Shabby Altered Umbrella

Hello eP land. By the time y'all read this I will be on my way to the deep south!

As a parting homage to Michigan I decided to do an OTP (off the page) umbrella. We get LOTS of rain in Mi. Even if it's not raining, it looks like it's going to rain. And if it's cold enough...it's snowing instead.

Of course I have lots of stuff hanging around my room to alter but instead I decided to take a cue from my previous co-designer Miranda Edny and make my own 3D object to alter. 

 Any coordinating paper line would be adorable for this but I chose to use Olivia's Sweetshop from my stash. I loved the green and teal combo with the splash of pink thrown in for good measure. The cupcakes are just adorable. 

The blue flowers is by Prima and you can find LOTS of Prima flowers in the eP store for all your lovely projects! 

I started by cutting a pattern over and over and over using my Silhouette. Echo Park umbrella. (I only paid $0.75 for it)

Then I scored each one down the middle and used my bone folder to get a real nice crease. I lined up the edges and stacked them all together and used a distressing tool to distress all the edges and underneath.

For the straw I watered down some Antique linen distress ink and made a wash to tone down the colors. I used embossing paste to add the flowers so they had a nice sturdy base to anchor them down and then covered them with splotches of gesso here and there. I used bakers twine to hang the piece a voila!!! A gorgeous shabby umbrella. 

I hope I have inspired you to make your own OTP! Until next time...

{{HUGS}}

Andiepants

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