CCC Week 29...

So here we are with another week of the challenge, for this week's
details please go and visit Linda's blog.
I think I have tried this technique before but it never quite looks
like the examples shown when I do it! I used the texture fade that
kind of looks like a cracked piece of glass, hard to tell I know.
I had the idea of using a heart and doing something about a broken
heart going with the cracked background. I could not find any
stamps or sayings that went with that so just decided to forget about that.

Still not sure what I will do with all my cards yet. I have had a lot
of good suggestions just not sure what will work. Hope everyone
has a creative week this week. I have a lot of projects to catch up
on so hopefully will get a good start on those.

Re-vamped laundry room...

As promised here are pictures of our now finished laundry room
re-model. I know it doesn't sound very exciting and probably
doesn't look it either but we are very happy with the changes.
These are the new base cupboards we put in. We just had regular
cupboards here before.
We added in the tall cupboard at the end you can just about see in
the photo. We re-used the counter top that we had, my husband
took it out moved everything along to get the new tall cupboard
in then we put in the drawer cupboards and amazingly the counter
top we had fit perfectly. We had to get all the handles of course
and they work so well to pull open the long drawers.

Here is a peek inside the middle 2 drawers. I have all my paints,
mists, spray paints and brushes in one and in the other drawer
the supplies are grouped into different boxes, I have to label them yet.

This is a close up of my paint and mist drawer. I LOVE this!!! no
more kneeling on the floor and pulling out 2 or 3 containers to
get to the one I want, this just makes me so happy - obviously
I am easily amused!

This is one of the smaller top drawers that is above my paint
drawer. I had no idea that I had that many containers of Gesso
and gel mediums, hanging my head in shame :) I am blaming
it on the fact I had lots of different bins and boxes and did not
know what I had :) I do also have a lot of UTEE powders in
there but I have to tell you that those jars are only half full.
A few months ago my friend Lisa and I got into using the Melting
Pot and she got all the colours of UTEE powder and we split them
between us, see I am not that bad!

Now I have no excuse when it comes to creating as everything is
now in order and very easy to access. This has definitely got my
year off to a great start :)

CCC Week 28...

Here we are at week 28 of this challenge, cannot believe we have
all been on this journey that long. For all the details of this week's
challenge please go and see the lovely Linda. There have been
quite a few of the challenges where I do not have the main
ingredient or tool and have had to improvise, and this week was
one of those weeks. I did not have the required tool to do the
technique and so I improvised with a paint brush. It was a bit
fiddly to do and I think I may have ruined the brush!

I also used one of the Tim Holtz Sizzix texture fades to make the
background and boy do they emboss!! I need to use these more
often. The stamps I used were from a set by Wendy Vecchi which
has a lot of eyes and I really love the stamps. Again something
else I need to use more often.

I feel like I am behind this week as we spent part of the long
weekend trying to finish off the improvements in our laundry
room. My husband put down laminate flooring in there, will
do a little post about it soon.
I am looking forward to how easy it is going to be for me when I
want to get my paints and spray inks out and get all messy in there.
No more pulling out 5 boxes from the cupboard to get to the one
that I want, sounds like heaven :)

CCC Week 27...

Well here we are at Week 27 of the challenge, for details of this
week's challenge please go over to Studio L3. This week I had
some issues with the technique not showing up too well, this
is my 2nd attempt at it! Luckily I just flipped over my card and
used the other side, I really hate wasting things :)

I am not sure if it was because of the issues but I did not really
feel the mojo with this week's challenge. I also have started a
couple of online classes and one of them is definitely going to
be intense so maybe that is why.

My family have gone off to a Klondike Derby in the cold regions of
Arizona, and yes we do have some cold areas here, lol! I am
looking forward to having tomorrow to be able to play catch up
with some of my projects and hopefully will get more creative.
What are you up to this holiday weekend?

Inspiration places...

First I want to say thank you to all the people who have either left
me comments or e-mailed me about my last art journal pages that
I posted. I truly appreciate all the wonderful comments. The thing
about art journaling is that it is all about playing with your art
supplies, trying out things for the first time, experimenting with
new ideas and just having fun. It is all kept in a journal and if you
want, only you can look at it. I have been interested in art
journaling for over a year now but have not done as much as I
would like, I am hoping to change that this year.

I would like to tell you a few of my inspiration places for art
journaling. First, the inspiration for the page I just did tonight
which is pictured above. I found Milliande last year, I am not sure
how I found her site but she had lots of videos out on You Tube.
She was doing something she called Art Journal January, she
wanted to see how long she could last doing an art journal page
a day for the month. She has been persuaded to do it again
this year and my page is based on her prompt for Day 9.


Other places of inspiration are Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, who started
the year with something called Art Journal Every Day which I
signed up for. I am not really making it every day but that is OK.
I also like the styles of Dina Wakley and Teesha Moore although
I cannot make pages like them.


If you are interested in trying art journaling go and check these
out, and if you find anyone that you like please let me know so
I can go and check them out too :)

What's your word???

I think that a lot of people will know what I am talking about

with this question, but for those that do not then please visit
Ali Edwards blog to find out all about it. It is something
she has done for about 4 or 5 years now and I tried to do it
last year but it only lasted about a week, oops!

Anyway I really wanted to do it and I signed up to take her class

at Big Picture Classes. Turns out my friend also signed up and she 

is actually doing this with her husband so they chose a word together.

I thought that I knew what I wanted my word to be, but the more I

thought about it, the more I knew it was not really the word to
concentrate on. I went over to my friend Lisa's house to have a
brainstorming session and to do some art journaling. Well I did
start the page above at her house but did not finish it until today. 

Yesterday I finally found my word for 2011, today I decided to do 

another art journal page that was for my word. Here it is :

There are going to be some changes happening for me this year,
the major one is my oldest son will be leaving for college :( 
Also my youngest will be able to go and get his Learner's Permit,
ooh scary. So without getting all sad and depressed I thought that
this word would help me by BEing open to change, BE positive,
BE ready to try new things, BE there to listen, and amongst many
more things BE ready to let go...

So have you picked your One Little Word for this year?

CCC Week 26...

A new year and a new Compendium Challenge, go over to
Linda's blog to find out what it is all about.


This week's technique is another new one for me. I did not
have the correct colour of distress embossing powder so
had to use a different one, but I think it turned out just fine.
I actually managed to do this one without any mishaps,
maybe it is just what I needed to get back into the creative
groove, so to speak.

I have not had much creative time the last week or so as we
have been doing a re-model of our laundry room. The good
thing is that I am now hopefully going to get to my paints
and craft supplies without having to take every box out of
the cupboard to get to the one I want. I am seeing a blog post
about this in the future...