I spent the first couple of days this week catching up on some extra chores and did a bit of unpacking & purging today. We still had about 7 boxes from our move we never fully unpacked and we moved 7 years ago. Most were knickknacks that we simply had no where to display, some keepsake items & a few odds & ends. Three boxes are heading to the thrift shop. For the knickknacks, we picked up a display cabinet from Ikea and I’ll be deciding what will fill the shelves soon.
Also over the past couple of days I’ve been tea dying paper. I forgot I was brewing tea the other day, so it ended up quite strong, so instead of pouring it out, I opted to tea dye. I’m really picky about vintage style stuff and tea dye is much softer than coffee dyed. After dying about 20 regular sheets, I pulled out the Color Burst Powders and played with the next dozen sheets.
This is just a small sampling of the papers I created. They will make interesting pages in journals.
I hope you are having a wonderful week but staying cool. I know a lot of the states are experiencing wicked high temps.
I hope you had a wonderful weekend and have a great week ahead!
Hubby & I ran errands & hung out Saturday and Sunday I did some more serious purging/organizing in the studio. So after my regular Monday house cleaning today, I worked on another Bible Journaling page.
This lesson on His Palette by Lynn had several verses to choose from and a great message to take each day as it comes.
I chose Isaiah 43:18-19 to place my artwork.
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. NIV
We wrote our fears & worries underneath our art and then covered them up with mixed media. I collaged some map patterned paper down and added acrylic paint with stenciling over top. Added my His Palette Printable Moving On and added hand lettering which proved difficult over all the mediums but I persisted.
Hand you cares over to God this week and enjoy each day one by one.
Last week was so unusually busy for me, plus dealing with allergies & asthma, that it took me awhile to complete my first journal entry for my Lent studies. I have made it the highest priority to do the study part each day but when you are out & about, it doesn’t leave much time for creating. Add to the fun, I’m doing 2 Lent studies. I’ll be digging into God’s Word a lot the next few weeks.
Return to me is based on Joel 2:12-13. In Hebrew teshuvah means “to turn back toward”, “repent”, “return to me”.
I created a watercolor wash background over my page, pulled some elements from my Open Journey Come With Me 2 kit, created a pocket with the main image, added the focal verse with the basic Hebrew definition & added the title. I then made a tag booklet insert & added some thoughts from Ingrid’s post & my own study to make it more personal.
I’m having a blast digging into some of my handmade papers, fibers, ribbons, stamps & more to create more interest & texture. It’s been awhile since I’ve done collage style, mixed media art.
Remember to spread some cheer, sunshine & kindness where every you go and pray for our chaotic world.
I hope everyone is staying safe & warm in these winter storms & events. It’s a bit frigid here in Oklahoma at the moment.
Been a bit busy and hubby has a few days off so not a lot of time to create. However, I ordered the new Open Journey Come With Me 2 Lent Bible Journaling Kit and along with the 40 day study, I’ll be joining Liz Curtis Higgs The Women of Easter Study. I don’t usually do much for Lent but both of these appealed greatly.
So I found a steno style watercolor journal in my stash and decorated it with kit elements from the Open Journey kit.
Ingrid’s physical kits are wonderfully packed with a devotional, lots of collage images & pieces, fibers & a stamp set plus there is a digital version available too. This time I also ordered an additional coordinating stamp set & the boat charm I added to my journal. I used the “folder” that was holding all the pieces to create the front & back of my journal along with some of my hand painted paper for the sides. I used both stamp sets that matched the kit and the Tapestry of Grace stamp set from this month’s Creative Retreat Kits to add the collage feel to my covers. I love how it all came together.
I have the Creative Crate event this weekend so there will be more creating going on, then it’s back to organizing & purging some more.
I was finishing up one of the other Stamp-a-thon projects so posting a bit late tonight.
The 4th challenge was anything but a card. Since I have been sorting & organizing, I had just put some ornaments in their new home so pulled one out to create with.
I had to take a picture in different lighting, the cute pink nose & cheeks were washing out. I stamped with permanent ink & heat set on the porcelain, then colored with alcohol ink markers. The color was quite pale so I went back over the coloring with colored pencils, then sprayed with workable fixative. I used a retired SNSS stamp set Cozy Friends.
Enjoy your Thursday & do something nice for someone, the world can use some extra kindness right now.
Last night’s card was actually a teaser for tonight’s post.
Beautiful Spring is the 3rd installment in our 4 seasons 12 x 12 frame project that I have been designing.
Taking the picture was very challenging today, that’s a reflection on the end of the word spring not part of the design.
I pulled out several flower/grass type dies from a variety of companies. Some are cut from handmade papers and hand painted backgrounds. The others were cut from white cardstock & colored in distress inks. I have been seeing several cards with white diecuts on white and decided it was perfect for the clouds to give the flowers center stage.
Now I have some bright cheery spring flowers in the house and the Angels will have lots of fun putting their layout together because I have quite a variety of handpainted papers to work with and they will decide what colors they want their flowers to be. Just makes each one more unique.
It’s been a wee bit busy around here & then there’s the allergy issue so a bit more sporadic on posting.
I did spend the past three days creating this wonderful fall artwork.
First I want to thank Leona for sharing info on this free online class by The Social Easel. I have very few fall decorations & this came out perfect. It is entirely freehand, no template was provided. Also the original didn’t have a saying but I wanted one.
Second if you know me well, shabby is not my usual style. As an artist I do feel it’s important to step outside of your usual comfort box & play with something different. It can also be good to do if you are stuck in a rut or your muse has gone walkabout.
Third play with something different I did. This is a pallet board frame. It is rough, has lots of splinters & was entirely a challenge to create on. I just dug in & went with it. It’s done with brushes, palette knife, acrylic paints & Posca Paint pens for the lettering.
It has certainly been a strange 2020 so far. All my plans to keep up with my blog kind of went right out the window. So I am looking at a new approach for the rest of 2020. A blog of encouragement, maybe some advice to new cardmakers, Cards for Troops updates, Bible Journaling, just a big mix with an over laying theme of kindness & encouragement.
One of the biggest things the virus quarantine brought to attention was how much people have been loving getting cards in the mail. Snail mail is not gone my friends & I think we have the perfect opportunity to bring smiles to those in our circles of influence by sending out lots of cards. Especially if you can find a care or nursing facility where the residents still have to be very careful.
I am one of the moderators over on the Let’s Make Card group on Facebook. Not only are they huge supporters of getting cards to the Troop unit we mail to, there are a lot of brand new stampers and cardmakers discovering the joy of creating cards & bringing smiles. I have learned a lot over the years & I think some tips for new cardmakers might just be a good thing to revisit.
One of the key components of my life is my faith journey. I have spent a lot more time the past couple of months Bible Journaling and I love it. I also have had the opportunity to provide some encouragement cards to the Salvation Army & send out some happy mail. I think right now in our current climate, focusing on kindness & encouragement is a critical key to helping our neighbors. Together we are stronger and we are especially stronger when we are united in God’s love to reach out to a hurting world.
I really enjoy my time over on the Creative Worship Bible Journaling group on Facebook. A couple of times a month, they have a PJ Party. This week we had a mixed media lesson. I have been wanting to add an art journal to my Bible Journaling and this week’s PJ party was perfect. My lettering is a bit rough but overall I really like how this piece came out. God is good, loves us so much & is always faithful. It is a joy to praise Him & give thanks.
This page has a gesso base with Distress Oxides layered over. The cathedral window is a stencil as well as the texture paste corners at the top. There are some stamps added in for some more texture. Verse is handlettered in Micron pens & paint marker.
