A Little Birdie Told Me . . .

Hi EPeeps!  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! I made this little guy while sitting with my good crafty friends last week and catching up after a couple of months of crazy!  It is amazing how just a couple of hours of creating something makes me feel like I am ready to tackle the world again!! I know we are all ready to gear up and officially start the holiday season, just remember to take time for yourself and make some great art this season! I hope you enjoy my little bird from my 'artsy' day!

I started off by recycling this little frame that I found at Goodwill.  I loved how it was just a little box, waiting to be re-created and it was only .50 cents!  I gessoed it and then covered it wtih the ADORABLE Fancy Pants Happy Go Lucky Paper!!  SO pretty!!  

I cut out the bird, some flowers and a stem! Then I used my FAVORITE Matte Medium to glue them all into place! I used teal paint to paint the sides and distress ink to distress the edges! 

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I chose the ticket from the Fancy Pants Happy Go Lucky ticket pack and glued it to the edge.  I loved the sentiment, Life is Short, Choose to be Happy!  SO great!

Doodles and Washi Tape finished off the project!

Thank for stopping by today!! Go, procrastinate from something you have to do today and create . . . 

OR

 Stop by the GRAND OPENING of the Eclectic Paperie Store in New Hampshire!! From 10 -1 there will be make 'n takes, giveaways and light refreshments . . . if Atlanta was only a little bit closer, I would be there to celebrate with Kim! I am definitely sending amazing GOOD LUCK vibes and am there in spirit!!

- Karen

Peace

Hello friends!! Hope you all here in the US had a great Thanksgiving time, time for turkey sandwiches and leftover, wink, wink!!

Today I want to show a different Christmas card, I call it "CAS Mixed Media card" I had a lot of fun making this card, super flat {think about easy mailing} and easy to mass produce, if you decide to go that way, just cut out all of paper pieces and stamp your heart out!!

Here are the details:

• Make a card base from Ivory Cardstock. A2 size.
• Cut a piece of Patterned Paper from "Twelve days of Christmas" by Graphic 45, size 3.75" x 5".
• Use you Mini chicken wire reverse stencil and apply Metallic Gold and Snow cap  Dabber Acrylic Paints. Set aside to dry for a couple of minutes.(clean your stencil)
• Now, take the circle images from  "Strictly Sentiments 3" WPlus9 and stamp randomly on you patterned paper piece, here I use Broken China Distress, Barn Door Distress, Mustard Seed Distress, Olive Archival.
• Stamp sentiment in Jet Black archival.
• Spray Dylussions Melted Chocolate and Perfect Pearls Mist Sunflower Sparkle (I did it super gently and for a far distance), this will give your card a very nice shimmery look.
• Cut a strip piece, adhere it to panel and cover it with Glossy Accents, then add Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter.
• Add score tape to your back panel and adhere it to card base, then add Glossy Accents to small circles.

Hope you like it!
Have a fantastic day!

Giovana

Sunset on Canvas

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Well, those that celebrate it!  My kids are just excited to have a break from school!  They don't fully understand the meaning behind Thanksgiving!

Anyway, on to the art!  Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of joining some of my Ohio friends at a scrapbooking gathering for a whole weekend!  I did mixed media all weekend and had a blast!  One of the things that I created was a sunset canvas!  I was looking through all of my stencils, and I thought I could do something w/ my new(er to my collection) Tim Holtz sunset Rays stencil!

Here's the picture that I found on google images that I used for inspiration:


















And here's my interpretation.  From my phone, the golds of the inspiration photo didn't really come through!  It looks rather different now that I'm looking at it on here!!  Oh well!

To create the sky background, I used a multitude of Distress Inks:  Iced Spruce and Weathered Wood that I sponged on in a horizontal swing motion.  Same w/ the yellows and then tried to blend the grays and yellows together.  The yellows: Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, and Wild Honey (towards the bottom).

To create the sunbeams, I placed my Rays stencil over the center of the canvas and sponged the Weathered Wood lightly and then darker to create the effect I was going for.  I used the same ink to create the clouds.  I freehand cut the clouds to mimick the inspiration photo clouds.  I sponged Squeezed Lemonade and Mustard Seed on the tops of the clouds.  I went over the central part of the large cloud, as well as the sun w/ a gold metallic paint pen.  (The flash from my camera really highlights the sun!  Bonus!!!)

I am not comfortable creating water in a mixed media style, so I chose to do an open field instead!  Easy peasy w/ black gesso and a paint brush and upward strokes to create long prairie grasses!

Have a wonderful day!
Erin

Heart & Soul

Hello everyone!  Ivette here ready to share another Tim Holtz project that I completed.  This one was also alot of fun. 

This is a 5x5 configuration box (which is supposedly discontinued).  I ripped up pieces of Tim's Tissue Wrap and adhered them to the box using Glue N' Seal.  I removed the lid to attached the Pulley Wheels. 

The heart was made of paper mache.  Using Metal Foil Tape which I had cut into pieces and covered the front of the heart and sides.  The Sprocket Gears were painted with white acryllic paint and adhered to the box with a glue gun.  The Man with the Umbrella die was cut out of white Shrink Plastic.

Here I used Tim's faux riveting technique which you can find in his books, "Compendium of Curiosities Vol. I & II".  We used a big push pin to make the holes.  I added chicken wire to my heart and the word, "hope". 

 Lots of Tim Holtz's Idea-ology products were used as well as Distress Inks and Alcohol Inks.

 Industrial Chic charms, the hand coming out of the heart that holds a ring.

 Art-i-Cake charms such as that tall crown which I placed on top and the bent spoon with the word "Art" on the side.



I used the Tiny Attacher to make the "X" which gives the appearance of stitches.  I painted the staples with a black Copic Pen.   
I hope you all enjoyed my piece and don't forget to come over to my place and keep up with me by joining my blog, "Escaping Understanding".  I'll look forward to seeing you there.



Thinking of You Sympathy card

Hello, everyone!  It's Broni here with you today.

Recently I needed several sympathy cards.  I really don't like making them, mostly because of the sadness associated with them, but I'm also not sure how somber or how cheerful they should be.  So I tried to come up with a design that incorporated both of those elements and then I created a few of them to keep on hand.  I supposed they could be used as "Feel better" cards as well.

Here's the finished card:

I started with a standard 8.5 x 5.5 piece of gray cardstock (half a sheet).  I already had several rectangles of white cardstock on hand, and laid one on top of the gray to see what angle I wanted for the top layer.  I lightly marked the top and left side edges with a pencil and cut along those lines.

Then I used my Tiny Circles stencil and some gray ink to create  a section of small gray dots along the left edge of the white layer.  They almost look like rain drops.

Next I took my Fresh Cut Florals die set from WPlus9 and ran it through my die cutting machine several times with some white cardstock.  I like having several cut and ready to use, and I keep the extras in a tiny plastic bag with the die set for future use.

I used several different Distress inks to stamp some of the flowers and leaves from the Fresh Cut Florals set, then played around with the layouts until I came up with one that I liked.  I also used some Evergreen Bough ink to stamp the sentiment.  (Love that color!)

So that's how I came up with my a little somber/a little cheering sympathy card.  I hope you like it!  Thanks so much for stopping by today!

It's a Wonderful Life

 

Hi all!!  It's Kim today with a project that I'm really hoping I haven't shared with you yet...LOL!  That's what happens when you create a bunch of projects and then fail to post them.  You can't remember which ones you posted and which ones you still need to post!

When Tim first introduced his burlap panels, one of his samples included some of his Distress Paints and I absolutely loved the look and the color combo.  Once I finally got my hands on some of the panels, I did a big 'ol CASE to create this project!

I started by putting down a few pieces of tissue tape and then applying some random spots of gesso, using a palette knife.  This gives the paint something to "cling" to when it's applied.  Once the gesso was dry, I stamped a sentiment (from Tim) on to a #8 Manila Tag (using Jet Black Archival Ink), attached it to the panel and then used the sponge dabber top to add some Distress Paints all over the panel...even on the burlap itself.

 Once the Distress Paint was dry,  I layered a piece of filmstrip, overlapping the tag.  I then added my photo, black and white is perfect for such a colorful tag, and then added a bunch of Tim embellies!  The metal key was aged with more Distress Paint.  The tag was from my stash.

I had some of these tiny bottles in my stash and I added some random pieces of designer paper to give the bottles that "note in a bottle" look.  Tiny pieces of twine around the neck of the bottle was a perfect finishing touch.

My last step was to stamp these sentiment, from the Way With Words stamp set, on a manila tag.  I then cut the words apart and inked the edges with a blending tool and Gathered Twigs ink.  Cutting the sentiment apart allowed me to put the words where they fit best.

I hope you enjoyed today's project!  Supply list below:

Burlap Panels

Way With Words

Distress Paint (Seedless Preserves, Broken China, Wild Honey...my fav combo)

Manila Tag

Blending Tool

Distress Ink (Gathered Twigs)

Film Strip Ribbon

Metal Keys

Tissue Tape

Cards with Authentique Natural

Hello Ep-er's!!! I am here to share one of my FAVE paper lines... Authentique's Natural

I love the distressed look of these papers and the gorgeous color combo. These papers are super fantastic and so versatile. You can use them for masculine or feminine projects. 

I'm not usually into 6x6 but I HAD to have these. And what might you do with 6x6 papers....make cards of course. 

Since it was my Step father's birthday I wanted to make him a hand made card. Although I'm not a big card maker, there is something to be said about the time and thoughtfulness that goes into a hand made card. Sooo...I really try hard to make hand made cards for all my family.

I loved the ruggedness of this stamp that I picked up from the Heirloom stamp show. The best part about using a stamp is that you can make the image coordinate to whatever paper that you want!!!

I colored the stamp using various colors of Timmy Distress Ink and a water pen. You can see a complete list of the colors below.

I used the idea-ology mini fasteners to add just a touch of bling. The title is cut from some of the back of the scrap paper using my Silhouette Cameo.

This next card was made for my girlfriend at work and her family who suffered a very big loss this year.

The notebook paper was perfect and I love the way it coordinated with the mustard color paper which I used for my die cuts. The twine is a gorgeous honeydew green and the writing is a Tim Holtz Distress marker in Chipped Sapphire. 

***Crafty Andie's hot tip***

Store the markers on their sides. It helps to prevent them from drying out.

I hope you decide to indulge in this paper line as it is FABULOUS!!!!! 

Until next time....

{{hugs}}

Andiepants

Let the good times roll canvas

Hello everyone! It's Bonnie here today with a fun little 4"x4"x1.5" chunky canvas I created for a swap with a couple of friends. I love this size because, although the face is small, there's lots of real estate on the sides to play around with. It also stands by itself so makes a wonderful shelf sitter. I started  the background by scribbling pink, red, and orange watercolour crayon randomly over the canvas. I spread these with gesso in my brush instead of water which gives a lovely blended effect. Once dry, I intensified the colour with red, watermelon, tangerine and hot pink gelatos smudged on here and there and spread with a damp finger. Now we're talking serious colour!

The words were printed from the computer onto French book paper which was then torn around and matted with torn black cardstock. Here are the three sides of the chunky canvas which show the message: Laissez les bon temps rouler (Let the good times roll) ... the mantra for Mardi Gras.

After drying time, I applied Studio 490 Gold Embossing Paste through the Dylusions Diamond of a Border stencil onto the face and sides of the canvas. Since I was going for a Mardi Gras theme, I wanted the richness of the gold next to the red...yummy! One side of the diamonds was outlined with black pen to emphasize the pattern, depth and to add contrast. A splattery dot stamp from TH was applied to the background using Jet Black Archival ink and I used the top of my Mini Mister dipped into gesso to make the small white rings. I give it a slight twist onto the canvas when I am setting down the rings.

The image is by Rick St. Dennis and is called Carnivale Masque. He was coloured with my well loved Prismacolor pencils, fussy cut, and matted in black cardstock. Foam tape was used to pop him up slightly. The legs were cut off two music note brads and they were adhered next to him with Glossy Accents and foam dots. An MFT banner die was used to cut the bunting adhered to the top left corner.

A combination of letter and shiny metallic beads were strung on jewellery wire. The beads were glued to the canvas using Glossy Accents and the remaining wire was wrapped to the back and twisted in place. Two tiny scraps of torn black cardstock were adhered under the letters for emphasis. To further deepen the colour on the edges of the front and sides,  red Big Brush pens were run along them and smudged while still wet. This gives less of a definite line and feathers the colour out.

And that's it for this fun little mixed media colour-fest. I hope you have enjoyed visiting today. I do thank you for your visit and kind comments. Maybe you'll feel inspired to have a play with some of your favourite products like I did today.

Bonnie

Liquitex Acrylic Gesso	Faber Castell Gelatos - Red Colors	Faber Castell - Gelatos - Yellow Colors	Faber Castell - Gelatos - 50′s Diner
Faber Castell - Big Brush Pens - Red	Wendy Vecchi - Studio 490 - Embossing Paste - Metallic Gold	Dylusions Stencil 5x8" - Diamond of a Border	Inksessentials - Mini Mister 3-Pack
Archival Ink - Jet Black Ink Pad	Inkssesentials - Glossy Accents 2 oz.