A Little Spring in Your Step!

I am so excited that spring is almost here!! I can't wait to work at my art desk and stare out at green trees and grass instead of boring brown and gray!  Here is a little happy bunny picture that I made - I mean what doesn't say spring more than cute bunnies and bunting flags!!

 

"Begin each day with a little courage, a little curiosity, and a little spring in your step!"

I always start off with my sketchbook.  I knew I wanted a bunny, I just didn't know what type to draw.

For Christmas my mom gave me a box of pieces of wood 'canvas' pieces! I must be really easy to please because this was one of the best Christmas presents!!   I used one of these wood pieces as my base.  I took some teal paint and mixed it with white and covered the whole piece with the teal/white mix.  Then I used the Chevron Grunge stencil with just teal to create my background!

Next I took out the Simple Stories Daily Grind Paper.  I cut out the triangles for bunting and tore the green for the grass.  I used gel medium and glued all the pieces down. 

After the paper was dry I took my Wendy Vecchi embossing paste and made little circles with my fingers.  After the paste dried I painted it with coordinating colors!  Love how the embossing paste gives me some texture to my project!

I printed out a little saying, "Begin each day with a little courage, a little curiosity, and a little spring in your step!"  Then I doodled and used some rub-ons to finish the project!! 

 

 I hope you all have a very happy day and a wonderful weekend!!  Thank you SO much for stopping by the Eclectic Paperie today! Make sure to check out all the wonderful products that I used for this project!

-Karen

http://ijustneedmoreglue.blogspot.com/

Tiny Things Trinket Box

Hi, Lucy here, for my final Guest Designer project. I wanted to make something that would really showcase the gorgeous Tim Holtz Tiny Things stamp set and I thought this trinket box with its recessed or inlaid section on the lid, would be perfect. I also wanted to use his French Industrial papers which I used for the Tart Tin last week, but this time using the plainer designs and building up layers of stamping in co-ordinating inks, again with a Paris theme. For the tiles I've used Tim's Fragments acrylic pieces from my stash, but if you don't have any of these, why not use chipboard tiles and glaze them with UTEE?

To start off I removed the clasps, sanded the box, painted it red, inside and out, and cut the papers to fit all of the sections.  I stamped all the pieces with the large background stamp from the Tim Holtz Memoirs set, and also his Harlequin stamp I've had for years. I used StazOn in Jet Black and Blazing Red but I didn't really like the red as it was too pink so I switched to using the paint I'd used on the box, dabbing it onto the stamp with cut n dry foam. 

I glued all my pieces in place with Gel Medium. I used an unstamped strip of the paper between the lid and the edge to break up the design a little. I coloured my clasps and hinges with alcohol ink and screwed them back on.

For the tiles on the lid I stamped a selection of the stamps from Tim's Tiny Things set and also the face of the man from the Memoirs set onto some of the plainer paper from the French Industrial papers and glued the Fragments to them with Glossy Accents. I cut round them then edged them with gold pen. I arranged them on the lid and added some metal photo corner charms which I had rubbed with a bit of white paint.

I finished off the box with some gold crown charms for feet! 

Thank you for having me here at Eclectic Paperie: it's been such fun, and your kind comments have meant so much!

Vintage Passion

Good Morning Folks!

Donna-Marie here to share my new journal spread.

Many of you know that I adore vintage clothing, fabrics, patterns and styles.

Well these journal pages were the inspiration and are dedicated to that passion.

Here is how they started ...

I love my Aquarelle Water Soluble Crayons... 

I just scribble and wet...

I used a baby wipe to help me blend the colors better.

I wanted to add some bright green to the open areas so I mixed water and Key Lime Silk Paints in a spray bottle to make a soft shimmery wash (Thank you Donna Downey for that idea!!).  I also used Fresh Lime Dylusions Spray (later you will see the Higgins India Ink).

This is the base I worked from...now it is time to add the details

I used my Gel Medium and added an old print I printed out on my computer and a picture of an old shoe I cut from a calendar.  I also added Wendy Vecchi's Translucent Modeling Paste through my new TCW Peacock Doily Stencil.  I let that all dry!

Then I took a baby wipe again and moved the water soluble media around again.  This enhanced the stenciled designs. 

I stamped Dyan Reaveley Couture design on G45 Bohemian Paper and fussy cut them out.  I adhered them with more Gel Medium.  I also added some of the left over scrapes to the left side.

I added some Tim Holtz Rub Ons and splats of Black India Ink.  The splats did not really seem to work ...so luckily I was able to wipe some of them away with a baby wipe :-)

The baby wipe mixed with the black India Ink really toned down a lot of the brightness.  I also added my sentiment stamped on more Bohemian G45 Paper.  I tore it and applied it with Gel Medium.

I felt like it still needed a pop of color so I grabbed my Blue/Purple Gelato sticks,...smeared and rubbed!!

close-ups

 

I hope you enjoyed my journey...thanks for stopping by!! Be sure to check out all the highlighted supplies and media so that you can have fun along with us here at eclectic Paperie!!



Embracing Imperfection - An Altered Bottle

 Hi, Lucy here, with my first project as Guest Designer for August. As I first crossed your path with the EP Altered Bottle challenge I thought, 'Stick with what you know, Lucy!', although today's offering is a very different style, with a Parisian theme and shades of blue. It started off as this empty glass bubble bath bottle:-

 
I used blue acrylic paint round the edges, then crackle, then white acrylic paint all over:-

I roughly drew around the bottle onto tissue paper to create two circles for each side of my bottle. I used different shades of StazOn to stamp layers of images from the sets Tiny Things and Paris Memoirs finishing off with the Frenchman from Paris Memoirs on one piece and the Eiffel Tower on the other in Black, as my focal images. I then applied them to the bottle using Gel Medium, and blended some Distress Ink in Chipped Sapphire and Shaded Lilac around the edges of the bottle to highlight its round shape and frame it.

I mixed blue acrylic paint with embossing paste and spread it through TCW Distressed Harlequin Stencil and highlighted the raised areas with some watered down Viva Ferro on a brush. I picked the Tim Holtz wordband 'Embrace Imperfection' and rubbed some white acrylic paint into the wording to highlight and attached it to a piece of chain to go round the neck of the bottle, in the style of an old port decanter.

I bid for some decanter stoppers on ebay and this beautiful blue one led my colour choices for this project, as I used it to replace the original plain one, as a finishing touch.

Art Journal Play ……Dina Style

Hi everyone! 
Micki here to share an art journal page which was inspired by the awesome Dina Wakley.   
Generally my art journals have just art, a couple of stamped words and maybe a short sentence, but no real journaling.  I’ve never been really good at putting my thoughts to paper and making it sound good.  Too worried about spelling, grammar and then there is the “not liking my handwriting” thing. 
I’m taking part in Life Book 2013 and Dina Wakley contributed a bonus lesson this week.  

After watching the lesson, I was so inspired to not worry about my handwriting, or my grammar or spelling because it basically gets covered up.  I learned all of this back in March when I took several of her classes in Oklahoma City, but like a good movie, I always pick up something that I missed the first time.  Anyway, so I put pen to paper and journaled my thoughts, not worrying about it making sense or sounding right, or spelling or even the handwriting.  I actually exaggerated my handwriting.   I video taped it and did my first video editing in iMovie so I know I have a lot to learn.  Especially about zooming in, but you can still see what I do.

I used lots of paints;  from Distress Paints, Distress Stain, Dylusions Ink Spray and Adirondack Paint Dabbers to Golden Fluid Acrylics and Faber-Castel Gelatos.  I also raided the kitchen and bathroom, looking for different sized bottle caps.  So much fun, and honestly after journaling and putting my troubles to paper, which hopefully no one can read (but I know what I wrote), I felt so much better. 

First I'll share the end result and then the video.

The page on the right was an earlier page which I'm not quite sure I'm finished with.  But girls, I had so much fun and my page was done in under an hour!  Really!  And that is a record for me.

 And now the video:  

Sure hope it works. And again, so sorry about not zooming in.  What can I say I got lost in the moment.
A couple of things in the video:

• The page already had a thin coat of Claudine Hellmuth Gesso on it.  I actually prep several pages at a time, that way I'm always ready to go.  I had also used the page as my stencil-stamp-brush cleaner which is why you will see that the page already had some color/design on it.
• Cleaning off the stencils (on the white copy paper) with a baby wipe turned out pretty cool.  I'm so keeping that.
• I dabbed the Distress Paint in the upper corner and then picked up paint with my stamp from that puddle.
• I added a light layer of paint to my stamp using my finger, slightly spritzed it with water and then stamped randomly. Gave a very faint impression. 
• An old toothbrush cleans stamps fabulously.  Gets all the paint out of the crevices.  (The only time I am OCD about cleaning stamps is when using paint.)
• At the end, you'll see me testing the gelato colors, I was trying to see which color would work best.
• I went back and added stickles to the collar, which was a piece of white doily.
• The title and date were added using watered down fluid acrylics and a fine line applicator.

I hope you were inspired to play.  Art is definitely cheaper than therapy :-).

Supplies Used:

InLinkz.com