompts to use. This month, Sheri only gave us Pantone color prompts which were:

Yow!!!!! Is what I said! What is that Lilac Gray????????? LOLOLOL You can fudge Fiesta, but Lilac Gray????? Well as it were I DID fudge Lilac Gray because I don't have Pantone colors in my hip pocket! LOL But, fudge I did! I just took about three different cheapo acrylics and did my thing! And.....I think I did pretty good, LOLOL!

I love getting goodies from online buddies and when you get in different swaps, you often get the cutest things from your partners in crime! I had actually bought some goodies from Peg over on Facebook's Peg's Craft Supply last year and in her box she gifted me some lace that I have used in quite a few projects and I decided to use some again in this project since the lace had flowers on it and I knew I wanted to use flowers on this tag. So I cut some patches out and adhered them down with some Aleene's and then I gesso'd all over the big 4x8 size tag (a HUGE stack was gifted to me by one of my other sweet online buddies) and then painted on my Lilac Gray concoction in the areas around the lace.

I then took out a couple of Tattered Angels Glitter Mist sprays that I thought, when sprayed together, would make sort of a "lilac color." It did ok, but whose keeping score? I then took a fave stencil from Wendy Vecchi that I had on my desk last week and stenciled through with another acrylic paint from
PaperArtsy that I thought would be close to Fiesta and then sprayed another Tattered Angels Mist over top of that. I fussy cut my flowers out and then found some scrap papers to cut some stems from.

I did a bit of texturing on the background and some splatters along with distressing the edges and edging with Distress Ink. I decided to put a little Stickles in the middle of my flowers and then popped up my sentiment, added some ribbon and voila! I did it Sheri! LOLOLOL

I had fun, no doubt! It WAS a challenge on those colors, but that's what it's all about! I'm hopping over to some other WOYWW desks and see what you are all up to!

Here's to a FABULOUS Wednesday! :)

WOYWW #370

Good Wednesday all my crafty friends! It's that time to show all the "happenings" on our creative spaces!! Sometimes, that space for me is a whole lot of "nuttin" on a whole lot of mess! LOLOL However today I do have a little something, something on my desk top which is preparing me for my July Tag It Tuesday Challenge!

Sometimes I have an idea of what I will be doing on a challenge based on the prompts given, etc....This month however Sheri over on Cards and More by Sheri, has really challenged my brain (what a challenge....lololol) with this months prompts. This year, Sheri has been using Pantone colors each month and sometimes a theme to get us going. This month the challenge is to use these two Pantone colors together:

WOW, right? So pretty much I have pulled out two tags and prepped them with some Gesso because I figure I better do two just in case my first idea goes south!!!! LOLOL I have that color wheel pulled out as well because I don't have "true" Pantone colors in my stash and I have to mix to match. So.....how the heck do you get Lilac Gray?????? Beats me!! Hence, the color wheel! LOLOL I'll get there, believe you me, but I need just a tad bit of help from Mr. Wheel! LOLOL Love that Fiesta red!!! I love a good challenge, so we shall see how this all pans out my friends!!!  I also have a wonderful Wendy Vecchi stencil on top waiting to be used! I'm thinking now's them time! Woot woot!  Stayed tuned!

I also wanted to share my finished tags from last week. I went on a bit of a camping holiday with family and friends after last weeks WOYWW, so when I got back Monday, I thought I better finish them up to show you all! They were so cute and I loved how they both turned out!

My thoughts on these tags were to use the same stamps two different ways and I think it turned out well! On both tags I used Distress Inks for the backgrounds. It's always a challenge using Distress Inks because, of course, they are water soluble, which in their case is good and bad depending on the project. So usually after I have the look I am going for, I spray a fixative over them because I NEVER know where I am going from there and I don't want to mess them up!!

With both tags, I wanted to go simple. I think sometimes, we think we have to do more and more and more for the project to be effective, but sometimes less is more! So that was the plan with these guys!

On this tag I simply stamped the beautiful flower stamp in Wendy Vecchi's Archival Ink in Watering Can and then I painted with my wonderful Koi Water Paints that I shared recently! I also pulled out some coordinating Tattered Angels Mists and applied with a brush to give a little sparkle. I did some shading with Faber Castell Big Brush Pens, added my sentiment stamp and then added some little Stickles dots here and there for further sparkle.

On this one before I sprayed my fixative, I lightly stamped the background with a script stamp with Distress Ink in Concord Grape.  Then I stamped the flower stamp twice on some card stock in Wendy Vecchi's Archival Ink in Watering Can and then embossed with the coordinating embossing powder. I then also painted in using my Koi Water Colors and then fussy cut them out.

I have a little stylus that I used to shape the flowers a bit to make them stand out and then I used some pop dots on the back and placed them on the tag with some coordinating twine as if they were a bouquet. I took the same script stamp and light placed on some card stock and then stamped a little sentiment stamp over top and stressed with some Distress Inks. I then also used some pop dots on the back as well to make the sentiment pop like the flowers. Voila!

Lots of fun those two tags and really pretty easy. I have a huge tag stash of tags that I have made for various challenges or just because that I like to keep to give away or make into gift tags, etc....I'm sure most of you do the same. It's just a little something of myself I can give to another, which I love to do! So, two more added!

Well, that's it for this Wednesday my friends! I hope to get to as many of your digs as I can and see what you are all up to!! Thanks for stopping in and I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday! :)

Many blessings to you! :)