“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

Art Journal Inspiration-Happiness, Harmony & Joy

Hello friends! Brr! It’s a very cold start to the week over my way, so that means I’m staying inside the warmth and crafting up some fun to share! I’m really enjoying putting together these pages this month as I get to pull some things from my stash that I’ve really been wanting to play with. This gives me a chance to use things for myself in whatever way I want because I don’t give these pages away and I think I find it to be a bit more “freeing” to do or try things that I may not normally do on a card.

Maybe I can encourage you to try something for yourself! I have more inspiration to share for the “MUSIC” prompt I’m hosting this month at Art Journal Journey:

For this page, I pulled out an AALL & Create stamp set that I’ve been wanting to use “Call the Tune” and I wanted to use the trumpet from the set. I always think of trumpets as a bold and happy musical tune, so I thought flowers and my favorite colors would make me feel happy too!

For the background: I started with an 8.5″x5.5″ watercolor panel and watered down some purple and turquoise acrylic paints so that I could use them like watercolor. Once dry, I attached some musical note tissue paper off the side and I also stamped the trumpet image in black on the top of the page. I then used the flower image and gold heat embossed it on the bottom and top of the page. I then took some black paint to splatter over it. Lastly, I took the AALL & Create Reverse Triangles Stencil and some metallic white embossing paste over it in random areas. Once that was dry, I went around the edges with the black Distress Crayon.

Moving towards the bottom of the page, I stamped the flower image twice, colored them with Copic markers and fussy cut them out to line the bottom of the page. Before attaching them, I splattered them with gold watercolor and white Copic Opaque. I also used the black Distress Crayon to go underneath the flowers before I attached them.

The musical notes were cut from my Cricut Machine with black glossy cardstock. I also attached a few select words from the AALL & Create Motivation Station Ephemera pack and used a black marker to line around each one.

I stamped another trumpet image and colored it with Copic markers and then fussy cut around the colored images to attach over the black image I stamped on the page. I even used a knife to go in between the sections of the trumpet. It was a bit tedious, but worth it.

I finished the page off with some gold Stickles in the center of the flowers for a touch of sparkle because sparkle makes me happy too!

So what do you think? Does this page bring happiness to you? It gets me looking forward to Spring and seeing some flowers grow! I’m going to go check out the fun musical inspiration in the Art Journal Journey gallery and I hope you check it out too! Thanks for dropping by today and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Music
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – no cards
Creative Artiste – #112 Anything Goes Mixed Media
We Love 2 Create – Anything Goes Mixed Media/Paper Crafts

Art Journal Inspiration-Sing From Your Heart

Hello friends! When it’s winter time, something I miss hearing are those birds happily chirping throughout the day. We get the occasional bird chirp, but nothing like it is when the weather is warm.

So in honor of those singing birds, I have more inspiration to share for the “MUSIC” prompt I’m hosting this month at Art Journal Journey:

I had fun putting this one together with a quirky bird who’s singing with all his heart!

For the background: I started with a 5.5″x8.5″ Bristol Smooth cardstock piece so that I could do some ink blending. With a stencil, I inked over it with Salt Water Taffy oxide and then painted over it with a layer of white gesso. (I was trying to keep the colors soft and light.) I then took a different stencil and sprayed over it with Speckled Egg Oxide Spray and then used the left over from that in other places. I then took Shabby Shutters, Mowed Lawn and Salvaged Patina oxide inks to go over the rest of the stenciled layers until I got the look I wanted. I used a water spray over top and then splattered white paint over the page for more texture.

For the bird: I cut out the body, wing and beak shape in different pattern papers, used a distress crayon rubbed along the edges and pieced it together with the wing being popped up with foam tape. I used a pen to doodle around the bird and create the legs. The eye and heart on the bird were punched out pieces. (the heart paper is from a music sheet scrap)

The words were printed on my computer over some pattern paper. While the ink was still wet from the printer, I clear heat embossed over it. I cut out each word and attached over page. I took a pen to doodle around each section. I also doodled around the edges of the entire page with the same pen.

Lastly, I took some white paint and brushed a “heart bubble” coming from the bird’s beak. I stamped a few music notes inside the bubble with brown ink. I also stamped a few solid hearts around the words in pink ink to finish it off.

I hope you like my page today and have been inspired to play along with us this month! I have enjoyed seeing all of the wonderful inspiration so far in the gallery! Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No Cards
Art Journal Journey – Music

January 2025 “NEW” Art Journal Page-Smashing Our Stash Continues!

Hello friends! I hope you’ve had a great month so far and staying crafty while also trying to keep warm and cozy! Thank you for your kind support with my crafting journey and I’m so happy you’re here however you like to follow along.❤️

Today is the start of another year of art journaling and I’m thrilled that my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) is collaborating with me again this year 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” January prompt of “NEW” (challenge/technique):

As you know, we are forever trying to “smash our stash” and included within that stash are possibly some “new” stash or something that hasn’t been used before. But if that’s not the case, then that’s totally fine too because there always seems to be a new “challenge” to over come or something like a new “technique” that you’ve always wanted to try and using up your stash helps with that too! I’ve done this on my page in several ways…

NEW = art journal book used here. I have a few AJ books that I haven’t used at all, so I pulled this one out which is a 5.5″ x 8.5″ spiral mixed media book. I’ve never worked from a book before and not sure I like it as the pages do curl up on me and you can see that I’ve clipped it along the side to keep it from curling. Going forward, I might make a separate page and then attach it to the book. I’ve been so used to making my own book, so this was a new “challenge” for me to try. If you art journal, how do you like to compile your pages together?

NEW = technique used for background with distress crayons. I have a tin full of those distress crayons and I’ve barely even touched them, so I found a fun technique to try by taking a dotted stencil and applying gesso over the blank page. I used several colors of the distress crayons to rub over the stenciled paint and then blended it together with a baby wipe. It was fun! (I’ve also used a black distress crayon around the edges of the page and went over the words inside the heart with a white distress crayon to mute it a bit.)

NEW = Lunar Paste colors used through a stencil. I bought several colors of these metallic/shinny pastes last year and never broke them open, so I thought this would be a good time to see what they look like and they’re really pretty!

NEW = alphabet die letters used. I got these set of alphabet dies with upper and lower case and haven’t had a chance to use them until this page. I like that it includes both upper and lower because it seems you always have to get them separately.

A closer view of the heart that I die cut. I pulled out some cardstock in coordinating colors to match up with the distress crayons in the background and made strips with stamping words and then placing them together on the heart that I cut off the edges to keep the shape.

I was going for a “happy” rainbow style with all of it, but not sure after looking at it as I think it may be a bit too much/busy. But, I’m just going to go with it and be happy! LOL

I hope you’ve enjoyed my page today or at least have been inspired in some way! Thank you for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – DOTS
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – no cards
Ally’s Angels – #90 Anything Goes
Love to Scrap – #171 Anything Goes

The January Blues at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! For those of us that experience the cold weather season for January, I hope you’re finding ways to keep warm. I have been wrapping myself in blankets with fluffy slippers around the house…and yes, I have the heat up too! LOL I think I seem to feel the cold more as I get older in age! This week will be really cold for us here. So I suppose that’s why they say “January Blues”?🥶

Anyway, that brings me to the January challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and for this month, our hostess is asking for “January Blues” (monochromatic blue) on your project. Be sure to stop by the blog to see what the rest of the design team has created for you. Here’s my project for this challenge:

Usually, when I think of blues, especially in January, I tend to think of snowflakes. I wanted to do something a bit different and decided to pull out my blue tone alcohol inks and make a background. It was really fun to play around with, and of course, you make a panel and make more than one to save for other cards! Blue makes for such a great masculine card too.

I found some cardstock to match up with the background and die cut the alcohol panel with a stitched rectangle die, layered it over a piece of white to attach to an A2 sized top folding blue card base. (I’m glad that I’m using some older items from my stash as I think this is old Stampin’ Up! paper that needs to be used! I THINK it’s Pacific Point?)

I pulled out a leaf die from Taylored Expressions called Subtle Sprigs and cut one in white to place over top the alcohol background. I also used the TE On Occasion stamp set by white heat embossing over blue cardstock, cutting it out with the die and placing it over the background with the sprig.

It’s a very simple card, but I wanted the alcohol background to take the stage on this one.

I hope you’ve been inspired today to play along with us this month for the challenge at Sparkles Monthly! (P.S. This will also work with the Monochrome challenge at Mix It Up this month too!) Thanks so much for stopping in today with your kind support! I really appreciate it! See you soon!

Challenges:

Addicted to CAS – #274 Blue
Crafty Catz – #685 Anything Goes with optional: CAS
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2502 Anything Goes
Try it On Tuesday – Feeling Blue
C.R.A.F.T. – #746 Anything Goes
The Male Room – #194 Clean & Simple

Sending Love Using My Stash

Hello friends! Just popping in with a quick post to share a card I’ve made for a few challenges.

This year, I’m going to try and “shop my stash” instead of buying and buying and buying all the things. YES…I know it’s easier said than done, but I’ve joined a fellow crafter that I’ve known for a long time to join in her monthly challenge prompts in her group on FB (This & That With Danni’s Dreams) to help keep me motivated in spending less. I’m sure she’d love you to join her, so check it out. Her monthly prompts are from her “Use Your Stash” challenges that she just started this year.

Her themes/prompts for January 2025: gnome(s), embossing folder, border die/punch, heart(s) and 12×12 paper. (You can choose one, several or all.) Here’s the card that I’ve made “Using My Stash” with ALL of the prompts:

I think gnomes are cute and I happen to have several stamps, so it was no problem finding one of those! I’ve used an older gnome set from Whimsy Stamps Gnome One Like You. I colored him up with Copics, but I fussy cut out the gnome and the heart balloon to pop up over the image on the circle that I’ve stenciled some pink clouds on.

The background has an older Sizzix embossing folder not sure of the name, but it’s a 3D embossing folder with hearts piled up. The embossing folder and hearts was another two of her prompts. I splattered some gold watercolor over the background before placing it over an A2 sized top folding cream card base. I also used a corner chomper to round the edges of the right two corners.

I’ve used some very old 12×12 papers from Stampin’ Up! called “Fan Fare”. I hoarded it for a long time and even wrote the coordinating colors on the back of the package! It’s high time to use some of it up…even if it’s a small strip! I’ve also taken the Whimsy Stamps Basic Border dies (not available any more) to cut a mirror gold strip along the edge of the papers. (The remaining of her other prompts used.)

I gold heat embossed the sentiment from the stamp set over a piece of the cream cardstock. I cut it out with a banner die and sponged some light pink ink around the edges. Lastly, I covered the heart balloon with a glitter pen and added a couple of tiny sequin hearts around the gnome.

I had a great time pulling out items from my stash and it felt good to be using them! I certainly plan on doing more of these every month! So stay tuned for more posts to help “Use Your Stash”! Thanks so much for dropping in! See you again soon!

Challenges: