Give Thanks Canvas

I'm ever thankful for the many blessings in life and with Thanksgiving soon upon us here in America I thought it would be fitting to share how thankful I am for each and every one of you, my creative friends, that come here and visit.  

For you I.....

for all the encouraging words, sweet notes, laughs, and hugs sent through cyberspace.  For cards, packages, tags, and happy mail sent.  For friendships built and prayers uplifted, I give thanks to you.  These are things I cherish and could have never expected when I dived on in to the online world of scrapbooking/blogging some years ago.  It never ceases to amaze the kind hearts of papercrafters near and far.  

As you head in to Thanksgiving I wish you a blessed day with your family, and the same even if you won't be celebrating this feast.  May you be reminded what a treasure you truly are.

May you have time to just be still and thankful for all the wonderful blessings you have right here, right now.

Take good care and Happy Thanksgiving!

ScrapFX Product Used:

Random Dots Stencil (2013172)

Leaves, mixed (2008106)

Leaf Buttons, mini (2010007)

Flourish 05 Curl Border (2013204)

A Work in Progress Canvas & a New ScrapFX Challenge for You!

Its been a lot of fun (and work ;) ) creating things I hope people will find delight in looking at and perhaps purchasing for market.  The super thing is I can do this while knocking out some assignments at the same time - bonus!!

This month we have another Mood Board Challenge going at ScrapFX for fans to join in on.  There isn't a need to have ScrapFX product to participate - super cool if you do though!!  The Designers all partake in the challenge as well and post their take on the board as well as the twist given by the board creator - gotta have a twist to make it more interesting, right?  This month's twist is to use stencils, easy peasy except there are so many splendid ScrapFX stencils its hard to narrow down which to choose. 

For my take I was inspired by the rainbow colors, of course, I mean how could I not be??!!  This blog oozes color - ha!  Then I was also inspired by the eye on the board and that spun in to the creation of the girlie on this canvas - from there I let my imagination go wild giving her a little scene.   Since I don't live near the ocean, like the board image shows I went with the country life instead. :D

* I will share this piece isn't fully finished.  Its about 95% done and there are still some finishing details I want to fuss around with to complete it.  Not wanting to force and be unhappy with the finished result I left it as it was for now and will have it complete by the end of the month when I post my personal reveal.

I created my girlie's afro by using the ScrapFX Cogs Stamp with some colored heavy gesso and stamping it onto the canvas.  I then went back in with watercolor once this was completely dry to fill in the rest of the color.  In the background I used the Random Dots stencil to give the sky some texture and I went around the girl's head with some glitter glue to help it stand out against it.  I wish this showed up better....arrrgghh!!

Here you can see the Crosswords Stencil in action.  This was the first time I'd used it and I really am diggin' the effect it gave and the ease of use - I thought perhaps I'd have a struggle controlling where I put the paste, but nope.  Maybe my circle obsession will be shared with squares now - teehee!!  I adore those little chippie apples and kind of wish they were sold on their own....hmmm... maybe I shall suggest that. Some stamping and lots of paint layers make up the grassy areas along with some pen work.  

And that is where I've left off.  Still not exactly sure what details I'm going to add but have been playing with a few things here and there.  Any suggestions of what you think miht just absolutely make this?  I'm thinking I may want to add text or a quote or a ScrapFX wordlet - just can't decide what will fit yet.  The grassy areas need to be broken up more......sky too..... so holla' if you have ideas I'd love to hear them.  :)  I'd also love to see you playing along with the challenge!!!  This is the last one we'll be having for a couple months as we head in to the Christmas and holiday season so get in while you can for your chance to win some great goodies!!!

Until next time, take good care and thanks so much for stopping by!

Dreaming of the Beach

Hey there!  How's your weekend going??  Its been a whirlwind of a week around here preparing for the GSDCA-WDA National competition (Schutzhund Dog Sport)(hubbie is there now competing in the tracking phase today), start of the softball season for baby girl(two scrimmages+practice this week and an all day tourney about an hour away tomorrow), and cheering on my boy at track - whew!

All this running around has left me dreaming of the summer days to come when time on the beach relaxing can be spent!  Then this thought sparked the notion in my head I'd yet to share the LO I created for the Skissedilla DT call!!!  

I had a blast creating this page!! Tons of bits and pieces that have been in my stash for years were used on this page - Cosmo Cricket's Snorkel line is what I used for paper - loved this line soo much!!

I so wish my youngest was still this size!!!  I cannot believe how much she has grown in 6 years.... she is just about as tall as I am!!

I spread on some paint with a credit card and then added droplets of paint -  I loaded up a foam stamp with heavy gesso and stamped the waves - really like how this looked with no color - really subtle but still adding to the overall look and texture of the page - I need to do this more

I used a paper doily as a mask for the sun to sit on - layered a doily from The Chip Chop Shop over some mist dyed cheescloth and under a Maya Road bottle cap that was painted yellow (although you can't really teall) - and filled with sunshine!  Added layers of paper bits, photos, cheescloth, stickers, mini paper bags to finish off the page.

What are you dreaming of today?  I shouldn't complain too much - its lovely here today and I'm about to go outside to enjoy it!

Be back tomorrow with some super fun stuff for you!  Til' then have really terrific days!

Look What Came Today and Some Painted Papers

Hey there Peeps! Happy Monday to ya'. Did you have a good one? The day flew by here and left me with feeling I hadn't gotten nearly enough done. Alas, the night is young and my nap was hefty, LOL!

So I am totally JACKED up about what came to my house in the mail today! Check it out:



Oooo-la-la, right? This fabulous stash of chipboard and dyed doilies came from Leeann Pearce's Etsy shop, The Chip Chop Shop. She is based in Australia and I seriously can't say how excited(overly) and pleased(extremely) I am with my purchase. The only problem is I wish I would have gotten more right from the jump. LOL. Anyhoo, check out her blog, she is fantabulously talented and her shop, I can't wait to alter these bad boys up!

So, over the weekend I was working on some assignments and decided to paint up some papers to use for backgrounds, collage, whateva'. I used Canson Mixed Media paper for all the squares. This is what I've got going on so far:



On this one, I brushed on a layer of gesso and then used a homemade stamp to leave an impression. The stamp is made out of nuts or bolts (always get them mixed up, LOL) and I'll share a tut on how to make your own sometime this week. After that dried, I brushed on some Lumiere paint and then stamped with Ranger Archival ink to create the pattern. The last thing I did was add some Diamond Glaze to the hearts. I want to go back over this with some more paints to have the resist effect show through.

Here you can see the texture a bit better:





For this one I brushed on some gesso, scratched into it in certain areas, and painted. Then I stamped some hearts using a sponge stamp, outlined them, used a stencil to get the yellow hearts down with paint, and drizzled some fluid acrylics. To get my splotches, I had fun playing with an eye dropper and blowing bubbles.

Here's the last one:


This is my fav of the bunch. Love, love the greens and hints of blue. This one was created by brushing on gesso, stamping into it with a sentiment stamp (you can vaguely tell, but the imprint is there), painting over it with fluid acrylic paints, and then using a patterned paper towel to lift up some of the color. I love the effect it left. I continued on by outlining the heart imprint left from the sentiment stamp with my Zig marker (pen? never sure what to call it) and then I painted that in with a magenta fluid acrylic. The last thing I did was to mix up my own embossing powder to use on another sentiment stamp, which I stamped over the hearts.

Here's a close up:



You can really see the shimmer of the embossing powder in this shot, as well as the imprints of the letters 'I' and 'U'. Can you see them?

Alrighty that's it for tonight. Lots of fun stuff coming up this week at SNR so be sure to check back to see the haps.

Thanks for stopping by, hope your day was filled with smiles.
~Scarlett