Winner

You know sometimes the voices in our heads should be ignored and sometimes not. Today I took lunch to watch Spellbinders live. And they announced that they were giving away a prize for the first person to type in the answer to a question they were going to shortly ask. Immediately the collateral noise started in my head. “You’ll never win because you can’t type, not to mention that your hand is hurting.” My spirits fell.

 

But then that still small voice that should not be ignored spoke and said “you never know…try.”

 

I did try and I won a set of dies, the new hatpin bezels and I think some paper.

 

So now which voice will you listen to today.

 

Thank You God for meeting me where I live and confirming your presence even in my crafting world and making me a winner.

 

Thanks also to Spellbinders for this prize and lesson in listening.

 

Psalm 42

King James Version (KJV)

42 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

² My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

³ My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

⁴ When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.

⁵ Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

⁶ O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.

⁷ Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.

⁸ Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the day time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

⁹ I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

¹⁰ As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?

¹¹ Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

 

In The Hand of Creator,

QP

Guess What

I am now a member of the creative team for the Scraps od Color Blog!

 

I actually started with the post prior to this one! Scraps of Color is a great community of primarily scrappers but more so all types of crafters.  Come check it out if you have not done so already.

 

QP

Drama Queen

Hey QP aka QueenPam here. Do you want a little Drama in your life or do you have too much already? I think a little bit and I mean a little bit makes life a bit more interesting. Likewise I think having a little drama in my projects makes them more interesting too. I went for the drama of color that is neon. It’s pow wow and holy cow Batman, it pops and it will not be ignored.

 

I chose Copic in FRV1 and Hero Arts Neon pink to bring on the drama in this 3D Prima Doll stamp inked in Momento Tuxedo Black.  I added those to her hair along with a bit of BV00. For her skin I colored her with copics in E11, E13 and E15.

For her outfit I went with Y11, Y13 and Y13.

I took my pop of color around the outside of the image by adding dots of the FRV1, BV00 and Y11. And even for me that was too much Drama so I toned it down with the Colorless bender.

For this doll to stand I have cut out 2 layers of cardstock and a layer of chipboard. I did this all with my electronic cutter. I adhered them together with liquid glue. IF you want to know more about that I can include that in an upcoming post.

 

So Drama does not only have to be achieved with color. What is your crafty drama secret?

 

In His Hands

A WEDDING IN THE FAMILY

Don't you just love a wedding. I do. The niece who is the closest in age to my own children is getting married soon. Of course I have to make a card and here is what I came up with.
Isn't it cute!

Here is the card open, I just love it.


Here is a close-up.


But you can see the sparkle better on the video where I gave you all the details on how I made it.  You may have to turn the sound up, I just found out that I'm speaking rather softly on my videos and I will fix that in the next one .

In His Hands,

My Organization

Everyone who crafts has some sort of organization. And whether or not they are good organization options depends on you. Organization is as much a statement of your personal preferences as your choice of car or bedroom décor. That being said organization falls into two schools of thought…is it functional or is it pretty. Now the better thing would be functionally pretty. I fall into the functional style with as many touches of pretty as I can incorporate.

 

When I got my new space in 2011, I thought I’d have this Kitchen of a craft room. One with all the cabinets and storage of a kitchen. But my husband’s practical side intervened and my dream of a kitchen craft room died.  So what I have is my hodge podge of mismatched metal office desk and filing cabinets with their plastic cousins and particle board counter tops.

 

Now less you think I’m unhappy in my space, let me say this; I often refer to my space as a sanctuary, a haven of rest. Sounds like heaven and for me it is heaven on earth. It is here that I am creative and without creativity I would be less.

 

I have some storage tips that I love to share and I hope that the ones I share with you today will be helpful to some.

 

I store dies (shown below) and punches on Bygel Rails from IKEA.

I bought some of the rails and the “S” hooks and hung my wafer thin dies in the original packaging. For those I did not have the packaging for, I bought some plastic zip lock style bags from eBay; punched a hole in the top so I could hang them. I went through several storing options before settling on this one.  I sort them by company. My dream is to one day sort them by company and by type; like all borders together and all labels.

 

I store my full size ink pads mostly in old cassette tape holders.(the one linked is not shown below but I have several of those)

For my mini pads; I store them in these Stuftainers by Stampendous:

 

My sprays, both homemade and commercial are stored on a frames from Ikea.

 

For my vast stamp collection; I keep all unmounted stamps in binders.

Inside the binders the stamps are stored on Wilson Jones index dividers when I can find them. If I cant I have made my own by laminating cardstock (I use the brand that I bought at Sam’s; that I was hoping was 110# like Paper Trey Ink’, sadly it was not).

For my clear stamps I keep them in their packaging and using my ATG gun, I tape the package to the dividers; being careful to make sure I can easily get into the packaging to remove the stamps.

 

To see my room you can watch the video tour on YT. I covered the bank of white cabinets with curtains as I have since removed the doors as they were in the way.

Tour My Stamp Room

In His Hands,

Simple Mixed Coloring Media

2013 seems to be the year of mixed media. Everywhere I look I see it. On pinterest.com, YouTube and in the blogosphere. So I created one more take on it today while playing with my friends from Scraps Of Color. Hi Pauline, Hi Thelma!

I created this with a Dyan Reaveley Stamps called Curious Corrin.

Her outfit is paper pieced, but I added some colored pencils for shading and a Uniball Signo pen in white on the polka Dots. Her hair is also Colored pencil and gamsol; as is her skin. Her lips are Smooch in siren red. The grey shadow was done with a Tombow marker, and I think it makes her pop off the page. The dots outlining her are various Copics (sorry I did not note the color names) and wah-la. A clean and simple mixed coloring media stamped card!

The inside says:
What I'm looking for is
Is a blessing
That's not in disguise...stamp by Hampton Art.

I leave you,
In the Hands of the Creator,

This is the Time

A while ago I was looking for some Fresco Chalk ink pads and asked if any vendors that belonged to an online group had any for sale. No one wanted to take my money or had none to sell.

 

This is where Ronita comes in, she too is member of this group and emailed me to say that she had some and would gladly send them to me if I would supply my address.
She sent me something like 17 of them with reinkers for some. Wow what a gift.It would be time to thank her if that was all she had done. But a couple of weeks letter she send a lovely hand written note and asked if I knew any one who would love some craft items. I do and emailed her to tell her so.

 

A couple of weeks later a large box comes full of all kinds of things. See this video:

Blessing From Ronita

 

Surely that would be the time to thank her but some boxes arrived this week. I have shared all the gifts with my friends. I decided to make her something practical that will hopefully remind her of her generosity. I made a her a pill box that I decorated with Prima’s Fairy Rhyme paper.

 

 

I topped it with a fairy acrylic piece that I had in my stash and some pearlized mica bits from Stampendous and some flat back pearls.

And using the same paper and dies I created a card to go with it.

The label die is from Spellbinders and the others are from Paper Trey Ink as are the stamps. The flowers are from I Am Roses.

 

I hope these will help Ronita understand exactly how grateful I am for her gifts.

 

In The Hands of the Creature,

QP