Artful Journeys week 39 - Tea time

This week over at Artful Journeys we decided to have a bit of a party....a tea party, that is.

My spread didn't turn out quite the way I'd hoped it would, but I don't hate it, so I'll leave the gesso where it sits, lol.

I started by printing up pics of pretty teacups I found on Pinterest and fussy cutting them out...then I chose one of my prepped backgrounds and got busy with a glue stick, coming up with this....

And here are close-ups of the left and right pages....

The background was done with cheap craft acrylics and stencils....thanks for looking!

Artful Journeys Week 38 - Fall is in the Air

Wow!  Week 38!  I am beyond surprised by how fast this year is moving along.  It's hard for me to believe that it's already the middle of September, but the calendar tells me it is.  And of course there's the pennant race in baseball, school just started back up, and there are Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE!!!  I'm looking forward to cooler weather, that's for sure.  

And, as always, with cooler weather, comes fall, falling leaves and the inevitable raking.  It seemed appropriate that we have  a prompt about leaves...that's it...just "leaves".  It's open for interpretation and artistic license, but you have to use leaves.  One big one, lots of little ones...however, whichever you want.

So I fiddled around with a few thoughts, tried a couple of different ideas out, but my spread was a flash of inspiration that came out of the blue.  

Gathering up some of my underpapers, painted papers and a piece of a map, I started cutting leaves out of them.  Nothing fancy, just a basic leaf shape in all sizes.  Nothing too large, but lots and lots of small ones.    Then I printed a pic off Pinterest and fussy cut out my subject.  

I started by gluing down a few of the leaves, then gluing down my fussy cut pic, then I got to work making a leaf pile!  It was so much fun creating this little spread, and I was incredibly glad I'd thought of it.  And here it is!

Isn't she just the cutest?!?!?!?!  She looks like she's laughing and having so much fun!

That's it for me this week...hope you enjoyed looking, and be sure to visit Betty and Shana to see what they pulled off for you!

Later, y'all!

Week 37 - Artful Journeys-Go to the Fair

When I was a kid, I spent all year, every year looking forward to the fair.  Even as an adult I still look forward to it...more for the food than anything....things you can't get, and probably wouldn't if you could, any other place than at the fair.  Things like Chicken Fried Bacon, Fried Twinkies and Beer, footlong corny dogs, funnel cakes the size of your head, salt water taffy and so much more.  When I was a kid, I had dreams about the cinnamon rolls we would get every year at the fair.  As you stood in this HUGE line, you could watch them making the rolls, and I just remember thinking how much I loved all the butter they used, and the sugar, and the cinnamon...oh, hell, I loved it all!  Then there were the strawberry crepes...with a mountain of whipped cream.  And Dan's Indian Tacos.  Unfortunately, you can't get those at the fair here in Texas, so I've had to scour the internet for a passable recipe.  But I digress....

I had all these different ideas for my spread this week, but I couldn't get any of them to work for me, so I pulled up my PicMonkey and got busy doing a little pasting and what-not.  It still isn't what I was wanting to achieve, but after numerous failed attempts, I decided to take what I could get and leave it at that...so here it is....

I hope you like it...thanks for looking, y'all!

Artful Journeys - Wk 36 - Oh the places you'll go

So, I have always dreamed of traveling...I love exploring "new" (to me) places.  I love looking at houses and buildings and all the sights a new place has to offer.  But the one place I have ALWAYS dreamed of seeing in person, is Ireland.  So since this week's prompt is about "creating" a "travel ad" for your favorite/dream destination, I was really excited about doing a spread on Ireland...that excitement was short lived, lol.  I had a lot of trouble finding images that were just the right size so that I could get them all onto my spread.  It wasn't working!!!  Well, Betty said she was going digital, and with all the pics I had saved on my puter, I knew I could do the same and still be able to use almost all of them without any problem or extra paper!

A Pinterest search of Ireland gave me access to SO MANY great images that it was hard to choose, but I did my best, saving them to the computer to print and cut...ugh, cutting!  The problem was, a wallet size was too big, and a contact print was too small.  With the online amazingness that is PicMonkey, I could make the images as big or as small as I wanted!

I started by uploading a background from a previous prompt....this one to be exact....

A little cropping and it was just the backgroun and I was ready to roll.  Now I won't be posting pics of the images  I used, as that might be a copyright no-no and I don't wanna be getting into any trouble, but I will show you a pic of my completed spread after everything was added to the background above.  PicMonkey is just wonderful!  Easy to use, and with plenty of options for creating digital layouts or just editing existing photos...it's really up to you!


So, without any further blabbin', here's my spread for this week's prompt:

I was incredibly pleased with how this turned out and want to give a shoutout to PicMonkey for making it possible.


That's it for this week....thanks for stopping by to take a look and be sure to go and see what the other girls have created for you this week!

Later, y'all!