A Birthday Card inspired by Wanda

I was inspired to make this card by Wanda Hentges Joy to the World project on the truly wonderful  PaperArtsy blog where we get a constant stream of amazing projects.  I loved the backround Wanda made using PaperArtsy Freso Finish chalk acrylic paints and a credit card which is one of my favourite ways of spreading paint around.  I just had to make a backround like this.  Wanda was making Christmas cards but I made mine into a birthday card for my brother:

The stars are loose and dangle on the ribbons.

This was simple and fun to make.  Check out the blog for more inspiration.

No to Glumness

There's something very special about autumn with the freshness in the air and wonderful autumn colours everywhere making it a lovely time of year to be out and about.  However, nowadays the change in the season usually means that chronic fatigue rears its ugly head.  I'm prone to bouts of CFS and there's something about autumn which sparks it off.  Fortunately I've learnt to read the signs and take steps so I'm careful not to do too much.  Even so, although its not in full blown mode I have days when I really don't feel that great.  Feeling grotty and having to rest more sometimes gets to me and if I don't watch it GLUMNESS descends.  I had to catch myself pretty sharp yesterday when before I knew it there I was.... glum :(  I had to say NO to glumness.  The only way I can do that is to start counting my blessings and be grateful to God for the wonderful family, friends, life He has blessed me with.

Playing in my art journal is a great help.  For this page, I started glum - glum tones, glum splodges, glum stamping, glum, glum, glum ...  LOL.  (Can you tell I'm not glum any more?)  Anyway, I looked at my page and thought, what on earth is this.  I thought I'd better cover the whole lot with white and start again.  So I splodged a big mass of white and quickly spread it and hey presto, it turned into the finished page.  The white splodges turned into my blessings which I wrotte white on white:

Here it is - not a work of art but a work of therapy which became a blessing in itself:

Its official, the antidote to glumness is to count one's blessings :D

I'm linking up at:
Art Journal Every Day 
Create with Joy Friendship Friday 
Creative Every Day 

Grow the Right Kind of Fruits

The pages in my art journal recently have all been about being and doing today what I'm hoping to be and do tomorrow.  I've been thinking about this a lot and thinking about the kind of person I want to grow into.  As a Christian I look to Jesus to show me.  He is all loving, kind, compassionate, faithful, patient, gentle... I could go on.  When we invite Him into our lives we start to become more like Him.  As we allow His Spirit to live in us these traits, or fruits of the Spirit, will grow in us.

This spread was inspired by Darcy Journaling month 8 over at the PaperArtsy blog.  Darcy has done this wonderful series of art journal pages with loads of really amazing techniques.  When I saw this month's I just had to try some of the things she did, in particular I loved the border made using a mask and I had to try the tree:

The backround is sponged distress inks, water sprinkled to remove some inks and paint added with the edge of a ruler:

I tore a mask and used to sponge a border with Freso Finish paints then stamped with the crackle stamp.  I drew and painted the tree, then added my home made texture paste which I'd coloured brown.  I didn't have any brown paint so mixed some up from a combination of the Fresco Finish paints. 

Darcy stamped on the texture paste on her tree but I added texture with a cocktail stick:

I added punched leaves in three different shades of green:

I cut out 9 different hearts from patterned paper for the fruits and journaled on the backs.  Then I added loops made from thread and hung them on the tree so they could dangle loosely.  I couldn't resist adding a couple of birds:

This was a really fun page to do.  I absolutely loved doing this!  Now I've got to get growing these fruits as big as I can!

Go For It - Courageously

If you've visited this blog before you will know I was very inspired at a recent church meeting where we were encouraged to be and do today what we are hoping to be and do tomorrow.  Its made me think a lot about things and resulted  in quite a few art journal pages.  Here is  another one which follows on from Be Today and Painterly Splotches.

 This is a very simple page where I started with Derwent Inktense Blocks and stamped and splattered a little before adding my home made texture paste through this lovely stencil:

I used letters which I'd had in my stash for years for the title and journaled all around the edge:

I've always been a cautious kind of person, liking to think things through before launching into anything.  This page is an exhortation to myself to have COURAGE and GO FOR IT!!!  I know that Jesus will give me the wisdom and strength I need.

If you too are a cautious kind of person I pray that you will find the courage to be and do today whatever it is you are aspiring to be and do tomorrow.

I'm linking up at:
Art Journal Every Day
Create With Joy Friendship Friday

A Prayer Box

My wonderful friend, Penny, recently shared at a church meeting about how she wrote prayers down and put them in a box.  She said that this helped her put the thing she was praying for firmly in the Lord's hands and leave them there.  So often we pray about a difficult situation and then continue to worry, whereas we should believe that the Lord has heard our prayer and will answer it in His own perfect time and His own perfect way.  By putting our prayer in a special prayer box we can imagine putting the difficult situation or request into God's hands and trusting in Him to answer.

This inspired me to make my own special prayer box.  I'd been wanting to try stamping on tissue paper which is the Craft Stamper Take It Make It challenge for September and this was just the project for it:

I used two 12 x 12 sheets of white card, trimming about 2 inches off  each sheet and scoring each side using my amazing Hougie Board which makes jobs like this so easy because you don't have to measure.   Here is a picture of the Hougie Board for those of you who have never come across one or something similar.  It has inches on one side and centimetres on the other. 

 
Then I stamped tissue paper all over and glued onto the cardstock with matt medium.  I sponged with distress inks and sprayed with pearl Cosmic Shimmer.  This gave a really lovely sheen.  Then I made up the box.

I love the texture the tissue paper adds:

I added encouraging scriptures on each side:

Penny said it was wonderfully encouraging to go through her prayer box from time to time and find the answered prayers.  I know I'm going to use mine a lot!

I'm linking up at:
Craft Stamper Take It Make It September challenge
Creative Every Day
Create with Joy Inspire Me Monday

Painterly Splotches

Here is an art journal page which follows on (in the journaling) from  Be Today where I said I had been inspired by a speaker at a recent church festival.  He said we should be today the people we are hoping of being tomorrow.  I have been thinking of what my aspirations are since then and its always helpful to journal these things.

I loved Lelainia Lloyd's journey tag book on the Pater Artsy blog, in particular the lovely effect she achieved in her backround with two contrasting coats of paint brayered one over the other and then sprinkled with water.  After 5-10 minutes the water can be dabbed off to leave these wonderful 'painterly splotches'.  I did Fresco Finish London Bus over Zesty Zing but the I think the red was too dry by the time I sprinkled the water and not enough lifted off:

I stamped and added my home made texture paste through a Jofy flower stencil 009 and dabbed a bit of yellow on the petals while the stencil was still in place:

I LOVE this stencil and love how these flowers came out:

I created two tags in the same way and this time I sprinkled the water while the paint was wet.  It worked and to my great delight I did get proper painterly splotches :)

I ws so pleased that I've just got to show the tags close up:

I journaled on the backs of the tags and they are stuck down with repositional glue dots.  I really enjoyed doing this page.

House shapes

I have a thing about house shaped cards and when I saw this month's challenge at Artful Times was to use a house shape for a project I knew just what I wanted to do.  My daughter, Izzy, has just moved and has entered into a new phase in her life with lots of new challenges to face.  I wanted to make her a card of encouragement and thought a house shaped card would be perfect.  I also have a thing about concertina cards and mini-books so this is what I ended up doing:

I had such fun making this.  First I folded three A4 sheets of white card in half and stuck them to each other to make the concertina base.  Then I cut them into a house shape, sponged distress inks and added stamping.  They looked a bit flat so I added my home made texture paste through a stencil and I loved the effect:

I cut doors, windows and birds from different patterned paper and added ric rac at the base of each roof.  Then I printed out the encouragements and stuck to each housetop.  Here is the front:

and the inside pages:

and the back:

I love my concertina houses!

God is with us whereever we go and whatever we do and, if we let Him, He will guide us, strengthen us and give us all we need, when we need it.

I'm linking up at:

Artful Times - Use a House Shape  

Word Art Wednesday 

Faith-hope-love 

Create with Joy - Friendship Friday 

Nautical metaphors - for Country View Challenges

I was over the moon to have won the stencil challenge at Country View Challenges and to be given the opportunity to be a guest designer for their September challenge which is Nautical.  This is my first time as a guest designer so I admit I had a complete attack of nerves and wondered why on earth I had agreed to do it!!  I also have NO nautical items in my stash so I had to engage in lateral thinking to do this project which in the end was a lot of fun.

I decided to do an art journal page using nautical images as metaphors for Jesus:

• He is my Saviour so the lifebelt shows He rescued me and has given me new life.  
• He is the anchor of my soul and I hold tight to my hope in Him - with an unbreakable chain He links me to the Father heart of God.  
• He is the Light of the World and the Way, the Truth and the Life.  Like a lighthouse shining in stormy seas He shines His light in my life and shows me the way to live and to go.  
• He is the wind in my sails and I want Him to be the driving force in my life.

 I wanted plenty of texture to replicate stormy seas.  I started by scraping my home made texture paste (white acrylic paint, pva glue and talc) over the lower two thirds of the page, then pressing a swirl embossing folder into the paste:

I added acryic paint:

The texture shows through:

I tore white paper into strips for waves:

Then scraped white all over:

The texture is still showing through:

Then I added stencils (Tim Holtz Rays and Crafters Workshop Mini Flying Geese) and stamped all over with a lovely script stamp which has lots of the names of Jesus:

I embossed the four tags with the swirls embossing folder and coloured them in different ways.  The words were printed out.  I journaled on the backs of the tags then cut red card strips and doodled love on them - can't leave love out when doing a page on Jesus!  I downloaded the images and stuck them to the strips.  The strips are glued down on 3 sides and the tags are slotted in so they can be removed to read:

So here are the finished tags and pages:

After being in a complete panic when I saw the challenge I ended up really enjoying doing this spread.  It was also really inspiring and a blessing to come up with the metaphors and think about all that Jesus means to me in this way.

May He be these things to you as well.


I'm linking up at:
Create with Joy Inspire me Monday
Creative Every Day
Art Journal Every Day