A Touch of Grace

Hi everyone,

Well, we’re at the end of my 2008 calendar.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it and that I’ve inspired you to pull out your stamps and get creative.  I hope to make another one in the coming year and will delightfully share it with you.  If I can get up the energy, I’ll do tutorials as I go along since I’ve had so many viewers that have wanted to make a similar calendar. 

I love Halloween, it’s one of my favorite holidays.  I have many wonderful memories of my children dressed in their adorable little Halloween costumes. We dressed up when they were little, I made most of their costumes.  Stephen was the most adorable pea in a pea pod costume his first year.  I’ll never forget how we dressed the boys as baby skunks, way too cute, what a response we got.  We always decorated our house and yard with all sorts of lights and decorations, usually Pooh bear decorations, I didn’t want to frighten the little tykes.  I usually dressed as Little Bo Beep and sat outside at a decorated table with a huge caldren filled with candy for the kids to dip into. We always had a huge round aluminum tub filled with apples for apple bobbing.  Whoever got an apple could choose an extra large candy bar of their choice.  We normally got well over 500 trick-or-treaters. 

So, when it came to October, I just had to go with Halloween for my October calendar theme.  My favorite part of this page is the witch.  She looks like she’s going to fly right off the page.

November 29 is my birthday and we’re usually celebrating it during the Thanksgiving holiday.  I chose to go with a Thanksgiving theme for the November page, keeping with the Fall holiday themes.

We have wild turkeys that roam our backyard and I have to tell you turkeys are not very pretty birds, well except for the little chicks, they’re adorable as they follow their mamas around.  I decided to go a bit whimsical with this guy using Fall colors in his plumage.  My husband’s favorite part of the page is the Fall leaves. I can’t say that I have a favorite part, I like the overall image with the Fall colors.

I dedicate this page to our Father.

December .   .   . the final month of my  calendar.  All good things must come to an end .   .   . I was so happy to finally be at this point in the project, but I think a little sad as well.  For so long I had planned on designing this calendar and now it’s finished.

O Holy Night!  I think of that beautiful song every time I view this page.  In designing it, I wanted to stay within the true meaning of Christmas, keeping all commercial aspects out of it.  I used two stamps for the design, a beautiful angel and a poinsettia cluster with holly.  I stamped the angel first and then stamped the poinsettia spray around her and the edges of the paper. When attempting the background wash, I tried to make it appear as if the Heavens were aglow with the splendor of what had just occured.  The angel has such a beautiful face, I see her coming down from the Heavens heralding the birth of our dear Savior.  All Glory to the newborn King!

• Paper:  Pumpkim Pie, Handsome Hunter, , Basic Black, Canson watercolor 140 lbs. coldpress 
• Ink:  Versamark
• Accessories:  Versamarker, watercolor brush, heating tool, Ranger EP, gold/gold tinsel, velcro, dimensionals, Towbow markers, Barely Banana, Sage Shadow, Mellow Moss markers (SU)

Hi everyone, I hope you had a wonderful weekend!  I spent a nice relaxing weekend with my family.  I worked on colored pencils techniques and getting my pencils organized.  I’m still working on that  . . . did I mention earlier in my blog that I’m slow . . . LOL!! 

Continuing on with the calendar pages, here are August and September.  I love the August calendar page!  It’s so much prettier in real life, it makes me think of weddings.  The Calla Lily at the upper left of the page is the only one that was stamped on the page, the rest of the lilies were stamped on another sheet of watercolor paper, painted, and cut out. I arranged and adhered only portions of them down giving them a “popped” dimension. The Calla Lilies were painted with Sage Shadow and Barely Banana, More Mustard was used on the stamins.  The Lilly of the Valley flowers were painted with Pearl Ex and Gum Arabic.  They are so pretty, they have the appearance of enamel.  I used a scroll stamp from Flourishes on the left side that just makes this page, it’s so delicate! After masking off the rest of the page, I brayered the Sage Shadow over the scroll and used an almost dry paint brush to soften the color. The stripes at the bottom of the picture remind me of an awning.  I decided to keep the background white and fresh.  Watercolor paper is such a beautiful white, I’ve actually started using it as cardstock.

The September calendar page has the most stamps used in the calendar.  A total of eight stamps were used in designing this page.  I was going for a garden layout, but I don’t think I quite made it.  The flower pot is on pop ups for added dimension as well as the bees.  It’s difficult to capture all the softs colors on camera (especially when you don’t know what you’re doing  . . . LOL).  The upper portion of the calendar was washed with Barely Banana and the lower portion with Sage Shadow and Mellow Moss. Unfortunately the pastels are nearly washed out.  I took this photograph outdoors and the natural sunlight was too intense for the pale yellows.

• Paper:  Robin’s Egg (Memory Box), Basic Black, Canson watercolor 140 lbs. coldpress 
• Ink:  Versamark
• Accessories:  Versamarker, watercolor brush, heating tool, Ranger EP, gold/gold tinsel, velcro, dimensionals, Towbow markers, Barely Banana, Sage Shadow, Mellow Moss markers (SU)

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick note, today’s post is my calendar pages June and July.  I have appointments this morning and will return this afternoon to give the details on these two pages. 

Today Dee Jackson (stampincuzIlove2) is offering blog candy in celebration of Sharon’s (notimetostamp) blog anniversary.  You’ll want to head over to Dee’s blog to enter for the blog candy drawing and then head over to Sharon’s  to see the list of active blog candy before those drawings close.  Today Sharon’s featured design team stamper is Tammy Hershberger (Stamp Happy).  Tammy’s blog is absolutely wonderful, you don’t want to miss seeing her works of art!  Take a peek and join in the challenge.  I’m working on my card and hope to have it posted later today.

Thanks for stopping by!  Oh, and if you haven’t yet entered my blog candy giveaway, scroll on down the page and do so.  You don’t want to miss the opportunity to win these wonderful alterables from Papertrey, Ink!

I love the calendar page for the month of June.  The colors are so sunny!  When I look at this page, I think of going on a picnic on a warm summer afternoon with the butterflies and bees flying all around. 

I made this page for my husband.  He loves to fish!  This is rather whimsical and oh so fun!  We practically live on the beach in July.

Paper:  Basic Black, Barely Banana, Carribean (Memory Box), Canson watercolor paper 140 lbs. coldpressed

Ink:  Versamark, Versamarker

Accessories:   watercolor brush, Tombow markers, heating tool, Ranger Gold/Gold Tinsel embossing powder, Bridal embossing powder, Swarovsky crystals, craft knife, dimensionals, vellum glue dots, Crafty Secret mini calendars, Pearl Ex, Gum Arabic, velcro

Hi everyone, well we’re moving along with the calendar.  Today’s pages are April and May.  April was the most difficult calendar page for me to paint.  I was going for a technique that I had not yet acquired the skill for (and still haven’t).  I was trying to make the green areas in between the flowers look like the velvety green moss that grows in the cracks of old cobblestone paths.  I fell far short of my goal.  It took three days to complete the page.  If I ever decide to tackle this page again, I’ll tone down the colors.  When I finished the page and showed it to my son (the artist), he said “way too much green.”  The original background paper I had used was Old Olive.  He suggested I try a different color background so I very carefully disassembled it and re-mounted it on Orchid Opulence.  A much better result!

This page possesses very vibrant colors, it was my husband’s least favorite and yet it was his mother’s favorite.  Swarovski pearls and crystals were placed on the hydrangea blooms. The butterfly was painted with a mixture of pearl ex powder and gum arabic on a separate piece of watercolor paper.  Once it was dry, I used a craft knife to cut it out.  The abdomen was adhered to the page using Crystal Effects.  The wings were folded upward for a bit of realism.  The small calendars are mounted on velcro for easy removal at the end of the year. 

I made this page as a tribute to my parents, May is their wedding anniversary month.  Since I send them red roses to celebrate the occasion, I thought it would be appropriate to paint red roses for their calendar page.   I have a few cards in my SCS gallery that I made using this stamp.  The first card I did was sent to Maddy Mason and the second card was sent to Nancy Ruth. 

The picture doesn’t do this calendar page justice, it’s so pretty and vibrant in real life.  I used More Mustard for the background wash.  The little calendar looks washed out in this photo, iI did a lighter gold wash on it.   More Mustard is my favorite color to use for background washes.  It’s such a rich, lovely color to work with.  The same butterfly was used on this page and adhered the same way. 

• Paper:  Orchid Opulence, Red Pepper (Memory Box), Basic Black, Canson watercolor paper 140 lbs. cold pressed
• Ink:  Versamark
• Accessories:  Tombow markers, watercolor brush, heating tool, Ranger gold and gold tinsel embossing powders, Versamarker, craft knife, calendar downloaded from Crafty Secrets, dimensionals, Swarovski crystals and pearls, Copic Spica glitter pens, Crystal Effects

You’ll want to head over to Sharon’s (notimetostamp) blog to see what blog candy she’s giving away today as she continues with the week long celebration of her one year blog anniversary.  Also, you won’t want to miss Janine’s (2bkrafy) blog candy give away today.  This week also marks the one year anniversary of Janine’s blog.  Head on over to sign up and check out her wonderful designs.

Please come back tomorrow, I’ll be posting the June and July calendar pages, together with blog candy I’m giving away in celebration of Sharon’s one year blog anniversary.

Hi everyone, I’m continuing with my calendar and will continue to post the months, hopefully two at time, until the complete calendar is posted.   As you can tell from my blog banner and most of my posts, watercolor is what I enjoy most.  I don’t consider myself a good card designer.  Just give me a brush, some watercolor paper, paints, or Tombow markers and let the creativity begin.  Most of my cards are very simple, I enjoy letting the watercolor be the focal point that draws the eye. 

 I get so excited when I go to my stamping room and have time to pull out my stamps and design a watercolor scene.  Sometimes I only have a few hours so I just watercolor flowers and put them aside for a day when I have time to play in a challenge.  Flowers are my favorite, I love gardening, I’m truly happiest when I’m up to my elbows in Black Cow, which totally repels my kids.  Too funny!   

I designed the month of February with Valentine’s Day in mind.  I stamped and embossed the music background and then masked around it with light tack masking tape.  I brayered over it with black ink and then wiped the ink from the gold music notes.  The gold background is a wash that I did with More Mustard.  I watercolored the two roses on a separate piece of watercolor paper and cut them out using a craft knife.  When dry, I adhered the roses to the music sheet.  The small calendars are attached with velcro so that they can be changed from year to year.  Someone asked in my previous post for January where I got the small calendars.  I downloaded them from the Crafty Secrets web site, which I encourage you to visit.  There are so many amazing stamp sets and products available, of which I own quite a few, I might add.  If you like vintage stamps, you’ll definitely want to visit Crafty Secrets.

March is one of my favorite calendar pages, I love these vibrant colors!   

• Paper:  Canson watercolor 140 lbs. coldpressed, Basic Black, Real Red, Ballet Blue
• Ink:  Versamark
• Accessories:  Tombow markers, More Mustard marker, watercolor brush, heating tool, Ranger Gold/Gold Tinsel embossing powder, Versamarker, craft knife, velcro, dimensionals, calendars downloaded from Crafy Secrets

My most favorite project to date is a calendar I designed in March that I love.  It took me three days to design the calendar on sheets of copy paper that I cut to 6″ x 6″.  Once I had the designs completed for the twelve months, I cut Canson watercolor paper, cold pressed, 140 lb. to 6″ x 6″.  I stamped and masked and stamped and masked several times on each page, embossing in between each step of the way.  Once all twelve pages were completed it was time to sit down and watercolor.  I was very naive in thinking I could complete the project in a week.  It took me nearly three weeks to complete it and I was sweating bullets (as my husband would say), worrying that I wouldn’t get it finished in tme for my March 15 gallery opening.  I began painting each morning around 7:00 a.m. and some nights would continue to paint until almost midnight.  My sons were troopers, they helped out by doing the laundry and cooking some of the meals. They were super and so very supportive.  Stephen, my oldest son, was in my stamping room every night or I was in his room getting his opinions.  I know I must have driven him crazy at times, I’m very grateful for his patience and for putting up with my constant interruptions. 

Several stamps were used to create this floral scene.   After I finished the painting, I trimmed it down to 5 1/2″ x 5 1/2″, embossed the edges, added a black panel and adhered it to Certainly Celery cardstock. 

I placed the finished page in a protective sheet and used this display stand to hang the calendar page on.  Each page is nestled in a protective sheet.  The calendar is on a desk in my office, I change the calendar pages month by month.  I used round binder rings to hang the pages to the horizontal bar.  I painted the display stand a very light creamy butter color.  I adhered designer paper on the base and the side panels.  Various ribbons and white satin were tied on the horizontal bar.  The little calendars are attached with vellum.  At the end of the year, I’ll take them off and paint new ones for 2009.   

Come back tomorrow for February’s page. 

Paper:  Canson watercolor paper, Basic Black, Certainly Celery

Ink:  Versamark

Accessories:  Tombow markers, Ranger gold/gold tinsel embossing powder, heating tool, kolinsky watercolor brush, velcro, computer, craft knife, dimensionals, Versamarker