An A - Z of Friendship

I love this A - Z of friendship which I found on Pinterest while I was doing a scrapbook for my daughter's 25th birthday.  I made a few changes and used it on the pages I did about her friends.  I've also used it on a birthday card and I think its so fun I'm finally using it for myself on my pages for a circle journal I'm taking part in next year.  The theme of my journal is Friends and Friendship and I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone who's taking part in it will come up with.

Friends are such an important part of our lives, essential to our well-being bringing us love, fun and wisdom when we need it!

The backround was inspired by Leandra Franich on the PaperArtsy blog.  It's made by brayering different PaperArsty Fresco Finish chalk acrylic paints.  I guess I should have practised on another page first but I plunged straight in by doing these pages in my Friendship journal:

Then I added some stenciling and stamped a friendship definition stamp all over:

I had to include some hearts and these are stenciled with my home-made texture paste:

And a close up of the pages:

I love the effect the brayered backround gives and I suspect I shall be using it a lot.

Friends are vital to us, but even more important, it is vital for us to be a friend to others.  As Jesus said,

This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. 

This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. 

Jn 15: 13 The Message

Snowflakes again

The Take It Make It Challenge for December at Craft Stamper is white stamping.  This is a great challenge for me because I love stamping in white.  Snowflakes are perfect for this so here are a couple more cards using the wonderful bargain Hero Arts snowflake backround which I found on holiday in May:

I used Paper Artsy Fresco Finish chalk acrylics for the backround scraped with a credit card and white embossed the snowflakes.

I love this stamp and every single one of my Christmas cards is different.  I won't show them all because that would be too boring! ..... but here is another one :)

Snowflakes are fun!

I'm linking up at:
Craft Stamper
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge
Creative Every Day

Up Down

Up down; better worse; rough well - this has been me this autumn as I've struggled to get over this bout of chronic fatigue syndrome.  As I look back in my art journal here and here and here I can see I've been like a yoyo! or a seesaw! one minute thinking I'm over it, the next struggling again.

The biggest challenge is to stay positive and the only way I can do this is to look to the Lord Jesus.  He gives us strength to get through the bad days.  I have a list of scriptures which I read and pray at times like these (see some of them on this journal page ).   They are a big help.

Here is my latest journal page, apologies for the quality of the photos, the light was very poor:

The page has layers of acrylic paint covered over with black with simple stenciling and bottlecap stamping added.  The letters are stamped in acrylic paint.  The large letters are Junkitz foam stamps which I won years ago.  I love the texture acrylic stamping gives:

I had to stamp yoyo and seesaw of course, but those I stamped with Stazon, I couldn't get a clear enough print in acrylic with the small letters:

The apostle Paul wrote:
But we have this treasure [the light of God in our hearts] in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed.... struck down, but not destroyed....but we do not lose heart.  Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day.  For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. 2 Cor 4:7-9, 16-17

I pray that those of you who struggle with your health will know the peace and joy of our Lord in your hearts.  I pray that He heals you - the promise is sure, 

"I am the Lord, your Healer" Ex 15:26 

sometimes we just have to wait on Him a bit longer.

I'm linking up at:
Art Journal Every Day 
Craft Stamper White Stamping challenge 
Create with Joy Inspire Me Monday 

Guest Designer on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog

I'm so thrilled and excited today to be a guest designer on Balzer Designs, that's the amazing Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog.  Julie is an awesome artist, teacher and designer of fabulous stencils and she hosts Art Journal Every Day where we all get to share our art journal pages.  Julie has had a whole series of guest design posts by some truly wonderful artists showing the many and varied ways they use stencils.  Today it's my turn and my guest design post is all about home-made texture paste.  Pop on over to Julie's and see what I did.

Here is a sneak peek:

I showed the basic white home-made texture paste:

 
 Here's a close up of the tags:

Tinted texture paste: 

 
and another close up of the bookmark:

Texture on texture:

Heat embossing the texture paste:

 Adding more texture to the texture paste:

This was the special project I was working on which I mentioned a few weeks back.  There's so much you can do with texture paste.  I got carried away and had to stop myself doing more things or I would never have finished!  When you make your own it costs pennies and you can use it to your heart's content without worrying its going to cost you a fortune or run out.  If you do run out it's incredibly quick to make so even mid-project its simple to whip some more.

Here's an art journal page using some of the techniques:

To see how to make the texture paste and all the projects in full, hop on over to Julie's blog.

P.U.S.H.

I'm reading a great book on prayer at the moment.  Not another one, I hear you say!  I can't help it, I love to pray and I love to hear about or read people's stories about how they've prayed and how God has answered their prayers. 

One of the things about praying is the need for perseverance.  Of course, God can and does answer prayer in an instant, but often it takes a lot longer.  Its at times like these that we must not lose heart but continue to have faith and keep on praying.  We need to Pray Until Something Happens - something always does happen.  God always anwers, maybe not in the way we thought or hoped for but in the way that is best for us.

Here is an art journal page where I was just messing around with lots of layers and ended up with  .... a messy page!

I started off with acrylic paint blobbed and scraped all over, but I didn't like the result so covered it with white then added music paper and other bits of collage plus more white paint.  I still didn't like how it was going and had the dubious inspiration of sprinkling with blue and a little yellow Brusho then spraying with water to activate.  I used my fingers to sprinkle the Brusho and I wish I'd taken a photo of my hands - they were completely blue!!  Its taken ages to clean off - LOL.  Anyway then I started adding white texture paste through a doily stencil:

The page hadn't dried completely so the texture paste took on the colour of the brusho colour:

 

I added more layers of texture paste but each time where the brusho was the paste took on the colour even when the page felt completely dry.  I guess the paste is moist and draws up the colour:

 

We learn in our art journals.  I know now that if I want the texture paste to be white I mustn't use Brusho underneath!

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