October 2015 Verve Retrospective Blog Hop

Welcome to Verve's October Release Retrospective!  It's been a wonderful week of release celebration and the Divas and Guest Divas are back with one last look at the brand new release! Everything spotlighted is available to order in the Verve Store and is currently 20% off! Plus, we've got a sweet hop prize in store, so read on for more!

For my card today, I wanted to share how the Just Breath stamp set can be used in ways other than Breast Cancer Awareness...

I had a ton of fun on this card! I created the background with a variety of Distress Stains and Inks. I started out by spraying a butterfly stencil by Heidi Swapp in Mermaid Lagoon Distress Spray, then I layed it down on a piece of Canson watercolor paper. When I lifted the stencil up, I had this amazing watery butterfly background. I dried it with my heat tool and then made some puddles of Rusty Hinge ink and then dabbled the watercolor paper in it to create the splats and sprays you see. 

I heat embossed the sentiment on black cardstock in white and then cut the sentiement apart so I could layer it like this. The hearts and corners are also from the Just Breath stamp set, I just cut those out by hand. To finish off the card, I added some floss and some Harvest Gold Sequins! I also added some splatters of Heidi Swapp Gold spray ink, it looks so gorgeous IRL!

Want to win some shiny new Verve? Julee will be picking a random commenter on one of the hop spots below to win a $50 gift voucher to Verve! So be sure to leave a little comment on all the blogs below to increase your chances! Check out the Verve Blog today for a little more about the new products and all the prize info and deadlines!

1. Julee 8. Amber 2. Teresa 9. Andrea 3. Charmaine 10. Laurie 4. Marisa 11. Christyne 5. Amy {Guest} 12. Rosemary {Guest} 6. KellyJean {Guest) 13. Lori {Guest) 7. Maureen

October 2015 Diva Inspirations Challenge and Blog Hop

It's time for the Verve Divas to bring you our monthly Diva Inspirations Challenge and Blog Hop! There are two ways to win Verve prizes: comment on the design team's blog hop posts (linked below) to see their take on the inspiration, then go get inky and link up your take on the challenge to be eligible in our prize drawings! You have the until November 5 to link up, so feel free to play as often as you like.

Our October challenge is Black, White and Glam

October always has a bit of glamour and intrigue to it. A stroll through the craft store this time of year brings visions of glitzy pumpkins, gilded candelabras and rhinestones galore. So this month we’re challenging you to to get glamorous with black, white and metallics. Use the inspiration graphic or go off on your own tangent, just share a little bit of glam with us!

Click here to link up your challenge entries
Challenge deadline: Thursday, November 5.
Prize: $30 gift voucher to the Verve online store!

I created a fun mixed media tag for this inspiration challenge using the fabulous Masquerade stamp set and matching dies!

I started with a tag from Ranger and then applied a layer of black gesso. After letting that dry, I added white modeling past through a stencil and let that dry, then rubbed a layer of gold Texture Effects. After adding my layers, that part of the tag kind of got hidden which makes me sad, haha!

I cut the mask and handle out with the Mask dies, and then embossed the mask with Liquid Platinum embossing powder. I stamped the sentiment on a gold tag in black Stazon and to finish up added some cheese cloth under the sentiment tag piece, added some Golden Glam sequins, and a twine bow!

Need a little inspiration? Check out the blogs linked below to see what the other Divas did with the challenge! It's sure to be a treat, and speaking of treats, we've got a prize for one lucky commenter along the hop! Check out the Verve Blog today for all the prize info and deadlines!

	1. Julee	7. Maureen
	2. Amy	8. Stacey
	3. Betty	9. Charmaine
	4. Sankari	10. Amber
	5. Sarah	11. Marisa
	6. Susan

September Diva Inspirations Hop

It's time for the Verve Divas to bring you our monthly Diva Inspirations Challenge and Blog Hop! There are two ways to win Verve prizes: comment on the design team's blog hop posts (linked below) to see their take on the inspiration, then go get inky and link up your take on the challenge to be eligible in our prize drawings! You have the until October 5 to link up, so feel free to play as often as you like.

Our September challenge is Autumn Lovelies
September brings to mind crisp apples, bouquets of sharpened pencils, baked pumpkin delights, rainbows of fallen leaves and don't forget Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Salted Caramel Mochas! This month we're challenging you to to show us your autumn inspired creations. Use the inspiration graphic or go off on your own tangent, just share a little autumn loveliness with us!

For my challenge card, I took inspiration from the colors and pattern of the blanket. I loved those chevrons and decided I wanted copy that pattern

To create the background, I cut a piece of watercolor paper down to 3.25 x 4.5. I grabbed one of my stencils and some versmark and rubbed the versamark ink pad through the stencil. When I removed the stencil, I poured on some white embossing powder and heated it and came up with this amazing embossed chevron background! I pulled out my Gansai Tambi watercolors and added a variation of oranges, yellows, and reds. I dried between layers and then added more paint, trying to make it as "painterly" as I could, I sure love how it came out!

The stamps are from Sparkly Dreams, using the matching Butterfly Dreams Die Set and Flourished Tag Die Set.

Click here to link up your challenge entries
Challenge deadline: Monday, October 5.
Prize: $30 gift voucher to the Verve online store!

Need a little inspiration? Check out the blogs linked below to see what the other Divas did with the challenge! It's sure to be a treat, and speaking of treats, we've got a prize for one lucky commenter along the hop! Check out the Verve Blog today for all the prize info and deadlines!

	1. Julee	7. Susan
	2. Amy	8. Maureen
	3. Betty	9. Amber
	4. Jen	10. Stacey
	5. Sankari	11. Marisa
	6. Sarah

Thanks for stopping by!! Have a great Thursday :)

Saturday Art Journal Page

Okay, so it's been almost 2 weeks, and I haven't shared anything, yikes! Most of my projects this week have been for other blogs so I haven't been good about getting them up on mine! Here's a quick art journaling page I created today!

Hope you're having a fabulous weekend!!

Reverse Confetti February Blog Hop

Hi, friends! Happy Sunday! Sunday just may be my favorite day of the week...sleep in, lots of coffee, crafting, reading, and rain:) And on the 8th of the month, a Reverse Confetti Blog Hop! You should have come to me from Leigh's beautiful blog! If you didn't start at the beginning, it's never too late! Start at the Reverse Confetti Blog for a full hop list!

This month, our theme is ABC *anything but a card!* I usually shy away from these types of challenges, they scare me! I'm not good at treat containers and ideas like that. So I thought I'd go a different way and make some tags!

I went to one of Julie Ebersole's classes at Impress today and met up with Amy Tsuruta, Chitali Narla, and a few other new friends! It was soOOOOoo much fun! We made several CAS cards, and had a blast! After all that clean and simple, I was really itching to get messy, so I turned to some gesso, distress inks, distress sprays, and had some fun! I have a small tutorial on how I created these gesso resist backgrounds, lets get started!

First, gather your supplies! Gesso, Distress Inks, Sponge tools, cardstock (I used PTI white cardstock), and stamps (Whole Lotta Hearts by Reverse Confetti)

Next up, you want paint some gesso onto your stamps and then stamp onto the cardstock. I didn't get a picture of this part of the process, but my best piece of advise is to use one of those cheap foam brushes for the gesso and lightly spread the gesso on your stamp. Don't go too thick with the gesso or it'll be gloopy (is that a word? LOL) This is what your cardstock will look like after the gesso dries!

It'll be hard to see unless you get the lighting just right:) Make sure your gesso is 100% dry before moving on to this next step! 

The next step is to start applying your distress inks onto the cardstock. The gesso will resist the ink and you'll get a tone on tone kind of effect. Super fun! DOn't be afraid to really load up on the ink on your sponge tool, lots of ink will create lots of contrast!

I really like how the inking revealed some imperfections in the stamped gesso hearts, it's so cool! I love this technique, hope you give it a try! Here are a few detail pics of my tags. The second tag was created using the same technique, only with Wild Honey, Peeled Paint, and Evergreen Bough Distress Inks.

Love You tag: 

  Heart to Heart, Heart to Heart Confetti Cuts, Pretty Panels Big Chevron, Tag Me Too, Whole Lotta Hearts, Circles n' Scallops

Here is a close up of the cheesecloth I added! I died the cheesecloth with Festive Berries and Picked Raspberries Distress Ink Spray! I also got some sparkly Fun Foam at Impress today, and cut out the arrow and "you" from the black and pink sparkly fun foam, so fun!

 

I Woof You Tag

Puppy Love, Puppy Love Confetti Cuts, Whole Lotta Dots, Circles n' Scallops

That's all I have today, thank you SOOOO much for stopping by! Now you're off to Stacey's amazingly fun blog! Enjoy the rest of the hop and see you around!

***Don't forget to check out the latest sale at Reverse Confetti! 

Click on the heart to start shopping!!!***

I'd Pick You - mixed media art piece

Hi there! TGIF, right? Man, I am so ready for this weekend! Anybody ready to see the Seahawks beat the Patriots? I am! Ha!!

I painted this picture for a co-worker this week and thought I'd share it real quick. It was such a fun little project and I loved giving it away, even though I wanted it for myself, heehee:)

I started off by spraying some Distress Ink Sprays in Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn. After hitting the watercolor paper with my heat gun and drying the spray ink completely, I drew in the flowers with a Fude Ball pen. Next, I painted the flowers in with Golden's Flourescent Magenta, Dina Wakley's Lemon, and Blick's Dark Blue matte acrylic ink. I went over the flowers with a black Posca paint marker in black and a Molotow paint pen in white. The sentiment is from Reverse Confetti's Love Blooms!

I framed the piece in a 5'x7' Ikea frame and it's sitting on my friends desk, waiting for her to discover on Monday:) Hope she loves it...but I was super nervous leaving it. I've never given my art away and it's definitely making me nervous, haha!! 

Thanks for stopping by today!!

I'd Pick You...

Good morning, friends! How is everyone today? I am here today with a quick card using one of the new Reverse Confetti releases, Love Blooms!

I had created this background piece several months ago, and it's just been sitting in my "unfinished" pile. Today, as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, this piece caught my eye and I thought the embossed flowers looked like the blooms in Love Blooms. The piece was created by applying modeling paste through the large flower stencil on a piece of watercolor paper. I let that dry and then sprayed a couple of my Dylusions Ink Sprays in pink and orange. Pretty easy technique and it really is fun:) Today, I created a yellow and orange watercolor piece (just by coloring some watercolor paper with an orange and yellow Tombow marker and then blending the colors with a wet paintbrush) and cut three of the blooms with the Love Blooms Confetti Cuts. I had a blue/green watercolor scrap in my bin also so I cut some leaves from Love Blooms Confetti Cuts and the scalloped border with the Double Edge Scallop Border Confetti Cuts.

When I was finished, I thought the piece needed a little shine, so I rubbed a little bit of glazing medium over the embossed flower and now it's all shiny, love it!

  

Art Journal Play - Documented Life Project Week 2 and Inspiration Wednesday

Hi there! I'm here today with a quick post of my two latest art journal pages from this weekend! First up is my Week 2 for the DLP. This week, we're focusing on Gesso and New Beginnings.

I saw this fantastic framed picture that had this quote on it and had already heard what this week's journaling prompt was, so I immediately knew I wanted to use this quote on my page. The framed piece even had the "waiting" in book paper, I love finding inspiration like that!

Aside from the normal use of gesso by prepping my pages with gesso, I tinted some turqouise paint with gesso. The light blue in the flowers is the tinted paint, and the darker color of teal is the straight undiluted color. This is a giant stencil I got from Michaels I think, or Hobby Lobby? I hit both of those stores this weekend so not sure, haha! I watercolored some yellow paint on the inside of the flowers and some blue on the outside of the flowers. The "it's now" was done by tracing the letters of some stencils and then painting them black and drawing a white line on the inside of the letters with my Uniball Signo pen. 

Next up is my page for Week 1 of Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday!

This page was so fun! I tried the same glazing technique that Donna did on her page and absolutely love how it came out. I'll be playing with this technique a lot more in the future! I stamped a couple of Dina Wakley's scribbly birds and painted them in with some acrylic paint. I stamped a few random Unity sentiments and added some turqouise drips. I also added a little gold gilding. This is a new product I picked up this week. It's by Martha Stewart and it's liquid gold, so cool! I outlined the numbers, parts of the birds, and then did some gold splatters and it looks so awesome IRL!!

That's it from me, back to the grind this week! Hope you all had a fantastic weekend and are looking forward to a productive and happy week:)

Art Journal Play ~ Flower Art

Hi there! Happy Saturday, friends! I don't know about you, but a full week after a couple short weeks is ROUGH, and I am so thankful for a weekend:)

I wanted to share my latest art journal page today! I had fun just creating for the sake of my sanity. I worked on this page on and off for a couple days and really love where it ended up!

This is a page I created in my large Dylusions journal! I have a couple of these journals going, one for fun (this page) and another for the Documented Life Project! 

For this page, I started by gesso'ing the whole page and letting it dry. Next, I collaged my latest Blick Art Supplies invoice on the background. I recently got this amazing package in the mail and was so inspired, I wanted to include my invoice on this page, lol! That's what I love about art journaling, I can do it if I want to!

I did some loopy journaling on these drips created with some purple Golden fluid arylic paint. I loved how these drips created the perfect journaling space, ala Dina Wakley!

The flower was created with a Balzer Designs stencil and I drew the stem and leaves :)

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a fantastic weekend!!!