I felt a need to make my last canvas for Dina's Out of the Journal challenge something Halloween-y. I started with a page from an old songbook that I picked up at the thrift store and crumpled it up, then opened it and used Vintage Photo Distress Ink all over it. Then I painted over the distress with neon green and orange and black just to tone that neon down a little bit. I cut out
t!m's 'Brolly man and cut his head off (!) and used one of t!m's grungeboard skulls and used Picket Fence Paint Dabber to paint it. I added some black tulle here and there on the canvas. Made my own template for the overhanging tree since I don't have one and schmeared modeling paste thru my template. When I painted the limbs brown, I guess it reacted with the other colors underneath and with the modeling paste because it turned purple. And the more brown I applied, the more purple it got. So I'm goin' with purple tree branches! Then to kinda cover up some of the purple, I added some cheesecloth that I tore into strips for "spider webs", then I stamped and cut out a few of Dyan's spiders from Bits of This. A couple of the spiders are black widows with their red sparkle bellies! The cat in front of the house and the bats are also from Bits of This stamp set.
This has been fun Dina! Hope you do it again next year.
In memory of Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on the moons passing earlier today, I go back 5 years to a post I did on the 13th anniversary of my dad's death. Miss you dad. Tonight Mr Armstrong walks among the stars with you.
Sixteen years ago
Double the fun! Isn't that how that old saying went?
It's time once again for the Compendium of Curiosities II challenge number 19 at Linda's. As always, we're basing our fun on the works of Tim Holtz and he also provided a video to this week's challenge which is Kraft Resist and it's found on page 41 of the book. But this week, if you don't have the book (and you REALLY should!) you can watch the video and participate should you chose.
I ended up doing two tags. Because I had to try this technique using Dyan's Spray Inks and her bleach-out technique. For the tag that's more in the "t!m style" I gathered up a bunch of hearts from my scrap table and assembled them on the tag and pretty much how I laid it out is how it ended up. The bottom heart is from the Guilded Kraft Glassine technique and the top heart is from the Enamaled Metals technique.
It's week 4 at Dina's Out of the Journal challenge. I went really simple this week. John keeps telling me that less is more, so I thought I'd try it and see what I could come up with. I used a piece of scrapbook cardstock that I wasn't real crazy about and gesso'd over it along with the rest of my canvas. I dripped some Distress Stains in Vintage Photo and Crushed Olive along the outside edges. Used a graphite pencil around the cardstock to make it stand out a bit. The heart and wings are cut from a Tim Holtz Sizzix die using GrungePaper which I painted with Paint Dabbers. The Love banner was done with Maya Road pennants and I stamped the letters on cs and applied them with Glue and Seal. The flower on the bottom is from some mesh ribbon that I whip-stitched and gathered to make the flower and used a bling-y embellishment from my stash. Simple, but I kinda like it!
Still working on cards to send the troops in between other projects. On the first one, I decided I wanted to incorporate some Dyan images with the Dotty For You paper pack. I random stamped the flowers and leaves and used my Dylusions Ink Sprays and hand painted the images. For the other two, I was thinking they could use these to send to their kids for a job well done in school or at home.
It's week 18 in the Compendium of Curiosities II at Linda's, which means we are half way thru the book by Tim. Which makes me wonder if there's a Book III in the works?! This week our sponsor is The Funkie Junkie and she is giving someone a $25 gift card. And you can't win if you don't play!
This week's challenge is on page 47 and is called Whitewash Stamping. I decided to mix up my artists again and used a couple of images from Dyan Reaveley's Doodle Parts and sentiment from The Right Words stamp sets. I used t!m's Limited Edition Summer Distress Inks; Salty Ocean, Mowed Lawn and Picked Raspberry to color the tag with, then edged in Gathered Twigs. The bird perched on the 'shroom is one I picked up on clearance at Michael's. The butterflies are from CTMH.
It's time again for Dina's Out of the Journal. Week three already. This week, I'm working wayyyyyy out of the journal!! And I hope it qualifies!
I found this birdhouse quite a while ago in the dollar bins at Michael's. And since it was "just a dollar", I bought it thinking I'd do something with it. And it's sat. Well the other day, inspiration struck and I painted it blue, my fave color and then used a bunch of wings from Dyan Reaveley's Rainbow Ruby stamp set and set about fussy cutting all of them out, then stamped a couple of birds and flowers from Dyan's How Does Your Garden Grow and painted them with Dylusions Spray Inks. Right now, the birdhouse is on my front entry table.
And speaking of Dyan...she announced last night on FB that she is coming to FLORIDA for workshops!!! And she's coming to St Pete to Whim So Doodle. Ummm. Can you say, I'm there?! Don't know what the dates are yet or how many classes it will be, but I am going to save every spare penny I can to be able to go and meet this fabulous lady. I've been giddy like a school girl since I read the news yesterday!
I am especially loving the layout for the first two cards! Each square is 1.5' X 1.5", so this is a great card for using up all those bits and pieces of cs and paper that you've got laying around. I ended up doing eight of these, just using pieces. For the third card, I used my sponge and Smoothie Pigment Ink and colored the white crochet flower. Since these do not need to be exclusively CTMH, the "button" brads are some that Debie and Evan sent me. I thought they looked really cute on these cards.
We recently found out that one of our CTMH Team sisters is being deployed to Afghanistan. She has asked the team to make and send cards for her to share with the other Troops at her base and also for them to give to the Afghan children they come in contact with. Our wonderful Upline, Susan is going to be collecting cards from team members and sending "care" packages to our sister Consultant during her deployment.
I just got some new CTMH toyz to play with yesterday. Things that weren't available early for Consultants to sample, so I decided what better way to play with new things than to make some cards for our Troops! I'll be sharing cards as I make them over the next little while.
These card layouts are in our new Make It From Your Heart how-to publication. With the retirement of our prior how-to books these new publications combine the best of both worlds. They will have layouts for scrapbookers AND cardmakers! I also ordered some of our new Pigment inks and they are what I used for all of the stamping and edge distressing. The colors are so lush! Something you can't get with water based dye inks. There's also a bit of our new Metallic Silver and Gold markers on the stars. And speaking of stars. You'll notice that 4 of the cards are the same except for the size of the stars. ALWAYS be sure to check the size of your settings on your Cricut before you cut! I forgot to do that and my stars were smaller than I wanted. Rather than toss the stars, I decided I'd just do another set of stars in the size I'd intended for them to be all along! Paper pack is Dotty For You, an campaign from earlier this summer and is no longer available.
I've been struggling with these pages in my art journal for at least a week now. I really want to like Zentangle and I DO like it. When other people do it! Me doing it...notsomuch. I find it very frustrating. So i've decided I will sit back and enjoy the Tangles that others do and do what makes ME happy on my art journey. Because if you're not happy doing something, what's the point in doing it at all? Especially art, which is supposed to bring us joy and happiness.
Once I finally got the Zentangle tree on the right side done, the rest of this piece came together like a breeze! I splooched and slotched ink and paint, using various lids and even a pencil eraser for the blue dots! I used Dyan's eyelash lady, a couple of caterpillars for her unibrow eyebrows (a la Frida Kahlo!) and a Zentangled stamp of Dyan's for her hat/hair. That's how I like Zentangles! When someone else designs them and makes them into a stamp for me to use! Used a few word stamps that are important reminders for me. And when I cut out the "I am perfect just the way i am", they fell on my table just how I put them on the page. I thought it was appropriate. Just the way I am, I am perfect.
I know! Two posts in one day!
It's time for Compendium of Curiosities II at Linda's. We're at challenge 17 already. As always, we're based on the book by Tim and this week our generous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp will be donating a $25 gift certificate to one lucky player.
This weeks challenge is all about Core'Dinations and can be found on page 61 of the book. Don't look too closely at my tag. It's upside down! As soon as I put the last stitch on the burlap I realized what I had done and decided I was too lazy to start fresh, so upside down it shall remain. As t!m would say, I'm embracing my imperfections!!! Or, taking a cue from my earlier post today, Just the way I am I'm perfect, and so is my tag!
It's time for week 2 at Dina's Out of the Journal challenge. And this week, I am NOT gonna be the last one getting my project done. Nosiree! In trying to get back into "teach's" good graces, I decided to use her very own Lonely Girl stampon my project. Lo and behold, when she posts her creation last night, she used the very same stamp!! Great Minds Truly Do Think Alike, hmm Dina!!
First I applied a few pieces of 7Gypsies Tissue Paper in random spots. In my ongoing attempt to use up some of my old acrylic paints, I used some blue and orange and left some white space on my 8 x 8 canvas, then came back in with two different circle stencils and dabbed red and lavender paint on a sponge thru the stencils. The quote is one that Dyan posted last week on FB. The hand writing is my own.
Dina has a new challenge going on her blog. Out of the Journal for the month of August. Each week, players will work on a canvas or some other medium other than in their journals. I am LATE coming to the party this week! I kept searching for inspiration and the more and harder I searched, the more it ran away! This morning, while blog hopping I came across this quote and I knew I'd found my inspiration! On the Art Journaling FB page that I am a member of, one of the gals posted a digi image of the lovely lass, so she became my image. I used acrylic paints on my canvas and then random stamped and doodled over the paint. There's some rub-ons used and some Christy Tomlinson She Art birds and butterflies.
Or maybe that should be Duo challenge! t!m posted his August tag the other day and Linda posted Challenge 16 for CofCII yesterday, so I am being thrifty and combining challenges! Somehow, I don't think either will mind. t!m used one of his new silhouette images to make his tag and since I don't have any of them, I improvised with a "silhouette looking" snowman Christmas stamp, which is also covered in Distress Rock Candy. The challenge at Linda's is to use the Perfect Pearls Technique found on page 54 of the book. I *think* you can see that once I embossed my tag and colored it using a mixture of Sailboat Blue and Cloudy Blue Paint Dabbers, I then used the Perfect Pearls technique over it. All of the other embellies on the tag are from my stash. I've got loads of Christmas stuff!
And I don't mean layer like in a layer cake, I mean layer as in CHICKEN layer! I opened the door separating the "little" girls from the "big" girls on Saturday. Queen Biotch Survivor has spent all of her waking time since in chasing the little girls back and forth, forth and back. I don't call her Queen Biotch for nuttin! But apparently, one of the little Americauna's found some spare time in being chased to lay her first egg. And that surprises me since the Buffs are the oldest of the "little" girls. I just ASSumed (and you know what "they" say about ASSuming, right?!) that the Buffs would be first to lay. I don't know who it is that gave me this pretty little blueish green egg, but I'll take it! I put it next to one of Queen's eggs since hers are the biggest of all. The eggs start small since their hoo-ha's aren't stretched out as much. As it stretches, the eggs will get bigger. And a little more chicken "birds and bees" if you will. You DO NOT need a rooster (male) for the hens to lay eggs. All females "lay" an egg. Chickens just do it on a more frequent timetable than say, a human female. The only reason you "need" a male is to fertilize the eggs. Hens will lay an egg every day or so, rooster or no rooster. Just like a human female "lays" an egg every 28 days or so. And there is NO nutritional difference in a fertile and non-fertile chicken egg. Also, eating a fertile chicken egg will not hurt you in any way, shape or form. Class dismissed!
