Tuesday-fun with Twinks and powdered pigments

I had NO idea how I would fit any stamping in today but surprisingly I did!

Today while I was out I managed to pick up the june issue of "Stamp and Scrap Arts." Normally I am not one to grab that magazine but some techniques in there caught my eye. Lately I have been ALL about trying new techniques. The one I did today was using twinks, and powdered pigments. At the end you spritz some alcohol on the wet background and it creates some very kewl effects.

Pictured are the two backgrounds I created today, along with an ATC I created with one of the backgrounds.

Think Monday-Think ATC: Lovers

Todays theme for Think Monday-Think ATC is "Lovers."

First Stamp I thought of was this one from my "With Love" (from Time To Stamp of course!) sheet :)

Background is made using EZ Tintz smooshed in between two pieces of cardstock and a light mist of water.

a very proud moment

I know this has nothing to do with stamping or art or anything, but alot of you know about my Gillian and her struggles since she was born. I had a VERY proud moment today! One of my goals with her this summer has been to work with her at writing her own name.

I have been working with her one letter at a time-well today she DID IT!!!!! I cannot say how thrilled I am :)

woohooooooooooooo!

At her preschool they told me not to worry about working with her on this stuff-they told me they would do that in kindergarten. I don't accept that! I want to help her in any way I possibly can. So each and every day I work with her on a certain letter. She identifies letters well-writing is different and more of a struggle. I made this laminated piece of cardstock with her name so she can trace, and it also has space to write it herself.

I am SO excited.

Adirondack Color Washes........again!

I got another new color of the Adirondack Color Washes today on clearance at my LSS, and it happened to be a color I didn't have (Bottle) so I grabbed it! So, I had to play with them again.

I didn't use the webbing spray on this today-it looks darker in the scan than it really is in real life. Still darker colors, not quite as dark as it looks. I love dark colors though :) I just wish the scan was a bit better!

Today was AWESOME!!! I have not had much time "to myself" for like.......months. DH works 6 days a week due to the fact his coworker could not relieve him for some days off due to a surgery he had. So.........dh had to suffer through it and work many many hours. ugh! Anyway-I got my hair done this morning........then after lunch dh told me to go do something. Its kind of weird as I am home SO much I had no idea really what to do. So..........I went shopping.

Went to the LSS, the craft store, Target, Marshalls, JCPenney, and ran by Jamba Juice and got a drink. It was SO nice to just go ALONE without any kids to tag along. I almost didn't know what to do with myself! I really needed that ! Actually pretty desperately-Its been a rough month or so and I have felt my poor nerves -sometimes I feel like I am going to explode.

So-yippeeeeeeeeeee! I got a break :) I am feeling MUCH better now :)

veined marble

I just got my technique junkies newsletter and HAD to try the Veined Marble Technique using the Colorwash Sprays. Here's what I came up with! I wanted to keep this sort of simple, so it doesn't take away from the background. Its MUCH nicer in person :)

Playing this morning

I got a chance again (yippeeee!) to play around. I made a background using H20's and ths really great paper I got at the educational store-its called "Color Diffusing Paper" made by a company called Roylco out of Canada. I LOVE this paper. I have used other different things on it too. I spritzed it with water and just randomly painted on H20's to it and then shot it with my heat tool to dry. What I love about this paper is when you apply watercolors (or whatever fluid type medium) down on this it blends together.

I am also attaching a quick ATC I stamped with this background paper.

String Masked Background

I did this after seeing a blog (scrapperlicious) and was inspired to mask using some string for a background. I did it differently than on the blog-but I liked the end result. Its kind of cool looking! I just used some ordinary string that I had in my kitchen-cut off some pieces, and sponged (make up sponges work great) some distress inks over them onto the cardstock.

I sort of moved the string around to make it look more random. I used 3 different colored coordinating inks. Then I stamped on it-simple as that.

I crumpled up some old dictionary text (thats layered on the card) and sponged on Mohagany ink, spritzed it a bit with water and speed dried with my heat gun, then went over it again directly with the ink pad to give it an old look.

I finished this off with just a line of a pitt pen around the stamped image.

Think Monday-Think ATC: Holidays

Todays theme on Think Monday-Think ATC is holidays :)

I did a beach themed one. The background is a shaving cream marbled background.

My Stamp/Art area

Finally I got some pics of my stamp area. Its SMALL but workable for me, because I have it organized well. I USED to have an entire room for this-but, my two kids shared a room. I felt my boy (9 at the time) needed his OWN room rather than sharing a room with his little sister.

I got rid of a TON of stuff, condensed it and organized it and moved it into a room, which I share with little Gillian. I felt sort of guilty about sharing a room with her for my art stuff......BUT, she LOVES art and loves to do stuff with me. So, with that, I guess its not too bad. She has plenty of space to work right along side me at my table. She even has her own art stuff too. I need to get her stuff organized soon. We just got her a twin bed (we had her in it WAY too long!). She was small for so long that we used the crib to our advantage, and besides, she still fit in it LOL

Well , she is starting kindergarten next month and will be 5 next month as well, so I refuse to send my 5 year old to kindergarten when she sleeps in a crib !LOL Anyway, she got her bed yesterday and I have had to rearrange the room a bit so I thought I would get a pic of my stamp area while its clean (or fairly clean anyway!).

There are those carts underneath my table-behind those are MORE carts FULL of stuff. Stuff I don't use often, obviously! I guess its time to get rid of more stuff.

Oh yeah, and notice all the stars and swirls on the walls? I hand carved those and stamped the walls myself. I still love it :) It was a project I had done almost 5 years ago, right before Gilian got home from the hospital. Luckily we found a nice bedspread to match the room LOL

Fun with palette knives

ohhhhhhhhhh my new love is Palette knives! I have had a set for a month or so and decided to get these babies out along with some acrylics and fool around with them. I got some black cardstock and just picked a few colors of acrylics and just applied these paints however. I started with the blue first then got the "Apricot" colored paint and applied that-I liked the effect of the scraped sort of look with this color-where you can sort of see the blue underneath? love it!

I applied the copper last.

I am attaching a pic of the background before I stamped on it, along with the ATC I did using the background. (sorry, the scan is kinda crooked, but you

get the idea :)

I stamped more today.

I think I am on a roll here-this is the 3rd day in a row I have been able to stamp something :)

I did a really quick background here-really easy! Drop several colors of Distress inks (reinkers) down on some white glossy. Spritz with a wee bit of water (till its more runny) then place another piece of (same size) glossy on top-apply a wee bit of pressure to spread the ink and then peel off the top piece of glossy. I let it sit for a minute or two, then wiped off the excess ink with a paper towel.

I am attaching the background before I stamped on it, and the card I made with the background.

I like it :)

did a wee bit of stamping

I am feeling some better.........actually cleaned my stamping area yesterday and felt up to stamping. I did a couple yesterday and one so far today. I am revisiting some old stamping techniques-Versamark Resist and The Serendipity technique.

In a Funk

Ugh..........I HATE feeling like this. I am in a major funk right now. I think all this with Gillian has caught up with me-I am just feeling so overwhelmed. And I have not done really any art in a while. I have done some stamping projects-like for a couple swaps , but other than that I really feel like I have not accomplished anything art wise. I have about 6 different canvas here that I have started but need to be c0mpleted. That BUGS me. I want so bad to complete an art project! I want some time to myself, like even a few hours, where I can just be in "my zone" and create to my hearts content. I SO miss that. For a while I was getting to do art everyday and it was so soothing to my soul. Feeling like this, its hard to even start a project. But I know once I start I could really put my soul into it and create something good. That is what happened back in January and it got me into my first art show. Its such a great release. I was trying to tell a non-artist friend about this-its hard to describe to someone who doesn't do art. It probably comes out sounding nuts! There is just something SO healing about it. I think I will just work a short time today then try to get some art time in while Gillian and Aidan are at summer school. For my own sanity, I may just need to do that each day for a while. I may need to challenge myself or something. I need to get out of this funk.

not much happening

The past week has been bad, and to top it off, no art time for me.
To sum it up-all last week basically took my time going to appointments for Gillian to get her back on a service that offers her more resources for help. Psych eval, different assessments and for me, heartache. Psych evals are ALWAYS purely awful. To make matters worse, they told me they were going to give her an IQ test-to test for mental retardation. Oh Joy. Yes, I know that doesn't mean she HAS it, but the possibility of it, along with it destroying my dreams for her, its heart wrenching. They ended up qualifying her, but I am not sure under what basis. She already had the diagnosis of Autism, although high functioning, but I am not sure what they put down. They were VERY difficult and asked some very intrusive questions. It really caused me alot of anxiety. Now we are dealing with another possibility :Hearing Loss. She had it early on in her life, but a few years back it seemed to resolve itself. Now we are noticing little things that lead us to believe she may have it again. And, being a former 23 weeker its VERY possible.
With all the NICU time spent, oodles of meds, and ear infections she has had (quite a few) its a strong possibility. I don't think its a severe hearing loss, but I think there is some. Alot of this I seriously thought was due to her sensory issues. Now we are not so sure-I noticed when the teacher called her last week she did not respond, and he called her a couple times. He has noticed that, as well as the helpers in the class room. So that leads me to believe its more than just sensory issues. Today I am taking her to her reg pediatrician for a hearing test to check-I do hope she cooperates. Later this month we have an appt to an audiologist and an ENT doctor as well. I just want all my bases covered. This time I am not overly stressed about this one-I have just come to the conclusion this preemie journey is never going to end.
I have suffered a headache for over 24 hours-actually now close to 48 hours. Its pretty mild at the moment, and I hope it goes away, but its been miserable enough to not want to do much of anything. Its probably a combination of lack of sleep (quite a few sleepless nights) and caffeine withdrawl. I have got to give up this pepsi! I am not sure if this is a good time to be weaning off the pepsi, but its something thats been bothering me-I am SO addicted to it. I hate that!