You Are Stronger Than Your Excuses (mixed media)

 Hi everyone! I do hope that you are all having a gorgeous Easter weekend. It's really pretty here today in the foothills of Appalachia. I'm hoping that dogwood winter is past us now and we can get on with spring! I've had enough of the cold to last me for a while. I'm just hoping that we don't have an overly hot and humid summer here even though I can take the heat better than the cold. Anyway, on to what I wanted to show you. I made an art journal and from time to time I will share with you what all a page or two.

 I titled it "You are Stronger than Your Excuses" and have used several different things to create it. I had started out with cutting rectangles using scrap pieces of card stock to build my walls. I also grabbed some sheet rock tape and applied that then topped it with texture medium. You will see a close up of that in a minute.

 I also used sandpaper once my background was dry to give it a more worn look and hand cut each of the leaves out.

 I also used some mulberry flowers to add to my vines with some flat back pearls for centers. I wanted a pop of color so these two pages didn't look so dark.

 I used a Tim Holtz mask on top of the texture paste and used walnut stain ink to achieve a worn look.

 Here is a little better angle of how I used the sheet rock tape and texture paste.

Of course I used my Faber Castell markers to do all of my shading and accent areas. I am so in love with those markers and believe they were money well spent.
I hope that you enjoyed seeing one of the newer hobbies that I've fallen in love with creating. There is just something about getting the mixed media that is extremely relaxing to me and I find that using my fingers as a tool to assist me to create these is awesome. I'm not one of those people who if they get a little paint on their hands freak out. I welcome the paint and markers, matter of fact I'm not sure that I could create these without getting it all over me. (and that's a good thing!)
I just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful weekend and hope that it's as gorgeous in your part of the world as it is mine. Happy Easter everyone!

Bloom where you are planted mixed media

Hi everyone! I thought that I would share with you a mixed media piece that I made for a friend in the Netherlands. It's only a 4 x 6 piece but I loved making it. I can't remember if I shared with you how much I'm loving doing mixed media but I have been doing quite a bit lately. This is a piece that I feel most comfortable sharing with you right now. There are numerous layers and textures to this one. I used some tissue paper that came in a package from my friend Dee in South Carolina that was laying on my craft table at the time. I had an old book page that I cut up and wrote my sentiment on to title the piece. Of course acrylic paints...however at this point I do not remember what colors they were because when I get to making one of these pieces I don't really have a plan. I just sit down and whatever is close to me at the time is what I use unless it's a stencil or something. Which I decided on the tree stencil in this one and used texture paste so that it would be raised. Of course I used my pallet knife to make the tree bark and my faber castell markers for shading in some places.
I really enjoy doing mixed media. I know some who don't care to get their hands all dirty in the paints but I happen to find it soothing and use my fingers more to paint with than brushes on these types of things. I'm hoping to be able to start sharing more of my mixed media things with you soon. It's sort of hard to understand how these come about just by writing. But if you to like to do the mixed media then you know what I'm talking about.
I hope that everyone is having a wonderful day!

Believe in Magic mixed media canvas....

 Well remember me telling you all way back many months ago that I was falling in love doing mixed media? Well it hasn't changed. I still love getting my hands good and dirty in the paint and glue and anything else I decide to put on the canvas. This is the latest one that I did and I'm thinking of doing another one with Santa on it as well. When I start one of these, I can't stop until I'm completely happy with it so I try not to start one late at night because I actually tried to walk away from this one late one night and couldn't sleep and so I got back up and finished it before I was able to find the sandman.

These are so much fun. It's the only kind of painting that doesn't stress me out because I don't have to worry about staying between the lines or doing the correct brush strokes and so on and so forth. There is no real rules.....it's all in the eyes of the creator to decide whether or not its right. I like not coloring within the lines so to speak.
Thanks for stopping by everyone and have a wonderful night/day!

Altered Bottles...

 Hi everyone! Sorry that I'm getting behind on my blogging. I'm not only behind on blogging but crafting as well. Things have been pretty crazy since my dad passed away and I simply haven't had much time to get in the craft room for very long at all. But over the weekend rather than finishing staining our docks (because I wasn't feeling that well). I thought I could lay in bed and be a complete lush OR I could sit in my craft room and get some things made. I thought...its not going to hurt anything to try and see. Well I'm glad that I did and even though I had to take several breaks I still managed to make all of these altered bottles. I'll warn you now that there are lots of pictures below. But I wanted you to be able to see the details that I added to each one.

 Ok what you're about to see next might shock a lot of you because you all know that I don't normally make Halloween stuff....unless it's cute but never creepy. But these little bottles turned out to be fun for me to make.

If anyone has a question about the decorated bottles all you have to do is ask. Have a great week everyone.

Trash to treasure ink pad shelf..

Hi everyone! I thought I'd share this little project with you. A couple of months ago when I bought my new furniture for the craft room there were all these little slats that I was suppose to interlock and place in the bottom of a couple of my drawers. Well when I did that I found that I lost a lot of space that way and it was better organized the way I had done those 2 drawers without them. So I didn't want to throw them away because I was thinking that surely I could make something useful out of them. So I knew I wanted something that would look nice sitting out to put my ink pads in and that is how this all came together. The wooden slats all interlocked, some chipboard cut to fit the back. Add some pretty scrapbooking paper, a little paint on the edges instead of white ink and lastly I added some doily trim that I punched on cereal box weight chipboard. I love how it turned out as well as the fact that my inks are much closer to me now at my work surface but not to yucky for when company comes.
Hope that everyone is having a great day/night. Come on back soon I have more pictures that I look forward to sharing with you all.

Mixed Media..not just for canvas's right?...

 Hey Everyone! Thought that I'd share with you one of the things that I've made lately. I finished this up late last night. I'm really starting to LOVE this mixed media thing. Unlike the other painting techniques that I've tried my best to do and miserably failed this is something where it doesn't have to be perfect to be pretty. Matter of fact if it's perfect then your doing something wrong. Plus I don't use a paint brush. 90% of the time I use my fingers which brings out the inner child in me. That's always a good thing right? Well anyway, while I was in the process of reorganizing my craft room/guest room I was working on a bookshelf that this plain little crate was sitting on and was whispering to me (you know like those inanimate objects do in the Ikea commercials). So it spoke and I listened. Yes I stopped what I was working on to take care of this project.

 Plan on seeing more mixed media stuff from me because this is my new crafting love!

 The paper collection is from The Girls Paperie that I found dirt cheap at Tuesday Morning and not only got the paper but it had all of the embellishments with it for a little nothing. The colors make my heart flutter with happiness.

 The stamps are from the same company except for the little butterfly and that is a Prima stamp that I bought from Scrabadabadoo when they had their stamps on clearance.

 See it once again houses my glimmer mist except now its screaming happy happy at me when I look at it. Oh by the way. These are more than likely the last glimmer mists I'll be buying because they are so darn expensive. I have found a recipe to make my own dirt cheap and so if that works out then I'll be making them for little to nothing. Sorry don't mean to offend anyone but crafting supplies are expensive and we have to cut cost wherever we can and when we can.

 I thought I would show you that Zoe is getting into crafting now. She loves to help out when she can..see???

Oh and never mind her ponytail coming down..you should see her mommy's hair, its downright frightful. But us girls can't be worrying with looking pretty when we are on a crafting mission.
Have a great day everyone! Me and Zoe are back to reorganizing and hopefully nothing else will speak to us until the job is done! I've been working on this room for weeks but can't seem to stick with it. I get to many other ideas in my head to work on. Which by the way I'll be sharing some of those with you as well real soon.
Another little note. I had found the little crate at the thrift store years ago if I'm not mistaken. I know I didn't buy it at a regular store so don't forget to look for things you can alter and make beautiful.

Mixed Media Art.....Candy Creek

 Hey everyone! I'm back with my last post of the day. If you all have been reading my blog you all know that around this time last year I decided that I was going to take some painting classes...?? Well shamelessly I posted the outcome and still laugh at my work. As badly as I want to know how to paint it just isn't going to happen. I'm apparently not one of those people who know how to "color within the lines". I've been told that I have a heavy hand when it comes to painting and that I don't hold my brushes correctly. I don't hold a pen or pencil the way others do either but that's only because when I was in kindergarten I was a little lefty and back then that was apparently a no no because my teacher would tie my left hand behind my back and make me write with my right. So I just hold my brushes, pens, pencils different......oh well back to the canvas at hand and to tell you where I was going with the above little story.

 I found with mixed media I don't have to "stay within the lines" or brush this way or that way or roll the brush in the vanguard roll or whatever its called. Mixed media to me seems to be more of a manner of expression more than worrying if you have something perfect. I may be wrong on that but that's the way that I feel about it and I love it. I did this piece at the wee hours of the morning as well and I refused to go to sleep that night before it was done! Many years ago I did paper piecing to go in my scrapbooks..I'm not sure if they still call it that or not but anyway that's how I made my little girl on the canvas and then the butterfly I found in a paper pad I had and I fussy cut that and stuck it on there. I just kept adding things I loved...well it doesn't have everything I love on it but it has a lot of it.

Ok so are you wondering now why I made a sign that says Candy Creek? It's not just because that's the name of my blog and such. I'm thinking about doing youtube videos and I know most of the girls and guys have their sign so people know who it is they are watching. I was thinking if I can get up enough nerve I may try it. I'm not a shy person at all but for some reason getting on camera and doing that scares the living daylights out of me. I guess because maybe I'm my own worse critic on things and I know that they are a lot of people who have nothing else to do but to sit and diss others on the videos. I suppose that's with everything in life though..they are always going to be haters. Constructive criticism is much welcome but just to be downright ugly and mean and put people down just to be doing it is totally uncalled for in my book. So I thought if I went ahead and made my sign and kept looking at it sitting my craft room then it would give me the incentive to jump in head first and go for it.
So what do you all think? Would you like for me to do my tutorials in videos for you? Or do you all understand and get more out of the still picture tutorials? Let me know...I need some feedback here please.
Hugs to all...I'm off to the craft room to finish up some things.

3D Mixed Media Canvas Art....

 Hi all and Happy Birthday to Suzie and Debbie!! I've been itching to share with everyone these canvas's that I made but had to wait until I knew that Suz and Deb got their packages. I had the most fun making these and am really starting to love mixed media stuff in general. I made another mixed media canvas that I'll share with you in another post but for now let me explain these. First off let me say that I got my inspiration from watching Fiona on youtube. She is Jennings644 on there and if you haven't seen some of her work yet then your missing out because she has totally inspired me to try new things. Of course no two of these are the same and so I did do a few things differently on mine.

If your wondering....yes those are real tree limbs that I added to sit my little birds on. So now a piece of Tennessee is in New Jersey and in Oklahoma! . I will post on here how I cut the canvas's and added the music paper if anyone would like to know. Just leave a comment below if you would like me to put a tutorial on here. I did take some pictures while I was making them just in case.
Hope you enjoyed looking and Fiona, thank you so much for inspiring me. Your an amazing crafter! Plus HAPPY BIRTHDAY again to Suzie and Debbie. I love you both to pieces and hope that you enjoy your gifts! (pssst yes I have more of their gifts to share with you)
Stick around or come back soon because I have more to post...today!
p.s. Suzie sorry I forgot to paint the eye back in your bird after I painted it. Will you do that for me with a speck of black paint please? Poor little birdie