Hello Simon Says Stamp and Show!

There is a lot of blabbing away in this post, so grab some sustenance first if you choose.
A new year has brought a new creative journey. I am beyond honored to say that I am now a part of the Simon Says Stamp & Show Design Team! WOW Crafters WOW! Talk about a humbling feeling to have been asked, and the biggest honor to work with this talented crew...I am still in shock! I will do my very best to live up to their expectations. 

However, after reading what my first challenge was to be, I was very taken aback. Today's challenge of "What Am I Known For" is the hardest one I've ever had. While I'm pretty sure I know what I'm known for personally...just being fabulous ;0)...I have no idea what I am known for creatively speaking. I love dabbling in several different genres of Art. I want to try it all, and take what I love to use in my projects. I don't like to be stuck in a creative rut, and mixing it up solves that for me. I'm sort of all over the place, so I do my best to share the process and steps of how I create, so that I can show others who are just like me, but I don't think being all over the place is something I want to be known for.
I can certainly pick out work that belongs to some of my blogging friends before I know for sure who created it. Some people just have a certain style that is easier to distinguish, but do I? I've searched my artistic soul to try and figure this out. I've looked back at all of my projects from 2012 to see if I could identify a certain characteristic that points to me, but I just couldn't find one, aside from the obvious use of metal and/or wood embellishment on almost every single one, often too many at that. I've often said I am the gaudy paper crafter...more is better, right? :-)
Strangely enough, as all of this inner reflection and investigation was going on, I was working on my husband's Christmas present. I made him a 16x20 inch mixed media painting on canvas for his office, which was based on four photos I took and collaged together to create a scene of the two things he does almost everyday here in West Texas...work and play golf.  This course is where he won the City Championship a number of times. Oh yeah that's my man!!! This would be hole 18, but I certainly doctored it up...a bunch as you will read.  We could only dream of a city public course this lush and green, but I can spin it how I want...right? He also works in one of those buildings downtown, and oil and gas is his field of work.
When I finished the piece, it became apparent to me that I often create scenes in my projects. I went back to look at all those 2012 projects again, and it was like a smack in the face. More than half of my projects contained a scene. They were all scenes that I planned out to look realistic and representational (Some drawn out in my Art Journal first.), but ended up using so many elements to spin it, that they turned out a tiny bit abstract. Further thinking on this, lead me to note that these are also the pieces that are easiest and fastest for me to do. I can fly through one without eating, talking, or taking photos, because I get so drawn into them. The non scene items are harder for me, and require me to think through them, and I often procrastinate making them.

As you read above, I got so carried away with the canvas that I neglected to take any pictures except for these two. Here is the canvas painted with Claudine's Acrylic Paints and Ranger's Paint Dabbers, before I started adding the buildings, lots of Tim and Wendy stamped foliage, Distress Stains, Idea-ology goodies, Wendy Embossing Paste, Flower Soft, Mudd Puddles, and a Wood Stamped and Embossed fence.

To make the buildings, I stamped the Hero Arts image onto silver tissue paper using Espresso and Pitch Black Dabbers. I cut them out and did my best to make them look like the buildings in my down town area. I used Glue N Seal to adhere them to the canvas.

Embossing Paste makes the best clouds. This stuff looks yummy too. If I was about 3 years old, I'd eat it! I also used it mixed with paint and Flower Soft, and along with some Mudd Puddles I made the rough areas and greenery.

Crackle Accents was added on top of the blue paint, and then I used Chipped Sapphire Distress Stain and worked it into the cracks to make it look like a pond. This pond is actually on the hole before this one, but in my little world it needed to be, so now it is.

The sand is Mudd Puddles. The flag is red ribbon and white wired raffia.

All of the trees were made with Tim and Wendy foliage stamps and paint. I did a little free hand painting for detail on them as well.

The fence is Kraft Paper stamped with the Wood Grain Stamp and then Embossed with the Wood Grain Fade. Walnut Stain Distress highlights the raised areas, and then it was coated with Glue N Seal to strengthen it. I cut this into strips, cut slits into them and inserted strips into strips to form a fence. This fence is also really on the hole across the way from this one, but I'm telling you it looks better here!

The pump jack actually moves, but I told my husband "No playing with it!" I don't want him tearing it up. There is actually not a pump jack on this part of the course, but there is one across the street, but I wanted one there, so now there is. "I know that possibility begins with imagination!"

So maybe I'll be known for creating scene...someday. Regardless, SSS&S has given me a free therapy session, and I didn't have to lay on the couch to figure it all out...kudos to them for that. And, as far as personally, I've asked a few people close to me and it seems I am different things to different people, but they are all good....phew!
So, what are you known for? Do you always have a cup of coffee in your hands? Are you forever adding brown ink to the edges of everything? Is no project complete without a button? Whether you feel like being inspired by something you’re known for in your crafting, or if you’d prefer to scrapbook or journal something that you are known for in general we can’t wait to learn a bit more about you and your crafting. After you create your work of Art, enter it into our challenge, and you might be the lucky winner of a $50 voucher to Simon Says Stamp. You can also be named as one of the "Top Three Picks" for this challenge. Good luck!

Supplies:

I hope your hands get creatively dirty soon!