Tag Archives: creative

Pray & Play 1

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{post 2 in this series} Taking some “time out”, during the busyness before the holidays, to just Pray & Play* was indeed needed, and ended up being a fruitful decision. Playing with Tim Holtz Distress Sprays is a favorite fun way to intuitively create, and get some wonderful backgrounds to use as foundations for finished creations. So that’s where I began. As I added layer upon layer, of inks and other mixed media textures for the backgrounds, inspiration came for taking them to the next step. And finalizing with words of inspiration and focal points. My first start for the… Continue reading →

National Sewing Machine Day

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Today, June 13th, is National Sewing Machine Day! If you have on clothes that you didn’t hand stitch together, thank Elias Howe, Isaac Singer, and other sewing machine inventors. If you want a creative, relaxing, productive hobby, try sewing. Especially consider an old treadle machine, if you’re just wanting hobby sewing, rather than becoming a clothing seamstress. If you are a seamstress or creative, or love sewing machines or antiques, take a browse through my collection. And enjoy a little Soul Care! Here are my ladies. Each picture has a description under it. My current fave to use lately is… Continue reading →

Matchbook Pocket Folio Tutorial

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I’ve got yet another style of “pocket” tutorial for you today! I think I could do a different style every week for a year—actually much longer, and still not run out of fun and unique ideas. In this project, we’re going to create several gusseted pockets, and put them together, accordion style, in a Matchbook Folio. These are reminiscent of accordion files to me—only miniaturized! And so much cuter! These folios are great for organizing small ephemera, snippets, tags, or paper scraps, or for filling with those things or other goodies to give to others. I used book pages for… Continue reading →

Triple Pocket Altered Envelope

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What can you do with a business sized window envelope and a digital printable? Make this beautiful Triple Pocket Altered Envelope! Plenty of pockets for Journaling Cards and Tags of various sizes. Note those tabs, from a post earlier this month. Watch for video tutorial. Coming soon! Beauty from Ashes! Make some every day. And enJOY! We want to see what you make! Subscribe and comment here. Join one of my Creative Communities a share a picture there: Freely Whole Creative Community at MeWe or Facebook, or follow me on Instagram @freelywhole and tag me #freelywhole Living Coram Deo &… Continue reading →

Soul Care and Giving

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Sometimes our creating isn’t just for our own soul care, but to also bring joy to others. “With the same comfort you’ve received, comfort others.” The thing with creating not exclusively for our own joy/ soul care/ therapy is that we can then get pulled back into overthinking, over-functioning, overwhelm and stress. The opposite of the reasons we are creating. But we want things to be “nice” and “perfect” for others. What to do? What to do? One solution is to keep your creativity for your own expression, not for giving nice handcrafted gifts. But many of us want to… Continue reading →

Bank Envelope Double Pocket

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I see a lot of different envelope pockets made for Junk /Eclectic Journals and Traveler’s Notebooks. But I’ve never seen any made from bank envelopes. That’s the type of envelope we seem to get the most of around here, so I wanted to have a play and see what I can do with them. I’ve come up with a few designs, and today’s post and video introduce you to the first. A Double Pocket, that can become a Triple Pocket when added to a journal page. These pockets are super easy to make, fast, and require very few supplies. If… Continue reading →

Cards from Printables

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It’s rare that I make cards with print-outs. I’ve got too big of a stash of patterned papers; and I love inking, stenciling, stamping and die-cutting. But occasionally I have a design in mind and printables are the perfect option. It’s still a satisfying creative endeavor, but usually quite simple to actually make. Find, size and print the images. Cut them out. Yeah, that’s the tricky part. There’s a reason I hate fussy cutting. I can’t do it. No matter how much I try and practice, I can’t get a smooth cut. Therefore, my Brother Scan ‘n Cut is a… Continue reading →

Creative Play

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This past weekend, my kids were all busy elsewhere and I was looking forward to some Creative Play time. I have some projects I’m wanting to work on, but I really just felt like playing. No end envisioned. No completed projects to figure out. No real thinking. Just play! Making it a perfect time to work on backgrounds! It’s been a while since I’ve pulled out my Dylusions acrylic paints. I love them, but my go-to is usually ink pads, rather than paints.So, out came the acrylic paints.Paper towels/ dried out baby wipes, rewetted.Mixed Media cardstock.A few stencils. And the… Continue reading →