Christmas Cuff Bracelet

I have a tutorial on the Resin Craft blog making this fun Christmas Bracelet. I was too crazed over the holidays this year & am starting my craft projects for presents now, for next year!!! This makes a great one.

I am using Canvas Corp brands 7gypsies, Tattered Angels and Linnie Blooms as well as the awesome Envirotex Resin. You can see the post here. Enjoy the rest of the holidays!!!

Documented Life Wk #16

"All Forward Movement Counts" don't remember where I first heard this but it has been a mantra of mine for ever. The timing of posting this layout I did Nov.1st is perfect! I am currently working on week#21 (I made it into the 20's!!!) and am determined to finish just looks like my project is on the slow boat. As always you can join in the fun at the Documented Life/Art to the 5th.

April Theme
Color Safari (Exploring Inks and Paints)
April 18
Art Challenge:  Gelli Plate
Journal Prompt:  A lot on my Plate

 This is one of my favorite art journal pages-eva~ I did start with a gelliplate page and actually drew the cake plate all by myself! I used one of my all time favorite stamps Tim Holtz Bird Crazy. 

I am not big on coloring in things so pretty jazzed about how these turned out. I pop dotted items like the witches hat, pumpkin, Christmas Present- love how they turned out! The journal prompt works any day of the week as I love to chronically overwhelm myself! 

I hope you are all enjoying your holidays and that your family gets to be together at this special time.

AMazing Gluten Free Cookies

Today I am doing a recipe post using the fabulous recipe cards from Canvas Corp/7gypsies. They have quite a few to choose from which you can find here. Here is my card...

I clipped a photo along with a cut out from Canvas Corp Jolly Christmas Sayings Paper. My recipe card is sitting on 7gypsies Santa's Journey paper. This is a beautiful line of papers which you can see here.

A year ago I was diagnosed with food allergies. I had gotten to the point where my stuffy, sinus jammed nose & seasonal allergies, was a year round saga. Popping allergy meds around the clock was making me jumpy and mentally speedy. Not to mention my kleenex bill was astounding. 

Tired of my ears crackling 1000 times a day I took the plunge, allergy testing. 70 needle pricks in my arm later, I found the cause of my misery was not just the flora & fauna. I was allergic to horses, dogs, cats and sensitive to wheat, dairy & gasp, chocolate, among other things. Within 3 weeks of giving up my favorite foods in the world, staying clear of my cat or washing my hands after touching her & learning to rotate food every 4 days to prevent further allergies, I was med free. The difference has been amazing, in unexpected ways. I have energy all day long, no more tired at 1pm, 4pm, 8pm...wheat really acts like sugar in our bodies. My head is clear not just of mucus but my thoughts too. I have had minor depression issues, bam gone. The best part is no more crackling/popping ears. 

The downside is missing food that I love. The biggest challenge, I have learned gluten makes everything taste good. Gluten Free means losing that soft delicious french bread texture. Also gluten is in everything even Twizzlers! It is used as a binder in a lot of sauces,  candies etc and because...it makes everything taste good! Due to all of the above of course my Christmas Cookie recipe had to be GF! Adding to that challenge is I have to be dairy free too. I have made quite a few fails testing out other recipes as the substitutions end up tanking the result. It really is food engineering! 

With this cookie challenge looming, I found this recipe from Pinterest, to the Beard + Bonnet 12 days of Christmas Cookies 2014. I decided to go with Gluten Free Pistachio Logs.

I made these with my son Mac, Christmas music going, eggnog sipping, King Arthur Gluten Free flour flying.

 The result I am thrilled to say is awesome! Even my husband who has to suffer my allergy quite often with me is surprised to taste how good these are. One of the things I miss most is shortbread cookies-these taste very shortbread like!!!!! Without the butter!!!!! The substitution I made was instead of 1 cup butter I used 1 cup Crisco butter flavor shortening + 2tbsps water.  

These are light and super flavorful plus they do have that buttery flavor. They have a fabulous texture which is huge! The one downside is they are a tad crumbly. I assume from my Crisco sub or because as you see in the photo I have chunky pistachio pieces. If anyone has advice on firming these up please comment! However if that is the only downside I am in!!! I will definitely make these again. They are also very simple to make which is another challenge of allergy free baking- the recipes can be either too complicated or cost a fortune to try out. I will definitely be trying some of these 10GF no bake cookies as well as Beard + Bonnet Christmas Cookies for 2015!  

Documented Life Project Week #15

Ok so I am skipping week # 14 as it needs a little something but it is holding me hostage so I am skipping ahead. Here is my take on this weeks project. 

April Theme
Color Safari (Exploring Inks and Paints)
April 11
Art Challenge:  Acrylics
Journal Prompt:  Cry Me a River

I love acrylic paint- as in love. I was feeling very dylusional on this one. Maybe because I started with the paints. I have also been in the doddle mood so pulling out a magazine picture worked wonders. I did follow the prompt and added a movie quote "don't cry shop girl, don't cry" from "You've Got Mail". I speak in movie quotes so I need to use them for art journal more!

The Glamorous Life of a Travel Teacher...Papertrail6

This past July I had the awesome adventure of traveling with Eileen Hull & Scotty for PaperTrail#6. We headed out to the Paper Arts Show. Eileen blogged all about our fun adventure which you can read Papertrail6Review . and review pt2 and review pt.3. As you can see we had a great time, Eileen did a fabulous write up so what can I possibly add? Well how about some behind the scenes stuff or what I like to call- "The Glamorous Life Of a Travel Teacher.

Here we are bright eyed and excited ready to go on Papertrail 6. As a mix-media/art journal teacher I already know that things can go wrong, product doesn't show up or is discontinued the minute you order it, you forget that 1 critical doohickey and you husband has to run it up to your local store for your class. Of course all the students ewww and ahhh over your 6ft5 Harley riding hubby- oh no wait that's another story. 

Going on this trip gave me a new appreciation of what exactly goes into that happy demo you see at local scrapbook convention. From the largest thing like 10 Big Shot machines to the tiniest brad. All these supplies have to be ordered, inventoried, packed and shipped or hand carried to the convention. Once you are there the crazy task of setting up, re-organizing, teaching multiple classes begins with little time in between for things like eating, sleeping, all those mundane tasks. As in local teaching that really important doohickey might be missing or packed in the wrong box, or shipped to the wrong show. Now what do you do? 30 students to 1 die. Well the fun begins after the show- late night kitting!!! 

For those of you who followed us on Instagram you got a peak at the behind the scenes stuff. Like me in my PJ's at 2am in our hotel room cutting out felt flowers. There is nothing else to do other than dig in and get the job done. However the secret is this is the fun stuff. This is where the zany stories come from. The late night giggles caused by sugar & caffeine overload that make trips like this memorable.

Another shot at the start of late night where we cut out 100 pieces of matt board. We - Eileen, Ann Butler & Cheri from Sizzix had an assembly line going from glue, to paper, to cutting. I bravely ran the Big Shot only realizing at pass #97 that I could turn the machine around and use my other arm to crank the handle. What can I tell you I was in the zone!

We survived!!!!

 

I also learned on this trip that when things go wrong there are strangers who will step up and help you like the police officer and the neighbor who got Scotty back on the road after he jumped the hitch, while his wife chatted with us as we blocked their driveway.

 Or the mechanic Eddie, who opened shop on a Sunday to help get us back on the road saving us a day and a hotel room all the while patiently explaining what a spark plug does in relation to coils. 

Or Madelaine who while friend to Eileen was a stranger to me but included me in a lovely dinner and even the wonderful gift giving that she had planned for her friends. Mine is the polka dot! Love this hand made case. So glad she did decide to adopt me in the end! Hop over to Eileens for the tour, Madelaine has the most amazing studio!

As we headed off the final stretch a big whopping 720 miles to go...

with amazing views of USA countryside...

 I learned my biggest lesson of all. If you eat a Dairy Queen Blizzard for dinner at 8pm you will have no problem driving until 4am!

I want to thank Eileen for this incredible opportunity and her generous spirit. It was certainly a full service adventure filled with life lessons, travel tips and teaching advice. I also got to knock some of those non-visited States off my list! Eileen even got me up & running on both Twitter and Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this snapshot of our adventure and for more fun keep an eye on Eileen's PaperTrail Adventures.

Eileen Hull"s Needlebook Art Journal Fun

Hi and Happy Thanksgiving weekend!!!! I hope your turkey is tender, your family fun and you make some great memories. In July I had the privilege of traveling on Paper Trail 6 with Eileen Hull. If you come back Saturday I will share a funny adventure from that crazy fun filled trip!

This is one of the sample's I made for the Paper Arts Show in July with Eileen's die cuts by Sizzix. Eileen has a large range of awesome dies both steel rule and thinlets. Two of my favorites are the Square Box and Needle Book dies. I used them to make an art journal book collection. *The magic of Eileen's dies is they both cut & score your material and can be used with very sturdy mat board. Basically the bends are created (scored) when your board is cut using the dies and makes assemble easy and your project sturdy.

 Here is my finished project. I am tempted to add some flowers and bling to the box but that thought is just marinating for the time being. I used the cube die and ran it through embossing folders before putting it together.To create a box instead of a cube, I simply left off the top - tada!

Each of my journals were made using the wonderful Needle Book die. Seriously love this die! As I love all things inky each book used a different technique which I carried through that book. 

This one for example was comprised of gelliprint papers. I art journaled each page using some of my favorite stamps. 

Taking paper signatures I bound my books with wax linen and added beads either on the threads left dangling or directly on the spine. An awesome paper to use is Rendr paper by Crescent. It has the ability to prevent bleed through to the other side- that is right no need to gesso your page first! 110 LB weight it is truly a wonder that even a wet spray ink does not bleed through.

 

My covers were each different in structure using either modeling past, embossing folder or stencil but all with Glimmer Mist sprays by Tattered Angels. Each cover is sprayed with a different color combo yet together they look fabulous!! I hope you enjoyed my tutorial & be sure to tune in Saturday when I share a fun story form PaperTrail6!!! Happy Thanksgiving!

Resin Craft Paper

Hello Blogland. Today I have a post on the Resin Craft site with my 2nd tutorial on making Resin Paper. Jump over there to get some great tips as I test different papers while we play with EasyCastResin!

Deck the Halls Ornament

Here it is November & time for some holiday fun. Today the Canvas Corp Crew are making ornaments! Go to the blog to see a ton of cool inspiration! Here is my finished Vintage Ornament.

I started with a wood ornament and paper from the Santa's Journey 8x8 Paper Pack. Cut the paper & adhere with decoupage glue. Once this is dry cover with glimmer glam to add a shiny glimmer protective coat and add color to the edges. 

Next I used a beautiful flower from Petaloo Paintables and spritzed it with Glimmer Mist. Once dry you can paint on glimmer glam to add glitter and this will add stiffness and protect the flower. When the glam is wet arrange the petals where you want them and set aside to dry. Once dry I added painted Glam on the center area over the beads to create interest. 

Next cut out your favorite tag from the Farmhouse Christmas Tag paper and paint a light coat with Organic Garden Glimmer Glam. This creates a nice transparent glaze. Add flower with a strong glue like glossy accents. I used a THoltz memo pin to add my tag. Adhere one of the Santa's Journey Charms & presto you have a beautiful vintage ornament to hang or give as a gift. 

Happy crafting!

Documented Life Project wk#13

Here is my next DLP yay! I actually started this in August enroute to FL. Where where does the time go?

March Theme
Making Your Mark (Doodles & Mark Making)
March 28
Art Challenge:  Make a Custom Element
Journal Prompt:  "Ride the energy of your own unique spirit." - Gabrielle Roth

Here is my finished page:

My product choices were limited as I was arting as we drove.  Using acrylic paint for my background with lots of stencil work.

Drawing is something I am challenged with as I haven't had a lot of practice. I kept it pretty simple using my messenger bag as the inspiration for my custom element. I figured I would be able to draw this. The doodles show up on the wings of my cute owl. 

The title comes from the prompt but I went with no journaling this week. Fun easy layout. You can join us here at The Documented life Project. I am excited to move into May!

Inspiration Wednesday week#8

Yes another week done, my book is starting to look all nice and chunky! I actually skipped #7 as I wasn't keen on it and I am ok with that. You can't like everything and I am giving myself permission to skip a week if I don't feel inspired by it. Week #8 however i loved and even though it is a repeated technique in the class I ended up with something completely different. Mainly as I used different colors and added extra texture embellishments but I love this page! It is so rich, lush and metallic in real life. So without further delay I give you Fall!

Nummy!! Which seems to be my favorite word these days. You can join the fun with Donna Downey!

Christmas Time!!!!

No time to waste!!! As I seem to be missing months this year I for the safety of my sanity have decided to jump into the Christmas Spirit immediately. THIS WILL BE THE YEAR!!! I will be organized ahead of time & enjoy the holidays and the month of December's joy DAMN IT!!! Like most of my friends we scramble and jump and stress while the lovely spirit of Christmas becomes a big fat chore-to-do list. My illusions that I will spend time a week before Christmas in a mall bar sipping a Christmasy drink and enjoying watching people scramble, safe in the knowledge that I am fully ready have yet to be realized. Last year a group of friends signed up for my plan and NONE OF US WAS READY!!! In the wonderful spirit of that joy here is my Linnie Blooms post for the month.

Also in the spirit of getting things done this is my page for the wonderful The Documented Life Project. 

April Theme
Color Safari (Exploring Inks and Paints)
April 25
Art Challenge:  Inks
Journal Prompt:  Before the Ink is Dry

I am embracing this weekly project and doing it when I can so while I am ions behind that is ok. (sssh I know this is an April prompt don't tell anyone) I am loving the times when I can play. Apparently I will have all kinds of time in December to catch up!!! To see the full tutorial on this page and be sure to check out her new Holiday canvas shape bundle, jump over to Linnie Blooms here. Enjoy!!!

Inspiration Wednesday #6

I KNOW so soon you say? Well I actually had a few days of glorious procrastination and finished almost 5 yes FIVE weeks of Donna's IW!!!!! It was fanfrickintastic. I would lay down product, clean house while it dried, lay down product... LOVE IT!!!! Now if only my house showed as much progress as my art journal book! 

Instead of a 2 page spread I did one side & the flip card. Really liking the page so I stuck pretty close to what Donna did just changed the colors and tags. I may still add something to the flip but it looks pretty cool as is. Of course the fabulous copper metallic doesn't show on camera. Love tabs and that makes me happy so I will be adding more of those. 

 Here closer up to see a bit of the copper. YAY. Now go get inky!!!

Inspiration Wednesday Week #5

Hello Inky Friends. As I play catchup here is week 5 of Donna Downey's IW. 

I decided to do a bit of a switch up and used one of my favorite products- Tattered Angels Glimmer Glam and Glaze. The colors blend so nicely and create a wonderful, glittery glaze. 

 Flicking Glimmer Glaze creates shiny spots of nummy-ness. I am tempted to do some stamping in the open spaces but for now I let it stand.

Here is the total layout- the photos don't do it justice. Live it is all bright colors and shimmer. I love the way the colors blend so smoothly!

 Here is the flip side. If you haven't checked out Inspiration Wednesday you can do so here. 

Until next time!

Resin Crafts DTeam!

Hi there! Today is my first post for ETI- Envirotex DTeam. Some of their products include resin, resin dye, jewelry resin, jewelry clay & more. 

I am doing a series on resin/paper if you interested in a tutorial hop on over to the Resin Crafts blog!!!

Inspiration Wednesday wk#4

Hello inky friends! I have been playing in my Inspiration Wednesday journal- yes way far behind but that is ok I have given myself permission to work behind & just "enjoy the journey". I spend a lot of my time trying to catch up with various life errands & have come to the conclusion that my free time art journal should not be a "to do" but rather relaxing and fun. This page was actually completed on Feb 23rd. (as I try not to freak out-that was 8 months ago-breath). I went in a completely different direction than Donna's sample but used some of the same techniques.

 I used a page from my vintage sears catalog which sparked the theme of the page that the boys need new boots. As I am working in an art journal that already has some pages used I decided to just go with what was available which is half an envelope.

 I added a fun tag using a few deep red stamps. 

Finished the page off with some journaling. Yay week 4 blogged!

 

Linnie Blooms Halloween Mini

I am excited to share my first post as a member of the Linnie Blooms Design Team. I made this cute Halloween Mini Album. 

To get the full tutorial hop on over my Linnie Blooms post. Leaving me a comment would be awesome!

Washi Tape Love!!!

I love, love washi tape. I use it all the time for everything. Tack down a photo into a mini album, as a boarder on the bottom, side or anywhere on an art journal page. I use washi to mark my daughters school supplies. My journal currently has washi down the side of every page- just because it is fun and colorful!

I recently went on a scrap escape with my besties. It was an awesome week of sun and fun and scrappin. The challenge when travel scrappin or even just going to a crop is how to bring lots of fun goodies without taking up a lot of space. I came up with this great idea to add washi to my travel case without taking up a lot of space. Drumroll please...

Tada! I simply took a piece of acetate from packaging and wrapped my washi around it. Now it is totally portable- audience claps wildly! Now go get your washi and get organized!

Sand & Sea Treasure Box

In my quest to refuse to let go of summer I have created this treasure box with some great products by Canvas Corp Brands and 7Gypsies. The best part - this will be the project for my first travel class!!! I will be teaching Oct. 4th from 1-4pm at The Paper Inn in Bradenton, FL. You can email them at thepaperinn@yahoo.com or call 941-904-0061 . 

We will be making this fun box using Eileen Hull' Designs Train Case by Sizzix.

You can use it for photos, recipes, stamped images, lists, addresses... the potential is endless! Makes a great gift too. As I am refusing to let summer go I am also ignoring that other big holiday that involves lots of gifts in December, but I have family that will love this handmade gem. Canvas Corp Brands products are beautiful and easy to work with.  We will also be adding color and glimmer with the Tattered Angels products of paints. I hope to see you there!!!

DLP#11 Borderline

I was on a trip while making Documented life Project #11 which brought a few challenges. The main one being I didn't have unlimited supplies and ephemera to work with. Here is the theme the gals came up with this week.

March Theme
Making Your Mark (Doodles & Mark Making)
March 14
Art Challenge:  Borders
Journal Prompt:  "Borderline feels like I'm going to lose my mind."

The next page in my journal had some texture beads already on it. I had brought dylusions paints with me, using the dabber sponge applicator made it easy to apply paint while sitting in the passenger seat.

 For the borders I added the black through a Tim Holtz stencil and once dry a few dots with a sharpie paint pen. The title was also with a TH stencil but this time I used archival black ink. Again I added some dots with my sharpie. I had this tag with me that was just paint & stencil with colors that looked good on the page so on it went. I seem to be in a -main feature smack dab in the middle mode- which is odd for me but I am going with it. TIP: When I travel with limited supplies I usually bring pre-stamped card stock so I am not hauling stamp sets. Dina Wakley's cute owl, hearts & saying did the trick. For these I used distress stains to paint the owl and hearts. 

As I was in Dina mode I decided to do my journaling in rough pen. It is the first time I have done this but I kinda like it as I got a lot of writing in but it doesn't detract from the page. I wrote about what was going on at the time of the prompt when life was busy, and crazy. I did feel like I had to make a determined effort not to lost my mind so this prompt was perfect. That is the beauty of art journal, I didn't have to journal about the now, just whatever writing fit the prompt. If you like this page please leave me a comment! Art on!

DLP#12 Coming into Focus

Soooooo I am back from my most awesome adventure with Eileen Hull on #paprtrail6. I will post about that in a few days but today I had to get back to being inky! I am soooo far behind on Documented Life Project  (Art to the 5th) but I knew this would happen & I have ever intention of catching up. Yesterday I had fun playing on my deck and worked on #10 and finished #12 ironically about focus however I missed #11-opps. I will just do them out of order- I know how flexible right! Here we go-it's good to be back...

March Theme
Making Your Mark (Doodles & Mark Making)
March 21
Art Challenge:  As a Focal Point
Journal Prompt:  Coming into Focus

Here is my take on the prompt. I started with the intent that "coming into focus" would be about my recent experience at the PaperArts show and how that really has helped me decide to move onto a travel teaching business. 

I was feeling very "Dylusional" so i started with her paints for my background  and a mix of stencils. These paints are so rich, creamy & vibrant! As I am totally addicted to this blue/green combo I will be making an attempt at changing up my color palette in the future. My caption was painted and than stamped, added a bit of doodling around for fun.  I decided to add a border and had an opps while lining it up. As you can see above I simply moved my title to cover it up-yes very sneaky.

 While deciding what the "art as a focal point" would be. I got off track looking at the cool guest artist blog of Danny Gregory. I do not draw-I suck at it but I also recognize that I have the ability to learn to draw just not the patience for it right now. My brain moves at 1000 miles an hour and for right now lacks the zen I feel is necessary. It is on my list of things to learn. 

Motivated by Lorraine Bell & Danny I drew!!! Using pen on watercolor paper and painted using distress stains and sprays. My camera did start all grey but I HAD to add color. Again with the blue and green...the camera is a tad lopsided and simple but as it may be my first real attempt at pen and watercolor I will take it. My brain was refusing to "see" the camera and wanted to make up the outline on it's own (not helpful) but I forced it into line. I wasn't happy that my frame (dylusion stamps) made my camera lay flat on the page so I added some color to help make the frame pop. Looking back at it I would move the frame a bit farther out to show it more but...

The frame does help the camera to pop and the white gel pen words do as well. Now for the journaling. I pulled out some of the new Heidi Swapp for Project Life cards from her brand new kit Picturesque Edition, which I had to buy cause I NEED to own ALL of them. It was at this point I realized my entire page had gone - left- and that my title- "focus" was none existent. So I added 2 journal cards one with the story of the end result and one how I had lost focus...actually all very appropriate with the theme! I turned my camera into a pocket, wrote out my cards, added color with markers to the title "laugh". As I went I used the excess paint on my dabbers to color another card:

I did want to add some random stamping to the page but held off as there is a lot going on, wouldn't want to detract from my lovely drawing (insert hurumpf). That is it, come join us at Documented Life Project!!! Ps:

Arting on the deck outside is really fun!