I am blessed beyond measure....

There's this girl I work with...well there are many wonderful ladies in our building, but today I am focusing on one.  Heather....I was having a fairly rough day...well week.  And after Heather came in the office and gave me a pep talk...quoted some scripture and generally made me feel better, she left to do her job.

Sometime around lunch she brought me a carrot cake cupcake from Cass & Co., which happens to be the best place to get cupcakes in the whole city of Paducah.

The box was pretty awesome so I took it home and took it apart.  I realized I could cover the box.  I covered the box with papers both inside and out.  I decorated it up a bit and left it on Heather's desk....now she can choose to put a gift inside it and give to someone else.

Here is one of the verses she shared with me:
Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help  you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand"

Now how can you have a bad day after reading that???


I tell you what, I am so blessed by the people that I work with....every single day so many blessings. 

"What are you going to do with this canvas"

That is what the lady at Michael's asked me.  You may be saying "what a dumb question".....no not really.   This canvas was on clearance.  It was $2.35 for 2 canvases.  One was in perfect condition, the other had a giant hole in the middle!!!

My first step was to color the canvas. I used Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans, Broken China, and Dusty Concord Distress Inks by Tim Holtz.   Once I finished that, I spritzed the canvas with water and let some of the colors run together.  I even sprayed some Sterling Silver Michelle's Musings misting paint on the canvas.

 Next I  would have to cover the hole...which is what I told the lady at Michael's I was going to do.  I took a piece of chipboard and covered it in leftovers from my Blue Awning pad by K&Co.  I adhered this piece to the front of the canvas. I used Aleene's tacky glue and used a brayer to make sure the glue was everywhere. I could not afford any gaps in this because there is a giant hole underneath.  The next step was to cover the hole on the other side of the canvas. My business card covered the back just fine so I glued it there.

Finally came the embellishments....this was sort of inspired by a story I read about France giving America the Eiffel Tower. So the canvas has an American/French theme.  I used blues and reds in most of the piece.

The chipboard album...that became the unalbum

Here is another of my $.50 finds.  This album started as a Christmas Tree album.  Since I have no intention of making a Christmas album at this time of year...but I had no idea what I was going to do, I gessoed each page until I got an idea.

After the gesso dried, I decided to cut each album page into a triangle.  The triangles would make perfect pennant pages!!


The next step was to cover the page....I found a partial album by K&Co....I have no idea of the name it came in a best of K&Co paper pack and they did not list the name.




I was making this for my gift of 2013 promise to six people, and my niece Susan was one of the people to get gifts.  Susan likes pink so this is a darker pink, but pink none the less.  After I covered the triangles, I embellished. I used some left over letters, a piece of a necklace, Hambly Screen Prints transfers, Prima flowers, leftover ribbon, gems, charms and wire.

Friendship album side 1

This album is being made for a friend of mine. I am again using it as a motivational piece, with some great sentiments.

This is another of my great $.50 album purchases, only this one was purchased near Christmastime and I never had time to do anything with it.  It was a Christmas Tree Ball album, but I have converted it into a circle album.






I usually adhere my paper to chipboard albums using mod podge. I coat the chipboard and the paper then place them together, I use a brayer to remove bubbles and make it flat.

Here is what one side looks like all papered up and ready for decorating.  The bottom photos are stage one of decorating.
There is more to come.

I used some Stampin UP!  butterfly stamps and kindness matters stamp, some stamps (frame) I forgot who made. I think Spellbinders, some of the paper that came with the Rob and Bob paper pack, an owl stamp that was $1 at Michael's, the inks are StazOn and Tim Holtz, t

A serious case of creative block pt 1

I purchased these wonderfully made canvases a few weeks ago. My intention was to make the most stunning three panel painting you had ever seen.  I started it and BLAH! I hated it!  So, I set the whole project aside until I thought what I could do to save these normally expensive canvases.

Today I pulled out the gesso and went to work.  I decided to mix the gesso with three different blues.  I really liked this....I got an idea!!!

Once the canvases dried, I took one of my favorite books and ripped out about 10 pages. Don't panic, it is from the 1980's...it is old smelling and frankly falling apart because SOMEONE has read it way too much.  I bought another copy about a year ago (an even older copy) and I use this one for my art.  The book?  Why "Song of the Siren" by Philippa Carr.  Carlotta Main is a fascinating character.

Anyhoo, with these book pages I made a pattern of a tree that I wanted. Really it didn't start out as a pattern it was going to be the actual tree, but I needed MORE!!!  So it became a pattern.  I then cut the tree from a piece of chipboard.  Completely coated it with mod podge and decoupaged some pieces from the book onto the chipboard.  I still wanted more. I wadded up more book pages, straightened them out and inked them to death.  Many different colors of brown inks.  Sprayed with some Michelle's Musings brown and silver sprays.  Once that dried, I wadded them up and inked again.  These steps seemed to take FOREVER, but the longest step was yet to come.

Once everything dried I tore large rectangles from the pages.  I put on a thick layer of mod podge on the tree and then some on the rectangle.  I could not take a photo of this because it is incredibly messy!  I bunched the rectangle up onto the tree to resemble bark. I had to keep a paint brush with mod podge handy to put in between the bunched up part to keep it looking like bark.  This step took HOURS!!!  It was messy, it was hard to maneuver a 30 year old book page that is fragile to begin with, but I went and made it more so. I ripped many and had to use another section.  I did not want it in pieces I wanted large rectangle so it would be more like bark. 

Once this step was dry, I inked more.  Good gravy I was a mess!!!  My apron was a mess where I had wiped my hands and my craft sheet looked like a ink/mod podge bomb had gone off....but I kept going.  I spritzed this inking with water...then with some sparkle spray.  Let it dry.

I fashioned the tree across the canvas and then I cut it to fit across the canvases.


The last photo shows my plan for the layout, but I am going to be honest, the finished product may not look like that. I won't be able to work on it until next weekend, and I may change my mind. Or I might just start all over again.  Stay tuned for part 2. 

Sunday afternoon good times

This is the album I made today. It is the second chipboard album that I made yesterday.  The Marilyn page is my favorite. The image on the far right is a stencil that I had cut, the other three Marilyn faces are transparencies that I made.  I printed Marilyn faces using my Marilyn dingbat font.  I took packing tape and adhered to the front of the faces.  I pressed it down and even rolled the brayer over each image.  Then I ran warm water along the back and rubbed off the paper.  I LOVE the way they turned out.  This page will actually be added to the album I made yesterday. 


This second album was made for a friend that just recently had to put her dog to sleep.  She is heartbroken and I thought it might help to have a place to reflect on her beloved dog and maybe relive a memory or two.

Trace Creek Crop Completed Projects

One of my favorite days of the year is the Trace Creek Crop.  Yesterday was a day that my friends and I look forward to for months and months.  We got signed up in December and then you impatiently wait until it's here.

I didn't have extremely lofty scrapbooking goals yesterday. I am still until that stupid weight restriction and I wasn't sure I would be able to sit all day. In all actuality I found that I could sit for a while, get up and shop or just walk around and talk and I was fine.

I accomplished 3 scrapbook pages (I am almost finished with the October cruise, then onto the Christmas Harry Potter).  I made one cigar box (which I plan on doing a tutorial to very soon), and 16 cards.

Most of the cards that I made were completed using the Lucille paper pack.  I found this in October at Archivers and it has been a constant favorite since then.  It is reminiscent of the old fashioned clothing patterns my grandma used and the floral papers are very much like the patterns of dress that I wore in the 1970's.  I spent $12 at one of the booths yesterday to get some Lucille chipboard and tags. The other paper that I used was another favorite, Ladies Diary by Graphic 45.