Deep Cleaning

I know most people get to a good house cleaning in the Spring - but I tend to work backwards, or at least when my mood strikes! This weekend we did a little remodeling project in our family room and it made me take a good look at the sad condition things had become. I had stored and stockpiled things in many corners. This house is sadly lacking in closet space and there is no attic to hide things in...worse yet, without having a military move every four years, I haven't been forced to do my routine purge. I now have the den, playroom (aka huge dump pile), the kids' bedrooms and the office all torn apart as I desperately get rid of things and find new storage places for things I want to keep!

I did do a nice clean up of my craft/laundry room a few months ago so thankfully things are still looking good there! This cleaning up frenzy did remind me of a mini album project I taught last month and I have 4 kits left - if anyone is interested. This kit features the Sydney Circle album, has four main pages, runs $5 and includes shipping to you...you just get to decorate it the way you see fit.

All supplies from The Angel Company

Drop me a line if you are interested. This mini album is easy to make and will be easy to reproduce...and now back to more organizing my home!

Oh, and don't forget to take advantage of the grab bag specials this month if you are interested! I hear the $5 stamp bags are flying off the shelf and I can't wait to see what comes in my $10 accessory grab bag. I love surprises - good surprises, that is!!

Collage Style

I bought both the Vintage Backgrounds and Fanciful Vintage because I just loved Barb Foster's sample cards in the Serendipity Magalogue. I'm intrigued by the idea of collage style cards but they are a little bit scary to me! While I waited through tumbling practice, I thumbed through some pretty old magazines for collage ideas. I also wanted to use Gesso as my base - another neat item I found out about through my friend Juliet. She is the true artsy-fartsy type and I've been wanting to give it a try myself!

For this card I painted white Gesso on some textured blue Bazzill paper (from our monochromatic packs!) with a foam brush and let it dry overnight. Then I randomly stamped my images with Palette Noir ink and came back and laid some color down with my Tombow markers on select areas. I could move the markers around with my aquabrush to give it a watercolored look.

Stamps used: Gerbera Daisy (now marked 25% off since it's retiring!), Vintage Backgrounds and Fanciful Vintage (which is the Stamp of the Month for April so it's on sale for just $14.95)

Hope this encourages you to give collage style stamping a whirl! It was easier than I thought and I can't wait to play some more.

Pretty in Pink

hm...I tried a couple of titles for this post and none seemed to work. This flower from Flowers and Holly set (which has been around forever - and I just got it finally last year!!) is wonderful to watercolor. I tried to make a real vintage feeling card by stamping the pink cardstock with an image from Vintage Backgrounds (out of the new Serendipity magalogue). I covered some black embossed spots (that were not supposed to be there!) with the image from Fanciful Vintage, which is the Stamp of the Month so it's on sale!

I did some more watercoloring with my Tombow markers and aquabrush...the pinks match much better in real life, honestly! :)

I still have company so this is one more short and sweet post! All supplies (except for the lace which is from Joanns) are from The Angel Company.