Sprays, Paint, Baby Wipes and the last Wednesday in May

What do Sprays, Paint, Baby Wipes and the last Wednesday in May all have in common?

My last post as guest designer for May.

Hello again, Ruby Craft here. First thing I want to share is how much I have enjoyed this month on the eP blog. I enjoy challenges, they bring out my crafty, creative side. Kim has given me the opportunity to work with some new products that I have not used before has made this a fun challenge. When I started thinking about my final project, I knew I wanted to make a scrapbook page and try a few things I hadn't tried before. I've seen quite a few designers using baby wipes to apply product and decided it was time to give it a try. I usually don't use sprays and paints on scrapbook pages either, so I wanted to try them too. When I first saw the Alphabet Stamp from Catherine Scanlon Designs,  I thought of my grandson, Jasper, and how much we enjoy reading together. So naturally I wanted to use the stamp again too because that is what my scrapbook page is about. Reading with my grandson, Jasper.

First I started with the Prima Finnabair Elemental Stencil  and Color Bloom Spray. Always shake the spray well. The stencil I used is Weaving. I placed it randomly around the page and sprayed the Vintage Metal Gold Foil Color Bloom Spray through the stencil. This left some spray on the surface of the stencil. So I flipped the stencil over and pressed it down on the page. Then I removed the stencil and randomly spritzed the page. In a few more spots I pointed the sprayer down and just lightly squeezed the trigger repeatedly to get splatters instead of a spray. (You have to be very patent with the splatter part, if you squeeze too hard it sprays instead of splatters.) After the some of the splatters I tilted the page so I would have a few gold drips too.

The next step was to use embossing ink to stamp part of the Catherine Scanlon alphabet stamp in the upper left corner of a cream color piece of 12"x12" cardstock. I used white embossing powder to heat emboss the letters. Then I stamped the letters in the lower right hand corner and heat embossed them too.

By barely dipping a baby wipe in the Dylusions paint I was able to get plenty of paint to make swipes of red across the page. I also place the stencil back on the page and used the baby wipe to make a patterned stripe across the bottom of the page then added two more patterned stripes on the right top of the page. It is amazing how much paint you can get from the baby wipe after just a tiny dip in this full bodied paint.

Working in small areas at a time I used a small pointed paint brush and painted the inside of the letters with Postbox Red Dylussions Paint.  I lightly misted the paint with just enough water to make it start to move on the page. After a few seconds I tilted the page and let the paint drip down the page. Working 3 or 4 letters at a time gave me a little more control.

I matted my photos and wanted to get an idea of where I would place them. Since I was using Red paint I decided that I would go with primary colors, using gold as my yellow that left blue for my mat. I used the gold foil spray again with the same spraying and flipping then printing effect with my stencil on a piece of 12"x12" blue cardstock. My main photo is 5"x7". The smaller photos were cut apart from a collage print. I moved the photos around on the altered cardstock, lining them up with the grid where I thought the pattern worked best, then trimmed out 1/2" from each side of the 5"x7" photo and 1/16" border for each of the smaller photos.  Once the photos were matted, I moved the photos around on my page until I found a layout that worked with the background I created, keeping in mind I would need a space for my title and an area for journaling. I didn't attach them to the page yet but knew where they were going. Now I had an idea of where my Title would go and how much room I had for my journaling.

Hand lettering is a popular trend right now and  Dina Wakely's fine tip applicators made it easy to add a handlettered title to my page. This was the first time I had one of her tips. It screwed right onto her paint tube and allowed me to write with her paints. The first thing I did was practice. I was amazed at how easy it was to get the look I was going for. Large loopy letters. When I drew faster it skipped like stitching. If I drew slower the lines were smooth. By slowing down more and the lines went from thin to thicker. After just a few practice tries I was feeling like a pro, so I went for it and wrote my title on my page. I loved it! After a little drying time I was ready to adhere my photos to my page, add my journaling and put captions under my photos. But I wasn't finished yet.

Where did those adorable little hearts come from?

If you saw my first guest post you might remember a little red flower I made for my journal cover. I had so much fun working with Wendy Vecchi's Clearly For Art Modeling Film, I had made quite a few extra flowers. So I took a large flower and cut it up into hearts. They were already painted with the Postbox Red Dylusions  Paint but I used Dina Wakely's fine tip applicators and paint to add the black outlines for a fun touch. Then I heated the hearts up with my heat tool and shaped them into little waves and sprinkled them around my layout, attaching them with pop dots.


Of course I was having so much fun with Dina's fine tip applicator I had to add a fine line dotted and dashed border around the sides and bottom of my page as a final touch.

Handwritten journaling is always a wonderful personal touch in scrapbooking. Jasper will always know how much I loved reading with him. My journaling reads:

{You and I Love to Read! We always have. Your favorite book right now is "Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type" When I point to the words "Moo", you read them for me. "Moo! Moo! Moo!"}

When working on my projects each week, I tried to use mostly what Kim sent me along with things from my stash that she carries in her store. This was for two reasons. First, I know that when you show someone a new product and they like it they want to be able to find it. Second, Kim was very generous and sent me products to use for my guest designer posts. She also encouraged me to create anything I wanted and is she is super easy to work with. So of course, if you don't already shop there, I want to encourage you to check out the eclectic Paperie store. If you like you can use the links above to make it easy to find the products I used.

Thanks Kim for giving me a shot and if you ever want me to be a guest designer again just let me know. It's been fun.

Post Box Red Flowers for May

Hi, Ruby Craft here. I’m so excited that Kim has invited me to be guest designer for May. She asked me to share a little bit about myself. A little over 10 years ago I had taken early retirement but had a little too much time on my hands. I decided I needed a hobby so I started Scrapbooking. Then I took a part time job at a local scrapbook store and a co-worker showed me Tim Holtz and Alcohol Inks. When Tim started his blog with a tour of his workroom and then began posting 12 Tags of Christmas I was hooked on inky fingers and multi media. I began blogging so I could post my tags for Tim’s challenges. I still scrapbook from time to time but enjoy challenges, making tags, cards and the occasional 3 dimensional project. I'll be here every Wednesday this month with something new for you to see.

For my first project I looked through my stash and found a naked spiral book I had bought a while back. I used 3 different stencils along with paints, so I worked on a non-stick craft sheet. It made clean up easy and also made a great pallet. The first thing I did was to carefully open the spiral and take out the covers. I then laid them face up on my work surface and placed the first stencil, Weaving for Prima Finnabair Elementals, on the front cover. I used Prima's Color Bloom Spray Mist in Gold Foil. This was the first time I used it and I loved working with it. It has a trigger sprayer which allows you to get quick solid coverage but also allows you to get a spatter effect if you want. I sprayed through the stencil onto the cover front. Instead of wiping off the beautiful mist that had beaded up on the stencil, I flipped it over and placed it on the back cover. This gave me the same beautiful shimmery gold but a negative of the pattern on the front.

I used a fun stamp from Catherine Scanlon Designs called Catherine's Alphabet. This is a large one piece stamp that has open letters that would be perfect for water coloring. I thought it would make a terrific illustration for my cover. I used a brayer to "inked it up" with some Post Box Red Paint from Dylusions and stamped the front cover. I didn't get a perfect impression but it was perfect for the look I was going for.

I decided I wanted to add a Flower border along the sides and bottom of the front cover and along the bottom of the back one.  Tim Holtz Wildflower Stencil was perfect for this and the second stencil I used. I used a couple of mini blending tools to apply the Post Box Red Paint to the stencil flowers and then Cracked Pistachio Distress Paint for the stems and foliage. Distress Paints have a dauber top but the paint is very fluid and would run under the stencil if you tried to apply it directly from the bottle. The mini blending tool works great with the stencils and paints. The thin stems can be a little tricky with the blending tool. Once I removed the stencil I used a fine detail water brush to pick up some Cracked Pistachio from my craft sheet to touch up the stems. The water brush allow me to keep the color soft.

I also used the water brush to paint the inside of the  letters with Post Box Red at the top and Abandoned Coral Distress Paint from the bottom of the letters fading the color out before reaching the middle of the letters. This allows the Gold Foil Spray to peek through. Another thing I liked that the Gold Foil Spray as a background is that once it was dry it was not disturbed by the water or paint.

Along the very top and bottom of the front cover I used the third stencil, the hearts from the Love set of BoBunny Stickable Stencils. Again using the blending tool and Dylusion's Post Box Red. Once I finished the hearts I felt they needed something else. BoBunny Glitter Paste in Sugar! I used a palette knife and the stencil to apply it. These stencils are sticky and reposition-able making them easy to use. I finished off the edges using the blending tool and some Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

I decided I wanted to make a band to hold the book closed. I painted a piece of white elastic with Cracked Pistachio Distress Paint. Using the dauber top made it easy. Distress Paint does not effect the elasticity or stiffen the elastic. Once dry I attached the strip to the back cover with eyelets.

I die cut a flower from Wendy Vecchi's Clearly for Art Modeling Film from Tim Holtz's Tattered Floral die. Clearly for Art Modeling Film is NOT shrink film. When you heat it you can bend it to what ever shape you want and when it cools it will hold the shape. It comes in clear, white or black. Before you mold it you can paint it, stamp on it, or glue paper to it and then stamp on the paper if you like. If you don't like the shape you can reheat it flatten it and start all over again. I used clear and painted one side red by simple spreading the Post Box Red paint on with my fingertips. Once dry I flipped the flower over and used the spatter stamp from Wendy's Faux Graniteware starter kit and some Jet Black Archival ink to stamp the black spots. After the ink dried I attached the flower to the elastic band with a black eyelet. Then I was able to heat the flower with my heat tool and shape it. I just wanted the flower to have some subtle modeling since it was on the cover of the journal. I slipped a pencil under some spots while heating to get a little lift and did the rest of the modeling with my fingers.  You don't have to heat the whole flower, just a small section at a time. Once I had my flower shaped the way I wanted it, my cover was finished and I put everything back together.

I want to thank Kim for inviting me to be the May Guest Designer. She generously sent me quite a few fun products to use and she is wonderful to work with. She has designers for June, July and August, but if you are interested in being a guest designer in the future send her an email. I included a little information about myself and a few links to projects on my blog that I thought she might like and she got right back to me.

Here are a few quick links to some of the products I used from eclectic Paperie.
Dylusion Paint, Distress Paints, Stencils, BoBunny Glitter Paste,  Prima Color Bloom Spray Mist,  Tim Holtz Products,  Wendy Vecchi, Catherine Scanlon Designs 

I Hope you enjoyed seeing how I created my first project as guest designer and that you'll be back next Wednesday.

Creating with Finnabair

Those of us who live in the northeast had quite a winter to deal with this year...In total, I believe we received over five feet of snow...in about three weeks time!  It was crazy!  At the beginning of those storms, our entire family came down with the flu.  This meant that we didn't leave the house, except one painful grocery store trip, in two weeks.  That left me with not only a lot of time to watch every movie we own, but I also had a lot of time to craft.

I spent one weekend looking through Finnabair's blog, somehow managing to never have done so until a few months ago.  I'm so in awe of her projects and one of them, utilizing black gesso and Inka Gold, really inspired me.

One of the things I think is so much fun is how Finnabair takes all of these different objects, all different colors and textures, and layers them on a canvas.  Then, just using gesso, she creates almost another blank canvas where you can add your color.

I started by applying a layer of Wendy Vecchi's crackle paste to a canvas board.  Once that layer was dry I added black gesso.  I didn't cover the entire canvas, just the area behind all of my embellies, because my plan was to add another layer of gesso over the entire piece once I was done gluing.  This just meant that I wouldn't have to struggle to get gesso into all of the nooks and crannies.  All of the items on my canvas were just random pieces I had laying around my studio...lots of left overs!

I used a hot glue gun to adhere all of the parts as I needed to make sure the pieces wouldn't fall off when I added the gesso.  Next...a good, heavy layer of black gesso went over every single inch of the canvas and baubles.  Covering the flowers and canvas takes some time and patience and may need more than one coat of gesso.

Once the gesso was dry, all I had to do was add a few shades of Inka Gold (this stuff is the bomb!).  I used a dry brush to apply the Inka Gold to the embellishments.  I didn't add much to the background, focusing mostly on the all of the textures.  

I'm giddy over those block letters from Tim Holtz...I also added a photo of my two munchkins to the inside of the metal flower.  (Most of these metal pieces are from Prima)  And here's the finished canvas...

(Check out all of that juicy crackling in the background...oh man, I love it!)  This was a super fun project, although a little time consuming as you need to wait for each layer to dry, but just perfect for a winter snowstorm.  I think I'll start saving up pieces for next winter...

Enjoy!

ePlay Challenge - Fabric!

Welcome to the June ePlay challenge!! This month we are inviting you to play with fabric!

If you are anything like me I have TONS of scrap fabric laying around. Everything from silk to denim to brocade. I was actually inspired by denim to create this challenge but when it came time to do the project I found this fabulous brocade scrap the my mother in law had recently given to me for my scrappy purposes and it was perfect. 

I have been wanting to have an art journal but I want one big enough to really play in. I decided I needed to make my own and this is what came of it.

The cover needed a little something so I used some Wendy Vecchi embossing paste in black through a Prima stencil and highlighted with some inka gold.

This is the silver metallic Wendy paste with quite a few drops of forrest moss Distress ink and a drop of peeled paint. I should have added more green as the green is very pale...but this was my first attempt at mixing so I learn.

Here is my step by step tutorial for creating my art journal (total cost $6.40):

1. Take a pad of Bristol or Water color paper and carefully remove all of the sheets. (I used a 40% off coupon and spent $6.40)

2.Add a few pieces of artistic paper, tags, smaller papers...anything you want for interest.

3. Gather no more than 4 pieces of paper together and fold in half. Crease with a bone folder. These are  called your signatures. Your book will be made up of multiple signatures.

4. Use a centering ruler to make marks at the center and one at each end...about 1/2 inch in from the edge. These will be for your holes.

5. Using an awl and a squishy pad (this is the technical term) punch holes in your signature at the marks. Make sure they are right along your creased fold.

6. Using a large needle (mine is a leather working needle) and waxed thread to sew, sew your individual signatures at the binding.

7. Then sew the signatures together and clip the book together.

(visual of clips)

8.Take your glue and paint a thick coat along the binding of the signatures.

9. While that dries, take your book covers (I repurposed an old dictionary that I bought at a flea market) and measure out the fabric leave enough room in between for your book innards. This will depend on how many signatures you have.

10. Use your glue and adhere the fabric to the flat surface first being sure to burnish as you go.

11. Adhere the edges around the inside of the covers.

12. Use a piece of your paper to attach the signatures to the cover. If you look close you can see the yellow...I used the cover to the paper pad. Adhere one side to the signature and the other side to the cover. Burnish well and leave something heavy overnight for the entire thing to dry. Do the same for the back cover. 

and voila! I wanted to keep it somewhat flat so it was easy to open so I didn't add a whole bunch to the front. Also, the fabric I chose is very busy too.

So what can you do with fabric? Let's see! Add your blog to the linky tool at the bottom and show us what you can do with fabric. You may just win a little something to spend in the eP store!!

Good luck!

{{hugs}}

Andiepants

Mixed Media Canvas with Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste

Day 4 of the 12 days of Christmas and today we have Wendy Vecchi embossing paste for you 2 for $16.99!! That's right...only 24 hours so grab yours fast.

Use code 12DAYS4 when checking out.

Can I just say how much I adore this stuff?! It has so many uses and give any project that added touch of texture. 

Here is a canvas I made for my brother for Christmas using the white embossing paste. 

Some techniques in addition to the stenciling include stamping with various Prima and Donna Downey stamps, the tree is a Fab scraps piece, Most of the texture is drywall mesh tape, the zipper flowers are Melissa Frances, the paper underneath is Prima's Finnabair Vintage line and the tissue paper is Timmy's tissue paper. Soooooooo much is going on here...don't you love it?!

So this past weekend I had the privilege of chaperoning electronics weekend for my 2 oldest boys' scout troop. Because it's already so cold out we don't have much to do so a few of the other parents and I decided that we would turn it into a mini scrappy getaway. I decided to work on my canvas for Christmas but imagine my shock when I realized I had forgotten my stencils!

Luckily I found this little dollar store rose stencil tucked away in my tool caddy!!! Who's a savvy Andie now;)

Don't you love the way the ink soaks into the embossing paste?! Just lovely.

And here is a photo of some freehand paste that I added to the top of the canvas.

Now remember...I said we were camping sooooo...I wasn't able to take a video of this canvas. But...being Christmas I have a lot of other gifts to make so I shot a quick video of another canvas that I have started using the same techniques.

If you can't view the video try the smaller version here:

Run over to the eP store and purchase your own Wendy embossing paste today!!

Merry Christmas y'all!!!!

{{hugs}}

Andiepants