ARC January book

Well its time for the first ARC book review of 2014. This month I read The bite Before Christmas By Lynsay Sands and Jeaniene Frost.

I bought the book because I love reading Lynsay Sands' Argeneau Vampire/Rogue Hunter series. 

Lynsay Sand's story "The Gift". Is the story of Teddy Brunswick , A chief of police in the town of Port Henry. He's on holiday and gets snowed in the cabin he is renting for the holiday. Next door Katricia Argeneau who is also snowed in. Katricia is an immortal, a vampire, but in this series they don't like to be called that. In the series the author explains that their kind are from Atlantis before it fell and they all survived. Its more detailed in the series. Teddy is of course human or in the book terms mortal. Katricia learns that Teddy is her life partner. One way of Immortals find if one is a life partner is not being able to read the person's mind. And that has happened. The story is about how they get together.

This story I liked. Like I said I am of fan of this series, so it was easy for me to like this one.  It has a mix of humor, romance of of course it has Vampires. 

The second short story in the book is "Home for the Holidays" By Jeanine Frost. I am not familiar to this author.  So I'm not familiar with the charters of the books she writes.

This story again takes place around Christmas. Its Bone's birthday and Cat is throwing a party for him and Annette brings a family member of Bone's.(yes they are all vampires) but things are not right with this family member and Cat finds out what it is and fixes it.

This story was okay. I wasn't crazy with it. I think because I am not familiar with the series.

The art I did was simple. I didn't know what to do for the journal page, as all my Christmas stamps were on loan to my cousin. So I found a napkin that was somewhat Christmasy. I mod poge it to the journal pages. I added some glitter paint to the page after the glue was dried to give it some sparkle. I didn't know what to do next so I just wrote the title of the book. blah i know. lol I did add a Julie Nutting doll to the page.

Next month Darcy challenged us to find a book we loved and reread it for the FEb. ARC. So next month I will be rereading "A Pedigree to Die for" by  Laurien Berenson.

Review: skinny cow chocolates

I got the Skinny cow Divine Filled milk chocolates in the peanut butter cream, from Influenster.com in the jolly vox box. I Meant to do this review a while ago, but with the holidays and other things, I forgot to do it. 

Each box holds 6 pouches, and each pouch holds 3 candies. Each pouch is 130 calories. 

the chocolate is milk chocolate. and the peanut butter his nice and smooth. Tasting it, the blend of  peanut butter and chocolate is quite nice. the ratio of PB and Chocolate is perfect.  Here is a pic of what the inside looks like.

I have always love the combo of PB and chocolate, since I first had Baskin Robin's Peanut Butter and Chocolate. 

All and all I would get these again, and I would try the caramel one too.

Mini Treasures mini album

Last week I had gotten in the mail Interactive Mini Scrapbooks (Annie's Attic: Paper Crafts) by Kathy Orta
After I looked through the book I made a mini from it. The Mini Treasure's I have no pictures of that album and i don't remember where I put it. As soon as I find it I will take pictures and edit this blog post. I did do a video of it though.

Last night I made another one. It was very easy to make and you can use scraps. Well maybe not the covers or tone of the inside papers. The stack I used is from DCWV Glam Stack. Love this paper. This is their updated verson of the Rock Star stack which was one of my favorites. 

The front Cover I added some bling that I got in the $1.50 at Michael's(I do miss when it was the $1.00 bin). I added a Julie Nutting doll stamp from Prima and used scraps of the Glam Rock stack for her clothes. Her skin tone is from the Prima A$ "Buff" paper pad.

Back cover

Inside

Journal 52 Week 2 & 3

Week 2 the prompt was favorite place to be. I couldn't think of my favorite place all i could think was getting the house sold and moving to to Vegas. the airplane was from an ad and part of the Vegas strip was from a piece of junk mail.

This week, week 3, the prompt is Smile. 

Well I wasn't feeling very smiling when I was doing the page. The background was paper towel that I used to dab off the Dylusions sprays from lesson 4 of Soul Food. I then used a couple of stencils. The chevron is from Studio Calico and the hearts if Heidi Swapp. I then Glued down a Julie Nutting Prima doll that I made a while back. The words I wrote with the while chalk pen, are part of the lyrics of the song Smile by Charlie Chaplin. 

Soul Food lessons 5&6

I finally caught up with watching the Soul Food Lessons 4-7. Lesson 4 I want to try to do, but I need to get more Bristol and I need to find paper big enough to do the cover for it. Lesson 7 I don't have the medium she used for the lesson.

But I did do Lesson 5 Which was a weaving using 2 backgrounds. once background with dylusion sprays and one with paints and stencils.

I did do a backing on the piece and added a strip of white paper as I was putting in a book with binder rings. And I made a pocket...

So I can put lesson 6 in the pocket.

Lesson 6 was making a little book of a story. Well I'm not that good at drawing or coming up with a story. I did the background which was fun and then I drew some girls.

Documented Life Weeks 3 and 4

Well I'm still keeping up with Documented Life.

Week 3 prompt was mail art. I took an envelope that I had made with the envelope maker and glued it to the page. then I put stuff that I had gotten during the week inside the envelope. The other side of the page I smashed other stuff I got during the week. Can't show that because it shows addresses.

Week 4 prompt was write whatever you want on the page then paint over it but only leave 1 word.

 I did a word dump and wrote what I was feeling. Then I painted over that with 2 types of craft paints. and some sprays. but you can still see what I wrote So I took this Number mask that my friend Julia sent me and sponged black craft paint. I then used some punchenilla and the White Linen Dylusions spray ink. I then glued one of the Julie Nutting dolls by Prima that I made a while back. I wrote down 2 words with this white chalk pen that I got at Target in the Dollar bin. The pen is ok. lol

Anything but a card challenge -Balance

The challenge at Anything but a card challenge is Balance. You can either use the word balance or use the picture on ABAC blog to inspire your project. I chose the word to inspire me.

I did a journal page. The page had some left over spray from stencils that I stuck in the journal to get the spray that was on the stencil. Nothing to waist!  You can still see some what was already on the page.

For my journal page I picked the three blues in the Dylusion sprays. London blue, Vibrant turquoise and Calypso teal. I also used S.E.I. Tumble dye spray in Sky blue. Sprayed them on the page, sprayed some water on the page to blend the colors. I dabbed off some of the color as it was a puddle of blues. lol(I saved the paper towel to use for later. Had lots of yummy color on it). Dried it. still had some white spots on the page so I sprayed a little more with the Dylusions. Dabbed and dried. The I sprayed some of the S.E.I. tubmle dye sand when I dabbed some that off, the other colors came off as well leaving like a salted background look. Like a resit. Thought it looked cool so I left it alone.

Once that was all dried, I took a brick stencil and Ditto spray in like a purpley magenta.(did I mention I had no plans in my head for this. LOL I just went with the flow, like always.) I then took a harliquine stencil and water down  white craft paint I have in a spray bottle and spray that on the page on the stencil. Dried and I stared to get drips coming from the diamonds so I sprayed the white craft paint on the upper right corner three times.  

Next I looked for a quote for the word 'Balanced" I looked on brainy.com. Saw nothing I liked. They were all long and didn't care for them. So The I went to pintrest and typed in balance quotes and saw this one by Einstein. I knew I had a bicycle image in my magazine journal fodder. So I typed the quote up and printed it while I hunted down the picture.  Glued the picture and the words with Helmar craft and hobby PVA glue. If I used matte medium or Mod Podge or that type of adhesive then I ran the risk of getting the color of the sprays going on the image since the sprays are water base. 

So everyone plays in challenge 28 and link it up. and be sure to go to the blog to see what the other DT members did this week and last week!

Soul Food Lessons 1 & 3

I was lucky enough to win a spot in Soul Food from Dana's blog. :) Soul food is a 6 month class with over 30 teachers. 2 lessons a week. As you can see from my other 2 posts today, I'm going to be a busy girl this year! :)

Lesson 1 was taught by Mystlee. I followed along with what she do, or close to it. I didn't draw a face. There is A LOT of talent in this group. but here is my page. I used Canson Mixed Media paper cut to 6 1/4 by 8.

I skiped lesson 2, that lesson is so outta my leauge...too advance for me. I'm not the worlds best drawer....yet(not that I think I will be LOL).

Lesson 3 was a ton of fun! It was taught by Cathy Bluteau. I made a cake out of my scraps and other bits. I did it on the other side of lesson 1 page. 

Also used Sticker boards by K&Co. from the Cut & Paste Collection. The double row of bling is from Michael's. Also used pearls and bling and flowers from wild Orchid Crafts. And also Dew drops. Background and parts of the cake I used punchenllia and stencils with sprays by Dylusions, and Lindy's Stamp Gang. Also Antique Bronze Distress Stain and Color Shine Tinsel(Also used it to color the WOC flowers) Fun page!

Journal52-Week 1

Another challenge I am doing is Joural52. I found out about this FB group Challenge while looking on Facebook one day and saw Former VLVS! DT teamie Sandra Strait posted about it. I looked at it and was like oh why not! Once a week you get a prompt to do an art journal page.

This week's prompt was up up and away.

My page is inspired by The Rainbow Connection song from the Muppet Movie.

The paper I used is Canson Mix Media paper cut to 6 1/4 by 8 I also corner rouned the corners. The clouds are book page that I traced the Crafter's Workshop cloud stencil on the page. I cut the clouds out and painted them with a pearlesent watercolors. Glued them on the page with Elmer's glue.The Bee and the firefly are from Bugawamps.  Stamped the duck holding balloons (stamp by Distinked Impression. Colored him with Sharpie and Bic Mark it markers. Used foam tape on him and attached him to the page. Looked up the lyrics to Rainbow connection and copied and pasted the 1st verse and printed it. cut and glue the words on the page.

Documented Life

Happy 2014! I taken some challenges to do for the year. We'll see how well I do at keeping up with them. :)   One of the challenges I joined with along with my friends is Documented Life. Its part planner, part art journal and part journaling. I know I wont do the writing part. but the planning and the art part I will eb doing. We are 2 weeks in 2014 so I thought I show off what I did with the prompts. I don't know if I will blog my art every week for this every week or every 2 weeks. We'll see how it goes. :)

Week 1 prompt is door. you can draw a door, take a picture of your door. what ever. I happen to have a stencil.

Week 2(this week) prompt is selfi.. There was no way i was going to take a selfi of myself. lol So I drew a figure. and wrote some stuff about me. I had the girl holding half of broken heart. The other half is on the ground. I know some of the words I wrote made people sad but those are what popped out when it came to what words described me. The broken heart has shown up in various pages in my art in my art journals. 

Oh I'm not really a secratary...I just play one online. LOL

product review: Puffs To Go packs

a few months ago I joined Influenster.com. Its another word of mouth site like Buzzagent.com. Around Christmas time I got a box from them, called JollyVoxBox. In it was a bunch of stuff to try and give my thought on them or take pictures and post them on various social media sites or a review on the company's site.

Today I'm going to be reviewing Puff To Go packs. This happens to be one that has the lotion in the tissue.

Each package has 10 2 ply tissues. Folded they measure 4 by 2.

Unfoulded it measures 8 by 4. 

When I used them I noticed there was not a greasy feeling to the tissue, unlike when they first came out with this kind way back in the day. But there is a smell to them. As far as what they are used for and not sounding too grossed, they hold u well. I know vaged but you know what tissue is used for. lol

The only thing I do no like is after you open the package, after you close it there are gaps on the side so its not really fully closed. and if it moves in your purse or bag will get warned and possibility keep the package opened or get the tissues messed up. But the size and portability of this product is great. perfect to keep in your purse or bag. And the packs come in various patterns and colors.