Hold On

Working in my journal again. Started with Dyan's Spray Inks, then used the Letter Jumble stencil and sprayed Perfect Pearls Mist thru it to lighten some of the pigment. I used a Pondering Petunia image that Anita (Miss Ranger U. Graduate Herself!) sent me and used a paint brush dipped in Dyan's Spray Inks to color her along with some silver glitter glue for her ginormous glasses. Then I used a piece of one of my Zentangle pieces for her hat/hair. The sentiment says, "When ever'body is lookin' at'cha funny, ya gotta hold on."

I'm also entering this in Simon Says for their Show Your Color challenge.

Ta-ta's

My wonderful friend Liane was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. I thought she needed something to help boost her spirits and there are a lot of women I know who would be offended by this, but I knew Liane would love it! I used quite a few of Christy Tomlinson's SheArt line on this. The bra is a card that is on the CTMH AP cartridge. Once I cut it out, I ran it thru my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder. The ribbon and flower are dyed using Victorian Velvet Distress Stains.

Blooming things

Just came in from chicken duty. Found the little girls having themselves a sand bath. So cute, and I have no pics of that to share. I need to just take the camera with me when I go! Today they got strawberry tops and yogurt as a treat. The little Cuckoo Marans seem to like to walk thru the yogurt and then eat the bits off their toesies. Maybe it gives extra flavor?!

I did find a few blooming things and came back inside to get the camera so I could share. Pretty pink gladiolius, passion vine that grows on the fence and gardenia bush.

Marble Staining

Linda's challenge for week 3 of Compendium of Curiosities II by t!m Holtz is being sponsored this week by Eclectic paperie. Our challenge this week is on page 46 and you can purchase the book from
tim's website from the link above. Again, I won't be sharing the technique out of respect for t!m.

This is called Marbeled Staining and I used Victorian Velvet, Dried Marigold and Broken China Distress Stains in addition to Picket Fence. Once I had dried the stains, I hit it with a couple of t!m's stamps from the Mixed Media set and added some of my own doodling around the chicken wire. I used my mannequin die and added a set of Grungeboard wings that I used both gold and silver Paint Dabbers on then sanded a bit to show the wear and tear wings get from use! I also found a crown and painted it gold and added some green and blue gems from my stash. The pin is also from my stash and I added some white and blue seed beads to it.

Zentangle

I discovered a new (to me) art form called Zentangle. (I'll wait while you go and Google it!) :::taps fingers on desk::: Oh good, you're back! I'm newly in love! Been making all sorts of 3 x 3 squares with various designs in black and white. It's theraputic in a way. Come up with a design and color part of it in black, leaving the rest white. Or you can use a color. That's gonna be my next experiment.

Working in my journal, I used Dylusions Spray Inks in London Blue and Fresh Lime. Then I used Dyan's Diamond Of A Border stencil and sprayed water thru it to lighten different areas of where I had applied color. Then went in with stamps from Around The Edge (the vine) and Bits Of This  (the insects) and stamped them in Black Archival. Finally,  I added my fern-y looking Zentangle and a couple of pieces of t!m's tissue tape.

Insane or Awesome?

Working in my journal again. I used Dyan's Spray Inks and Bits of This stamp set along with one of t!m's background stamp sets. I doodled around the edge of the page. Sentiment was done on my printer and I used a checkerboard stamp then outlined in black Sharpie. Distress Stickles and regular Stickles used here and there for a bit of bling!

(butter)fly

Wonderful Spring-y challenge this week at OCC. Butterflies! And since I've just recieved my CTMH Dotty paper pack that has two lovely sheets of butterfly papers, that is where I started. I used my CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge to cut out the largest butterfly using Smoothie cardstock and covered it with Distress Crackle Paint Rock Candy and once it dried, I used CTMH Juniper Bakers Twine and made an X on the body. The smaller butterflies are cut out of the butterfly paper and I used CTMH Sorbet Waxy Flax on them in the same X pattern. I used my printer to do the sentiment.

CofCII week 2

Linda has challenged us this week with the Faux Patina technique in t!m's new book Compendium of Curiosities II. This challenge is located on page 58 and can be purchased from his website. Again, I cannot go into details of the technique out of respect for t!m.

I decided to make myself some wearable art! I used a wooden piece that I picked up somewhere in my crafty travels and also one of t!m's metal birds. Once I had completed the technique on the bird, I hit it with my sanding block very lightly on the edges of the wings so the metal would come thru.  I strung a piece of ball chain thru the wood piece and now have a lovely (I think!) necklace to wear.

Got Yogurt?

I introduced the little girls to yogurt this morning. They weren't too sure about it to start with, but once they started eating it, they seemed to like it better. They sure do love their lettuce though! One will pick up a piece and the other 9 will chase her all around the coop. I guess the piece that she has tastes better than all the others! The Buff's have lost all of their baby fluff. The Americauna's, who finally have names, only have fluff around their heads and the Cukoo Marans are still little fluff balls! So the Americauna's are Goldie, for the yellow one. The light brown one is Liz after Liz Taylor because of how they look like their mascara has smeared and it reminded my of Liz playing Cleopatra with the extended mascara and the darker brown one is Cleo, for Cleopatra. The Maran's still don't have names. I'm thinking that one of the brown girls is gonna be Godiva. I think they all need "chocolate" names since they will *eventually* lay chocolate brown eggs.

 Hey, Treat Lady! Why are you on the OTHER side of the closed gate? We want treats too, ya know! Anna, Anita and Sluggy, Goldie and one of the black Marans.

 Sluggy and Anita and Godiva inspecting the lettuce, carrrots and purple cabbage.

 Apparently the yogurt tastes better after you walk thru it. Goldie and one of the black Marans.

Anna, black Maran, Liz,  Goldie, Anita, Sluggy, Cleo

Seeing Dots

FedEx brought me some new CTMH toyz to play with this morning! We've got a great special this month, 24 sheets with 2 of each pattern of Summery cardstock called Dotty. And with a qualifying order, it can be yours for $5.00! There are butterflies and dots and chevrons and lines and flowers and all sorts of really cool patterns. I also got a few new stamp sets and had to play! I used one of the pretty flower prints and paired it with the Quick Cards-Butterfly stamp. The sentiment is hard to read. It says, "Love as delicate as a butterflys wings as strong as the circle of life." I used all six of the suggested colors for this paper pack, Creme Brulee, Grey Wool, Lagoon, Smoothie, Sunset and Sweet Leaf and colored the stamp with each one, then spritzed it with water and stamped on my watercolor paper. Then I edged with a sponge in Sweet Leaf and Creme Brulee. The green dotty paper on the bottom is the opposite side of the flower paper! Each backside has a different color of dotty dots! Pretty cool! I also used a couple of new Durables Round Studs on the card.

Thank you's

Needed a couple of quick Thank You cards this morning. I had gotten some email images from Red Lead and decided to incorporate them into my cards. I started with CTMH Elemental paper pack and edge distressed everything with CTMH Desert Sand ink. Each of the images I used Diamons Stickles on. The bird is completely covered and the flower centers are also done. And in keeping with the bling, I added "diamonds" to the sentiment which is from CTMH Thank You set. And the circle dimensional element are from the Elemental Compliments add-on for that paper pack. And I've still got a few of the free images left, so I will be using them to make cards for Debbie's walk/run for 2013.

Impossible

Great challenge this week at Simon Says with "Anything Goes." I finally got myself a few Dylusions Spray Inks in Lemon Zest, Crushed Grape and Vibrant Turquoise, so I decided the first page in my new art journal would be done with them! I spritzed my page with water then sprayed the three inks around til I had the coverage I wanted. Hit it with the heat gun to dry. I used the face and legs from Dyan's Ruby Rainbow and the sentiment body is from t!m's Words for Thought. I double masked it to get "impossible" and "untried" stamped in Mustard Seed which I then outlined using my Faber Castell black pen.  The wings (which are upside down! Shhhh...don't tell anybody!) are also from Ruby Rainbow. All of the bugs are from Dyan's Bits of This and I used t!m's  Mixed Media with CTMH White Daisy Pigment ink and I then did freehand doodling with my Faber Castell pen.

Home

Linda's got a great new challenge on Grungy Monday this week being sponsored by Simon Says Stamp.  We've been asked not to share t!m's techniques, so if you want to play, you'll have to go to his site and order yourself one (or BOTH!) of his fantastic books.

I've been using t!m and Dyan's idea and using tags to mop up the excess ink on my Kraft Sheet, so this tag has all sorts of colors layered on it! I used t!m's Artful Dwellings die to cut my stamps. I kinda like how they didn't stamp *perfectly* because it makes the houses look like the paint is peeling off. Houses are stamped using Shabby Shutters, Broken China and Rusty Hinge. I did the sentiment on my printer then doodled around each of the words. Found a key to open the door to all three houses in my stash and a gear and clock hand.

new papers

John and I made a trip to Posh Scraps the other day. They had gotten some really cool new papers in from Creative Imaginations. They almost remind me of t!m's Kraft Resist papers. There is a varnish embedded in the paper that will resist whatever medium you put over it. Creative Imaginations also has some really cool embellie type of the same resist thing, with the varnish being in black, so I picked up a package of them as well. I had to use the flower-y paper first. I used my Luminarte Twinkling H2O's and painted each individual flower and leaf. Then I picked a bird and butterfly to add to this quick card. It's hard to tell, but the parts that look like they don't have color on them have Pearl Blue H2O's on them. It really shimmers in real life!

Birthday gifts

Friends Debbie and Anna had birthdays recently and they both got essentially the same thing with a few minor changes to each one. I started with 8 x 8 canvasses and used Christy Tomlinson's SheArt collection of tissue paper and cardstock for the base. Used some blue and green watered down acrylic paint to do the sky and grass. Then used different elements from the SheArt collection to make and outdoors-y scene. And because I'ma dope, I forgot to take pics of Deb's before I sent it, so I had to steal the pic she posted on her blog.

 Debbie's canvas The quote on Deb's which is hard to see says, "She knew she was loved."

 Anna's canvas

 Quote says, "She was a modern girl with a vintage soul."

Chicken Update

The time came this morning for us to let the little girls OUT of the watermelon bin and have free run of the small side of the coop. They were a bit on the timid side at first, but Mama Anna was the first to RUN into the breezeway between the two sides and everyone followed her lead! We left them alone for a bit to get used to their new surroundings and I went back later to take some pictures. They were all laying in the breezeway right up against the door that goes into the original coop where the big girls are. The big girls who want NOTHING to do with them right now. But they can see each other, smell each other and have some time to get used to each other and in about 4 months, when they all reach the same size, I will open the door and everyone will have free run of both sides.

 Out enjoying the morning sunshine.

 Hey look! It's that Feeding Lady! Wonder if she's got any treats. I'ma gonna go see!

 Anna and Anita. First to the party!

 Two Cuckoo Maran's left in the breezeway. Everybody else has come to join me.

 Mmmmm...a green weed!

 They decide the sun is more interesting than the green weed!

Anna, Anita, Sluggy and Indy (for Independence) come make really sure the Feeding Lady doesn't have any treats. I tear up bits of romaine lettuce for them and also tiny bits of bread. They aren't spoiled. Much!