I’m going to make the rest of my life the best of my life

And now a proper introduction for this blonde, bodacious Modern Girl

I’m going to make the rest of my life

the best of my life.

I broke the 'rules' and used white in her blonde hair. I really love the highlights effect. Which is a good reminder to me that just because 'experts' say that's not how it's done doesn't mean I shouldn't try it anyway. LOL

And the message on this one is something I remind myself often.

Available

Never apologize for who you are

 And now for a proper introduction of this pretty Modern Girl

I really love the background on this one.  

She's surrounded in an absolute riot of color - a lot of it was spray painted on top of layers of paint and pattered paper.

 It gives it a really modern, urban vibe.

*SOLD*

Flowers and Text Art Journal Page

Here's another art journal page I made lately.

 

The stems are drips of paint

And I tore up a book page, attached it somewhat randomly on the page and then blocked out most of the text with white paint except for the words that fit the theme.

 

I really like the effect and can see using it often.

Spray Paint in my Art Journal

The last few days I've been cutting my own stencils from file folders. It's so easy, I just cut the manila folder to fit through the printer, print some clip art, letters or numbers and cut it out with a craft knife. Did I mention how budget friendly this is? 

I was testing my new stencils with spray paint in my water color paper pad and ended up with this.

 

It's far too close to an interesting art journal page to let it just languish there, unembellished and unloved, so I decided to play a little. 

Here's the result:

Some of my favorite parts of this page is that I glued down rough circles of the paper towel I'd been cleaning my brushes off onto. It has such nice texture.

This is a new stamp called Lefty that I got from Texana Designs. Love it!

These circles make me happy. If you come over to my house, odds are good that you'll see a TP roll covered in paint near where I sit. I'm a big fan of imperfect circles. And neon.

And here's the page again in different light. You can really see all that magnificent orange paint.

TIP: I use the "Marking Paint" spray paint from Home Depot. It's really, really neon and it sprays great when inverted. You have to watch it though as it has a really strong spray. But at under five bucks I'm more than willing to work with that one small drawback.

This is my entry for the Simon Says Stamp and Show A PROJECT WITH HEART challenge.

She's a Mess of Gorgeous Chaos

 Buy it here

Now, to give these ladies a proper introduction...

She’s a mess of gorgeous chaos, and you can see it in her eyes.

This one is a little different, after making a wild and crazy background, I decided to knock down the color with diluted white paint and then decorate the edge areas of the piece with fuchsia dimensional paste. It puts a little more focus on the Modern Girl and the raised texture is really, really nice both to look at and to feel.

It's fun to mix things up every once in a while :-)

Today is the last day of my Small Business Saturday to Cyber Monday Sale.

Here is a coupon for 20% off your purchase 

 SMBUSINESSSAT

and my shop is currently stocked with new art and prints. 

Link to Etsy

New Art in the Shop and a Coupon

I just stocked my Etsy Shop with new art for Small Business Saturday.

Never Apologize For Who You Are

 She's a Mess of Gorgeous Chaos, And You Can See It In Her Eyes

She Loved Life and it Loved Her Right Back

I'm Going to Make the Rest of My Life the Best of My Life

Here is a coupon Code for 20% off your purchase through Monday

SMBUSINESSSAT

Poppy Thank You Cards

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of travel, time on planes, airports and hotels, long drives and longer days in the hospital. Bringing along some portable, versatile art supplies was essential for my mental health.

 

My supplies fit easily in a ziploc bag and are TSA friendly. 

I brought LOTS of gessoed index cards. Like 50 or so.  Caran D'ache Neocolor IIs (I have the 15 color set and I LOVE them), a water brush, water-reactive black pen and a water-proof permanent pen.

Making them into thank you cards was as simple as adding a mat, some washi and stamping a sentiment. I tried to make a mix of feminine and masculine, bright and subtle.

 Now I have a stack of made-from-the-heart notes to send to the doctors, nurses, specialist and palliative care at the hospital back in Canada.

 

Did you have a favorite?

This is my entry for the Simon Says Stamp thank you card challenge.

Thank you to everyone for the kind words on my last post. 

In Memory of my Father-In-Law

You will be missed Dad.

(click to see this full-sized)

Journal to Wall Art

My crafting mode is to find something that interests me and do it over and over again until I can do it without instructions and until I've exhausted all the interesting ideas I have on the theme. You can see that in my Origin of a Christmas Card post (total of 4 tries) and the subsequent Evolving Card Design Part One and Part Two.

So after my poppies art journal page, it was pretty much a given that I'd be practicing poppies all week.

This is a mixed media wall hanging version of the AJ page, still drawing in pen on gessoed index cards and coloring with Golden liquid acrylics. It's created on MDF and measures 6x12 - my absolute favorite size to work with.

I stylized the poppies just a teeny bit more. 

On my table right now is a HUGE stack of poppy covered index cards. I've been messing around with different colors and more exciting, different mediums. Right now the Caran d'Ache Neocolor II's
 are the most fun but not exactly permanent*... hmmm. I'm also loving all my Faber-Castell supplies. They sure know mixed-media.

Available on Etsy

* I just found out that if you blend them with acrylic glaze instead of water they're permanent. Can't wait to try it.