CryztalRain has released some fabulous new butterfly brushes this week~ Butterfly Clusterz #2 at Deviant Scrap. The png's are included if you don't want to use the brush format. I had such
a wonderful time playing around with these. The background on my piece is nothing
but brushwork and blending modes. I did find through playing a bit and giving my layers
a very slight shadow such as one you would give acrylic elements really helped
pop things up a bit and give it some "texture". As soon as I am able I will try to get this
one printed on a canvas for my art room in addition to a copy of it going into my art journal.
Other elements used in the piece are from CryztalRain's Art Therapy and Word Art pack.
I ♥ those kits. They are also available at Deviant Scrap. =D






Thanks for peeking!!!

I got to work with some great new kits last week from Beth Rimmer and Finecrafted Designs.
This week Beth has a new Steampunk themed kit out called Steampunk Celebration! at Deviant Scrap
I wasn't feeling too steamy but did make this wonderful page of my DD and niece with it.
Click on the page to see it in the gallery for full credits.

And I always vow to eat dessert first when we go out to eat and never do. However I do leave room for one of the mini desserts at our favorite steak house. So this is just a reminder that I might want to do that. =D
It's created with Finecrafted Designs newest kit~Poor Tortured Marie.  at Deviant Scrap.
Click on the page to see the full list of credits in the gallery.


Thanks for popping by!!!! And if you pick up these fabulous kits and create with them....come pop them into the gallery so that we might be inspired by you!
Huggles,
Balinda

We hit the ground running this week with a trip to the library Monday morning. Shaina really enjoys the library and it's something I wanted to make sure she still got to do being home schooled. We did that and I then sucked it up and met my ex husband for lunch so my daughter could visit with her dad. I didn't realize it at the time but it was on what would have been our 23rd anniversary. Very ironic, I thought.



Wednesday was my son's 22nd birthday. I didn't get to see him because he was doing his orientation for Nursing clinicals. This is where you wish they were babies again so that you could hug and love on them at a moments notice. I might be much shorter than him now but he will always be my baby boy...and just a side note...I named him Christopher. It just irks me that he goes by Chris on his FB and his friends are too lazy to say his whole name.





This is just a composition book I came across at Walmart. I am so going to use this design as inspiration for an art journal page.



Wednesday was our first home school group meeting and Shaina's BFF, Kristy, came home with us. The girls really enjoyed the company of each other while doing their lessons. Shaina is on the left, Kristy on the right.



And to prove it's been a rough week, Shaina passed smooth out listening to her iPod. She up and decided on Thursday that she wanted to learn french. So after stalking you tube and iTunes U....she stumbled upon a Celine Dion Album in french...so I downloaded that for her.



I did do some scrapping but I will share those in another posting. Thanks for peeking in on me!
Balinda

It's just really hard to believe that Congress cannot get it's act together and balance a budget.
If there is no money to spend well don't spend it. I have listened to the bickering about it on 
TV until I finally just turned it off for over over week. Through the carelessness of our political leadership
the United States has lost it's Triple A credit rating. The Dow has been bouncing up and down worse than a rubber ball and the morals of our country seems to be slipping away faster than the sand through and hour glass. I worry about my mother's 401k and I worry that me and my husband don't even have a retirement plan. I worry about my kids and how are they even to afford the day to day living. 
I can only put my faith in God and pray daily that we can survive these turbulent times and maybe live to see a brighter day. With all this in mind this is the art journal page I made this week. There's to be a second part to it but that's for next week. 



I was the appointed photographer at my brother's wedding this morning. It was not a fancy affair. Family only, outdoors and casual dress to Sunday best if you wanted.
Out of all the 450 photo's I took this was my very favorite one and I was very lucky to get it. They don't even know I took it.....yet anyway..LOL!
I used M4H's First Kiss action on it from her Love Bird's collection. I wanted it to have a bit of a retro feel but not too much.
My Dad took the casual route and my Mama took the Sunday best route. =D




This week also finished up our first week of home school. A super big success. It was a lot of redoing assignments, sometimes me being very stern and unyielding and other times being the cheer leader.  It's been hard and easy all at the same time. But I can say without a doubt it's the best thing I ever did for my daughter.
Thanks for taking a peek in with me today!
Balinda

Beth is really on a roll with her art dolls.  I almost never know exactly what I am going to create with her goodness until I just get my hands dirty and start playing. This time though I knew I wanted to have something merged with that cool top hat. I am not all that great at merging items together and really played around a lot with layer masks and am super pleased with the results. This is a fun page that will be added to my art journal. I like dogs fine but ultimately Cats Rule and Dogs Drool in my house hold of 3 kitties.  This sweet little kitty is quite upset that the little doggie is trying to fly under radar and invade her park.
An Accidental Art Doll! by Beth Rimmer at Deviant Scrap is just a wonderful addition of go to pieces if you like/or are interested in art dolls. 

This week wrapped up the last official days of Shaina's summer vacation. Monday marks the first day of 9th grade for us. I spent today getting all of her subjects installed on her new laptop. At first they didn't wanna go but after being a little bit persistent it all got placed properly where it belonged.
I am still trudging along with my Project 365. I know I have not shared photos for that in what seems like forever but let's remedy that now. These are not in any particular order and just a sampling of my past week.


Shaina's new laptop.



I was given the total gym to keep for awhile so it's going to good use next to the treadmill. I learned a long time ago that out of sight is out of mind so in the living room it stays. And that's how it gets used daily.



I had been wanting to try this brand of water flavors. Today I picked up strawberry watermelon. It's pretty darn good!





Shaina opening her laptop.





Seriously! Could it get any hotter!!!! And that's how hot it was at 5:30 in the afternoon.



I cross stitched before I scrapbooked (paper scrapbooked). There was a shop in Bossier called Knots-n-Needles and I had thought it had went out of business when I went hunting for it again about 6 months ago. I had not made a thing in about 10 years but had seen the shop open but never stopped. But like I was saying about 6 months ago I went to go to it and it was GONE! I was so heart broke. Just by chance I had to turn around  in a parking lot and it was their parking lot!! It was Serendipity!!! I bought me a small kit to get me back in the groove with linen fabric. I have never cross stitched on linen so this should be quite the adventure!





This is my fattest cat, Ghost. I was up late on the laptop with my feet up in the recliner. Since he usually sleeps with me and I was not in bed yet he made himself comfy.


Are you doing Project 365 or any variation on it? I would love to visit your blog. We have made it halfway through...so yipppeee!!!! I absolutely adore this project!
Thanks for stopping by!
Balinda