Horseshow season comes to a close

It's always a bittersweet time.
I enjoy the people and family time we spend with each other.
I am happy that Alex enjoys something other than just gooning around and being a lazy teenager.
I don't enjoy giving up virtually all of my Saturdays through the spring, summer and fall.
I do think the good outweighs the bad.This was from Ark-Mo Show of Champions a couple of weekends ago in Melbourne....a very rainy, messy, mushy weekend, I might add.

Alex had a pretty good weekend considering Hippy is still out of commission.
I was most proud of how she and Ms. Smooth did in their pleasure classes.

This week is the District Fair.
Showed horses & goats last night - did very well in both.
Cattle will be Friday night.

Then, show season is officially over.

Stay tuned, I hope the bloggity-blog will be a little more active with new Fall eye candy and antics!

gesso+paint+rag tutorial

The thing about keeping a blog is keeping up with things in a timely manner.
Problem is, I have not had much time lately to keep things updated!

So bear with me please!

We had another horseshow last weekend: Ark-Mo Show of Champions.
Good & muddy times!
More on that later.

I want to post this fun tutorial that I put together with my September mini album from Crazy Daisy Kit Co. That album is awesome. I am working on the inside pages as a year end wrap up for Alex's 2009 horseshow season.

The album has a variety of pages inside including envelopes, folders, transparencies, and tabbed pages. The cover was plain kraft so I thought it was perfect for this great technique I learned and altered from the wonderfully brilliant & talented Brazilian artist, Lucy Folch during SIStv's National Scrapbooking Day blog party back in the Spring. She has such innovative ideas and I am always awed by her art.

I have modified mine a little but I must credit Lucy with the basic gesso - paint - rag technique.

So without further adieu:
Here is the Making Memories kraft album included in the September kit, but you can also do this on a heavy chipboard or cardboard.
The key to this technique is pre-planning the layout.
Gather some chipboard pieces and any other items that you want to include on the layout and place them where you want them.
I used the cute paisley pieces in the kit, along with some other pieces from my stash. Since this is going to be an album for Alex's end of season horse shows for this year,I wanted to use the horse piece I had from Martha Stewart, but I peeled off the slick pattern from the top so my gesso will adhere. I put the horse on the back of the album.
Next, since I want to add some pieces of patterned paper to my finished project, I need to measure and cut those out before adhering my chipboard. I also made a quick sketch of my layout and numbered my pieces to correspond with my cutout paper for easy placement later.
Once I have my layout how I want it, I start gluing down all my chipboard pieces. I did not glue the word "ALEX" down yet because I want to use those awesome 7Gypsies letters as they are. After the glue is dried completely, cover the entire project in gesso. Get it in every crevice and corner of the chipboard pieces. I use a smaller dry brush to get any excess out of those same crevices and corners.
Now let the gesso dry completely while picking out four or five colors of acrylic paint to coordinate with the paper and other pieces.
This is the really fun and messy part of the project - let your creativity run wild!
You will need to use a thin consistency with the paint, you may want to experiment on a scrap piece of chipboard or cardboard first. I began on one side and worked with a color then switched to my next color and so on to blend each color together. Just keep working with the paint until satisfied. Don't worry, it won't be perfect!
Next take an old rag while the paint is still wet and wipe and dab the project to remove some of the paint. If you remove more than you want, just add more paint. If the paint gets too dry, wet your rag - this method is mistake proof!When you are happy with how it looks, let this part of the project dry. You might want to add some glimmer mist or another mist of choice to jazz it up.Once dry, you can add on everything else. I distressed my pattern paper and glued it down. I also distressed my chipboard letters with a small emery board and some paint and glued those down.
As an afterthought I decided to use the Stickles that were included in my kit, and I love how they look on this project!
Once that dried, I got my Sharpie out and outlined, added a photo in middle and used some Ranger Glossy Accent that I had in my stash on the word "ALEX" so it would have some shine to match where I used the Stickles.

The album is now finished and ready for my pages to be done inside!

TV love

So I'm so loving Glee!
If you have not watched it, catch it online on Fox.
Yes, it is a musical.
Yes, it is about a bunch of misfits.
But it is seriously funny & fun to watch!

Another one I am really looking forward to begins tomorrow on NBC:
Community.

Yes, it's about a bunch of misfits.
(There seems to be a theme here, right?)
It's really kind of poking fun at community college life.
It has Chevy Chase for goodness sake - it has to be good!
Come on, it's Clark Griswald!
I work at a community college....in marketing, so you can see why I'm intrigued.

I'm usually not enthused about television besides American Idol of course, but I'm enjoying the hype this fall.

okay, rambling complete.

Well hello there!

So again, I have been crazy busy and therefore MIA from the old blog! I have good reason between work and horse shows.
Last weekend we were at the Arkansas State Horse Show in Little Rock. Alex did pretty well this year. The high point of her competition was winning a 2nd in Ladies Gaited. The low point was probably when she came off her horse for a brief moment during barrels. OOPs!

Here are some shots from the weekend:She placed in Junior Flags on her friend Miranda's horse, and placed in Keyhole on her Dad's roping horse. Her horse, Hippy is still injured, but will have several months to rest up for next year. We are just praying he will fully recover and once again be sound!

There are some great pictures over at Maumelle Sports. You just have to go to her events and look through the shots.

I spent this weekend resting up...work has been crazy and I've been putting in extra hours because of classes I'm teaching.

I did get some scrapbooking in which is always a good thing!
I had been planning on putting together a tutorial for a gesso and paint technique that I learned from the uber-talented Lucy Folch during National Scrapbook Day. I finally had the opportunity to do it with the Making Memories album that came in the Crazy Daisy Kit Co. September kit.
More on that later!

In the meantime, there are a few kits left I'm told, so get them while the getting's good! Crazy Daisy September kit

Here is one more I put together with this kit over the weekend:
(Yes, that is me) :)
And I played in my art journal a little and even did the Point Blank Period challenge:

Have a lovely week!

is this thing on?

just a short blog drive by to make sure it still works!
I'll be back with a post later this weekend.

I'm catching up on rest, scrapping, some new TV episodes I've missed, as well as my sanity!

random post as I'm walking out the door

Getting ready to head out the door for the long weekend at......

wait for it.

...

...

...

You guessed it....

A horseshow!
Whoopppeeee!

Can you feel my excitement?

No really, it will be fine. I just feel like I'm getting the "crud" and I've had a crazy busy week and feel so tired. I just hope I can muster up the "get-up-and-go" to take it all in over the next few days.

Anyway, I did want to post a couple of layouts from the September Crazy Daisy Kit Co. kit....total awesomeness btw!

I've been meaning to scrap a page about Alex's great softball team, this was perfect paper to show those off.That little rhinestone in the middle of the "a" in softball was laying on my table - a remnant of putting stones on Alex's new show jacket I made. (Pics to follow of the jacket on Alex in action!)
This page is more about what the words on the page say.
I'm really striving to rely more on my faith in God for everything, and I thought this was the perfect way to say it -
The photo was taken earlier this year on an early morning walk at the beautiful nature trail at Gaston's Resort. I was there for a meeting. I took my camera and took loads of pictures on my walk, but I decided I needed to capture myself in there somewhere so I used my handy dandy remote! :)

Wishing everyone a safe & fun holiday weekend!