Almost TSFT!

Philippians 1:3 "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,"

I have been really lazy about posting to my Blog lately.  It just seems like so much other stuff is going on, you know, like life! LOL   However, I thought I would try to post today.  Since I posted last time, I have been to a week-long junk journaling retreat where I met some wonderful ladies from all over the country.  Many of the ladies were taking part in the challenges with Julie, Dear Julie.  In fact, she was there also.  Most of us follow Julie on her You Tube channel. We had so much fun and swapped junk.  I didn't think to take a photo of everything I brought home or of the 4 boxes I took to give away.  But just now, I got some out some so you could see maybe an 8th of what I brought home.  And below is a hand sewn journal that one of the retreat planners gifted each one of us.  Each one was different, too.  I loved this fabric and the button / key closure.  Inside are wonderful paper pages.  She left undecorated so we could use it for writing or decorate ourselves as we like.  The binding is an elastic chord, so we can put more pages in or use again.  Just lovely; she made over 20 of them for us.

Below are a few things of my haul from the retreat.  One lady had rolled up the prettiest fabric rolls for each of us.  Another gifted us hand painted and dyed pages.  Beautiful!  I came home with wallpaper, fabric, ledger papers and so much more for my future junk journaling projects.  Everyone was so gracious and generous at the retreat.  Most of all our wonderful hostess was so gracious opening her home to all of us.

Among the items I took were Kansas post cards from Elizabeth for each one of them.  BTW Happy Birthday to Elizabeth our hostess with the mostess!  Here is a link over to the TSFT / birthday party over at Altered Book lover!

Besides the retreat my hubby and I did another painting class!  And in one of the photos below is my ticket to the party; blueberry water.

The man below is an artist from the Art Park.  He told us how to draw and paint a sunflower. My husband said he never saw a purple sunflower, but that is how we did it.

Last week was our kickoff brunch at church for our Bible Study.  I sewed together 25 journals so they could take notes or write down prayer requests.  I took them to the retreat to work on while I was there.  When the ladies found out what I was doing, it became everyone's project!  Our lovely hostess made 25 rosettes for the covers.  Two ladies made 25 pockets each for the journals so they could each have pockets on the inside both front and back.  A couple of the ladies made tags.  Several made fancy paper clips for each one.  Another lady was in charge of quality control.  We all worked on them, decorating with stickers, doilies and stamping of Bible verses.  Our Bible Study ladies received them last week and were thankful and so amazed that so many took part in making their journals.   After that I made another 60-page journal for a precious friend at church for her birthday.  Whew!  Yes, I have been busy!

Now, it is time to post this, go over and wish Elizabeth a Happy Birthday, and study my Bible study lesson.

Thank you so much for stopping by.  Wishing you all a wonderful day!  See you next time!

Tea & Scrapping

   ⁶ Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

It is time to post for T Stands for Tuesday, our party held over at Altered Book Lover with Bleubeard & Elizabeth.  First I will show you my submission for **Art Journal* Journey* for Chris's On All Fours Challenge.  I meet dogs on my walk and decided to do a layout about the one I met Friday. 

I am still having fun playing Calvinball.  I received 43 points for this layout, Using items like Washi, a stamp, heart, punch, camera, tag, bird, flower, flowered paper, sticker, aqua, brads, arrow, multiple photos, word phrases, button, twine, bow, label, date, handwritten journaling, birdhouse, bee, yellow, tree, stitching, stripes, dog, and more.  There aren't any prizes for this challenge; it just gets you out of your box and inspires you to use your stash!

Here is the information!  And Chris, the photo is an avocado, not a pear.

Now my ticket to the party! We went out to eat Friday, and oh, my goodness!  I think it had been years since we went to Red Robin.  SOOOO good!  We didn't need to eat for over a day!  Luckily, I noticed the smaller hamburgers on the menu.  I didn't know they bring you fries, like they bring chips and salsa at Mexican Restaurants, then you get another side with you burger.  We got salads, and they were huge!  The fries were hot, and the sauce was wonderful, and that is our second batch of fries, because it is endless fries.  What you see on my plate is what I had left and I was already full.  But being the glutton I am, I ate everything except the rest of the fries.  If you ever go, go hungry!  LOL

I received a gift from one of our bloggers this week.  I will show it next week.

Thanks for stopping by, and for your comments, letting me know you came.  I will see you next time!

Playing CMSS & CalvinBall!

   ⁶ Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

I just have so much crafting I want to do, sometimes something has to give.  Tell me in the comments, do you get all the crafting done you want to do?  I watched some of the videos on the Card Makers for Success Summit last weekend, and tried some of them, while still trying to keep up with making at least one project for CalvinBall per day.  Oh, and junk journaling, and SplitcoastStampers daily challenges, our blog challenges.  I have to just confess; I can't do it all!  And then there is this blog to keep up with.  And life!  Tomorrow I am headed to a wedding, so no crafting tomorrow.

I will share with you the project I made following Jess Crafts on the summit.  I liked this because you can use a lot of stash.  I really kept these cards from this sketch clean and simple, because I entered them in today's Clean and Simple daily challenge at SplitcoastStampers to be monochromatic.

The Jess Crafts sketch uses a whole sheet of 12x12 patterned paper, three pieces of 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock for the bases, and 3 more pieces of 8 1/2 x 11 of colored cardstock for the panels.  My dsp was two sided so I could varry the cards. On 5 of the cards I used some of my hundreds of Project Life Cards.  Stash Buster!!!

And the 6th one, I stamped and colored a Stampendous Bird Image with Copics.  I submitted this one for the challenge at CalvinBall.  I got points for it being a card, for sharing it at two sites, blogging about it, polka dot paper, stamp, stripe paper, sketch, fussy cutting, banner, flower, aqua, gold, sticker, orange. 15 points out of a possible 70 points.  They add points every day.  It is wild.  The points don't mean anything, just using as much as possible of your stash!

Here is the info about CalvinBall:

I am also on my way to the tea party over at TSFT at Altered Book Lover with Bleubeard & Elizabeth.

Here is my ticket:  A card I made several years ago.  I no longer have the image stamp, but I do have the sentiment.  Happy T day.

Thanks for stopping by.  See you next time.

Playing Calvinball

   ⁶ Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

It is March and I am playing Calvinball with Alice Boll.  It is a crazy time with lots of inspiration.  No one wins anything except the glory, and just getting some scrapping done.  So, I actually have done two pages.  Just will show you one, for which I got about 17 points for anything from a star, a heart, a flower, handwritten journaling, date, etc, whatever the rules were as of today!  They change every day!

Watch the video on how you can play: How to Play Calvinball | Scrapbooking Challenge (youtube.com)

I think I will stop over at the Tea Party that happens every Tuesday over at Altered Book Lover with hostess Elizabeth and co-host Bleubeard.  Come on over, just be sure to include something drink related in your blog post.

Here is mine:

My favorite tea cup.  Have a great week!  See you next time.  Maybe I will come back with more Calvinball entries.  They can be cards, journal pages, scrapbook layouts, tags, even non paper projects.

Happy T Day.

Playing in my Craft room!

 Hello readers!  Yes, it is me again.  I will post once in a while, I guess.  Right now, the only reason there will be a post for Tuesday Tea Party, is I am actually scheduling it ahead of time.  It is Saturday afternoon, and I am playing in my craft room.  I was inspired by a mixed media challenge on SplitcoastStampers and by Viki Parson's Keep it Light February Challenge over at **ART*JOURNAL*JOURNEY*

Actually, it all began with me earlier in the week looking at my mixed media supplies and finding some had dried up.  I had a large jar Teresa Collins modeling paste, but it was hard as brick.  That took me down a rabbit hole on You Tube looking for how to restore it.  I really couldn't find anything but decided it would not hurt to put water in it and try.  So, water, mix with popsicle stick, twist, still hard; added more water and did it some more.  I did this off and on for a couple of days.  Finally, I got it so I could use it.  

When researching on You Tube, I did find some good advice: Buy smaller jars, and when you use it, make a lot of tags, papers, whatever, while you got it out.  Next time it might be dry!  I thought that was very good advice.  It might be more expensive buying smaller jars, but in the long run cheaper, because you aren't throwing out the jar of hardened stuff!

Once I got the paste workable, I began playing with my favorite colors of TH oxides, and fun stencils.  Since the challenge I was doing called for a napkin, I then looked through my napkins that I have received in swaps.  Imagine my surprise and joy when I found a napkin with not only the colors I used, but some same shapes that I used from my stencil! I used some various TH stamps, faces, & Bible Verse stamp.  I sprayed the whole thing with some white glitter mist.  I added the punched dove by the Bible verse.  I dated it, because that is what Elizabeth taught me to do!  

 Here is my art journal page in an 7x10 Canson 98 lb mix media book.

Now for my ticket to the tea party:

This is a photo from 2018 when we visited Maine.

My view of Penobscot Bay from where we stayed in Belfast, Maine.

Remembering a wonderful day, when looking at this.  Right now, it is beautiful here.  I walked outside and got hot today.  It is 69 and on Tuesday will be 80!  For crying out loud, this is February, but I am loving it.  Our normal temps are 50s for February.

I look forward to hearing what you think about the mixed media pastes.  Any advice?  Does it ever happen to you?  Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for stopping by.

T Stands for Time to Blog Again!

 I thought it was time to start blogging again, as I haven't since August of 2023!  Mia, even reached out to me and ask where I had been!  I just am always so busy it seems.  I have taken a trip to Canada and been to Banff, and other sights in Alberta & British Columbia.  I am sure I will share photos.  Then it was the time of the year for Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the festivities that go along with that.  Also, we have had family come and visit, for which we are so thankful!  Just wish our family wasn't spread all over the place!  I have been leading a Bible study, and also have been hostessing regular challenges on SplitcoastStampers.   And I am crafting quite a bit.  I will share some travel photos as well some of my photos of the junk journal travel journals I made for my traveling companions.

But first here is my ticket to the tea party.  I have missed you all!  I even see new ones.  I will have to go around and visit and get to know you.  Elizabeth introduced me to Bagatelles when I first started reading her blog, and that is where we had lunch last week.  They always have great specials, but you have to get there early!  So we were there shortly after 11.  It was a great day, to go because they were passing out complimentary pieces of Black Forrest cake to everyone!  Wow, everything was so good.  Thank you, Elizabeth!  They are also so reasonable, $7.99 or $8.99 each I think.

Here is where the tea party is: T Stands For Tuesday

We had the enchilada casserole, with roll and soup.  Hubby had pork and Beans soup, (I had never heard of that, but he said it was delicious.)  I had chicken tortilla soup, scrumptious!

Here are some photos of my trip to Alberta & British Columbia.  Gorgeous country!

Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park, British Columbia.

Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta.

Lake Louise again

Emerald Lake, in British Columbia, Yoho National Park

Me, at foot of  Takakkaw Falls, British Columbia, Yoho National Park. 

I will show you what I made for the group of girls I went with:  I made each a travel notebook size junk journal.  Each journal was in their favorite colors and each one completely different.  I really had fun creating them.

Waving to all the T-Gang and all my other followers.  I hope to begin to blog more often, but we will see.   Thank you all for stopping by.  Happy 2024!

T Stands for Time in my Craft Room

   ⁶ Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

I have been in my craft room for quite a while today to make this art journal page for **Art*Journal*Journey* for Chris's Where in the World Challenge this month.  I do not plan out my projects I just start in.  I had found this old ephemera from our 25th anniversary trip to Paris and went from there. I liked these colors of color bursts and prepared my background.  I sprinkled the Canson 7x10" Mix media paper with my powders, too many, and then spritzed with water.  I had a miss!  Then I daubed with a paper towel.  Then I didn't know what I was going to do besides putting on the little map actually of our boat trip on the Seine.  I got the idea then to put what the occasion was with the die cut words and a stamped remember.  I put on the scraps that I tore off, only used the other side.  I put a rub-on in the top left corner and the today's date in the bottom right corner.  I did some inking of the edges.  I think that is about it.  Oh, I added fiber!  I enjoyed the process. And I used my colors!

The rub on IRL is black, don't know why it shows white in the photo.

Anyone read French?

This will be a fun way to remember.  The photos in my album are old school, not digital, so not on my computer.  It would have been nice to print some off to put on here, or just to show them to you at this point.  Maybe someday, will take photos of the photos and put them on here.

It is time to share a drink for TSFT over at Altered Book Lover with Bleubeard & Elizabeth.  They are our hosts for this tea party.  This is from my archives.

Happy T Day to the T Gang!  Have a great week!  See you next time!