Thriving Art

 What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday! Yep it's back again the weekly blog hop Miss Julia created for all of us nosey bloggers.  So tonight ( as it is still Tuesday here in California for an other 45 min .) this is dear Betsy, quite cluttered with an assortment of stamps, ink pads, and scissors.  Not much creativity lurking about on Betsy this week.  I have been busy searching, and cropping and printing photos for a Christmas present for my DIL. I decided to make her a memories quilt.  I've made a couple in the past and they do take some time to make. Getting the pictures cropped and printed take the longest, but I finally got the last sheet printed this morning.  Then a couple hours of cutting them apart and trimming them( oooph! I hate that part )  So here is a pic of the quilt, it's a twin size, meant more for a throw than a blanket.   Here it is all laid out again with all 62 pictures!!  She loves purple, so every picture is fra...

October 2, I had posted about the EERIE-Spooky ATC swap I had joined over at Unruley Paper Arts Yahoo Group..  Well, the mail came yesterday and here are the return ATC!! Such great art, please give these ladies a round of applause! (insert clapping sound here) I really wished the scan and/or photos would really show the great dimensional detail these have. Sharon Briss (our swap hostess) Cathy L. Calamas Electra Helene Huber Now don't YOU wished you had joined too? LOL If you haven't checked out this awesome group NOW would be the time to do so.  Where? Why HERE: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Unruly/   Until later, Inky Hugs,

A couple weeks ago I had gone on about using up a bunch of scrap shapes that I just toss into a large baggie.  I started randomly gluing then to a journal page, then used gesso over the whole page. I used paint and ink to add some color.  I had dumped a small box of crayons on Betsy ( I have always loved NEW crayons, and just had to have a look at them LOL ) So there they were just laying there so pretty and new and screaming "Use Me! Use Me!".  What was I to do? I stripped the paper off them ( Oh no naked crayons !) grabbed my embossing gun and started to melt them onto my page, just through the middle.  Oooooh I liked that, looks like a rainbow puddle. Hence the sentiment written with a white out pen. WOYWW 177 Betsy displayed a journal page all gessoed and textured, ready and waiting.  I had bought some Modeling Paste at Hobby Lobby when we were on vacation.  I used a rather thick stencil and decided I didn't care for it, so I laid a pi...

Today was a good crafting/card making day, and this my second post of the day.  I had left Betsy full of things waiting last night and this morning, after visiting almost 100 blogs for WOYWW and drinking almost a pot of coffee, I got busy and started finishing some of the things.  Well, maybe it was the caffeine high that had me going.....LOL     Here is the color inspiration from Hand Stamped Sentiments.  So many rich autumn colors, as you can see it is challenge #141.  See web addy down below    Here is the sketch from Let's Capture These Sketches #36. Yes, this web addy will be below too.  I do love this sketch. Here is my finished card.  I have had this pumpkin stamp for eons, and it is still one of my favorite autumn stamps.  It is from Whipper Snapper. So on to getting the web addies for you.  These are both this weeks challenges so there is plenty of time to join in. For the Hand Stamp Sent...

Here is my take on the Sweet Sunday sketch challenge #170.  Since Totally Stampalicious has a color challenge of green, purple and black I decided to combine the two into one card.  There is still time to join both challenges, you can check them out here: http://totallystampalicious.blogspot.com/2012/10/winner-and-color-challenge.html and http://kgiron.blogspot.com/2012/10/sweet-sunday-sketch-challenge-170.html until later

So here it is Tuesday night US time and Wednesday UK time and that means it is WOYWW time!! http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/2012/10/whats-on-your-workdesk-wednesday-177.html  that's Julia's blog where all the happenings are going on, for what? you ask! Well for Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday, where you get to hop around the world and look at everybody works space. So this is Betsy this week, I was MIA last week and didn't get to play.  I got a new cutting mat while on vacation, it's so shinny and new.  To the left is an other piece of my vacation waiting to be decorated, card in the middle waiting for some type of sentiment and to the right is my art journal, prepped and also waiting for the next step. So tonight everything was left waiting....LOL  Now to start my journey around the world to see what is up with everyone else. Do drop by Julia's blog and join in the fun.......until later

Such a simple card that took me forever! I change color schemes over and over finally ended up with good ole black and white!  So today I finished this card and started a challenge card...........mojo is there, hands just aren't listening!  Also have a journal page all prepped and ready to start.......but do I DARE! Maybe I'll just straighten up Betsy a bit and call it a day for stamping, maybe get a couple of LOs finished for Dani's album.  I feel Father Christmas starting to breath down my neck and I still have half the album to get finished, and a memory quilt to get started on............I NEED AN AFTERNOON COFFEE!  Until later........today is Tuesday, so next post will be later tonight for WOYWW don't forget to check Julia's blog for great work spaces and stories LOL

  It feels so good to be home, even though it was a great trip.  Thank you to all that wished us well! So lots of pictures in this post, in case you want to skip them and go further down and see the new stash I won........ I got to see family while we stopped in Grand Junction for a night going to Denver and then again on the return trip. Grandma Krisha's new playhouse   So here is the new trailer we went to Denver to pick up. It has 2 slid-outs and a garage.I almost have everything moved from the OLD trailer to the new one, and I am ready to take 'er out for a trip!! This is at the dealership, and DH is contemplating pulling it over the Continental Divide and back to California.  It pulled like a dream, no problems!  There were still fall colors, but I missed the Aspens, up in the mountains by a couple of weeks.  There were a few down lower that still had leaves, but they were dropping fast. Only the first two p...

Yep! I am getting out of town for a week.  Wahooo! We have decided to buy a travel trailer, a toy hauler style, with a garage in the back.  Tailgate drops and you drive your toys in ( sand rails, quads, motor cycles or what ever in and haul them to your destination ) We don't have any of those types of toys, except for by bike ( the old fashioned kind that you have to sit on and peddle LOL) But they have 2 queen size beds in that area that move to the top when carrying "toys", thus making a second bedroom.  They move down and become bunks.  So we found one at a GREAT price in Denver, Colorado......aprox. 1300 miles from here, and were going to have it delivered so DH wouldn't have to take any time off.  Wednesday morning I am jumping around from Blog to Blog for WOYWW and DH calls. "Want to go to Denver and pick up the trailer this weekend?" Just 400 miles short of Denver is a city called Grand Junction ( I was born there ) and I have family there, so w...

Tuesday night here in the west side of the US, that means Julia has gotten the WOYWW post up, so it is Wednesday in the UK.  What am I going on about?? Whats On Your Work desk Wednesday of course! Where you post a picture of your work desk, then people from all over the world stop by and leave the loveliest comments.  So here is Betsy cluttered and full of all kinds of shapes.  I keep a bag of cut-outs, you know the left overs, wrong size, I've changed my mind on the color....that sort of thing.  This afternoon I did sit down at Betsy and started to straighten up and I had all these shapes from scrap booking laying there.  I grabbed some cards that are made of handmade paper and started making some quick cards. Two of them there in the back. Then I dumped the whole bag on the desk.......LOL.  I was thinking about a large tag or a wall hanging, that's it there with the blue flowers on it, but that is all the further I got on it.  ...

 Everybody recognizes these pretty little pearl packs.  In Michael's they run $1.99 per pack.  I usually buy them on sale, because I love to use them on my cards and in my scrapbooks. BUT they tend to get pricey, or they are out of the color I need, or they don't make some of the colors I'd like to have.  Last week I was wondering around the Internet and saw a quick tutorial on making your own pear swirls.  I AM SORRY I DID NOT WRITE DOWN THE SITE OR THE PERSON' S NAME. What she did was scan these and then made a template that she slipped under a transparency and using a Pearl Pen went over the template.  WA LA! She then trimmed then and added them to her card.  COOL HUH?  Thought "I have to try that, but don't own a Pearl Pen."  THEN a "what if" moment hit me. I used to use basically the same technique with Scribble Paint, or Puffy Paint when I decorated t-shirts and sweatshirts. ( that was many years ago )  I gave the scan-a-...

for this year. Time to move on to some Thanksgiving type cards, a holiday that seems to get lost these days.  As soon as the Halloween decorations come out so do the Christmas decorations!  So I digress....... I began with a piece of white glossy cs, and used a circle stencil for the moon.  To color it in I used a bright yellow highlighter pen, just makes the moon pop! Then inked the card with eggplant purple, and then around the edges with black making sure not to make it solid colors.  Gives it a more eerie feel to the background.  I stamped just the tops of a 3 tree stamp from A Country Welcome, in the lower corner.  The bats and sentiment are from Inkadinkado.  The white behind the spider is a dryer sheet I took the heat gun to and added to the edge.  The spider web was cut with the Cricut, and I added glitter to the back edges, yep, the back!  I just needed a slight sparkle, like the reflection of the moon.  The green sp...

Post #3 Challenge #4 : Get Blooming over at Let's Capture These Sketches: http://letscapturethesesketches.blogspot.com/2012/10/4-world-card-making-day-get-bloomin.html Since it is October and Breast Cancer Awareness month I chose to go with that theme for this card.  I made the flowers from the same paper as the background paper to the right.  This stamp is one that I just love the sentiment.  Some Homemade ( yes homemade with pink puffy paint! More later on that.)   pink swirls and of course the pink ribbons.  I am also entering this in these challenges: http://critterchallengeblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/challenge-135-recipe-2-2-2.html recipe: 2 different ribbons, 2 brads, and 2 different colored papers http://thestampingboutiquechallengeblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/pink-pink-pink.html Thanks for stopping by, now off to make DH and myself some dinner.....I think pork chops tonight!

Challenge #3 for Let's Capture These Sketches ( no you didn't miss challenge #2 I haven't finished it yet ) the challenge is Paint/ and or mists. Well I went with the paint and a gold glimmer mist. ( Bottle was a little plugged and I got some splats, but hey! It added more character LOL ).  On water color paper I stamped some time pieces and washed them with water color, then edged the paper with a gold paint pen and mounted it on black.  Some pieces from the stash pile and a brown ribbon finished the card.  I liked the way this card finished up.   http://letscapturethesesketches.blogspot.com/2012/10/3-world-card-making-day-gettin-misty.html