REAL SIMPLE

When you have two sons that you literally risked your life conceiving and giving birth to and they have no gratitude for anything and call you delusional it is real simple - this is how you feel -

Why would they behave this way?  Because they have a father that trained them this way.  That they got high with and whose addiction they lived through and yet they still worship the ground he walks on and hang on his every word and believe it for truth.  He manipulates.  He lies.  They listen.  They repeat.  Word for word.  Verbatim from his mouth.  They wish me dead.  At least then I would be out of all this pain. 

I don't wish for anyone else's life.  Every life comes with it's own set of problems.  I just want my life to be better.  And no matter how hard I try that doesn't happen.  Because when those you love the most hate you there is nothing worth living for.  

Thank God for that little Catholic school nun who told us that suicide was the unforgiveable sin talked about in the Bible.  Although today I know that is not true her words linger in my heart.  Right next to the physical, spiritual and emotional abuse.

For her today I live.

IT'S TWINS!

Today I created a card to celebrate the birth of twin boys.  I used the sketch from Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #184 and a baby card for the Crazy Challege

Here is the sketch:

And my card:

Thanks for dropping by.  Hopefully I will have more for you later or tomorrow.

SCRAPS TO TREASURE TEAM'S MONOCHROMATIC HOP!

Hi!  This is Paula and I will be your hostess this month.  I want to welcome you to the Scraps To Treasure Team's Monochromatic Blog Hop.  Our goal at STT is to use up all our scraps and leftover embellishments to create wonderful layouts, cards and other projects.  This month we are doing that using different shades of only one color.

Up for grabs is this RAK from me going out to one lucky hopper that is a follower of all the blogs in the hop and has left a comment for each entry.

Included in the RAK are:

10 My Mind's Eye Laundry Line Diecuts
  2 Basic Grey Bling It On Rubons and Rhinestones
  2 Glitz Frosting Bling
  1 Martha Stewart Glitter Alphas
  1 EK Success Inspirables Embellishments
  1 Special Moments Embellishments
  1 Treasured Memories Metal Tags 

For my entry I opted to create a card using one of my favorite colors - PINK!  I started out by using this sketch from the Colorful Creations Sketch-a-Thon May 14th. 

 I have also entered this card in Whoopsi Daisy Pretty In Pink challenge and the Use it Tuesday challenge #55 for using some hoarded supplies.  I used scraps of paper and pink rhinestones that I have had for at least 2-3 years.  I also am entering it in Shopping Our Stash challenge #101 Scrap Attack for using only scraps.

I hope that you have enjoyed stopping by and seeing this creation and now you are ready to move through the following blogs and view more great monochromatic creations.

Paula - http://preciouspagesbypaula.blogspot.com/ You are here!

Melanie - http://afternoonscrapper.blogspot.com/ Go here next!

Lissa Marie - www.somanycrafts.com

Robin C. - http://cutonedesignsbyrobin.blogspot.com/

Lucy ~ http://love2createitall.com

Lynda~http://memoriesintyme.blogspot.com/

Liz - http://tryin2craft.blogspot.com

Camille - http://shortonideasaz.blogspot.com/

Robin L. - http://create-a-latte.blogspot.com/

Happy Hopping!

A HAPPY LITTLE CARD

Here is a cute little card that I made for the Incy Wincy Animal Antics challenge using the Tuesday Morning Sketches #198.

Here's the sketch:

And my card:

I just love that cute little monkey don't you?  Don't forget to stop back tomorrow for the Scraps to Treasure Blog Hop!

THE MAKING OF MY FIRST MIXED MEDIA CANVAS

Today I started my first Mixed Media canvas.  It is going to be a gift for a friend.  I started with a 14x18 back stapled traditional canvas.  I coated the front and sides with gesso.  And now the fun begins...

I took out some of my favorite Crafter's Workshop templates and my all time favorite medium - Dry Dex Spackling (yes as in for walls, got it at Home Depot!)  I put a blob of it down and pushed a corrugate cup holder into it for design.  Then I took the cup holder and pushed that down for the reverse.  Next I played with all of my templates.  I wanted to have a varied texture, varied patterned look.  The idea is that everything is perfect just the way it was created.

Here is step 1:

When the spackle dries (which is what I love about this product - it goes on pink and turns white when dry) I will add my first layer of paint in my main color - cobalt blue.

I actually waited much longer and then added both of my main colors - Cobalt Blue and Christmas Red, as well as misting some Adirondack Denim Blue Color Wash.  I just squired the blue and red out of the bottles onto the canvas.

Step 2:

I had anticipated using a sea sponge to work the colors in but wasn't able to find it.  Instead I used my usual standard - smearing with a credit card.  I realized why I wanted to do the blue first and then the red as I did not want them to mix - I wiped the card in between colors but some were close together and the red was darkened.

Step 3:

My next step was to add Distress Ink in Faded Jeans, Salty Ocean, Barn Door and Festive Berries using an ink blending tool.

Step 4:

I found a piece of my sea sponge and used that with the blue acrylic paint to go over most of the canvas.  I then took red paint and flicked it on with an open spray bottle.

Step 5:

I think my next step will be to add some other dimensions and possibly more red.

For the dimension I started with adding some Liquid Beadz.  I have decided that I don't really care for them much.  They did not apply as well as they implied they would.  I splattered more red acrylic paint and then added a variety of buttons using Glossy Accents.

Step 6:

I need to do the sides of the canvas which I will probably just do with the paints and sea sponge.  And the next and possibly final step would be some collage which I think I am going to do with words.

OK...I did the sides the way I figured that I would.  I also added several other touches to the front inclujding blue glass beads, seashells, pieces of red trim and words of affirmation using miniature scrabble tiles.

Step 7:

I think that I am ready for a sealing coat of glossy spray!

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO...

This week I have been able to do a few layouts as well as a few cards.

My layouts were for the Colorful Creations Sketch-a-Thon.

Sketch May 6

I chose to rotate the sketch 1/4 turn clockwise:

Sketch May 7

For this one I created a card:

This card is also being entered in the Whoopsi Daisy, Pink Elephant, Shopping Our Stash Mother's Day  challenges.

Sketch May 8

I chose to rotate the sketch 1/4 turn clockwise:

and Unscripted Sketches #210

and my card:

I hope that you have enjoyed my latest creations.  Thanks for stopping by.  

AN ENLIGHTENING AND DISTURBING VISION

While I was resting this afternoon, as well as being severely depressed, I had a vision of what I needed to do on my next journal page.  To me it spoke a lot of the conflicts that are tearing me apart.  It is symbolic of the struggles I am going through emotionally, physically and spiritually in my life and how it feels to be torn apart. Inside this broken heart is the little girl who was the first one to encounter the abuses of this life.  I know that I am not the only person to have had a dysfunctional childhood, bad teens and abusive twenties (in fact, I know many personally who have had it much much worse) and I am fortunate to have found the love and grace of God to help me through the years ahead and to live with and deal with the memories of the past.  But...this does not negate the painful feelings that exist and continue through the behaviors created in defense to try to prevent these things from reoccurring.  They are old and inappropriate but hard to eliminate.  They often cause me to seek approval in all the wrong places and by doing all the wrong things.  This is always followed up with guilt, depression and unforgiveness both to myself and often by others in my life.  The one good thing that has happened for me recently is that I have finally started to realize the enormity of the love and forgiveness of God.  No matter what stupid mistake I make He is forgiving in ways that humans simply are not.  That is helping me to forgive myself although not as quickly or totally as I need to in order to escape the pain of the depression and anxiety.  I realized that I need to forgive myself because these past, present and future sins and mistakes were all taken and nailed to the cross of our Savior Jesus Christ.  If He did this for me what right do I have to hang on to the unforgiveness of others or for not forgiving myself.

I started my page with the usual layer of gesso to prep and strengthen the paper and then my latest favorite Dry Dex Spackle and my absolutely favorite Crafters Workshop template with swirls. I love the texture of the spackle and how it goes on pink then turns white when it is dry.  Helps with my impatience as I actually can tell when it is truly ready to add color and other elements.  I think I like the swirls because they represent my swimming thoughts and behaviors, they run in all different directions and in circular motion which is often how my emotions feel when I am working on these issues.

My next step was to add background color.  I started with a full coat of black gesso smeared on with a credit card.  Next I dripped on various colors of acrylic paints which I smeared into the wet black gesso with my fingers - yes...very messy but I am very tactile and love to get into the feel of everything I do.  On top of the drip and smear I added some spray inks.

Obviously the next step will be to lighten things up a bit so everything doesn't get lost in the blackness.  In order to do this I add some white gesso scraped on with the credit card while the mists were still wet. The paint layers were getting a bit thick and the texture was getting lost so I rolled over it all with paper towels.

I added some gold Perfect pearls for highlighting as well as a red doily heart torn in two, a little girl with a face of me as a child and the chains on each side of the heart showing the pulling apart.  I finished it off with splats of red to represent blood and blue to represent tears.  I then smeared those with the credit card.  I am not happy with the page but I don't know what else I would want to add other than possibly some words.

Yes...the words have it.  I tried a White Sharpie Paint Pen but did not do well with it and ended up with gesso and a paint brush.  It is messy and rough but as the feelings and the whole page is so raw it probably suits it much better than neat lettering would have.

Not one of my favorite pages but it is full of raw emotion and that is one way of getting the pain out.

HAPPY NATIONAL SCRAPBOOKING DAY!

While I wait for the gesso to dry for the art journal page I am hoping to create tonite I decided I would share  with you my creations from yesterday's National Scrapbooking Day.  It's funny as neither of the things I did were scrapbooking pages.  This year I joined the Flying Unicorn for their challenges and celebration.  This was the first time I had ever played there and I was amazed to win 2 door prizes and the art journaling challenge.  I was only able to complete two challenges.  The first was called 'It's Not a Square Thing' and was a card challenge to create a card in any other shape but square.  I chose round.  Here is my card:

The other challenge I chose was the Art Journaling challenge.  For this challenge you needed to create a journal page about spring using the following techniques and/or supplies:

- Paint and/or Gesso

- Masking with color (mist, ink, paint, etc)

- Masking with media (gesso, molding paste, glass beads gel, etc)

- At least one layer of paper other than your background

- At least 2 plants

I started as I do on all my journal pages, with a layer of gesso.  I used masks and templates with mist, ink, paint and my latest favorite - Derwent Inktense Blocks.  For media I used some molding paste and then my favorite - spackle and a butterfly template.  My other layer of paper was the swirl and my title. My two plants were the flowers done with the template and leaves from another template and done with dimensional paint.

Here is my page:

Hope that you have enjoyed a peek at my creations from yesterday.  My gesso should be dry now and I am taking off to work on it.

Have a wonderful evening!