Soul on fire

Dear Lord,
I want to run for your heart. I want to run for you hard. I want to be a soul on fire. Lord, please give me strength to run hard. Please, give me a passion for the things that you are passionate about. Please, give me a bigger heart. Please, put my soul on fire, Lord.
In your precious Son’s name I pray,
Amen.

Patience….

I have none. I know it. It usually leads to small mistakes, but every once in awhile, it ends up in the complete ruination of a project:

Super sad…:'(

I was too impatient to wait until the liquid watercolors dried to add the plastic sheet on this DIY palette. It was so pretty, too…

Super duper sad. :”””(

Foiled…

It’s almost 4 A.M. I’m still awake. This is bad.

I tried to use the laser printer/laminator foiling technique, and I just can’t seem to get it to work. I can’t tell if it’s my printer or my laminator. 😦

The printing doesn’t ever get fully covered. It’s always a bit streaky. 😦

So I tried using a Sakura glue pen to write faux calligraphy (copied a script I found online). It kind of worked, but it’s not very clean and there are a few places where you can see the pen marks (from the ballpoint end of the glue pen).

Sigh. I love the foil look, but I can’t seem to get the technique down. 😦

Layers to the rescue

I sort of love how this background turned out. Before this, it was pretty bad.. I started off with lots of washi tape and just randomly taped it everywhere. I then gesso’ed it. I was trying to use a different color combo than I usually do, so I added orange, yellow, and red distress paints. It was pretty.. orange. So I tried to tone it down with some orange, red, and yellow stickles. Still not so good. According to my hubby, it looked like orange vomit with glitter. I tried to tone it down it by adding gesso, some gold texture paste (thru a stencil), and spray ink, but it looked worse. So I just went to bed. This morning, I went back with different shades of blue distress paint and added layers (and layers, and layers, and layers), and this was the result. I love it. You can actually still see the bits of stickles glitter behind all of the blue paint. The texture and the layers… I felt really artsy when it started coming together!

I have a song in mind, but I’m afraid to put anything on it. I really like it. 🙂

I added glitter to the corners. 🙂 Because, per my hubby, [glitter] is a must. I love him. He gets it.

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Another attempt at an art journaling page. I decided a long time ago that this journal would be dedicated to lyrics from praise songs. Hopefully they can serve as reminders when things get tough.

I gessoed the page and then added some texture with a Tim Holtz stencil, some embossing paste, texture paste, light modeling paste, and molding paste. I then added watercolor (the Artist Loft one from Michael’s). I used a Teresa Collins stencil with some ferro. Finally, I wrote in the lyrics using a Copic Spica pen (black) and a black Wink of Stella glitter brush pen. I added some detail with my white pen.

Honestly, not thrilled with the page, but I guess that’s what this whole process is about. Just experimenting with my stash and learning. 🙂

I wanted this to be my first page because I spend too much time complaining and/or comparing my life with other people, and I need to just stop. Things in my life are currently very up in the air – I’m thinking about starting my own business, which is crazy and scary and a lot of other adjectives. If you knew me, you’d know why this is such a big deal to me. I know starting a business is usually a scary thing, but for me, I never ever thought I would even want to pursue something like this. I know it’s not going to be easy, and I know that there are probably a lot of dark days ahead. So, I just wanted to remind myself of the things that really matter.

No matter what happens, I want to remind myself to choose to say: blessed be His name!

Let’s try this again….

So, wow, it’s been almost a year since my last post. I know that, since then, I have started working part-time back at my old job, been pregnant, and gave birth to A, but, I really need to stop neglecting this blog. I think my mistake was trying to make this blog into something interesting for others to read, when, really, it should be for me – what techniques worked/didn’t; what products do i love/not; etc. I do want to share my work, but I need to stop being concerned about everyone else since the only person reading this is me, haha~ So.. for the third time, here we go…

These are the goals I have for myself:

• I will use the products that I buy, and stop hoarding them.
• I will use all of the stamps that I have purchased.
• I will create one new thing a week and post, even if it’s just coloring an image or trying out a new product.
• I will finish the glitter post that I started (literally) a year ago, and post it this week.
• I will stop comparing myself to other crafters and try to find my own “voice.”

That’s all I can think of right now, but even those goals are a bit lofty for me. xP We can do this, me! Hwiting!!

Online Card Classes – Faux Watercolor Painting

I am so sad that I didn’t have the chance to play and try all of the techniques yet.  I was really excited about this technique.  It didn’t turn out as beautiful as the samples, but I think I just need more (a lot more) practice.

I used a stamp from Hero Arts and the Sentiment is from a Mama Elephant stamp set.

This is what it looked like before I ruined the bottom by trying to emboss on a still slightly wet surface (haha, see? no patience!)

I can’t wait to play along and try more techniques~~ What a great class!!