December

Here we are at the end of the year and it's time for the last installment of  the Months by Sarah Coleridge over at The Craft Barn Blog.  This month the verse is:

Chill December brings the sleet,

Blazing fire and Christmas treat

It's been pretty dark here lately and the colors are different in person.

I used a create a scene stamp set I got in a magazine. The fireplace is embossed and cut out. the cat, candles, fire, logs and bow are all stamps which I colored with Spectrum Noir markers and then cut out. The tree I cut out from cardstock which had a pine tree design on it. I added glitter to decorate the tree and put a gold foil star on the top. 

The wall is painted in acrylic paint and the carpet is made from washi tape.

This was a fun Challenge this year and I want to thank every one who was involved.

Have a great Holiday and a Happy New Year.

November

Here we are, another month gone by. 

As I'm a manager at a craft store , I find my days fly by. Since the beginning of October we have been so busy! My health has been iffy as I've been battling a cold and I'm hobbling as my left foot has a heal spur.

Can't wait for our American Thanksgiving, as I get to see family, eat someone else's cooking and be a bad guest and fall asleep on the couch. And I get paid for all of that also!

Over on The Craft Barn Challenge  it is now November for the Twelve Month Challenge.  The verse is:

Dull November brings the blast

Then the leaves go whirling past

There are no constraints. I miss those. It made it more interesting and sometimes gave me a place to start with a poem that seems to describe pretty much the same thing over and over again.

I painted this with acrylic paints. I used cotton swaps to make the stones on the cliff as well as the leaves. The lantern and the trees are stamps.

One more month to go! See you in December!

October

Alrighty... here we are again for the next Installment of Sarah Coleridge's Twelve Months. This challenge is from The Craft Barn Blog.

It's a simple one for me this month as I've been in and out of the hospital with injuries, etc. Managed to slice a finger on my right hand real bad and had a hard time holding anything. I also missed quite a bit of work along with this. Also now I'm walking with a cane due to another injury. Sheesh! When it rains it pours!

Anyway the part of the poem this month goes like this:

Fresh October brings the pheasant
Then to gather nuts is pleasant

First I put Gesso on the page and used 3 different yellows of Distress Ink.  The background is darker in person.  I used a Tim Holtz die which had a ton of leaves and acorns and cut them out of different colors. I used the paper as a stencil after and put distress inks through them. 

I cut out so may leaves I was able to use them on another Art Journal for another group! I love when that happens!

The pheasant is from an image I printed out from the internet. Simple but to the point.

Two more months and we call it a year....

September

It's a new month and it's time for the next verse in The Craft Barn Twelve Month Challenge.  The verse is : 

Warm September Brings the fruit,

Sportsmen them begin to shoot.

This time there are no constraints so we can do whatever we want.

This was painted over some glossy paper with Acrylic paints. I painted the sky by crumbling waxed paper and dipping it into  white and grey paint. The shooter and his dog are clip art. The wheel barrow is a die cut as well as the pumpkins. The apples in the barrow are stamps which I colored with Spectrum Noirs. Birds are a stamp and the harvest items on the ground are an old sticker I had from my Scrapbooking days. 

Until next month. Thanks for looking!

August

Here I am again scrambling to get the August installment of  The Craft Barn Twelve Months Challenge finished and posted. I've been sick for 2 weeks and had a 9 day in a row work week. Yuck!
I am now on a weeks vacation and trying to catch up on all of my challenges.

This month we use the verse:

August brings the sheaves of corn,

Then the harvest home is borne.

We also have to include a tractor...

Now through out this entire challenge I've really had no stamps to coincide with the verses or the constraints. I've drawn almost everything I need. I'm not that good of an artist. Thus my tractor has a cartoon feel (which is sort of my style). I was going to paint over it, but looking through my pages through the year, I realized it goes well with the others.

I also included some corn. I used watercolors and pens.

4 months to go...where did the year go????

July

Here we are in July and it's time for the next addition to The Craft Barn's Blog Challenge: Twelve Months.   Every month we use the line of Sarah Coleridges  The Months . Of course this month is July the line is:

Hot July brings cooling showers ..Apricots and gillyflowers.

The restraint is that it must include gillyflowers. Naturally my first thought was WHAT????!!!! Never heard of them. Looked it up and it said wallflower. Once again, huh? I thought a wallflower was someone at a party who didn't get asked to dance...

Ok. So another one was a stout. REALLY?  I thought that was a body type or a type of ale.

Finally, I found carnation. Ok. that one I know.

I first put some decoupage paper down. I put gesso on it to push the colors back, I used a stencil and grey paint for the wall. I wanted to put my clear Distress Crackly paint on it, but when I opened the bottle it was completely dried up. So disappointed.
I painted the tree and the ground. I quilled some flowers that I hope look like gillyflowers. I cut paper up to make stems and I stamped a bird in the sky. 

Now I can rest a bit until August.

Once again it's time for the Twelve Month Challenge at The Craft Barn Blog. This month we are doing June. 

  The line this time is:

June brings tulips, lilies, roses

fills the children's hands with posies

The challenge is to include a bunch of flowers. I actually have a stamp with tulips and other flowers so I was able to use that.

I first put Gesso on the page and then used Distressed inks. They react so differently when I do this. Then I took some molding paste mixed with green paint and put it through a dylusions stencil for the background. I colored a stamp that I got from a magazine and colored it with my Spectrum Noirs alcohol markers. I used a Mason jar stamp and diecut from Jellibean. I used a dot stencil to give the illusion of the beads you put in the jar to fill it up. I combined the 2 and added the stems into the jar. 

I finally bought a new printer and now am able to print up the quotes in black! No more of my horrible hand writing!

It's been so hot and humid  here in my neck of the woods. High 80's  up to mid 90's F.  Haven't felt like doing much so glad I got this done .

Until next time!

May

It's time for the next installment for the Sarah Coleridge's poem THE MONTHS. This is being hosted by The Craft Barn Blog.

The verse this month is:

May brings flocks of pretty lambs

Skipping by their fleecy dams

Surprising, there is no constraints this time. So we can interpret this anyway we wish.

For 13 years I worked for a company that owned historical sites and I worked in a few of them. One of them in the spring taught visitors all the processes of taking a fleece and making it into a shawl back in the 18th century. And yes, I can demonstrate all of it except for the shearing.

This line reminded me of that so I drew sheep being very happy after they were sheared. They really do skip a bit.  They hate being sheared but love how better they feel once they get it cut. Thus you see the sheep shear and some of the fleece.

As usual I had no stamps or dies suitable for this so I drew all of this.

I used an old set of Spectracolor pencils that belonged to my late father-in-law. My printer also refuses to print black ink so I wrote the verse myself.

I actually found this more challenging without any constraints!

Until next time....

Time for the next installment at  The Craft Barn's Twelve Month Challenge .  As you may have guessed we are doing April from Sara Coleridge's Poem The Calendar. The line is:

April brings the primrose sweet,

Scatters daisies at our feet.

The constraints are we must have daisies or primroses in our entry.

 

Not having any stamps with real daisies or primroses, I improvised by using Dylusions flowers that look like daisies and found some cardstock with what looks like primroses. The birds are a Dina Wakely stamp.

Lot's of Distress ink in the background and some stamp sets for the letters.

This was challenging as well as fun as usual and I'm looking forward to May.

In my spare time I've been busy with Art Journal Challenges.

My favorite is Mission Inspiration Facebook Challenge. Currently we get 8 prompts to make our page along with color suggestion and words/ideas for pages. This is a monthly challenge.

This is my take on the March Mission:

 I've also been doing Journal 52 facebook page . Every week we get a Journal prompt card with a word, ideas, etc. I started late so I only have half of them done.

This was the latest and the word was balance.

This one was Truth.

I'm having a lot of fun with these and they do help me grow in many ways.

March Month Challenge

Over at The Craft Barn we received the next Installment for the Twelve Month Challenge.  Every month we receive a line from the Sarah Coleridge poem Twelve Months and then we interpret it. This month it's:

March brings breezes loud and shrill
Stirs the dancing daffodil

The constraints are that we must have daffodils in our entry as well as a March Hare. ?????? 

Looked up the Hare and found some real disturbing pictures.

I don't have a stamp for either daffodil or hare so I preceded to draw and paint my own.

I decided to use the Disney March Hare and I have him holding a daffodil. The colors are much brighter in person, but we are experiencing a Blizzard right now so the light is actually horrible .

Until next time!

Tag

I made this little tag to enter into The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. 
 This week it's Tag you're it, where you have to make a tag or add one to your creation. They are also highlighting Ranger products so they invite you to use them although you don't have to.

I have a lot of Ranger products so this was a piece of cake. I already had a tag where I had started the background with distress inks and I filled it in with more ink through some stencils. Then I used some Ranger stamps by Dina Wakely and Tim Holtz. The focal point is a Silly Bird who is colored with distress inks. I layered him so he had more dimension. The saying is from Tim Holtz's Small Talk sticker pad. I used some yarn for the top of the yard.

A simple tag but fun!

I made this card for a friend who's Mother just died. I first used gold embossing powder on a Inkadinkado flower stamp. I used several Distress inks to blend the background, Peeled Paint, Seedless Preserves, and Mowed Lawn. Then I colored the inside with Fired Brick Distress Ink. I used a Kraft card, which I felt complimented the colors.

I am entering this into
The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Fantastic Florals.

February

It is time for the February entry for the Twelve Month Challenge over at The Craft Barn Blog. We are working on the Sarah Coleridge Poem The Months.  The line this month goes:
                             
February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again
We have to include a heart and a cherub in it. I have to admit for a day or two I debated whether to continue this as I couldn't figure this out.
So on a snowy day (8 inches in all) I had an inspiration! I was flipping through  a small paper pad that I bought at the store that was Victorian Valentine themed; when I came upon a page with cherubs in a cloud! I decided to cut a pair out put them in the sky. I found a stencil with a cloud on it and traced it and cut it out.

I decided to play with my new Yasutomo  Pearlescent watercolors. I felt they would give me the hazy look a winter rain can have. I used a blue and then put a grey in. The cloud was painted in silver watercolor. I then put a greenish pond om the bottom where I wrote the phrase. Still didn't get the ink for the printer. We've been experiencing way too much snow lately.
I received inspiration for the hearts in the rain from a Darice embellishing folder that I have!
Of course I thought I was so clever, but upon going to the  website I did discover that there are quite a few others with the same idea!

This was a toughy, but I admit the challenges do make it interesting and forces me to be a bit more creative!

Janurary

Here we are in a new year and The Craft Barn has a new Challenge. This one is a Twelve Month Challenge where we have to get it done every 3 weeks. A little less pressure!

This Challenge is based on Sarah Coleridge's poem The Months.

Every entry must have the rhyme for that month shown.

 

The Rhyme is:

                January brings the snow

makes our feet and fingers glow

We also had to have a bird wearing a Wellington. Seems this is a rainboot in England!

I used the same journal from the Dictonary Challenge. I had exactly the right amount of pages left!

I put black gesso all over the page and then used the stencil birch trees by Crafters Workshop. I applied white paint through and then  sponged the bottom to look like snow.

For my bird I decided to shrink down one of Tim Holtz's Crazy Birds. This was a problem as I have no ink for my printer and it still isn't set up from the move. I decided to buy Shrink Wrap and try doing that. I stamped several birds and colored them with colored pencils. I trimmed one all the way down but the other I cut loosely around. I used a heat gun and when it was all done I laughed to see how tiny they had become. So cute!! They also became hard and I couldn't cut them. Thus  I had to use the red one. whom I liked the best anyway. The boot I drew myself and colored with my Spectrum Noirs.

After gluing everything down I decided it was too flat so I added some mounting paste for depth and glitter for the snow glistening.

You can't see the glitter in the photo, but it's there.

I had to print the words myself. Got to get me some printer ink for the next month!

Until next time!

I can't believe it's been a whole year for The Craft Barn Alpha/ Dictionary Challenge ! I am now posting the very last letter ...P.
I have to say it's been quite a ride. I personally had an eventful year and found it challenging just to complete each letter. It was fun and I now have a very interesting Alphabet book.

So I decided to make life easy on me and picked the word penguin. I have some cute stamps from Lawn Fawn and Hampton Arts which I used to make some Christmas cards so I knew where they were. I used Distress inks to make it look like an Artic sky and ground.

I cut out a snowflake and then used the hole as a stencil. The penguins are colored in with Spectrum Noir pencils and I used a stickles to make everything glow. The light picked up it too much as it looks much more subtle in real life.

Onward to the next challenge!!!!.....

The Letter M

Here we are again with the new letter for The Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge.  The letter this time is M. I went through a lot of different words and finally decided on Mushroom.  I decided on this mainly because I had some nice stamps of  mushrooms from Dylusions. I stamped the page with the stamps and then colored them in with my Spectrum Noir Markers. I love these markers as they are so colorful and bright.

 

I used my Distress inks on the page and some washi tape on the bottom. I was starting to play around with my Gel pens when I realized it was getting late and I better post the page as tomorrow is Christmas and I need to get a few things done.

This leaves us with one letter left...

Y is for Yawn

Where  did all the time go? Another fortnight has gone and I find myself once again finishing my entry for The Craft Barn's Alpha/Dictionary Challenge just at the nick of time.

I like to draw faces so I studied a picture of a person yawning and came up with this. I did it with pencil and then debated whether to add color to it but decided to leave it as it is. I used Distress Inks to color the background using 3 different yellows. I added an emoji for yawning. I'm asked several times a day at the store if I have things with emoji's on it so I'm going with the flow. In case anyone is interested we only have stickers and a lollipop with the poop emoji. Strange world we live in.
Two more letters to go and we are done. I will miss this.

I is for INK

Well it's been 2 weeks since my last post and of course it's that time again for The Craft Barn's Alpha/Dictionary Challenge. This time the letter is I.
After much thought I came up with INK.  I used Distress Inks as the background and used different inks throughout my journal page.

I used Dylusion inks in a water brush to color the flower. I put Alcohol inks on my mat and soaked them up with photo paper and then used a Tim Holtz Butterfly die and stamp on them. I also stamped with pigment, dye and solvent inks. I used gel pens, and art pens.

I had fun with this page and learned a lot about ink.

Can't  wait until the next letter to start this all over again.

Thanks for looking and for all the comments. They really helped me through out the past few months.

Whew! What a 2 weeks this has been! It took us over a week to move out of our old place. We had people who we thought were going to help, but most were no shows,  some had a very limited amount of time or attention spans. Did get help from unexpected sources and have to thank those who lent a hand. I never want to move again! The apartment has nice storage and decent size rooms. The kitchen is very old and some features are not too workable and some are just odd. I'm working on making this more manageable as I love to cook and I'm finding it hard.

Amongst all this The Craft Barn Alpha/Dictionary Challenge came up. This time the letter is U. My first thought was uterus and just couldn't get past that for a while. Keep in mind I was very stressed out with the move and the events taking place in the country. This actually led me to come up with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!!!!! 

Now I had my pages half way done and than the election  results came in while standing in a misty rain, packing up our truck at 3:30 in the morning. The next few days I was extremely tired, sick, depressed and secretly trying to figure out which country to move to. Took a while to finish.

While working on this I was still moving and most of my supplies were packed somewhere and hard to find. I did make sure I had my book that I've been using and some distress inks handy. Luckly I am a manager at a Craft Store and was able to find a map of the US and some stickers to depict the meaning of this country. A real quick collage.

Looking forward to a calm 2 weeks and more time and resources to make up the next letter challenge. Until then...