Paint Pour Acceptance

This started out a pain pouring I did last summer, and I decided to use it to make a wall hanging for a friend. I then used scrabble tiles, thank you Wanda Hentges for mailing me some extras when I discovered I was going to be one "c" short for the project lol. I painted the top and left edges white, and the bottom and right edges black to give them a more shadowed look and to help them stand out on the fun busy background. The final touch was just to paint the edges of the canvas black. A simple project but it turned out great and my friend loved it.

Clem

 My son's bearded dragon, Clem, passed away at the beginning of the month. He had a heart and liver disorder that we weren't aware of when we got him for ours sons birthday three years ago. So while his life wasn't as long as we had hoped, he was our son's best friend for the time he had him. Clem would do everything with our son, eat, chores, homework, video games, and occasionally sleep. There were many nights where our son would fall asleep while reading and we would be in checking under the covers so we could put Clem in his habitat for the night, but obviously some nights that got overlooked, never did Clem stray very far from Steve, they were inseparable. So I decided to make this wall hanging as kind of a memorial for Steve to have hanging up in his room. I started with a blank 16"x20" board and painted it white with gesso. I then sprayed some water on the damp gesso and sprinkled infusions on it and them brushed over it again to get streaks of color. I then stenciled some leaves and some dots all over before layering on the pictures and then I painted wooden letter for the name Clem. I took the glass out of a wooden frame and painted it green and added some orange gemstone embellishments. Steve absolutely loves it and has already taken pictures of it to use as a background on his Ipad. It wasn't much, but I know how much it means to Steve and that's all that matters to me.

Pastel Babies

This months More Than Words challenge was especially fun with me as both of my little brothers became father's within a week of each other earlier in the year. So, I had been planning on what to do with the baby pictures, and this challenge provided just the thing. Now I'm not usually a pastel person so that was the harder part lol.

I started with a 16"x20" board and took bright colors and just added a whole bunch of white to make them more pastel. Using a pallet knife I just smeared the colors randomly over the board, and they still seemed a little bright to me, so I mixed white paint with matte medium to thin it down and again using the pallet knife smeared it over the whole surface. I loved the very rough look it provided.

After that I went in with a light grey paint and stenciled some dots and a harlequin pattern on the board, just to add some fun and depth to it.

Then I added layered black and white photos of my niece and nephew, and name/birthday tags.

The final touch was the solid black wood frame. I was originally going to splatter some of the pastel colors all over the frame but decided I liked the way the black made the whole thing pop. I really enjoyed this project and can't wait to make it back out to Iowa to see these two adorable babies and how much they have grown.

Motorcycle Snoopy

I made this card over the weekend for a friend of mine who is in the hospital. I stamped the snoopy and woodstock motorcycle image and then colored it in with sharpies. Tore it out and wrote the message on the top, and used my sharpies to give the edges the two toned color. Then I layered it up with some texture. It's simple, but I didn't have a lot of time and I really wanted to do something for my friend. Though it is simple I still like how it turned out.

Everything Has Beauty

This card was done while I was in Iowa at my folks house last month. My mom, Wanda Hentges, was introducing me to the Alcohol Ink Lift pad, which I have now ordered one of my own, cause wow is that fun and awesome! I did the red, orange and yellow background and then used the lift pad with a leafy background stamp, which I then stamped onto a piece of white cardstock. I loved both pieces and had to use them on the same card so the contrast could be seen. Then the tree was die cut and layered with two layers of Seth Apter rocky road embossing power, which I think gave it an absolutely fabulous look! Then it was all layered together and I used a few Tim Holtz words for the finishing touches. The person who I sent this card to absolutely loved it, which made me feel even better about it than I already did. All in all I think the card was a great success.

Textures and Layers

This was a card I threw together several weeks ago. The center piece is canvas paper that my mom, Wanda Hentges, was showing me a background technique on. Then I stamped and embossed the flower in the middle, and then ran some embossing around the edge with Seth Apter embossing powders (it was my first time playing with them, and now I want them!!). Fast forward a couple weeks and that had been sitting on my art table and I had an urge to use it and then the rest of the card came together one afternoon. Overall I like how it turned out and I hope you do too.

The Beach Life

This Months More Than Words Challenge

Now, at first glance I'm sure some of you will say "wait a minute, this looks like under the sea, not at the beach" which could be true. However, when people say Beach, the first things that go through my mind and "what turtles can I find", and "what cool shells can I find". Chances are you won't find me relaxing on a towel with a drink that has it's own private umbrella in it, I will be looking for wildlife/sea life. Whether I'm at a man made beach on a lake or river, or at the ocean it doesn't really change for me. I loved being able to showcase this fun side of my personality in this months challenge and I hope you enjoyed it too.

Memories

This months More Than Words Challenge

For the word challenge "memories" I decided I would do a journal spread of a few pictures I took from a stop we made at lake Michigan last fall. It was an unplanned stop on the way back to Chicago from Indiana and I was overjoyed, because despite how close we live it's not someplace we really go. It was a hot day, but we enjoyed walking along the beach picking up cool shells and rocks, enjoying the fresh air.

Zazu

Good morning everyone!! I am so excited about this challenge. When I first saw what it was I had sooooo many idea I was trying to decide which one I wanted to do, then my wife says "Do Zazu, Do Zazu!!!" So Zazu it is. It started out as a journal spread, and as something was drying I started on a side project that my wife could take to the office. Well, the side project ended up at the forefront and the journal spread has yet to get finished. I am so grateful that I was able to spend last weekend arting with my mom. We had a great time, and we both were able to mostly get our challenges done. You can check Wanda Hentges blog out here. 

So, as you can see there is plenty of nature on this jumbo Etcetera tag. The feather you see is one of Zazu's actual feathers she lost. The story of Zazu is sad, but I am happy to know that we are able to turn it into a happily every after. Zazu is a 6-8 year old Quaker Parrot. We adopted her from the Chicago Bird House after she was dumped off there by her former owners parents with a broken leg that had a hole in it. When the girl who bought Zazu as a hatchling years ago when to college it was up to her parents to take care of her until the girl could have her back. Well, they barely fed and watered her, she was alone in a room all the time with no human interaction, and when she was brought in and they were asked what had happened to her leg they answered with a "I don't know" as if they didn't have a care in the world, and would certainly never spend money on a vet. She was in the Chicago Bird House for about 6 months, where they did the best they could with her. Now she is part of our family. She had all her blood work done, and is relatively healthy, just a few low levels to fix now that she is in a stable environment. We also had her sexed, and that was when we learned that Zazu was a she. However that has always been her name, so it will stay that way. Besides as Disney fanatics it suits us. Our next step is to do x-rays and find out what needs to be done with her leg. We know she will never have use of it again, but we don't know yet whether it will need amputated. Despite all if this Zazu is full of life, and has a very outgoing spunky attitude. I'm so happy she is going to get the live out her days loved and spoiled.

Comfortable

 So, as you can tell by the date I did not make the post in time to actually enter the More Than Words Challenge for March, but I am going to blog it anyway because I did have it done on time, I just ended up not being home yesterday to get it blogged. I am loving the challenges so far this year at More Than Words and hope you enjoy seeing them.

The word comfortable always makes me immediately of how much I struggled to be comfortable in my own skin, and how far I have come. So my whole purpose was to use the colors given as best I could but the focus would be a quote that stated my feelings on being comfortable just being me. I am not a fan of blogging in terms of explaining my artistic process, but if you have questions please feel free to ask.

Forever

Word Inspiration: Forever

Creative Challenge: Heart

This year for Valentine's Day my wife, Jacquie, was out of town on a business trip. So I decided that for this months challenge I would make her an art journal spread. For those wondering why there is duck tape in the large heart, I ended up with some of the paste sticking together when I closed the book too soon, so I decided to use duck tape to fix it, and made a J out of it so it stayed with my theme. 

Birthday and Tags

A new year of challenges has begun. Last year my very talented mother, Wanda Hentges, and I chose to do the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge every week. However, many weeks were missed, more by me than her, believe me. I tended to bite off more than I could chew by doing larger projects that I just didn't have time to finish. So this year we decided on a monthly mixed media challenge. She sent me the links to a handful of possibilities and I chose the More Than Words Challenge. It combines a Word Inspiration along with a Creative challenge. I'm looking forward to the new year of challenges, and seeing what fun new things my mom will make outside of her usual cards, lol.

 

Word Inspiration: Birthday

Creative Challenge: Tags

The first thing that popped into my mind for the word birthday was our daughters 16th birthday, which occurred In November of 2017. I came into her life when she was just 8 years old, and very quickly became "mama", so as not to be confused with my wife "mommy". I have watched her grow into an amazing young woman, and through all the ups and downs, the good times and bad, I have and will always love her, not as my step-daughter, but as my daughter. Now that she is 16 it will bring on a whole new set of fun, and challenges. The most amusing, and smallest of which is that she has outgrown the "mama" and mommy" phase. Now we just here her holler or say "mom", and immediately have to reply "which one?" I am looking forward to the years ahead, and seeing all the amazing things I am sure she will accomplish.





A Walk On The Dark Side

This weeks Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, is A Walk On The Dark Side. I was absolutely ecstatic and knew exactly what I wanted top do! So out came every piece of Nightmare Before Christmas stuff I could find. However, the first thing I did was pull out my thin metal sheets and my tools and spent the day trying to create the iconic Jack and Sally silhouette on the hill side. Overall it didn't come out as well as I had hoped, and I had to use some paint to offset the characters because the lines didn't seem defined enough to me. But it was way better than I figured I could do when I started, so I was pretty happy. I got that stuck down, and with a fair amount of irritation and effort I finally got the inside edge to stop getting bent every time I opened and closed my art journal lol. Then I used black gesso on the page next to it, layered up a laser cut Nightmare Before Christmas sign on some white card stock and stuck that down. Then I ran the strip of ribbon across the bottom. Then I took two plastic cutouts, one of Zero and one of Jack and put them down. Then I pulled out my 20th anniversary edition of the Nightmare Before Christmas book, and found the portion I wanted to use and wrote that out in white gel pen, and it was going to well until I messed up on that one word, so just kind of try and ignore the crossed out blob of white near the bottom lol. Even though it did not come out perfectly I am very happy with how it did turn out, and I know it will always be a layout that is near and dear to me. Enjoy!

Simplicity

This spread I did this week will also be posted to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. I didn't originally make it with that intent but it worked out great. This spread was very simple and fun. I put distress oxides down all over both pages. Then I spritzed and sprayed and dried and added until I liked the outcome. Including just stamping the square ink pad right onto the pages at times. Then I used a large Dylusions stencil that has a great flowery print around the outside with fun random dots on the inside. I used extra heavy gel medium and went over the whole stencil in one direction on the left page, the I flipped it end for end and did it again to the right page. A day later when it was finally dry I spent several minutes just in awe of how it came out and the texture it provided. Then I sprayed the whole thing with silvery glimmer mists, it very hard to see if the picture, but in person it has a great sheen to it. Then I put normal white embossing paste through several word stencils, then I covered it in embossing powder, and I melted the embossing powder before letting the paste dry. Which gives it a fun squishy foamy feeling. I tore them all out, went around the edges with my orange wink a stella pen, stuck them down with foam mounting tape, and voila! It was so easy and so much fun, and is just bursting with texture, I love it!!

Braver, Stronger, Smarter, Loved

This weeks Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is Shimmer and Shine. I decided to incorporate that theme into a present for my mother-in-law whose birthday is tomorrow. I started with a 5x7 chalkboard in frame. Used Dylusions yellow paint to cover the inner surface, let it dry, applied weathered wood, let it dry, then added pink Dylusions paint over that, and as it dried it brought on the beautiful crackle. I then ran a line of glue around the entire inside corner and covered it with a purple glitter (which I am still finding on random surfaces lol). Then I stamped the quote and cut it out, glued it onto purple card stock and cut it out, again. I used foam mounting tape to add it to the painted background. Then I painted the piece of filigree in the corner and the flowers and butterflies. I added little gemstones to the butterflies, and to the center of the smaller flower. Then I layered it all up and stuck it down. Then, to make the frame pop just a little I added some dots of stickles glitter paint.

Pet the Dog

This is a spread I did in one of my smaller art journals. It was fun and simple, but is very indicative of how I like my life. I first used Dylusions paint and just spread it over both pages, not worrying about whether it was perfect or not. Then I used black Archival ink through one of the Dylusions stencils on the top left and bottom right corners. Then I stamped the paw prints across the page. I added the laser cut Keep Calm and Pet the Dog sign I got at a stamp and scrap expo the weekend before. Then using a white gel pen I added the white circles around the stenciled spot, and the words. It was a fun and therapeutic spread that always makes me smile. Especially when I have a dog snuggled with me lol.

Card Exchange

While out in Iowa over Memorial Day weekend my mom was showing me some fun things you could do with stamps and infusions. Needless to say the Penny Black flower came out awesomely, and she made a couple of them since you can do it a few times before the infusions are all used up. I asked if I could take one home, and it was decided that we would each take one and make a card for the other person with it. I ended up not getting mine done until after my birthday in June, so I took the opportunity to try and use a variety of things that I had gotten for my birthday from my mom. So, the bottom layer is just ordinary card stock. The next layer I used the new harlequin stencil I got with the orange wink a stella pen that I got. The next layer I started with one of the pieces of paper that the stencil was wrapped in, and used some of the infusions that I got for my birthday with clear shimmer paint brush strokes. Then I added the flower that I was supposed to be using, added some more of the harlequin pattern, this time with paste through the stencil. Then I used one of the Tim Holtz metal embellishments, and used one of his distress crayons to lightly color over it, to fill in the words with white so it was more readable (these were the only other things I used that weren't part of my birthday package). I really enjoyed doing this card and was happy with how it turned out.

Mother's Day

Despite this being the card I made for mothers day, as you can see I'm a little behind in blogging it lol. I had a lot of fun with this card. I went digging through random papers of various my mom and I have done throughout the years and came up with one of the melted crayon backgrounds that was rich in warm colors. Over that I used a swirly stencil and put versa mark ink through it, then I brought out the powdered pearls. Funny thing though, the color of powdered pearls I wanted to use hadn't been opened yet. See where this is going. As I was trying to get the seal unstuck so I could use it it slipped out of my hands and landed on the table, which made it go EVERYWHERE, including on the two dogs that were sitting at my feet. Lets just say it was months before some things didn't have a nice silvery/white sheen. Once I got that cleaned up, more or less, that stuff sticks everywhere, I got it on the card here I wanted it and off where I didn't. For the large flower in the middle I colored it with an embossing ink pen and then used embossing powder to give it the colors that I wanted. The grass and flower vines at the bottom were a sticker piece, as was the butterflies. The small gravestone at the bottom is actually a piece of marble chess board that broke many years ago that was then etched wit the phrase "here lies my piece of mind". I had been waiting forever for the perfect time to use it. A flowery Mother's Day card seemed like the perfect place lol.

Quick Birthday

As everyone knows life can get a little crazy at times. When my sons birthday was upon us back in April I realized that I hadn't yet made him a card. I very quickly layered up some fun paper, added some washi tape, stamped the words and added a lizard (which he is a big fan of). All in all I don't think my card in 20 minutes or less came out bad at all lol.

Crazy Times

I am so incredibly far behind on my blog posts, mostly because it is not my favorite thing to do, me and technology do not generally mix. I am today however, trying to get caught up at least some. This is a spread I started way back at the beginning of the year, If you look through the three pictures below you can see the progression of the background. I loved it when I started it, hated it when I was finished, so there it sat for a long time. Eventually, while out visiting the Family in Iowa, and having some fun mother daughter art time, I decided it was time to finish it. After all my mom does have way more cool stuff than I do lol. Once it was all said and done I liked it better than I had but still not one of my pieces that I love. The crazy dogs do help though :)