21st Century Pillow Book

Hello! This is going to be one of my shortest posts ever...sorry about that! But I have run out of time today! I'm lucky I even got my Day 4 page finished for Smeared & Smudged's Kickstart Your Art. The prompt today was "Growth." I watercolored the page, and added a couple of crows from Smeared Ink's Holy City, and a sentiment from Bombshell's Growing Hearts set. "Even in death, you can grow a garden." I don't know where that came from....but I just thought of it as I was painting. I hope you like my offering. I promise I will start hopping to you other art journalists!!! Thanks for stopping by. Have an inspiring day!

It’s Friday! This has been quite a busy week. Fun…but busy. And because of all the busy, my project is not quite finished. I need to embellish it a bit more. I’m hoping I can do it today…But we’ll see. For now, it looks pretty cool. Just not complete. I used a plain wooden box and painted it green, then crackle painted it, and Distress Inked it. And the top has, as you can see, an image from Smeared Ink’s Holy City. The box was purchased for this very image. I colored the image with my colored pencils and Mod Podged it to the top. I just love this image. I plan on adding some things to the top. I’m not exactly sure what yet…I need to look through my stash to see what I can find. But I definitely need some more texture. Some lumpy, bumpy goodness. Here’s a close up of the crackling. I purposely did not apply an even layer of it. I really wanted the green to show through. I’ll be sure to post photos when the box is done. But what do you think of it so far??? Have an inspiring day!

I am so excited to share my post with you today! As most of you know, Friday is my day to share a Smeared Ink Creation with all of you. I broke out 2 of my favorite sets this week for one card. But in addition to that, I am proud to share with you a new release from Sweet November! I am honored to share Capricorn with you…two very different versions, actually! So, let’s get started! I was thrilled when I heard from I stayed true to the earthy colors of Capricorn. Our colors range from black to grey to brown to green and blue. So I used a little of everything here! I also took notes from Amy’s cards from the week (I hope you have seen them…they are ALL stunning!). She has this lovely way of scattering her rhinestones on her cards…I mimicked that look because I fell in love with it. Isn’t she pretty? I colored her in with my beloved colored pencils. Aren’t her horns fab? I have horns similar to these (though they are a bone color) that I wear to the Ren Faire every year (yes…and times ...

Haunted Design House …how I love thee…let me count the ways… Maybe not. That would take waaaay too long! I haven’t been able to play along with the first few challenges of 2011, but I’ve got one today, and I am really happy with it! This week, you need to create something “using angelic products or images and creeping them out as only HDHers can!” My project uses a smattering of different Smeared Ink images. May I say, that is one of the reasons I love Smeared Ink…their images all work so well together! Enjoy… I started off with the Praise Angel, by coloring him in with Twinkle H20’s. Cut him out…then went to town on my background. I was immediately inspired by the Confined Space stamp from Urban Decay…and thought it would work really well with the church from Holy City. Added some crows (holy City…made ‘em grey so that they sorta looked like doves flying up towards the heavens), other textures from Urban Decay…ink…chalk…done! The entire background is stamped directly on the card its...

It’s time to say goodbye and hello over at Smeared & Smudged . It’s the end of the term for the DT, and while some of our team will be returning, others will not. But, we will be welcoming in some new faces too! So, it’s a bittersweet ending. Terra, Kelli and I wanted to have a “last hurrah” hop for the DT, but of course we needed to make it into a challenge! So, I decided that since we all now have so many awesome Smeared Ink sets, lets all make projects that use 3 or more sets of Smeared Ink stamps ! I’m hearing through the grapevine that some of the ladies are none too thrilled with my little challenge. I, however, loved it and thought it was a lot of fun! I made a card using FOUR different Smeared Ink sets. Holy City (the cemetery), Chicks Dig Guns (the heart), Nymphs (the frame), and Lil Grumpies (the sentiment). I think they all worked so well together! I pop dotted the frame and the heart, which gave the card fabulous dimension, and really directs your eye to the 2 tombst...

Did you know that Smeared Ink has weekly challenges on their site? And that YOU get to pick the winner? It’s true! Every month, Smeared Ink has a different challenge in which you use their stamps. Each week a winner is chosen (again, by you!) and at the end of the month there is a final showdown! The winner of the showdown gets a 25% off coupon to use on Smeared Ink images! I had to play along this week. It’s called Holy Ground, and it’s recommended that you use the Holy City stamp set, which I love! Here’s my card. A little creepy, no? Just how I like it! I used colored pencils to color in the image. Isn’t it a beautiful shot? It’s fro a cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina. I tore up the edge with my edge distresser from Heidi Swapp. And of course, I needed to ink it up a bit! So I used some brown and green, to go with the way I colored the image. I thought the sentiment “happily ever after” was sweet and freakin’ creepy at the same time. A couple of globs of Distress Stickles ...

Hello again! I bring you today a card featuring the Holy City stamps from Smeared Ink . I have said it before, but I’ll say it again… I love this set! It is so unique and beautiful! But let’s just get to the card! I used 2 images here, the crow (repeated several times) and the stunning cathedral. I stamped the cathedral first on a grey patterned paper. Tore around it and inked it in blue. I had this pre-distressed blue cardstock from Basic Grey, which I thought worked perfectly with the look I was going for. Tore the bottom of that. I added both elements to a textured grey cardstock from Prism, and I inked that with black (I love the texture on it!). Last, I stamped all of the crows on, turning them slightly so that they didn’t look exactly the same. I didn’t want a whole lot of fluff, so I kept it very simple. I think that all of the textures and faint patterns added enough to the card without making it fussy. It’s just tranquil and lovely. And, just a little eerie! Thanks for visit...