Longing for Spring

It's still January and I am already longing for springtime. I think January is the l-o-n-g-e-s-t month of the year! The weather here is cold and gloomy and gray. YUK! That's pretty typical for winter in the midwest, but please Mr. Sunshine ~ could you show your face every once in a while?
In an attempt to keep myself from completely going bonkers with cabin fever, I signed up for Teresa McFayden's Paper Romance E-Zine. Here is one of my completed projects ~ a shabby-glam notepad. Now I can't help but smile whenever I make out my grocery and To-Do lists. And the best part about this project is I didn't have to buy a thing to make it. I only used supplies I had on hand.

Journaling Days

I thought I would share a peek at a new journal I am working on. I made this one myself using fabric, book board, and watercolor paper signatures. It's still a work in progress as I want to add some embroidery and other embellishments to the quilted cover. All the pages are at various stages of incompleteness and still have a lot more work to be done on them, not to mention the most important component - the journaling!!!
The page above shows the beginning of a technique I learned from Pam Garrison using vintage wallpaper and Copic markers to extend the wallpaper design on the journal page. Still lots to do on this page.

I used some heart and hand masks and Glimmer Mist sprays on the right page.

Watercolors and doodling.

More watercolors, masking and Glimmer Mists.

Lots of washes of color to fill in with journaling later.

While we were at our cottage last week, I picked up a few new ready-made journals to jot down notes, thoughts and ideas. I have such a weakness for notebooks and journals. I can't seem to resist when I see a new one. The top one features a favorite quote of mine from the SHE book on the cover and I see that Cerri just listed some of these journals in her Little Pink Boutique here. The middle one is a blank journal from the talented Kelli Rae Roberts. Her drawings are always so full of whimsey. The bottom composition book-type journal, with the blue & green color palette, bird cage and another wonderful quote, just called out to me. It's available from Live-Inspired here. Happy journaling!

Wicked Creations

I've been taking Teresa's latest E-Zine class called Bellaween and thought I would share a couple of the fun projects with you. The oh-so-talented Donna Layton, from Under The Red Roof, was a featured artist and she taught us her amazing glittering technique for the wonderful sparkly letters she uses in her collage work. The letters encircling this little box spell out the word WICKED using Martha Stewart's hematite fine glitter. Speaking of Martha, did you know that she's expanded her line of craft products to the Walmart stores now? It's a smaller selection of mostly the same products, just different packaging and priced a little less than Michael's. Of course when you have a 40-50% off coupon at Michael's then their price comes out cheaper. This is another Bellaween-inspired piece I made using some of the techniques and images from the class. I added witch hats to the line of eerie little girls and if you look closely, they are holding a glittery garland of bats. Orange polka-dots give the background a touch of whimsy.
In the close-up below, I used Donna's glittering technique on rubber stamped letters and added a crepe paper rosette topped with a filmy little flower and a black rhinestone.

Now go make something SPOOKY for yourself!