21st Century Pillow Book

Greetings! Friends, today's post is a prime example of making lemonade out of lemons. Sometimes with art and with crafts, you have some oopsies that you've just got to figure out how you can "make it work." This was one of those projects. I think it turned out rather well in the end, though I am annoyed that I made such a silly mistake. Let me backtrack for a moment. The Stampendous Design Team is collaborating in the Summer Road Trip with Spellbinders and we've also got a collaboration with  May Arts this week. You'll find lots of great projects on the team's blogs using products from these awesome companies. Spellbinders is having a great giveway during this hop with three daily winners and one grand prize winner! Check out the details  here .  For my card, I started off with the lovely Seashell Jar stamp. I used my Faber-Castell Aquarelle watercolor pencils to color the image in, and once it was dry I covered the entire glass jar with their ...

Greetings! This week, the Stampendous! Design Team has gone wild! That's the theme this week..."Go Wild!" And since it's Dreamweaver Thursday, I have some stenciling goodness to share with you. I started off by stenciling the Open Elephant and Zebra Texture  with Glossy Black embossing paste on different pieces of cardstock. I let the Zebra just dry on it's own, but I played a bit with the elephant. While the paste was still wet, I used 3 colors of Metallic F/X to get the look you see above. I worked with Eye of the Tiger, Pewter, and Amber Glow. This technique is easy! Take a dry liner brush, dip it in your desired color of Metallic F/X powder, and tap the brush above the wet stenciled image. Repeat as often as you like with whichever colors you choose. After you have achieved the look you want, you can either leave it be until it dries, or kind of shake and tap the cardstock around a bit to mix the colors and and add extra coverage. After it dries, I b...

Hello! It's time for a new Wicked Wednesday challenge! This week, we are sponsored by SLS Lines and the challenge is "Seeing Red." I used Goth Girl Top Hat , and I absolutely LOVED coloring her! I used my Tombow watercolor markers, and her hair was a lot of fun to do. Her hair came out super fiery, which is just what I wanted. I mimicked her hair with the mattes I did for the base of the ATC, keeping it super simple so you just focused on her. I also used a glittery pen from Sakura to make her eye makeup stand out a bit. Please be sure to visit the rest of the Wicked Wednesday gals over at the blog. Thanks for stopping by. Have an inspiring day!

Hello! I am excited to have another project to share with you for the Stampendous! & Faber-Castell collaboration. What a fun week this has been!  This week, the  Stampendous  team gets to play with lots of wonderful  Faber-Castell  products. We are showcasing the Art Grip Aquarelles Watercolor Pencils. PITT pens and Pastel Pencils, and our very special guest Nathalie Kalbach will be sharing projects with Gelatos. We are really " Blogging  in Color" this week! I started by stamping the beautiful hydrangea from the Cling Hydrangea Garden set. I used Memento ink on watercolor paper. I colored the flowers with 140, 141, and 143 from the  Art Grip Aquarelles Watercolor Pencil collection. I tried to make the lower (or further back) flowers darker, and then lighter as they went towards the forefront. I also colored a single flower (that's a separate stamp in the set). I colored them in sections, going from left to right, adding the water after I c...

Greetings! This week, the Stampendous team gets to play with lots of wonderful Faber-Castell products. We are showcasing the Art Grip Aquarelles Watercolor Pencils. PITT pens and Pastel Pencils, and our very special guest Nathalie Kalbach will be sharing projects with Gelatos. We are really "Bloging in Color" this week! In addition, it's Dreamweaver Thursday, so you are going to see some wonderful stenciled projects today!  I started off with the  Chunky Art Tools stencil, watercolor paper, and the "S" tipped black PITT pen and I drew in all of the tools. Then, keeping my stencil taped in place, I started to play with the Art Grip Aquarelle Watercolor Pencils. Man, I love these pencils! The colors are beautiful, they color up great, and when you add the water....pure magic! Love them!  By leaving my stencil in place, it kept me from coloring outside the lines. Which, is not something I usually mind, but I wanted to keep this image nice ...

Hello out there! It's time for a new Wicked Wednesday ATC challenge. This week, the challenge is o "Use Some Text," and we are sponsored by Lemon Shortbread . I had fun with this one....mwahahahaha!!!!!!!!! I used Not My Dolly , and I cropped her so that I could really focus on the intensity of her eyes. And she practically begged me to be a blonde, which I hardly ever do. She and her dolly are colored up with my Tombow watercolor markers. I also used a Smeared Ink stamp from one of their Lil' Grumpies sets that says, "I'm watching you." Ad doesn't it just seem like she really is watching someone? I would not want to be them! I used some Iced Jade ink from Color Box (one of my absolute, all time favorite ink colors!)around the edges of both of my layers to coordinate with the dolly's uh....skin color. I really loved working with this image. I will totally be using her again. Please be sure to visit rest of the Wicked Wednesday gals. A...

Greetings! I have a two-fer for you today. 2 projects from very different groups. The first is for a Blog Hop I am participating in, and the second is for the latest Left of Center  challenge. Let's start with the hop, shall we? Pretty Pink Posh is hosting a fantastical hop today featuring brilliant projects that use watercolors. I LOVE watercolors. Always have. Typically, I use them from a palette, but today is different! I broke out my new sets of Faber-Castell Aquarelle pencils, and they are just fantastic! And shhhhh!!!!!! Here's a BIG secret! The Stampendous team is doing a major collaboration with Faber-Castell all next week! So this project, you could say, is my little preview. I started off by stamping the whimsical Ranunculus Field cling stamp with black Memento Ink. Then I broke out my Aquarelle pencils (I love the little grippy dots they have!) and started to color. I used 3 shades per flower, and 2 for the foliage. Background has 2 as well. I would colo...

Hello! Today I have an art journal project to share with you. It's been a long time since I have made one, and the theme with Stampendous! and Dreamweaver this week is perfect for it. Doodlie Doo! I started off with the beautiful Butterfly stencil. I love that this stencil is the shape that it is, without having extra metal around the image. Makes it much easier to play with colors around the image. I used a few of the lovely Radiant Neon inks from Imagine Crafts and some sponge daubers to apply colors around the butterfly. Next, I used Stampendous' Life is Art stamp, that I had inked with black Memnto ink. Then, I used Shimmery Silver Delicata  ink, pad direct to paper. I heat set the inks to keep them from smudging and so that they would be nice and dry for my next step. I put the stencil back on my page, and grabbed my Faber-Castell black PITT pen S. And I started to doodle. Now, I don't usually doodle. I kinda stink at it. I just struggle with it, so this...

Hey bloggy friends! It's time for a new Wicked Wednesday challenge! This week, we are sponsored by the Wax Fruit Company , and our theme is "Picnic Food or Drinks." I had a LOT of fun with this one! I used 2 images from the So Cool collection. I merged them together to fit how i wanted on my ATC. Then, I colored the "Sno" and the "Cool" using my Chameleon Pens . I used RD4 and BV4 for the "Sno." I used BL6 for the "cool." I used a Tombow watercolor marker to give some shading to the cone itself. After I cut out the image, I found some coordinating blue cardstock, and a really pretty, shimmery patriotic paper, and glued everything together. The finishing touch was a line of Faber-Castell Texture Gems, topped with Stampendous! Royal Blue Glass Glitter . I love how chunky and shiny it is! Please be sure to visit the rest of the Wicked Wednesday gals. Thanks for stopping by. Have an inspiring day!