Funky Cactus

 Well it's been a long time! 

I took quite a hiatus, plus we moved, and did a full renovation of our (new to us!) 45 year old house! 

That was fun and interesting, and stressful at times as well! There is nothing quite like living in a house that's being renovated!  But the best part was waking up one night and having finally made a decision on taking out a wall I just went at it with a sledge hammer! 

I am so blessed to have a HUGE crafting space now, and God has given me time each morning to spend with him, and then I get to work on my crafts.  The ideas are definitely flowing!  

Saturdays seem to be my biggest crafting day, I get my coffee, I do my devotions, and then I dive in!  I have had a renewed love of my Big Shot die cutting machine!  Like seriously, I almost got rid of it in the move!  But with Tim Holtz's new chapter 3 release I have been going gangbusters on this thing!  

Then I found the Funky Insects, and the Funky Cactus! WHAT! I am so in love with both of these sets of dies!  Yesterday I had this idea to use an old Ikea frame I had in the craft room, I made background papers using stencils and texture paste and then distress sprays and distress crayons, and then I made the green paper for the cactus, and cut them out and voila!  

The cool thing is the frame is two sided, it opens like a claw at the bottom.  

Hope you are loving it as much as I am! 

Linking to:

Just add ink: 

Simon says stamp Monday challenge:

From this morning bible reading: 

John 9:5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. 

Have a blessed Sunday and rest of the week! 

July 2019 Set up in my Bullet Journal

Today I'm sharing my July layout in my bullet journal

The section on the left will be my memory keeping section. 

I like to add photo's that I print from my sprocket here, and then journal about what was going on. 

For the Calendar side I hand draw the boxes and the numbers and the days of the week. 

The July title is from the Cocoa Daisy July South Beach planner kit. 

The stickers came from an assortment pack I found at Hobby Lobby, and some pieces from the kit as well! Don't you just love that lovely floral Washi tape? 

For my weekly spreads I went back to the long horizontal days.  I used the Tim Holtz "type lower" stamp set for the big numbers.  I honestly love these big numbers!  

You can see the days of the week are pieces of Washi tape that matched the color scheme perfectly this month!  

Isn't that flamingo to die for??  

When my kit comes each month I try to pull out items that I have in my stash to match up.

I am really working on not adding to much to my hoard right now, and using up what I've already purchased.  I know like most of you that this is NOT easy.  But a little bit of creativity, and I can save lots by not SHOPPING! And to me this justifies buying the kit! 

If you like what you see, please subscribe, I will be posting about memory keeping in a travelers notebook, and more planner fun as well! 

Today's verse is: Philippians 4:6 Be Anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

Painted paintbrush

Good morning, 

  Today I am sharing with you a project that I've wanted to create for quite a few years.

About 6 years ago I was visiting my parents in North Carolina and I got the chance to stop by 

the Donna Downey studio. 

She had all these painted paintbrushes up on the wall, and I thought I'd love to try that. 

Fast forward to this week, I have had a bit of free time off work this week, 

and I thought why not try it!

 I also have been using a lot of my Lindy's Stamp Gang magical and sprays,

and I thought why don't I use the inspiration to create my paintbrush. 

So here is the inspiration piece:

I would have loved to do all the butterflies too, but they didn't appear as I was working!

Here is my paintbrush

And because it's amazing, a close up of the quote plaque

I will be entering this in the Lindy's stamp gang challenge on facebook, you can find it here. 

Thanks for taking a few minutes to check me out, 

I haven't been super active on this blog, but I have been in my crafting life! 

 Perhaps more to come soon!

Products used:

Lindys magical: 

Time Travel Teal

Afternoon Delight Denim

California poppy Gold

Starburst Sprays:

Shabby Turbine Teal

yellow Rose of Texas

Rudolphs Nose Red

Art Journal Challenge: Gelly plate

Good morning!

It's a beautiful morning here... a start to a HOT week coming up!

I'll be happy to be out of the extreme heat of next weekend!

Enough about the weather.

Today the challenge was Gel Plate.

I am very new to using the gel plate, but I'm doing my best to be fearless.

What did I take from this challenge?

Less is more when it comes to the gel plate.

You see what I mean?

Holy paint and stencils and craziness batman!

But I went with it anyways.

Here is how the page started.

I've been slapping excess pain onto the next page each day.

And it looks like the paint didn't dry enough before I shut the book

so the ripping in the middle. 

But that never really bothers me!

I just got to it! 

I had some Lindy's stamp Gang sprays out on my table, 

So I slapped some gesso on the gel plate, and covered that with a stencil, and then the sprays.

The result is pretty cool. 

Obviously some of these got used, and some will be other things I guess!

But yummy! I mean the possibilities!

I got down to arranging, 

And the verse is hand stamped again.

I am embracing my stamping imperfections! 

The bird is from Dina Wakley's like of stamps, and I need to find a few that seem to have flown away!

She is a cute little bird!

The verse is just a part of Isaiah 41:13

The final addition was the wash tape along the edge and the top.

I think possibly I need more black, but for now I'm gonna say its done. 

I was working on a youtube video of my bullet journal last night 

(YES I'm one of those!)

But I ran out of memory on my phone, so there may be a camcorder or camera purchase in the near future.

God has been pushing me into this youtube world for a while, and I have been resisting.

What am I scared of? 

God promises he will help me! 

Have a blessed day!

Remember to leave a comment for a chance to win a set of Dina Wakley scribble sticks!

Art Journal Challenge: Stars

Good morning,
The art journal challenge is coming closer to it's end!
What a great experience this has been so far.
Don't get me wrong, there are still at least 4 prompts in the bowl,
But it's hard to believe its flown by so fast!

Today the prompt was Stars:

I absolutely adore stars,

and have probably been looking for the right project for those glittery ones for a while!

You can see that I'm working through my journal day by day,

soon it will be too fat on one side, and nothing on the other.

Oh well!

so here are the process pictures

First I just stamped these stars with permanent ink

Then I used my two star stencils to add more starts with acrylic paint.

This blob of paint started out as a sort of pink color, and it was just wrong!

So I covered it with orange, and then white, it's still not quite what I pictured, but there it is

none the less. 

Next I started adding the stars, they are glittery, and have literally been on my desk for years! 

Then I looked for a bible verse, I thought something with stars, 

and then I opened my youversion bible app, and this was today's verse

On a side note, about three or four years ago I painted this same verse onto two pieces of scrap wood,

They have been in my kitchen ever since. 

I'm pretty happy with my stars prompt.

I'm going to miss this little challenge when it ends next week, 

Maybe I'll just start over again!  

Hope you are having a blessed day, and remember to leave a comment for a chance to win some Dina Wakley scribble sticks! 

Art Journal Challenge: Paint

Paint!

I want to say that this is a challenge, but paint isn't really for me!

I LOVE paint! 

The colors, the thickness, the versatility!

But...

I did get a gel plate about a month ago, and that has been a challenge,

So I decided to try to not make too much of a mess with gel plate 

directly onto the journal page.

It gets a little busy, but lets be honest, my pages are almost always "busy!"

This was after just the first three layers.

The tag itself was just one layer of the gel plate. and then the stamps and some doodling.

Finally I added the verse in a big almost unreadable hand on the other side. 

I'm not hiding it, I just think that the lettering adds something to the page as well and the 

wonderful words of our Father.

Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, 

and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Have a blessed day, and remember to leave a comment for a chance to win a set of Dina Wakley Scribble Sticks. 

Art Journal Challenge: Stencils and Clippings

Good morning, 

You haven't heard from me for a couple of days, 

that's not because I haven't been journaling, 

it's because I ended up combining two days of challenges.

Stencils and Clippings

James 1:3 Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

James is one of my husbands favorite books. 

He gets all excited whenever he reads it.

And this is such an amazing reminder of how important Faith is in our walk with God.

So for the first part of the challenge I used paint and an assortment of stencils.

If you've followed me any amount of time you know that this is a pretty standard for me!

I have started using a better quality acrylic paint, and I'm noticing a big difference,

Not as much muddling of the colors! 

So for the second part of the challenge I started by walking down to my mailbox

After I'd picked out the verse and written it down on my desk paper I started to cut out letters, and some words. 

I knew I wouldn't find perseverance, nor apparently did I spell it correctly the first time!

The good thing about clippings is that they are easy to cover the mistakes! 

So there! 

I don't usually mind mistakes, but I know spelling mistakes can be corrected.

So there you have it, a 2 in 1 art journal challenge, 

and knowing that we aren't ever perfect, but we can often fix the mistakes! 

Remember to leave a comment for a chance to win a set of Dina Wakley Scribble Sticks.