Scene Built Watercolor + Happy Thanksgiving + Black Friday Coupons

Happy Thanksgiving! Or Happy Thursday if it's not Thanksgiving where you are! Brace yourselves for pictures of food on the internet.

I'm headed to my mom's house - I'm making prime rib, which I'm super excited about. My post-turkey life is going well!

I made cranberry sauce anyway because I love it. Instead of regular orange juice, I used Evolution Fresh Defense Up juice, which has a touch of acerola cherry and the sauce is phenomenal! I just use a bag of cranberries, 8-10 ounces of orange juice, the zest of one orange, and 2 TBS brown sugar. I cook it until most of the berries have popped. I like mine VERY tart, so feel free to add more sugar.

Cranberries are miraculous - the way they gel is so fun. I wish all fruits did that - think how easy on the spot jams would be!

I bought a few new stamps that speak to my Santa Fe loving heart a few months ago and they've been sitting in my "to be used" bin waiting for my hectic fall travel to end. I like to keep new stamps together on my desk until I've used them before I file them away.

These are scene building stamps that work with other scene building stamps, so I bought the mountain set and the desert set. They work especially well with masking.

This is the order I did everything in.

I stamped the small cactus from the desert set first and masked it. Then I stamped the larger cactus on top of it. Leaving the small cactus masked, I stamped the house and masked that. Then I stamped the mesa from the mountain set three times, masking it twice. You can build endlessly long mountain ranges with these stamps, and angling them differently as I have done here with both the mountains and the cacti make them look like totally different stamps! I painted the sky in Ultramarine Blue, the mesa and ground with my favorite - Hematite burnt scarlet, and the house with Quinacridone deep gold. The cacti are a combo of Undersea Green and Quinacridone Purple.

I'm so glad I had time to paint this this week - I love this imagery. Makes me feel at home in my beloved desert. This whole line is on sale this week - there are some awesome Black Friday sales happening, so I'll list a few coupon codes below my card! You can pick up these and the Daniel Smith at Ellen Hutson's sale.

• Ellen Hutson - 20%-80% off
• Picket Fence Studios - 20% off storewide
• My Sweet Petunia - 25% off storewide
• Organize More - storewide sale.
• Simon Says Stamp - 30% off all Simon brand products - today only.
• Gina K - 25% off storewide
• Paper Smooches - 30% off storewide
• MFT - 35% off storewide
• Concord & 9th - 20% off storewide
• Kawaii Pen Shop - 10% off with code understandblue

I hope your Thanksgiving (or just your weekend) is safe and happy and filled with pie and stretchy pants!

Watercolor Desert, Art Impressions... [ ELH ] Watercolor Mountain, Art Impressions... [ ELH ] The Ultimate Mixing Palette: a World... [ BLR ] Fadeout No Line coloring Detail Ink [ INK ] VersaFine Clair Ink Pad, Nocturne -... [ ELH | SSS ] Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors [ BLIC | ELH ] Escoda Versatil Brushes, Travel Round... [ UTR | BLIC | INK ] Fabriano Extra White Cold Press... [ BLIC ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Nesting Porcelain Bowls - BLICK art... [ BLIC ] My Favorite Watercolor Sketchbook [ UTR ] Tombow MONO MULTI Liquid Glue Two... [ SSS | MFT ] LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ] Sakura CLASSIC WHITE Fine Line 05... [ SSS ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- White [ GNK ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] OrganizeMore! Craft storage made easy! [ ORG ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Essentials by Ellen Storage... [ ELH ] Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets... [ CHC ] XL Stamp Storage Pockets [ ELH ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | ELH | CST | ART ] Mermaid tidy towel case and glue... [ ETS ] Picket Fence Studios - Stickers,... [ PFS ] Sumikko Gurashi Paper Stickers |... [ KWP ]

Happy Thanksgiving! Loveyameanitbye!

Teach the Teacher - With a Habitrail

If you teach classes a lot, which I do, you need to take frequent breaks to be a student. Or, frequent breaks to doodle around on your own outside of your work so your creativity doesn't go poof.

At the end of CREATE in Columbus - we had taught for two days - hundreds of people - a beautiful fairy appeared at the end when we were packing up our booth.

That fairy's name was Kristina Werner.

And that fairy handed me the most adorable make & take from her booth. We had not seen one other booth the whole time, and I was thrilled to see this adorable little kit. They had even done most of the work for me - all I had to do was put it together.

So I said to myself: "Self - when you get home and unpack and catch up on work and do the taxes and pay the bills and do laundry and cook and open a week's worth of mail - YOU ARE GOING TO REWARD YOURSELF WITH THIS LITTLE CARD."

And I did. The sentiment is on a piece cut with their stitched oval dies. This is the patterned paper used.

I had a Habitrail when I was little and a series of hamsters, so I found this bundle exceedingly charming. The matching dies cut openings for the hamsters to stick out of. So cute. Almost makes me want a hamster again. Key word being almost. I am happy with my paper hamsters instead.

This was such a fun break in my day.

Did you have hamsters or do you now? I'd love to hear stories. Loveyameanitbye.

Art Impressions HAMSTER WHEEL CUBBIES... [ SSS ] Art Impressions OVAL DOUBLE STITCHED... [ SSS ] Doodlebug DOWN ON THE FARM Petite... [ SSS ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- White [ GNK ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ] Mudder 10 Pack White Buffer Sanding... [ AMZUS ] Xyron ADHESIVE ERASER 23675 [ SSS | ART | AMZUS ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Cut Align [ MSP ] Ink Off Cloth [ INK ] Essentials by Ellen Storage... [ ELH ] Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets... [ CHC ] XL Stamp Storage Pockets [ ELH ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | CST ]