Gel Inks...a Great Opportunity to Get Inky with Dreamweaver!

The 12 Days of Christmas at Art 'n Soul brings . . .

On the seventh day of Christmas (12/18/12), my Art ‘n Soul gave to me, 50% OFF ANY ONE DIE WITH A MIN. $35.00 PURCHASE (purchase in addition to die).


And when you stop into the store next time, you'll be able to see the very nice gift basket that one lucky winner will take home at the end of our 12 Days of Christmas. Including today, there are only 6 more days of '12 Days of Christmas' shopping at Art 'n Soul remaining. Is your name in the bowl for the Grand Prize drawing?

While you're at Art 'n Soul, please don't forget the wonderful make-'n-takes that might help you out with that last-minute card you need. Dianne, Deb, Patti and Alissa would be delighted to walk you through any or all of them.



The washi tape finally arrived and it's on the front counter. I think they're going to go pretty darn fast, so be sure to come in and choose from the nice selection before the one you want disappears. I'll order another selection after the first of the year!

Dianne made this beautiful card! Don't you love those vivid colors?

by Dianne Johnson
Jupiter Stardream cardstock
140# cold press watercolor paper
Gold & White Embossing Powders
Black Versafine ink
Tombow Markers:  025,027,757,837,847,946,985,993
Magenta Stamp 14631.N
Impression Obsession Loveliest Smile stamp C7590
Hero Arts Dragon Flies stamp
Hero Arts Pearls & Gems - Blush Mix
Metallic ArtQuest Palette watercolor
Encore Teal ink
Delicata ink

My grandniece's 6th birthday was Sunday. She is a totally 'girly-girl' girl and my nickname for her is Princess. I made this card for her using paper from Graphic 45's Nutcracker Sweet; it was perfect because the color blue is one of her favorites right now.

by Debbie Gaetz

Speaking of Graphic 45, I am in awe of this sleigh made with the Nutcracker Sweet papers . . .

"Next up is a splendid holiday creation by Clare Charvill! This incredible Nutcracker Sweet sleigh is the perfect piece of holiday home decor! It is amazing what you can create with some pretty papers, good adhesives and a great imagination! Here is what Clare had to say about the inspiration behind this festive work of art!

'I always like to have a table decoration for the Christmas Dinner table that has little presents in.  This year I decided to make a festive sleigh using papers and alphabet stickers from the Nutcracker Sweet collection.  Some of the details on the sleigh, the cut a-parts on the pillow boxes and the initials and names on the tags at the end of the ribbons have been attached using two sizes of 3D Foam Squares by Scrapbook Adhesives.  These are great foam squares that can also be repositioned easily if needs be. This was a really fun and festive project to make, and I'm looking forward to seeing it on our Christmas dinner table down in Cornwall in a couple of weeks.'"-Clare Charvill

Supplies:

Nutcracker Sweet 12 x 12 papers 

Christmas March 

Endearing Sentiments 

Sugar Plum Fairy 

Holiday Magic 

Gingerbread Delights 

Clara's Dream 

Enchanted Journey

Sticker Sheet 

Alphabet Stickers 

Sleigh template by House of Zandra 

3d Foam Squares - Scrapbook Adhesives 

May Arts Ribbon 

Alterations Pillow Box with Labels die 

Metal Hinges and stamped brads 

Sizzix Decorative Strip - Snowflake 

Vintage photo distress ink 

Tacky Glue 

Stickles - Candy Cane

From Hero Arts showing a card made from one of their new stamps debuting for 2013. I really like how they added pearls on some of the typewriter keys.

"So you think December is only for winter holidays?? Guess again!! It’s our own Lisa’s birthday today, and I made her a card using lots of new Hero Arts stamps and things she loves!! Hint… typewriters!!

First I stamped the fun new background Keep Calm (CG512) as a “typed” background on an Eggshell card. Preprinted word paper like ours works great too! Then I stamped and paper pieced theBig Typewriter (CG511). Next was the fun part… our luscious new Alphabet Uppercase (DI061) Fancy Frames die! Put it through a die machine on many colored papers and spell out your message. Fun!

Find out how to make this card — click for complete supplies and instructions.

And, knowing me like you do, I get my kicks out of maxing out any stamp. Hence, a Christmas idea using the same Big Typewriter.

So dear Lisa, I hope you have the right “type” of birthday today!! Let’s see how many wishes we can send you!!!

Hugs,"

From Dreamweaver Stencils' blog, here's another way to Zentangle your favorite stencil designs!

Gel Inks...a Great Opportunity to Get Inky with Dreamweaver!

"Wayne used the metallic Gelly Roll pens by Sakura in his Zentangle creation. The paper he did the work on was a glossy black cardstock which is definitely a challenge to do Zentangle work on with gel inks. (If you are a beginner my recommendation is to use a black matte cardstock like an index cardstock weight and finish, it is less expensive and easier to work on, not quite as striking, but with the metallic pens it can still be very effective.) These gel inks are beautiful, but they can really "move" on a slick surface, so if you want to give it a try work slowly and patiently. The drying time is slower too, so one step at a time is the way to go, making sure that you give each pattern plenty of time to dry, so you won't smear the next step. It is worth the time though, because as you can see the results are beautiful. To learn more about Zentangle you could read Suzanne McNeill's book Zentangle 6 (ZEN) which has many pictures of Zentangle work created by the wonderful design team here at Dreamweaver.

Once the inked butterfly was dry (it doesn't take long) he cut it out with an x-acto knife and since it was a team effort I paste embossed the butterfly stencil's antenna (LG740) onto the metallic lavender cardstock and then when they were dry I paste-embossed the art nouveau flourish (LJ919) into the corner. For both paste applications I used the Matte Black Embossing Paste (DMBP). Then I mounted the butterfly with glue aligning the antenna. Violå... a beautiful creation to send to someone you really care about, or you could also frame this in a small shadow box for a more dimensional look!"

I hope you don't mind me including this story and appeal for cards. It really touched me that this loving son-in-law would go to these lengths to help his mother-in-law.

Send This Hurricane Sandy Victim a Card, Please

"Patsy Roberts, 87, had been saving decades of notes from friends and family, planning to read them in her final hours. Then Hurricane Sandy swept them all away.

Take a moment and write a card to 87-year-old Patsy Roberts,

the saintly matriarch of Rockaway, who saved the thousands of cards

she received over the decades with the hope of reading them in her final hours—

only to lose them all in Hurricane Sandy.

Roberts glances around her living room during a visit to her home last week. (Kathy Willens / AP Photo)

“I was saving them to read when my time came,” she said when her son-in-law told her the cards had been destroyed by the storm surge. “I was saving them so I could read the cards and remember the people I love.”

Out of his own deep love for Roberts, her son-in-law is seeking to soften the loss by asking any and everyone of good will to write her a holiday card. The son-in-law, Cristian Dobles, has posted this message on Facebook:

“It doesn’t matter whether you know her or not. Just say something beautiful to her. My goal is to get 1,000 cards to her for Christmas. Please help me with this. You can send them to Patsy Roberts, 130-04 Rockaway Beach Boulevard, Belle Harbor, New York 11694.”

A testament to Roberts was immediately posted in response by her neighbor, Tara Stackpole:

“Mrs. Roberts is the true matriarch of our block. She is the neighbor that prays for you, bakes for you, inquires about each family member, and always has a ready smile. At 87 she will put the neighbors trashcans away on her way home from daily Mass. She is the epitome of what a ‘neighbor’ should be and this block and our family are so blessed to know her.”

Roberts has written thousands of cards herself to family and friends over the years—on birthdays and special occasions, or if she heard of some great success. Sometimes just because she was thinking of them.

“My three children receive cards from Patsy on a monthly basis just to say she loves them,” the son-in-law, Dobles, says. “And the thing is, she doesn’t take writing the cards lightly. She really puts in her love and her good wishes.”

Along with whatever words she might actually write comes the spirit of the profoundly decent soul who wrote them, adding something unspoken to whatever the card says.

“I believe Patsy’s cards are actually prayers,” Dobles says.

Roberts lives her whole life as a kind of prayer that does not stop when she leaves the early mass at St. Francis de Sales Church. She makes devotions of seemingly mundane acts—not just setting her neighbors’ trashcans back in front of their houses, but placing on the front doorstep any newspapers the deliverer had just tossed on the sidewalk. She then takes a two-mile walk along the beach.

“Rain, sleet, snow, shark, alien invasions, whatever,” Dobles says. “Nothing would stop her.”

On the occasions her grandchildren come along, they would laugh about not being able to keep up with her. The grandchildren would return exhausted.

“I believe Patsy’s cards are actually prayers.”

“She comes back fresh as a little kid,” Dobles says.

She truly seems to see only the best in everybody she encounters.

“She has no sense of discrimination,” Dobles says. “She doesn’t care if you’re tall, small, black, white, fat, skinny. She sees beyond all that. The only thing she sees when she meets a person is the goodness of their heart.”

And with her faith come a comes a strength that kept her steady even when the sea she so often walked along rose up along with the hellish winds of Hurricane Sandy.

“It gives her a sense of living life without fear,” Dobles says. “She really does not fear anything.”

After Hurricane Sandy, veterans groups helped clean up the

hard-hit Rockaways.

She evacuated a few blocks back from the sea to her daughter and son-in-law’s apartment. She remained calm even as wind and waves shook the wooden structure and a huge fire raged at the end of the block. She calmly joined the others in fashioning floatation devices from plastic bags in case the blaze forced them to flee.

“She’s five-foot-two and she’s 87 years old and the waves were really strong,” Dobles says. “She was not afraid. She was not altered. It’s what God sent and she confronted it without any fear whatsoever because she truly has surrendered to the will of God in life and everything she faces.”

The church lost power and heat, but she was still able to attend daily mass in the aftermath of the storm. The sea receded so she could continue her daily walks along the beach, bundling up against the cold in a neighbor’s Yankees jacket and wool hat.

“She was the first one to want to get back there,” Dobles says.

Her house was repairable, and her neighbors figured Roberts would soon be back to the rest of her routine. Stackpole joked that she would later say she had lost count of the cups of morning coffee she spilled over the years hurrying to bring in her trashcans before Roberts reached her house on the way back from Mass.

“They’re bigger than she is,” Stackpole says.

What could not be restored were all the things that had been destroyed in the basement. Someone who did not know her might have figured she was most pained by the loss of her photographs and her holiday decorations, including the Christmas vest she wore each year.

Patsy Roberts with her granddaughter, jade.

(Courtesy of the Roberts family)

“But the one thing she kept focusing on was the cards,” Dobles says. “She said to me, ‘You could not save even one card?’ I said to her, ‘You know, Mommy, they were in a box and they got flooded and all the cards stuck together.”

That was when Roberts told him that she had been saving the cards so she could read them and think of those who were dear to her as she prepared to leave this mortal realm. The cards she had received would in that way have been as much prayers as the ones she sent.

All Dobles could think to do was buy her a big stack of cards to send out. He was on his way to a card store when he realized that what she really needed was for people to send cards to her.

He began his Facebook posting by saying, “Patsy Roberts, my mother in law, is the sweetest, most caring human being I know. A true angel on earth.”

He then sought to touch the very goodness that she always seemed to see in others. He announced he was on what he called a “quest” to get a thousand people or more send her a card by Christmas.

Again, the address to send a card:

Patsy Roberts
130-04 Rockaway Beach Boulevard
Belle Harbor, NY  11694

And pass it on to any good souls you know."

As I drove home from Lacey to Puyallup last evening, I had the thrill of driving through some fairly heavy snowfall. It will be interesting to see what we all wake up to later this morning. If I recall correctly, we had a horrible snowstorm last year just before Christmas . . . let's hope that the snow we saw last night is only a minor dusting that will melt away quickly so as to not interrupt the hustle and bustle in this last week before Christmas.