Sunday, March 19, 2023

Yee Haw Happy Birthday

 Happy Sunday!
Happy Mother's Day's to those of you in the UK!
Hope you are warm, dry and well wherever you are.
You may be wondering, two country/western-themed cards in a row from me? LOL, well what I haven't mentioned is that where I live (in the Houston metro area), this theme is a BFD around these parts right now because the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo wraps up tonight after a two-week run. HLSR is the world's largest livestock expedition and rodeo, and has been a signature event for my entire life and longer, since the 1930's. As a kid growing up, every single year the Friday before it began was (and still is) Go Texan Day and everyone was encouraged to wear western clothes to school. I had classmates who would get out of school for a week to ride their horses in the trail ride and always knew someone who had their FFA animals entered in the scholarship competitions. And if you were really lucky, you got to go to the Astrodome to see some big name performer's show. 1972 was my first year and I saw B.J. Thomas being driven onto the field in a cowhide leather Cadillac convertible sitting on the back seat singing Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head. It was my 16th birthday present and I was so impressed! 😍 At any rate, I needed to make a birthday card for a guy friend who goes to the Rodeo with his wife every single year, so I guess I've had it on my mind influencing my recent makes! They went last night and got to see Brad Paisley play to 73,000 adoring fans. Even though I'm more of a Classic Rock and Smooth Jazz gal and quit going to the Rodeo years ago, I will admit to being more than a bit envious because I like Brad and his music.

  
I chose this Splitcoaststampers sketch for my layout design, after resizing it to sit inside of an A7 card front. I also moved the sentiment down a bit. The moment I saw this sketch, I knew it was perfect for my CAS card.
👌

Supply List:
SU A7 card base
Paper scraps from my stash
Altenew mountain dies
Paper Roses chunky barbed wire corner die
Rubbernecker cowboy on horse die
Sizzix star dies
Clear Dollar sentiment label dies
Pink By Design and MFT sentiment stamps
Nocturne Versafine Clair ink
WRMK Corner Rounder

I decorated the inside of the card. I have a computer-generated sentiment that I composed and framed in PSE before printing out. I included a couple more stars and two Rubbernecker western critter dies that were in my bits and bobs box leftover from previous projects, a roadrunner and a fox.

Overhead shot...

And the back with another paper scrap from stash and a stamped and circle-punched siggie.

And final view. 
👀
I do love a good western scene and it made me happy to create one, plus I got to use a few dies that haven't seen much daylight.
Well, tomorrow is the Spring Equinox, but it doesn't really feel like it to me with all the dreary rain and cold we're having. It is supposed to be a bit warmer Tuesday through Thursday, but then another rainy front is coming Friday evening. Sunny and cold would be a lot better! LOL, a month from now, I'll be wishing I was still having this weather, probably.
😏
Thanks for visiting, and I hope you are enjoying the rest of your weekend!
XOX

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:
Splitcoaststampers Sketch Challenge #949
Cut It Up Challenge #273: This Makes Me Happy
Die Cut Divas March Challenge
Art Impressions Challenge #347
Fab N Funky Challenge #568: Retro/Vintage
AAA Birthday Challenge Game #47: Stripes and Dots
My sky is dotted paper and top mountain is striped paper
Dragonfly Dreams March Challenge: Outdoors
FarmQuest General Store AFCG Challenge #2
FarmQuest AFCG Challenge #24
My Time To Craft Challenge #503: Birthday
Happy Little Stampers March Birthday Challenge
Happy Little Stampers March AG with Dies Challenge
Allsorts Challenge Week 720
Krafty Chicks Challenge #655 Week 3
Love to Scrap Challenge #160
Crafty Animals Challenge #70
Pearly Sparkles Challenge #82: Include a Sentiment
Creative Fingers Challenge #250
Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge #542
Classic Design Challenge March 2023 #3
Crafts Galore Encore Challenge #109
Sparkles Monthly Challenge #162: CAS
613 Avenue Create March Challenge w/Opt. CAS
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Saturday, March 18, 2023

Herd It's Your Birthday

 Howdy, folks. Hope your weekend's starting off well.
My oldest nephew is turning 30 this month, so I made him a humorous CAS card to celebrate it. 
Supply List:
SU and Recollections card stocks
Pink Ink cow stamp, colored with Prismacolor pencils
Technique Tuesday barbed wire border stamp
Sam Colcott, Clear Dollar and Pink Ink sentiment stamps
Acorn and Nocturne Versafine Clair inks for all stamping

Inside, the computer-generated sentiment I composed and framed before printing out.

And one last look. I hope he gets a chuckle!
👀
I received an infusion treatment yesterday and have been taking it easy per doctor's orders. Fingers crossed this is the only one I need and that it works like it has before!
🤞
Here's hoping you are warm and well and thanks for visiting!
XOX

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:
The barbed wire is stripe-stamped and "Cow Old" sentiment is striped
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Friday, March 17, 2023

Everyday Lucky Spring Tag

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
🍀
Hope everything is well with you.

Much of North America, including us, is expecting more wintry weather this weekend right before the Spring Equinox arrives, so to take my mind off the weekend cold I made a tag to hang in my little art corner that celebrates SPD and Spring. 

I added a few punched items later and ultimately decided against using the washi in favor of some scrunchy ribbon, but these are the supplies that I began with. I had acquired some 4x6" Cavellini illustrated postcards several years ago that have been sitting there in my stash. The paper is thick and pulpy enough to take watercolors, so I decided to play with accenting and embellishing the already gorgeous images. 

I fussy cut the green bird from one postcard. I added some blue pearlescent watercolor to the sky surrounding the nest. I also added some browns and green to the nest and branches. I cut the dictionary page paper with a Spellbinders Labels 6 die, painted it with the white pearlescent, then glued it down on the tag. I took a blue Stabilo-All, outlined the text cloud, then smudged it with a damp Q-tip. I adhered the bird to the nest and added several itty bitty Memory Box Lucky Charms die cuts and the Sizzix TH Friendship Script Words die cuts. I ran a white Stabilo-All pencil over the bottom word die so it would stand out more against the dark nest. Then I grabbed some scrunched seam binding ribbon and a green flatback glass heart. I punched a, SU tab and a Fiskars 4-leaf clover. With these I made the tag topper. I initially glued down the heart off-center and when I pulled it up, it took some of the paper with it, so I had to punch another clover to cover that up. No worries, problem solved! Final step was ink-distressing the tag perimeter edge with some brown chalk ink.



Some close-ups to show the pearlescent water colored background and the beautiful texture and details of the illustration that I tried to accent a bit with my paints.

And of course the back of the tag cannot be ugly, so I dressed it with stash scraps and the remainder of my text page die cut. From this side you can see I'd stapled the seam binding in before adding the clover.

And final look.
👀
I really do love how this ended up looking and it holds a special meaning to me I will think of when I look at it displayed.  Honey and I have been excitedly watching two bird nests, with eggs laid, at both of our front and back doors in hanging airplane plants. This is our first Spring in a long time with hanging plants. So I'm pretty sure our little home life adventure influenced the making of this tag, whether or not I realized it at the time. We are indeed, lucky everyday, if we want to be. This tag will remind me!
💖
Thanks for visiting and stay warm and dry!
XOX

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:
Photo colors green and blue + outdoors were inspiring
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Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Beautiful Blossoms Challenge Time!

 Happy Wednesday!
Hope all is well with you.
Today I'm sharing my design team make for the new challenge at Beautiful Blossoms.

Since Jan Mathew of Jan's Digi Stamps has joined our crew, I decided to color up one of her pretty spring floral images in her honor. (She's current having a Spring Flower Sale, by the way.)
A longtime family friend of ours passed on last week after a long illness, so I needed a sympathy card to send and arranged this lovely vintage country scene in PSE. 
Supply List:
Bazzill car stock base
Canson Foundations 90# watercolor paper
Jan's Digi Stamp Spring Tiger Lilies images and sentiment
Promarker markers to color
Distress inks to stipple and ink blend
Spellbinders 6x6 Matting Basics square die to cut printed scene

Here's the optional mood board for the challenge which starts today and ends April 12. I chose the colors and the white lilies to inspire me. Of course, you only have to feature flowers in order to play. Go HERE for all the rules.

I kept things Clean and Simple on this one and let the beauty of the illustration shine. I haven't been feeling well lately and will have to start a series of infusions as my bloodwork shows I need help with my inflammation. I've had them before with good results and am hoping to replicate that. 

Thanks for the visit today and I hope to see you play in the challenge!
XOX

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:
613 Avenue Create March Challenge w/Opt. CAS
Daisy Chain Challenge #72: Flowers
Posted by at 23 comments:

Monday, March 13, 2023

My Garden Gnomie

 Happy Monday to all.
Hope everyone is doing well.

Today I have an art journal page to share. It's in my very first art journal that I have not quite filled up yet. As I've explained before, this art journal is about my life from 2009 to 2012. At the end of 2012, I made a list for the unfinished pages. So, this is one of those.

This is how the page looked originally. I had gesso'd it and collaged a few strips of paper, then painted it a light green. At some point after that, I'd used the page to play around with dropping alcohol inks on it and blowing it with a straw. 

I prepped by masking the facing page with super sticky post-its.

And I had an idea to play with some old eye makeup before throwing it out.

The eye makeup muted the page some but it wasn't suitable for the page I wanted to create.

So, these paints came to the rescue to paint a sky.

But the red and pink alcohol inks persisted in showing through. I tried gesso-ing them by painting clouds. I liked the pink in my newly-painted sky, but not a "bleeding" cloud!

I finally got the pink muted by using White Out, lol. I was seriously that frustrated. But it worked well enough and hey, the page's mixed media already includes alcohol inks and eye makeup, so why not?

When Honey turned 60 in April of 2012, we hosted a very nice family dinner at a restaurant in Houston to celebrate. He was still into vegetable gardening then, okra and tomatoes mostly with a few squash plants. He received some cool gardening supplies and equipment which he put to good use back in those days. I wanted to make this page to remember that part of our lives. The title was made with a variety of stash stickers and the journaling was done on a strip of deli paper. I used a green Posca paint marker to record his age and a few sprigs of grass. The focal image is a precolored version of Polkadoodles' Gnome printable digi clipart. I printed it out, fussy cut it and attached it to the page using glue dots to bridge the horizontal paper buckling in the middle of the page.

Here you can see that I had chosen the page facing the page I did back in February on my birthday. So it's a spread about both of our birthdays in 2012.

A close up of the journaling on both pages. I thought it would be nice and fitting to have these pages together since both of our birthdays were notable to us, Honey turning the big 6-0 and since 2012 was a Leap Year it was my 14th. Yikes, a 60-year-old man married for 25 years to a 14-year-old? 
Hahahahaha!
😮

And one last look.
👀
I love how this page turned out, especially when I know what it used to look like. And one more page closer to finishing this composition book journal. I yearn for thick watercolor paper pages to work on and have those journals ready, but I need finish what I started 14 years ago. Working on such inferior paper taught me a lot, actually, so I can't complain...too much.
😉
Thanks for the visit and have a great day.
XOX

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:
I've used this Polkadoodles Gnome clipart
I've used this Polkadoodles Gnome clipart
Try It On Tuesday Challenge: Go Green
I recycled this page, for sure, and it does have some green
I've used this Polkadoodles Gnome clipart
I've used this Polkadoodles Gnome clipart
Posted by at 22 comments:
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