Blog Hop Winner~

I have a winner from the Whimsy blog hop last week!  I included those who joined in by comment and numbered them after the ones who used inlinkz.  Here is the choice by Random.org:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

56

Timestamp: 2010-10-12 17:50:58 UTC

And that number is: 

 
56. Lisa T 

Congratulations Lisa T!  E-mail me with your snail mail addy and I'll get Denise of Whimsy Stamps to get the "Starry Night"stamp mailed to you!

I hope my Canadian friends had a good Thanksgiving weekend!

On Hearing God Speak

This is another post in which I share my heartfelt beliefs about God.  To me, this is an act of worship to my God.  You can choose to tune in or tune out.  I will not be offended either way.  Bless you!

Do you know the voice of God?  Do you know what He says to you every day?  Did you ever hear Him, not with your physical ears, but with the ears of your heart?  Have you sensed Him trying to communicate to you, somewhere on a deeper level within you, in your subconscious mind, also known as your heart?
  I listen to God talk to me daily.  I used to think that only really "spiritual people" could hear God speak.  Just those prophets in the Bible, or those who worked miracles on the earth.  I didn't know He spoke to regular every day people like me.
  And I certainly didn't know He would be talking to me all the time.  I never knew He had so much to say to me personally!  But He does!  In fact, every time I tune in to listen, He is speaking to me!
  And I am drawn to listen.  Why? Because whenever I do, I get encouraged.  I get uplifted.  I get told of my enormous worth to Him.  I hear Him say how special I am to Him.  How highly He thinks of me.  How affectionately He loves me.  I wish I could convey just how life giving it is to hear Him speak these things to me.  His thoughts towards me are always good and always uplifting.  Even when He corrects me, it is with gentleness, love and affection.  I never feel condemned when He speaks to me.  I always feel peace.
  Hearing Him say these things to me gives me a strength that I would not have otherwise.  It gives me a deep abiding peace and joy.  I revel in the love I hear!  It carries me through circumstances and makes everything easier to handle.
  And if this is what He does for me, then this is what He does for you too, because He doesn't play favourites.  He loves all His children with the same intensity and He wishes to have a close relationship with everyone He made.
  I haven't always been able to hear Him clearly.  One of the things that kept me from hearing Him was that I thought I had to do something to earn an audience with Him.  You know, like He was a really busy guy, running the world and all, and how important was I really, for Him to take time out of His busy schedule to come and talk to me.  And who was I, just a nobody, doing nothing significant for Him.   I had to see that that type of thinking kept me from hearing Him.  Because I could not believe I was important enough for Him to talk to.
  Another barrier I used to have was, I didn't know how truly GOOD He is.  I thought, God is good, but... maybe He is mad at me... or, maybe He is going to ask me to do something that will scare me to death...  Those thoughts came from the devil, to keep me from hearing God.  Once I recognized that, and changed my heart beliefs to better reflect the Truth, that God is good ALL the time, those fears just disappeared.  And then I was able to hear Him.
  God will not speak evil to you.  He is not mad at you.  He does not want you to be afraid of Him.  And He wants you to know, that you are the most important thing on His agenda for today and indeed for every day.  You are the apple of His eye.  The child born of His heart.  He can't help but love you!
  If hearing God's voice is new to you, one of the ways you can practice hearing God is by using music.  Put on a love song.  A song you really love.  It doesn't have to be a song of worship from church.  Any good love song will do.  Now as you listen to that song, close your eyes and imagine the face of God -- see Him looking intently into your eyes as He cups His hands around your face -- and hear Him sing that song TO YOU.  As if He was the lovesick poet who penned those words for you.  Just listen like that for the duration of the whole song and keep picturing Him singing it to you!  Tell me if you try this and tell me what your experience is!  I'm curious to know if anyone tries it!
  I look around at the beauty of the world He created, and think to myself, I know the Guy who created all this!  I hear Hims speak to me every day.  Wow.  Amazing, that we can be so intimately acquainted with the most powerful being who ever was or will be.  And even more amazing still that I am so important to Him that He WANTS to speak to me, and tell me how much He loves me, every single day.
You are that important to Him too!
I dare you to tune in to listen!!
Bless you big time!

Whimsy Blog Hop! New Rubber Stamps! Blog Candy!

Welcome! 

If you have landed here randomly, you are in the middle of a blog hop by Whimsy Stamps.  If you would like to start at the beginning, go to Bev's blog.  If you have come here from Elaine's blog, you are right on track!

This is a rather exciting blog hop, that will be running from today (Sunday at noon) until Thursday Oc 7th at noon.   So you have a few days to hop along and see all the DT and Guest DT's creations, and enter to win the many prizes up for grabs!  

And I happen to be one of the SIX blogs that is offering blog candy!  If you enter, you get a chance at this new  image I illustrated that I called, "Starry Night":

  It's made with deeply etched red rubber - top of the line quality.   It is in the style you are used to seeing from me.  But!

  I also branched out into a different style this time and did some more serious designs for Christmas.  I could hardly wait to show you! I did a poinsettia, a sprig of holly and some candy canes.  I wanted to do something a little different, because I love realistic images as well as fun whimisical ones.  It isn't the style of drawing you are used to seeing from me.  What do you think??

 It is quite a large set that includes these candy canes I used on my card (I used the large version) the poinsettia I used on the background paper in a large and small version (I used the small version) a sprig of holly and also 5 sentiments by Ann Vento of Raindropecho Designs.   Click on the following links to see the full VINTAGE CHRISTMAS SET

all of my new illustrated stamps

Ann's new Christmas sentiments and background stamps.

 I used beige card stock; a light beige for the candy canes, and a medium beige for the poinsettias. Before I started stamping, I sprayed on Coffee Shop Glimmer Mist and gold Smooch Spritz.  The Smooch gives it a really subtle and beautiful golden sparkle that the photo would not convey.  

I used the watercolour stamping technique.  I coloured the actual rubber stamp with Tombow pens, water based markers, and then spritzed the stamp with water a few times before stamping the image.  As with real water colouring, the outcome is never predictable!  Some of them pooled a lot while others, with less water, remained an outline.

For the candy canes, I went back in after stamping and picked up some more ink colour with a very wet water colour brush and washed some more colour onto the leaves, the red stripes of the candy cane and also the berries.  Then I painted Copic White onto the white of the candy canes. 

 When all was dry, I painted Smooch Pearlized Top Coat all over the candy canes.  They really do sparkle!   

I put two coats of Ultra Thick Embossing Powder on the main image panel to give it even more of a glow.   I tried to capture the sparkle and glow in this photo, but still, it didn't translate well.

Now here is an example of one of the sentiments in the set that Ann designed (with my holly sprig on either side).  It is a part of the Vintage Christmas set AND it is also being sold on its own.  I just love the font Ann used!  Keep in mind the extra dots are from the Glimmer Mist.  I put this panel on the inside of the card:

I painted the panel edges and the Tim Holtz grungeboard with a gold craft paint found at Michael's. 

There are so many more stamps being released today; some super cool newsprint stamps that Ann designed as well as a cute Santa AND a new Christmas carousel horse from me!  I hope you will do the whole hop to see what the DT did with them.  AND we have some uber talented guests on board for this hop too, you won't want to miss seeing what they did as well!

If you want a chance to win this Vintage Christmas set, you need to use the inlinkz option below.  Just link up your blog or online gallery so we'll know how to contact you, and your name will be entered into the draw!  You have until Th Oc 7 at noon cuz that's when I'll pick a winner!

Next stop on the hop: 

Suzanne

If you do not have a blog or online gallery to link to and you wish to enter for the draw, please let me know in your comment and you will be included! 

Sundays With Crissy Challenge #10, "Buttons and Bows"

Hi Peeps!

I have another challenge happening all month long at Sundays With Crissy!  Its an easy peasy theme: Buttons and Bows.  I hope you will hop over to my challenge blog and take a look.  As always I am offering blog candy!

  I used "Trimming the Tree", one of my digital images I did for Whimsy Stamps. 

White fur, or white anything can be tricky to capture.  Some stampers prefer to just not colour something that is white.  But the realist in me can't leave white alone!  White does have shadows.  So you do have to colour it with something!  The thing to remember is to use the lighter shades.  I didn't use anything over a 3.  White shadows are rarely very dark.  I used a variety of colour families as well, which seems to have worked well.  You can use your grey shades.  However, my personal preference is to use a variety of colours.  I find it is more vibrant and life-like that way.  Greys can be kind of flat and boring, but that's just my opinion. 

Here is the list of Copics I used:

Polar Bear Fur:

E70, 50, BV20, 23, B63, 91, R20 (for the blush) and 0 blender all over.

Penguin hat and candy canes:

R12, 14, 17, 27

Tree branches: 

G20, 24, 28 29, YG21

Blue balls:

B12, 14, 18

Red balls:

R12, 14, 17

Star: 

Y21, 23, 28, E99

Penguin:

T1, 3, 5, 8, 10

Beak:

Y38, E99

Scarf:

YG21, 23, 25, 17 B000

Background:

R000, 11, blender

Ground:

C0, 2, 4

I'd also like to announce that I have another set of four new digital images released today in the Whimsy store!  Two digital carousel horses, and two kids dressed up to trick or treat.  I hope you'll check them out!

And on Sunday, Whimsy is releasing my new set of rubber stamps, and there will be a blog hop, so stay tuned for that too!  Some of them are in a style you may not have seen me do before, so I am excited to see your reaction. :-)

Here is my full card:

I also wanted you to see the stamp I now have to put on the back of all my cards.  It was a custom design made by Ann Vento of Raindrop Echo Designs.  She is a talented graphic artist and she has a huge variety of templates to choose from.  They are priced very affordably too.  Check them out at the Whimsy Store!

Hope to see you back for the Whimsy hop in a couple of days! Thanks for coming by today. 

Blessings!

update with new Edit

Hello Precious People.  

I have not been able to post much of late.  Dr. says I have pneumonia.  It is seriously cutting in on my crafting time! 

The nights are hard, but I want you to know that Jesus is my healer and I am trusting Him with this.  And I am thankfully very much at peace on the inside, even in the midst of this struggle. 

He is ever so close to me.

  Thankfully I have enough energy to still be creating something, so I am drawing more rubber and digital images for Whimsy!

 And, I'm really excited about my upcoming rubber release at Whimsy!  It is in a style you may not have seen me do before - I'm not saying what! (heh-heh, teasing)   Sneak peeks begin showing up by the Whimsy Design Team on Th Sept. 30 and continue until the release on Sunday October 3rd. 

I hope to get back to crafting soon.  I'm having serious Card Stock, Copic, Spellbinder, Cuttlebug and Satin Ribbon withdrawals!!  ;-)  heh-heh  naw, but I do miss the fun.

Bless you big time!

EDIT ADDED:
I am on the mend!  When I woke up today it felt like the worst is over.  Still coughing a lot, and weak, but much better than I was. Thank you so much Dear blogging friends who sent well wishes and prayers.  God is good to me! 

Whimsy Back in Business!

After a few days of being temporarily down, the Whimsy Stamp Store is up and running again. Thanks for your patience while they worked behind the scenes to restore the site!

Whimsy

Hey There peeps, just letting you know that if you are trying to shop at the Whimsy store, the site is temporarily down.  Please be patient while Denise and her tech support work behind the scenes to remedy the situation.  We all hope it will be back up soon.
Please go to theWhimy challenge blog or Denise's blog if you want more detailed info.

Oil Painting: Ice Wings

I have an oil painting to share with you today!  I do other forms of art besides cards, and I have decided to begin sharing some of it with you here. 

Oil painting is something I just began practicing.  I had done a couple other practice paintings before this one, but this is the first one that turned out!

I actually did it during the worship service at the church I attend.  I am really lucky that they let me paint during the service!  It is a way of expressing my love for God, just like singing is, and so they welcome that expression.  I sit at a table at the back of the sanctuary and paint there.  

I "saw" this butterfly, in my mind's eye and it looked like there was frost and snowflakes all around it.  It kind of blended into the blue-ish white background of the frost and snow.  I thought, strange, as butterflies do not fly in winter months, at least not up north where I live!  In my imagination, this butterfly's wings looked so frosty and beautiful.  I did my best to capture what I saw in my mind on the canvas here.  The dove above it just sort of "happened" as I was painting it.  One white stroke looked like  wing, and so I went with it. 

I think it is a picture of the impossible - a butterfly alive and well and flying in the winter months in freezing temperatures.  Makes me think of "With God, all things are possible!" And that we can "fly" and be free, no matter which season of life we are in, when we are empowered by the Spirit of God ( as represented by the dove). 

Enjoy. 

God In My Heart

Hello Precious People out there in blogland!
If you are one of my regular visitors (bless you, hugs to you!) then you have come to expect to see a card in every one of my posts.  Well, that is about to change, slightly!
 I have decided to start sharing my heart with you, as that was my original intention for this blog, and why I came up with the title, "Crissy's Art and Heart".  I have shared a lot of my art with you, but not a lot of what is in my heart.
 So from now on, sprinkled in amongst my regular postings which do display my hand drawn images and hand made cards, you will also find my personal heartfelt beliefs, musings and teachings based on my relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has taken up residence within me!
  It will be your choice whether or not you tune in to these posts.  I will not be offended if you don't.  This is first and foremost an act of love and worship to my King, whom I adore.  So in a way, it is really between me and Him.   But at the same time, I am making it public, and inviting you to see what He has done within me.  And if you as my reader are encouraged by that, then He has used it to bless you.  So that will be a double blessing for me!

God is showing me lately just how close He is to me.  I mean, it is incredible, really!
Previously, and really for years, I had bought into so many lies.
 I would look at this person or that person, and based on what I saw them doing, I would assume  that they must be "so close to the Lord".  As an example, I would observe these missionaries who had given up the comforts of the western world to go into the poorest of countries just to help the poor, build orphanages, build schools, feed the hungry, etc.  I automatically judged them as knowing God more than I did, and loving Him more than I was.
I was judging  myself, based on the works I saw them doing, in direct contrast to the works I was doing (or not doing).
And then to make it worse, I began to become very conscious of my own sins.  I mean, I would hear this inner voice hundreds of times a day, reminding me of this old sin, that old mistake, and speaking negatively to me, about me.  I agreed with those thoughts, and felt so burdened!
On top of that, I accepted as truth some misguided teachings by some well-meaning Christians which only re-inforced these ungodly beliefs.  Unfortunately, some people teach that we have to do this, stop doing that, and cut this off and cast that out or we can't call ourselves Christians.  They tend to put the whole emphasis on the works that we do, rather than the completed work of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So basically, I had become very burdened with thoughts of my own failings, my own sins, my own shortcomings.  And I felt this tremendous pressure to measure up to a standard that seemed farther and farther away from the realm of possibility.
I was basically living without joy and without any peace all the time.
Fear began to permeate every part of my life.  I had periods in my life where taking a normal breath was impossible.  This would go on for weeks and even months at a time.  I just could not take a deep breath or sigh when I needed to.  I had so much trouble falling asleep, because there was so much tension in my chest and so much pressure there.  I seriously had forgotten how to breathe, and relaxing was impossible. Needless to say, I was pretty uncomfortable a great deal of the time, and felt quite desperate.

Well.
Jesus had great compassion on me.
In my searching to find some answers as to why this was happening, I decided the one thing I needed was Him, and Him alone.
I guess you could say He began to stir up a hunger in me for the Truth.  I knew in my head that Jesus was the answer.  But I knew also that I was missing something, because I was not experiencing the peace that was supposed to be mine as a believer.  Nor the joy, nor the love for that matter.  And so I went on a quest to find out how to find Him.

Lo and behold
He showed me where He was..
People!  He was in my heart all along!

 I had long ago given my heart and life to Him in faith, believing that Jesus had died for me, forgiven me, and had made me His own.
But I had slipped into agreeing with and accepting ungodly lies about who I was to Him and who He is to me and what my calling really was.  And these ungodly beliefs were preventing me from seeing the Truth about where He was - which was in my heart.
The Gospel in the simplest definition of the word means, "good news".  I had forgotten how good this news really is.  But God has broken this evil mindset I had been walking under, and now, I am seeing the truth, almost as if for the very first time:
All my sins are paid for.
Past, present and future.
Sin is out of the picture now, because of the shed blood of Jesus.   I no longer have to be afraid of punishment or judgement of my sins.  Jesus took them away and cast them away from me as far as the east is from the west (which is a never ending distance).
Because of what Jesus did, I am now a child of God, and will be His for eternity.  I never have to fear God rejecting me.
In fact, I am Loved as much as the Father loves His perfect, sinless son Jesus! In John 17:26, Jesus is praying for all his followers, including you and me!  And He says in that prayer to Father God, "I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."
The love with which God loves Jesus is in us!  And HE is in us!  Jesus Himself is in every believer!!  In this prayer, He stating His intent, to make His amazing love known to us, known in our experience, in our heart, in our emotions, in our minds, in all of who we are!
  He wants in!  In me and in you!  And He wants the same love Father God has for Him to be ours!  Isn't that incredible!
I choose to be the answer to His prayer, by letting Him in, and by letting His love come in! Yes Lord, you may come in! I open my heart to you afresh right now!
So as the days go by, I am meditating on these truths, thinking on them, pondering on them, letting them seep into my heart.  Soaking in them.
I'm using my imagination, to picture Jesus on the inside of me.  And when I do, you know what I see? I see Him smiling as He looks into my eyes.
Not because I've become a missionary and suddenly I'm working day and night to house the homeless and feed the poor.  No.  I am not doing those things right now.  But I am seeing Him smile because I finally BELIEVE and TRUST that He loves me!  And He is not smiling because I believe, as if to reward me for my believing, no!  He is smiling just because He is delighted with me being one of His kids!  Only I can SEE it now, because I believe!!!!!
I am believing in my heart that He is not angry with me.  That He has not rejected me and will not reject me. That I am His Precious child.  A Precious Peep to Him.  Very precious.  (like you are, dear Reader)
And as I  am daily practicing this new belief, I am realizing, wow, my whole outlook is changing.  Peace is coming in and replacing fear!  I am actually experiencing and feeling God's love for me!  Its like a huge Heavenly Hug felt only on the inside of me!
And the best part is, I now know I never have to loose this again.  I never have to go back to the old dead works mentality or "crumbs" mentality, if you will.
I am breathing normally now, and taking deep breaths.  And it sure feels GOOD!
I have so much more to say on this subject, but I will save it for another day.  Just be encouraged today, that if you want to, you also can experience this lasting peace and sense of being loved, just as you are today.  Without having to do any work at all.  If you have invited Him into your heart because you want Jesus to be your Lord and you believe that He died for you, then all you have to do is look inside your heart to find Him smiling at you too.  That is the good news of the Gospel.  You are LOVED.
And if you are reading this and you haven't invited Jesus in yet, what are you waiting for?  He is and has all the love, peace, and joy you have been longing to experience! He made you for Himself - to have as His very own prized son or daughter.... just invite Him in, and receive all He has for you.
He loves you!

Colossians 1:27
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Bless you!

Sundays With Crissy Challenge #9, "Sparkle and Shine"

Edit added below:

Hi Precious Peeps!

My card today was made for a special someone in my family and I look forward to giving it to her.  It is also for my challenge over at Sundays With Crissy.  The theme today is "Sparkle and Shine".   You can't see it well, but I put gold stickles all over the outer edge of the main layer and the swirls for my sparkle, and the rhinestone flourish is my shine.  :-)

The butterfly image is one of my creations for Whimsy and it is one of my latest digital images.  I called it, "These Three Remain".   I called it that because I have the words, "faith, hope and love" on the wings of the butterfly.  And one of my favourite verses in the Bible is, "1 Corinthians 13:13  

and now there doth remain faith, hope, love -- these three; and the greatest ofthese [is] love. 

I printed These Three Remain onto water colour paper and I painted it using my Tim Holtz Distress inks, for a nice change.   I got a plastic palette, and just smudged the ink pad directly onto it to create a "pool" of ink.  And just used water colour techniques to paint.   I got a lot of nice texture in the wings by using a lot of water and dragging my ink filled brush across it in  a striped fashion.  You can see the effect of this esp. on the wing on the left.  I just love how using water colour gives unexpected results!

EDIT:

I forgot to let you know that I have altered my original sketch of the butterfly in Photoshop.  The original Whimsy sells has a few more decorative things on the wings, leaves actually.  I wanted a larger space for the paint to flow and so I brought the image into Photoshop, selected the eraser tool, and erased the lines that made the leaves.  I want to encourage you, that if you purchase one of my images, I give you full permission to alter it, remove lines, add lines, layer it with other images from other companies, flip it, resize it, really anything you want to do with it, the sky's the limit. 

Something I'm not too happy about is the photo:  I find reds and purples the hardest to photograph because the shades never show up correctly.  The ribbon and roses actually do match the main image!  The photo distorted the shades quite a bit.  Oh well!

Here is your close-up:

I hope you'll head on over to my challenge blog and play along!  The challenge runs for an entire month, so there's lots of time to add your card.  You can use any image you like, however, only projects made with one of my digi images counts towards the blog candy!

Have a great long weekend, peeps!

Rose Butterfly

Hello Precious Peeps!  

I was really happy to make this card with my new digital image I call "Rose Butterfly" from Whimsy Stamps.   It is on sale this month at %25 percent off.  And in fact, the sale is storewide on all Whimsy stamps and digi images!  Check it out at the store:

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

Flutter By Wednesdays: open challenge, as long as the image is a butterfly, fairy or angel

Creative Card Crew: Sparkle and Shine (hard to see, but I put M.S. sparkle on the leafy swirls coming out from the flower

The Shabby Tea Room: A Little Bit of Metal (butterfly charm in the bottom left corner)

Stamping Sisters In Christ: Challenge #53 Psalm 56:3

I'm rather proud of my attempt at making a home made flower!  I used a blossom die from Spellbinders.  Sponged some rosey pinks on the edges and spritzed them with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist (cherry I think).  Punched a hole in the middle and added the pearly thing, which was from a package of wedding embellies found at Mike's.  The swrily white leafy things coming from the flower are Tim Holtz pre-punched grunge board, painted with white acrylic paint, and then sprinkled with some Martha Stewart Cabarerra glitter.  I like how it is grainy and white while glittery at the same time. 

Anyhoo, that's enough of the technical stuff!  Sorry, no colour list, but I did use Copics.  I need to get back into the habit of writing them down as I colour!

Here is your close-up: 

God bless you Peeps, thanks for coming by.  

God loves YOU! xo

Sundays With Crissy Challenge #8: My Favourite Time of Year!

Hi Precious Peeps!

Blessings to all of you and thank you for stopping by my blog today!  It has been awhile since I posted.  I’ve been busy this summer!  We have had two weeks of holidays and some of that time was spent camping at Ontario Parks.  We had great weather and lots of fun.  Even my step Mom and Dad joined in, and he’ll be 89 this year!  It was his first time camping since he was a young boy.  He loved it, and I felt SO happy to share that experience with both of them.  What a blessing!

The card I am sharing today is for my challenge over at my other blog, Sundays With Crissy.  The challenge I am posting today is to celebrate your Favourite Time of Year!  So you can make a card or project with this theme in mind. 

Obviously, from the looks of my card, my favourite time of the year is SUMMER!  So I am a happy camper at the moment, with sunny days, time at the beach, in the canoe, on the dock, you name it, I am a summer lover!

 I made this card with Mudzie and Chopper, sitting at the water's edge.  The image is one of my newer ones with Whimsy Stamps and it is called "Great Day To Fish".  

There is nothing like being out on the lake listening to the birds sing and hear the water lap on the shore... it does something wonderful for my inner self.  I think it must be seeing the natural world the way my Lord made it.  Somehow it makes me feel really connected to Him.  Does it do that for you?

I coloured, “Great Day To Fish” with Copics.  (sorry, I don't have the colour list today)  I love doing the water and the old weathered wood on the dock.  It is always fun to do with those markers!

Why not join in the challenge over at Sundays With Crissy?! I have a blog candy prize to give away to one lucky winner who uses one of my digital images in their creation.  But you don’t have to use one of my images, if you just want to play along.

From now on, I will be posting a new challenge at SWC once a month, on the first Sunday of every month.  So there will always be lots of time to join in.  And you can enter as many times as you like! I have a SWEET design team who will really inspire you with their amazing talents!  I hope you check it out!

Bless you big time, and thank you for stopping by today!