Time does not heal all wounds.

So I'm going to be a little bit personal in this post and tell you more about myself in a way. I did make a journal page and if you want to see it, you can scroll down through all my personal stuff.

Three days ago, there was a car crash involving 3 cars in a neighboring town of mine. I woke up the next morning and found that one of my best friends texting me that her cousin got killed in a car crash. Then I logged into my Facebook to see an article posted by another friend with more about it. It turns out that it was a friend of mine that I've known since 6th grade, her little sister was in the same car as my best friend's cousin. He died at the hospital and she died on the scene. I'm still in complete shock as to this happening.

This isn't the first time that death has happened in my life. In January of 2009, I lost a friend of mine named Phil in a car accident on my mom's birthday. This put my life into a little bit of a spiral. This was the first time that I had personally known someone who had died. I was 18 when it happened. Then in March of 2009, my band director (who had retired in June of 2008) died of a heart attack. This added onto my already spiraled life and a month later, I lost another person I knew. The third person wasn't a best friend, close friend or anything of the sort. But he was a great guy. My friends didn't know what to do or say to me even though we were in the same situation. I take things to heart and I still cry about them all the time. Whenever it rains it makes me think of Phil (I also do not like driving in the rain. Nor do I like driving period. I never have) and music in general makes me think of my band director.

So to have Lane (who I never knew. But it's my best friend's family) and Meredith (who I did know for a long time) and her family be in this situation. I cannot even put into words how I feel right now. It brings back so many emotions and puts me into a state of...I don't know what to call it really. Sedated? Numb even? I wish that they weren't taken from my life so soon and death will always be my #1 fear and I know that if you have lost anyone close to you, you know that the phrase "Time heals all wounds" is completely and utter horse crap. It doesn't heal anything. It just gives you time to reflect and realize that they aren't there anymore.

Out of this situation and this phrase, I have created this page.

This is in my art journal, I put down canvas that I bought from a garage sale in a roll and glued it down, painted the background, made the clock out of plastic paper I did yesterday and the lines you see outlining the page and the squares around the clock are made using glass paint I bought from Michael's the other day for 79 cents. I laid down the leaves I got from outside and blue spray painted over them and then I got out my stencils and did the words in the same spray paint. 

Thank you for reading the whole thing if you did and if you did not, I do not in any way hold it against you. This is a blog about me and this is who I am. You now know where my depression stems off of a bit and if you have every lost someone, you know what I'm talking about. 

Tracy Weinzapfel's July Dare. :)

I had such a blast doing this. I love having challenges from artist's like Tracy's and one that I did in Limor Webber's Facebook Group.

For Tracy's Challenge it was quite simple. Use your word of the year (I decided to make my "Create") and use your favorite color palette. Simple as that. So my favorite color palette at this point in time are blues, purples and white. So that's what I did. :)

Here's the picture.

I am so proud of this piece. Here were my steps (without pictures today! I'm sorry!)

1. I put down my background colors in blotches and mushed them around with my fingers and blend them together. (the sides are done too!)

2. I used my leaf stamp (which. I must say, I have used this on my last 3 projects. So I love it a lot) and put them down in white.

3. I put down my doily and took my stiff paint brush and dabbed the purple paint on first. After the purple paint was semi-dry, I did the same thing with the white and you can see how they kind of blended together in some spots to make a lavender color. Cool right?

4. I took my felt birdie and laid it down and used my blue spray paint and spray it on there. 

5. Then I wrote on my word and outlined my bird in the same color. 

Finished! :) 

I hope you all have a creatively fantastic day!

Last one tonight!

This one is actually the most recent because I finished it a little while ago. Haha! Tracy Weinzapfel has a UStream class every Monday night and tonight I followed along with what she was going with. Here are my step-by-steps that I did. :)

I painted my background in my color scheme of the day (pink, yellow and purples) and then I took my big booty plastic doily and painted the purple and blue into it to get the design (I don't even care that it's all messy.)

Then I took my homemade leaf stamp and made two flowers out of them (Tracy did flowers tonight!) and I love love love how they came out.

 Then I took another one of my big booty plastic doily and it has this beautiful flower pattern in the middle of it and I just used gesso and painted into it (my gesso is thicker so it does run as much like the blue and purple one did) and I did three of them (Tracy did 3 flowers. I tried to stick with what she was doing a little. Lol)

Then I colored them in with blue, pink and turquoise watercolors and accented each petal with white to highlight them a little bit and I added those flourishy looking things to the corners as well. 

 I started to get down on myself at this point. I didn't like that bottom flower. So I made it look better. 

 Here is the finished product! It's soooo beautiful in person. I wish you could all see it.

I'm not religious by any means but I saw this on Pinterest one day and it just. I think it's absolutely beautiful. It's from Proverbs 31:25. "She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future." How great is that?!

This is my favorite part of the page though. I love how that flower came out. :))

Thank you, Tracy if you are reading this for an amazing inspiration for this piece. I'm totally in love with it. 

I hope you all have an amazing night. I'm heading to bed. Test in the morning!

2 of 3 tonight!!

Okay. So yesterday I decided to actually do something with this frame that I've had sitting with all of my art stuff for the last like. 2 months or so. I had done this video and recorded myself doing the whole thing. And then at the end, I deleted it because I hated the way it was. You couldn't see anything and it was just a train wreck. So here are the pictures of it!

Here is the outside of the frame. The color of it was an olive-y green color and it didn't match my picture inside. So all I did was take some of the blue color I used in the flower and picture and went over it and smudged it with my finger. You can still see the original color too.

My flower is a Tim Holtz paper flower I made a week or so ago that I just painted the colors I wanted. The leaves to either side are just K & Company Dye Cuts (I don't know if I spelled that right.)

  

And here's the inside! How pretty!!! I'm so proud of it.

If you can't read it that well it says "fly creatively to a place of peace." because when I create, it's my place of peace. I feel relaxed and happy when I paint. 

The butterfly is from the same K & Company pack that the leaves came out of. :)

Hope you enjoyed! Leave comments! I love reading them. :)

And stay tuned for the last post of the night!!

1 of 3 posts tonight!

I got a little behind on posting one of my projects. All the pictures were on my phone but I just never got the chance to make a blog post about it.

So back story. On July 3rd, my dad was hospitalized and he's been in there ever since. Turns out he was having heart troubles all along and on Tuesday (the 17th) he had a quadruple bypass surgery to repair his heart. Anyway, I had painted a picture 2 years ago of a heart in watercolor and it just kind of sat alone on the page with my ugly old signature and so I decided to make something else out of it instead of it being lonely. :) But here is what I did with it!

Note: I'm not going to make any commentaries on the pictures except 1 or 2 because they are literally. step. by. step. pictures. Lol.

Materials: 

Blank page, heat gun, scissors, pokey thingy, old painting that I did, string and that plastic wheel holds my brads.

For the string, I just laid it on wax paper and sprayed it in weird places so it looked bloody (gross. I know.)

I forgot to take pictures of the product in this step. All I did was drip Dr.Ph Martin's Bombay ink down the page. It's the "Terra Cotta" color

I used the brad to make it swivel in and out of the pocket I made! 

Hope you liked it! Stay tuned for another tutorial right after this!

Mini Matchbook Tutorial

Hey ladies. Sorry I've been away for a little while. My dad just had bypass surgery and I've been under a lot of stress. But I am BACK and in full swing. I found a tutorial by Kathy Orta on how to make a matchbook type album and I made one for myself. Her instructions are super super easy to follow (she's got a great teaching style. Never leaves out a step and is very thorough.

But here are the pictures of my version of the book. :)

When the book is all folded up here is what it looks like. I used Marion Smith's Tim Holtz Grunge Flower Tutorial to make the rose on the front which I just secured down with Aleene's Tacky Glue and I used the colors that I didn't use on the outside. 

When you first unfold it it will look like this. It has 3 spots for either journaling or pictures. 

And when you open it up completely, here is what it looks like! How awesome is that?! It has 3 big journaling spots and those lace areas are POCKETS. How fun! Now. Kathy's tutorial cuts off after she gets to that point. But since it did and I assembled it just fine, I'm going to give you what I did to finish it off. 

 Tips: When you get to the point to where it cuts off I think that basically the only thing that I have to tell you all is that you NEED to reinforce the gussets. That is what is going to make it fold up really nicely. The top gusset needs to be reinforced as well so that everything folds where it is supposed to. DO NOT stray from her measurements. They are extremely precise and I made a mistake my first try and screwed everything up! Hahaha.

Here is the video to how it opens and closes as well. :)

I hope you all have a fabulous day and I'm going to come back with another AMAZING tutorial you won't want to miss. It'll save you money BIG TIME. :)

My findings over the last 24 hours.

Washi tape central over here in my room. So far I have made 20 different patterns and designs. And I have to say, I am loving each and every one of them. :) Here are some more of my findings that I'm learning along the way.

1. I. love. my. heat. gun. hahaha! Seriously, if you have a heat gun (I show you mine in the last post) USE IT.  It saves time, energy and you can start making more!

2. Watercolors look really amazing on the tape. Once they are dry (using my heat tool), it looks like the you bought the tape that way.

3. Acrylics still look great on it.

4. I actually embossed one of my tapes last night. And let me tell you, that was a chore because I am apparently not the smartest dolphin of the pod and made a huge mess. But! I have figured it out and I'm going to keep making them. :)

5. The tapes don't stick (so far) to the piece before when you wrap them around and such. It doesn't ruin it so don't be afraid!

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Yesterday I got home from the hospital and my cousin had brought in the mail and my Marion Smith Vintage Trinkets got here! Yipee! Here's what I got!

I am in LOVE with those little bird cages and I can't wait to use those little frames. :)

Also, I keep forgetting to tell you guys that I am using a sketchbook I bought that is too small to use as an art journal and I'm using it to plan my blog posts, write my step-by-step tutorials, writing out ideas of what works and what doesn't with certain techniques and such. This is just the page for my washi tapes. Haha!

It has glues and how they react, ideas on the left, tips in the middle and heat tool things on the right. I'm happy to finally put it to use. It's just a cute little 6x6 sketchbook. :)

Well. That's it for now. It's still really early in the day. So I might have another post up later. 

Think. Believe. Create.<3

And now for the grand finale!!!

THE ACTUAL WASHI TAPE!!! 

Hahaha! I'm so excited I could squeal. Oh wait. I already have! I FINALLY finished putting all my wax paper strips down to the cardstock (all. forty. strips.) and today I made my first set of tapes and let me tell you, I could not be any more excited and giddy as I am now with how they came out. I took a few pictures (of course!) and I'm going to have a video later on my YouTube Channel. I'm just visiting my dad at the hospital now and don't have the headphones to edit the video. It's actually funny because I kept saying I was done and kept talking. Haha! But here are the pictures!

Okay. So I laid out my masking tape on wax paper that was attached to a piece of masonite (yep. all that. Haha!) And I used acrylics. Let me tell you, acrylic paint works GREAT on masking tape. I wanted to just test out some solid colors first and that's what the first 3 are. They worked great. They did buckle a little bit but then when I heat gunned them, it flatted right out. 

TIP: Press the tape down to the wax paper, even use a bone folder to do it because it will prevent some of that buckling. 

 After I heat gunned them dry, I started to add them to my book!

Here are some of my heat tool tips. This is the heat tool I use. I bought it for $3 at a garage sale! So here are some tips I found in making my first batch. 

TIPS: 

1. Use acrylics. They work great on the tape. 

2. Watercolors are great to use too. You get good coverage but make sure that you let it dry completely before removing it from your board.

3. Press the tape down onto the wax paper after putting it on there (when your designing it AND when you put it into your book/folder).

4. Mod Podge is also fun to use. In the first picture, the white looking tape has sparkle mod podge on it. You can see it a little bit. It's got a GREAT look to it because I added a light pink wash to it to give it some color.

My next batch will be me experimenting with different glues and some maps!

Think.Believe.Create.<3

Inside the Washi Tape Folder...in 7 easy steps!

Hey ladies! So I've been working on my Homemade Washi Tape holder that I did a post about and I am SO excited to say that I am almost done with it!! YAAAAY!! I have two more pages to put wax paper on (My hand just hurts from doing the other 8) and then I actually get to start making my washi tape to fill it. And I have a big piece of masonite that is 2 feet long that I have in my room. So I'm going to take wax paper, line the masonite and each design of my Washi Tape will be 2 feet long! And of course, I can always add more. As it sits right now, I have room for FORTY (Holy crap, right?!) different columns to put my tapes on. *jaw drop*

I am super excited about putting this step-by-step tutorial together for you ladies (and gents if you're out there!). There is a video of it on my YouTube! I hope you like it! Please please please leave comments, questions or just tell me what you like and do not like about it! Thanks!

Hereeee we go!

Step 1: 

Gathering your supplies! (you're not going to make it out of air now, are yah?!)

Supplies I used were the following: 

Wax Paper, Paper cutter, Ruler, Scissors, Bone Folder (optional. I just don't like sticky fingers) and your preferred glue stick.

TIP: Do not use liquid glue. I tried it and it was a mess that I regretted. You want to use the glue stick. :)

 Step 2: 

Lay out your paper cutter and roll out your wax paper WAX SIDE UP!

TIP: I found while doing the pictures for this tutorial, it was so much easier to keep the roll in the box so it doesn't fly all over the place. :)

 Step 3: 

Cut the Wax Paper into 1" strips WAX SIDE UP! and set them aside wax side up as well so that you don't get them confused (I put mine in this long organizer box that my boyfriend's mom gave me.)

Now. You want to make the bottom sheet look like the top sheet. And here's how you do it!

Step 4: 

Easiest. Step. Ever. Lay out your wax paper stripes to see how many fit comfortably on the sheet. Done.

 Step 5: 

Making your indents.

 Okay. So in my template, I laid out my strips and I made the indents 1/2'' deep and measured 1" across (which is the length of the masking tape). Then take your template, line it up and make your slits!

Step 6: 

Fold the 1" flaps that you just made down to the backside of the page and glue them down. These flaps were great guides for the next step.

This is what it should look like at this point.

Okay. Here come the final steps (which unfortunately take the longest!)

Step 7:

Take your wax paper (WAX SIDE UP!) and glue it down to the flap you made in the back. Like I said, this is going to be your guide. And after that, glue the rest of your paper down to the cardstock. 

TIP: I glued them completely and then wrapped it around and attached them to where I started. And cut off any excess paper (I had about an inch left)

 Here is the finished product when it is folded up (like it will be in my book) and when it is completely open!

I hope you all enjoyed this tutorial because it was really fun for me to put together. I think I'm starting to get the hang of blogging and videoing my process. 

Think.Believe.Create<3