April Art Journal Page-Recycled Spring

Hello friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and have been enjoying the wonderful Spring weather outside! We have all sorts of blooms and buds everywhere which is really exciting to see! I think I need to trim some lilacs from my bush to put in a jar and enjoy the lovely smell from them!

Today is 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” April prompt of “RECYCLE/UPCYCLE”:

Flowers are everywhere, so I thought I’d place them all over my page today too!

For my “recycled” elements, I have used a floral napkin in the background which gives it some wonderful texture and I’ve also painted some white paint over it for a “wash” so that it wasn’t so bright and vibrant and too busy for the background. I splattered some black and gold watercolor over it as well.

I found a darling image with these gorgeous Spring birds perched on the fence, cut it out and popped it up at the bottom with foam tape.

I thought that a strip of gold cardstock (left over from a project) would make a nice bright accent to go with my gold embossed “HELLO SPRING” sentiment and gold splatter.

I’ve also “recycled” an old part of an ATC project and half of a doily to add on the side with the sentiment and I’ve tied some old twine around that ATC panel.

Lastly, I’ve added some flowers and a butterfly from my old collection of ephemera pieces left over from years ago!

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today and it gives you all the feels of Spring in the air! I had fun putting this one together! Thanks so much for dropping in!

(Feeling a little bit under the weather this week and I’ll catch up as I can! Thanks for understanding!)

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Spring Birds
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – April No Cards
Creative Artiste – #114 Mixed Media projects
Neglected Stuff – April (doily, Tim Holtz ephemera)
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Blooming Blooms

A is for Alphabet

Hello and happy Friday! It’s not only “Good Friday”, but it’s Easter weekend here for us, so plans to enjoy the time we have together with food and laughter. At least that’s the plan anyway! I hope that whatever plans you have that you enjoy yourself.

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! We have finished up the entire alphabet round and starting back up again for the 14th round which began in 2011! WOW! So beginning with the alphabet, the hostess has chosen “A” is for Alphabet (choose your own letter of the alphabet and a theme that begins with that chosen letter.) *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter* I hope you will find some time to join us in the gallery! Here’s what I’ve created:

The alphabet letter that I have chosen is “C” is for Chickens! I needed a card for someone and so I thought of these Spring Chickens Stencil from Taylored Expressions. I used that, plus the coordinating die to cut out the chickens. Along with that, I used the Yard House die set, Chicken Wire BG and the Just Chicken In sentiment set.

The quirky chickens and for an inside joke were sent to help cheer someone up not feeling well.

I started with a separate panel to stamp and stencil the chickens on. I cut them out from the stenciled panel. On another piece of cardstock, I stamped the Wire BG and ink blended around the edges. I placed this onto a top folding A2 sized gray panel. I wanted the area with the chickens to be the focus, so I took the TE Rounded Rectangle Stacklets and cut a piece of vellum that I used to create my scene on with the Yard House die set. I centered the “hen house” and then used the placement of that to adhere the vellum panel to the center of the card front.

Lastly, I added the other chickens to the scene and the stamped/die cut sentiment which was popped up with foam tape at the bottom right of card.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my card and it gave you a smile! 😊 Have a wonderful Easter weekend my friends!

Challenges:

Creative Friday – #383 Humorous
Allsorts – #821 Stencils & Masks/AG (chicken stencils/die cut bundle)
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2515 Anything Goes
Ally’s Angels – #93 Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #87 Anything Goes
Dragonfly Dreams – Animals

Weather Related at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! When I read about the weather from other areas, it always amazes me how different and even to extremes the weather gets especially during this time of the year! I hear everything from rain, sun, snow, tornadoes, flooding, cold, warm, hot, etc. So where do you find your own weather to be at right now? In my area, we have reached past the snow, but it’s still pretty cool at night…so I know that Spring and the rain is here for us with a bright spot of flowers/sprouts starting to come out in the Midwest U.S.

With this in mind, we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have a very fitting theme of “Weather Related” (rain, wind, sun, etc.) this month. Would love to see lots of different varieties of weather related projects, so I hope you’ll join us. Here’s what I came up with:

I was so happy to finally get a chance to use this adorable set by Lawn Fawn called Beary Rainy Day as I’ve had it for a while, but never used it until now.

I started with a kraft A2 sized top folding card base and stenciled some white clouds over it. I then splattered some navy watercolor paint over it.

While that was drying, I worked on my scene. For the background, I took some blue oxide inks in Blueprint Sketch and Salty Ocean and ink blended them on the stitched die cut panel. I used some water to spritz over it for a watermark look. While that was drying, I took another stitched panel and ink blended some Mowed Lawn and Rustic Wilderness Oxide inks for the grass area and die cut a hill to place at the bottom. Before I attached it, I also die cut a white picket fence to go behind it. I placed this scene onto a piece of navy cardstock and attached to the card base.

To complete the scene, I’ve stamped, colored with Copics and die cut the critters, rain puddles and clouds. I used the coordinating raindrop die with the set and just die cut a few raindrops in silver glitter paper to add to the scene. Lastly, I white heat embossed part of the sentiment on navy cardstock, cut out with a banner die and then just stamped the sentiment at the bottom in navy ink. Also hard to see in the photo, but I’ve added some shimmer to the puddles with a glitter brush pen.

That’s all from me today! Hope you’ll stop by the Sparkles Monthly blog is see what the team has come up with using this theme and join us in the challenge! Thanks so much for stopping in as I love to read your comments!

Challenges:

Craft Rocket – #124 Layer it Up
Addicted to Stamps & More – #490 Die cuts and/or stencils (clouds stenciled and variety of die cuts used)
Penny’s Paper-crafty – #594 Anything Goes Using Paper
Crafty Gals Corner – #266 Fill in the Blank: “Adorable puddle jumping!”
Time Out – #286 Pick 2 from list: I picked Stencil & Water + Spots ( I was inspired to stencil some clouds and add some spots (splatter) to go with the colors/clouds of my scene and I was inspired by the water with the rain, puddles and watermark for ink blending)

Thank you to all the challenge blogs for keeping us all inspired to create and play along with our supplies! I try to play along as much as I can.

Z is for ZOOM!

Hello there friends and welcome to April already! I do not know if this year seems to be flying by because I’ve been busy with life or it’s just flying by anyway! Speaking of things flying by…

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! We are on the last letter of the alphabet this time and the hostess has chosen “Z” is for ZOOM (anything that goes fast) for the theme. *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter* I hope you will find some time to join us in the gallery! Here’s what I’ve created:

How cute is that pup standing on the bike seat to look over his bird friend perched on the basket! The name of these adorable animal friends are called “Gus & Gertie” which are a set of characters designed by Taylored Expressions. (If you click on the link, you can see the full line of them.) The set I’ve chosen is called Gus & Gertie Best Buds. I like these animals because they’re very easy to color!

I could’ve chosen the airplane from the set, but I kept thinking of those electric bikes & scooters you can rent from cities and they seem to go really fast when I see kids whizzing by on them! LOL

I kept my scene in a circle and added some clouds in the background that I stenciled in and then layered some hills/slopes and a grass border on the front. I just popped the “ride or die” sentiment at the top and attached the die cut image with foam tape. I layered the scene onto a black circle base that was attached to a red brick embossed background. All was attached to a top folding A2 white card base.

That’s all for me today! Thanks so much for checking in with me as I enjoy reading what you have to say! Enjoy your weekend and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Critter Crazy – #97 Anything Goes with a Featured Creature
Unicorn – #108 Use Dies
Crafty Animals – #93 Anything Goes with Animal(s)
Crafts Galore Encore – #134 Anything Goes
Just Us Girls – #769 Die Week (no flowers)

March AJ Page-Favorites

Hello friends! Here we are again at the end of another month! Although I’ve been really busy this past week, I think I’m ready for March to be over with! Mainly because of this crazy weather and another because I’ve been busy doing things other than crafting! LOL (Must be time for that organizing…er as I like to say “agonizing”!)

I’m sure you might’ve guessed that one of my favorite things to do is obvious on this page! (This craft room actually looks a bit more organized than mine is currently!) I did have so much fun with this one! I’ve used SO many of my favorite things on here: old stamps, mixed company favorite stamps, foiling, heat embossing, coloring (Copics and watercolor), ink blending, die cutting, fussy cutting, using old paper stash, mix of papers, favorite colors, the subject of stamping, my favorite room, wearing sweats, crafting while sun going down, etc, etc, etc. Honestly, this was easy, but it could be because I enjoyed putting it together.

For the background: I used a standard white cardstock base measuring 5.5″x8.5″ and then took some very old Stampin’ Up! paper (Porcelain Prints) to cover the entire size so that I could get the look of wallpaper. I then used some textured woodgrain cardstock from my stash for the floor, the window and the shelves. (The shelves were popped up with a foam strip) I die cut a scallop border in white for the trim above the floor and also die cut a frame for the wall hanging. The sentiment for the wall hanging was gold heat embossed and placed behind the frame. (I sponged some white clouds in there too.) The border at the top was printed off my computer and I used another scallop border die to cut it out. I sponged some brown ink around the edges of the page and added all of the elements.

The stamper girl image was from an old company called “Hambo Stamps” (went out of business several years ago), but I think it’s so cute and funny! This is where the gold embossed sentiment came from as well. Had fun coloring her up with my watercolor pens.

For the window, I used the Taylored Expressions Foil It-Dreamscapes along with the coordinating stencils that I received from Virtual Stamp Joy earlier this month. (I will share my projects in another post later on.) I also used the TE Arch Windowpanes die set to cut out a frame in the woodgrain cardstock over one of the ink blended panels.

And lastly, the little crafty items on the shelves and floor came from the Lawn Fawn Just Add Glitter stamps & dies. I stamped and colored those up with Copics to place on the shelves. I also thought it would be fun to add some glitter spilling from the gold glitter bottle and dumping onto the floor…always a fun thing to happen in the craft room while you ignore it because you’re so intently working on something!

All this page did for me was to remind me that I really need to do more organizing! I hope you’ve enjoyed my page today and take a hop on over to see Carol’s inspiration too! Thanks so much for stopping in today!

(P.S. I’m currently away and it will be a few days before I can reciprocate your comments, but I truly appreciate your kind words of support.)

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Home Sweet Home
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – March (no cards)

Y is for YUMMY!

Hello and happy Spring! Hope you’re having a great March so far. We just received about an inch of snow on Spring day, so I hope it starts getting warmed up from here! I’m ready for warmer weather so I can cook out on the grill….YUM! Speaking of that….

Today starts a new letter over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog and our lovely hostess would like to use “Y” is for YUMMY as the theme this time. How fun is that! Remember you have two weeks to join in the gallery to play with us. Here’s my creation for this challenge:

I couldn’t resist getting out this fun “Food Truck” set from Riley and Company to color up! I also paired it with the BBQ Riley to complete the scene full of yummy goodies! The images were both stamped and colored up with Copics. I used the coordinating die to cut out the Food Truck and I just fussy cut with scissors for the BBQ Riley.

Before attaching the images, I used a cloud stencil and blended the background and then took a piece of green cardstock to cut out a grass border for the bottom. I ink blended the edges of the blades and then used a green Copic marker to add some shadowing for the stamped images before placing them down on the scene. BBQ Riley was popped up with foam tape.

Here’s a closer view of the images. I used a liner pen to draw “yum items” under the menu board on the truck with a drawing of a balloon. I also used a silver gel pen to color in parts of the truck, the lights above the “food” word along with the utensils on BBQ Riley and parts of the grill.

I found a speech bubble and sentiment from my stash that I thought would be perfect for this card and stamped it above Riley’s head as he’s holding up a hot dog.

Do you like to stop and eat at food trucks? What’s your favorite? Last summer we went to a small town festival and they served some lemon shake ups at one place along with some BBQ shredded pork and it was so yummy! We also like to grab some kettle corn to take home too.

Did I make you hungry now?! Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and I hope you’ll stop by the Alphabet Challenge Blog to come play along too! We’d love to see your yummy creations! Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by! I enjoy reading your thoughts! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

AAA Birthday – #71 Masculine
Love to Craft – #85 Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes with optional: Any Occasion
Unicorn – #107 Boys/Men
Passion for Markers – #780 Add a Sentiment (colored with Copic markers)
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2511 Anything Goes
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – #250 Anything Goes

It’s Easter at Sparkles Monthly!

Hello friends! Hope your March is going along well and you’re starting to see some signs of Spring coming! We even have a few flowers trying to pop up out of the ground which is so fun to see! I hope they can hold out for a few cold days ahead.

Today I’m stopping in to share my card for the new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have a very fitting theme of “Easter” this month. I think I’m more than ready to start some Spring related projects, so I look forward to seeing the gallery. Here’s the card I came up with:

How sweet is that bunny passing out his colorful eggs! I pull out an older card kit (2019) and it had this adorable Simon Says Stamp set called “Bunny Wishes” (no longer available) mixed in with the kit which I don’t think came with it, but I wanted to use it with some of the other items that were in the kit like the papers. It was like getting a brand new order and forgetting what I purchased! 😆

I also used this beautiful oval die (not available) from SSS that cuts the oval, the flowers and the stitching marks around it. I added a border of grass to place at the bottom and then I stamped the sentiment from the set and also stamped the “Easter” greeting on another piece of light blue cardstock cut with a banner die. The gingham background was cut with a double stitched rectangle die and then I used the oval die to cut an opening for the bunny scene. I added foam tape around the edges to pop up the panel on an A2 top folding pink card base.

Here’s a close-up view of the cute images that I’ve colored with Copic markers, cut out with the coordinating dies and then popped up over the floral oval scene with foam tape. The extra Easter egg behind the basket was just glued to the scene. It’s hard to see in a photo, but I’ve covered each egg with a glitter brush pen. It’s sparkly IRL.

I did recently get this pretty Iridescent White Cord from SSS and took two strands of it to create a bow and then I attached it to the top of the oval. It gives it a nice sheen and I might be using it again soon!

Thank you for stopping in today! Hope you enjoyed my card and will join us for the challenge this month! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2510 Anything Goes
Make My Monday – #247 Use a Die/Punch
Passion for Markers – #779 Dies &/or Punches + markers (used dies and Copics)
Little Red Wagon – #798 Start Easter Projects
Penny’s – #592 Anything Goes Using Paper
Tic Tac Toe – #tttc266 I used 3rd down or middle across
Four Seasons – Spring/Easter

X is for X’s and O’s

Hello friends and happy Friday! The weekend starts and we’ve had some snow blowing around over our way with wind and colder weather, BUT next week it’s supposed to be warmer with Spring-like temps…but that’s the Midwestern climate! It will level out later in the month.

Today is another new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our theme for the next two weeks is “X is for X’s and O’s (as in hugs & kisses)“. We look forward to your entries! I had some fun with this one:

I’ve had this Tic Tac Toe set for years and never even broke it out to use! It was from the My Favorite Things “X’s and O’s card kit (obviously no longer available). I also used those adorable My Favorite Things Bitty Bears (retired) to help with the hugs and kisses part. I’m so happy to be using something from my stash and especially something that I haven’t used at all!

The card was pretty simple as the die cuts for the tic tac toe square were cut in different colors, found some polka dotted papers to match and also used those same papers to paper piece the heart on the top bear. I stamped the sentiment from the kit, popped up the colored and die cut bears with foam tape and added a few purple gems.

Before attaching all of the elements, I applied the polka-dot striped paper to a white front card base that was cut with a double-stitched rectangle die also from MFT, and then attached to an A2 top folding white card base.

Thanks for stopping in today and I hope you’ll join in the X’s and O’s with us over on the challenge blog! Have a great weekend and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Crafty Animals – #92 Anything Goes with animal(s)
Critter Crazy – #96 Anything Goes with Featured Critter(s)
The Divas That Cut…Paper! – Critters plus a die cut
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2509 Anything Goes
The Neglected Stuff – Anything Goes with neglected item (my neglected item is that MFT X’s and O’s card kit that was never used circa 2017!) About time, huh?!
Crafts Galore Encore – #133 Anything Goes

Mixing It Up With Layers!

Hello friends! WOW! That last month went by really fast! I think it’s because I was busier than usual on my blog, but that’s great that all of the crafting got me through the cold month quickly! I know it will still feel cold in March, but hopefully it will start warming up little by little! Until then, I still need to wear some layers!

Speaking of LAYERS… That brings us to a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog. The challenges always run for 6 weeks so there is plenty of time to enter. The theme given this time around is: LAYERS or you can do the ‘Anything Goes” too. Here’s the card that I came up with for the challenge using the theme:

Aren’t these hedgies cute! I’ve had this stencil set for a while and haven’t had a chance to use it until now and I thought it would be fun to try out the Triple Time Stamping technique. (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, check out this video on You Tube HERE.) I thought this would be a great way to insure several layers on my card.

The cute hedgehogs come from the Taylored Expressions Hedgehugs Stamp & Stencil Combo. I used the technique to layer the panels together and then stamped and stenciled the hedgehogs and then layered each panel with the Spearmint cardstock. The smallest layer on top was popped up with foam tape. (I added the white shimmer ribbon around the middle and front panels before attaching to the card.)

I used the coordinating die to cut out some extra hedgehogs and I popped them up with foam tape over a white metallic heart. I also white heat embossed the sentiment from the TE To the Point stamp set and cut it out to pop up under the “kissing hedgehogs”. I’ve also added a few more tiny die cut hearts from the white metallic paper.

I THINK I’ve got about 7 layers all together not including the card base.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will stop by the challenge blog to see all of the inspiration from the team over there! I would love to see your creation in the gallery too!

Thanks for dropping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Gem of a challenge – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2508 Anything Goes
Little Red Wagon – #796 “Tiny Dancer” (tiny things) I used tiny white hearts
Penny’s – #591 Anything Goes Using Paper
Simon Wednesday – Anything Goes
Just Us Girls – #764 Stencil Week

Art Journal Inspiration-Soul Singing

Hello friends! I’m back today with one last inspiration for Art Journal Journey to remind you that there are still a few days left to enter your art journal project for this month! So please be sure to hop on over to the Art Journal Journey Challenge Blog to see the details about how to enter. I have really enjoyed all of the inspiration from the gallery! So fun to see what everyone comes up with using my “MUSIC” theme this month! I thank everyone for having me along as a host and sharing your kindness in welcoming me back this year.

I went with some animals this time:

I’m pretty sure that there has to be some sort of music going on at farm too, right?! LOL I found these cute “singing” critters online and thought that a farm scene would be a perfect platform stage for them! This is also the first time that I’ve ever added an interactive element to an art journal page, so that was fun!

For the background: Starting with an 8.5″x 5.5″ watercolor paper, I printed the critters over it in the position that I wanted…this is so that the musical notes showed on the page.

I then used my Kuratake Gansi watercolors and brush to paint a scene starting with blues for the sky, letting that dry and then adding some green hills for the bottom of the scene. I went over the areas a couple of times to get the look I wanted and let it dry. I also die cut a green grassy border at the bottom of the page with green cardstock being careful to place it so that it covered the “legs/feet” of all the critters.

More layers over the background: I used older Tim Holtz stamps to add some texture by stamping brown ink, then I used an old TH stencil and some yellow paint for the “sun rays” around the hill with a sponge to apply it. I also used a sponge with white ink to stencil over another stencil in areas and lastly, I stamped some musical notes in silver ink in a few places.

Here’s a closer look at some of the details including the critters.

Since I covered up the critters with the grassy border, I printed out the critters again on a separate piece of cardstock, colored them with Copic markers and fussy cut them out with my scissors. I attached them over top of the printed out ones on the page so that they align with the music notes above them. I used more markers to add some darker shadow grounding underneath each critter before permanently attaching to the page.

For the interactive element: I used a die cut to cut out the pieces for the windmill in the brown, white and silver cardstock pieces. I then used a circle die to cut a hole in the center of the windmill on the page and then added an element that makes the wheel portion spin in a circle when you spin it with your finger.

I went around the edges with some blue ink for the sky, attached some clouds and then printed out the quote on my computer and cut out each word attached to the page. I used some blue ink to lightly add to the bottom of each one.

Lastly, I went around the edges of the page along with the edges of each word with a black micron pen and then I used a silver paint pen to go around the edges of the page again.

It’s a pretty flat page, but it made me happy! What song do you think they’re singing?

I hope you’ve enjoyed my page today as well as my art journal inspiration throughout the month! Thank you so much for your kindness and support! See you soon!

Challenges: