I Love A Good Fairy Tale.

Isn't she sweet?  She looks so dismayed. I can't even begin to say how the background was done as it was several mistakes...or attempts that I didn't like and covered over with gesso to start another try. The pictures are from various images found on the Internet. The gold border are flourish stamps embossed with gold.  I added gold flourish to the pumpkin with a gold metallic pen.  The rays for the moon were done with a white signo pen but It looked too odd so I went over it with a yellow alcohol marker.  The saying says, Once upon a time, this pumpkin was a coach, the mice were horses and I had TWO shoes..."  Someone had quite a night out!

Oh, the little girl was a black and white photo that I printed on white cardstock.  I colorized her using water color crayons and a water brush.  I enhanced her facial features using Distress markers. Then I went around the edges of her with Vintage photo distress ink.

Happy Halloween!

 

I haven't added anything to my blog since March!  Wow!  Spring came and I played in my garden, went on vacation and  dealt with other events in life.  As the cooler weather is coming so is the desire to be back in the craft room.  What better way to start than with Halloween.This was created with various images found on the internet, Tim Holtz Houses die, fence, cat, and bat from a Cricut cartridge.  Background was Distress inks with random stamping.  I had a lot of fun and love the Gargoyles on the house, the little trick or treater's and the skeleton man.

Twinkie's Happy Place!

I bought a couple of new Stampotique stamps and I couldn't wait to play with them.  Meet Twinkie and his Mushroom Garden.

This was so much fun and so relaxing to do.  Almost everything on here was a stamp of some sort.  I added a little doodling to some of the stamps so that they dripped and oozed a little more.  The flowers are from the Tim Holtz Flower Garland die.  Everything is colored using Distress and Copic markers and the background was colored with Gelatos and gone over with a water brush.  The saying was typed, printed, cut, colored and glued.  It's so cute but yet so gross!  LOL.

It was done on plain white card stock.  If I were to do something like this again, I would probably use water color paper.

Couldn't Get Into Doing A Journal page, So I Made Some Embellishments With My Cricut Machine

I used the Cricut Art Nouveau cartridge and made a butterfly and a couple of different size dragonflies.

The pieces that cut out for these items can be quite intricate and extremely small.  So small that I kept losing them on my work table.  That is why I decided to use a bit of my bling for the bottom of the wings.

Next came two dragonflies.  The blue-green one was cut at three inches as suggested but seemed way too big.  I cut it a second time at 2 1/2.  I liked this size better.

 I used "Rock Candy" Crackle Paint on the wings.  When it dried I gave it a dusting of Perfect Pearls to give it an iridescent look.

For this one I cut the underside of the wing from a glitter yellow green piece of scrapbook paper..  Both came out cute and will find a place somewhere in my crafting.

I do have to say that some of the cutouts can be very, very tricky to put together.  I ended up not using some pieces either because they were too small or I didn't like the way they looked.  The other dilemma I had was gluing the pieces together.  I got glue everywhere and made a big mess.

I would love to read any comments.

I Am Excited That This Turned Out As Well As It Did!

I saw a technique on Pinterest and thought it looked intriguing and I gave it a try.  I couldn't find the video or tutorial or whatever it was but I figured it wasn't that complicated and I could remember the steps.  I used Gesso that I added some color to.  I can't remember what I used for color because I did this page about a month ago and I hated how it turned out.   Basically, I scraped the colored Gesso through a stencil using a very thick coat.  When it dried the next day, I had no idea where I was going to go with the page so it sat and sat and sat some more.... Until today.

 When I opened my journal to this page all of the sudden I thought it looked like a tree. So I got my Walnut Stain Distress pen and colored the white space of the stencil.   I should have taken a picture before I did the brown so you could see how plain it looked.. 

Then I used TH Gardern Greens Die and cut several leafy branches.  I colored them with Peeled Paint Distress Markers and the colored the branch part of it with Walnut Stain.  This way it would match the branches of my tree.  After they were colored I used the word stamp with Vintage photo to add some texture to the leaves.

I used this die and cut it from white card stock.  I cut two of the birds off and colored them using Distress Stains and a water brush.  I distressed the outside of the birds with /Walnut Stain.  I cut the "Garden Greens" leaves and glued them to the page

This is the final product.  I added the bird nest by cutting up some threads that I pulled from some burlap.  I stained some of them using "Walnut Stain" Distress stains.  I glued the nest in place with Tacky glue and shaped it as it was drying.  The eggs for the nest came from some items in my stash.  I also took my "Stormy Sky" Distress pen and outlined the background around the branches and rubbed it with my finger to give it a little more color and definition.

I really like how it turned out considering I thought I was going to trash this page.

Window Treatments

I started my project with the thought that I wanted to use the Tim Holtz Window & Window Box Die.

Then I added a window topper using Cricut Ornamental Iron 2 (I cut it at 4 1/2).  I cut it all from black paper and used a white Signo pen to add highlights to all the creases on the window and window box.  I also added highlights to the wrought Iron top with the Signo pen.

 

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 I did the background using brick red acrylic paint that I dabbed through a brick stencil.  I sponged on some brown on top of the red. I dried everything with a heat tool and used Vintage Photo and Walnut stain Distress ink over the brick to fill in the spaces between the bricks.

I stuck the window topper, window and window box to the page using bits of foam tape.  The white foam tape really stood out on the wrought iron window topper so I used my black Pitt brush pen and colored the foam of the tape black and presto you don't even notice it now.

 I used this photo that I found on the Internet for the view inside my window.  I glued some lace curtains with some lace trim that I had in my stash.  Then I glued the window to the picture.  I had to cut the bottom of the picture off to fit the window

Then I used my two favorite Martha Stewart punches to add greenery and flowers to the window box.  I cut strips of each punch from white card stock an colored them with Peeled paint distress marker. 

I used my distress markers in Wild Honey, Fire Brick and Scattered Straw to color the flowers After I colored the strips of flowers, I cut the flowers from the vine so that I could add them randomly through the greenery.  I used this stamp and Vintage photo distress ink on the flowers and vine.  I also used Tim Holtz

Garden Greens die to add a variety to the mix of leaves.  I colored this with a marker of a yellow green color. (I don't know the name of the markers. Just some random markers in my stash.)  I added some stamping to this also.  Then I cut everything to fit in the box and glued everything where I wanted it.  As a final touch, I added bling to the center of each flow.

 Then I added this little bird...also fund on the Internet.  I copy and paste him into a Word document.  Then I sized him to fit in with my page by grabbing the corner grab bar on the image.  Once he was the size I wanted, I grabbed the left grab bar on the image and pulled it to the right, which gives me the mirror image.  I cut him out and glued him in position and this is the final page:

I would love to read your comments.

I Made Sand

This is another Vintage photo that I found on the Internet.  When I saw her it made me think of the children's song, Little Sally Ann.  I cut her out and colorized her with water color crayons.

Then  I thought, surely someone on the Internet has found a way to make sand.  I did a few searches and Of Course, Tim Holtz has a great tutorial on how to make sand HERE  He did it on a tag and I wanted it for my journal.  I wasn't sure how well it would come out but I think the end result is pretty good.  My sand isn't done drying yet.  I was too excited and wanted to get it posted.

This is a closer picture of the sand.

I would love to read your comments.