Show Us A Song Title

The challenge this week at SSSS was to Show a Song Title in your piece and I had to do a journal page spread using an old book page, so I made this spread with the song We are family in mind. The pages do say We are Family, I've Got All My Sisters In Me... but the glare off the acrylic paints makes it hard to see. LOL. I was inspired by a you-tube I saw but don't remember where. I wish I could draw or paint, but can't so I stamped my faces and doodled the edge borders and free hand cut the dresses and hats and hair-do's. I used a few of Dylusions stamps with Distress ink and white snowcap pigment ink over my background and then just stamped with black Memento for the swirls and birds and butterflies.

Art Journalling

The challenge in the OWSE group currently is to use masking on your project. Since I have recently started an art journal, I couldn't help but make a spread. I used paints for my background and it was so extremely bright and obnoxious, that I die-cut my birds and used them as masks and painted over the whole thing with gesso to tone it down. Got a wonderful result. Used a Crafty Companion stencil and made the trees and colored in with my Copics. Had to do a bit of free-nanding for more leaves and a few branches. Over-stamped in black Archival ink some Wendy and Tim verses and a few backgrounds in light colored Distress inks. Another template and white acryllic paint for the border at the top. I think it's done. What do you think?

Valentine card and another OWSE challenge

One of the January challenges on OWSE is to make a card using either a silouhette or a cameo. Well, I love them both and need to make a Valentine for hubby and birthday cards for two of my sisters, one of whose birthday is Valentines Day and the other one is the 11th, so I usually make them both a Valentine birthday card. Here's my version this year. I just learned to do these easel cards, so am having some fun with these.

Making cards today

Woo-hoo, short day from work today, so spent a lot of time in my studio. I made a birthday card for my very dear friend Roger that also is going to be entered for the new ranger challenge, organized and stickles. I am also using it for the OWSE challenge of Anything Goes. It certainly fits that. We had to use three
Stickles on our design and do something organized. Well this little bird has organized her tree. LOL I used colored pencils to color my bird after I die-cut her. Then I used Stormy Sky Distress Stickles for the blue portion, Rusty Hinge Distress Stickles for her chest, top of head and beak, and Lime Green Stickles for my branch. I die cut Tim's on the edge Twigs from thick chipboard and stained it with walnut stain over the top of Vintage Photo stains and blued it down to hold the card up. Did I mention that it's an easel card? Well, it is and that's the reason I had to use the thick chipboard. I hope he likes it. I was pleased with the results.

Parisian challenge and fave stamp by SA tag swap

When I made this tag originally, it was for my Parisian challenge over at OWSE, but then I signed up for the favorite stamp by Stamper's anonymous tag swap and made three more of them for that. I used the Papillon stamp as my background, blended several colors of Distress inks, over-

stamped with the small stamps from that set and added Tim's tissue tape that I added some distress inks to as well with the blending tool. I die-cut the Eifel tower from chipboard and painted it black. Once dry, I painted it with platinum crackle paint and when that dried, I rubbed walnut stain distress ink into the cracks with the blending tool, added a fleur-de-lis brad and ribbon and called it good.

Art Journalling

At last I am going to be brave enough to try my hand at this "art journalling" thing everyone else seems to do so naturally. I have wanted to try it for a long time, but just didn't know where to start or how, so tonight, I just went to my studio and sat down with my book and started adding inks, oaints, and gesso. I sprayed and sponged and dabbed and scraped and used stencils and stamps. I then die-cut one of Tim's clocks from chipboard and rubbed it black with distress ink and then covered it in clear UTEE and heated and repeated twice more. Glued it down with Ranger's glossy accents and here's my challenge for the journalling club at OWSE for New Year's Resolutions, Make time for art is my resolution covered here. It was fun and didn't take much time at all. Finally got to use a few of those cool stencils/templates I collected.

Get well card

A friend of a blogger friend of mine, Donna Vere, contacted me recently with some bad news that Donna had suffered a stroke during the Twelve tags of Christmas this year. Donna and Allison, and I played along all last year and made all of the past year's tags doing one a week. When she suddenly stopped posting this year's tags, I wondered what was uop but thought she was just super busy as we all are in December. Then I got the news from Rhonda about the stroke. I made her this card and sent it out to her and am praying for a full recovery for her. I am hoping she has gotten it by now.

Hanging with Wendy

Well, I never even got around to downloading my pics of Wendy and I in the Stamper's Anonymous booth at the OOAK stamp show in Madison, Wi. in November. I was wearing my new Wendy shirt in the pumpkin color. Wendy said I was the first she'd seen wearing one of them so we had a photo op. I wish I had gotten a smaller size. I ordered a medium after losing 44 pounds this past year but I am swimming in it! I think I will try to make some seams down both sides and try to make it smaller. Love it, but it is huge on me. Wendy was a sweetie and had some gorgeous art there on display. She gave me a goodie pack of her art parts for being part of the yahoo group and mentioning it. She is so talented and so friendly.

SSSS- Show us Some and Some New

Well, I have been going to do this for some time now so today I finally got two of the years of tags made into a Christmas banner to hang in my family room. I strung it up for the photos but will put it away now for next year and hopefully by then, get the rest of the year's put together onto banners. I used my Cricut to cut the banner pieces out of patterned paper and then glued to an ugly light green cardstock I had a ton of. Never going to use that stuff! Then I cut them all out and added the trim piece in a coordinating color, added eyelets to hold the string. Strung together my 2011 tags(something new) and my 2009 tags (something old) from Tim's Twelve Days of Christmas. Why did I skip 2010 you ask??? Because I can't seem to find where I hid those away!!! I found 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011. I am so organized here, NOT!!! It was a fun project and they will look great wen I have them all the way around my family room. It was hard to get good photos of such a long banner so I did it in sections and with a flash, not the best but you can get the idea of how it looks.

Grungy Monday #31

Well, I am right on top of this one! Happy Birthday Tim

! Here's my card. I used Tim's tissue paper and hos technique for the background using the Glue and Seal, several distress ink colors in pinks, reds, and blues, and browns. I love the new brown from the fall collection!!! I used his dies for the baroque portion and frame, ran them thru my Vagabond, "Vincenzo", in his brick and ray texture fade folders. Put some of his tissue tape onto cardstock and die cut his bird on a branch from the caged bird die. Layered it all up and added some filrmstrip ribbon with Tim's tiny attacher, love that stuff, and enamel accents for the bird's eye. Die cut a locket and key by sizzix and added them. The bird was pop-dotted up. I guess that's about it.

SSSS- Show us a Tim Tag

Wow, has it really been that long since I posted? Too busy and stressed out this time of year. Here is a tag I made Tim style using his matte medium resist technique.