What Is That In Your Hand?

Tomorrow I start a class by JoAnne Sharpe.  There are two reasons I wanted to take it...

1. The price was right... $35 for TWENTY NINE lessons!  (making THREE art journals!) Pretty amazing that.

2.  I have always LOVED her use of bold bright colors and I have spent a small fortune trying to get that same effect, sadly to no avail!  I figured if I took the class she might show/tell what she uses.

WELL, last night she made the class supply list available...hummmmm...class isn't so cheap now... :-(.

But, rather than go into all that, I'll just cut to the chase.  One of things on her list was LIQUID water colors!  Never knew such thing even existed! (but I know I'm not alone here because several people at Dick Blick were clueless too.)  So, today when I had my finger on the "check out" button on the online Dick Blick site I got a check in my spirit.  $145!  Hummmmm, gotta cut that back some way!  Once I made that decision and started thinking about it I wondered if my Stampin' Up! refills might not do the exact same thing...  YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!  Bright vivid colors!  Put a little water down on the watercolor paper, drop some ink down into the water and watch the magic happen!  I did the water thing with the M, the rest are just painted directly on, no water added to paper...GOOD COLORS!

YES!  Money saved!  Course, you need to do a better job of controlling the overlap than I did but most everything I do is a test so I always cut myself some slack :-)

The words are actually Exodus 4:2.  It is when God gives Moses instructions to go get the Israelites out of Egypt and Moses kinda freaks out and tries to convince God he isn't the man for the job because why would Pharoah or the Israelites bother to listen to him...who was he after all?!  Then God asks him the question "What is that in your hand?"... So, basically, we can do ANYTHING God directs us to do, even if all we have in our hand is a stick! God gives us the necessary tools to get the job done, even if they make ZERO sense to us.

A New Heart

I was just looking for something else and found this.... something I made about a year ago.  It represents one of my favorite scriptures Ezekiel 36:26... one I stood on for years for my ex-husband, but it was actually ME the Lord wanted to change!  Hummmm, imagine my surprise :-)   

You can probably tell that it is 100% computer... well almost.  

I actually got the colored stone by "copying and pasting" a portion of a hand colored stone a friend of mine did.  Last year, Andrea and I tried to have a digital stamp store .... but no one bought so we shut it down.  This is the "stamp" and the card I made as a sample..."Someday My Prince (Jesus) Will Come"

Hopefully you can read the font, if you could even tell it says something! I think I made it a little easier by putting a space between the book and the verse reference...that was a mistake, I should have used an underscore or something to not have the break....oh well.  The name of the font is  LT Minos.  I bought it AGES ago because it looks like a border and I was planning on making some embroidered name borders with it... Nope, never did.  I don't remember where I got it but I found it again for this post...click on the name if you are interested.

I Have to Trust Him

For Mnemosyne (Part 2)

After I posted the drawing I did the other day for Mnemosyne I pinned it onto Pinterest for her and she used it as her profile picture ... even though it was just a quickie something just meant to bring a smile ....  eeek!  I wasn't expecting that!   I hadn't come close to anything about her except the LSU and what the board says.  Thankfully, she gave me her blog address, humofdelicious, so I was able to read her profile and do this new drawing. 

FUN!  

It really is a mix of her life  at different times, using different quotes that she likes and that she has used in the past as a teacher.  She is currently a freelance writer (hence the, hard to see, feather in her hand) ....  aaaaahhhh  feels better.  It is also a hybrid of hand and pc.  I used the pc to do the background wall, floor and all the text. 

   I'm going to have a whole hive of bees soon!

For Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne is a Louisiana "pin" friend on Pinterest.  She commented that her initials are MEB so my brain started spinning.  "You can call ME Bee" "Just Call ME Bee" ...??? Unfortunately, all I really know about her is that she's a teacher so I just did this quickie in her honor.

Not Just Any Bee

One of my favorite blogs is Elvie Studio... (Lori Vliegen)  I LOVE that blog!  Be sure to check it out.  I have been going there for a year probably.    I think I love it because she focuses on just a few things ... lettering, a watercolor something, handmade journals or carved rubber stamps. FOCUSED.  Another thing I LOVE is that she takes BEAUTIFUL pictures of her work and she includes a cool pair of reading glasses in almost every single picture.  I know, kinda weird that I love that but it just makes for such a classy photo.  Notice that all the things I love are NOT what I do, EVER?!  Well, when I grow up I want to be just like Lori.   

Now, I really hate to admit this "out loud" but the name of her blog has always baffled me.  Why Elvie Studio, when her name is Lori ????  Well it suddenly hit me the other day... El (L) Vie (V) are her initials!!!  HELLOOOOO!  Isn't that just so clever?!  

So, naturally, because I want to be like Lori I started thinking about my initials.... NB  I could spell it "InBee" but that really makes no sense...so I added my middle initial   NEB (Any Bee)  YES!  So, my next blog (???) is going to be "Not Just Any Bee"  and here is my the beginnings of my logo! 

 HA!  Now I'm clever too!  Hee Hee.

Anyway, now you will know why this picture will start showing up... cause.... you know, I'm "Not Just Any Bee"!

RULE #1 In Watercolor!

Know what kind of black pin you used before adding water!

Isaiah 43:18-19