Happy Anniversary ~ Early!

Hi Everyone!  It's Sue Lelli here and I made an anniversary card for my DH early because I just received some new products from eclectic Paperie in the mail and I was itching to try them out!  I'll just save it until our anniversary in November!  LOL!

Here's My card:

What I WANTED to do was have a starfish in the center cut out with text underneath.  It would have been easier if the Tim Holtz alterations sand and sea die cuts had been separate but the weren't. So I improvised!  I ended up stacking fat chipboard over the images I didn't want to cut out and running it through my die cut machine.  They cut out anyway but there was so much texture and color and product on my Tim Holtz distress watercolor cardstock top page that when I pieced it back together like a puzzle, you really couldn't see it!  And I got the look I wanted!

I also wanted the seahorse floating in the water surrounded by bubbles (Tim Holtz texture fades - bubbles and waves) with it's tail wrapped around a plant.  That's how they REALLY look when you dive, hiding in plants and blending in to the surroundings.  For the plant I die cut a branch from the Tim Holtz spring greenery decorative strip.   I put wet glue on it and sprinkled Tim Holtz Distress Glitter on top.  LOVE the glimmer it adds!

I LOVE this seahorse and I puposely had the word MEMORY show through.  (I wanted to remind my DH of all of the FAB memories we have together.)  The text is Tim Holtz melange tissue wrap stained with tea dye Distress ink.

Here you can see the Wendy Vecchi translucent embossing paste.  I LOVE that it dries clear and looks wet on your project!

Here you can see the Prima seaweed flower and the Prima resin shells I added.  The idea-ology word band sentiment was perfect since this IS an anniversary card and we are living the life we have imagined!  Literally!  I tied it on with idea-ology jute.

The kraft paper behind the watercolor and text layers is my new FAB Tim Holtz idea-ology resist paper.  It is so cool with a design embossed on it so when you add ink, the embossing shows through.  This one I used has mini distressed dots ~ going with the bubble theme!

And on the inside, I put a photograph of last year when we renewed our vows for our 25th anniversary.  It was a dream!  Look at the color of that water and how it is mimicked by the distress paint colors on the outside of my card.

 Process Photos:

I squished some Tim Holtz Distress Paint on to an inksenssitials craft sheet I have cut to 8x8.  (I found it's easier to have several layers of craft sheets so your entire work surface doesn't get dirty ~ just small bits!)  Then I spritzed it with a mini mister filled with water.

I swiped Tim Holtz distress watercolor card stock through the paint once,

Then twice and this is what I had.  What I LOVE about these Distress Paints is that they react to water when they are wet and you can make them move around but when they are dry, they are permanent and you can add more layers and colors without creating mud.

So:

 I added some darker Tim Holtz Distress paints and swiped again.  Then it was too dark for me so I made two rows of two lighter blue shades of Distress Paints (in colors I already used):

 

And laid the cardstock straight down on top of the paint:

Then I sprayed it again with water from the mini mister.

 

I was happy with the colors but turned it upside down so the drip lines went up.  Then I embossed it with my new Tim Holtz texture fades bubble embossing folder.  I used the Tim Holtz sanding grip block on top of it to make the bubbles look white and stand out.

Here I added Wendy Vecchi's Studio 490 translucent embossing paste through the Dina Wakely plastic canvas stencil.  This dries completely clear and made the card front look wet.  LOVE that WV translucent embossing paste AND that DW Stencil!

Those are all the photos I remembered to take.  I got caught up in the creative moment!

 

I hope you like my card!

THX for stopping by!



Stars and Stripes and the Eagle

go hand in hand!  When I showed my red, white and blue painted canvas to a friend at work, to tell her that I had applied the colors keeping the American flag in mind but wasn’t sure how to finish it and she said “Paint an Eagle”, I probably should have stopped to reconsider how hard it would be to paint an eagle.

Hi folks, Micki here to share my patriotic canvas.  And as I’m sure you could gather from my opening sentence, I jumped right in and after much stomach churning, sweat (but no tears, yay) I finished my Eagle canvas.   And I just want to say for the record……sketching with pencil on paper is soooo much easier, than actually painting with paints.
I started my canvas by gluing left over old paper scraps using Faber Castell Gel Medium.  I used an old 6x12 from my hubby but really any size would work.
One of the many reasons I love mixed media is that it uses up all those scraps and because it’s covered with paint and inks and other mediums, it really doesn’t matter if the paper is ancient.  I’ve made quite a dent in my old, discontinued paper stash since starting in mixed media!
From the way I applied the papers, you can tell that I was going for an American flag look.  Once the medium was dry, I applied paints, using both a brayer and brush. 
At this point I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do with this canvas, so I went ahead and added some texture using the Collage of Digits from Unity Stamp Co.  And so it sat for a couple of days, until my friends suggestion of adding an American Eagle.  Like I said, sketching on paper is easy!  Once I had sketched an eagle on paper, I cut him out and laid the paper on top of the canvas to trace an outline.
Well, it didn’t work very well.  Couldn’t see the marks.  Instead I traced the eagle onto white tissue paper.  This time I made sure not to trim (rip) too close to the traced marks and glued it onto the canvas using Faber Castell Gel Medium.

And now came the scary part!  Painting him. 

Comparing him to actual flying eagle photos on the internet just made me more nervous.  And I basically used a variety of paints – mixing them on my Non-Stick Craft Sheet.   This eagle has several layers of both paint, Faber Castell Gelatos as well as Big Brush Pens.  Even though I stopped messing with him after several layers, the last layer consisting of gelatos for shading, I still am not satisfied with this eagle  (it’s the feathers).  I kid you not, my stomach was churning the whole time I worked on him.
Since I did the background first, I now needed to blend in the edges of the tissue paper.  It’s not that this was hard to do, but I do wish I had waited with adding so much detail to the background, like the Dylusions Starry Starry Night stencil. 

Luckily, I was able to line up the stars and redo them dabbing Claudine Hellmuth Blank Canvas paint with my finger.  Once the stars were dry, I added shading with the gray Big Brush Pens.  I also re-stamped the Collage of Digits from Unity Stamp Co. and added some white circles using empty duct tape roll dabbed in white paint.
As a final touch I added the letters from Idea-ology – Alpha Parts Signmaker, covered with Picket Fence Distress Paint.
And the end result……..



Oh, I almost forgot, to blend the Faber Castell Gelatos I used Tsukineko Fantastics Bullet Tip pens.  I generally like to use my fingers but they were a bit to chubby, so the bullet tip worked perfectly.



Painting Eagles definitely needs more practice, BUT looking at the face, I can (and my hubby did too) tell that it’s an eagle.  And overall this canvas turned out great.  It certainly put me in a Patriotic spirit, how about you?
And the moral of my show and tell?  Just Do It! 
I hope you were inspired to get your paints.  

Supplies used:

InLinkz.com