Still; Be Still Before the Lord

This week's Bible Study Challenge is "Still".  I really like this week's study because this is something I struggle with.  I often tell my adult children to trust that God has great plans for them, but deep down, I struggle with anxiousness for things to happen for them.  I hope they don't see that anxiousness but only listen to what I am telling them and have faith that it will.

You can click on the Triple the Scraps badge on the right to get to the website for the complete bible study.

Here is my art:

This page was one of my splatter pages.  Just left over stuff from other projects.  I wrote the verse in block letters and stopped there.  I was going to keep it simple.  Then I added the doodle edge on two sides.  After that I spritzed some watered down acrylic paint all over which smeared some of the letters.  So once it dried, I started outlining some of the letters with both white and black markers.

Then I added drops of re-inkers in violet and bright blue.  Blotted the excess.  Grabbed some paint and fingerpainted around those drops and drew circles around it.  That's basically it.

I love the verse.  It just tells it like it is.  No fussing.  "Do not be anxious about anything."  You cannot interpret this any other way!

Hey Sweetie!

I'm so excited to announce that I've been selected to be on the Lila Grey Stamps Design Team (click on the icon to the right).  The stamp designs are unique and have many creative possibilities.  I can't wait to share what I've been doing with them!

I started this piece knowing I was going to use the pedestal and cupcake but like all my mixed media/art journal pieces, I never really know where the piece is going to take me.

Here are some shots of the final piece and some close ups:

I know you're thinking "that lettering is amazing!"  I am so excited on how it turned out.  I watched a handwriting tutorial on making a font from your own handwriting and thought I'd practice on another piece of paper, but if you know anything about me and I'm sure you do, I love to just dive right in.  Why not?  I wrote the words with a fine point BIC pen and then sketched around and filled in to make lines thicker, etc.  Filled in with a Sharpie and highlighted the bottoms with Wink of Stella Glitter White pen (HEY) and the white Gelly Roll pen (SWEETIE).  LOVE!
See the tutorial  here:

The pedestal was stamped directly on the page but the top part (bright blue) was pieced.  The cupcake was paper pieced together.  I used my assortment of pens to highlight the frosting, color the cake and highlight the flower).


I love that pedestal and plan on using it a lot!  Can you see it holding a Christmas tree or other holiday icons?  So cute!!


The yellow circles on the top right was another experiment.  The technique is called bumping.  Basically, you paint inside a stencil with a light (or dark) color and then slightly move the stencil (bump it) and paint another color (lighter or darker depending on your first color).  It gives a shadow effect.  Unfortunately, the white that I used did not show up well enough to see the bump.  I still love the random circles on this page.


Supplies:
Lavender, green galore, yoyo yellow and tempting turquoise ink pads from SU!
Black Re-inker
Yellow acrylic paint
Yellow and Red Spritz paint (homemade)
Brass Alphabet stencil
Grunge Stamp Set SU! (Those beautiful lavender splotches on the page - wait...is that an oxymoron?)
Tea Party Stamp Set Lila Grey Stamps (click here to view the stamp sets)

Goodbye Coach

Our friends are moving to Tennessee and Saturday was their goodbye party.  Nick coached football with Kenny for about six years.  They have become good friends of ours.  He's a fan of my homemade salsa so I knew I wanted to make a jar for their party.  Of course I couldn't send it without embellishments so I made this quick and cute tag.  The paper is all from CTMH.  I love the country feel to it.  I think it's perfect for the salsa.

Cricut Cartridge Used:  Country Life

Thanks Again Rubber Paws

I don't know if you remember, but about two years ago, I was gifted many, many supplies from my sister's sister-in-law.  Her artist name was Rubber Paws.  I am reminded daily of her because not only is the Command Center filled with supplies from her craft room, but her style and talent is something that I look upon often.

Her art was just that...art.  As I rifle though supplies, I remember how much she used gold leafing in her projects, how she used embossing powders, micro beads and many, many more out of the ordinary stamping supplies.

The Art Journal book that I'm using was from her as well.  Each time I start a new page, her inspiration is with me.  You know, I only met her once.  And even then, I didn't take the opportunity to actually talk to her.  It's so unfortunate because I think we would have had a lot of talk about and learn from each other.

See my original post here.

Here are some photos of projects I'm doing using "out of the ordinary" products:

Do you see the gold leafing?

The dress is made with torn purple paper scraps & then coated with Wink of Stella.

This pen holder was part of Rubber Paw's gifts and a stamp pad holder too.

Products used for the mixed media piece.

This wreath stamp was hers too.  I almost gave it away, but I'm so glad I didn't.  I love it!

These are only a small portion of items but ones that I have been working with this past week. 


Thanks again Karen aka Rubber Paws.  I hope you approve...R.I.P.

Quinceanera Painter's Tray Gift

I have a quinceanera on Saturday and realized I either needed to buy a gift or make something.  Well, this special  young lady is the daughter of one of my friends/coworker and she used to come over to my home and craft with us.  I thought I would make her a mini-album that she could put some photos of her birthday party in, but remembered I had two of the 7 Gypsies Painter Trays.  I found them in the clearance section at Joanne's before Christmas.  They usually sell for at least $19 and they were on clearance for only $7!! I bought the only two they had.

For those of you who don't know, a quinceanera is a 15th birthday celebration in the Catholic Hispanic culture.  It's a day to celebrate when a girl becomes a young lady.  I've been to plenty of them and Kenny & I have participated as padrinos (Godparents) in two of them - the first was for Vanessa and the second for Erika.

The parties are just like weddings - very elaborate and very special.

Now to the project:

Here is a photo of the entire thing:

And some close ups:

The color of her dress is a salmon color and the decorations are a mixture of the same color and a light teal blue (I'm sure there's an official name, I just don't know what it is).  I started off with a paper line from CTMH but realized the "salmon" color was really more orange than I hoped.  I accidently found a scrap piece of some paper that we had forever.  In fact, it's one of the first paper pads Carly and I bought.  I no longer have the cover page, but the pad was a Rock Star pad with lots of coordinating papers (probably DCWV, but I'm not sure).  I used those sheets and added a teal color as accent.

The light wood and gold accented papers are from a paper pad from DCWV.  I love this pad!!

So the idea of the painter's trays is to decorate it and she can fill the empty spaces with photos.  I really like the way it turned out.

I used my Storybook Cricut cartridge for the crown, "15" and the mats; Tie the Knot cartridge for the "V"; SU! pennant punch for the pennant; SU! doilies; CTMH washi tape; the micro beads, gold flowers and assorted ribbons are from my stash.

I hope she likes it.

Peace

I finished another Art Journal page.   I worked on the base of this page awhile ago and then moved on  to other pages before going back to this one.

I saw somewhere that someone adhered rolled pieces of paper to their canvas so I thought I'd like to try it.  I grabbed some scrap pink paper and started inking it up.  I also stamped random background on some of the papers.  I also grabbed my trusty English/Spanish dictionary and tore out some pages.

Once I adhered them to the page, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.  I used an empty toilet tissue roll to apply white paint circles on the 3D papers and then decided to make one of them a peace sign.  Then grabbed some white rub-on letters that I have and wrote the word "peace".

Here's the final page:

Another shot and a side view:

So here's what I hate about the Art Journal.  I really, really,, really like how this turned out and would love to frame it but I have more art work on the backside of this page.  I really need to only work on one side of pages.

I love how this turned out!

Virtual Room Tour

On Saturday, five of my scrapbooking friends and I had a Craft Room Crawl.  We met at the home of our last stop and then carpooled to each others crafting rooms - five stops total.  First stop...amazing! This room was called the Girl Cave.  Karen's room is layed out perfectly with different stations for different mediums.  There's a cutting spot, glitter, flower, etc.  The entire space is cozy and girly and all supplies are stored in a way that you can just grab and get creative!  Awesome!

Second stop is the Fungeon.  Nancy's room is very organized with lots and lots of shelves to put everything.  She definitely won the contest of "she who has the most paper".  The room is painted in a beautiful soft blue that is so relaxing!  Her spot is a "everything has it's place" craft room and plenty of room to spread out and get your scrap on!  Love it!

Third stop doesn't have a cute name, but Dawn said she'd work on it.  Her room was spectacular!  There are custom made cabinets surrounding her double tables in the center of the room.  The cabinets have plenty of storage on shelves or in drawers.  I love that she had plenty of Disney inspired art.  Her containers are labeled so you can find what you're looking for.  It is put together well and very, very nice.  Classy!

The Command Center was the fourth stop.  My room is at least 1/2 the size of everyone's and so quirky.  Carly and I love our space.  There is lots of inspiration art and photos all over the walls.  I love our thrifts store and yard sales pieces that fill our space with a lot of storage and work stations.  Carly and I cleaned that room like it's never been cleaned before!  There's so much to look at and love.

Here's a virtual tour made just for you.

I hope you like the Command Center as much as we do!

Last but not least was Wanda's almost empty craft room.  She had a table and a shelf and that's about it!  She sure did get lots of great ideas and inspiration by looking at each of our rooms.  That was her intention!  So we ended the night eating cupcakes and drinking wine.  Oh I forgot to mention at each stop, there was food/drinks to share with the tour group.  It was nice relaxing outside at Wanda's and talking shop.