Seasons Greetings!

Good Wednesday all my crafty friends! Well the season is in and things are beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here! I love Christmas and celebrate the season as the birth of my Savior Jesus Christ! What an amazing gift that just keeps on giving and giving!!! You can't put a price tag on life and more than that, ETERNAL LIFE! It's a free gift! I love gifts and free one's are even better! If you would like a free gift as well, I encourage you to seek out our Heavenly Father. He is more than willing and able to extend to you His amazing love through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ!

As the holiday season tends to be, it has been very busy and I have definitely gotten caught up in the menagerie of it all. That's not to say it has been a stressful time, but just a lot going on with my home life as well as my work life and then add in trying to get ready for Christmas! Tis the season! LOLOL

I have a lot on my craft table, most of it NOT finished, LOL, but I wanted to show you some DIY projects as well as some AWESOME early Christmas gifts that I got for myself!!!

Since I am at my office more than anywhere else it seems, I thought I would share with you my Office door decorations! How do you like them? Now, let me just say that this is more decoration than I even do at home!!! How sad is that???? LOL  The truth is that I have a rascal miniature collie who LOVES to chew up anything in his path, so outside decorations are a no go at the Aaron household!!! LOL I do, however, have my tree up! Yay for me! :)

The poinsettias were so beautiful this year and I ordered many for the office spaces and of course one for me! LOL the packages are just fake. I simply wrapped some boxes I had here and there. But let me show you my DIY reindeer project! How do you like him? Isn't he just the cutest?  I made him out of PVC pipe. I work for municipal government, so I was able to acquire the pipe and the handy work of the cutting of the pipe through our Public Works Department. The perks of the job! LOLOL But I simply spray glued all the pieces together, spray painted them and then added all the nifty little elements from cotton balls to felt, to pipe cleaners and ribbon! I love how they turned out. I have a Mr. & Mrs. LOLOL  DIY's at holiday time are always a thrill for me. Mostly because I enjoy getting something handmade from a loved one or friend, so I just assume others feel the same way! It means so much to me. So these guys weren't store bought, but made with love for others to share in the holiday spirit with me as they enter my office! Do you decorate your office?

So NOW I want to share my Happy Christmas Mail with you! My husband and I don't really swap Christmas gifts, it's all about the kiddos, but this year he did give me a little money stash to do with what I please. Sooooooo, me being me, someone who is TOTALLY obsessed with art products, I decided to get some more stash for my art room! LOLOL 

I actually got this GORGEOUS stuff last Friday, but as I said, it's been amazingly busy for me, so I am just now able to share the goodness! I pre-ordered from super talented Heather over at the Kraaft Shaak these AMAZING Bible Journaling stamps! I was so stoked when Heather mentioned that she was going to be carrying these amazing stamps from Jamie Dougherty! They are gorgeous folks and will totally love them if you are thinking about getting them! I also ordered the Artistcellar Pocket Stencils to coordinate with the stamps. I know the stamps as well as those stencils will get much use!!! I also needed some new paintbrushes and had been wanting to get Dina's brushes. They were not a disappoint! I love them! And then I needed some more of Finnabair's Art Sugar goodness! That stuff is addictive! I love it!

If you are looking for some art product at great prices, you need to go over and check out Heather's stash! She has tons of product and I know she would love to have you come on over! :)

Well folks, that's it for today! I will share a picture of what's on my desk currently! Going to be doing some Christmas tags to be sure! I'm working on my Christmas Challenge tag for Tag it Tuesday over on Cards and More by Sheri!  If you haven't yet, pop on over to Sheri's blog and join in! :) I hope to share a tag with you tomorrow.....we will see how that goes...hee hee hee!

Have a blessed day my friends! 

It's December!!!!

Happy Tuesday all my crafty friends! And.......Happy December!!! Whoop, whoop! I can't believe it's here! I haven't done the first bit of Christmas ANYTHING!! It's sad, but alas, true! I hope you are ahead of me on that score! You could probably say that I am the worst procrastinator EVAH! LOLOL I'm sure it's all bound to kick in, eventually! :)

I have been so busy the last several weeks (seems to be my theme lately), but along with that, I have had the sickies and was out on holiday. So, that being said, I am behind on all my crafty projects! I am going to share a quickie with you today, that I have been meaning to post, save for the previous banter!! LOL 

As I had noted on a previous post, I have been taking part in Carolyn Dube's Permission to Play Workshop.  I'm probably one of the last ones to post the finished project. Everyone else has gone on to make SEVERAL journals, where I have yet to finish the first one! Oh boy! LOLOL I had previously shown a couple of the journal pages with you in an earlier post, so they will be "repeats!" Hey, since I'm behind, I got to get them back in there to make it look like I have been doing something! :) LOLOL

So those are all sixteen of my pages! I had so much fun doing them, although I did catch myself overthinking a time or two, which most certainly was what Carolyn was trying to get us to avoid! It was to be "permission" to play and play anyway you want to!! I do feel like I did that to a degree, after I got over myself that is!!! LOLOL  I still have to do my ribbon and finish the last lesson. I will post my finished product after that!!

I pray all of you who follow my blog and live in the States, had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I confess, I had a brilliant holiday filled with fun, relaxation, foodies and giving thanks to my Father in Heaven for ALL of His many blessings on my family! Those of you who have read my blog before know that we are a camping family. So for Thanksgiving we did our "annual" Thanksgiving camping trip and it was such beautiful weather the whole time and just lots of fun with family and friends! I'm a blessed gal to be sure! :)

Here's hoping you have a fabulous rest of the day! :)

(P.S. If anyone can tell me a MORE effective way to display my pictures I would be SOOOOOOO grateful for the heads up! I KNOW that this is so archaic!)

Blessings

Thankful to be Linking!!!!!

Good Wednesday all my crafty friends!!! Boy, if I got any busier, I wouldn't know if I were coming or going!!! I so try to post daily, but, lately it just has not been possible. This is a problem for me because.......I LOVE to post! Why? Because that means I am crafting!!! LOL As it were, I really have been crafting and have several projects going on, on my desktop, it just hasn't been feasible for me to post like I want to. So.....let me see what I can post today my friends! :)))))

Today, I am expressing my "thankfulness" to actually get to post and not only post but to be able to post to the Link Party over on Sheri Whitfield's blog, Cards and More by Sheri! I am so thankful to Sheri for providing this opportunity to play along each month and taking the time to come up with a theme and invite us over for fun! Thankful for you today Sheri! :) This months theme is Fall/Thanksgiving! Yay for me because I never want to pass up an opportunity to be thankful!!!

As I have expressed so many times before in my blog, I have virtually no technology to really display my crafts except my phone. I'm thankful for my phone, but the pictures never seem to really convey what I see with my crafts. This tag was full of shimmer and shine, but sadly you can't see that in this photo.

I began this tag by brayering on several PaperArtsy Fresco colors and then a Daler Rowney cream color and then smooshed around further with a baby wipe. After I heat set it, I then sprayed Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Silver bells and Pearl over top.

I then used a stencil by Donna Downey called Create Truth and stenciled using Silks Acrylic Glaze in French Lilac on the tag. I further outlined the stencil for just a little more prominence. I then spritzed again with my Tattered Angels. When I finished I used my homemade texture paste through Jaime Echt's stencil called "Art Is" for some further texture.

I then went through my embellishments drawer and saw this great border sticker that had some sparkle to it to use on the edge. And then found this word set from Tim Holtz that had "remember" that I popped out and painted with Daler Rowney Acrylic Silver. It was still too dull for me so I then went back and painted the word black and sprinkled with Finnabair's art sugar in Antique Silver! I love, love that product! I then simply adhered with some Aleene's.

I have a beautiful stamp set from Quitefire Design called Give Thanks and I stamped using one of the sentiments on card stock and then spritzed it with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Fully Purple. I then edged the sentiment and the tag with StazOn in Gothic Purple. I then simply painted another piece of card stock to put behind the sentiment in black and sprinkled with the Art Suger. I used double sided tape to put the two pieces together and then used pop dots to pop the sentiment up off the tag. Voila!

Not you traditional colors for fall and thanksgiving, but I guess I wanted to do something different! LOL But the sentiment is still the same in my heart! In God's Word in Psalm 95:2-3 it says "Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods!" Amen!!!! Any time I go before the presence of our Father, I make sure to go with thanksgiving and praise! As Matthew Henry said, "He is the author of our blessedness!" I am so richly blessed beyond what I deserve! My Father in Heaven never fails to provide for me and extend to me the fullness of His great love, mercy and grace!

God the Father is the One true Living God and is so worthy to be exalted, honored and glorified. He asks for nothing more! He definitely gets the short end of the stick when it comes to His children. We, as believers don't, or shouldn't, exalt Him for all the things He does (and He does many things for us daily) BUT simply because He IS!!! He gives ( and gave the One true eternal gift to us) and in return, He just wants our adoration! What love is this????? Mighty!

Won't you take time to step into His presence with praise and thanksgiving today? He deserves nothing less!

Bless you today! :)

What does your eye see?

Good Thursday all my crafty friends! I pray you all have had a blessed week and are looking forward to an eventful or relaxing weekend! I, unfortunately, will be CLEANING!! Uggghh! I mean really...how much cleaning can you really do? But somehow or another, it comes around like clockwork ever other week! I love my "off weekends" because I get to be somewhat lazy, except for the mounds of clothes that still have to be washed! But all that said, I am exceptionally blessed to have a beautiful home to clean and clothes to wash! I shall stop complaining now!!! LOLOL

Today, I want to share just a couple of pictures from Carolyn Dube's Permission to Play Lesson 2 over on her website A Colorful Journey.  In Lesson 2, Carolyn was wanting us to fin images and shapes inside her Sparks of Art-spiration that we could download for the lesson. Carolyn found a disco dancing 70's superhero, which was too cute to me! Somehow, if only in my mind, I had to find something just as cool! LOL I'll share two with you today!

Both of the Sparks of Art-spirations that I picked immediately brought images to my mind (luckily...you remember those psych pictures in college that you had to look at and tell what you saw in the picture? I usually had to sit and stare FOREVER at them before something came to mind..LOLOL) and I was looking forward to seeing if I could pull it off! The first picture I went off from was the one in this photo from yesterday at the top right:

I  saw a carnation in the top left and bottom right....or a flower resembling that. So I went with that to this:

Also in that picture on the top right (almost cut off) I saw a butterfly looking blob, so I went with that also. I wanted to keep Carolyn's background because I just loved it so and just added my artwork to it. I really just rough drew it out with my pencil and then just got various acrylics and went to town. I also did some shading with a Stabilo pencil and white gel pen and added some stickles on my butterfly. I also stamped "gratitude" on the board. It turned out okeedokee. I am not a "painters artist" that's for sure, but it was just fun seeing what I came up with out of her art-spirations!

The second art-spirations picture from this photo at the bottom left:

I immediately saw a tree to the left with many leaves falling down out of it. Now what I thought I was going to do, didn't necessarily come out from my minds eye initially, but I still like what I ended up with here:

Like the previous one, I rough sketched what I thought I wanted and ended up light gessoing over it. I did want some of Carolyn's colors to pull through, but in the end it was very light. I simply took some acrylic paints and painted out my tree and then took a stipple brush and pounced out leaves with various fall colors. I had a "leaf" stamp in my collection that I then used Staz-On in in Saddle Brown and stamped in the stipple area to get a "leaf look" it's faint, but you can see it when you re close up. I also stamped some pumpkins at the bottom and colored with Faber Castell Big Brush Pens and then stamped my sentiment with Archival Ink in black. And voila! It was fun finishishing out what my eye saw!

As a believer, I am well aware that God sees things that we don't see! And I am thankful for that! Imagine if God handled things the way we saw them half the time! Oh me!!!!! In God's Word in 1 Samuel 16:7 He says "But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look a the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart." Hallelujah! Matthew Henry said "we can tell how men look, but God can tell what they are!" Indeed! God continually looks at the heart!

It is so easy to judge people from the outside appearance, but you don't know what is in a man's heart? If we are too quick to judge another, we may miss out on being a blessing to another or may even miss out on a blessing ourselves!  Furthermore, if that person is "seeking" and you, as a believer, are too quick to judge, you may turn that person from our Father. How sad would that be? Remember God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise!

I encourage you today to see people through the precious eyes and blood of Jesus! Love them with the heart of the Father. Sometimes we may feel it's a little tough, but God's grace is sufficient, I promise you that! At this beautiful time of year open your heart and see beyond the surface and give thanks to the Father that you can do all things through Christ! :)

Be blessed

Lions Den!

Good Wednesday all my crafty friends!!!  I wanted to start off this morning sharing some awesomeness that the Lord shared with me as I spent time in His presence! You know, God is like that....you spend time with Him and He WILL visit and spend time with you! He is faithful to share His heart with us if we are faithful to open our hearts to Him! He has HASN'T failed me yet!

I read a quote this morning by Charles Wesley that said "The den of lions is as safe a place as any." WOW! WOW!! That really spoke to me this morning about our faith as His precious children! Faith amidst ANY circumstance against ANY problem! You think about Daniels faith from the beginning of this saga to the triumphant end. Those governors and satraps wanted Daniel OUT of the equation for their own purposes and plans and schemed to take him down, but God would have none of that for His faithful servant! The enemy's schemes never change! He has no new tricks they are all the same he just disguises them through our different circumstances! BUT GOD!!!

The verse that leaped off the page to me as I was reading in Daniel 6 was "Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm." (V. 3) Did you get that? An excellent spirit was IN him! My friend, for those whom believe on the very Son, Jesus Christ, His excellent Spirit is within YOU!!! Daniel walked with God and that anointing remained with Him causing him to be encouraged, faithful and strong in God's very promises for him. He would NOT be moved no matter the circumstances!

The very thought of going in that lion's den, I am sure, caused a pause in his heart, BUT he knew His God was for him!!! He had a strong enough spiritual fear of his living God to know that the temptations of his "physical" fear would flee if he remained in faith! God can use troubles and circumstances to develop our character as a part of His mighty purpose and destiny for our lives! Destiny is ALWAYS on the other side of crisis!!!

Recently I decided to take part in the wonderful and fun artist Carolyn Dube's free workshop, Permission to Play over on her website A Colorful Journey. I knew right away that I wanted to take this workshop, because lately, I have needed to give myself permission to play! I believe my OCD fangs come out on a regular basis concerning my mixed media and I needed a time out!!! LOL Carolyn is one of the freest mixed media artists I know. I'm talking talent because there are sooooo many AMAZINGLY TALENTED artists that I follow, but I'm talking free to lay down whatever her heart desires on that page or canvas and confident to believe that something will come out of it! It may be down the road and not in that session, but eventually it will resurrect itself. Time and time again I have seen it happen on her videos and I say, man, I need to be more like that!! So I am on a "colorful journey!"

Carolyn asked us all to sign and design a "Permission Slip" to start the process that says "I give myself permission to play and love what I do and call it AWESOME no matter what!" I totally needed to do that!

On my "permission slip" I used some of my fave Silks Acrylic glazes, a little gesso here and there and did some stamping. When I was done, I went back over my name and the "key" messages to me with journal pen to make them dark and stand out, so if I needed to, I could look back whenever I had a tendency to OCD!!!! LOL

I have actually gotten through lesson 4, but I will just share Lesson 1 with you guys today, since this already looks like a novel blog post!!! In this lesson Carolyn asked us to acquire a cardboard box and out of it cut panels for our journal. From there we were to start building our pages with gesso, book pages, her Sparks of Art-spirations or other things we wanted to apply to the cardboard. So I will share my beginning stages with you!

I have this empty container that I keep all my scraps from projects in, so I pulled that container out to just pull scraps from to use on my pages as well for text and possible images. After going through that guy, I found some pretty nifty pieces! One man's trash is another man's treasure!!!! LOL

Then I just began applying some gesso and adhering my pieces, book page and her Art-spirations where I felt led. I'll share my fronts and backs!

My glorious fronts!

I'm doing 8 panels

Then here are the backs of the pages:

Whatcha think so far????? I will share Lesson 2 with you tomorrow. I can tell you that I have been having so much fun with this challenge. It really has made me stop and take a look at my thoughts as I work on my my art! It will be a process (old habits die hard), but I am so thankful to Carolyn for offering this lesson! What a lovely gift on her part of time to us!! I look forward to seeing this evolve!

My friends, God desires an intimate relationship with you! If you don't know Him in that way, I invite you to seek Him and His Word and He WILL show you His purpose and destiny for your precious life!

Blessings to you! :) 

So Much Art, So Little Time!

Goooooooood Tuesday, all my crafty friends! I feel like I haven't posted in ions!!! LOLOL Do you ever feel like "the further you go, the behinder you get?" LOL That's me on a regular basis! I live life running 90 miles an hour, hair on end, pretty much 24/7! I realize a lot of that is my own fault (you know the poor "time management" that we've all had seminars on....hee hee), but a lot of it is because I am the "typical" woman who wears about a bazillion hats! LOL Phewwww....so let me get this post in before something comes up!! LOLOL

You remember I posted several weeks ago about getting to go to Donna Downey's studio? Well, I was lucky enough to pick up a few things while I was there and I will share a quick tag that I made this with a few of the things I acquired! One of the artists that I love and whom I follow on a regular basis is Gabrielle Pollacco. I tell you that is a dynamite lady whose effortless crafting not only makes me envious but always fascinates me! She is so gifted. While at Donna's Studio, I picked up one of Gabrielle's new stencils that I love called Winged Exploration (TCW566s).  I couldn't wait to get home and use it.

I started this tag by taking some of my homemade paste through Gabrielle's stencil and dried with a heat tool. I then began spraying with some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Fully Purple and Sweet Pea. I then added some Dylusions Bubblegum Pink and Lemon Zest and then finished with Glimmer Mist in Sunflower to give a little sparkle. I then just simply did some background stamping.

When I was finished the "explore" was not really popping to me so I got out my Viva Decor Inka Gold and swiped over the top of the texture paste. I still wanted more, so I then outlined with my Stabilo pencil and activated with water for shading.

In one of the grab bags from Donna's studio, she had put in canvas butterfly's and circles and I have never really worked on canvas before, so I couldn't wait to try. I haven't quite got the knack of it yet, but I gave it the old school try! LOL I simply sprayed using the same Sunflower Glimmer Mist and then used Donna Downey's Bubbles Stencil with Silks Acrylic Glaze in various colors. I did some doodling and then made its body with some pink Stickles and outlined with Finnabair's Glass Glitter in Gold Rush for some zing. I hot glued the butterfly to the tag, added some ribbon and voila! :)

I really like the word "explore!" I'm a curious person by nature, so it doesn't take much for me to want to try new things. I guess that's why I like mixed media so much because its all about trying new and creative things!

Do you like to explore? Thanks stopping by and allowing me to share my explorations with you!!

Blessings

She......flows!

Good Tuesday all my crafty friends! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! It has been so "fallish" here for the last several days. It's been raining non-stop! I love the rain and especially in the fall! The rain seems to bring out all the wonderful smells that fall brings! I love it! Since it rained all weekend, I was able to do a number of projects that I had been wanting to do! So, yippee for me!

One of the projects I want to share with you today was such a thrill for me to do! I am so thankful to a small group of folks that like my crazy art locally. I don't sell my art, it is pure enjoyment for me. I usually do it for giveaways or gifts. I'm not quite to the elevation that I would dare ask money for what I do! It's all in fun! That being said, I do have, from time to time, people ask me to make something for them and, of course, I jump on it! Any excuse to do what I love and I am there! LOL

I had a dear friend ask me to make something for her that she wanted to give to a friend that is suffering from cancer. How could I ever say no to something like that. If I can be a part of blessing another or lifting someone up during a difficult time, I will. This particular friend of mine has liked a few of my "she art" pieces and asked me would I do that for her with a "beach" theme! Her sweet friend who is suffering from that terrible disease loves anything "beach" themed and she wanted to give her something that reflected that.

I started my canvas with a coat of gesso and then added some drywall tape and Tim Holtz tissue tape here and there. I then just applied dots of gifted PaperArtsy Fresco Paints in various blue hues here and there and "smooshed" around with a baby wipe. I rounded it off with a little more gesso on top to fit it a softer touch. I then simply added some background stamping with black Archival Ink.

I had already arranged the setting in my mind so I pretty much had an easy go from this point. I have an old Bible that I got from a thrift store that I use pages out of to do art. I love to do that, right, wrong or indifferent, because I believe it "reaffirms" the message that I want to send. So I took a page and drew my "she" girl on with pencil then colored with my Derwent Water Color Pencils. After doing so I adhered to the canvas with Mod Podge and then began highlighting with my Micron Pens as well as my Faber Castell Big Brush Pens.

I went on line and downloaded some digitals of a beach umbrella, what I would like to think is a Bible and hat and then fussy cut them out and adhered to the page also with Mod Podge. I then just highlighted again with Microns and Big Brush Pens.

The fun part for me was figuring out how I wanted to do my sand! I took some Liquitex Gloss Gel Medium and mixed it with Finnabair's Mica Flakes until I got the consistency that I wanted and then simply slapped it on the canvas. I wanted more bling in there so I added some little jewels that I had that made me think of beach glass! And then I had some metal "beach" charms that I painted and then stuck in the sand. I had to rearrange the little hat and umbrella so it looked like it was in the sand, but it all worked out fine. For further bling I added some of Finnabair's Art Sugar.

I love how beaches will have the beach signs where the driftwood is going this way and that, so I thought I would draw that out to put my Bible verse on that was welling in my spirit for this young lady. I fussy cut the sign pieces out and distressed them with Distress Ink and then adhered with Mod Podge. I found a cute little sun face online, but I didn't like the rays coming out, so I cut them off and made my own and colored it with my Derwent Pencils, Mod Podged down and further highlighted with my Faber Castell Big Brush Pens. I also knew that I wanted to have a dove on the piece for "the Holy Spirit," so I drew that out and also Mod Podged on. And voila! 

I really loved doing this piece. I am no photographer, so my cellphone doesn't do the color or the Mica Flakes "sand" any justice. But I am hopeful that, that young lady will be blessed knowing that her friend loves her and is thinking of her during this difficult time in her life.

As her theme was "beach" obviously "water" came to my mind. God the Father speaks to us concerning "living waters" and that "whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." (John 7:38) That means that even in the circumstance that young lady or anyone facing a battle finds themselves in, that if she/they believe, that out of them will flow RIVERS of LIVING water! That is an AWESOME scripture to me! It is NOT for us to be sick because by the very act of Jesus on the cross, WE ARE HEALED!!! The manifestation is in God's timing. It could be immediate or to come. But we are to CLAIM that healing that up out of us flows those rivers of life! Why? That God's very grace encourage you, comfort you, strengthen you and sustain you! What love!

I don't pretend to understand the illnesses and diseases of our world today and why some are healed here on earth while others aren't healed until they are sitting with the Father, but I do KNOW and BELIEVE in the very Word of God and that it's purpose is for us to live according to His will, FILLED with all that the blood of Jesus provided for us! I CLAIM it today, how about you?

If life's circumstances have you in between a rock and a hard place today, recall the work of the cross and what your precious Savior Jesus did for you! What manner of love has the Father bestowed on us? BIG LOVE! ETERNAL LOVE!!

Blessings