weekly highlights

Some things that entertained me this week:

1. Painting tennis shoes for our upcoming trip to the Oz Festival. 

Will post more on them as I continue working on them.

2. Trying to photograph un-cooperative butterflies like this Silver Spotted Skipper.

and this more cooperative Tiger Swallowtail

3. Finished another piece of my Vignette Art with a picture of my grand-nephew and submitted it to Illustration Friday.

4. Tried to post daily on IG...
Slowly gaining followers!

5. ATC for the Grumbacher swap
Theme: Song Inspired
I made my ColourArte monthly video by the skin of my teeth. I had completely lost track of the days and even had to cancel a luncheon date with one of my good friends in order to get it done.
Refer back to #1 and see if you can guess which song is the inspiration. 😉
Video can be found here.

6. Artist Tribe
We got to make the new team announcement for Gwen Lafleur. I'm very excited to be working with her and all my tribe members!

7. Supplies
Then my Artist Tribe package arrived. You can see my goodies HERE!

Posting this week to
Paint Party Friday

And, wow, loved seeing my painting featured on your site!
What a nice surprise!
💕

StencilGirl & Imagine blog hop

June Pfaff Daley, one of the StencilGirl designers asked if we could make an ATC to trade with her kids at art camp. Of course I wanted to!! I am thrilled anytime I get to participate with children so I made her 4 ATCs and I also made myself an art journal page to go along with the ATCs I made to commemorate the experience.

Products used:

StencilGirl stencils:
LittleEddy Rose Stencil by MaryBeth Shaw
Angel Circle Stencil by Kate Thompson

TurkishWedged Stones by Daniella Woolf

WheelSpokes Set #2 by  Andrew Borloz

Decorative 6-Petal Flower Screen by Gwen Lafleur

January Stencil club small stencil by MaryBeth Shaw

Imagine® Products I used:
Craft Mat
Brushstix
Multi-Purpose Squeegee

I love the Brushtix for stenciling and used them recently (3 different ways!!) when I made my ATC booklet. I made a video of the booklet itself and you can see it HERE.


I made a short slide show/video of my process just to make it easier for you to see rather than posting all the pictures :)

 Hope you enjoy watching it!

AND I made a video of me cleaning my craft mat...lol.
...yes, you read that correctly 😉
Have you ever seen someone so excited to clean a mat off?
You have now, 😜

GIVEAWAY

One lucky winner will receive both a $25 Gift Certificate to StencilGirl Products
AND a $25 Gift Certificate to Imagine Crafts!

Visit the fabulous designers from both teams and comment for your
chance to win!

The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to WIN!
(One comment per blog please.)

You have until Sunday, July 23rd at 11:59PM Central Time to leave your comments.

Winner will be announced on
StencilGirl's Facebook page and Imagine’s Facebook page

on Monday, July 24th.

July 20 

Sandee Setliff ←ME!

Karen Gaunt

Cindy Gilstrap

Tina Walker

Neva Cole

Kyriakos Pachadiroglou

Renee Zarate

Elina Stromberg

Website: www.stencilgirlproducts.com
Blog: www.stencilgirltalk.com
Email: mary@stencilgirlproducts.com

ATC booklet

I have been doing a monthly ATC exchange with Grumbacher Official Fanpage where we follow the theme, send one in and they give you a punch card so every third punch they generously give you some free supplies. I mean that is just awesome! So I've been collecting cards and I figured it was time to make a booklet to store them in and show them off. 

Check it out over on StencilGirl Talk!

I have a short video for you too...::waggling eyebrows::

juicy, juicy...

I love my ColourArte Twinkling H2O's Shimmering Watercolors. 

They just stay so darn juicy looking...

The hair on my mermaid is a left over influence from Jane Davenport, but the lips have come from a new influence, Danielle Donaldson. :)

The Twink colors stay bright and vivid too, just another reason to love them.

I did a video of me making her and you can watch here HERE. Would very much appreciate a "thumbs up" on the video if you like it.
I also did a color reference chart so you can see what colors were used where.

Gel Press is "blooming" wonderful!

 Gel Press now has their own Youtube channel so if you are looking for inspiration when getting out your plate to create something you will have hours of inspiration to peruse through. And you can start with mine, lol I used my 6x6 plate to create a first pull and a ghost print pull which I used in making my ATC for Grumbacher's Official Fanpage monthly challenge . ( Enter cause they reward you with prizes for participating! How cool is that? )

I think I love my ghost print pulls more than the first pull, how about you?

Check out my video and please give me "thumbs up" if you liked it remember to subscribe to the Gel Press channel!!

a little fall color

Anna brought down some napkins and I just had to use this fall one! I cut and glued the front to an ATC and then outlined and created more shadows along the designs.

Then I used my ColourArte Twinking H20's to color in the pumpkins and Indian corn to give them some shimmer and shine. I used Sunburst,Copper Penny,Ginger Peach and Orange Peel.

 I wish the shine showed up a little better in my picture but you can see how the colors makes it glow!

Sending this ATC off to Grumbacher for their swap challenge #40.

and 

ColourArte's Orange is the New Black challenge.

word trend watch

Ethereal

Ethereal means not only "celestial" or "heavenly," but also "marked by unusual delicacy or refinement."

When:       Lookups spiked on April 19, 2013.

Why:       NASA released a new photograph of the Horsehead Nebula – an image of gas and space dust that various commentators described as "ethereal."

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I have vivid dreams. Usually I can remember a small part of the dream, like the other night I dreamed I found a tiny orange butterfly in my house, and I scooped it up in my hand and as I was walking to the door to release it, muttered to the poor thing that I hoped it was Ok....and it answered me and said "yes".

Now I also believe in dream interpretations as much as I do horoscopes, fun to look at but not basing my life around them...so here are the interpretations of the dream:

To dream of butterflies means happiness and the coming of change in your life. the transformation of something, could be your self or your life style. a new beginning.

Orange denotes hope, friendliness, courtesy, generosity, liveliness, sociability, and an out-going nature. It also represents a stimulation of the senses. You feel alive! You may want to expand your horizons and look into new interests

To dream that animals can talk, represents superior knowledge. Its message is often some form of wisdom. Alternatively, a talking animal denotes your potential to be all that you can be.

Or it could mean I just have butterflies on the brain since I have been playing around A LOT lately with them and it was just my daily life imposing itself into my dreams.

Anything but a Card -  #18 - ATC Extravaganza

PanPastel Challenge Blog - #17 Dreams
Die Cuttin Divas - #113 Anything Goes
Pixie's Crafty Work - #70 Snippets

A few of you might know by now that the wax paper that I keep in the bottom of my spray box is much loved and put to many uses. ♥ I cut out these butterflies using the die that came with the stamp.

 I layered the butterflies and stapled them together, then fluffed their wings a bit.

 ~l♥ve ~ 

The hardest part was choosing which one to put on the top!

Our Daily Bread - butterfly grunge stamp and die cut

CARDZTV - sentiment stamp
Ranger - Dylusion Ink sprays
Really Reasonable Ribbon - lace