Spring Blog Hop at Artistic Outpost

Spring is in the air and I am sure many of you are very happy about that. It is a Blog Hop all about Spring at Artistic Outpost and the DT has some warming creations for your viewing pleasure, so come on and have a look! Shari, Kate, Tracy, Lisa.

My "Spring" started with some lovely Blooming Garden paper from ODBD, which was embossed with a tulip frame and highlighted using Walnut Stain and shaded around the edges. The Potted Daffodils and Butterflies from Flower Market were stamped in Coffee Archival and then colored in using markers. The sentiment was stamped and cut apart. It is so nice to have a few cards around that are easier for mailing! Will be linking this up to Inspiration Journal's "Spring Blooms."

Thank you for joining me on this beautiful day. Hope you are having a wonderful week!

CC3C - Remnant Rub Resist

It seems like ages since I played in a CC3C adventure conducted by Linda and the Curiosity Crew, but made it for the current "Remnant Rub Resist" challenge! All the lessons can be found in Tim's Compendium of Curiosities III and as always the details can be found there on page 51. The Funkie Junkie Boutique is the fabulous sponsor this challenge and again there is a prize to be won via the CC choice from Tim and Mario.

Following the instructions, I decided to go with a blend of Peeled Paint, Wild Honey and Broken China stains to color my background. I used a variety of stamps from Tim, added a word band and some Alpha Letters. The tie was dyed using the same stains.

This was a fun playtime and I will add this to my travel journal. We are playing a trip to Wisconsin very soon and I can see the weather is getting cold and there may be snow! Not quite what us CA folks are used to! Yikes!

Have a wonderful day and thank you for visiting today!

Tim's March Tag of 2015

OK some one needs to slow down the passing of time! Seriously, I just can't seem to catch up on anything and with Spring in the air, that means lots to do! I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the warmer weather. Tim's tag for March was simply gorgeous, but I did not have any of the more pastel paints, so my colors of choice were Peeled Paint, a touch of Chipped Sapphire, and Brushed Pewter.

Now I wanted to stick with a theme of Spring and all that brings and I could not help but think of my yard birds and in particular the Blue Scrub Jays. These birds and I assume they are the same due to personality, have been coming around for a few years now. There is one that is very friendly as far as wild birds go and will sit right outside my kitchen window and wait for breakfast. Blue Scrub Jays love peanuts and I am not sure how I realized that, but believe when I used to toss out my Fred's leftover seeds in the morning, I must have watched them carry them away. These birds will hang out in the yard when we are working and now even have accepting Steve.

The other day, I watch the friendlier of the two gather up nesting material while I was just a foot away. So my yard Blues as I call them are the inspiration of my March tag! I am also linking this up at Frilly and Funkie's Challenge Blog for the "Bring on the Bling" with my sparkly Silver EP and Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, "Lions and Lambs, oh my" and my animal inspiration is obviously my yard birds!


After I stamped Tim's bird, I cut slits around the feet to be able to pull through some dyed cheesecloth as to represent my Blue's carrying off their soon to be babies new house material. You know we have never seen the little ones, so maybe this year. These birds hang around all year and a few times a year they don't show up for a couple of weeks and I worried at first, but now I just wonder what they are up to!

Finished it off with adding a painted grunge number 3 for March and adding a little birdhouse charm that Brenda gifted me some time back. Tied it off with dyed ribbon and cheesecloth.

I have to tell you something kind of funny! We have been really busy working around the yard as pretty soon it will become extremely hot and much better to take advantage of the cooler weather. The last two weekend we have (mostly the man) have been putting together the new storage shed. Actually the last three weekends as first we had to tear down the old rusting away metal shed. No wonder I have no time! Well we are kind of small people and of course older. First we buy this very heavy (two big boxes) "Lifetime" shed and there was help to load, but not to unload once we were home. We literally had to take the pieces out of each box to move them from the truck. So now the man starts to read the directions and of course a "platform" is required! Next day off to buy the wood to make the platform and that took a weekend. Further reading states it is a 3 Man job!!!!!!! We did it and yes I did help and now we have a lovely little looking cottage shed. We did realize that we are getting a little on the old side to be carrying on in such a manner!! This weekend we will be getting stuff packed and ready for a little mini trip next week, so I am sure happy that shed is done!

I sure do thank you for stopping by today and listening to me ramble on.

Hats and More Hats!

Hope you all are doing fabulously and getting ready for the weekend! Today is a quick DT post for Artistic Outpost, using the Hats Background and Hat's Off new release stamps. If you would like all the details, please click HERE.

Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to let me know you were here!

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to AVJ and how much fun we have in store for you and with prizes! Brenda and Chris work so hard keeping A Vintage Journey the amazing challenge blog that it is and you could not ask for a better and more supportive DT group and I am honored to be a part of and so excited to start year #2! To start off our second year with our new monthly challenge, we are looking for ANYTHING TIM and to make it easier on us, please let us know what your Tim influence might be. Now my fabulous and totally talented DT Sisters also have some incredible art to share and you will find all the details of our challenge and information on all the prizes, along with our sponsor Country View Crafts. So you know a prize package was sent to AVJ from Tim and Mario! Aren't they just so sweet and generous?? And not only is AVJ celebrating an anniversary, but this is my 5th year of blogging as well as something very special. So here we go with what my little deal is!
 

Happy Anniversary to my hubby of 32 years and as it would be, today when the post goes live in Europe, it is our anniversary! To celebrate three special occasions, I would like to offer a little BLOG CANDY to one of my followers as well and that includes my lovely AVJ DT Sisters, who many have been with me from my first days of blogging! Details to follow. "Gear It Up" is the challenge at SanDee & Amelie's Steampunk Challenge blog, so we are taking our celebration over there to share.

Oh I love that man and I wanted to make him something a little different than the usual card or tag and so Tim's Pocket Watch came to the rescue along with many other Tim elements and products.

Tim's Pocket Watch die was cut from three layers 2 grungeboard and 1 chipboard in the center for stability. Applied a coat of gesso and then using a gel medium, I added texture using various bits and trims, modeling paste through a couple of stencils and then this was all covered up with gesso, before I applied crackle over the entire piece. Once that dried I added all of my metal pieces, mostly Idea-ology and a few I just had to add and again covered these with gesso.

Color Wash sprays used, Espresso, Denim, Stream, Butterscotch and Meadow, which are all colors my DH enjoys. These were sprayed on and dried a little using a heat gun and then with a paper towel I blotted off the excess color. Once I was happy with the colors, I did give a quick spray with sealer.

Next step is adding touches of gesso (and or Treasure Gold) lightly brushed on. Using a black marker, I added a few shadows. This was a little on the dark side to begin with, so I was careful to not add to many shadows. Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is looking for a "Just A Hint Of Clover" and with a green heart (and other hints of green), we are good to go.

The grunge wings was just my thinking about how time flies and boy does it ever!

The magic of the gesso really makes everything pop! You can see some of the extra little watch gears and bits I added if you look closely. 

I did flick on some more Color Wash just for a little more interest using a toothbrush and let me tell you about stained fingers and fingernails. Oh so lovely! Truly I have so much fun when I work with mixed medias like this. I think this is about my 4th piece going this style and I love the end result.

Now for the reverse side, I wanted it to be a little softer and distress inked some of Tim's paper and where the face of the woman writing the love letter was stamped, I gave a little wash of white paint. A little more stenciling and a few fun elements and all is wonderful!

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed my project as much as I enjoyed it from start to finish. Now for a chance to win my BLOG CANDY in celebration of March and all the anniversaries, a $50 gift certificate to Inspiration Emporium, just leave a comment by April 1st, 2015. The winner will be announced shortly thereafter and good luck and mostly thank you for being a part of my journey.

A Gardening We Will Go!

The first Monday of the month Artistic Outpost will be having a Product Focus and for March it is Flowers and Gardening, which stamps in that category will be on sale at 20% off through March 7th, so check the AO blog for all the details! This is also the start of the new March challenge, so "Show Us Your AO Art" for a chance to win $15 in a store voucher! For additional DT inspiration please visit Gerrie, Tracy (who will 3-6), and Lisa.

I thought it would be nice to alter an old hand held bulb planter, which was a total rust bucket. Washed, sanded, primed, gessoed and then painted on a light buttermilk color.

Next step was to apply DecoArt one step crackle quite think and I let that dry and did a wash of brown paint and then wiped off the excess. Once sealed the magic of the Flower Market began.

All images were stamped on tissue paper using Black Archival and then heat set. On the reverse side, I colored the images using Sharpie markers.

I then applied gel medium to the bulb planter and carefully laid down the cut images and gently patted these down with my fingers. After the Flower Marker images were dry, I again applied gel medium over the tops to seal down.

With the exception of cutting delicate tissue paper, this was really an easy and fun project. The difficult part will be finding a place in the yard to place it!

Thank you for taking the time to visit today and I hope you have a wonderful start to March.