I just opened up my blog for the first time since May 17th. Yikes... Although I have a valid reason for not posting in over a month. We left for Scottsdale, AZ on the 19th. of May and returned home on the 19th. of June. The only craft supplies I brought with me was one adult coloring book and a small selection of children's pencils. Believe me, I was having some MAJOR craft withdrawal!
Our mission this trip was to see if we needed to sell our little place at Road Runner Resort. There is a possibility of the park closing in August 2019, so we had to make some decisions. After talking to friends, the office, and prayerfully looking for wisdom and direction, we felt we needed to let it go.
Our first order of business was to sell our unit to a Broker. Which we did successfully.Then the job of clearing out, deciding what to sell, what to give to charity, what to give to friends began. We put the larger items of some value on Craigslist and the smaller items on Offer Up. That process was a little time consuming, but mostly successful. We also needed to sell our 12 year old Honda Civic which was in need of some repairs and some exterior sprucing. Our decision to sell it to Car Max worked for us. Truly a no hassle process.
The month went pretty smoothly and we got to hang out with some long time friends, which was really a plus through the month. We haven't decided if we will be going back to AZ to buy or rent a place in another Park as of yet.Time will tell. I really love Arizona as much as I love North Carolina.
While I was gone I ordered some stamps and dies from Taylored Expressions, Linda Heller's Paper Share and my local SU Demo Dianna Banks. All of which were here when I arrived home. Don't you just love HAPPY MAIL. I had also decided to get back to using
Prismacolor Pencils for coloring my images. I always felt comfortable with them and thought it was time to pick them up again after approximately a 5 yr. hiatus. But the biggest problem being, that I needed a refresher course on how to use them.
YouTube to the rescue. I looked at several sites and was pleased with them, but found that Erin at
"Simple Art for Adults" was someone whose style of teaching I enjoyed. Thanks Erin for your simple approach and great videos. You should check her YouTube out.
The following sample is my first, but feeble attempt at using my new pencils. Yes, I bought a new set of
72 Prismacolor Premier Pencils. I'm in love. They lay down so beautifully. My old set desperately needed to be replaced and updated , especially after some of my GC and I have used them and they hadn't had the best TLC over the years of owning them.
Here is the card that I created using
TE "Do the Hula" stamp and die combination,
SU "Tropical Chic" stamp and thinlits,
SU Tropical Escape DSP. The card layout is simple and with the help of the thinlits and dies, it was easy to put together. The most time consuming part for me was the coloring. It's far from perfect, but it is the step in the right direction. I will continue to learn and practice and know that my coloring will become better as time goes buy, hopefully.
I just used blended colors and the blender pencil on the image. Once I get some proper paper, I will by trying the Gamsol method which I had in the past.
I apologize for the lengthy post, but wanted to catch you up on the cause of my absence and show off some of my new goodies.
This coming weekend our family will be headed out to the beach for a Family Reunion, so will not be crafting and posting again until after the 10th. of July. :}
Have a wonderful day, go do something you LOVE, and have a great 4th. of July holiday!
Live Simply,
Bernadette
