Blog Candy Winner - Zeus and Zoe Bloom Blog Hop!!

Happy Friday,  thanks so much for joining us in the Zeus and Zoe Bloom Hop!  So without further ado, the winner of this blog candy is:

Violent Kitty

Please email me at: artist.normagomez@yahoo.com or message me on Facebook to claim you prize.

Don't forget, each one of the participating designers were giving away prizes.  If you didn't win here, you might still be a winner, check out the Zeus and Zoe Blog for the full list of winners!

I Must Be a Mermaid - PWP Mixed Media Canvas

If you're looking for the Zeus and Zoe Blooms Blog Hop, CLICK HERE

Hello sweet bloggie friends!  Thank you all so much for making the Zeus and Zoe Blooms Blog Hop such a success!!  I am beyond thrilled to have so many new people stopping by and following along.  So I'm sending out BIG virtual hugs to all the new followers and a special THANK YOU to all of you who stop by and say hello on a regular basis!  You all make each one of my days beautiful with all your sweet comments :D

I wanted to let you know that I was also posting over at The Aviary.  I created this sweet mixed media canvas using the Paper Wings Productions July Nesting Components kit and some of their ocean themed stamp sets.  What's really cool about this piece is that I used one of my used up sheets of palette paper for the background.  Head on over to check it out: I Must Be A Mermaid!!

If you haven't hopped with Zeus and Zoe, you still have time!  This is the blog candy that I'm giving away and each one of the participating designers is giving away a wonderful prize pack.  

Thanks again for all your sweet comments!  

HAVE A TERRIFIC TUESDAY!!!

Zeus and Zoe Blooms Blog Hop

Hello blog hoppers & WELCOME to the Zeus and Zoe Blooms Blog Hop!!  If you came from Marivic's blog then you're in the right place, if not then you can start from the beginning HERE.



The exiting Zeus and Zoe design team is leaving with a trail of pretty blooms of the handmade variety. We're sharing tutorials on how to make gorgeous blooms and giving away amazing prizes along the way!

There are six (6) fabulous RAKs to be won on this hop.  All you need to do is leave some love at each stop along the hop. You have until 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, July 31, 2013 to leave your comments for your chance to win! Winners will be announced on the Zeus and Zoe blog on August 2, 2013.

I'm so happy to have you joining us for this really fun hop.  Today I'm gonna show you how to make these three beautiful blooms.  First up is the burlap rose!

Now let's work on the zipper rosette
To finish off your rosette, add a button in the center.  Now lets make the gorgeous satin flower!

Now I've got some blog candy to share with you!!

This bundle of goodness includes the flowers I made, vintage sheet music, ledger paper, linens and lace as well as 6x6 Donna Salazar papers.  To win, please leave a comment and be a follower :D

Next up is the EXTREMELY talented Rikka, to see her BEAUTIFUL blooms, CLICK HERE!

Here is the hops complete line up:

Dana Tatar - http://datatar.blogspot.com
Denise Van Deventer - http://strawbspatch.blogspot.com
Marivic Clifton - http://marivicclif.blogspot.com
Norma Gomez - www.lilhoneybeestudios.blogspot.com ***YOU ARE HERE***
Riikka Kovasin - http://paperiliitin.blogspot.com
Yvonne Yam - http://yyam.blogspot.com
Zeus and Zoe - http://zeusandzoe.blogspot.com/

THANK YOU so much for stopping by, be sure to visit all of my talented Zeus and Zoe DT sister and them some love!  They all have AH-MAZING tutorials and BLOG CANDY to share!!!

HAVE A BEAUTIFUL DAY, HUGS!!

Illustrated Stories & Sketches - Art Journal Page, Zeus and Zoe

Hey friends, today I'm sharing my last post as an official Zeus and Zoe team member so I'd like to take a moment to thank Marivic for the giving me this wonderful opportunity.  I have truly enjoyed working with the incredibly talented  Zeus and Zoe Design Team and all of the fabulous Zeus and Zoe products!!   A huge thanks to all of you too for your support during my Zeus and Zoe term!!!!!

For my last Zeus and Zoe project, I really wanted to share something fun in my favorite mixed media style so I created this colorful art journal page.

My background was already started with left over sprays and stencils so all I had to do was pick a focal image.  I chose to use this beautiful vintage lady from my Zeus and Zoe kit.  I colored her in using Prismacolor pencils, distress inks and markers, Liquitex soft body acrylic paint and a Faber-Castell brush pen.  I simply fussy cut her out of the paper and glued her on to my colorful world ;D

I added swirls with Golden Molding Paste and a DecoArt stencil.  Then doodled around the top and bottom of the page.  I added pops of color with Golden Fluid acrylic paints.  The fluid acrylic adds tons of color while allowing the colors underneath show through.

I added bits of vintage news papers from my Zeus and Zoe kit to create my title and for scallops along the inseam of the page.

I doodled flowers here and there to add some yellow as an accent color.  I wrote "Dare to dream in bold bright colors" along the top.  I imagine that this is the way my vintage lady sees the world.  I have to say, I'm so loving this art journal page!!  It makes me very happy with all of its bright colors and doodles; it's how I see my world, lol.  

Well friends, thank you so much for visiting with me today!!  I hope my art journaling makes you smile too, HAVE A BEAUTIFUL/COLORFUL DAY FULL OF INSPIRATIONS!!!

HUGZ!!!

I've entered this project in the DL. ART Thankful Thursday July Linky Party
&
Five Simple Things' Inspire Me Friday 110 Anthing Goes Link Up

In Remembrance Layout - Berry71Bleu/CSI Case No. 79

Hello, Hello!!  I hope you all had a wonderful fun filled holiday weekend!  

Today I'm sharing my very first project as a Berry71Bleu team member.  (Yay, I'm very excited about that!)  This month's challenge is "ANYTHING GOES" so the sky's the limit!!  Breakout your favorite crafty materials and put something spectacular together.  Then link your project up for your chance to win some fabulous prizes.

But wait, there's more!!!!

This month Berry71Bleu is also sponsoring CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration!  How exciting is that right?!  We will be joining CSI as Guest Detectives for the entire month of July.  So we'll be sharing our layouts here after they go live on the CSI site each week. Join us for any one of the weekly CSI Challenges for a chance to win a $35 Gift Certificate to the Zeus and Zoe Etsy Shop!

I was inspired by the patriotic colors of Case File No. 79 and quickly began gathering my evidence.  My investigation revealed traces of ribbon, metal, flourishes and stripes!  Suddenly before my very eyes, the scene of my son and his Cub Scout troop honoring our nations heroes appeared.

To create the stripes, I layered strips of crepe paper and ribbon then stitched down the center of each stripe.  I used a large Scrapiniec die-cut to frame the tomb of a fallen soldier and smaller die-cuts through out the layout as accents.

I randomly stamped a Heartfelt Creations Perfect Medley stamp with gesso and inked the edges of the cardstock with my finger.

For my metal element, I used a sheet of aluminum foil.  I folded the foil to give me four layers before running it through my embossing machine.  (Since a single layer of foil is very thin, it's necessary to fold it to add strength; otherwise the foil may not hold the embossed image.)  After embossing, I applied a thin layer of  gesso to white wash the foil.

With a little more stitching here and there, some blingy stars and meaningful words, I solved CSI Case No. 79.

Our July Sponsors

Heartfelt Creations is the main sponsor for this month!

Heartfelt Creations
Blog: http://www.heartfeltcreations.us/blog.php

Heartfelt Creations® is a leading Rubber Stamp & Scrapbook manufacturer for the craft industry. Heartfelt Creations was established in 1997 as Golden Rule Supply manufacturing Rubber Stamps. In January 2006 Golden Rule Supply became Heartfelt Creations.

Heartfelt Creations provides a unique line of artistic stamps, detailed dies and designer papers. Many of our stamps coordinate with our exclusive Spellbinders™ dies. The innovation of our stamps paired with matching dies offers a whole new dimension of possibilities and quickly adds eye-popping 3D depth to any project. Our designer papers are designed to coordinate with our product collections adding the perfect complement to any Heartfelt Creations stamp or die. 

The Inspiration

Linda the founder and CEO of Heartfelt Creations describes it as the 'AHH HA' moment when she picked up her first stamp to show her kids how to use it. At that moment she realized that she had discovered something amazing. With that a dream was born to offer the same creative delight to people around the world that she felt when she picked up a stamp for the first time. 

Main Prize:

Random Prize:

A one-of-a-kind Berry71Bleu Handmade Tag by Marivic Clifton

A special thanks to Scrapiniec Die-Cut Chipboard for sponsoring the Berry71Bleu Design Team, who will be sharing projects with their chipboard for the next several months.

Scrapiniec Die-Cut Chipboard

Blog: http://scrapiniec-inspiracje.blogspot.com/

Scrapiniec is the first Polish manufacturer of laser die-cut chipboard products for use in scrapbooking. They satisfy even the most unusual individual orders and are characterized by reliability, high quality and friendly customer service. 

You have til the end of the month to join in on this month's  Berry71Bleu ANYTHING GOES challenge!

THANKS for joining me, have a great week!!!

Come Ride With Me - Berry71Bleu Guest Designer

I'm so excited to be guest designing for Berry71Bleu today!  I'm joining in on Marilyn's Summer Challenge featuring beautiful 7 Dots Studio papers and Jacquard products.  So here is my spin of this fun challenge:

This month's challenge is all about sharing what you like to do best during summer.  During the summer months we like to travel as much as possible but it's usually really hard for my husband to get away.  So last we year we went on several smaller roads and this place was my son's very favorite place.  We road those boardwalk rides night after night til we left.

For this layout, I started out with a plain white sheet of cardstock.  I doodled around both the top and bottom edges with Jacquard Clear 3-D Lumiere.  Then I added a little Vintage Photo Distress ink to help bring out the doodles.  

To add texture I started my layers off with cream colored burlap.  After that, I inserted gorgeous 7 Dots Studios Hopefully paper dusted with Micropearl Pearl Ex pigment powder.  I used white Dylusions ink to bind the Pearl Ex pigment powder.  The micropearl pigment works to soften the paper's color and add an elegant shimmer.

I matted the photo with vintage papers and a script tag from my Zeus and Zoe kit.  For my title, I simply wrote out "Ride" with India Ink on white cardstock and cut it out.  The rest of my title is written directly on the vintage papers.

To finish off my layout I added various flowers from my stash, a little bling and tiny butterflies for an added touch of whimsy. 

Thank you so much for joining me today!  I hope I've inspired to join in on this month's Berry71Bleu challenge and I'd like to invite over to Zeus and Zoe.  We have a fun June Challenge: My Favorite Things going on as we speak.   So come on over and join the fun!!  

Have a Beautiful Day!

Create Happiness - Art Journal Page

Hello my sweet bloggie friends!  I'm back with you today to share my second Zeus and Zoe project featuring the beautiful products from this month's sponsors Donna Salazar and Couture Creations.  

I was inspired to art journal by the Donna Salazar dictionary pages so I chose to highlight: artistic, journal and happy.

I like to use my excess inks and paints in my art journal so that nothing goes to waste.  So I flipped through my art journal and found this page filled with the over sprays of a previous project.  Next I dug through my Zeus and Zoe kit and found an unfinished page that never made it onto another project along with jump rings and it hit me!  Create an art journal page within an art journal page, does that make sense, lol?  I punched holes on my art journal page and the mini album page I found then connected them with the jump rings, easy peasy right?!

Then I began by adhering torn and inked strips of Donna Salazar papers from the Natural Beauty collection.

Once I figured out the basic design, I focused on adding the layers of inks and paints to grunge it up a bit and give it my "Norma twist" ;D.  I used a doily stencil with an acrylic dauber to create texture.  I really like the way the acrylic paint puffed up.  This allowed the inks to really get in those groves to help define the shape.

With all the stencil work done, I started layering more of Donna Salazar's Natural Beauty papers and even ran some through my sewing machine.   I used a beautiful flowing vine stitch, distressed and inked all of the edges.  Next I added the dictionary strips that I wanted to use.  I highlighted the edges with fluid acrylic using my finger then outlined the entire strip with a black pen.  I created a small banner using the Donna Salazar Natural Beauty die cut pieces.  To give them a little more presence in my design, I glued them on some of the paper and cut around them leaving about a 1/4" border.  Then I added the Natural Beauty Chipboard Alphas with a little pen work to make them pop.

For the insert, I focused on journaling about why I love to art journal.  I wrote:

"These pages are so much more to me than a place to learn through my creative play.  

They see me through the darkest days.  With each layer, the troubles of the day fade away and I'm transported to my happy place."

This is so true for me, my art journal gives me wings to soar above whatever challenges I might be facing.  I truly believe in the the healing power of art.  Being creative has a wonderful way of lifting the soul and one of the beautiful things about art journaling is that it can be done with no expectations or pressure.  You don't have to worry about incorporating a photo or story.  All you have to do is play, let the page become whatever it wants to be.  If you don't like the way it's turning out, just keep going.  Add another layer of paper, ink or paint; whatever you want until you feel that smile on your face and twinkle in your eye.  You know the feeling you get when you're so happy with what you've just created.

For the cover, I used a page from a mini album that I received in my Zeus and Zoe kit.  It already had paint and stencil work on it from before.  I was gonna use it on a layout but ended up leaving it off.  So all I needed to do was add some of Donna's Natural Beauty paper, a little more stenciling and chipboard alphas.

To finish off my pages, I added some doodle work, strips of torn fabric and cording from my Zeus and Zoe kit.  I also added the key and hanging sign Couture Creations dies.  I love the grungy feel of these art journal pages and the bonus mini page tucked in.  If you've never art journaled before, I encourage you to give a try.  Just remember to have fun and JUST PLAY!!  It's also a wonderful way to use up all those scraps, odd letters and embellishments you have laying around.  Well I hope I've inspired you to give art journaling a try!!

Oh and don't forget to enter this month's challenge: My Favorite Things!!!  There are wonderful prizes up for grabs including this autographed kit from Donna Salazar, so get to craftin peeps!!

The Main Prize

Donna Salazar is a wife, mom, grandma, artist, designer, teacher and kid at heart. Her playful nature tends to come across in her products and classes because she believes that art should be fun. Donna is known for blending contrasting elements to create what she calls her “Girlie Grunge” look. Donna's style is especially appealing to mixed media artists, however her love of flowers and all things sparkly seems to appeal to crafters of all types and styles. 

Donna is a licensed designer and has product lines with 5 different companies: Clearsnap, GCD Studios, Spellbinders, Want2Scrap and Zutter. Donna offers free video tutorials, e-classes and a LIVE webshow, called Tuesday Tutorials, where she gives away lots of prizes from her partner companies and/or original artwork created during the show!

Random Prize:

Couture Creations

http://couturecreations.com.au

An Australian owned and loved brand, Couture Creations is the culmination of 20 years experience in the scrapbooking industry. From its final inception in 2010, Couture Creations has been devoted to producing expertly designed, high quality products overseen by veteran designers and crafters for a result that is both simple and elegant.

Couture Creations is part of Artdeco Creations growing collection of quality craft brands available worldwide. Distributed through a network of the best industry representatives in scrapbooking and craft internationally, Artdeco Creations has the ability to test and meet global expectations for quality and precision beyond local trends and markets.

Also included in the Random Winner Prize Pack is this 6x6 paper pack from Donna Salazar:

Thanks for joining me today and have a BEAUTIFUL, INSPIRED day!!!

A Fun Week Ahead!

Hello sweet bloggie friends!!  I've got a big scrap filled week full of inspiration this week!!  So let me fill you in on what's going on in my world.  Last week was my son's last week of elementary, boy time flies doesn't it.  We had so many fun activities both in and out of school.  Then on Friday he ended the year on a super high note with his performance of Bon Jovi's "It's my Life" and I'm not gonna lie, I've watched the video of him singing a million times since then.  It was totally a proud mama moment for me!!

Then on Saturday, I co-hosted the the new Zeus and Zoe Challenge with Denise.  The Challenge this month is "My Favorite Things".  I'd love for you to join us!!  To find out how, click HERE and today is my turn to post over on the PWP Blog.  I'm sharing a new mixed media canvas featuring the new June Nesting Components kit and one of my beautiful ladies is making an encore appearance.

So I hope you'll stop by and say hello!  To see my post, click HERE.

Then on Wednesday I'll be traveling to Arlington, TX with Paper Wings Productions to participate in the Stitch, Craft & Create 2013 Great American Scrapbook Convention!!  Can I get a WOOT, WOOT!!!!  (Can you tell I'm excited, lol)  I'll be demonstrating some of their beautiful products so if you're in the area, I'd love to meet you!!  Come by our booth and get messy with me, take one of Carrie's wonderful classes, pick up some crafting goodies and take a pic of Tim Holtz (yes, he'll be there)!!   I hope to see you there, here is the link to event page for all the details: Great American Scrapbook Show.

The fun continues on Friday with the Summer Fun PWP DT blog hop and this month I'm giving away some blog candy too!!  So mark your calenders for that and be sure to stop by to enter!!

Have a wonderful week friends!!!!!