What's on My Kitchen Counter

Hello friends. Sad news.  I lost my Pop the day after Christmas.  He suffered through pulmonary fibrosis which is a horrible disease.  He is at rest now. He and my Mom shared a special love. She always told me that if she had had him in her life early on, they could have taken on the world. He made her very happy, and he was such a rock to her when she faced her battle with cancer. When she got her diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer, she said she didn't want to fight it or take any treatments.  She had already fought it once and it took a lot out of her.  Pop told her that he would be there every step of the way, and he wasn't willing to give up.  She fought it and had several more very full years where she got to see both my daughters get married and the birth of quite a few great grandchildren. But more importantly, she had more time with him - something she deeply treasured.  He was true to his word, and he was there through every step like a rock....

 It is Christmas.  Such a strange Christmas with all that is going on in the world.  My daughters plan to come over later.  We are doing a bit different menu:  Italian salad, Zuppa Toscano soup, giant baked meatballs, potato lasagna, regular lasagna, and a New York style chocolate chip cheesecake.  I am going off my diet yesterday and today, then back on it Saturday.   We have some sad things going on in our family, but we are holding each other tight and trying to think positively.  Focusing on "the real meaning of" Christmas helps. Speaking of "The Meaning Of',"  I did several BAJ pages Tracey's **ART*JOURNAL*JOURNEY* theme. I focused on the meaning of Christmas - the gift of Jesus, and how God aligned many stars in His plan for our salvation through His Son.  From the prophesies, the genealogy of Christ, the escape from Herod's decree, and all the other amazing miracles from that day to today, His love for us is clear and true....

 Hello friends, This past week the Tea Party Challenge on Splitcoaststampers.com was all about Rhode Island as the recipient of our cards is from RI.  I decided to try and paint a rooster.  Try is the key word - I need a lot of practice but I finished it and did a matching BAJ page in Hebrews. My background was from the SCS Watercolor Challenge: Emboss Resist with Watercolor Powders (I used Brushos).   I watched THIS video but my rooster looks nothing like hers! I finished it and I am calling that success.  The card recipient is battling cancer so I decided the card should be a little upbeat so I added a chicken crossing the road joke.  Inside it says, "because it was free range."   In the challenge, they mentioned that the Rhode Island motto is "Hope."  What a great motto.  I looked up the story behind it, and one theory is that it is after Hebrews 6: 18-19 so I decided to journal that page in my Bible and add a chicken.  Lov...

 A bit of a spooky post today.... I started with THIS fun rain scented whipped soap as my inspiration along with the words in Lamentations 3 which are VERY SPOOKY.   Seems the writer has pretty much given up and then the hope shines through a bit at the end.  I love the poetry of the verses but this was a very sad time in our history.   I started with a layer of gesso, then a layer of gray Gouache colors.  Mixed in a bit of yellow and red for fun.  Then I put down another layer of gesso and while wet I put down the skull part of a halloween  napkin (goes with the words of the verse - I promise).  Another layer of gesso and then the words.  Needed something fun so I added in a few silver teeth.  The skull needed something so I added in a bit of the yellow and painted a few of the dark parts a little darker. You can see my first attempt at doing a video of my crafting HERE .  Linking to Tracey's theme at **ART*JOURNAL*JOURN...

Hello friends.   I tried a few different (for me) things. I always love looking a written journaling with little illustrations - there are some people out there who are awesome at it.  I thought I would try it and now I remember why I don't do it!  You have to have good handwriting and be able to write your words at the same size throughout the page!  LOL.  Since I don't have good handwriting and I can't keep my words the right size, this looks like a hot mess, but I am going to share it! Proverbs 28-29.  I picked this page in my Bible Journaling because I love the focus on helping the poor and the words on flattering your neighbor and a net.  I obviously thought I would get to the net part before the end of the page but that didn't happen.  I learned a lot from the reading and the journaling.  I think I will try this again but plan it out a bit better.  Some guidelines might be a good idea for me too. Linking this to Tracy's THE ME...

 Hello crafty friends. My 25 year old daughter, Alex, told me last night she wanted to make her own Christmas cards with my help.  She wanted to make them all right then.  Yikes!  And....   she wanted them to look like they came from the 1970s!  Double Yikes!!  I was pretty skeptical about getting them done in 3 hours - but we did! She actually helped, and she was so creative.  I was proud of her, and I had the best time!   She found all the stuff in my paper and flower stash so we used up a lot of things that probably would have ended thrown away or donated. I was thrilled.   When she showed me the picture she wanted to use, I could see why she picked 1970s.  She dressed in bell bottoms for the picture and it does look 1970-ish.  By the way, she just moved and she did her house in 1970s theme too.  Whenever I visit, I feel like I stepped back to High School. LOL! After we were done, I asked her which one wa...

 I am still working in Lamentations in my Bible Journaling. The MIX challenge on SCS this past week was to use some "garbage" in your creation and the **Art Journal*Journey* theme is "The Meaning Of" so how did I get here?   *Saw Lydia said use some garbage on your creation and I had a 401K disclosure on my kitchen counter that had a great gears picture with some super colors that looked kind of good for a verse on gold.   *Lydia did some textured stenciling and my words talked about tarnishing so I thought it would be good to use my Stamperia pipes stencil and use some rusty looking paste (plus I remembered Elizabeth's rust pages HERE ).   *So I used some gesso to glue down the page from the disclosure, tore off a few words from it as well and put them down.   *Then did the layer of textured paste. *After it dried, I rubbed on some gold paint since the verse is about tarnished gold. I focused on  Lamentations 4:1 which speaks about the...

I finding out what the new theme is every month at *Art*Journal*Journey!   This month, Tracey has selected "The Meaning Of."  She is letting us interpret it any way we want which is very thought-provoking.  You need to pop over and see the gorgeous landscape she made and how she personally interpreted her theme. I have a goal to finish Lamentations in my BAJ so I went to Lamentations 2 which is pretty dark and tells about the destruction of Jerusalem when God was angered.  I read several commentaries on it, but they were very deep and just didn't want to stick in my head...(not much wants to these days unless it is super fun or a new recipe - lol).  So I decided to focus on the fact that we need to learn from God's lessons to us.  We may not like the act that leads to the lesson, but our goal is to survive the act and learn from the lesson.  So then I researched learning from lessons and found this awesome quote by Alan Cohen: "The apparent goal of the...