Let Your Light Shine

Well its New Year's Eve and I am sitting at home going over this last year in my mind.  I have had some fantastic ups and some horrific downs, but when the dust settles 2017 has been a very blessed year.

So one of the up moments in 2017 was being chosen to represent a fantastic online shop which offers high quality altered art and paper crafting supplies. They also offer a variety of items which includes papers, collage sheets, digital stamp sets and products which are sure to inspire your creativity. 

So its my turn to post an example of my art which is a mixed media tag that uses an image from the Misty Memories collection. 

The steps needed to complete this project are as follows:  

Supply List: 

Image from the Gecko Galz collection Misty Memories. 

Brick stencil from Crafters Workshop

Palette knife. 

Modeling paste (any brand will suffice) I used one with a sandy texture. 

Fire Brick wax from Finnabair.

Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink from Ranger. 

Foam board square

Lamp post cut out (used my Cricut) 

Leaves and vines cut outs (used my Cricut) 

Dresden foil trim, flowers, pearl bead, glitter, watered down white paint and various ribbons from my stash. 

Step one. Apply the modeling paste to the tag and let it dry completely. 

Step two brush on Finnabair wax or any deep red metallic paint, using a stiff bristled brush. 

Let it dry completely. You can speed up the drying process using your heat gun. 

Step three:  cut out your Misty Memories image and ink with your favorite dark brown ink. I used Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink from Ranger.

Used a small square of foam board, cardboard or fun foam to raise your image up off the tag for added dimension.  

Step four:  Add the lamp post and the other embessishments. As you see fit.  The words were printed out using my computer and home printer inked and glued down onto the tag. The last thing I did was to add a touch of iridescent clear glitter to the flower and splattered the watery white paint to mimic snow. 

Here is the finished product again. 

An Update

So, After looking at my last few blog posts, you can tell that I am really excited to be on the 2018 Gecko Galz Design Team and I promise to not talk about it again today.  What I would like to do is to update you on what's been happening in my life since my last post.

On November 7th, I woke up and could not get out of bed.  I could not stand or sit up in bed.  My right leg was hurting so, bad...  First, I fell at home about a month and a half ago and bounced on my booty (you would think I had some cushion) and jarred my fused lower back. I was able to get up and move around without pain so I didn't think anything of it. Well as time progressed so did the pain until about three weeks ago when I couldn't get out of bed. After two trips to the ER I was admitted(November 12th) and finally told I had a bulging disc and needed surgery. That surgery was Friday, November 17th. After surgery I was moving like a champ, very little pain and I could sit up again and also stood with the physician by my side and found that to be a bit painful, but I HAD just had surgery so it was expected.  As time progressed (three days) I started to hurt again and could barely walk.  My foot started to turn inward and curl up so that I was walking on the outside edge of my foot.  So the Wednesday after my surgery that would have been November 22nd I had another MRI and the results showed that the L4 nerve above the surgery site was swollen to about twice the size it should be.  So my doctor said he needed to go back in and see if he had missed something.  So on Black Friday  (November 24th) instead of shopping, I was headed back into surgery for a second time in one week.  After surgery, my doctor stated that he indeed had found a small, sharp burr that was irritating the nerve as I moved.  So he cleaned that up, however, I was left with a lot of pain and a lot of difficulty trying to walk.  On Monday, November 27th, I was transferred to a rehab hospital.  I've been here a week now and am showing increased strength and a whole lot of pain/muscle spasms in both legs.  I even had a conversion episode one day scaring the crap out of everyone including me, lol..  

Thus, here I am stuck in a rehab hospital with the majority of my art supplies at home.  I do have a few supplies here so that I can bible journal.  The supplies needed to bible journal are simple, they include Prima water color pencils, Faber-castell gelatos, a cheap Michael's brand water color set and various sizes of Faber-castell Pitt artists pens, a sharpie and a Pentel roller ball pen that I love.  Therefore, what you will get to see are my creations in my bible and a water color picture I did in occupational therapy yesterday.  Please don't be too harsh with your thoughts, you have to remember, I'm still on major nerve pain medicines as well as muscle pain medicines ie, muscle relaxers and opioids.  

And here are a couple of bible pages that I did.  

 My interpretation of 

The bottom picture was also used in a weekly challenge on a Facebook group I follow.  The Challenge consist of one word and two colors.  The word was "adventure" and the colors were "green and yellow"  I know the yellow is hard to see, but it's in the upper left corner.  It looks very green because it was colored over the blue.  Anyway that's all I have to share for today, hope y'all enjoyed my ramblings.  

Happy crafting...

Donna