It's Friday! Finally!

Let the weekend commence!

Have you seen the new Unity blog? Whoa! That's seriously beautiful, with such heartfelt contents. Love it! And I love that Angela is getting a chance to share her thoughts with us. Love reading her posts! You're here today to enjoy a little customer hop, and I'm delighted to join you!

I went a little different direction today. This week, we had some decisions to make. Some that weren't very hard, but required a lot of exploring. While I don't want to share the topic, I do want to share the process.

I have an art journal. I've been reading about Journal Spilling... it's a stream of consciousness thing. You write. Just pour thoughts onto paper. Feel it - write it. Honest thought, real feelings. You write on top of writing. Slide down that slope like an Olympic skier.

When it's all out...all there on paper...you cover it up. You bury the issue in beauty, and watch for it to emerge later from the cocoon you built, all pretty and grown up.

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I mixed gesso (a chalk/glue mixture used for surface prep), matte multi-medium (a gel that extends the drying time), and a drop of Ranger distress reinkers together, and painted general areas, using a color-blocking technique. I used Broken China, Peeled Paint, and Aged Mahogany reinkers for coloring.

After the gesso mix dried, I used Peeled Paint reinker mixed with multi-medium and a liner brush to paint the stems and leaves (across the bottom). I stamped bunches of grapes (Gina K stamp) with Memento over the color-blocked area to give the appearance of lilacs, and clear embossed them. Then I added rock candy stickles over the flowers to give the appearance of dew or frost. I also used Glimmer Mist (sunkissed peach, and turquoise blue by Tattered Angels) sprayed broadly over the page to give a nice shimmer.

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I cut a portion of bar coaster material and dipped it in melted Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel that had been color with regular embossing powder (a la Suze Weinberg). While it was still hot, I pressed the circular ornate plate stamp from the Unity January 2010 kit of the month to emboss the enamel, brushed the resulting negative image with perfect pearls (gold), and rubbed it with Patina stickles. Then I added a metal flower and leaf with a long fastener (Tim Holtz, idea-ology Foliage) and adhered it to the page. I stamped one of my favorite Proverbs passages from {ippity} Devoted on velum, heat embossed it and applied it to the page.

Whew! All that to say.... I put all my angst onto this page, and turned negative energy into something positively beautiful. Now I can look back on that day and think about how that difficult decision made me stronger, and by giving it over to the Lord to handle, I can wait for the beauty of His timing to bring the perfect answer.

Don't forget - tomorrow marks the debut of Oh Alice! A curious collection of unusual challenges that I know will have you jumping down the rabbit hole to enjoy!

Now, back to the hop! Don't forget to check out Unity's new blog, and the deal of the day! Happy hopping!

Cool runnings ~ Peace be the journey!  ~ky