Stars and Stripes

Quickie 4th of July Project! 

My supervisor at work LOVES to decorate for any holiday!  So she ran to Michaels on her lunch break yesterday, and brought back these fun stars! 

This morning she handed them out to everyone and said "create!"

So create I did! 

This is the front and back or back and front of my star

I used my ranger inks with punchinella and then made some stars punched out of cardboard painted gold...
The inked dots are outlined in red glitter glue!

Then on the other side I drew lines using my copics and other markers, and a little bit of glitter glue, and a bunch of imagination!

It was super fun to have craft day at work! 

Tomorrow I'll be featuring a pinwheel garland! (or maybe even later today if I can't wait to post it!)

Happy Independence day!  Thank a service person for all they've done for this great country today and every day!

Smash* Challenge #1

This weekend I am participating in the Three 24 hour smash* aholics challenge.  It's 3 challenges for 

each of the three days of the weekend.

The first challenge was to make a page about someone or something special..

So I flipped thru my pictures and this one stood out t me...

It's of my parents from their last visit.  And in honor of my mom finally starting to follow this blog I thought 

I'd include her!!

Some close ups of the details... The pretty butterfly with Ranger acrylic paints, and home made 

glitter spray (I used an old container of eyeshadow)

The little glassine envelope was left over from my wedding, and I added a little bit of twine

At the top of the pic is the xoxo glittery ribbon, some coups I got at a raffle a while back..

The king and queen are from the cover of a book of stamps, and I made the mom and 

dad sign from scratch...

It's a cute little page, and much more smash* like than I usually do!  I hope you enjoy!

A Summer Bookmark

I Love Bingo!!!

Hubby thinks I should actually be about 65 years old....

But I Love Bingo!!!!

So when I saw the Bingo 2 Week challenge over at shoppingourstash I KNEW I was going to participate!

Of course I also love saturated canary's challenge, so for my first combo challenge, I did this little beauty

For SC the challenge this week is bookmark, 

it's perfect for that summer book I'll be picking up soon!

For the Bingo challenge I had to incorporate glitter, pearls, distressing, blue, and flower...

I love the glitter in her hair... feels like she got some sand stuck in her locks

I also got a chance to use my new denami stamps that you may remember I won in a blog hop last weekend.. That's the little butterfly, embossed and painted with pearl watercolors!
I also incorporated some of the twine I got in that same win from the twinery to the ribbon's at the top of the bookmark..

The pearls and flower I tied together in my handmade flower which is also blue

There is some distressing on the edges of the bookmark, and I also used ranger distress inks and a little punchinella on the side of the bookmark. 

I hope you love my summer bookmark!  

What is your favorite book??  How would you make a bookmark for it? 

10 tips to get past the blank art journal page

10 Tips

to get past the blank art journal page!

1. Put down a wash of color... Use watercolors, or acrylics.

2. Tear out a page of a magazine and modge podge or glue it down on the page.   Any magazine page will do... after all, you're probably going to cover it up again!

3. Distress just the edges and corners of the page.

4. Stamp your page directly from the ink pad and then quickly spritz with water.

or my favorite.......

This seems to work very best with the ranger distress inks as they stay wet longer.

5. Glue or modge podge a ripped up dress pattern to the page.

6. Haphazardly stamp with any of the rubber stamps you have not yet used, or haven't used in a long time!

7. Glue or paste that old calendar right onto your page!

8. Use something unexpected... try rubbing with charcoal, or how about some of those retread tires we see on the side of the highway? (Please be careful!!!  Don't get hit!!!)

9. Stick all your drink wrappers on a page... think the green tea bottle you just threw away, or the cup of joe you drank this morning.


10. Use that punchinella!  Abuse it!  Use all the ink pads you have!

After I put down a background on a page I usually shut my journal and leave it... Then when I'm ready to do a page I already have a bunch of backgrounds ready to choose from.

Smash Book..... a work in progress

I seem to have lots and lots of Works in Progress.........

Hubby always makes fun that I never seem to finish anything, maybe it's the little bit of a perfectionist that lives inside me, but I want things to be just right.......

When I started Art Journaling earlier this year I promised myself that I wouldn't do this with the art journal, that I would just turn the page and move on....

For the most part I have been able to do this, but I have one page that has been very slow to progress, and that I seem to always want to tweak!

This is that page for me.....

It just doesn't seem to have enough "stuff" on it! 

First I did the background and added the bird... then it sat for a while...

Last week I added the lettering, and then it sat for a few more days

Finally I started writing... Just whatever I needed to get out.

I love that I got to use my punchinella for the very first time on this page, but it still doesn't feel quite right.

Maybe I should add a tree next to the bird? 

Or some glitter or fun stickers??  Maybe I should let it simmer for a while longer??

What do you do when your pages aren't just right??