Stacked Stones Studio!

Finally....a new tutorial! I got a little focused on the book and had to take a little break on creating new content...but now that it is done...I'm BACK! Woo Hoo! This is a fun technique...you will see three different pages that I have used this crosshatch background on. It is a great way to get the words to pop from the page. I've used it on a couple of cards too...but I sent them before I remembered to take a picture. For the cards, I used watercolor paper for the card front and then just popped them on a card blank. Easy peasy! *smile* If you would like to read a sample chapter... click here .

I brought this birch bark box back (say that three times fast!) with me from Russia several years ago. I loved it's embossed top and the lashing that holds it all together. I have loved birch trees since I was a young girl. Our family would spend time up in the Boundary Water area in Northern Minnesota...and the white papery bark of the Birch trees always caught my attention.  My sister and I would find pieces that had "flaked off" and use them for all sorts of creative projects. While we were in Minnesota, she and I would use the papery bark as roofs for the little stone houses we built from stones we gathered from the edge of the lake. Sometimes our Barbies got to live in them...and sometimes we dreamed that little elves and fairies would find the homes we had built for them and would think we were the "best-est" home builders ever. *smile* We also would use pieces of it to write postcards to our grandparents...I still have a couple of ...

Hello Friends... I am really glad to be back with another installment for our Creative Play series. If you are just now joining us...skip down a few posts and  catch up with us...or just jump in where we are...it is all good! *smile* Last time we talked about overcoming the paralysis of perfection by asking the question - "What if...?" and letting your natural curiosity take over. Today's method for helping you find that 5 year old that is hiding inside of you that just wants to CREATE is to spend some time "Creating for No Apparent Reason."  Sometimes the pressure of having an end product in mind shuts down our freedom...and when that gets shut down, we are less likely to create our best art.  So one of my ways of keeping myself "playful" is to take a few minutes when I may not have time to create a whole project - and use it to just make some backgrounds that I might use on another project....or not! Have fun watching the video...and then G...