Art Journaling...Here I Come!!!

 I have been thinking about entering the world of art jounraling for a while now, but today I actually purchased a couple of journals to get started. I have dabbled in decorating books before, but it was before the art journal craze had hit, so I didn't really call it that. I normally stick to scrapbooking, rubber stamping cards, and making some jewelry making here and there. I love the feeling of freedom art journaling seems to create in me. I have practiced on a few pages here and there, but now that I have these books I have no idea what to put on the pages to just give me that jump start. Right now I am picking up a few things I may need to help in the art journaling process. If any of you out there do this form of art please let me know of anything else I may need.  

My new favorite embellishments!!!

 I just received my order from The Frantic Stamper of these little goodies, and I am in love with them! I have a cat card swap coming up soon, and I can't wait to use the cat cab on those cards. I have big plans for the mermaids too, and the cool female skeleton I don't know, but she was way too great to pass up! These little doo dads are definately my new favorite embellishments!

Treasures of the Trees

 I went to a wonderful little art gallery the other day and discovered this little necklace. It's actually bracket fungi that's found on trees and stumps helping with the decomposition and soil making. There are both necklaces and earrings available and are created by the artist Penny Lane in Floyd County, Virginia.

Ocean Dreams

 Ahhh...I needed an ocean fix today so since I can't take off to the beach for a few more weeks I decided to bring out my Stampscapes stamps and do a little scene stamping to hold me over.

Creepy Mermaid Dreams....

 Here's a little card I did today with the creepy little Stampotique stamps.

Inside of Theatre of Dreams Card

 I guess I am really posting this backwards, but this is the inside of the theatre of dreams tag I made and posted earlier.

Theatre of Dreams

 Here's a large tag I stamped with the Character Construction stamps that I have fallen in love with lately.

Up, up and away....

 I was just playing around with some of the Dylusions spray inks and some new stamps my cousin sent me today, and here's a large tag card I came up with.

Dylusions Rubber Stamps

The Chocolate Festival

 I went to my first chocoalte festival in Lewisbug today. It has been going on for many years now, but I had not had the chance to go before now. The whole little town had the streets closed off so we could all wander about and try chocolate. It was very affordable as well at only 1.00 per ticket to try each chocolate creation. You could get as many as you want, and it was all quite yummy. Each local business or organization had created something using chocolate, and we managed to try about 20 things each before saying we couldn't hold anymore. There were chocolate drinks, cookies, dipping fountains, truffles, and more. The picture about got my vote as the most delicious, but it was all pretty darn good! There was aslo music going on through the day, a movie-Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory playing, storytelling, and demos by chefs from The Greenbrier hotel which were all nice. I also really loved looking around all the little art galleries and odd stores there. Everything had a really earthy and open minded feel which I just adore. All in all it was a wonderful day, and I can't wait to go back next year.

Springtime Smiles Card

 Here's a little card I made up for a few friends to celebrate spring!

Purple beeswax

 Here are some wonderful beeswax candles my dear sweet cousin made for me in my favorite color-purple!!!!

Valentine card creations...

 Here are the cards I have just created for Valentine's Day. I do lots of card swaps with other crafters, so I thought I would post my latest creations. I used a key embossing folder and lots of distress inks. The tag is a rubber stamp by Tim Holtz. The bottom card is also done with an embossing folder-man I love those things. I wonder if I could even make a card without using one anymore. The folders are definatley my new go to thing.

Winter Tags

 Here's a couple of Yuletide tags I made this year. I love this little die cut house. The die is by Tim Holtz, and it's actually meant to be a haunted house, but I turned it into a winter themed house this time around. I was quite pleased with how they turned out.

Halloween card for this year!

I know I have been so far behind on this blog, and I promise to do better, but for now here is a cute little card I made for thr Halloween season this year.

Backing Up A Bit

  Halloween was all over the place this year as we were traveling a good bit. To start the weekend off we had tickets to a ballgame. After that we went down by the river park I love to visit. For dinner we went to a place that's sadly closing down now called Chilli Willi's-boo hoo. I'm so sad to see it go. We also had a drink from the special crystal skull set my boyfriend brought along. The pumpkin which isn't carved is one my boyfriend made for me when I was sick earlier in the week. He knows how much I look forward to pumpkin carving each year, but I honestly didn't feel up to it, so he created Jack for me wit a black sharpie marker. Yes, he gets lots of brownie points for that! haha Back to the weekend...we often visit the pumpkin house where they normally have over 3,000 carved pumkins. I like getting shots of a few of my favorites each year. This year my favorites were the north/south/east/west one as well as the greenman pumpkin! On the actual dayof Halloween I had to do some traveling for work and pretty much spent most of the night driving in the rain and fog, but all in all it was still nice.

New Halloween Mini Stampin' Up Stuff-2011

...Here are the new Halloween sets I ordered from the new Stampin' Up Halloween mini catalog. I always save up to purchase lots of Halloween stuff around this time of year. Through the rest of the year I am on more of a budget, but when it comes to Halloween goodies I want it all. This year I fell in love with the mini SU put out. The little creepy people-wo could resist those. I love trees so I had to have the haunted tree image, and the other single images are actually from full sets, but they had these Halloween stamps in them. The set that remind me of something that looks like a band aid is actually for stamping on address labels and putting the labels around a piece of Hershey's nugget candy, and then you can add them to a bity box die and you are all set! I just love it all this time. I guess I should stop oohing and gooing over it now, and get in there and start stamping with it! haha

Boo and Bingo

  Here are a couple of Halloween cards I made today with some new Stampin' Up goodies. I just love this large bingo card background stamp, and the set to fill in all the spots is too cute! I was finally able to use the new pennants punch and stamp srt for my little "boo" card. The embossed background is a Tim Holtz embossing folder.

NYC stamps and beads

 While in New York City I found a lovely little stamp store called The Ink Pad. I try to find at least one stamp store on any major trip I go on, and this  one was great. The stamp store itself was very small, but had a wide variety of stamps for such a tiny little place. The photos above are of what I purchased there. I plan on making my own NYC postcards with the stamps. I also found a great little bead store, and purchased these agate beads in my favorite color-purple! I didn't shop too much in the city. I bought this stuff, a couple of purses, 2 city prints for my wall, and a few little tourist trinkets.

Trip to New York City

Well, I finally made it to New Yorck City. I have to agree I now know why they say it's the city that never sleeps!!! We had a wonderful time other than my aching feet from all the walking we did. We only had a couple of days there, but we managed to pack a lot in. We started out seeing the statue of liberty and riding the ferry. After that we went to Grand Central Station, and it was definately grand indeed! We hung out in Greenwich Village and ate at St. Mark's Ale House, and had a drink at The Fat Black PussyCat and the 3 Sheets Saloon. We went to see Ground Zero, and I'm so glad they are building the towers back. We visited a  stamp store called The Ink Pad, and a bead store which I was in love with. We heard music in each park we visited. One man was even playing his baby grand piano. We saw The Blue Man Group at The Astor Theatre, had some NY style pizza, went to the NBC store, a huge Toys R' Us with a giant ferris wheel inside, and hung out in Time Square where we saw lots of bright lights, crowded streets, and Hoda doing the Today Show. Next we went to Chinatown where I bought some purses, and had lunch then  went to The Top Of The Rock(Rockefeller Center) for some beautiful city views and picture taking. We ended the trip with dinner at The Playwright Tavern. Sunday morning our we met back up with our group and we all went to Brooklyn to see The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. The choir was amazing and had about 150 people in it of all nationalities which was great to see. After that we had to head home. The city life is amazing, but I'm glad to be back to my one horse town in a way as well!

Fall Earrings

  Even though it is no where near fall right now I have to think ahead and bead up lotdof cute little Halloween themed earrings ahead since I like to sell at the fall festivals. Here are a couple of my creations from today!

A Special Father's Day Card

   I loved watching old re-runs of The Waltons with my dad, so this card for him was based on our special memories hanging out and watching this show.

2 Tim Holtz Tags

Here are a couple of tags I made using the new Tim Holtz Sizzix alteration tag die. I also used a Tim Holtz embossing folder, painted the tag with an ink stain, and rubbed over it with a sponge with Vintage Photo colored ink. The wings are another Sizzix die, and I can't recall who makes the clock face stamp.

Latest Scrapbook Pages

I have been doing quite a bit of scrapbooking lately, and here are a few of the pages!