Timely Advice

Hi friends.  Living by the woods, as we do, brings a variety of interesting critters to our door step and it seems like my little dog, Princess, encounters most of them.  I guess it's the Terrior side of her.  Her latest encounter was with a large Blue Land Crab.  These crazy crabs climb the stairs up on to our back porch and that's where Princess found one today.  She wanted to play chase with the crab and the crab wanted to give Princess a good pinch.  Thankfully, hubby saw this happening and intervened before Princess got pinched.  These crabs are actually rather shy, unless they get cornered.  They're about 6 inches across and live in burrows that they dig about 5 feet deep.  They go to the ocean, which is 5 miles away, to deposit their eggs.  They're pretty amazing critters.  Okay, lesson is over. lol  I love nature and find things like that fascinating.

Today I have an art journal page to share with you.  I started art journaling in the beginning of 2014 and absolutely love it.   For this page I started with an old book page, which I smeared some paint on, stenciled a bit and then stamped the number background with three different number stamp sets.  I adhered some of the awesome watch faces that I've been hoarding, a time theme postage stamp, and an hour glass and sun dial that I stamped and fussy cut.  I put some dimensional crackle gloss on the hour glass to make it look more real and antique-like.  I adhered some watch and clock hands and some tiny watch gears.  I used some bronze Twinkling H2O's around the embellishments.  I typed and printed a quote I like.  I finished the edges of the page with some sepia ink.  Sorry, I don't know who makes any of the stamps.  They're all unmounted stamps from my stash.

You can see the details a bit better in this close up shot.  It's so fun to just do this for the shear joy of creating.

Linking:
Art Journal Every Day
Artistic Inspirations - #113 Make Your Own Background
Creative Every Day
Fantasy Stampers - #21 Time Flies - Stamps used: 3 different numbers sets, hour glass & sun dial.
Not Just Cards - #4 Anything Goes
Make My Monday - Numbers
Scrapbook Blessings Club - #31 Anything Goes
Scribble and Scrap - #29 Anything Goes
Sunday Sentiments
Treasured Times Stamps - #26 Anything Goes
The Order of Opus Gluei - #193 Time


Blessings:

• The constant, heavy rain has finally stopped.  
• I found an excellent sale on some clothes I needed & I had a gift card.
• Online shopping.  
• Hubby found some paper craft magazines for me at a garage sale.
• A husband who steps in and runs errands seeing I can't.

Have a terrific day!!!

Inky hugs!

Shelly

Creative Blog Hop

Hello friends.  My very creative and uplifting friend, Susan, over at Faith Words Faith Expressions invited me to join this blog hop.  Be sure to hop over and see what Susan has going on at her blog.

This is a flip card I made for a birthday using the fun spinner from the Spinner2stamp set by The Stamps of life.    If you haven't tried their stamps yet, I highly recommend them.  They're super quality clear stamps.  None of that sub par stamping that you get with low quality clear stamps.  (I don't work for them, just love their stamps.)

This is a zendoodle I did.  I mostly use my doodles on cards or in my journals.  Some I color and some I just leave black and white.

This is a journal spread I did about being a wife and mother.  The journals I share with others mostly contain Bible verses and quotes and art experiments.  My journals where I write my prayers and  private feelings are kept just between me and the Lord.

4. How does your creative process work?  I work on things in bits and pieces.  I never finish a  project all at one sitting.  Partially because I am in too much pain to sit and work on something that long and partially because I like to work on things in stages and come back the next day with a fresh perspective.

This is a background that I have started.  It's not at all what I was aiming for, but I ended up liking how it turned out.  That's the fun of experimenting.  You'll see this background again, either for a journal page or card.

Blessings:

• A phone visit with my sister.
• A friend is home from a long hospital stay and doing well.
• A gorgeous Monarch butterfly in my yard.
• Sweet newborn calves.

Have a fabulous day!!!

Inky hugs!

Shelly

Bling It Up!

Happy Monday, friends!  I hope this is the beginning of a great week for you.  We've had some slightly cooler weather here in Florida the last few days, which has made it feel more like Fall.  We're really enjoying that.  Did any of you get creative on World Card Making day?  I didn't actually get a card finished, but had lots of fun playing with paint and glitter to make backgrounds.

This card was difficult to capture in a picture due to the mirrored silver card stock background.  The poinsettia was made with the Spellbinders Layered Poinsettia die set.  I highlighted the gold petals with silver ink.  The leaves are cut from silver card stock.  The flourishes are made with the Sizzix Flower & Accent Set.  Again, I highlighted the gold card stock with silver ink.  The corners are made with a Stampin' Up punch.  The letters for the greeting were stamped on silver card stock, embossed in gold and punched out.  I used a typewriter key alphabet set by Rebecca Sower.  The finishing touch was lots of bling.

Challenges:
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge -#197 Something Beginning with P - Poinsettia
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - Anything Christmas Goes - Oct. 2014
Gltter n Sparkle Challenge - #105 Anything with a B - Bling
QKR Stampede Challenge - #107 Anything Goes
Sentimental Sundays Challenge - #227 Bling It Up
We Do Doobabdoo Challenge - #16 Christmas
Weekly Christmas Card Challenges - #45 Layer It Up
Word Art Wednesday - #152 Anything Goes

Blessings:

• Friendship :)
• A family picnic - even the dogs came along.
• A devotional book that I'm learning so much from.
• You Tube Craft Tutorial Videos

Have a terrific day!!!

Inky hugs!

Shelly