2013 Art Journal - You're never too old...

How was your weekend? Hopefully filled with fun stuff! This past week I worked on another Journal page and I have to say..............this time I'm THRILLED with the outcome!!!!!!!!  I definitely channeled some Donna Downey with this page.  I LOVE how vibrant it is!

 

I really had a lot of fun creating this page. I started by plopping down three colors on the left hand side of the page and then dragging it over to the right with an acetate sheet. Once dry - I painted the tree and branches - then channeled Christy Tomlinson and randomly cut leaves from my American Crafts stash and decoupaged then on. I added Outline Rubber Stamps grass and Hero Arts flower and used a combination of Faber-Castell Big Brush markers and paint to color them in.  Lastly - I took a Verve sentiment and PRAYED really hard that I'd get a great impression and not mess up the whole page!! LOL

I'm going to enter this page in the Stampotique Designer's Challenge# 81 and the Hero Arts "Try Something New" January Challenge

So, after finishing THIS page - my hopes for the journal are a bit higher than my first page - but there could be a fall from grace! :)

Have a great Monday!!!!!!


Thanks for your visit!

Eat Cake Graphics - Hippity Hoppity...

Easter's On Its Way!!!!  It sure is and this Eat Cake Graphics pup is just hopping along isn't he?   LOL - I had a lot of fun making this card!  Do you notice all those brads?  Well.......the challenge over at Linda McClain's Catered Crop blog is to use brads as the "featured ingredient" and Eat Cake Graphics is the sponsor company this week!

I rarely use brads, so I was happy to try and use a bunch for this challenge!  Might be a bit of an overload huh?  I pulled out all of my pastel ones thinking that I needed another Easter Card....then I looked through my ECG stamps and it hit me!  Puppy would be my bunny!!  Of course I had to color him up all 'pink' for Easter!!

What do you think of my Nestabilities shaped card?  I have to give credit to Vicky at Clips-n-Cuts and her Merci Bouquet video.

I used my computer to create the sentiment and here's the inside of the card (which was quite hard to take a picture of!)

Come check out Linda's fantastic blog:

Thanks for your visit!

First Place Wine!!

Happy Sunday to you!  Today I have something different to show on the blog.  My brother Lou entered his homemade wine into the Italian Center's wine tasting contest.  I believe he's done this for 2 - 3 years now.  This year's contest was held the night of our mom's 70th birthday, so Lou asked if they'd want to join him.  My dad made a wine as well which was also entered into the tasting.

So, they all went together with another set of their friends and participated in the wine tasting.  At the end of the night, Lou's wine was chosen as the WINNER!!!!!!!!  How exciting!!  Out of 22 red wines, he got the most votes!

When I saw him at work on Monday, he asked if I would make up some sort of memory box showcasing his win!  Here is what I came up with:

I bought a 16" x 22" shadow box frame at Michaels and then bought a sheet of burgundy paper to sit on top of the black material background - and so I could adhere all the documents/photos.

Here's a copy of the Proclamation from the Mayor's office.  I dressed it up by stamping out three Stepping Stones wine glasses, embossed in black, colored with Distress Ink and covered with glossy accents.

Here is one of his wine labels, a coin from the Mayor's office and a picture of Lou holding the coin.

And here are some other pictures from the night.  Louis with the other winners, a picture of my parents with him, the brochure from the night and the picture on the bottom left is at the moment his name was called!!  My mom's face is priceless.  I added a Outlines 'Cheers' stamp to fill in the last spot.

He's going to hang this in his office, so it can see it everyday and relive that moment of glory!!

Thanks for your visit!

MIM#31 + Lily Pad Resist - Happy Anniversary!

So, yesterday was my parent's 49th Wedding Anniversary!  Yah to them!  I worked on this card on Tuesday and played along with the Papertrey Ink Make It Monday #31 Challenge - which was to create a background with 'non-background' stamps.  I used the little hearts from the Mailbox Greetings set for my background.

I also played along with the Lily Pad Cards Emboss Resist challenge.

I embossed this Outlines stamp twice cutting out the heart on the second one and popping it up.  Then I used four distress inks to color them in.  I added white enamel accents for the dots and stickles for the glitter on the flowers on the heart. The sentiment is from Verve Stamps.  Inside says "A Very Happy Anniversary"

Hope you have a great Friday!!!

Thanks for your visit!

C&S112 - Happy Birthday & Cheers!!

Happy Sunday!!!  Hope you have some fun things planned for the day! I'm off to the Humane Society in the morning (we have a TON of dogs waiting for their forever homes) and then.....pretty much nothing the rest of the day!

On Friday I made Jill's birthday card using the Clean & Simple Sketch # 112.  The challenge was also to make a square card. I usually try to avoid square cards just because they require extra postage, but since I handed Jill her birthday card last night.....I didn't have to worry about postage!!!

I grabbed my American Crafts patterned paper and then stamped out three Inkadinkadoo leaves in two different browns.  I tied some twine and popped them up over the ribbon.  Lastly, I stamped a PTI sentiment with PTI white ink.

Additionally, I made this:

Our summer drink of choice is Tangueray Gin and Tonic. But, while in Savannah last week........we were introduced to Hendricks Gin........oh my..........what a refreshing drink! The drink is also garnished with an English Cucumber instead of a lime. Wow - we really enjoyed this! So, we decided to get Jill a bottle for her birthday as well! So, I wanted to dress it up a bit and made this tag, which matches her card.  I did a little ribbon gathering, used an Outlines Rubber Stamp 'Cheers' stamp, and punched the bottom with an EK Success punch!

So, wishing Jill a happy birthday again and wishing you a wonderful Sunday! Thanks for stopping in!
Maria

Best Fishes Box Card

I popped on the Hero Arts Blog today (Wednesday) and Shari Carroll had a GREAT video tutorial on making a box card. Since I was waiting around for my neighbor to call to go for a run, I decided to try my hand at this!

Without a scoring board, it took a "little" time to figure out the score lines, but not that long. What takes more time (for me) is deciding what image to use! Since my father-in-law's birthday is coming up, I thought it would be fun to use my new Impression Obsession fish stamp.

The first thing I did was emboss the image in clear powder. I decided to color it in with Marvy markers. Then, I sponged the background with Distress Inks and stamped an Outlines Rubber Stamp grass stamp along the bottom and colored those in lightly with a few markers.

Since I didn't have a "Best Fishes" sentiment....I had to hand stamp each letter using my Martha Stewart stamps (can't say I really like these, but they work when you don't have a sentiment and don't want to fuss with a computer generated sentiment). I laid that cirlce on a dark blue background and slide it into the box part of the card (after distressing it a little). Lastly, I added three shades of MS glitter.

I had a lot of fun making this card. I do recommend using a heavier cardstock base. I used the GP 110lb paper and it's a little flimsy, but it stands up on it's own. Go check out the link to the Hero Arts blog to see the video!!!

Thanks for visiting!!! Let me know what you think of the card!

Maria