this makes me happy

Hi Everyone!  It's Sue L. here today to show you a 6x6 canvas I made using TH Distress Paints and

Inka Gold.  I have named it:

This sentiment is from Tim Holtz Life Remnant Rub Ons.  It just sums up how I felt when the canvas was done!

To make the sun and the rays, I first applied Wendy Vecchi embossing paste through a Viva Decor stencil, turning it to look like the sun.  The embossed image  so much texture and interest to the canvas!

In this photo, I angled the frame and washed light over it so you could see the shine the Inka Gold added!  That was my last step and I applied it with a tiny paintbrush to get in the fine lines.  I think it adds the warmth of sunshine to the canvas!  I also have a vivid imagination!

Process Photos:

Here you can see the Wendy Vecchi embossing paste pattern left by the stencil.  You can also see how I applied green and yellow and white TH Distress Paints along the bottom, turned the canvas upside down, and spritzed it with a Inkssentials Mister bottle until the paints marbled how I liked them.  You can also see how I started adding paint splats with more TH Distress Paints to make flowers.

I used the same technique for the sky base.

The water sprayed on it did the trick, and I kept adding more colors and paint until the color looked right to me.  Then I painted the sun bigger and splattered and splatted different colors of TH Distress paints until I was happy.  And in case you forgot, here is the end result:

I hope you like it and are inspired to try something new to you like I did!



A surprising Journey

Hello friends! Giovana here today. I want to start my post with a couple of confessions, nothing bad I promise.
First, I was pretty sure I got scheduled to post on Feb 12th, oh boy, I was wrong!! So yesterday (Sunday) I went to the craft room to work on some other projects and then I checked my calendar and oh surprise. I immediately started working on a card, and I didn't like it. I got so frustrated. I decided to get out of the craft room and continue with my laundry day, while there I saw the blue tape (painters tape) and an idea came to my crazy head.
Second (confession), I took a piece of watercolor paper and the blue tape, I thought of something but then didn't work out, so I started this project without knowing "what I was doing or ending up with"

Ok, after these confessions, I will tell you I LOVE this project very much and I hope you too.

Let's get started!

I started with a piece of Strathmore Mixed Media paper, cut the paper 9" x 9", then taped it to my mat with Blue Tape (painter's tape), the sides are 1" and the top/bottom are .75"

 

 Added a couple of coats of White Acrylic Gesso

 

 

 Then I started painted this piece with Luminarte Twinkling H2O African Jade, just one coat is enough.

 

 

 Then I added paint strokes of Luminarte Twinkling H2O Rich Cobalt

 

 

 More strokes of Luminarte Twinkling H2O Hot Cinnamon

 

 

 and some of Twinkling H2O Ginger Peach

 

 

and finally some of Twinkling H2O Olive Vine. 

 

 

I added some Embossing paste using the Mini Chicken Wire reversed Stencil, but honestly I didn't like it, I removed it immediately with a baby wipe, but it left a really cool impression, ha! The things you discover from your mistakes. Then added few dabs using Snow Cap Acrylic Paint Dabber

 

 

 

 I used an old stencil (no longer available, sorry) and White embossing paste in random places.

 

 

Then added White Gelatos in the center and a little bit around the edges,

 

 

Added Black Gelatos around the edges of the whole piece.

 

 

 

Then I took my Remant Rubs - Word (Tim Holtz), cut few pieces and added them on my piece.

 

 

Looks like this :) 

 

 

 

And this is the final piece, without the blue tape, the picture doesn't show how shimmery this piece is, it's really beautiful!! I think I will put it in a picture frame to decorate my craft room :)

 

 

I hope you like it!!

Have a wonderful day.

Giovana

Altered Frame with 7 Gypsies Harmony Paper Collection . . .

 Hi everyone, it`s Tracy here today and I am sooo excited to be sharing my cheap as cheese Altered Frame documenting my wedding day to Alex over 24yrs ago using the drop dead gorrrgeous papers from the

Harmony Collection by 7 Gypsies

Oh my giddy aunt I can`t begin to tell you what a joy it was to get back to my love of pretty papers!!

I adore vintage and shabby along with papers that tell a story and this collection does it all.

 I actually remembered to take a picture of the frame before I started, if you know me you might know how impatient I am to get started on a project and tend to forget . . . not this time though,yeah!

See how cheap it was . . . oh my did I get a bargain.

 The papers come in an 8x8 paper pad with 48 sheets and are double sided giving you lots of paper to play with.

All the embellishments that you are going to see are made from the papers with a little touch of Distress Ink and Embossing powders. 

See that beautiful vintage car

  ... swoooon moment ... 

You get so many of each design that you can afford to cut out the car a few times to layer it up for more dimension using foam tape cut to size.

 Like wise with the dress form . . . snip, snip, snip . . . I used the square of paper with the original dress form and then snipped it out twice more, snipping of the skirt for the top layer.

You can`t really see the little words on the skirt but they read

Something New

also in the papers.

Ahhhh see the teeny tiny veil . . . off cuts off ribbon found in my stash, they make me happeee!

This one holds a special meaning for me . . . my Auntie Jessie gave me this three pence on my wedding day to pop in my wedding shoe for good luck ... a sweet memory of a much loved Auntie who is no longer with us.

Ever get the feeling that these papers where made for this project, I could hardly believe it when I saw the papers with the advert for the shoe!

Oh my giddy aunt I Sooo do not do fussy cutting normally but the Mr. and Mrs was shouting out to me

cut me...cut me... So I did, lol.

This one has a story to tell and was my 2nd attempt at making it look old . . .

Okay so I`m out in my wee shed and had chopped this one to the size I needed, but I wanted it to look like it had been around for ever soooo what did I do,hmmmm?

Well, I went and found myself a lighter and fired it up, held it under the paper and swoooosh it kinda went on fire...imagine me oooh aaahing, going noooooooo, waggle, waggle..tried to throw it out the door but it was windy and blew right back in landing on the mat..sparks, sparks..arrrghhhhhhhhhhhh....oh my giddy aunt did I panic,I mean my shed is full to bursting with papers...fear not at this point I was jumping up and down when I clapped eyes on a jug of water that I had paintbrushes sitting in..woohooo...splish,splash,splosh and out it went, phew!!

Needless to say it ended up as ashes, the one above was safely done I hasten to add with my trusty heat tool.

Next, cut up some more papers and make a collage around the frame before adding a few extras . . . 

 ...amazing how after a touch of a little Walnut Stain Ink applied with a blending tool, a few Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs and a dusting of Embossing powders makes such a difference to a project!

That`s me and Alex getting ready to go on our honeymoon, I was only 19yr and Alex would be 21yr that week...oh my we thought we knew it all and we were soooo happy!

Thank you so much for taking the time to look and I hope I have inspired you to have a go.

Want the papers, then just click on the links below to go to the eP store -

7 Gypsies Harmony 8x8 Paper Pad

Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs - Words, Elements

Tim Holtz Walnut Stain Distress Ink Pad

InkssentialsBlending Tool

Inkssentails Glossy Accents

Foam Tape