I skipped a day, as far as posting, but I did work in my journal for day 2. I am working in a composition notebook, so I spent yesterday gluing some pages together and gessoing. I made a couple of backgrounds. too. Today’s artwork is one side of this journal spread. I am doing my journaling on the other side. This is one of the backgrounds I prepared yesterday and just drew and painted the image on it.
Psalm 4:6
Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?”
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.
Psalm 139:12
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Misty Mawn issued an invitation to join her in art journaling throughout January. I decided to accept the invitation along with many other creative people! This art journal page was inspired by Milliande. I loved her idea of using images of doors that open and close. (Thanks for the inspiration!) The doors are operational and I journaled my farewell to 2008 behind the turquoise door and my welcome to 2009 behind the red doors.
Farewell 2008. Welcome 2009.
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A couple of more images I played with in Photoshop yesterday. The vintage paper “frames” are from Renee.
The botanical gardens in Fort Worth, Texas. November 2008
Happy New Year! To bring in the new year how about a little inspiration? One of my favorite scrapbooking/ art items to use are buttons! I compiled a small list of ideas for using buttons in your scrapbook/ art/ altered projects and layouts. I hope you find them helpful and inspire you to use your stash of buttons!
Oh, before I continue… if you haven’t checked out the tutorials/classes page lately, I just updated it with several new scrapbook classes and a Photoshop tutorial. Go check it out!
Completely cover a chipboard shape with buttons.
Create a flower with buttons and ribbon.
Use a button for the center of a flower.
With buttons, create a square, circle, rectangle, or any other shape to frame your photos.
Create a border or frame with buttons.
Use in place of the “O” in a title.
Use in place of a brad.
Group buttons in clusters, glue some directly to the page and pop-dot others to create a fun and interesting page accent.
Use buttons as “wheels” in a paper piecing.
Create a sun with buttons.
Draw or stamp a swirl design on your page, then trace the design with stitched or glued buttons.
Cut out a circular piece of pattern paper and distress the edges. With your sewing machine, stitch around the circumference of the circle haphazardly.Finally add a coordinating button in the center to create a cute embellishment for your page.
Fold a large flower in half and secure it with a button.
Use a colored pen or pencil and trace around a button or several different sized buttons to create your own patterned paper.Then use the buttons you traced on the layout.
Create an arrow with buttons to draw attention to an element on your page.
Use buttons as the eyes in a paper piecing of a dog, cat, bird, etc.
Use buttons to create a monogram. For instance, use buttons to create the shape of an “A”.
Use small buttons to create a butterfly or bumble bee trail.
* Thanks to Renee for the vintage overlay I used in the button image above.
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Also…. how about a free scripture Word Art to get this new year started right? The word art is in color and I have also included a black and white version as well. Enjoy!
Winter 2009 CHA is coming soon…which means DreamStreet Papers new collections will be released very soon! I have an itty-bitty-tiny sneak peek for you! In the January 2009 issue of CK Magazine we placed an ad, which features 3 of our new lines. Keep in mind that the ad only shows 3 out of the 12 designs in each collection. My new line “Forever Family” is the one in the middle. I am so excited about all the new collections… let me tell you… THEY ROCK! We expanded a bit this year and will be doing rub-ons, too. Whoot! WHoot! Anyway, just thought I would share my excitement with you.
Oh.. .also in this issue of CK, Dana Hollis’sWonderland and Lara Ellingson’s Carma collections are featured too.
On another note… I finished up my last two ATC’s for the “For the Birds” Swap over at ATC’s for All.
I am mailing them out today. I can’t wait to get my swap back. There are so many talented artists participating!
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A couple of inspiring quotes:
Art is our memory of love. The most an artist can do through their work is say, let me show you what I have seen, what I have loved, and perhaps you will see it and love it too. -Annie Bevan
We are not human beings on spiritual journey; we are spiritual beings on a human journey. – Stephan Covey
Our big Christmas tree was up in the attic somewhere and since we were finishing up our kitchen remodel, it was too big of a hassle to dig all the Christmas decorations out. So…we decided to keep it simple. I went to Michaels and bought a little 3 foot, pre-lit tree. I also bought some floral picks and ribbons for decorations. I got it all at 50% off, too! Whoo-hooo! I must say that I loved how it turned out! It was simple, pretty, and the kids weren’t disappointed a bit. The only thing I missed was going through and hanging all our keepsake, handmade, and sentimental ornaments. Hopefully next year our schedules will be a little lighter and we can do our normal traditional Christmas routine. This year.. simple was good.
I would love to see photos of your Christmas tree and decorations! Leave me a comment and link me up!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! It was busy and hectic around here, but so nice to spend time with my family. I found myself getting stressed and anxious during the preparations for our family get-together. Then… a thought occurred to me. I am so blessed! I have no reason to worry or be anxious! It’s not going to matter if the house is immaculant or the decorations look just right… that is not what it is about. It is about celebrating the birth of Jesus with my family. I am so thankful for the goodness of God in my life. I am too blessed to be stressed!
On that note, I would like to share one of my favorite all times songs by Phil Wickham. Being in a relationship with God is not about perfection. There is nothing I can do to make God love me more or less. His love is perfect and unconditional. It is by His Grace that I am saved. He chose me. He chose you. We are not a surprise to him. He knew what He was getting into when he chose us. He knew us before we were ever formed in the womb. He knew every thought, every word, and every deed before we were born and he loved us anyway! How awesome is that? If that is not something to be happy about, I don’t know what is! It is truly a Divine Romance!
In between wrapping presents, shopping, cleaning, and getting ready for Christmas, I have been trying to get in a little art time. Yesterday I decide to take a break and create. I was kind of stumped on what to do, so I went surfing the net for inspiration. I found this site: www.atcsforall.com. I had totally forgotten about it! I signed up over a year ago and got so busy that I never spent much time there. It is all about creating and trading ATC’s (Artist Trading Cards).
As soon as I started browsing the forums, I found a swap to participate in… all about birds! I love birds! I work so much better when I have a purpose and goal in mind… and this was the jumping off point I needed. I learned a new technique too! The background is melted crayons. You can find the tutorial for the melted crayon technique in the sites free downloadable magazine… {Art Trader Magazine } along with a plethora of other inspiring ideas.
This is what I have done so far:
Love Birds 1- ATC
Love Birds 2 - ATC
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A beautiful Christmas song from Enya. So inspiring!
I picked up this old dictionary at a community garage sale a couple of months back. I think I paid a dollar or 50 cents? I love using the old pages in my mixed media collages and such.
Old Dictionary
Anyway, when I got it home and started looking through it I found the cutest & funniest dedication in the front cover. It literally made me laugh out loud. Check it out.
Here is the dedication page. It is kind of hard to read because it was written in pencil.
Here is the closeup.
Close-Up Dedication Page
It says:
“Presented To: Nadene Barron”
“By: Bob Barron” Beneath his name, Bob Barron wrote: “To HELP HER LERN HOW TO SPELL.”
I think Bob needs to “LERN” a little spelling too! He! He!
Someone definitely got a lot of use out of this dictionary because it’s spine is held together with a combination of duck tape, packing tape, scotch tape, masking tape, and electrical tape… and I am not exaggerating!
This was a totally delightful discovery! It makes my garage sale treasure hunting totally worth it! Yep… it is the simple things.
fudge that doesn’t firm (like the recipe says it is supposed to!)– IMPROVISE and make cupcakes with fudge frosting instead!
un-firm fudge
I was feeling pretty smart that I came up with an innovative solution to fix my un-firm fudge dilemma until I pulled the muffin pan out of the oven and found this:
My very sad cupcakes
The outside of my cupcakes were crispy brown and the insides were gooey and raw!
ARRGGHHH! By this time I was completely and utterly frustrated. I HAVE made cupcakes before and they turned out great! Granted, the fudge was a first so I anticipated possible problems, but not the cupcakes! Not one to admit defeat easily, I started over and FINALLY baked some edible cupcakes! Next, I added sprinkles, frosted them with my fudge conncoction, and had my son and husband do a taste test. They gave them two thumbs up! ( I think they were afraid to say anything negative lest they crush my baking spirit forever.)
Here are the finished cupcakes that will be enjoyed (hopefully) by my 4043 READ class, bright and early in the morning!
Success... finally!
P.S. The handsome little guy is my son, Tristan. He helped with the sprinkles and taste testing.
