Createwings Designs

Happy New Year! Featured in Art Journal Caravan & A Coupon Givaway! Mixing it Up 3

Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday.  We have been busy here too.  We traveled and celebrated Christmas with our family this year. It was really wonderful to be with our family during the holiday. My Brother was able to come and spend a few days with us too.  My boys had so much fun with everything.  Tonight we are all geared up for New Years... we are relaxing, having our favorite Pizza (canadian bacon and black olive), playing our new Wii, watching a movie and then hoping to see the ball drop at midnight! I love New Years!

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New Year Coupon Giveaways! Ends January 5th

I did a few giveaways on New Years day but I have one more Givaway that will end on January 5th!

Post a comment here telling me one of your New Year Resolutions and I will randomly choose 3 more winners on January 5th.

I LOVE to read your comments it puts a huge smile on my face....

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Things to watch out for!

After New Years I will be working on a New Collab... I'm so excited for this one!!!

I will be having my first Public Creative Team Call soon.

I'm working on a new Creative Team Member Page here on my Blog... so you all can meet my wonderful creative team... I've been wanting to do this for so long and they all deserve it!

Keep your eye out for some new blinkies :)

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The Art Journal Caravan Expedition 2010 by Tangie at SBG

I'm a featured artist in the Navigation Guide

Join in the fun!

I have some News I would like to share with you all too!  If you have read any of my Mixing it Up posts you may know that I have a love for Altered Journaling.  I used to actively journal on a daily basis and I also created my own journals by hand.  Well my path crossed with a wonderful and very kind woman recently named Tangie Baxter she has a store at SBG. About a month ago I came across a post of hers about finding other Altered Artists at DST and I usually don't post at DST very often but thought why not?  So I did and it opened a door for me as she asked if I wanted to be a featured artist in her new very exciting project called the Altered Journal Caravan {expedition 2010}.  I was thrilled to be asked as this art form is close to my heart.  So I gathered up some of my hand journaled pages and sent them into her and she also interviewed me.  I am very honored to be a part of this project and it looks so exciting that I hope to follow the 52 week journey when I can too!!  It is for paper and digital! So anyone can join in the fun!  Take a moment to check it out as I find much joy in Journaling as it has been a big part of my journey as an artist.

Here is the previews for it...

 

With your membership you also get this Navigation Guide that I'm one of the Featured Artists.

Mixing it Up #3

Here is a little peek of one of my favorite pages that is featured in the Art Journal Caravan Navagation Guide that comes with your membership...

I will also combine this post as the 3rd part of my Mixing it Up Series on my blog since I have been using some of my pages for it.

This page is about me being sort of what I call a verbal Neurotic LOL!!  I have found at times in my life I have had the need to communicate all my feelings or sort of wear them on my sleeve for all to see most of the time.  I expressed here how I felt I was continuing to give away my power in many situations by always having the need to talk... silence can be good at times and this is a page about my journey discovering this about myself.  Learning to be a better listener to others has helped me a lot in life.

One of the things that I love about altered journaling is the ability to "freely" express myself I find it therapeutic.  I have signed up for the Altered Journal Caravan and hope to participate in it through out the 52 weeks as I have missed this form of expression in my life. 

So one of my New Years Resolution is to participate in this journey!  I can't wait as it always seems that life is so busy.  I really want to make time for this even if I do it digitally.

The cut out words that surround the page say...

FIND...

Find a way back. Find a way Forward.

Find out what makes you feel most alive,

and then find ways to give it to your self often.

Find the real questions before you worry about finding the answers.

When you cant find what you're looking for, find the stength to keep on searching.

Eventually, you will find what you need.

Find lots of women whose company you enjoy and,

in the end, find yourself.

These words are from the book

365 words of Well- Being for Women by Rachel Snyder

(love this book) :)

I also want to share a photo of my journal that I made from scratch by hand. This is the one I use for my Altered Journaling. I actually went to a specialty leather shop when I lived in Portland, OR and bought a huge sheet of leather that I use for my journals.  I use a wood burn tool and special paint to paint them.

Journal handmade by Dawn Vander Stoep

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New Year Freebie by Catherine Designs

I also wanted to share something from my Good Friend Catherine.... She has a gorgeous Happy New Year word art Freebie on her blog today using her fantastic new Merry Alpha. She is such an amazing generous and kind friend... So head on over there and Grab it. I'm sure she would love to hear from you too... I am so happy to be working with such good friends at After Five Designs... What a wonderful way to start off the new year... I can't wait for what this year will bring...

Wow I didn't realize how much I wanted to say in this post... I guess it's good to go out of 2009 with a bang LOL!

Best wishes to you all for a Happy New Year filled with Happiness, Laughter and Good Health!!

Love and Light,

Dawn

PS: I now have Google Friend Connect on my Blog and I'm really have fun with it as I've been discovering new blogs through it and getting to know you all a bit more... I would love it if you signed up...

Mixing it Up - 2

As I promised here is my second post of my new "Mixing It up" Series

I thought I would share with you one of my Altered Journaling pages I created a while ago.

Before becoming a digital scrapbooking designer I spent a lot of my creative time playing with different art mediums and one of my favorite forms of expression is Altered Journaling.  I loved it so much I even learned how to create my very own journals to "play" in.  I thought I would sell them one day, but they ended up moving from place to place with me and then just recently I realized that I have become attached to them so now I have been using them for different projects in my life.

I want to share with you all one of my favorite books and how it has inspired me.

"Spilling Open"

The art of becoming yourself

by: Sabrina Ward Harrision

If you want to learn more about the book I have linked it up to the Somerset Studio's shop where you can see some additional pages and read about it.

What I loved most about this book is her ability to express herself. Her art is raw and unpolished and each page has this feeling of creative freedom. I love how she can capture moments in life with her little bits of heartfelt journaling spread throughout her pages.

I am not really a messy person, actually I am a bit of a perfectionist. Oh don't get me wrong my house is not perfect or anything like that, but with certain things in my life I live for the "details".  I think this was another reason I was drawn to Sabrina's work.  I wanted that release from my daily perfectionism especially in my art... and so I "gave myself permission" to be messy to just have fun and express myself.

Here is a page from my very own journal.

Here are close ups of both of the pages

I think there is an artist in all of us and that many are too quick to judge what art really is.  As long as you are enjoying yourself and giving yourself permission to "have fun" and release all the "expectations" and  "judgments"  you are putting on yourself.  You never know where it could lead you...  Like for me when I created this journal page would have never in a million years thought I would be doing what I am today.  All I knew is I had a passion for anything creative and I wanted to express myself. 

So today maybe you can give yourself "permission" to do something totally different!  It can be big or small... If your scrapbooking maybe try something that would stretch you... if your a "clean" scrapper maybe get messy!  A great way to try something new is to find an inspirational page and do a scrap lift.  It could be a new recipe... Or maybe just giving yourself permission to relax and take a nice quiet bubble bath (that sounds so good)...just be sure to try not to judge yourself so much and to have fun with it ;)

I would love to hear of something different you want to try... or even just say hello as I love getting comments from you all... it makes me happy.

Hope you all are having a wonderful week!

I will be back next week with another "Mixing It Up" post :)

Mixing it up

I have a new goal and I really am going to try to do my best to keep up with it.  I have always wanted to make this blog more than what it is.  I never really intended it to be just about my designs... I want it to have more of a voice.  I don't mean like going on and on about my day to day stuff.. I got Facebook and Twitter for that!  LOL.  But what I really want is to mix this place up a little and share things that inspire me that may inspire YOU. 

I've been an artist for over 10 years and I am self taught.  In the beginning creating art didn't just come easy for me, but what was different is that I had a strong passion to learn. I also get board easily so I was always trying new and different mediums; from making miniature mohair bears to watercolor painting I've tried a little bit of everything.

I also love positive inspiration... things that lift me up and make me think about my day differently.  Life can sometimes be hard and I think we all have our good and bad days.  Many times even somthing as simple as a quote or song can sometimes change the energy of my day into something more positve.

With all that said... I hope you will go on this journey with me. I'm a mom of two small boys (2 and almost 5) they can keep me really busy but,  I want to try and post here at least once a week. 

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So here is something small that I want to share...

I used to live in this town called Bellingham Washington... It is where my husband grew up. It's on the water and a very beautiful place. There I met some artist friends that really changed my life and one of them Deb Taylor is one of the most amazing and free spirited women I have ever met... She also has a wonderful inspirational artsy blog...we have been friends for around 12 years and I knew that our paths were meant to cross as she has been a big influence in my life.  She has such a  wonderful book collection. Several of them Spoke to me and I now own them too!  One of them I would like to share with you as it's words have inspired me many times. Deb, I'm sending you a special thank you for being YOU!

The book is called 365 Words of Well Being for Women by Rachel Snyder

The pages are broken up with main words as titles.

Here is a part from one entry that I love.

DARE

Dare to make waves. Dare to ask Why? When no one else will. Dare yourself to walk into that restaurant alone. Dare to introduce yourself. Dare to be happier than you ever thought possible. Dare to be different. Be really different! Dare to be as flamboyant, as brilliant, as sexy, as funny, as terrific as you really are. Dare to push your own envelope. Dare to be first. Dare to suggest it's time for a change, then dare to lead the way. Dare to be vulnerable, dare to be real. Dare to proclaim This is who I am, and dare anyone to believe otherwise. Dare to claim your own power and to stand firmly rooted in your own truth. Go ahead.I dare you.

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I will see you all next week :)

((hugs))

Dawn