Love Potion!

Hello and welcome to this week's addition of Artistic Outpost! Valentine's Day is fast approaching and I thought I would share a little love using Apothecary, Birds of a Feather and Paperboy stamps. For all the details if you wish, click HERE.

Hopefully things will return to somewhat normal in a month or soon as then I will be a more active blogger, but keep with me! Thank you so much for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

Vintage Fashion!

Hello and I sure hope you all are having a great week! Later this month we will go to Portland, OR to visit our daughter and grandson. My not so much baby girl will have a birthday in February just after Valentine's Day and I decided to make her a fashionable tag using Artistic Outpost's "Vintage Fashion." Holly is very much into fashion and so I think she will enjoy this.

I first inked over the die cut tag with Frayed Burlap, laid Tim's Gothic stencil over it and applied DecoArt Crackle Paint and left to dry. Next I sprayed on Tattered Angels Simply Khaki glimmer spray for a nice little sheen, which also was applied to the hearts. There is also some time remaining to join in January's "Show Us Your AO Art" challenge, so come on and get inky with us!

The lovely Vintage Fashion lady and sentiments stamps were inked with first Coffee Archival and Tree Branch to tone done, shaded in Frayed Burlap after fussy cut and torn. Added a little pop of red hearts to finish.

Thank you for stopping by! We have been working quite hard to go through tons of papers/documents, magazines and books and after 17 years, you can imagine the collection that builds! Well I am proud to say that I was able to load up 6 good size boxes of good quality reading material to donate and we have been shredding about 35 lbs of paper matter. Lots of stuff to do when you get ready to move!!!

Skate Emporium!

Can you believe we are already at the middle of January??? Where does the time go, seriously? Today I am sharing this chilling and fun card at Artistic Outpost using Skate Emporium and Chalk It Up. For all the details, please click right HERE for a visit!

Yes this is just a little tease to tempt you!

Thank you for stopping by and have a most wonderful weekend!

Rain, Rain!

Hello and Happy New Year! Guess what???? It is raining in sunny Southern California and it is raining big-time! It would be nice to have the lovely rain spread out to avoid flooding and damage, but that is not how it flows and we will take the much needed water!

And speaking of rain, I was inspired to pull out the "Springtime" collection from Artistic Outpost! I used a kraft type paper for my tag background, applied Tim's Rays stencil and inked over that with Hickory Smoke, next I inked over the entire tag with Antique Linen and flicked on some water spots. Wanting a little extra background texture, I applied a Boho Background die cut piece from Our Daily Bread Designs and again applied the Rays stencil and inked over. The "Playing in the Rain" children were stamped in Watering Can Archival as was the sentiment and then fussy cut. Next, just added some embellishments to finish and distressed the the tag.

Thank you for stopping by today, especially considering how MIA I have been. So much to do here, there and everywhere, but I am trying my best to visit all of you wonderful crafty and fabulous bloggers!

Football!

I sure do hope you all had a most wonderful Christmas! December is such a busy month for all of us and I had a few things going on. Being the end of the year and wanting to take care of all those medical things (like that 10 year fun procedure for those over 50) for the two of us and the fact that my hubby will be retiring early in 2016, we both lost a couple of weekends. Not a big deal, but I was already a bit behind letting my arm heal. Well my son in Wisconsin and his fiance thought it would be such a great idea to get married before Christmas!!!!! Oh yes and although it was only a civil type service, we were not going to miss it. Well we had to squeeze in shopping and shipping for family on the West Coast and make flight arrangement. We ended up there for an entire week as no flights were available and ended up flying home on Christmas Eve. Our Christmas was certainly different and I will tell you more about that after I share this fun and simple collaged card!

For this I decided to go with a simple black and white theme using all the stamps in the "Go Team" Artistic Outpost stamp collection. This weekend will be a big football celebration in the US and although I really don't understand the game, I do love the spirit and excitement especially in Green Bay! It just pulls you right in! The background was stamped using a variety of smaller stamps. The rest fussy cut and matted with all be shaded and distressed. Just a fun card for that sports enthusiast in your life.

Call me crazy, but I really love WI and although that insanely cold weather in the winter is scary as can be, that did not stop us from putting an offer in on a home. We decided some time ago that when Steve retired we would move and this is a big one! It is very hard for me to leave my comfort zone as we have been here 17 years and have friends that are family. None of my family that I am close to lives here and even with all the good memories, it is time for a change. Our daughter lives in Oregon and we love it there as well, but it is just more expensive than we feel comfortable with and so WI it is! Thank you so much for stopping by today and I wish you the very best of the New Year. May you be blessed with much love, happiness and good health in 2016.

Christmas Joy!

Oh Christmas Joy and only one week away! Hello and hope you all are more caught up than I am! This little collection of cards uses Artistic Outpost's Toy Emporium and the Winter Collection 2014 from Our Daily Bread Designs!

If you would like all the details and some close up photos, just pop on over HERE as I am sharing these at AO.

Thank you so much for stopping by and have a fabulous weekend!

Santa's Coming!

Hello to all of you and thank you for stopping by! I also want to thank you for the good wishes and prayers concerning my recent skin cancer surgery and am thrilled to report the doctor removed it all! Now that is happy news! While still being careful, I went into my craft room to play with a little shadow box from a Hobby Lobby shopping day with Annie. I am thinking she picked up one as well. With a few challenges in full swing and of course some of the DT are among my favorite people, I had to join in!

My stamps of choice "Toy Emporium" from Artistic Outpost, were all inked in Black Archival and shaded with Distress Vintage Photo and fussy cut. All papers are ODBD "Winter Collection 2014."

The box was gessoed, sanded and then painted with a Delta silver metallic paint which is more of a glaze. Love that! I did a couple of coats. Cut the paper to size, glued down and sanded the edges and then shaded. Also using my fingers added a little of the silver paint and rubbed of the excess and then with a toothbrush flicked on some gold. The inside framing was glazed with both a silver and gold paint. I have had these cheesy colored foam snowflakes for some time and painted them gold to frame around that really cool Santa!

The outer edges were treated with DecoArt one step crackle and gold applied to fill the cracks.

All the tinsel sticks were cut to fit and hot glued down. Boy does that stuff get away from you and on you! Added bits and pieces I have collected.

Now for the fabulous challenges I am sending my little Christmas shadow box off to!

A Vintage Journey "Vintage Christmas" keeping it vintage and used Tim's Vintage Photo and Hickory Smoke Distress Inks, Holiday Word Band and Alpha Tiles.

Frilly and Funkie "Tis the Season" with vintage or shabby chic goodness!

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge "Silver and Gold" and I used both!

Hope you are having a wonderful start to the Christmas and holiday season. I have tons to do as usually, but what will get done will and what won't!!!! Thanks again for visiting! 

Au Bonheur Des Dames

Hello to all of you lovely bloggers! Today I am sharing a fashion tag using those fabulous Vintage Fashion stamps from Artistic Outpost.

The most fashionable lady was stamped in Watering Can Archival ink over the Antique Linen inked tag background shaded with Ground Espresso and Hickory Smoke (love those colors). The dress boots and logos were stamped as well with GE and HS. Using the Boho Background Die from ODBD, I cut and inked a piece of Crinoline, inked over with Ground Espresso, adhered to background and carefully and lightly stamped the lady image again.

The sentiment was stamped in Coffee and shaded and folded over a little hanger and the tie was dyed and crinkled using left over inks.

The mini tag was done again using the same inks and tied all up! Finished the edge using the Beautiful Borders Die from ODBD, shaded with Hickory Smoke. Now with this being the 1st of December the new monthly "Show Us Your AO Art" challenge is in full swing, so those of you who have these lovely stamps, please join in for a change to win a store voucher!

Thank you for stopping by today and have a fabulous start to December. I don't want any of you to think I have turned into a blog snob as I have not been visiting or commenting as much. It is easy to like on "FB" and not as easy to spend so much time typing. I had a biopsy done on my arm, near the elbow joint about a month ago and it came back positive for an aggressive from of Squamous Cell Carcinoma that had advanced into the skin tissue. No I was not happy about that and surgery was scheduled for the 20th and left me with a good size oval incision (excision) and also tissue was removed. Now I was told to pretty much do nothing and certainly no bending of the arm or lifting, but I can move it a bit better now, so here I am! Still waiting to hear if all the cancerous growth was removed, but this all fell around Thanksgiving, so delays! I get my stitches removed this Thursday and I think I will have a little more flexibility! Anyway my arm has been a bit out of commission with first the biopsy and then the surgery, but I have been using my eyes to enjoy all your wonderful artwork and will be getting back into the swing of creating and blogging!

Fashion Fades

Remember me? So much has been going on and we went away for a week and now just trying to catch up again! Hope all of you are doing fabulous! Today I am sharing a card using Vintage Fashion from Artistic Outpost.

I started by stamping the dress form in Coffee Archival on ODBD Vintage Ephemera paper and inked a little Frayed Burlap through a precut stencil using the ODBD Boho Background die.

Next I applied a piece of the Boho Background die over the lower edge and on top of that the address stamp to find those fabulous fashions!

Other than the dress form all images were stamped in Black Archival and inked in Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap. Added a few embellishments and distress edges.

I very much appreciate your visiting and will be doing my rounds really soon!

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town!

Hello and hope you all are enjoying the week! It is a Blog Hop at Artistic Outpost and we are still showing off the October New Release, Vintage Fashion, Go Team and Toy Emporium, which is my choice for today! Visit the rest of the DT for more fabulous AO inspiration!

Lisa, Shari, Kate, Tracy

As soon as I saw this adorable Santa, I knew I had to have him in view through a Christmas decorated window. The window frame was cut twice once from chipboard painted red and then another from green card stock using Tim's die and then decorated with lights. The background paper is from the Winter Collection at ODBD and was inked over in Fired Brick and Pine Needles, clear sealed and the using a toothbrush added a little snowy effect with white acrylic paint.

The images were stamped in Black Archival and colored with Stampin Up chalks, markers and Distress Antique Linen and Pine Needles.

Thank you for joining in on today's blog hop and have a wonderful day!