Jesus is the Reason!

Good Thursday all my crafty friends! Well, I am so glad to be posting again today because as I noted yesterday, this will be the only time I can post until after the 1st. When you live in the country, you can't get internet!!! LOLOL How is that even possible?? With technology today, it should be a given, but alas, not in south Georgia! LOL

So today I am going to post my last two challenges of the year, which I hope sets the precedence for next year! I confess, this past year was a real stinker for me and posting! I had a very challenging year, but God in His infinite wisdom and love, saw me through it all! I'm so VERY THANKFUL and GRATEFUL for my Heavenly Father all year long, but most especially at this time of year when we celebrate His most AMAZING gift of love to us all in the form of His Son Jesus Christ! LIFE, and life MORE abundantly! When life's stresses, hustle and bustle and furry of the holiday season seem to way on you, won't you take the time to reflect on your year, count all of your blessings, tell your family you love them and most importantly remember the REASON FOR THE SEASON in the form of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! What great love, mercy and compassion our Father in Heaven has for His people! Happy Birthday Jesus!

So as a part of the Pick A Stick Challenge over on the Facebook page of the same name, here are my December submittals for the journal page and ATC! First up, my journal page! I don't get on Facebook too much anymore expect for my challenges and family contacting, so when I went to the page, I just laughed to so others's journal pages because apparently we were ALL thinking the same way this month! You will see quite a few pages that have the same theme style as mine! I love it! We were in sync and on point this holiday season! Not the intention, of course, but a happy coincidence!

I had fun this month mainly because we all love Christmas and crafts for Christmas just seem to come easy! :) But you will see the drawn stick requirements below:

As most of you know for this challenge, the only requirement is that you craft your journal page in the order of the stick pull! The fun, of course, is coming up with ideas to do those requirements and obviously the challenge is doing them in order! I do come up with snags sometimes, but this month was a breeze!

I gesso'd my page and then applied assorted acrylic colors with bubble wrap. I then added my "hanging" stars with my non dominant hand (in my case, my left!) You should have seen me trying to get the glue down and add the strings and starts with that hand! I might have had an evil look on my face during parts of that fiasco! LOL The next was to drip paint, so I dripped some of my Daler Rowney liquid acrylic from the top down and dried and took some of my Caran d'ache crayons and colored around here and there and then applied water them to soften up.

Now, the alcohol is always a mystery to me, but I just took a pipet and put a little alcohol in it and then sprinkled here and there and then blotted. I really can't tell that it did anything, but there you go....I complied! LOL I then took my Big Brush Pens and colored the edges of my page to fulfill number 8 and tenn number 9 said doodle around the edge. So I doodled the top edge to have dangle downs! I wasn't sure about using the straight edge what it really meant, so I took my Tim Holtz tool and distressed the edges because I wasn't really sure? Oh well, voila! Page done! 

Added incentive is to then do the ATC Challenge from three sticks pulled from the 10 that were pulled for the journal page. My ATC was also a breeze and so much fun this month! 

The stick pull is as follows:

I gesso'd the ATC firstly because I wasn't sure what I was going to do, no harm, no foul, but I ended up wishing I hadn't! Oh well! Reason being I had to "color with markers" first! Eeek. But it turned out ok. I took a circle stencil from Donna Downey and used my Faber Castell Big Brush Pens through the stencil here and there. Kind of hard to see them now that they are mostly covered! Then we had to doodle around the edges,which I also did with my Big Brush Pen and then I covered it with and "antique colored" modge podge and while it was still wet covered with Ranger Rock Candy Glitter all over and then dried it! You soooo can't see it in this picture, but it's yummy glittery!

I had this wooden Santa in my stash, so I gesso'd him and painted him and also covered his beard and fuzzy on the hat with the same glitter. I then distressed the edges with Vintage Photo and did the same with the ATC. I put that little guy on with pop dots and then did the same with my "be merry!" Voila, ATC done!

Love, loved this months challenge! Thank you so much Pick A Stick Team for ALL (YOU GUYS ARE THE BOMB!!!) you guys do to keep this challenge going every month and I'm so thankful to be able to take part (even if it was slim this year) and meet new crafty folks and see all their amazing craftiness! My challenge for next year to to be able to do it each month!! Fingers crossed! LOLOL

Merry Christmas to you ALL and a VERY BLESSED New Year! May 2018 be FULL of joy, peace and prosperity for you!

Blessings