June Art Journal Page-Positive Thoughts and Positive News!

Hello friends and welcome to the weekend! June has seemed to go by so very fast and I don’t know how time seems to keep flying by, but I think keeping busy is the best thing to do to stay in a positive mind set. I also have some positive news at the bottom of this post!

Speaking of positive….it’s our monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” JUNE prompt of “ABSTRACT FIGURE(S) or SHAPE(S)”:

I didn’t really have a plan in place when starting my page. I happened to remember these fun nesting dies that I had which remind me of a body of water/pond, but I thought they would work great for the “ABSTRACT SHAPE” prompt for this month. I started thinking of a rock or cave with these holes or crevasses where a rainbow light is coming through and a girl is in deep positive thought where butterflies are floating above her.

For the background: I started with a 8.5″x5.5″ watercolor cardstock and the oxide inks in Black Soot, Hickory Smoke and Pumice Stone. I rubbed the ink pads onto a glass surface, sprayed with water and “smooshed” the paper multiple times after drying with a heat tool in a process of about three times. I then stamped the “IMAGINE” definition text all over the background and went around the edges with black ink.

Each die cut shape was cut from a rainbow paper pad that I lined around the edges with a black marker. I black heat embossed the heart and the sentiment above the girl. The girl was cut from a magazine and placed on the largest rainbow shape so that her feet were dangling off. The butterflies were cut from a printed file and attached randomly over the page. Lastly, I covered each butterfly and the center of the heart with a glitter brush pen. You may be able to see some of the shimmer in the photo.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today! Thank you so much for checking out what I’m doing over here! I appreciate your kind thoughts! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – People
Try It On Tuesday – Add Some Text (not one word/greeting)
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge – Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – #116 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No cards

Positive news! My first grandson was born this week! He’s the most precious thing I’ve ever seen! I didn’t want to leave, so I hope I can come back very soon to see him again!❤️

This is me having a lovely conversation with him. LOL

May Art Journal Page-BEE YOU

Hello friends! Here we are at the end of another month for the year! It seems like we’ve only just barely started the year and now it’s almost at the halfway point? Time seems to fly away! Which reminds me that today is our monthly art journal page!

Yes, it’s our monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” MAY prompt of “WINGS”:

There happens to be wings on many things, but my attention has been focused on bees lately. I have been working on several projects and this was one of the things that I had used on something, so I thought I’d print me out an additional one to use on this month’s page! (This image is a digital file that I printed out and hand cut with scissors.)

For the background: I started with 8.5″x 5.5″Bristol Smooth Watercolor paper that I chomped the corners to get a rounded edge. I used a Dina Wakley Media Stencil along with yellow tones Oxide Distress inks to blend over it. While the stencil was still in place, I used a text stamp to go over it with brown ink. (water proof). Lifted off the stencil and added some more bright yellow ink in various places and then spritzed it with water to blend a bit. Since the text ink was water proof…it didn’t run. I then went around the edges with brown ink and then splattered the entire page with gold watercolor.

I die cut the hexagon and drip corner with gold mirror cardstock and attached to page. I used a black marker to make the “bee lines” and “bee antennas”. I took the fussy cut bee and popped him up with foam tape over the marker lines. I then used some glitter paint to paint over his wings. (I’m glad it shows up nicely in the photo.)

Lastly, I cut out the letters for the sentiment in “BEE”. for the “you”, I white heat embossed a sentiment that originally says “you are” and then die cut it out with a coordinating die. I cut off the “are” portion so that I could use just the “you” to place under my “BEE” lettering.

Thanks so much for checking in today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my page! I will be back next week to share some items that I’ve been working on! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Must Have Wings
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Emboss It (embossed “you”)
Try it On Tuesday – Things with Wings
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – May Anything Goes- no cards
Creative Artiste – #115 Anything Goes Mixed Media

February AJ Collab-You Are Enough

Hello friends! I’m back again today to share some more inspiration with my Art Journaling!

Today starts another AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” February prompt of “MUSIC” (of course!):

Really had fun with this page as it’s got that bright and cheerful background which is a great reminder to yourself especially when the world looks black and white.

I was able to pull out several stash items like the DecoArt Fluid Acrylic Paints, the stamp sets and dies, some of which, I’ve had for a long time and some never used!

For the background: I started with a canvas cardstock 140# measuring 8.5″x5.5″ and attached a music sheet of the same size over it. (I have tons of sheet music ephemera!) I then used the DecoArt Fluid Acrylic Paints to go over it in a horizontal bright rainbow. Once dry, I splattered white paint over it. I also went around the edges with a black paint marker.

The flowers at the bottom came from the Taylored Expressions Botanical Beauty Background (retired), that I stamped in black and colored with cool grey markers. I liked that it covered the entire width of my panel. I used a coordinating die to cut it with and attached to the bottom. I layered a black strip at the very bottom…because I thought it needed it.

Moving to the top of the page, I used a Lawn Fawn Little Heart Strings border die cut out with some shimmer vellum. (I also used the same vellum for the butterfly wings.) I attached this to the top of the page with double sided adhesive strip. I glued down the tiny hearts. This is the first time I’ve used this die because I had to cut it apart! The butterfly dies came from a very old My Favorite Things die set that is no longer available…not sure of the name even. The sentiment at the top over the heart string border came from the Taylored Expressions “You Are” that was white heat embossed over black cardstock and cut out with the coordinating die. I attached it over the border.

Lastly, I used my Cricut Machine to cut out some single music notes in black glossy cardstock and I attached those to the center of the die cut butterflies. I used some black Stickles glitter and put “dots” on the heart strings border, the butterflies and the center of the flowers.

Here’s a song that inspired me for this page:

and if you need to hear this today, just know that YOU ARE ENOUGH too

Thank you so much for stopping by today and sharing your kind comments and support! I read them all and appreciate it! Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – MUSIC
Moving Along with the Times – #175 – Things with Wings
A Cut Above – Anything Goes + die cuts
The Neglected Stuff – #1 challenge (I’ve used musical sheet ephemera, paints, butterfly dies)
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No cards
Creative Artiste – #112 Anything Goes Mixed Media
We Love to Create – Anything Goes Mixed Media

“W” is for WINGS

Hello friends and happy Friday! It has been very cold over our way and I’m staying indoors as much as I can which means some crafting time is happening! I do like looking from my window and seeing the chickadee birds along with the squirrels in the feeders! I enjoy seeing those bright red cardinals, but I don’t get to see those as often.

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge and we are on the letter “W”. The hostess has went with the theme “W is for “WINGS“. You will have 2 weeks to join us, so I hope to see your creations in the gallery! Here’s my card using this theme:

Since it’s so cold out, I decided to skip on over through winter and go straight to warm spring/summer with a dragonfly! We usually don’t see dragonflies over my way until it gets pretty warmed up. (It has to be above 60 degrees Fahrenheit, on average, for them to come out.) I also was happy to finally pull out a stamp set that I got from STAMPtember of last year created by Kitchen Sink Stamps. Unfortunately, this company is no longer operating. There are a couple of stamp sets available for purchase on the Simon Says Stamp website I see. But this particular stamp set called “All Aflutter” was only available during the STAMPtember event. I’m happy to get it even though I didn’t make it in time to grab the die set before it sold out, but it’s a beautiful set. It’s actually the only Kitchen Sink Stamps I own.

I started out with the green flower stems at the bottom. This is a layering stamp set, so they very cleverly put the numbers in order to stamp. I then added three purple colors for the flowers to go on top of the green stems. I stamped the sentiment from the set with the “Hi” done in purple ink. I ink blended like colors around the card panel.

I stamped the dragonfly body onto the card panel BEFORE stamping the sentiment for the placement of the design. I attached the card front to a purple A2 top folding card base.

Dragonflies have to have that shimmer on their wings! It’s so hard to take a photo of the shimmer from the glitter pen and I wanted that to come through for my dragonfly wings!

The dragonfly was stamped in the corresponding layers for his body and wings on a separate piece of cardstock. The lightest grey was the wings. I used my scissors to fussy cut him out and blended some light blue ink around his wings. I glued the middle section of him only so that I could pop up the wings a bit.

Lastly, I added some shimmer to his wings with the glitter pen and attached some gems.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and you’ve been inspired to join in the challenge with us! Be sure to check out the rest of the inspiration from the team!
Thanks for stopping in and I’ll be back tomorrow with my AJ collaboration with Carol!

Challenges:

Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
Creatalicious – #286 Anything Goes + optional: use green
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – #248 Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2507 Anything Goes
Moving Along With the Times – #175 Things With Wings
A Place to Start – #020325 Anything Goes + optional: Things in the Sky

October Art Journal-A Strange Feeling

Hello friends! **THIS IS A PRE-SCHEDULED POST AS I’M AWAY AT A STAMP RETREAT!!**

The weather is finally starting to cool down now and we’ve finished cleaning the yard to prepare for winter months to follow soon. Halloween will also be here in a few days, so I thought it would be fun to make my page today with that in mind!

Today is the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” October prompt of “ODD/Oddities” (anything unusual or strange):

I don’t know if this is considered odd to anyone else, but I certainly do! This weird scientist looking guy has a strange facial expression as he’s holding up a head in the bottle! I’ve put so many details in this page that I thought you’d need to see close-up photos below.

For my background: Starting with a 5.5″ x 8.5″ heavy watercolor paper with pre-punched holes at the top for binding later, I sprayed the background with mica sprays in Hocus Pocus, Jack-O-Lantern and Flickering Candle. I sprayed some extra water over top to get them to blend together as they seem very concentrated and they didn’t move much over the watercolor paper after spraying a few times. I took a leaves stencil inked over places with light brown ink. I then ink blended the edges with black ink and stamped some lettering stamped randomly. Lastly, I splattered with black and gold watercolor.

Upon a closer look at the bottom: I needed an area for shelves to hold the potion bottles, so I took some Tim Holtz Halloween collage paper and attached it with matte medium. It crinkled a bit, but I sort of liked that look. I then found some decorative strips in my stash and added those for the “shelves”. The crow and “curious” ephemera was also found with all of my Tim Holtz Halloween stash….along with the paper doll “guy”. I cut off a head from one of them to place inside the jar. I added some thin metal wire around the jar and cut a slit in the guy’s hand to make it look like he’s holding it. I also added a bit of color to the guy’s flower and bow tie on his jacket outfit with markers. BEFORE popping up the paper doll guy to the page, I ripped some black cardstock for the ground underneath him and tucked in the bones.

For the Bottles: I used a Taylored Expressions “If You Dare” Stamp & Stencil set to make all of the bottles. I also used the TE “If You Dare Halloween Labels” to foil and cut out to place over each jar. To die cut some extra “strange things” to put inside a few of the jars and the bones at the bottom, I die cut pieces from the TE “Little Bits Cauldron Confetti” dies. (The die cut bats from this were also used on the top of the page.) For more finishing details, I doodled in some of the jars and then added some colored glitter/sparkle and pearl drops for the inside contents. If you look closely at the crow’s eye, you can see I’ve added a tiny dot of yellow sparkle. Some of the details were popped up and some were just glued down.

A closer look at the top: Mostly die cut pieces were used at the top and the first I put down was the spider web and spider from Whimsy Stamps called Spiders and Webs…they’re huge! (this store is so good at spooky things!) I drew a line with a black marker from the spider to the web. For the window, I die cut it out from a really old Mama Elephant die I’ve had in my stash…not sure if it’s still available. BEFORE I placed the window down, I die cut the moon from the Lawn Fawn Shadow Box Halloween Add-On die set. I blended in some yellow and gray and covered it with a glitter sparkle pen. I added the die cut bats and placed the window over top.

Lastly, I took some Tim Holtz Halloween clippings word strips and added to the page. I took a black marker and went around the strips above the paper doll “guy”.

I know there are people that are not Halloween fans or care for the spooky things, but I really enjoy the weirdness of it all and have fun making things with it! In the words of Lydia from Beetlejuice: “I myself am strange and unusual“.

Winona Ryder in a hat as Lydia in Beetlejuice

I do hope you’ve enjoyed my page today and I really appreciate you stopping by! I will be back later with things we’re doing at the retreat! See you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Autumn Colors & Inspiration (Purple, orange, yellow and black!)

Butterflies at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! Hope that your week has been a good one for you! Thank you to everyone for stopping by and taking your time to spend with me as I appreciate your kindness.

Today starts the August challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and for this month, our hostess is asking to see a butterfly or butterflies on your projects. I love butterflies and look forward viewing the gallery on this one. Be sure to stop by the blog to see what the rest of the team has created for you. Here’s my project for this challenge:

I like how this one came together! I’ve used several butterfly items from Taylored Expressions. I started with the background by taking the Fluttering Friends Layering Stencil and stencil the colors Sour Gummy, Spearmint & Peaches ‘N’ Cream over a white card base. Once the stenciling was finished, I used the Fluttering Friends 3D embossing folder over it which also impresses the bodies and antenna on them. I layered this over a top folding A2 Spearmint card base. (I also cut out a frame with the same colored cardstock using the Frame in Frame 3 Cutting Plate).

For the butterfly focal, I white heat embossed a butterfly from the Beautiful Butterfly Wings stamp set and cut it out along with the layered wings and body from the Beautiful Butterflies die set. I layered it onto a piece of vellum cut out with the Petite Scallop Circle Stacklets die. I also white heat embossed the sentiment from the Mini Strips-Fluttering By stamp set over Sour Gummy cardstock cut from the Mini Strips die. I used foam strips to pop it up and I also added some rhinestones on the butterfly wings.

I hope you like my inspiration for the challenge and that you’ll take some time this month to create something with butterflies too.

Thank you for stopping in and have a great day!

Challenges:

Cut It Up – #310 ‘Thinking of You’ + use of die cut
The Divas That Cut…Paper! – Wet/Dry Embossing (I did both)
Crafty Gals Corner – #258 Anything Goes optional: Embossing Folder
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Can You Handle the Pressure? – Anything Goes using Embossing Folder optional: wheels
Stencil Fun – Anything Goes using Stencil optional: Summertime
Triple B – Butterflies/Birds/Blooms (I used butterflies)

June Art Journal Page-Finding Happiness

Hello friends! Happy weekend! I hope you’re enjoying yourself with whatever you have going on. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost time for us to celebrate the 4th of July holiday!

We’ve been having higher than normal temperatures this time of year and you never really know if that humidity is going to circle back up in the air to create a thunderstorm. Nature can be a wonderful thing though, and this is what the focus is for my page.

It’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” June prompt of “DISTRESS”-(rough up/sand/rip, etc):

So taking this approach with the prompt of “distress”, I thought it called for green colors and lots of nature collage type elements from my stash! I have tons of those Tim Holtz ephemera packages, so I pulled those out along with distress oxide sprays. I haven’t used those in quite a while.

For the background: I started with a 5.5″ x 8.5″ (pre-punched holes with the Bind-It-All machine) very heavy weight canvas paper. I started with a couple of pieces of ripped printed papers and distressed/inked the edges of it with Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink. I then took a Tim Holtz stencil and randomly applied paste over it. After the paste dried, I placed the panel into a box and sprayed it with variations of water and distress oxide sprays in Peeled Paint, Rustic Wilderness, Fossilized Amber and Vintage Photo. I added water and dried with my heat tool after each color until it was blended as I liked. I took off the Vintage Photo cap and splattered a few drop with it.

Before applying the ephemera pieces, I had a solid fern stamp that I randomly stamped with Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide ink. I also stamped a few of those “rain drop” images randomly in the center of the page with black waterproof ink. I removed the background color out of the images with a watercolor brush and then added back in a touch of blue color from an ink pad lid. I used a white gel pen to add a highlight and covered the drops with a glitter brush pen.

Finishing the page, I’ve stamped the bug and magnifying glass, colored them in and added some acetate behind the magnifying glass, I ripped, sanded and distressed the edges of the page, the card behind the bird and randomly over the background. Before attaching the pieces, I took some white pearl wax and rubbed over the stenciled paste areas. I also sanded around the edges of the black sentiment strips. I attached all of the ephemera pieces and popped the card and butterfly pieces with foam tape. I added a safety pin to the card and glitter to the tops of the flowers in the corner. (hard to see in photo)

The sentiment at the top reads: if you want to find happiness, find gratitude.

Another prompt I worked on with this is the challenge over at Art Journal Journey which was “What Makes You Happy“. So although nature helps with happiness for me, I find that happiness is multi-faceted with the purpose being exactly what the sentiment says. I thought it went perfectly with this page.

Since my husband is retired and we now have time to take little road trips here and there and sometimes stop along the way to find an interesting trail or nature walk or park to explore. We’ve had some great times doing this and I love being out in nature especially among the trees after a gentle rain. The smell and coolness in Autumn are fabulous for this!

Click on a photo to enlarge it if you’re on my website:

This was quite a wordy post, but I hope you’ve enjoyed my inspiration today and how it was inspired. Thanks so much for joining me today and please check out Carol’s blog too!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – What Makes You Happy
Creative Artiste – #105 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – June challenge ATG
A Place to Start – Anything Goes optional: Anything but a card
Paperminutes – #852 Stencils

Art Journal Inspiration-Fireflies and Gallery full of card classes!

Hello friends! I hope that your week has been going great! I had planned on posting earlier in the week, but I got so focused on completing my classes that I ran out of time! (Check out the gallery below…LOTS of cards!) I thought while I’m working on laundry today, I’d make a post sharing some things I’ve been doing…so grab yourself a beverage and take some time to enjoy! First up is my art journal page:

Remember that I’m a guest host over at Art Journal Journey this month and the theme that I’ve chosen is “LIGHT“. I hope you’ll stop over to see all of the wonderful inspiration that everyone has been creating with this theme and join in the fun!

This so reminds me of Summer! Remember as a child going outside in the dark and seeing tons of those flashing lights going off?! I was always amazed that when I ran over to chase that flashing light, it disappeared on me and I was forever trying to capture those lights!

For the background: I’ve chosen some Bristol Smooth cardstock in 5.5″x8.5″ pre-punched holes at the top cut with my Zutter machine. I have started with stamping the jar and placing it where I thought it needed to be and then stamped those fireflies around it. Starting with the fireflies, I dabbed on some yellow where they emit light and then used some soft blue around them working out with darker shades of blues as I reached the edges. Bristol cardstock works great for ink blending with Distress Oxides. To make sure that the yellow light was showing over the dark ink (without smudging it), I took some yellow paint and the end of my paint brush to make various sized yellow dots for the look of those fireflies in the distance.

I decided to take a leaf branch to generation stamp it along the edge for the illusion of a tree being there. Although it looks black, I die cut a grass border in very dark green cardstock for the bottom portion of the page. I also added another firefly at the bottom that was die cut and popped up with foam tape. I used yellow ink for underneath his light glow. The firefly wings have been covered with a glitter brush pen.

For the bottom lettering: I printed it off my computer and then cut out each word, added some color with inks over them and then doodled around each word with a pen. These words and this AJ page was totally inspired from a song called “Fireflies” by Owl City. If you’re interested in listening to the song, check out the video below:

I learned that this song artist has insomnia and came up with this song during one of those times he had trouble sleeping. I can relate and so it inspired my light page.

Next, I would like to share with you a card class event that I took part in called “Celebrations Delivered” provided by Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine. It was a one day event with virtual live learning class videos and each instructor provided at least 3 different projects. I have listed below each photo who the class instructor was.

If you are on my website, just click on each photo to enlarge it and see the details about each one underneath the photo. I have made 15 total cards from this:

Really had fun making these and using the products provided to us. This also reminds me that I have more classes coming soon that I’ll be doing and that I’ve also forgotten to share some things that I had done last year, but hadn’t posted! If anything else, you can hopefully enjoy or be inspired in some way as I post! But more will come soon if my arms don’t fall off!😉

Thank you so much for stopping in today and I’m happy you’re here! I will be dropping around to see what everyone is up to and I will be back on Saturday for our “Smash Your Stash” AJ inspiration! Have a wonderful day!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT
Simon Says Stamp Monday – NOT a card (art journal page at top)
Try It On Tuesday – Spotlight It! (Fireflies are spotlighted with yellow dots) Hopefully this works for the challenge!

Bugging Out With Sketches

Hello friends! I hope you’re having a good week so far and staying safe wherever you are in the world. Sending hugs to all experiencing a troubled time. I hope that my post can bring a smile to you today.

I needed to create some get well type of cards and so I thought I’d try to incorporate some challenges while working on them which helps me to concentrate more in what I’m doing and maybe think outside the box a bit.

My first card is made with the Beccy’s Place Challenge freebie this month and she also challenged us with a sketch which I’ve decided to use for my card. (see sketch below) I was really happy to use up some more pattern papers with it and I also decided to add a tiny dragonfly at the top to enter another challenge and to adhere to my “bug” theme today!

I printed the image in black and white and colored with Copics. The dragonfly and the center pink strip were stamps that I cut out and added to the design. The rest is pattern paper from my stash except the scalloped kraft border in the center that I cut out with a die. I stamped the sentiment and cut it out to go with my twine around it. *You will notice in ALL of these cards that I’ve used some sparkly gems. I wasn’t aware until posting them! I must be on a kick of wanting to use them!*

Challenges for 1st card:

Beccy’s Place – August challenge + sketch
Paper Dragonfly Creative – Anything Flies (Goes) or Party
Kreativ-Tanten – Anything Goes
The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
Dragonfly Dreams – Dragonflies

And for this next card, I’ve played with a large bug:

Around my area this time of year, you can hear the sound of these cicada bugs with their distinct noise throughout the trees. My husband likes the sound when a bird catches one! EEW! This bug is a cute one from Inky Stamper called Cicada and I’ve colored it up with pencils this time. Hard to see, but I’ve also added some shimmer with a glitter pen on his wings.

I’ve used the Picket Fence Tree Bark stencil over kraft on the background and then splattered it with brown and white paint. The leaves under the bug and the accent came from the Lisa Horton Variegated Leaf EF+die that I cut over light green cardstock. I used some metallic green wax to go over the details in them. I also used some gel pens to make some doodles around the strip, the circle and under the sentiment along with following a sketch. (details below) You will also notice more sparkly gems! I’m also entering this in the Inky Stamper FB challenge this month which is using an IS bug image.

Challenges for card #2

Sketch Saturday – #732 sketch + twist: add a doodle
Creative Knockouts – #501 Anything Goes
We Love Stamping – Masculine
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
A Place to Start – Anything Goes optional: leaves/trees
The Corrosive – Anything Goes

For my last card I decided to keep this one simple’ish’:

So, I know these aren’t real bugs because I’m not squealing, but these guys are too cute! They’re popping up out of the dirt for a special greeting! I mixed in both a new and older stamp set from Lawn Fawn on this one. I’ve used another sketch for this one and decided to keep it very simple. The hardest part of this was the coloring which honestly wasn’t all that difficult either because they’re small images. I’ve also added some shimmer with a glitter pen on the wings and of course, there’s those sparkly gems again!

Challenges for card #3

Sunday Stamps – SSC316 in the corner sketch
The Paper Players – CAS using any Bug
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Clean and Simple
Krafty Chicks – CAS (Clean and Simple)

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I appreciate your time and thoughts! I’ll be seeing you again on Saturday with another AJ page!

May AJ Page-Start a New Beginning

Hello friends! I feel like the time keeps moving whether or not I do! At the last minute before getting something done, I finally started this page! Once I got going, it was fun to just play around to see what happens!

It’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she will have some wonderful inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” May prompt of “FLOWERS”.

I noticed looking back on my AJ pages that I rarely use flowers on them unless it’s already apart of some papers that I’m using. So this was a good challenge for me and it was fun to pull out these Tim Holtz “Flower Garden” stamps and dies from my collection to use for this one.

For the background: I started with my 9″x6″ pre-punched holes of Canson 140# cold press watercolor and used a brick stencil and model paste. I covered the entire page with some linen and umber paints mixed together. I dabbed a bit of orange and spritzed it with water for a rust look. I then went over that with a dry brush effect with some light ivory paint to bring out the texture of the brick pattern.

The flowers and stems were stamped over a watercolor Bristol that I previously made and splattered with chocolate paint. I also covered the die cut flowers with shimmer spray. (Not sure if you can catch that in the photo.) All of the stems were glued, and the flowers were glued with some being popped with foam tape. I covered the bottom area over the stems with grit paste and then went over it with brown paint to give the appearance of dirt.

I took a Dylusions stamp and white heat embossed it over chocolate cardstock for the sentiment, hand cut it and popped up with foam tape at the top of the page. I added a butterfly from a Tim Holtz ephemera pack.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today! Thanks for dropping in and checking it out!

Challenges: