Some Projects, This and That, and a Tip

WoW!!!!  2 posts in 2 days!!!!!   Am I sick, or what?     Blessed to say that I'm not sick, so I guess it's "or what".   hahahaha     Yesterday when I was getting the pictures together, of some of my beads, I realized I had missed several projects that I really had intended to share.   So, since this morning is a slow morning, I thought I would use the time wisely.    We did make a quick run early this morning to have a tire looked at on my car.   It had been causing some warning lights to come on, on the dash.  Hubby had aired the tire up 2 times since last weekend, so today was the day.   We took the car out town and then I fixed breakfast when we got back home and while we were eating, the phone rang.  It didn't take long for them to fix it.    They are pretty good like that.   I do feel better knowing that it is fixed now.    

It is a sunshiny day today.   Right now, anyway.   It makes me feel good just to see some sunshine.    Perks up my spirit a whole lot.   Our back yard is full of those little Johnny Jump Ups.    They are the prettiest little purple flowers, kinda like miniature pansies,  that just makes a purple  carpet over the whole back yard. with a smattering of the white ones scattered in.   I thought about getting some glitter and sprinkling it  on them to make them even more beautiful.   hehehe   Purple and glitter does this heart good, for sure.     See, I took a picture of one of the larger little clumps.   Looks kinda like a miniature Begonia.   I am not a flower person, I just love the beauty they possess.   hehehe

I hear a few lawn mowers in the distance, in every direction.   Just another reminder that Spring is definitely here and that will be an all to familiar sound very soon.    I looked out the kitchen window this morning, and one lone Dandelion had changed from the yellow flower to the puff ball, just over night.   It is quite pretty amidst the luscious green of the grass.    I wish I had a penny for every puff ball that I have blown off in my life time.   Funny at the things you remember at the most odd times.   But it's fun to remember the simple things in life that puts a genuine smile on your heart.   When we can smile and be thankful for the small, simple things, then we know that we can and will be all the more grateful for the big things in life.    Even the things as simple as smiling at a puff ball, is God ordained.    Do you believe that?    I sure do.    I try to take notice every day of simple things and just thank God for them.   Sometimes I will hear the neighbor children out playing and they will be giggling and hollering like kids do, and almost instantly I'm transported back to the days of being a child myself and recognizing the sounds of familiar and happy times.   Again, those are things that I thank God for.   I hope you have a lot of fun times in your memory bank that you can thank God for too.    If not, then today is the day to start taking notice of the small things, the simple things around you, and thanking God for them.   Some day soon they will become pleasant memories for you to think about and share with someone else that may not have very many fond memories.

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So, back to some of those projects.    I love to play.   That's about all I do.    I am not an expert at anything, but I do love to play!!!   So, this is what I'm sharing, some play time.    

This is one of a set of 4 atc's.   I used a number of different items on these and I love how they turned out.

All different colors of sprays and inks and rubs on these.

 Little punched flowers and punched butterflies, feathers and a cross.

A small gemstone and some stickles and some of the nuvo products to make the little 3 little raised dots on each one.

 I was pretty happy with these.

I am gonna throw out my tip for this blog post right now.   I do enjoy making atc's, artist trading cards.   Since they are 3.5" x 2.5", if I am making cards or some other paper craft, when I'm done, sometimes I will take the larger scraps and cut them down to the proper size.   I will even cut scraps of watercolor paper to that size too.   Then when I make my atc's, if I'm gonna use the watercolor paper as the base, I can easily cut 1/8" off a long side and a short side of my decorative papers to get my ever so slight border, then attach the trimmed layer to the watercolor paper layer.   But I have a lot of atc bases cut and ready to be arted on and in lots of different colors.   Some of them are already sprayed for the background or they may have texture paste already.   I also punch lots of extra pieces when I am punching flowers, or feathers or leaves or crosses, or just whatever.   I have a small drawer that I can pull small items for atc's in and it makes it really handy.   I hope this is of a help to anyone who has a lot of good sized scraps from other paper crafts and don't know what to do with some of them.   Now you can use them for atc's. 

This is the base for my easel Easter Card.   I put some texture blue glitter paste that had sand in it around the edge of the base.   Oh yes, I did say glitter.   hehehe    When I got these 2 pieces layered together, I cut a piece of 140 lb Canson watercolor paper to size and used that as my card base and easel.   I inked the edges of the watercolor paper base with bronze metallic ink pad.

I used many of my small, made by my hands, flowers and leaves around the edge of the piece.   Then I dug out my shell chips and put several pieces around with the flowers.   I painted some stickles on the flowers to make them firmer to the touch.    

This is one of 2 art journal pages that I done for a friend to put in her art journal book.   The theme of her art journal is Wings, so I knew what I wanted to do for her.    It is an 8" x 5" watercolor paper.  The background is sprayed lightly with different colors of mica sprays.   I used some stencils and texture paste.   When that dried, I rubbed some bronze inka gold rub over the stenciled areas.   Then I used random feathers.  Pulled out some of my shell chips and finally I made the sentiment piece, (my own quote just for this piece,) and adhered it with foam tape to elevate it a bit, and then I added dots of paint in and around the sentiment.   I am very happy with it, I hope my sweet friend is too.

This is the second one.   It was done exactly the same way as the first one, but this one is butterfly themed.   The quote on this one is my own quote too, specifically for this page.   All the butterflies are fussy cut.   I did draw in the little antenna for the butterflies.

This is the 2 of them side by side.   I was very happy with the outcome of these art journal pages.   I have a couple more sets to make for 2 more ladies and who knows, maybe more for others as time allows.   It is a fun easy way to relax, stretch my artistic skills and share my art with others.   It's a win, win, win situation for me.   Woop Woop!!!!  Be sure and click on the pictures and it should bring up a larger picture for you see the detail real good.

Well, as I said earlier, I am certainly not a pro at this mixed media stuff, but I do hope that my love for trying shows through anyway.    I love playing.   I love playing with a purpose.   And I love to try new things.    I also enjoy writing my own sentiments from time to time.    I am going to turn them into stamps so I can use them more now.  Feel free to use them, just remember they are my original quotes.    hehehe  

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I hope you have a great rest of today.   I hope and pray that tomorrow will be an awesome Resurrection Sunday for you.    Find some time to thank God for the un-derserving love that He has bestowed upon you.    Thank Him for the Resurrection of our living, loving and reigning, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.   Jesus Christ!!!!    The cross could not hold Him and the tomb could not keep Him!!!   Hallelujah!!!!     Thank You!!!!  Praises to Your name, Yeshua!!!! 

I hope you have enjoyed your visit here today.  I know it was pretty recent since the last update, but I never know when I'll have time to get still enough to make a post.   Check back frequently, hopefully there more new stuff pretty soon.    I appreciate your visit.    Remember that God loves you and so do I.    hugs and love, patty

Good Friday, Beads, Beads and More Beads and a Tip

Good morning Y'all!!!    It's not very eventful in my neck of the woods yet, although rain is expected again.   I seen some geese fly over yesterday with umbrellas.   Sure was a sight to see!!!    Hahahaha  Oh well, someone needs rain, so I'm not gonna complain.   Although, yesterday when I had an errand to run, it wasn't raining when I left the house.   When I got out on my street, it started sprinkling and the closer I got to my destination, the harder it rained.   Fortunately for me, I had on my hot pink rain coat with a hood!!    The only thing missing from my rain coat is a healthy dose of glitter.   hahahaha All that got wet was my jeans and shoes.   hahahaha    I'm not complaining though.    God knows what He is doing.   I sure can't say that for the rest of us.    I never dreamed I'd live long enough to see this country fight so hard to give up the freedom that so many have fought and died for!!!    I never dreamed I  would live long enough to see the day when grown adults, with 50, 60, 70 years or more of real life experience would be listening to and be bullied around by a bunch of younguns that's barely out of diapers!!!!!   What's wrong with this country!!!!   Greed!!!!   Greed!!!!!   Greed!!!!  Where do people, kids in specific, get the money to go on the protest marches?    They are paid off!!!   By whom?    By whomever has the most money and by whomever has the most to gain.    These children are marching for the right to live and not fear guns.   I just wonder how many of those same "children" that were marching have had abortions.    I just wonder how many of them will eventually have abortions.    I wonder why they are not marching for the right of an unborn baby.    I wonder why they are not marching to prevent bullying.   I wonder why they are bullies themselves.   I wonder how many of them will be in church on any given Sunday.    I wonder how many of them have parents that care about where they are at any given time of the day or night.    I wonder how many of them have both parents in the home.    I wonder how many of them stand up and bully their parents.    I wonder how many of them will ever do anything with their lives besides turn into little mini hitlers.    And, no I did not capitalize that word, because it does not deserve being capitalized. I do believe that we are living in the final of the final days.    I am so happy that I have fewer days ahead of me than what is behind me.    The best I can say is that "stupidity reigns"!!!    All hope is gone for humanity to ever do the right thing.    The future of this country does not look hopeful at all.    I can only say that my hope is in the Lord!!!!    My hope is in Jesus Christ!!!    My hope is the One that loved me enough to die for me!!!!    My hope is in the Resurrection!!!    My hope is in the Lamb of God!!!!    My hope is in the empty tomb!!!!     My hope rests in seeing The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords coming again in the clouds, just like He promised He would!!!!   I am so ready for that day.    It can't happen soon enough to stop the madness of this upside down world we live in!!!   Come Lord Jesus, come!!!!

Philippians 4:8 

8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.   King James Version (KJV)

When my mind starts racing and I feel like my head is about to explode, the above scripture is my "go to" scripture for a little bit of sanity.   Scripture is the only place that we sink our mind into and come out all the better for having placed ourselves in it.    I find myself spending more time in the Word.  If you find yourself perplexed about the days in which we live, maybe more time spent in Bible study would be a good place for you also.     

When I read the above scripture and think about what is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of a good report, any virtue and praise worthy, the only thing that comes to mind is JESUS CHRIST, my Lord and Savior!!!!    I pray that you feel the same way.    Trust in the Lord!!!

Today is Good Friday.    What is that?    What is so good about today?    Well, today is the day, by some interperturpeters, that Christ was crucified.    There is some argument that it may have been a different day.   I don't know enough about calendar of the day to say yay or nay.   I do know enough to know that if there had not been  the crucifixion of my Lord and Savior, there would not have been a Resurrection!!!    The resurrection is what gives life to my hopes and dreams of being with my Savior some day.    So, of all the days that I am thankful for, Resurrection Day is the day that matters to me.    When the stone was rolled away, and the tomb was found empty, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' face was neatly folded, that was the sign that Jesus would come back to claim His own.   His work on the cross was finished, He said so himself, when He said "It is finished".    But the folded napkin meant He would be back!!!   Folks, He is coming back!!!!   Praises and Hallelujah!!   Are you ready?  I pray you are!!!

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It seems like all I do any more is make beads!!!   I am a bead making machine.   hahahaha   I have several thousand beads made and I must say that they are beautiful!!!!    I love them.    I love everything about them.    I love turning them is gorgeous jewelry.   Although, right now, I am just making beads.   hahaha   I need to get more pictures made of all the beads I have made.   Some of them are stunning to say the least.

This is actually the first jewelry I made from paper beads.  It was made with designer paper.   It was a gift.    I may have already shown some of these before, but I'm ok with it.   hehehe

This is the first that I made for myself.   Designer paper also.   I also made a necklace to go with this one.

 This is another set of mine.  I really enjoy this set.

This is a set of beads made from cardstock.   They made up nicely.   Looks really pretty.

You know I love me some purple.   Made with cardstock.

This too, was made with cardstock and then real amethyst stones on the jewelry.

 This is a really pretty set.  It has pearls on the bracelet.  Then each bead on the necklace has an eye pen thru it and connected with  jump rings on either side of the eye pen rings.   Looks very nice.

This is another of my favorites.   It is from designer paper pack.  They look victorian.   These are tube beads and I dipped each bead end in metallic chocolate brown paint.   They are very beautiful.

This was a set jewelry made with layered beads and tube beads.  This set turned out really nice.

This is beads made from something like a cracker box.  Then I painted them with rose gold paint and they are spectacular.  I love them.   The spacer beads between the chipboard beads are made from the victorian style designer paper and the ends are tipped in rose gold paint.   If you look real closely at the bracelet, on the very far right is a little teapot.   It is made with one of my paper beads.   hehehe   I love it!!!

This is  another set of jewelry made with victorian style designer paper beads.   I am always looking for more ways to decorate them, but keep them classy looking.

This is my Comic jewelry on a white background and it is stunning.   It looks like it weighs a lot but it's really light.

This is another set of jewelry that I am pretty proud of.   It has an animal print on the designer paper and then small wooden beads between the beads.   It looks really nice.

This is a really pretty set of jewelry too.   These were mostly long tapered bicone beads.   I really enjoy these. 

This is a sampling of the jewelry I've made so far.   I got all the rest of my beads and took pictures of them in my light box.   I felt like I needed to show more jewelry before I showed just the pictures of the beads.   I can't wait to share them.   You won't believe some of the beads I have made.  I can't hardly believe it myself.   When I get ready to start making jewelry, I plan on having lots and lots of beads made.    The joy for me comes from making the beads!!!!     I absolutely LOVE making them!!!     I have got to where I can envision the end product and that is exciting.    Once I get the beads made, then the dipping process starts.   I dip each bead 6 times. 4 dips in one solution and 2 dips in another solution.   This makes them HARD and shiney.    They are probably not water proof, but they are water resistant.    You don't want to go swimming or bathing in the jewelry, but one time, by accident, probably would not hurt the jewelry.

I got all my beads out this morning and took pictures of all that I have ready now.   Some of them need to be dipped, but I will get that done this coming week and then hopefully I can get started on another batch quickly.   I can't wait to show you all of the other beads I've made.   You won't believe how spectacular they are.    Well, I think they are anyway.    hahaha     My husband can't believe that I can make beads out everything that I do use.    I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek at some of my beads and the finished products.

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For the tip in this blog post, I will encourage you to look at everything, you may be tempted to toss out, with a discerning eye and to think what you can do with it before you throw it away.   That is where some of my most beautiful beads have come from.   And I will prove it later on.    There is lots that can be done with just about anything.   We just have to think outside the box.   I had already been using food boxes as the chipboard for some different kinds of jewelry, and lots of other stuff, but since I started rolling beads, I look at everything with a different eye.   If it's not necessarily a pretty coloration on the box, then I may paint the beads once I get them rolled.   But if the colors are nice, then I will use the colors and enhance them as much as I can.    So, before you toss a box, look at and see if you can use in some of your other crafting.   I bet you can.    I bet you can find a good use for some of the stuff that would eventually end up in a landfill somewhere.     Give it a try and let me know how you use your new found crafting media.

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So, last weekend I went to Mom's and after church went to get a bite a to eat.   She mentioned she needed something from WalMart, so after we got done eating we ran back to WalMart and picked up what she needed.   In the process, we ran into the Easter Bunny.   When we walked off, Mom said we should have had our picture made with "him".   I said before we leave, we will.   As we headed to the check out, there the Easter Bunny was and I said let's get our pic made "him" now, and we did.   And let me tell you one thing, never assume that all Easter Bunnies are "him's".   hehehe    Needless to say, this little Bunny may have to undergo some therapy in the future.   hahaha     Needless to say, we was all rolling!!!!

Proof positive that we are never too old to have a lot of fun!!!   So, here I am with the Easter Bunny and my Mom!!!   Sure do love that little Momma!!!!   Someone had said that I was bound to get a big Easter basket, but I doubt it.   I don't think you get anything if you harass the Easter Bunny!!!   hahahaha

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Well, that's about for this go around.   I hope you enjoyed what you seen here.   If you did, share it with someone.   I hope and pray that you have a wonderful Resurrection weekend.   I pray that you stop and think about the sacrifice that Christ made for you.    It's not about the Easter Bunny, it's about the empty tomb!!!   It's about our Risen Savior!!!    It's about how much God loves you and me!!   It's about living for Christ, sharing Christ with others and making sure that others know how much He loves them also.    It's about a relationship, the only relationship that really matters, because it's the only relationship that we will leave this life with, if indeed we do have a relationship with Christ.   You are the only one that knows if you do have a relationship with Christ.   I can't make it for you, if I could would.   But I encourage you to examine yourself and see if Christ is real in your life.  If He is, Praises!!!!   If He isn't, there is no time like the present to ask Christ to Lord of your life.  Wow, wouldn't that awesome to share Resurrection weekend with Christ!!!!   No better way to celebrate every day than to know that Resurrection weekend was the time you came to know the Lord as your personal Savior.    Remember that God loves you!!!!   I do too!!  Happy Resurrection y'all!!!  hugs and love, patty