Guest Designer over at Rubber Dance Art Stamps

Hot diggity dog! I was asked to guest design for Rubber Dance Art Stamps for September. The owner, and very talented lady, Bibi is such a sweetie! She, and her team design some awesome sauce stamps! There is such an array to choose from and shipping is fast! I had the honor of working with a few of these stamps and here is a sneak peak of what I came up with:

If you would like to see the entire design please head on over and check it out HERE! All of the stamps I used can be found at the Rubber Dance Art Stamps Store, along with a plethora of other stamps.

I hope you all are having a lovely week! Hugz and Carpe Diem! ~Niki

Art journaling and a bully?

Hello lovely artists! I do hope your week has been going amazingly well. This is my very first time with an art journal (it was on clearance and I thought hmmm-possibly?). I did this art journal because I recieved a rather tumultuous email from an anonymous cyber person. This is my response to the email:

The basic gist of the email was to call me out as lucky, but not an artist, mixed media or otherwise. The person sending the email wanted to know how I was on a specific design team when I don't have the talent to even compare to my teamies. Mean words, and something I pondered for over a week. My dear hubby told me he earased the email and said, "put your feelings into a new art piece". So I did. All I really want is something beautiful to say-the sentiment in this art journal is my way of saying:hey, I can create anything I want and feel good about my talent. I may not be the best and I am still new to mixed media, but, I sure do enjoy the process! I especially enjoy the wonderful people I have met through my art. So thank you to the person that sent that email to me. You got me down for a minute but you will never knock me out! 

Now for my process:

I started by spraying LSG sprays and then inking up the entire background with my Papillon stamp set. 

I then added some Sea Breeze DecoArt acrylic paint with an old credit card and stamped a flower image (Rubber Dance Art Stamp-thanks Bibi!) with the same acrylic paint. 

 I then added some washi tape in random sections and fussy cut my butterflies. I edged all the butterflies with a Copic marker and placed them as if they were growing. 

I then added the cluster of flowers. I dabbed some matte mod podge on the flowers then sprinkled some pink distress glitter over that for some sparkle. My buddy Bubbles-aka Pamellia of My Little Craft Things taught me that trick for the flowers. 

Here is a sort of close up of the two pages. (Picture above and pic below)

The chit chat stickers were edged withy black archival ink. 

Thank you for stopping by and reading a bit about what has happened. I don't usually share personal emails on here but this one struck a nerve and I am sure I am not the first person this has happened to. I am just so happy to know that blog land is such a wonderful place to share this. Ya'll are awesome sauce! Carpe Diem! Hugz!         ~Niki

I would love to share this design with the following lovely challenges: 

Frilly and Funkie-Things with Wings

Fussy and Fancy #144-Things with Wings

613 Avenue Create #134-Anything Goes with Optional twist of Shabby Chic

All Sorts Challenge #321-Use a Butterfly

Studio 75 #7-Butterfly

Let's Craft and Create #103-Butterflies or Birds