Throwback Thursday-page overload!

Hello!  I'm doing a bit of a scrapbook page overload today, but I've managed to get several knocked out and since our weekend is a bit busy, I figured I would share all of my pages at once!

I went letter and border sticker crazy on these and I still have two gallon zip bags overflowing with these... Apparently, the early 2000's were my 'buy all the stickers you can' phase of scrapping... I know I haven't bought a border sticker in at least ten years!  I am floored at the ones that aren't quite 12" long. Like what am I supposed to do with the 1/2" that is left exposed???  I'm thinking several of those are going to end up decorating a card or cut down like I did on my 3rd page.

using a border as a trim piece and those flowery letters

were perfect for this page!

no border this time, but I did use some vellum letter stickers

This is the border crazy page! All of those strips are from one

set of border stickers.  I cut pieces off to both clean up the bent

edges and add some interest. More letter stickers and that flower

has been in a basket to be used for over 7 years!

More letter stickers and that stamped circle has also

been in the same basket for quite a while...

No letters or stickers, but did use a TH metal tag and 

 post card ephemera which  I've had for a while.

Thanks so much for stopping by and dealing with my multi page post.  I hope you have a great rest of the week and I'll be back next week with some new creations!

Throw Back-Play day

Hi and welcome!  Today I'm sharing some 'throw back Thursday' projects that are perfectly named in so many ways!  I am finally caught up on birthday and anniversary cards, so I had some time to just play around in my studio.  I have a tiered basket that holds unfinished projects and various odds & ends.  The idea is that if I see these things all the time, I will be encouraged to use them.  I wish I could say this was a perfect idea, but more often than not, I'm busy making something specific and don't have time to 'treasure hunt' in the baskets.  Today however, I spied two unfinished art journal pages that were begging to be completed.  I started my art journal years ago as a way to experiment with new techniques and it has also become a great place to collect quotes and words of wisdom.  This is the first 'throwback'. Next, I found a baggie of molded clay pieces that I made a very long time ago and had saved for a rainy day-'throwback' number two!  Finally, I pulled out some well loved, but recently uninked stamp sets making the third part of my 'throwback'.

I decided if this was going to be a play day, I was going to get a little messy and inky.  I colored the clay pieces with markers (and ended up with as much ink on my fingers as on the clay pieces), and pulled out an old plastic stamp case. A quick hunt through my reinkers and I was ready to go.  I actually used copy paper instead of watercolor paper this time since the page was already going to be quite lumpy from the clay parts.  It was a little tricky getting the paper out of the ink and took a very long time to dry, but the end result was quite pretty.  A little stamping, doodling, and gluing and I was done!  

This would have been a perfect creative session if my eldest DD (home from college) hadn't interrupted me to ask if I could help her file her taxes... Nothing like waiting til the last minute!  Luckily, it was fairly quick and painless to do hers, but the next time I decide to have a play day, I'm going to lock the door!

I hope I've inspired you to dig through your stash and use some of those forgotten items!  If you're like me, you could do this every day for a year and still have plenty of things left over!  Thank you so much for visiting and have a wonderful day!

Project Recipe: Stamp Sets-Faith in Nature, Gorgeous Grunge, Ink-blushing bride, Baja breeze, crumb cake, garden green, real red, summer sun, early espresso, black fine tip Sharpie, Paper-always artichoke, Accessories- molded clay pieces, Martha Stewart leaf punch

Anything But a Card Week 3 of Anything Goes

Hello!  It is my turn to share a project for Anything But a Card Challenges.  Our challenge this month is Anything Goes-With a Holiday Twist.  This leaves the creativity door wide open for just about anything!  There have been a lot of wonderful holiday theme creations shared at the challenge site, but that doesn't mean you have to do that.  As a matter of fact, my share is not Christmassy at all (well there is a peek of an evergreen on there, but that's it!).

At the beginning of the challenge, I had decided I was going to get some Christmas and winter scrapbook pages finished.  Then we had a major ice storm followed by a lot of snow and after getting stuck in my driveway three times this week, I did NOT want to think about crafting anything that resembled snow or winter!  So I went in a completely different direction and made a page for my art journal.  It was quite relaxing to pull out some stamps and lots of inks and sponges. I also played with some Inka Gold metallic rub.  It's very pretty, but I need to play with it a little more.  My initial application was more streaky than I wanted, but I love the gilded look it gave my sculpey picture frame.

It hasn't been a bad week, but there have been a lot of cancellations and rescheduling of plans.  It left me feeling out of sorts and annoyed-not at all what I want be. I was debating what the message of my page should be and decided that since art is my therapy, my message should reflect what I want to achieve.  So I decided on 'enjoy the journey', a good reminder that things will happen and I can either get upset or get over it.  I don't have to like ice and below freezing temperatures, but since they're not going away any time soon, I need to enjoy my journey.  Of course, digging my car out of the driveway in the frigid air was no picnic...  Hey, I said it was therapy, not a miracle!

I hope you will find time to join us this week and please stop by the blog and leave some love for my fellow crafty peeps!!

Project Recipe:  Stamp Sets-Lovely as a Tree, World Map, Of the Earth, Wonderful Favorites, Fresh Vintage, Ink-soft suede, crumb cake, early espresso, garden green, poppy parade, very vanilla Accessories-Tim Holtz metal tag, twill ribbon, postage stamp punch, Martha Stewart clay mold, Log Cabin smooch spritz, Inka Gold metallic rub

A new meaning to Stamp Camp

Hello! I am so glad you stopped by today! I am finally sharing some NEW Stampin' UP items on my card for today!

This spring, we made the decision to upgrade from our ancient pop up camper to a larger pull behind type.  A friend of ours was selling his camper and the price was right, so we now own a not so new 5th wheel.  I love that it has a refrigerator, stove, microwave, and most importantly bathroom!  I am not a 'glamping' (glamour camping) type person, but I am also not a survivalist either!  We took our new to us camper for a test run the last week of June.  We had a great time sitting around the campfire, and made at least one meal a day over the flames.  I'm pretty sure that the light carpet in the camper will never be clean again, but DH has already said his goal is to rip it out and replace it with laminate flooring. Score!

So I'm sure you are wondering what in the world this has to do with stamping right?  Well, I have had my new Stampin' UP goodies sitting here waiting to be used and couldn't seem to find the time and mojo to use them.  So I packed them up and took them camping with me.  I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to make and just brought the bare bones necessities along.  So on Wednesday when it started pouring down rain and everyone retreated into the camper, I pulled out my stamping supplies and got busy!  I'm thinking I may start a new trend... Stamp Camping...

As soon as I saw Perfect Blend in the new catalog, I knew I had to have it!  It is the perfect set for all of us Java Junkies!  In case you were wondering, the sentiment is made to look like this, not an artistic flair on my part!  I colored the cup sleeve with one of the new in color markers, crisp cantaloupe and then decided that it looked too bare.  I had already tried out the new clay and flower mold at home and on a whim tossed the molded flowers in with my supplies.  A little coloring with my markers and I had a coordinating flower that was just the right size for my cup!  If you look closely, you can see a stamp shadow at the top of the very vanilla layer... I really need to trim down this stamp a little, but didn't have my trusty snips along.  So I inked the heck out of the edges to blend in the ink from my 'oops'.  The DSP is retired, but the color and pattern worked so well with this!

I hope you enjoyed my camping card! Maybe next time you'll join me in stamp camping! Just don't forget the bug spray, marshmallows, and coffee!!  Have a wonderful day and happy crafting!

Card Recipe: Paper-very vanilla, soft suede, Comfort Cafe DSP (ret), Stamp Set-Perfect Blend, Ink-soft suede, early espresso (how perfect is this!), crisp canteloupe, baked brown sugar, Accessories-simply pressed clay, buttons and blossoms clay mold

Anything But a Card Challenge 22-Get Messy!

Well, hello! I am so glad you stopped by to visit!  Our challenge at ABAC is to Get Messy!  There are some amazing inspiriations at the challenge site, so be sure to visit them too!

I decided to go with an altered piece and while it doesn't look overly 'messy', the process was pretty gluey, inky, and messy!  I bought the little unfinished wood birdhouse at Goodwill a few months ago and decided to paint it.  I wanted an aged look, so after the paint was dry, I added crackle and ink to make it all grungy.

The brown trim around the roofs was salvaged from a shopping bag, and I colored some molded sculpy pieces I had left over from a previous crafting experiment.  Unfortunately, the ink wanted to stick to my fingers more than the clay and ended up all smudged.  I added a little crackle to these too and decided it added to the whole shabby chic thing... work with me here...

While you can't really tell from my pics, the roof has a piece of First Edition DSP under the light layer of paint and crackle.

I hope you enjoyed my messy little project, and I would love it if you would join us this week with your version of messy!!!

Have a wonderful week and happy crafting!

Project recipe: unfinished wood birdhouse (Goodwill), fawn acrylic paint, Picket Fence distress crackle, repurposed shopping bag handles, sculpey clay pieces, First Edition DSP, Ink & Markers-soft suede, midnight muse, river rock, crumb cake

Anything But a Card Challenge 18- An ATC is HOW small??

It is time for week 2 of challenge 18 at Anything But a Card Challenges.  This challenge is to create an ATC (artist's trading card) which is a pretty open challenge as long as your art measures 2 1/2" x 3 1/2".  Susan has a lot of wonderful information about ATCs on the challenge site and there are some fabulous pieces being shared by the design team and fellow crafters linking up.  

I have a confession to make.  I have NEVER made an ATC before.  Yes... I know shocking! And honestly, I wasn't too concerned about this challenge until I tried to squeeze my big ideas onto my itty, bitty piece of paper (can you imagine me doing inchies??).  But once I started adjusting my thinking to pulling out my smaller stamps and embellishments, things fell into place and I ended up with two different ATCs.

This one looked a lot different in my mind, but for my very first

attempt, I kinda like it!  The picture frame was made with Sculpey 

and a silicone mold (this is not SU, but just wait until you see the 

new catalog, hint! hint!).  I attempted another watercolor, inky

type background, and it didn't really turn out how I wanted, so I 

stopped before it became really muddy and finished it with stamping

and embellishing.  The frame was painted with a gold acrylic and 

smeared with gold glitter glue.

I think of the two, this is my favorite.  Maybe it's just more in my

comfort zone, but I like the softer colors.  I stamped my image and 

sentiment and then added pastels to create the background. I really

like the effect of using the watercolor paper for this!

I really hope that you will share an ATC with us this week, even if you have never made one before! I am beginning to find that I have the most fun with this type of challenge, although I need to stop stressing over the finished product and just let the process happen and learn from my mistakes!

As I am posting this, it is a very rainy Saturday and our plans of attending a local Chalk Walk event have been postponed to next weekend.  So I am going to get out of here and try to do some crafty stuff at home! Have a wonderful week and happy crafting!