April Fools!

Today is the 1st of April. If you went by our weather a few days thought it was June or July then it was back to maybe March or April. Whatever the weather today is the day to play jokes on friends and family. I am not going to play a joke on you but I am sure it will get a giggle or two out of my followers.
I am going to share my latest venture. I am currently taking a class by Junelle Jacobson called The Art of Wild Abandonment. So far I have drawn, not so successfully, some radishes that looked anything but and the owls I am going to share with you in a moment. I want to put a disclaimer here that I don't by any means usually draw. As a matter of fact I am usually the one with the stick figures even the dogs and cats. I use pictures or any other clip art I can find including mediums from my scrapbooking that does the 'drawing' for me. So this is really outside my comfort zone but did I have a blast doing it. So without further ado here are my funky owls.

And here are some close ups:

In the closeups you can see the added wings on some of them, three to be exact, that I really am not sure I care for too much but it was part of the lesson. It did add dimension so I might just fix one of them as it looks a little odd.

Our next lesson is a clothes line I think and once I am done with it I will post for you all to see.

Thanks for looking!

Choosing paint colors

This is really hard and I really wish my sister lived closer to assist me in the choosing of colors for the house. Currently the house is yellow and I really want to bring it back to some more earthy tones. As my living room faces north however I need to not make it too dark.
Here are my choices:My son likes the color in the middle of the upper right more than I do. I think these are too orange for my taste.
I like the middle shade here on both of these two chips.
But I am not sure about the accent wall being one of the darker shades.

What do you think?

Mid March?

Wow it sure does not feel like March at all. We have had three consecutive days in the 80's. Where is the snow we usually have and the 40 degree weather? At work it has been unbearably hot as they don't turn the air on until mid April. With the sun beating in on those glass windows it is like an oven in there.
Anyway I wanted to come and share some of my latest creations.

The tag is from Tim Holtz's blog as he is going to share tags with us all year long instead of just at Christmas. So much fun using this mosaic technique. The only thing that I didn't care for was that the embossing powder I had was metallic. I have since ordered the matte finish cement color so I can duplicate this technique for a swap I am participating in over at Scrappin Mojo.


This next one was done using my eclips machine. I really like the versatility and am so glad I made this purchase. I also stamped the background using some clear embossing ink. I love how that turned out as it didn't overpower the rest of the layout and allows the focus to still be on the photos. My silly Belle thinks the sink is her water bowl.


Closeup of the bird and the stamping in the corner.


Another closeup of the other corner showing the stamping and the flower cluster.


I found this old picture of Bill while cleaning. He was a freshman in HS and obviously played football. I had purchased this paper and the school banner from the craft store up in town. All i added was some ink and the chipboard corner that I colored using my copic airbrush system.


Thanks for looking hope you are having a creative weekend.

More creations

Where did the month go? And such a strange month weather wise here in the Chicagoland area. We really have not gotten any measurable snow and what we have gotten has melted with the almost 50 degree temps not long after.

However, today it is snowing. So pretty to look out the window to see the snow softly falling. And when it is like this out it seems so quiet and peaceful. Ok until the neighbors get out their snowmobiles and go out on the lake. I don't think they will be doing that today though as it has been too warm and the lake is not completely frozen anymore.

Here are my Great Nephews from Christmas this last year. From oldest to youngest so we will start with Cooper.

I was a little more detailed on this layout and worked on it for over 3 days. I kept going back to do something else but the end result was well worth it. I used so much different media on this layout from my copic markers to Shimmerz pearlz and vibez on the doily behind his picture. The tag with the little snowman is just a regular tag that someone had on one of my Christmas bags a few years ago. They didn't write on it and I thought it was too cute to throw away. I also used leftovers from my Christmas cards, the reindeer and snowflakes. The sticker letters are from my stash along with the brads, rubon stitches and little gift sticker on my journaling.



Here is Finn my next oldest Great Nephew. I played with him on the floor for most of the day as he is so much fun. Isn't he the cutest with all that red hair. The photo turned out a bit blurry not sure why.
The little reindeer stamp in the corner I made quite some time ago. I used Flower Soft on the antlers and snow underneath the deer. And yes I used my slice to cut out his name. Must use what we have right? :)

And last but certainly not least is my newest Great Nephew Brady. He was born this last November. He was a sleepy guy but I got to hold him for a little bit despite all the wires and monitors.The little blue buttons under his picture spell out his name. Those are really old and have been in my stash forever.

Thanks for all of your comments they mean so much to me.

Off to create more!

As promised I am back to share my layout that I did for my 2012 word that I chose. This years word is going to be 'Time'. For me this means simply more time for me. Be it reading, scrapbooking, working out, playing games whatever I chose to do I am going to make sure I do it.

Here are some close ups. The doily in the corner was punched from plastic then I used some Picket Fence distress stain on the back. I added distress ink to the clock face, butterfly wings, flowers and the letters for time then dabbed some multi matte medium as the color wouldn't dry on the metal.

This next project was made for one of my girlfriends. It is the felt bag that I found on Pinterest with a few changes. I made the handles thicker and added cotton fabric on the reverse side to give the handles more substance. She loves blue. The flowers on the front of the bag were done with an air gun for my Copic markers and a mask by Heidi Swapp.Inside the bag she found this



I love these configuration boxes by Tim Holtz. So versatile and easy to do. I made sure to include not only a picture of the 2 of us in Chicago under the Bean in Millennium Park but also a cute little bird cage (again Tim Holtz) some bottles filled with blue beads and finally her favorite thing items depicting Paris.

She was very surprised and just loved her gift.

Last day of the long weekend

Tomorrow it is back to work. Hoping the week is productive yet flies. I have so many customers that I need to get to closing it isn't even funny so if the work flows properly I should be able to get the majority of them done. Wish me luck!
Today I ran some errands with hubby and then came home to eat lunch. While eating I was reading my library book on my Nook, Undone by Karin Slaughter, great book and I just can't put it down. But down it must go as I want to finish working on the configurations box I am making for one of my girlfriends. She has no idea and I would like to have it done by next weekend to give her as a little surprise. I also made her one of the those felt bags from Pinterest in this really pretty blue color. I decorated the front with my Copic markers and a mask from Heidi Swapp. I reenforced the handle with some added material and really like how it turned out. I will take some pictures before I give her the loot and post it.
Make it a great day!

Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas

I just loved the 12 tags that Tim just did on his blog in December. I was having a really hard time coming up with a design for my Christmas cards this year. I saw him do this really cool technique then another and yet another. When I incorporated them all together I came up with my Christmas card for 2011.
Thanks for the inspiration Tim!
Here is my card the picture is a little bit light as I am learning how to use my DSLR in manual. What a challenge!