What's on My Kitchen Counter

 Hello crafty friends, I had fun creating this weekend.  Here are some of my creations - the ones I am willing to share - LOL. My first one is in my new journaling book and it was inspired by THIS picture on the SCS inspiration challenge and Valerie's Heavy Metal Theme (the Stickles Gel has metallic circles in it) at **ART*JOURNAL*JOURNEY*.    This kind of reminds me of my hair color right now as I am trying to go all gray and my stylist is mixing in a few different colors to help.   I played with some Stickles gel that had stars in it too so it also fits the AJJ theme.  If you like Big Bang theory like I do you might get a kick out of my Sheldon-isms. I did a few BAJ pages too. This one was on the page starting the New Testament in my journaling Bible.  I used torn book and hymnal pages for the maintains and clouds.  It was loosely done after watching a watercolor video from the SCS watercolor challenge this past week.  More painted circles in Philippians. Made a few cards this p

I had a fun crafting adventure with my Sister Saturday.  We made up a challenge where we had to create two scrapbook pages.  One had to have pictures of our elusive camera-shy husbands (strangely enough they are both named Kenny... lol), and the other had to have our parents on the page.  The theme had to be love since it was Valentine's weekend, and one page had to have something metallic (for Valerie's Heavy Metal challenge at **ART*JOURNAL*JOURNEY* of course).   Here is my tribute to my outdoorsman.  The papers are Stamperia Forest which fits my hubby as you can see from this deer picture from last year.  The picture of us together was from my daughter's wedding 5 years ago.  I had to hunt for pictures hard because he is VERY camera shy and you have to catch him at just the right moment.  Here is the other page in my layout.  My Mom and Pop are in the bottom picture and my husband is in the other three along with pictures of two of my Grandsons.  The picture of Mom and

 Rainy and dreary outside so I decided to go with lots of color in my art journal this morning. My inspirations are as follows: *The box on the top of the dresser HERE  (part of the Inspiration Challenge today on SCS) *Valerie's Heavy Metal theme at * *ART*JOURNAL*JOURNEY *The pop art theme in the MIX challenge on SCS The old lace and the 4 circles at the top of the left side all came out of Great Grandma Taylor's sewing drawer.  The top left circle is rimmed with metal and I believe it may have her handwriting on it a bit.  So fun!  Added in some gold paint plus kept the airplane behind Howard (out of an old Best of Life book bought at a garage sale and already partial cut up).   Howard Hughes was tinted purple with some ink so he could fall more into the pop art vibe.  He was so interesting and goes with my "Radiate Possibilities - aim high' encouragement.  The balloons are stamped with the Hot Air Balloon stamp from DRS Designs.  The puff circles are DRS Designs as

 Hello crafty friends. This weekend I ran across Mission Inspiration on Facebook - a group headed up by Mike Deakin. They have a monthly challenge on Facebook with a set of prompts. This month's challenge included three colors, tissue paper, circles, numbers and some other items.  The way he announces the challenge in a super secret message that self destructs is soooo fascinating and his accent is amazing.  Did I mention, I have listened to that message 10 times? LOL.  I recommend you join the Facebook group just so you can listen to his messages!  I am looking forward to March's already.  I couldn't resist playing since I have my new journal, the Heavy Metal Inspiration by Valerie at **Art*Journal*Journey* , and this fun new Arched Window stamp from DRS Designs. Steps: *Botanical tissue paper with clear gesso *Coat of clear glaze medium, clear gesso, and gray chalk paint mixed together *Layer of white craft ink to tone down the gray *Light brushing of Vintage Photo Distre

Golden Retirement Wishes..... We had wished to live on a nearby lake in retirement, but just about the time we were ready to look at property, prices skyrocketed out of our reach and are going up hourly.  Houses are selling before they can even be put on the market... There was a river option, but the same thing has happened in that area as well.   We are now looking at just staying here and taking better advantage of our view of our little pond.  My new (to me) Dylusions journal came yesterday along with some Stamperia Forest paper.  Since these thoughts are always on my mind, I journaled about our change in plans in my new journal. Since the **Art*Journal*Journey* monthly prompt (selected by Valerie) is Heavy Metal, I added in a little piece of metal from my Mom's treasure chest of little metal pieces, some gold paint splatters and some Mica flakes.  Hard to tell how much I added from the picture above but here is a close up of one of the fish so you can see the mica flakes I du

 The February **Art*Journal*Journey* theme picked by Valerie is Heavy Metal (metallic colors, pieces, concepts, steampunk, etc.).  What a fab theme!  I did my steampunk page yesterday and my train page this morning at 4:00AM just when the train horns  were sounding - lol! My steampunk page is made with Stamperia Sea World paper and the related pipes stencil.  This picture make This page is done with some silver, gold and rust colored metallic ink, a lines stencil, a picture out of a Best of Life book, and some TH stickers. Also have a card to share using the new Lucky in Love stamp from DRS Designs.  I did a watercolor background, added some crackle medium circles, layered on an altered playing card (stamped with the DRS Designs Script Font background), and tucked in a TH paper doll couple.  Hugz, and thanks for stopping by! Nancy