Be blessed wall canvas

I was inspired to try something new and inspired by the beattitudes into a meaningful artistic peace for me. (The beattitudes are in Matthew 5:3-10.  I used the Message)

I think we sometimes got so caught up in what the world asks of us that we lose sight of what God requires of us. 

I am no minister and my walk with God has a lot of rocky dead ends and uturns.  So I wanted to talitor a message to myself just for me from God.  (LOL... Got it!!)  

Okay, now the method.  I used a 12x12 canvas from Hobby Lobby and painted it with 3 different colors of acrylic paint. I used Folk Art's 4011 butter pecan as the dominant color with Apple Barrel's Antique White and Folk Art's Maple Syrup as balancing and accent colors.  I painted this 3 months ago so I honestly can't give u details on technique. (Because I have none... I just go until I think it is pretty, then I stop.) 

I cut everything from black cardstock Cricut's Planting Schoolbook cartridge.  The BE is at 7 inches and all the other letter are cut at 1.5.  The periods are just circles cut at 0.25. I used a mod podge type adhesive to attach everthing to the canvas.  After it dried, went over it again with Paper Plus' Sheer Gold Glaze (a Mighty Dollar find from 2 years ago) so seal edges add some color depth.  finally I added some black gems, from Hobby Lobby, to the I's while the glaze was still wet. 

This project was very simple and I enjoyed making it.  I'm sure you could make your gold glaze with mod podge and Perfect Pearls if u wanted to recreate the same look with your product stash at home. 

Thanks for tuning in and hey crafters,  put your moral compass to good use today.  Create something beautiful to remind yourself and others of God's blessings in someway.  I didn't see making pretty things out of paper in the Bible as a spiritual gift, but I'm sure my God has it down in the footnotes in Heaven!!

Distriss Inks

I've been investing more time and money in the altered art of paper crafting and I'm starting to learn subtle differences and my preference pertaining to certain techniques.  For example, here are 2 ways of using distress inks for all over coloring.  The left one is applying the ink to a craft sheet, spray with a mini mister and diping the paper.  The right is applying ink to the paper with an ik blending tool.

I think I like the right one best because I can control exactly where the ink will go.  Which one do you like best?

School is back and so am I!!

Just like a lot of you, I can't be consistent with all the summertime fun going on (plus I needed to find my mojo).  But school is starting next Thursday so I decided to start my consistency pledge with a back to school project!!

My daughter wants to give her teacher an apple and I wanted to offer my crafting services.  What better way to do that than with a gift bag and card.  I left space on the card to add the teachers name once we find out on Sunday.  I'm debating on making a water bottle wrap out of the leftover craps but I don't want to be too over the top LOL!!

The bag is the standard premade from Michael's.  The Patterned Papers are from the Michael's All Seasons stacks. Except for the black graffiti, which is from an DCWV stack, I think.  The cardstock is random, the ribbon is Hobby Lobby and stamp is from Stamping Up. The images on the bag are all from Simply Charmed while the card is from Locker Talk.  I see some Ranger enamel accents on the pencil tip and white gel pen on the card for a little extra something.

Hope you are like it!!