Day 3-Alphabet Stamps

Day 3 of the online class was alphabet stamps. My first try was pretty bad.

Really. I hate it.

I needed to make DH a Birthday Card (Happy Birthday today!!) so I thought I would try again, and incorporate some other things I picked up through the classes.(Notice the label stamp!) I like this one much better!

I even went to Michaels and bought some new sentiment stamp sets (really, I have hardly any!! Luckily they were on sale) On the inside I have "Life is sweeter when spent with YOU. The YOU didn't belong to the sentiment, it was supposed to be "friends", but I took YOU from another sentiment, embossed it and cut it out and stuck it, popped, where "friends" was supposed to be. I really am stretching my stamps!

Let's see what I can do with Day 4 (In real time we are at Day 10 - I better catch up!)

Stretch Your Stamps day 2

 Today's challenge  was Collage Stamps. I have a lot of those, but not the one they used, so again I had to improvise. They were also making windows, something I really have not done. I have a Spellbinders Wizard, but I can't get it to work for me, it's always been frustrating for me, so I rarely use it. Luckily my friend Therese had the Big Shot, but then all our Nestibilities were too small. Aaaarghhh! So we had to do the cutting and embossing by hand.  No wonder I don't make windows! But in the end, I like both of my cards, and will probably be tempted to buy the bigger dies! (And a Big Shot!)

First card:

notice the butterflies are pink - they were supposed to be clear, but I used the wrong embossing ink. Tells you how long it's been since I've been embossing! I actually had to go out and buy white embossing powder. Shameful!

Second card:

I really like this one, favorite so far! It has an acetate "window".

Third Card:

Kind of a combo of Day 1 and 2- I used one of the backgrounds that didn't turn out like I wanted it to, and now I love it!

Just goes to show. . . !!

Stretch Your Stamps!

        

Day One:    I am taking an online card class called

 just to get back into the swing of things. I wasn't sure how challenging it would be, but I found out! After not working with cards on a regular basis, and letting a lot of my techniques go stale, these classes are excellent, and challenging!! Luckily my friend Therese was with me to keep me from ripping my hair out! Thanks T!

So, Day One was using a background stamp. I really don't have many of those, and nothing close to what was in the demo. So I used this: 

 by Toybox

 After 3 tries, none of which I was really happy with, I chose one and just went for it. I like how it turned out (eventually!)!

Now for Day 2!

Happy Day!

Today is a Happy Day because my friend Therese is coming for a few days to PLAY!! First we will go out to lunch with our friend Marg, then off to Marg's to play for the afternoon. Not sure what we are doing yet, but I know it will be FUN!!

He we are at June's journal pages:

And some cards:

end of school year card for our wonderful cook Lana:

 end of school year card for my awesome assistant Leslie:

 Birthday card for a friend

 Birthday card for another friend!

 end of year card for our wonderful French teacher Diane!

That's it for now! Hopefully will have some play day pics for you soon!

Lazy Summer Day...

I love lazy summer days, not too hot, just right, just like today! Sitting in my hammock on my porch reading Game of Thrones Book 4 - heavenly!!

And now for my MAY journal pages:

I bought a few new stamps and some Dylusion sprays!

Hope you are having a wonderful lazy summer day!

Hot!!

Beautiful (though hot!) day today! My house looks great because I got back to doing Fly Lady, and now I don't feel guilty about going into my art room! I went in there today to make my next journal page background, and to tidy up a wee bit. I found a stamp I had lost (an um) and then when I went to put it with it's family, the rest of the stamps were missing! Trying to keep my space tidy so I don't have to tidy everything before I can do anything!

Here are some more journal pages, I think we're in April...

 

The only Easter-like stamp is this one from Tim Holtz!

 Outside...

inside...

My DD's boyfriend's 28th  Birthday Card was the only other art I did in April! I used Character Construction stamps (that he gave me for Christmas!)

I'll do May next - hope everyone is enjoying the heat, or, if not, are somewhere nice and cool!

So Sorry.....

I feel like I've been in Limbo since February. I've finally rejoined the land of the living though! I really didn't do anything artsy since Feb except for my journal and a few cards. So rather than fill this space with months of journal pages, I will try to post a few everyday, and maybe I can get back into the swing of things! The reason for all this is because I've had a terrible cough since January 1st, and it has been keeping me awake at night, combined with teaching all day, I was a zombie! Lately the cough has been getting better, and I've been sleeping better since I found a cough syrup with Codine. I have actually had 3 nights in a row (not last night though) with no coughing! So I apologize to my followers, and hope I can make up for my lack of posting!

I'm still working in a Moleskine journal-I really like the size. It also has a pocket in the back for storing things I don't want to add to a journal page. I'm also working on a few other journals as well, larger. I had made a bunch of tags early in the year, just playing, so I've been adding a few to my journal pages.

If you've been checking up on me -THANK YOU!!!

February, but feels like Spring!!

Sorry I take so long between posts. I always feel I should have a bunch of stuff to post, but really I could post with fewer things! just have to DO it!! The weather today is amazing - warm, sunny, and smells like Spring. I hope it stays this way! Saturday we had the most beautiful snowfall, lovely large flakes gently falling and sticking to the trees in clumps - so pretty! I was already thinking about how I was going to put that in my journal!

I'm going to go backwards with my journal pages, this first one is really the last page in my moleskine book, luckily I have another one in the wings waiting to go! I think this page is my favorite one though. It started out horribly! I tried to stencil a bird and a birdcage on it, then realized it was upside down! Darn! So I sprayed it with black glimmer mist, and used a lot to cover it all up. Let it dry, and realized it had seeped onto some of my other pages (to come).

Then I thought I'd stencil it with white gesso using a credit card, but it was horrible. Thus the smeared white. I found an Altered Pages image I liked, plopped that on, and the rest just came. I love the trees, because that is just what they looked like during the snowfall on Saturday!

OK, less chatter and more journal pages! I've smudged anything private, so don't hesitate to enlarge!

Stamps from Altered Pages

Funnily enough, I didn't like the green around my men, and the seepage from the black spray fixed it for me! I like it now!

 

new stamps from Michael's (Hampton Arts)

my oldest cat died. Very sad, but it was her time.

new $1.50 stamps from Michael's

Thanks for looking! I hope everyone is having a wonderful Springlike day like I am! BTW, take a trip to Altered Pages - they have lots of new stuff!