Here is a photo transfer I'm working on for my Aunt Patricia in Maine. She doesn't know about it yet. This is a photo transfer of an old family picture onto an 8 x 10 canvas that I painted with acrylic paints and added some Tim Holtz distress inks and embellishments. These canvases will make great Christmas gifts!

Christmas Scrapbook Pages

Here are a couple of photo ready scrapbook pages I made for the craft show I'm doing this weekend. I've never done a craft show before so I'm really excited about it! Hope we have a great turnout!

Vintage Christmas Frame

Last night I decided that I wanted to make something to put my vintage paper flowers on so I bought one of those little wooden frames from Michaels. I painted it with some green acrylic paint and then added Tim Holtz vintage photo distress ink around the edges and stamped some flourishes on with red and green distress inks. When the inks dried I used Scotch 3d adhesive glue dots to attach the flowers to the frame. It was a fast and easy project. The picture inside is a photo transfer onto an adhesive canvas sheet.

Magic in the making... what I found on Deedee's island this morning

OK, this is just too cool.  The book in the background with the how-to's is called Mixed-Media Mosaics by Laurie Mika.

Look at all this new product!!!  Beautiful!!!!
This portrait of Jacob is just waiting to be beautified.

Seriously now, this is what was on Deedee's kitchen island this morning!  This is magic in the making!

Portrait Transfer Class...

So here's a little peek at what I was doing over at Jen's house, while Deedee was busy making gorgeous polymer tiles.  I'll do a whole seperate post for that magic.  You can click here to go see the rest of the portraits that happened over at Goodnewsart.

This is Jen Johansen's portrait of her daughter Olivia.
She's crazy creative!  She's still going to add another embellishment
to the heart as soon as she find that perfect something.  :-)

Making Flowers

Tonight Angela is at Jen's house giving a class on how to make the photo transfers on canvas. I can't wait to see them. We will post some of those when they''re done. I've been busy making paper flowers and alcohol ink flowers as you can see from the pictures. I'm planning on doing a craft show soon so I'm trying to make a lot of product to sell.

Narnia Scrapbook Pages

Two more months and finally The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will be coming out in theatres!! Yeah! In anticipation of this I decided that I should do a couple of Narnia scrapbook pages. I used one of my alcohol ink trees decorated with jolees gems on one of the pages. (I will be posting these in the etsy shop soon if you would like one).

This is the first post I have actually done without Angela's help, she'll be surprised when she checks it out. hee hee. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this stuff.

Making Flowers and Rasberry Mocha Espresso Goodness...

Yesterday, I went to Deedee's in the morning for a little crafting and to share an Americano.  My brain was not working, so the lovely flower you see featured in this post is Deedee's flower.  Mine was well... let's just call it a flop.

After making our flowers, we headed to the local craft store because all die cuts were 40% off.  I picked up two die cuts that I've decided I'm taking back... even though they're on sale - I don't need them.  I did pick up a few goodies that I'm keeping though.  I picked up Emma from school, let the girls nap, and back to Deedee's we headed.  Jen was already there, with all kinds of ideas, and some really cool metalic sticky paper. Deedee made a new type of flower, which I have yet to photograph, and I tried videoing her with my iphone as she gave a wonderful tutorial on her new type of flower.  I will not post this however, because we decided that 1: It was a bad hair day.  & most importantly 2.  I held my finger over the microphone half the time, so you could only hear half of the tutorial.

Deedee saved the day yet again, and whipped up some Rasberry Mocha Espresso goodness.  By the time we were sipping on these delights, it was time to hit the road and start dinner at home.  I just wanted to post these pics, because they're just too good not to share.  (Note:  You can see my flower flop in the espresso photo.  heeheee.)  I just had to use the Cottagearts filters on these photos, because.. well I just think they make everything pretty.  They almost make my flower flop pretty, well almost. 

Deedee making a portrait canvas of Noah

12x12 inch canvas with gallery edges, professional acrylic paint and medium,  Tim Holtz crackle paint & distress inks, Cottagearts Art Blend Filters

Here's a photo of Deedee making her portrait canvas of her youngest son Noah.  Isn't it great?  She's making portraits of her other sons Jacob and Anthony too.  I'm sure she'll post photos of them when they're done, so you can see the final product!!!   Stay tuned...

Welcome to my house...

Deedee stopped by this morning after dropping her boys off at school.  When she saw the canvas portraits I made of my girls hanging in my dining room, she asked me to photograph it and post it on our blog.  :-)  Welcome to my house... it smells like Americanos... mmmmm.

More Custom Portrait Canvas...

Resources:  12x12 inch canvas with gallery edges, acrylic paints and mediums,  The Girls' Paperie - on holiday brads travel, Cottagearts photo filters,  Paper Source - Decorative Labels, Graphic 45 - Fantasy Floral paper, Tattered Angels - Screenprints Clear Stamps,

Resources:  12x12 inch canvas with gallery edges, acrylic paint and mediums,  The Girls' Paperie - on holiday brads travel, Tattered Angels - Screenprints Clear Stamps, Tim Holtz grungeboard & distress inks, Cottagearts photo filter

Resources:  12x12 inch canvas with gallery edges, acrylic paints and mediums,  Cottagearts photo filters, Tim Holtz grungeboard, Tattered Angels Screenprints Clear Stamps, K&Company Studio K Round Word Brads, the girls' paperie - on holida brads travel

Flower Emma...

Resources:  12x12 inch canvas with gallery edges, acrylic paints and mediums, pages from vintage magazine, personal drawings, packing material,  Cottagearts photo filters, Tim Holtz flower die cut, K&Company Studio K Round Word Brads

What a wonderful rainy day... the perfect day to scrappage.  On my first visit to the scrapbook store here in Ankeny, I picked up a book on photo transfers.  It shows all kinds of ways to tranfer your photos on other materials.  Here is my first attempt at combining, photography, painting, and scrapbook on canvas.  It's so much fun.

This portrait canvas has gallery edges, so it's ready to hand on the wall.  My big plan is to put together some canvas transfer kits with all the supplies with a how-to (I want to make a video how-to tutorial too!), so I can do workshops and people can make their own canvas photo portraits.  Let me know if you'd be interested in a workshop.  I'm also making Custom Portrait Canvases available at my gallery.  (click here to visit my goodnewsart gallery)

My favorite kind of gifts...

Isn't this tag awesome? I love it so much. Not to brag or anything, but Deedee brought me this and an Americano when she came to craft with me. She does amazing things with alcohol inks don't you think? I'm going to have to use this tag on a page... and when I do, I'll make sure and post a picture of it. Handmade gifts are my very favorite kind.  With the weather changing, I'm all excited about fall colors, making things cozy, and making handmade gifts.  What have you been making lately, do share!!!

New scrapbook pages - Journey

I made up some new product packages called, "God so loved the world" that I will post soon to my etsy shop. There are fun magnified words from my mom's bible, and a church, and other fun embellishments that have handwriting on them. Angela came over, and we played with the product to make two scrapbook pages with photos of my dad and my grandfather. We used scrapbook paper by Heidi Swapp with punch out letters - journey. We also used some die cuts by Tim Holtz, which were so much fun with the nostalgic pictures and theme.

If you click on the photos - you can see them up close.

Visiting Judy's Scrappin', Stampin' & Gifts in Maine

On my trip to Maine, I found an awesome scrapbook store called Judy's Scrappin', Stampin" & Gifts. Judy's great! Her store is full of all kinds of great scrapbook treasures. She told me that she is one of the few scrapbook stores in the area, and she not only carries scrapbook supplies, but also all kinds of gifts and crafts. I also met Judy's husband at the store. It's kind of cool, he's the channel three weather man and pastors the Methodist church down the road. It was so much fun to meet Judy. She really inspired me.

If you're in Maine - check out her store: 19 Mill Street, Orono, Me 04473

She's also on facebook.

Yay for friends....

Jen + Deedee + Angela = lots of laughing & lots of fun

Yay for friends is all I can say!!!  Let's leave it at that... and scrappaging with great friends is medicine to the soul.  Belly laughing doesn't hurt either.  Check out how fun these flower clouds look, and the bling flowers.  We made some extras for the etsy shop... which is seriously coming really soon...

Noah's Tree

Noah says, "I made this with Ms. Jen's texture machine, and I cut a piece of brown paper.  I got some sticky to put it together.  I cut a little skinny piece of brown paper and put some sticky on it to put it on the tree.  I also put on one of my mom's flowers."

Noah is Deedee's son.  :-)  He's an avid scrapbooker.

Happiness

Rembering

... and when the kids are old enough, we're going to teach them to fly

- Dave Matthews Band

Iren

This page celebrates an African girl named Iren that I sponsor through Prepare The Way Ministry.

Product!!!

Here's some of the new bling I've been making for our Etsy shop... opening soon!!!!!

My Friend

I made this page to celebrate my friendship with Linda. I used some fun new stamps on this page. (pictured above). To bring in all the colors I love, I hand colored glossy paper with alcohol inks. I used it to cut out the words "My Friend" and to make the flowers. I am making more of these flowers for our Etsy shop as they've become my favorite bling!

Adapt to change

Today, I sat down with this photo collage I recently made and did a bit of scrapaging.  I found this photo "adapt to change" in the July's Sunset magazine.  Since I'm visiting my family in Portland, and revisiting places of my past and showing them to my girls... I am extra aware of all the changes life brings.  So, this page is about all of that... I bought the butterfly punch before I came to Portland, and I bought the bumblebee punch in Portland.  I like how the bumblebees are on the butterflies because both have symbolic meaning to me.  To me, butterflies symbolize freedom, and bumblebees symbolize cross-pollination... which is exactly what happens when you are able to call more than one place - home.  There are five of us in my family (both the one I grew up in and Adriaan, myself and our three girls).

discover

Tonight I started working on a digital collage for a scrapbook page that I want to make.  I've been thinking about being a mother, and how my children help me discover creativity... when I take the time to see what they're showing and teaching me.  I used filters from cottagearts for this collage, and put it together in Adobe photoshop.

Tree

I made this tree using glossy paper by Ranger, and alcohol inks. I cut out the tree using the Heritage cartridge by Cricut. The tree fills up most of a 12x12 inch page, and I'm going to sell it in our Etsy shop with a bag of matching bling.... once we get the shop up and running. We'll keep you posted when we have an estimated shop opening date. :-)

4th of July

Here's a sneak peak at some of the product that I'm getting ready for the Scrappage Etsy store. There's no product in the store yet, but we're busy getting it all ready for your scrappaging creations. Coming Soon!

letter to Martha - tags

These tags are inspired by a letter that George Washington wrote to Martha. I copied the letter from the book 1776. I love how the letter is adressed... My dearest