GDT for Creative Artiste Mixed Media Nov Challenge – Autumn Teapot

**THERE WILL BE TWO POSTS FROM ME TODAY. THIS IS THE FIRST POST OF TWO**

Hello friends and happy November! The weather has finally decided to give us a bit of a cool down and it feels more like that Autumn Season right now. We’ve been waiting on some rain as it’s been dry and then the wind blew in some cool with it too! I always like to give Autumn it’s “due justice” as it never seems to have a spotlight as much I think it should.

I’m very excited to share a mixed media project I made for a guest design spot (that I had won a top spot from a previous challenge). I was asked to join this month as a guest designer for the Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge Blog!

The theme for these monthly challenges is always “Anything Goes Mixed Media“. So be sure to check out the wonderful inspiration from the team and share your mixed media project over there! I look forward to seeing your inspiring makes!

I’m always excited when I have an “excuse or reason” to get out all of my mixed media things and play around to make something! I thought since it was November, it would be a great time to pull out the Autumn media:

I made this fun center/accent piece for Autumn and pulled out the cool Finnebair rusty metal teapot from my shelf to finally decorate on! It actually looks pretty cool by itself, but I had to add some other details to it that I thought would make it my own.

For the base: The only thing that was missing for me was a “handle” for my teapot and I went through my husbands things and found an old metal coat hook that I had him screw onto the side. I also had some extra pieces laying around from the molds I made with resin, so I attached those along the frame opening with 3D matte gel. I wanted to also add some texture to my teapot and that’s where I added some crackle paste in various areas…all of these things had to dry for quite some time. It didn’t look pretty at that point as those pieces were white. LOL The “hurry up and wait” had begun.

After the long drying time: I started by covering the entire thing with two layers of black gesso so that all of those white areas were completely covered up. I pulled out some acrylic paints in Raw Umber, Burnt Orange and very light touch of Marigold. I started with the darkest color first and did not use a brush to apply the layers. Instead, I used a sponge after each layer was dry. I very lightly and sparingly used the yellow. I even went back in with the Burnt Orange and Raw Umber to get the look I was wanting.

After all of the painting, I used more of the 3D matte gel and wrapped some jute/rope around the top handle.

Going to the right side of the teapot, you can see where I’ve added all of that crackle paste and the painting that I’ve done over it. The only thing missing at this point was the “highlights” to make it look like a found rusty metal teapot. Since it was Autumn themed, I pulled out the Finnebair Vintage Gold Wax and rubbed over the raised areas with my finger. You can see the look it gives over the paste and decorative molds around the frame and even the raised “dots” along the top of the teapot.

Moving over to the left side of the teapot, you can see where I’ve screwed in the metal hook to the side of the teapot. I just incorporated the silver screws with the design by adding paint. I told my husband that I thought it looked cool to turn the coat hook up-side-down as it looked more like a handle.

And now if we take a closer look to the inside of the teapot frame, you will see an Autumn scene in there. The back of the teapot comes out so you can decorate how you’d like. I know it’s a bit hard to see in the photo, but I found some leafy background paper to attach over the metal backing and I also splattered some gold paint over it.

For the bottom of the teapot, I attached some woodland moss mixture with 3D matte gel and also used it to attach the gold splattered gourds, eucalyptus, a wood slice, a cardboard squirrel, sticks and some acorns. I also went around the outside areas to attach some Fall leaves and more acorns. The only thing I didn’t have in my stash were the acorns and sticks. My husband said that he could get them for free…and of course he went to our local park and picked them up! LOL So those are the only “real” things on my teapot.

I had thought about maybe adding some fairy lights inside at the top so the inside would be more visible, but not sure if I would like that or not…what do you think?

And in case you might want to know, the measurement of the teapot are 12″ across (including the added metal coat hook), 8″ tall and about 3.5″ in depth. I currently have it sitting in my cabinet at home.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my mixed media teapot! I would love to see your mixed media project as well if you play along with us this month at the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog!

Thanks so much for stopping in! Stay tuned as I will have another post coming up in a couple of hours!

Challenges: (if this project doesn’t fit with your challenge, just delete.)

Ally’s Angels – #87 Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create – October Anything Goes with optional: lots of leaves (Fall/Spring)
Dragonfly Dreams – October Anything but a Card
Krafty Chicks – #740 Anything Goes
Classic Design – #10-2024 Anything Goes with optional twist: Anything but a card
The Creative Crafters – #81 Anything Goes

Anniversary Gnomes

Hello friends! I hope you’re having a great start to your week! I’m just popping in to share the card I made my husband for our 25th wedding anniversary…he’ll be getting it this morning and then we’re off to a date ~~night~~ (afternoon as we’ve gotten older)!😆

I think this turned out pretty cute! I dug into my Whimsy Stamps stash and colored up these cute gnomes and fussy cut them by hand to add to the scene. I cut off the string and heart in the center of their hats and stamped the image over the green cardstock with the cut out image layered over top of it.

For the background: I blended some Autumn colored inks in various places and then stenciled in the leaves with a light brown ink. I die cut the mountains and attached them to the background by sizing it up with the green die cut tree border for placement. I stamped the “love you” sentiment all over the green background and then layered the colored image over top of the other. I added some silver sparkle on the heart in the center of the hats.

I also took a die cut silver cardstock frame to go around it and then I silver heat embossed the “happy anniversary” sentiment at the top of the scene.

All the layers were cut with a scallop rectangle die and placed over a side folding A2 grey card base.

And here’s what I put on the inside of the card. I thought it up myself and printed it out on the computer. It was cut out with the same scalloped rectangle die and attached. I still need to sign it as I’m typing this up!

Here’s the inspiration that I used to help me create this card:

These are some more photos that we took while we were in Alaska last month. After our cruise, we took a land tour and went on a train ride that took us up to Denali Park. We had a good day to take a 3 mile hike one day and ran into someone that took our photo and we took their photo too!

I will be back later to share some photos of the stamp retreat I just came back from! Always lots of fun and great to see my crafty friends! Thanks for stopping by today!

Challenges:

Retro Rubber – #rrcb242 Fall by the Lake (all products are at least 3 yrs old)
Little Red Wagon – #779 Emboss it! (sentiment)
Penny’s Challenge – #583 Anything Goes Using Paper
Krafty Chicks – #739 All Occasions (Anniversary)
CRAFT – #738 Anything Goes
Just Us Girls – #750 Stencil Week (leaves)
Creative Knockouts – #533 Halloween or Fall (Fall)
Crafty Catz – #681 Anything Goes with optional: dies/punches (I used dies)

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!)

Halloween Hauntings

Hello friends! It seems like this month has really flown by as I now realize that Halloween will be here next week and I wanted to get some cards sent out that I’ve made!

So here are my Halloween cards for this year….I had so much fun!

This one was so much fun putting together and it wouldn’t have been put together if it weren’t for the parameters on Craft Roulette #237 this week! The four parameters consisted of these – 1. Project: Pop Up Card, 2. Colors: Trick-or-Treat, 3. Element: Boutique and 4. Random: jewelry

I used the Lawn Fawn Platform pop-up die and the build a house die with the Halloween add on plus a few other dies and stamp sets all from Lawn Fawn. The front “welcome” sentiment was printed out from my computer and I made up the “Bougie BOO-tique” language to fit with the parameters of the challenge.😆 These ghosts are all blinged up and hanging out around their favorite “BOO-tique” to catch up on all of the latest trends in style! One is wearing a necklace, another a tierra, another carrying a purse, another styling glasses with bling and the front ghost has earrings and a sparkle wand.

The background was done with the Lawn Fawn Platform Pop Up Add On around the back of the pop up. I ink blended and then splattered with white Copic Opaque White mixed with water to get the starry night background. This card went to my husband because he really enjoyed it and said that it wasn’t going anywhere, but it does lay flat for mailing.

This card was done for an Inky Inkspiration Challenge over on FB for September and they were asking for a slimline card. I’m more into making the mini slimline size rather than a full size, so that’s what I went with! I’ve used the cute Bat stamp set for all of the images, except for the background panel, which you’ll notice it looks like a BINGO card and it is! It was the game that we played in a Zoom class that I took with Inky Stamper and we actually used this Bat stamp set for the projects we made and the BINGO card was included. I decided instead of throwing it away, that I would use it as background paper for my card. I just stenciled in some gray clouds over top and stamped some bats from the set with it. The rest were just cut out and placed on the card with the bat being popped out with foam tape.

(I would’ve showed photos from the class, but I forgot to take photos of them!)

And here’s another card I made for World Card Making Day using the fun sketch from the Inky Stamper Inkspiration Group on FB. I’ve used this really CUTE Zombie stamp set from Inky Stamper for this card. I had so much fun coloring him up!

And this last card I made for someone who loves the spookiness of the season almost as much as I do! I pulled this really cool image from an older paper pack by Whimsy Stamps. In fact, all of the images on this card came from this store.

I die cut the image out with the WS ATC Antique Frames including the sentiment that was white heat embossed. The background was black heat embossed with the WS Vintage Wallpaper stamp over kraft cardstock. I sponged some black ink around the edges which was also cut out with the WS Wavy Pieced Rectangle dies. I cut out a few ghosts from white cardstock using the WS Boo die set and sponged some green ink at the very bottom edges.

I thought it would be fun to make the eyeballs of the skeleton and the edges of the ghosts glow in the dark, so I used some glow-in-the-dark embossing powder over them and finished off the sentiment panel with green gems. (It’s too hard to take a photo of the glow-in-the-dark!)

Well that’s it for me today with all of the Halloween cards! I hope you’ve enjoyed them or have been inspired in some way! Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll see you again on Saturday with another Art Journal Page for the month!

Challenges:

Creative Fingers – #287 Anything Goes
Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers – #255 ‘H’ is for Halloween
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – #240 Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – #PIP2442 Anything Goes
Make My Monday – #237 A Spooky Halloween
Two Old Bats – Anything Goes Halloween
Crazy for Stencils – Anything Goes using stencils + Halloween (2nd bat card)
Unicorn – #103 Autumn/Halloween

Mushrooms at Sparkles Monthly!

Hello friends! I hope that your October has been a good for you! We have just started seeing some cooler weather and even a bit of frost coming tomorrow night! I also wanted to say thank you for your comments about my last post. After having such a break, getting my crafting back on has been touchy. I’m trying to get organized!😁

Today starts the October challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and for this month, our hostess is asking to see a mushroom(s) on your project. 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 really like how this one turned out! I was trying to keep it in an Autumn feel with using these colors and adding leaves. Everything I’ve used came from Lawn Fawn.

I started by cutting out the background panel, the leaves and the mushrooms in different colors of cardstock. I sponged over the each of the pieces for dimension and shading and then splattered over top of them with brown and white paint.

I just attached all of the layers together that I thought was pleasing to my eye and then I white heat embossed the sentiment over the brown cardstock and cut out the banner and popped it up over the leaves with foam tape. Lastly, I just added a few white gems for sparkle.

I hope you like my card today and has inspired you in some way to play along with us for the challenge this month! I would to see your mushroom creations in the gallery! I appreciate you stopping today!

Challenges:

Penny’s Paper-Crafty – #582 Anything Goes Using Paper
Just Us Girls – #748 Leaves
Creative Friday – #370 Faux Stitching (in die cut background)
Crafty Catz – #680 Anything Goes optional: Autumn Colors
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2441 Anything Goes
Four Seasons – Anything Goes Fall
Crafts Galore Encore – #128 Anything Goes
The Paper Funday – #70 Anything Goes optional: Autumn

September Art Journal-Fall Texture

YAY! I’m back…but a tad bit late for my monthly AJ post! (So sorry about that Carol!!) I’m trying to get back into crafting again as it feels like I’ve been away from it for a long time! It was a fun, crazy, beautiful time away and there a few photos below this post if you care to see….

BUT FIRST, TODAY (BETTER LATE THAN NEVER)….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” September prompt of “TEXTURE” (anything to create texture):

Texture is something that I really enjoy using, but sometimes when you’re making cards, you don’t always want that texture or bulk adding to your design because you want to be able to slide it into an envelope to mail out. Doing an art journal page with lots of texture and bulk is something I can do because it’s my own piece of art to keep and it’s fun to play with lots of media from my stash to create it!

For the background: I started with my usual 5.5″ x 8.5″ heavy weight watercolor panel with pre-punched holes at the top using my Bind-It-All machine. Starting with some media paste and my “go to” dotted stencil, this was a quick way to add texture to the background. I then pulled out some watercolor in blue tones and covered over the background with it and sprinkled some sea salt over it, let it dry completely and then brushed it off. This leaves some cool effects to the watercolor and it creates some texture as well!

Moving down the page, I have die cut lots of pumpkins and leaves! These are all die cut sets from Taylored Expressions that I’ve had in my stash for a few years now. All the pumpkins were cut from orange cardstock. For the largest pumpkin, I’ve used my Copic markers to give it some dimension/texture. The other pumpkins had another piece that I cut from a darker orange cardstock. The stems all cut from green cardstock. I decided to splatter some brown, gold and white paints all over them for even more texture. Before attaching the pumpkins, I used some printed tissue paper that was sprayed with color and scrunched up and attached to the bottom of the page with media paste. Lots of texture going on at the bottom here!

For the leaves, I die cut them out from kraft cardstock and ink blended over them in various fall colors. You will notice around the edges of the leaves as well as the textured paste background on the page, that I’ve used some gold wax and rubbed around the edges and over the texture. I then arranged all of the leaves and pumpkins at the bottom of the page with some popped up with foam tape. I’ve also taken some green wire and curled it to use for a couple of the pumpkins that were attached to the back of them.

Lastly, I’ve added the sentiments that were die cut, gold foiled and attached at the top along with the thin strip of orange cardstock. The “FALL” letters were popped up with foam tape as well as a portion of the leaf on the side of it.

Really hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today! It was fun getting messy and playing around with crafting again! I really missed doing it!

Here are just a couple of photos to share on our time away. We started by flying to Seattle as we’ve never been and visited the Space Needle. We took a bus to Canada where we boarded a Cruise ship that took us into Alaska to see the glaciers! We sailed for a week, but went further up to Denali Park in Alaska where we stayed an additional week and made our way back home. This was certainly a once in a lifetime experience that we’ll never forget! The photos look nowhere close to how gorgeous it was to see in person.

While we were traveling on our way back home, it seems that one of our pieces of luggage decided to take a trip to Mexico! So once we figured all that out, got our luggage back and tons of laundry, cleaning, groceries to get, done….I had an appointment to get an impacted tooth removed the other day! Been feeling a little overwhelmed, but starting to get better!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR KIND SUPPORT, COMMENTS AND COMING TO VISIT ME HERE! I’VE MISSED CRAFTING AND CATCHING UP WITH ALL OF YOU! HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND AND SEE YOU SOON!!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Anything Goes

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)

July Art Journal Page-Watercolor Winds

Hello friends and happy weekend! It’s the start of the Olympics and it’s something that I enjoy catching up on a few events here and there when I can as it’s very inspiring to see these dedicated athletes perform. I do hope you’re enjoying your weekend however you’re spending it.

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” July prompt of “WATER” (actual water or the look of it):

Do you enjoy watercolor? Do you enjoy the water? I happen to really like both! I think I am more apt to dabble in the watercolor medium than I am to actually be IN the water though!😆 I decided to use both for my page today. It would be a dream of mine if I could ever experience sailing…maybe one day!

Background: I started with an 8.5″ x 5.5″ pre-punched holes on a Canson coldpress watercolor panel and painted the background with my Kuretake Gansi Tambi watercolors and a brush. I started with the yellow and worked my way out to the darker color. I wanted a warm sun with a contrast of darker sky/clouds over to the left. I stamped the birds to the right corner.

For the clouds, sails and water, I pulled out some fabric and die cut the pieces out with the exception of the boat. I stamped the boat with Staz On ink over the fabric and hand cut just the sails out with scissors for the fabric. The boat was stamped on cardstock, colored with watercolor and cut out. I used fabric glue to attach all of the fabric pieces.

I popped up the bottom layer of the dotted fabric water waves with foam tape and used a micron pen to make the stitch marks. I also went around the edge of the page making stitch marks. The sail boat was tucked in between the waves and I added a button with thread on the bottom of the boat.

The clouds were attached on the background with the fabric glue and then I stenciled with white ink over top of that and added a few marks with a white gel pen on the clouds.

Lastly, I printed out the quote and die cut it out with a stitched banner die. It says:

“Withstand the storm, and when the wind doesn’t blow you away, adjust your sails.”

I sponged around the edges of the banner with blue ink and attached it to the page.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today! Thank you for taking the time to stop in and I hope you have a fantastic day!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – “I’ve got a notion” (sewing related items) fabric/stitching
Creative Artiste – #106 Anything Goes Mixed Media

A Cherry Hello and Catching Up!

Hello friends! I hope that you’re enjoying your week so far! Summer is now in full swing over my way and it certainly is feeling that way too!

Where I live, June is also a time of year when the blooming cherry trees from May now turn into the cherries ready to be picked! If you’ve never tried a cherry jam, I highly recommend it! With the freebie image over at Beccy’s Place, it seemed like a great idea to make a card with it:

Without the sugar, cherries can be extremely tart and so it’s never something I would pick from a tree and eat especially with a pit in it! I do love a good cherry pie though!

Coloring cherries is also fun! I opted to use the non-colored version of the image and I printed it out twice because I cut out the front cherry and front leaf on the image to pop up with foam tape for dimension. I used Copics to color it in along with the background circle it’s on. I also added a white highlight with a gel pen.

I thought it would be fun to make a punny sentiment to print out “A Cherry” on my computer and then cut it out to weave into my white heat embossed “hello” cut from red cardstock.

I die cut the scallop circle which also cuts out the center that the cherry image is on. I layered it onto the Doodlebug gingham paper and attached it to the white scallop rectangle that is all attached to a red A2 top folding card base. I finished it with a couple of red rhinestones.

FOR THE CATCHING UP: The last several months/year, it seemed like my blog posts were really random and sometimes I would go a few weeks before posting the next time. I seem to struggle on and off with having no motivation to get crafting or even go into my craft room at all. I know this happens from time to time, but it seemed to be up and down and all over the place which is why I took on joining a few challenge design teams. It helped to get me a routine of at least getting motivated to get into my room on a regular basis anyway. I didn’t want anything that was too strenuous, or I felt that I would give up completely. This is also the reason why I do art journaling…it helped with “no pressure” on what I could create and use whatever I wanted. After looking at things I’ve created, I still have things that I’ve made but never posted about! So I thought I’d try to catch up with some of the things I’ve done and finally post it. There will have to be some more posts to catch up with it too!

So here is the start of some of my catching up towards the end of last year…

Do you remember the 12×12 Sampler SWAPS that I was doing with my blog buddy group? (Patti, Shirley and Donna) We would swap out the squares and then finish it ourselves by adding the background papers and placing into 12×12 shadow box frames. We had completed one for each season, but for this last one we decided to make one about our “favorite craft”. Here’s all of the squares that is still hanging up on my wall right above my computer and next to a clock and other craft items I made. I enjoy looking at it and seeing all of the squares from fellow crafting friends. This was fun to participate in and it really helped me with struggling motivation as well, so I’m glad I did it! Plus, it is cool to have it for inspiration in my room!

I actually had this done AND photographed last June! I forgot to get it posted on my blog.🙄

This is the square that I decided to do for this swap. I do love lots of glitter, so of course there is glitter on the floor spilled over along with glitter on the “walls”. If you don’t recognize these cute mice, they’re from Lawn Fawn Just Add Glitter stamp set. For each square, I wrote each person’s name on the paper from the table. Of course my name is on this one.

I was also asked to commission a card for someone’s very special birthday in November last year and forgot to post it as well:

I thought this one turned out so cute! I was told this card was to be for a special lady’s birthday who turned 100 and that she really liked plants.

Of course my first thought turned to plants and green colors. Then I thought, I don’t think I have any “plant” style stamps! The only thing that I thought of at the time was this darling My Favorite Things Sittin’ Pretty stamp set from my stash. I also thought it would be fun to have a banner going across a wreath with the special number over it. I found the My Favorite Things “Fall Wreath” stamp set (not in store) and the banner came from an older (retired) Lawn Fawn set.

I also had a fern embossing folder that I embossed over green cardstock and then rubbed some gold wax over it to bring it out. I gold heat embossed the banner and popped it up over the wreath. I was just going to place the colored plants around it, but decided it would be cute to add the girl sitting on the wreath. She’s there to wish the special lady happy 100 with all of those plants around her! I added a border of grass at the bottom to help ground everything, added some gold foil for a layer and attached it to a green A2 card base.

Here’s what I did for the inside of the card: I stamped the wreath off the edge on each side of the panel with green ink and then sponged around the edges with the lighter green ink. I gold heat embossed the sentiment.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my new “Cherry Hello” card today as well as the projects that I am catching up with posting about! There will be more coming!

THANK YOU FOR STOPPING IN! I’M GRATEFUL FOR YOUR TIME AND THOUGHTS!

Challenges: (For Cherry Hello card ONLY)

Beccy’s Place – June Freebie image (THANK YOU!) optional: Food
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2425 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Emboss it (embossed hello)
Alphabet – ‘F’ is for Fruit
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper Crafty – Anything Goes Using Paper

May AJ Page-Never Forgotten

Hello friends! I hope that your month has been going well so far! We’ve been doing lots of things outdoors and enjoying the time as much as possible until the temperatures climb higher and gets too hot. I’m enjoying it now, but unfortunately, there will be storms this weekend in my area.

This weekend (Monday) is also Memorial Day for those of us in the U.S. The date and name may vary by different countries, but it’s all about remembrance of our active military who’ve died. I wanted to create my art journal page today in reflection of this.

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” May prompt of “MATERIAL”-(use fabric/cloth in some way):

For the “material/cloth/fabric” prompt, it got me thinking because I don’t sew very much. Sometimes I get out my sewing machine, but rarely! I do have some fabric scraps and I thought it would be fun to cut out some squares with pinking shears! Then I had to figure out what to do with them!

For the background: I used a 5.5″ x 8.5″ of canvas heavy weight paper with the pre-punched holes at the top made with my Bind-It-All Machine and painted over it with some Crisp Blue Americana acrylic paint. Once dry, I sprayed some silver metallic over it. (You can see some of the shine at the top.) I didn’t know how busy looking the fabric squares would look, so I decided to stop there.

Although I did cut several different squares of fabric patterns, my eyes were pulled to the red, white and blues which were perfect for Memorial Day. I pulled out only those type of colors and used some fabric glue to attach over the background randomizing the patterns. I also took some silver and navy ribbons to attach at the top and bottom areas where the fabric squares stopped.

The poem was a memory that I had during a vacation time with my husband when we ran into a memorial with a park bench and this poem was engraved with birds around it. I looked it up and printed it out on my computer over a parchment paper. I ripped it out and sponged the edges. I also printed out the “forgotten” at the top and cut it out in a banner. The poem was popped up with foam tape over the fabric squares. “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” – by Mary Elisabeth Frye

The stars and “never” letters were die cut and attached and I finished it with red rhinestones next to the “forgotten” banner.