Monthly Archives: October 2014

Weekly Art Journal Video #5

DSC05806Good afternoon!

I am so happy to share that my 5th weekly art journal video is now posted out on YouTube:

I will tell you my thoughts behind this spread, but first here is a list of what supplies I used:

  • Apple Barrel acrylic paints: Bright Magenta (20591), Apricot (20764)
  • Liquitex Acrylic inks: Cerulean Blue Hue, Vivid Lime Green
  • Tim Holtz Stencils: Dot Fade, BubblesBlack Stabilo Alls pencil
  • Make-up sponge
  • 3 kinds of black and white wash tape – I don’t know what brand these are
  • Water brush
  • Black Pilot pen
  • White Signo pen
  • Thick #2 pencil
  • Regular #2 pencil
  • Card stock
  • Letter stamps
  • Black StazOn ink pad
  • Aleen’s tacky glue

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When I started out to create this spread, I had no idea where I was going to go with it, so I thought I would just start adding paint and go from there! 🙂

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I wanted a really bright happy kind of page, so I thought I would start with a very happy fuchsia pink! Once I started I didn’t want to stop!

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Now that I have discovered Liquitex acrylic ink for dripping, I may have become a little bit obsessed! This time I wanted to try something different, and thought I would try first drawing shapes with the ink and then tipping the pages to get some varied drips on the page – I think this turned out pretty cool!

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Then I wanted to add something new to my pages, and since I have such a huge stockpile of wash tapes, I thought what a better way to use some of my stash?

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Then of course doodling is always a ‘Yes!’ I find that doodling is one of my go-to ways for letting my mind wander, and hearing those messages that my soul is trying to tell me but my mind gets too busy to listen to!

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For some reason, this week, I just couldn’t get a feel for when this spread was finished. I just kept feeling like something was missing, but I just could not put my finger on what it was. I ended up walking away thinking I would just force it to be done, but my mind kept dwelling on the fact that something was still missing, and I finally realized what it was…

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…the message that came to me during this time arting was “Be yourself everyone is already taken.” I realized that I wrote it down, but I still wasn’t listening to the actual message! The reason I was feeling like my spread wasn’t done was because I was still too busy comparing myself to other artists in my head, and I was feeling like I was lacking because my spreads don’t look like theirs! DUH! I GET IT!!! I am uniquely made, on purpose, EXACTLY as I was meant to be!! My artwork is mine alone too!! You can copy me, but it will still have your own take on it! I can copy you, but my own unique stank will be on the final result – ok, I realize that may not have been the coolest way to say that!! LOL!! but you know what I mean, don’t you??

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Anyway, after I let my message sink into my brain, I realized my spread was not only done, it may just be my favorite spread up to date!!! YEAH!!! How is that for a 180???

Next week, I am hoping to get the cajones to share one of my long neck girl drawings, which is actually something I just LOVE to draw!!! It gives me the willies just to think of it, but you will see – I will bring it!!

Until then,

Here is to a FABULOUS week!! 🙂

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If you want a different life, live differently!

Weekly Art Journal #4 Video

Good morning!

I am happy to announce that my weekly Art Journal video #4 has been posted to YouTube for your perusal!

http://youtu.be/QUh6p97oz1Y

I have a bunch of pictures to show you, but first the supplies I used this week are:

  • Art Advantage Acrylic Paints: Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Cerulean Blue, Permanent Green Light
  • Lumiere Acrylic Paint Pearlescent Magenta (573)
  • Folk Art Acrylic Paint Neon Pink (2850)
  • Apple Barrel Acrylic Paint White (20403)
  • Liquitex Acrylic Ink Vivid Lime Green
  • Ranger Stickles: Purple (SGG20615), True Blue (SGG29052), Waterfall (SGG20639)
  • Hero Arts Wood Mounted Stamp: Painted Circle (E5784), Old French Writing (H2365)
  • Inkadinkado Wood Mounted Stamp: K-Paper Artsy Tre’port Postal
  • Cosmo Cricket Wood Mounted Stamp: Cluster Border (PS0647)
  • Ranger’s Black Archival Ink Pad
  • Golden’s Gel Medium
  • Liquitex White Gesso
  • Black Stabilo Pencil
  • Water Brush
  • 1-1/2 inch brush
  • Pink tissue paper (I had gotten in a birthday present gift)
  • Silver Butterfly wall decal – I am not sure the brand, but I found it in a set on clearance at Wallmart for $1
  • Aleen’s Tacky Glue

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I had a lot of fun doing this spread this week! Unlike most weeks, where I am just winging it, this week I had a vague idea about what I wanted to do, but had really no idea what my thought was going to be, or how to pull it all together. It wasn’t until I was finally spending time arting in quiet, while I was actually doing these art journal pages, that it finally seemed to come together!

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Did you notice how much gesso I used? ACK!!! I was very heavy handed, which means it really took forever to get that layer to dry! Matter of fact, it never did completely dry until the next day!! Too much gesso +  an immediate layer of gel medium + another layer of thick body acrylic paint = mamma-has-no-time-for-this-drying-craziness-so-I-had-best-be-careful-not-to-mess-this-up!!! 😉

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I don’t really have any hard and fast rules for art journaling, or for mixed media in general, except for one, always ALWAYS let your layers dry thoroughly!! Unless you want them to blend together, smear, run, slide off, or flake off, than that is a different story, but I was having a heck of a time sticking to this rule for this spread! What can I say, patience is NOT one of my virtues! 🙂

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As you may have probably noticed – I have a heck of a time getting drips to look right! I think I know how to do it, but when I am in full on “art mode”, the proper way to do this seems to slip my mind, and I find myself struggling to get the look right! Not to worry, though, this is all a learning process for me, and I know I will continue to get better! That is the point, right??? 🙂

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I also have been wanting to find a really good quality neon fluorescent paint set! I did purchase a cheapie set this past week, but it was not a high quality brand, so there isn’t much pigment in the paint, which means I have to use A LOT of it to get the rich pop of color I am wanting, so I will keep looking! If I find a really good one I will let you know! ( I should’ve known – you get what you pay for!)

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So, when I was stamping, to get more texture, I stamped right into a big glob of wet green thick body acrylic paint. This happens, and it is fine, and can add a lot more texture because it causes peaks and valleys in your acrylic paint if you let it dry that way, but make sure you stop what you are doing and clean your stamp thoroughly, right away! II have an old toothbrush on standby for just such occasions.) If you leave the acrylic to dry on your stamp, it will ruin your stamp, because it changes the shape of the stamps ridges. NOT what you want! I’m just saying’! 🙂

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Anyway, although this may not be my favorite layout – I am not sure how I am digging this silver butterfly decal – it was a learning process, which is the point, as well as stopping just to listen to what your soul is saying to you, so in that way I LOVE this spread!!

Now for your input, do you have any questions, or comments for me? Is there any kind of mediums or techniques you would like me to use in future videos? Just let me know in the comment section of either my blog, here, or at my YouTube channel, and I will try and get a timely response to you! 🙂

Until next time!

Here is to a FABULOUS day!! 🙂

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If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Don’t Mind Me!

Good evening!
Don’t mind me! I am just making some appearance changes to my blog! I am hoping that these changes will make This Beautiful Life a more pleasant place to visit! You might notice a new layout, simplified sidebar, and a new header and I now have a new Chrissie B. Signature line. I will be working on updating all of my pages next! 🙂

If you have any questions, or comments, please feel free to let me know in the comment section! I will do my best to respond in a timely manner!

Thank you for your patience!! 🙂

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If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Having Fun at the Willamette Valley Pie Company Fall Festival!

Good evening!

Yesterday I got the chance to hang out with my sweetie and my girlfriend, Fahlene, and her two boys, William and Jeremiah! I wanted to make sure to share the copious amounts of pics I took before the day got too much more away from me!

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This is Fahlene, William, and Jeremiah! We are getting ready to go into the hay maze!DSC05441

Inside of the hay maze, there was a basketball hoop! William absolutely LOVED this!! It was fun watching him try to make a basket, which he literally did not do even once!!! What an AWESOME little guy!! 😉DSC05455

My sweetie thought that he would give him a hand by lifting him up to the basket, and the funniest thing happened!! William still didn’t make a basket, but that didn’t stop him! He just kept a big grin on his face and just kept on trying! Matter of fact, later in the day when he disappeared, this is exactly where I found him! LOL! 🙂DSC05462

When we finally got William to trek on inside of the hay maze, he took the lead!!DSC05467

This is TALL William!!! 😉DSC05472

Jason even helped William get even taller, by standing on the tippy top of the gianormous hay mountain!! WHOO! HOO!
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Jason helped William figure out how to go down this hay slide using the red discs! It was funny to watch him try to figure out how to keep on the disc without sliding off!DSC05480

When Jeremiah saw how much fun William was having he decided to get on board with the fun too! 🙂 On your marks, get ready, GO!! 🙂DSC05481

William is obviously in the lead!DSC05482

I don’t know…they are pretty close!DSC05483

William looks like he may have gotten there first, but Jeremiah definitely has height as an advantage!! It doesn’t matter who won – they both had fun!!DSC05490

Me and my sweetie with his banana-loving-minions t-shirt! 🙂 He sure does crack me up!! 🙂DSC05491

Fahlene and Jeremiah decided to go down the zip line! There was quite a wait, since it was very popular, but Jason did a GREAT job at keeping William entertained! William got a kick out of letting a small spider crawl all over his arm! It is also at this point of the day that we really got a sense of how hot this day was turning out to be! Aieeeeh! Check out the sweat on Jason’s arm – EW!! We thought, after the week we had had so far, that it would be pouring down rain for sure….uhmmmm..nope!! 😉DSC05492

I know this pic is a little blurry, but this is Fahlene and Jeremiah coming down the zip line!!! Fahlene screamed really loudly, and Jeremiah was having so much fun…probably the best part of his day!! It was fun to watch!!DSC05516

Then William got his turn at the ride he wanted!! He is the one in the very last barrel! He smiled the entire time he was on this ride! He even got to go again before we left for the day! I think that was his favorite ride! 🙂DSC05522

This is us racing ducks with water pumps! They were fun! I want Jason to build me one of these that I can play with whenever I want! 🙂DSC05529

This is Spiderman…er…I mean William with his face painted like Spiderman!! All day he was worried that he would do something to wipe it off!DSC05552

OH, and this is one more thing I want for our farmhouse!! I want my sweetie to build me a gigantic check board!! I LOVE this!! OH, and this is me making my winning move against my sweetie!! That’s right! I WON!!!! WHOO! HOO!! 😉DSC05553

Even as a sad loser (wait that sounded really bad!!), this man is SO FREAKIN’ ADORABLE!!!! 😉DSC05570

We waited FOREVER for the world’s shortest hay ride!DSC05429

The last thing we just had to do before we left for the day was to get some pie and ice cream!!! Of course, we are did – we were at the Willamette Valley Pie Company after all!! 🙂

When we got home, we all went our separate ways, and I have to confess, Jason and I crashed hard and early last night! That kind of sleep is the BEST kind of sleep!!

OK, now I am starting to ramble!! I apologize!!

Here is to a FABULOUS Fall evening! 🙂

~Chrissie 😉

If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Weekly Art Journal Video #3 Posted!

DSC05406Good morning!

I am happy to announce that my new weekly art journal video has posted! I would love for you to check that out here:

 

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Materials used:

  • Acrylic paint colors:
    • Americana: Carousel Pink (DA274), Turquoise Blue (DA268)
    • Folk Art: Wicker White (901)
    • Apple Barrel: Canary Yellow (20586)
  • Black and white papers from Deco Page
  • 2 miscellaneous scrap book papers (unknown source)
  • Golden’s Matte Medium
  • Black medium point Sharpie
  • White Signo pen
  • Black Stabilo pen
  • Black Scarlet Lime Pilot pen
  • #2 pencil
  • Inexpensive 1 1/2 inch paint brush
  • 1 inch brush
  • Aleen’s tacky glue
  • Wood mounted letter rubber stamps
  • White card stock
  • Black Archival ink
  • Punchinella

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As usual, I went into this journal spread without any real idea about what it was I was wanting to journal! I did, however, know that I wanted to use the color pink.

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After I had gotten a wash of the color pink down, all I could think was “This page is VERY Pepto Bismol”! I knew it was time to pull out some more paint colors to add to the mix! Thankfully, out came my turquoise and Canary Yellow! After those colors were laid down, I was much happier with where this spread was heading!

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Every week, I try to change things up just a little by adding a newly discovered technique, or a new product to the spread! This week I had added marks using a black Stabilo pencil! I LOVE this pencil!! I now want to find one in brown!!! It sounds like it writes on all sorts of surfaces, but for my art journaling page, it writes like a charcoal pencil, but add water to it, and it smudges up nice and dark – as you might have noticed in the video. I noticed when I dried it with my heat tool, it did dry a bit more transparent than what I had expected, but overall I still really love this product!

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This week, I really wanted to grunge up my spread a little more than normal, giving it more of an antique-ey/aged looked. I did this by adding various marks with Stabilo pencil, black ink with a pen, and a #2 pencil! I really like the way that this turned out and I am thinking that this technique is going to stick around!

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I also really like to add highlights using my white Signo pen, especially when you want something to pop off of dark areas of your spread! 🙂

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You may already know this, but while I am doing my weekly spreads, I make it a point not to try and stay in quiet so that I can hear what message my soul is trying to tell me, so that I can share it on my journal spread. This week was no different! I also added some of my words of truth throughout my spread in various places using my Scarlet Lime Pilot pen, and then I heard this message loud and clear, and just new that I needed to share this as my main message for this week:

“For an authentic life, remove anything that does not honor you.”

This is a thought that I have been trying to consciously implement in my life over the past 6 months!

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As you may have noticed, I LOVE adding words to my spreads using rubber stamps, Archival ink and card stock, which are actually recycled business cards – I bet you didn’t know that!! 🙂 Anyway, this week I wanted to change that up by adding some of my own handwriting! I don’t normally like my handwriting, but I thought I would ’embrace the messy’ and just go for it!!  I like the way that it turned out!

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This week’s art journal spread is my favorite so far! I am really loving this weekly challenge that I have placed on myself, and cannot wait to see how my technique evolves over the next few weeks!! If you would like to follow along, please subscribe to this blog, and my YouTube channel!

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I would also LOVE to hear anythings thoughts, comments, or questions you may have!! Maybe we can learn more together!! 🙂

Here is to a FABULOUS day!! 🙂

~Chrissie 😉

If you want to have a different life, you have to live differently!

 

Crab Stuffed Mushrooms

This is my girlfriend, Tarah’s blog: newcreativeliving.Wordpress.com.

Her crab stuffed mushroom recipe sounds really good, although I am allergic to mushrooms and can’t confirm this for myself!! LOL!!! So, I thought I would share here post with you, and you can let us know what you think!!!

I hope you love it!! Ta-tah for now!!

– Chrissie 😉

A Yummy Rainy Day!

Crown HeaderGood afternoon!

I just wanted to quickly hop on and share a little about what is going on around here today! Because of some weather issues…rain, lots and lots of rain, my sweetie ended up switching one of his weekend days off (he is a contractor) with today, so he could get some of his work done while it was still dry out! So, I get to spend the day with him!! YEAH! I really LOVE that!! 🙂

My sweetie is in the kitchen right now, cutting a hole in our kitchen floor, to help eliminate access to an intruder…AKA a mouse! Yep! That is correct!! We have a little visitor that has been helping us eat our food, namely my dogs’ food, but I digress! Although I would never want to see any harm come to any little creature, I do not like the idea of a mouse living in our house!! (That sounded a little Dr. Suess-ey, didn’t it???) This little mouse has been spotted on numerous occasion, and has thwarted our every mouse catching idea, all while still managing to eat the traps’ food, so I am thinking that he is a very smart little bugger!! He has been around so long now, my sweetie has taken to affectionately calling him “Jerry”. I thought, at first this was funny, until I realized my sweetie was going to let Jerry live with us permanently!! Uhmmmmm…nope! So, needless to say, my sweetie is on a mission for me!! Thank you, Love!! 🙂 I will be just so happy to no longer have to share my kitchen with any guest who does not happen to be housebroken!!!

With that said, as soon as Jerry has had all of his doors of access closed to him, I am just itching to get into the kitchen and get some cooking done for this lovely rainy day!!!

My plan is to make an apple and onion pork loin roast, which I am sure is going to be DREAMY!!! I am going to use the recipe that I have found here, at Pioneer Woman, who I ABSOLUTELY ADORE!!!! Ree Drummond has my dream life, although I am sure she doesn’t know that!!! 😉

After dinner, I am wanting to have made a peach apple crisp with maple cream sauce for dessert, also from the Pioneer Woman site, and that recipe is here.

Combine all of that with snuggling up in a reading chair with a good book, a lovely cup of my favorite tea, and my two-four-legged girls, and I have gotta tell you that today looks to be a mighty perfect day!!

Here is to having a FABULOUS day! 🙂

~Chrissie! 🙂

If you want to have a different life, live differently!

My First Ever Weekly Art Journal Video!

Good morning!

As promised yesterday, here is some close up pics and details about my first ever weekly art journal video!

That video can be found here.

As with all of my art journal pages, I always go into the project with no real idea on what it is I want to create. I sometimes have a vague idea about maybe what colors I want to use, or maybe an inspirational thought, but for this spread, I was essentially going in with no expectations of any kind.

I was having a hard time getting quiet, or spending time in any kind of quiet, which meant I had been constantly surrounding myself with random noise; the television, music, the background noise at a coffee shop, etc, etc. I also am a firm believer in signs from my Truth teller, and I kept seeing the message,

“Get quiet so you can hear what I am trying to tell you!”

Well, in all honesty, I had been blatantly ignoring it. You see, I was afraid that if I were to get quiet I would make the realization that I had completely ruined my life by walking away from my career a few months ago, and that by spending my time doing everything and anything that I wanted to do, maybe somehow I was being absolutely and completely selfish – HOW DARE I???

 

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So, I had started this journal page, with my camera set to record, not knowing what my page was going to turn out looking like, but knowing that it was going to be my very first video to post on YouTube. I had NO IDEA how to do that! I have had no experience recording videos, editing them, how to upload them, or anything! I was pretty scared. However, I wanted to make sure that when I recorded that there wasn’t any background noises that I would have to fight with. (I didn’t know that I could mute all of those out!) So this forced me to spend a few hours in absolute silence, just focusing on arting.DSC05360

Well, the message of getting quiet so I can hear my voice kept popping up again, over and over. I wasn’t sure why, but by the time I got to the part of my journal page where I needed to wrap it up with a thought – I KNEW that was the thought that I had to get down on to paper!

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“Don’t be afraid of silence,

for that is where you will find your voice.”

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When I had finished this page, I was so happy with it! It really made me happy, and it said something to me that I knew, from the bottom of my soul, was a truth that I needed to hear right now!

 

Now getting it ready for uploading was another story all together! I had no idea how I was going to edit it, get music behind it, upload it, or anything. So, I started Googling for help like a crazy person!! 🙂 Little did I know I had everything I needed to do this already in my possession!!DSC05364

It took me longer than I had expected – about three days longer, to be exact, but I did it!! I did a great big ol’ happy dance, and told all of my peeps to go check it out!!! WHEW!!! 😉

Anyway, I look at this page now, almost a week and half after actually creating it and I realize that it is the exact perfect message that I needed to hear in that moment. Silence is something to anticipate and to fully be present to yourself and your Truth teller whenever you have the opportunity to embrace the silence!!

I hope you like this spread, and if you have any questions or comments, please let me know in the comments section! I would love to hear your thoughts!!

Much love to you!! Here is to a FABULOUS day! 😉

~Chrissie

If you want to have a different life, live differently!

Weekly Art Journal Page Video Series!

DSC05373Good afternoon!

I have been “retired” since the 4th of July of this year. These past 3 1/2 months have practically flown by.

I have been spending my time taking care of myself, catching up on some much needed sleep, getting back in touch with friends that I hadn’t had time to spend time with before, watching copious amounts of artist’s videos on YouTube, arting with friends in town, and playing up in my art studio. Yes, I know I am a very VERY lucky girl!!!

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Those of you who have been reading my blog might know that I really love arting, but in the past 3 /2 months I have discovered that all things mixed media and art journaling have become quite essential to my sense of happiness. That really shouldn’t be surprising to me, but it really has been! Because of my newfound love affair, (hee! hee!) I have been trying all sorts of new products, mixed media techniques, and all sorts of new art ideas and projects to help me explore this new creative outlet!

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Although I wouldn’t change a thing about the past 3 1/2 months, I think that it is time that I stop frittering away my time, and put all of this arty goodness to use, at least in some small way! So, as my first act of artsy bravery, I have decided to start sharing my artwork with the world…er…well, at least anyone in the world who might be interesting in seeing it! 🙂 To do this, I thought it would be fun to start my very own YouTube channel!!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4Of6Y-cX-foVyd-upZKbQ

I am so excited to also announce that I have started a weekly Art Journal Page video series, and I am very happy to share that I have already uploaded my first two videos! Last week’s video took such a long learning curve, that I couldn’t seem to muster the strength to have a blog post accompany that video, however I will get it together enough to post today’s video details now! and, I will work on getting last week’s video info up tomorrow!

Here is this week’s Art Journal Video info!

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I went into this spread with no idea on what was going to come out on the pages. I just picked a few colors I thought might look good together and went for it! The background stamp that I chose is one of my favorite stamps! I find that I use it often in my journaling projects!
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I also thought some drips would be nice, I have seen a lot of my favorite artists do this and thought it would be easy to do, which I am sure it really should have been, but as you might’ve seen…it was a little trickier, and messier than I had expected!! At least I didn’t get any of the red paint on my beige carpet!! WHEW!!! Can I also mention how much I love my new fineline bottles??? I just love how easy they are to use. I have one bottle for my white paint, and one for black! I highly recommend them!

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The green that I added to this page was purely a gut reaction to wanting to go in the absolute opposite direction from where the page had gone at the get go. After putting the red drips down the page, it just looked like the scene of a bloody massacre!! LOL! I think the green turned out rather well, and felt the need to make sure to spread the green all throughout the design.DSC05375

By the time that this spread was completed, I was a very happy girl!!

Not only because I was able to salvage this design and turn it into something that looks like I had planned it that way on purpose, but because I got some much needed guidance on some questions that I had been mulling over.

While I am arting, I do so in silence. I do that so I can hear my soul tell me what I need to hear, or teach my what I need to be taught. This page caused me to reflect on how amazing this past 3 1/2 months has been. It has been amazing, but it has also been a dream that is not maintainable…at least not yet. Even though my sweetie has given me a free and clear to continue on like this for as long as I want, I want more. I want to be earning my keep, making a living.

Living a life that is bigger than just me.

I really don’t know what all of that will look like, but I know right now, this first step of sharing my art with you is my first start! I keep hearing, “You don’t have to see all of the steps in the staircase, just see the first step, and all subsequent steps will appear at the exact right time!” That is what this is. My first step!! I can’t wait to see how my staircase unfolds!! 🙂

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As for my YouTube channel and videos, I would LOVE it if you would watch, thumbs up, subscribe, and share any comments or feedback you might have! That would be EXCELLENT!!

So here is to putting on my big girl panties and taking that first step!! 🙂

~Chrissie B.

If you want to have a different life, live differently!