#1 - Junk Journal Journey Begins

Several years ago while at a scrapbooking retreat I was introduced to junk journaling and was fascinated by the beautiful bits and bobs that adorned the pages. Everything from food labels to hand made lace embellished the pages and every where I looked there were unexpected treasures stuck to the pages. The lady who created the junk journal is a true artist in every sense of the word and each page was a piece of beautiful art in its own right. I could have spent hours looking at that incredible book and when I reached the last page been excited to start from the beginning again!

I have thought about that lovely book many times over the years. When I hold a ticket stub from a concert I can't quite bear to throw away or run across a stick figure drawn on a receipt by one of my grandchildren that's says "I love you grama". 

What perfect treasures I always think for a junk journal! 

So without further ado today I shall begin my journey of the junk journal...…

I looked at so many lovely ones online and found tons of tutorials for how to create them from start to finish but decided that's not the route I want to take. I want each page to be created independent from the others and inspired by whatever moves me in that moment and when its complete it will speak to who and what I am......who I was.....who I want to be and everything in between.

This time of year I have very limited creative time so I am blocking off some quiet, creative time on Sunday afternoons and will use some journaling prompts to get me started. I'll be sharing the prompts, pages and techniques I use here and encourage you to join in 

and create your own junk journal.

First journaling prompt will be...…

1.) What does "Home" mean to you

I'm off to write and CREATE!

I will post this journaling page along with our next prompt next Sunday.

Have a great week

If you'd like to share your junk journal I'd LOVE to see it and you can do so by visiting 

Creating with Infinity Engraving on Facebook.

Thanks for stopping in - see ya soon!

Happy Creating

BEST Veterans Day Project

Today I wanted to share with you a project that is so simple

yet so powerful

and in my opinion so 

IMPORTANT.

It's a project that will take you longer to drive to the store and get the supplies you need

than it will to complete the project.

Supplies:

1.) Faith

2.) PRIDE

3.) Respect

4.) Gratitude

5.) small basket or bucket

6.) bag of toy Soldiers

7.) Pen & Paper

I am so INCREDIBLY PROUD of my grandchildren & their parents

for putting this together and making sure all their friends at school know what 

Veterans Day is all about.

KUDOS to you Valle family!

May you continue to Serve the Lord 

and

 our great country in safety, peace & love.

Today and every day I pray we all take a moment to pause and remember.....

 the fallen , the PROUD, the silent, the broken, 

the homeless, the forever changed, the addicted, 

the selfless who have sacrificed.

&

ALL the people who support & love them.

Thank you 

to my 

grandfather, father, husband, son in law

and 

all the men & woman who have Served. 

FABULOUS Bestie with a splash of retro spooky

Happy Halloween!!

I absolutely LOVE this time of year!! 

donuts, cider, beautiful fall colors....costumes, a nip in the air 

and knowing the 

Holiday Season
has begun!

Chilly days mean lots of time inside to be CREATIVE!

I was SUPER excited to try one of Sherri Baldys new mannequin heads 

and

 I must tell you I am ABSOLUTLEY in LOVE with these.

 I already have a little basket of goodies started to use on the next one I make! 

They are so much FUN to work with and turn out beautifully no matter what skill level you are at.

When I started this project I was thinking retro....roaring 20's flapper.....which I think I achieved with a splash of Halloween!

My goal with this project was to keep the coloring portion super quick and simple just to show you that no matter what your skill level is these can be FABULOUS!

I used 3 Spectrum Noir markers to color her.

FS4

CR5

CR3

I colored the whole face with FS4 twice to make sure I got a nice color. 

Coloring over the lashes, brows, mouth, nose and neck line helped to make those areas a bit darker and more prominent.

CR3 for the lips and some CR5 for shadows.

Pastel chalks were used for pink rosy cheeks and eye shadow.

NOW the FUN part...….

I dug through my stash of junk jelwelry….grabbed some bits of lace and trim 

OMGoooooodness this was FUN!!!

Hardest part was narrowing down what I wanted to use
and
waiting for the glue gun to heat up!

I used LOTS of bits & pieces from past projects.
Some Halloween confetti pieces, chipboard spider webs
&
a tiny spider charm to give her a spooky twist!!

Wahhhh laahhhh!!

I would like to introduce you to
Zelda
my retro, roaring 20's, spooky little beauty!~

She is now hanging on my craft lockers after a magnet was glued to the back!
I see a Christmas version in my near future!

These little beauties will be available in the "My Besties Shop"


Thanks for stopping by
make sure to pop back over soon!

To see more projects like this visit us on Facebook
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&
Share your projects!!

Halloween Adorable Adornments from Sherri Baldy

LOTS of coffee......TONS of EXCITEMENT.....LOADS of Sherris creative heart

 and not much sleep around here have led to …..

Sherri Baldys Adorable Adornment TM 

line of laser cut chipboard/wood embellishments.

No fussy cutting

No printing

No stamping

Just start embellishing and bring these little Besties to life!!

Markers, Pencils, Paint.....your imagination is your only limit!

Halloween Besties are available for purchase now at

Infinity Engraving

We have been blown away by the ADORABLE projects we are seeing 

& 

can't wait to see yours.

Make sure to pop over to Creating with Infinity Engraving 

to see more projects using 

Adorable Adornments 

&

 make sure to share all your projects with us.

She Shed

A few years ago we realized that our business was growing and our home was getting smaller! It became very clear that something needed to give! We shopped around and finally decided a prebuilt shed was the way to go. We bought property......saved money & I pinned four million ideas in a folder of what my dream studio would look like. There were lots of decisions to make along the way like where to put windows and doors, how big it needed to be and the all important what color siding. I made a strong stand for pink but in the end we compromised (me begrudgingly)  for a tannish color.  I am still pulling for pink shutters and a pink door......we'll see how that plays out! It has been a labor of love that my husband has been committed to for over a year clearing the land, preparing the site and working over time to make it happen. June 17, 2018 we ordered the she shed and  I am BEYOND THRILLED 

to report that it has finally arrived!!

There were happy tears and squeals of joy as they lowered her into place! She is MAGNIFICENT!! A blank slate to fill......no FILL.... with all things sparkly and lovely. Lace, buttons....glitter.....its hard to even sleep at night with all the possibilities! A place to work....to create....to DREAM BIG and make it happen!

As you might imagine I am ready to move right in and busy myself with making it FABULOUS but first there is much work to do. She will need electricity and heat.....walls and floor covering...so many more choices to make as I bring her to life.

Stay tuned and follow along. I'm super excited to share this journey with you.

To alter or not to alter??

A few weeks ago while browsing through my new favorite "stuff" store (All the Right Stuff Urban Market) I found a couple of vintage curved glass frames that had pretty silhouettes in them. I'd never seen anything quite them and couldn't wait to get them home and tear them apart and alter them in some fabulous way.

When I got home I showed them to a friend and she mentioned they might be antiques and maybe I shouldn't mess with them. Uhhhhhhh!!! I worried that she might be right....it would be my luck to spay paint something I bought for pennies and find out it was worth a zillion dollars and that I had ruined it!! I did some research and as my friend suspected they were old....around 1930ish and were worth much more than I paid for them. So now the question was to alter or not to alter??

I liked them well enough the way they were but in my world everything needs a bit of bling and if I can find a way to make it pink I LOVE it more!!! But a little extra $$ is always nice!!

I let them sit on my desk for about a week considering whether or not I should try to sell them as is or alter them and keep them. I think you know where this is going!!

After much thought I decided....of course ......TO ALTER them and hang them in the new she shed.

If you haven't heard we are building a she shed pop over and see the progress!!

I wanted to alter these little treasures in a way that would make them pink and fabulous but not alter them so much that I ruined them. My goal was to alter them in a way that they could be returned to their original state if I ever decided to do so.

Taking them apart was actually easier than I thought it would be. I was worried about breaking the curved glass but once I figured out there was just a small little metal post that held them all together it was quite easy.

I carefully took them apart making sure not to bend the corners to much. Removed and cleaned the glass.....couldn't believe how much nicer they looked after just that step!

The original paper was quite yellowed and dingy so I cut patterned scrapbook paper for the back and added a piece of lace with Atg tape.

I placed the glass and backing together and bent the frame back around the glass. I was tempted ....EXTREMELY tempted to add some sequins and shakey bits before I closed up the corner but eventually decided adding embellishments to the inside of the frame might encourage people to take them down off the wall to shake and I didn't want to risk them getting broken.

In the end I just closed up the frame tucking the pin back in the hole and gently bending it back into place and was ready to move on to the best part of the project!!

  

Normally at this point I would just grab the glue and get to it!! In this case though I wanted to protect the frame and glass from to much glue. The truth is hot glue would probably pick right off or at the very least it could be heated and the embellishments removed if I ever decided I waned to do so but I wanted to take care not to ruin the frame or make to much work for myself later if I wanted to remove everything. I used a sticky silver washi tape on the corners where I knew I was going to stick my embellishments. Plugged in the glue gun....rummaged through my junk jewelry bin and got to work!

I am so pleased with how these turned out and will be keeping my eyes open for more of them in my travels. I'm wondering if I could achieve this same effect with vinyl???

Another project for another day perhaps!!

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek.

Make sure to pop over and visit us at

Creating with Infinity Engraving

where you can share your projects

or join in our current

Alter It - Challenge.

Baby its COLD outside!!

With below zero and negative temperatures its been SUPER easy to stay inside with a warm mug of coffee, Netflix and my alcohol markers. I haven't participated in an actual online challenge in quite some time and decided it was time to do so. After making the decision to participate in a challenge

I headed straight for my favorite challenge page and was pleased to find
a very fitting

My Besties International Challenge 

January themed challenge...

"Baby it's COLD outside"

To participate in the challenge its not required that you use a
Sherri Baldy image

but hers are some of my favorites so it seemed like an easy choice!! I looked through all of "My Besties" but most of the ones I have are  in sun dresses and while they are all ADORABLE didn't look very wintery. I considered purchasing a new image BUT....since I already currently have enough UNCOLORED digital images to last the rest of my life I decided to challenge myself and try to use something I already had in my collection.

I knew I wanted to use icy blue colors with warm browns and that I wanted SNOWFLAKES......lots and LOTS of snow flakes. I chose My Besties image #166 as its one of my very favorites and in my opinion can be transformed quite easily to fit most any occasion with just a change of color.

I colored up her face with copic markers: E000, E00, E21, Ell

Her eyes I went completely rogue and used SN TB3, TB4, TB5, IG4, GT3

Dress was done with E33, E31 and Blender

I wanted her hair to look icy....but warm

I referred back to the Kit and Clowder Skin & Hair Class and reviewed the section on dip dyed hair.

I used Copic E29,E25 & E21 for the brown tones in her hair

BG09, BG07, BG01, BG000 for the blue highlights in her hair.

Once again my progress was moving along quite well 

AND THEN......

This time it was BG07
A HUGE BIG BLOB on the right of her hair!!

****PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT****

I want to stop here for a moment and give you a VERY IMPORTANT tip:

When you purchase your Copic markers sometimes they are SUPER JUICY....to prevent them from blobbing all over remove both ends while you color if your markers are new or seem extra juicy.

I had not intended to make this a shaker card BUT....after the BLOB I needed a way to be able to use the image and cover up the nasty blob!

I used a 4" chipboard shaker frame that is available for purchase in our
Etsy shop
and filled it with sequins. The shaker card kits come with 2 pieces of cut chipboard and the clear acetate. The two layers of chipboard allow you to make a shallow window with just one layers and the window or use both layers with the window and you have a deeper box.

You can see a photo tutorial on how the shaker box kits go together here.
Shaker Card Box 101


A strategically placed large snowflake covered the blob and I am super happy with how it turned out.

If you have used this image in a project I'd love to see how you colored her up.
Pop by
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and share a photo or a chat.
We'd love to have you join us.

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