My First Mixed Media Canvas and a HUGE Thank You!

Here it is!! My first mixed media canvas. I had a lot of fun making this. I did it in several steps, spanning over at least a week. I like to be able to do a layer, step back and take a second look at it, and come back to it with a fresh perspective (plus I needed a lot of drying time in between!). I have to admit that I got a lot of inspiration from a fabulously talented artist/designer/everything else named Mou Saha. Go check out her blog sometime. It's definitely worth linking up to! (and I'll just go ahead and admit now that attending one of her classes in Florida is on my bucket list!!)
This canvas was a Christmas present to a wonderful friend who is taking life by the horns and really proving and shaping themselves right now. I wanted to make something that would be an inspiration during the hard times and somewhat decent to look at during the good times :) Luckily, we exchanged gifts early this year, so I can finally post about this project!!!

I feel like I've crossed over from making projects to actually creating something with this piece. For the first time, I understand what artists feel when they are composing artwork. Each element, from the dress pattern layers to the color underneath, the images to the fibers, mean something to me. Every item added to this canvas has a meaning. And while someone might not 'get it', or even appreciate anything about it, to me, it means a lot (and hopefully to the recipient, too!!)

Babble, babble, babble, right?? Ok. On to the steps.

Step One: Prime canvas with gesso, let dry (overnight-ish). This particular canvas came pre-primed, but I'd rather play it safe.

Step Two: Get crazy with gelatos!! Faber Castell makes these amazing little color sticks called gelatos (more info about them here). They go on like a crayon, and once they're wet, they blend amazingly! I tried several different methods to blend my colors (wet paintbrush, baby wipes, fingers) and ended up liking using my hands the best. It was a lot easier to control how much got blended. Once you're happy with the coloring, let dry (doesn't take very long!)







Step Three: Next I decoupaged old dress patterns onto the entire canvas (they're in the bottom of that picture up there). No real rhyme or reason to this part, just overlapping a bit as a go. Drying time for this was a few days!

Step Four: Play!! Once your canvas background is all ready, you get to create and play! I inked up some Grungeboard letters and used some Grungepaper through the Cricut to cut out the bird house (from the Serenade cartridge). The bird was cut from the Serenade cartridge from cardstock, traced onto a piece of plain muslin, and decoupaged onto the canvas.

added some curled wire for detail

popped this off the canvas slightly

inspirational phrase

I can't wait for inspiration and a few extra days to work on my next one. I think I'm hooked!! (plus my canvas came in a two pack!)

This will definitely be my last post before I'm off on a holiday for a bit. Thanks, everyone, for a GREAT 2011! A huge thank you to Glue Dots and Becky at Friendship's Garden for taking me on as a designer this term. This blog was started because of you all, and it's turning out to be such an amazing journey!! 

I'm looking forward to all 2012 has in store. It's going to be a great year!! Merry Christmas!!

All Aboard the Polar Express!!

Toot tooooooot!!!!!

I have to admit, I've never seen the movie. I probably should. Pretty soon my kids will be to the age where they'd find that mesmerizing! In fact, not too far from our town, there's a place that reenacts the Polar Express, complete with a train ride to the North Pole (you can check that out here). I'm sure they'll love that in the coming years.

A friend of mine wanted to take her three grandchildren to this Polar Express event, and asked if I would make tickets for them.

Would I???

OF COURSE!!

Now remember, I've never seen the movie (I'm pretty sure the book had been read to me once upon a time, but that wasn't enough at this point). I Googled away, and came upon this great packet someone else had already made up, and it included the images of the actual tickets used in the movie! I'm not one to reinvent the wheel (why make more work for yourself!?) so I used these:

Reproducible Image from http://www.hmhbooks.com/features/thepolarexpress/pdf/polarpartykit.pdf

Now, here come the part I lllooooooovvvveeee!! Print it on paper? These will be given to kids. Torn and wrinkled in two seconds. Nooo, no, no, no. I had a better idea:

Grungepaper.

Yup, this is going to be awesome.

So. Grungepaper. Never heard of it? It's in the Tim Holtz line of Grungeboard, described as "a thinner form of Grungeboard with the same grungeable properties". Love. It. Completely pliable, able to alter in tons of ways, including writing, sewing, stamping and inking it (like printer ink?? You see where my mind's heading here...)

Off to the printer I went! I used a laser printer, if that matters to you folks, and this is what I came out with:

(I am in love)

I knew that my Stampin' Write markers from Stampin' Up! worked really well on Grungeboard (no pen lines, blends perfectly!), so I tested it on a scrap of the Grungepaper: worked like a charm!! I cut the ticket out and colored it to appear gold (like in the movie, I'm told) and then did some Christmas-y colors on the holly and ivy. The bell got a little daub of Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint. 

I added a rolled up letter from Santa and some awesomely huge jingle bells to finish it off.

I can't wait to make these for my own kids someday soon!!

Make sure you stop back by tomorrow...I'm giving out one of my favorite creations tomorrow, so I can finally blog about it!! (Can you say MIXED MEDIA?!?)

All About Boys Blog Hop, Day Two!

Welcome to All About Boys Blog Hop day two of two! {If you want to check out day one of the hop CLICK HERE}

I am so glad you joined us today!
Boy themed projects seem harder to come by, so that is why we have dedicated TWO whole days to nothing but boys! Hopefully you are able to walk away with some fabulous ideas in mind. We have a lot of very talented people that will be sharing their projects with you, and what would a hop be without a little prize at the end?? :)

There is a FANTASTIC prize package waiting for you! All you have to do to be eligible is...

1. Leave a comment on every blog BOTH DAYS

2. Become a follower on every blog (if you already are just put that in with your comment)

3. Become a fan of Paper Creations by Mindy on facebook (stop in and say hi too!)

Three easy steps and you're eligible for the prize!


Now .....what will you win?? (are you ready for this lineup?!?)

Scraptastical Kreations $20 gift certificate

 Designs on Cloud 9 $20 gift certificate

Little Scraps of Heaven Designs $20 gift certificate

Paper Piecings by Nikki $20 Gift certificate

The Beary Scrap $15 gift certificate

Beary Sweet Designs $20 gift certificate

WOW! Wish I could enter the hop myself!
AND, to sweeten the deal, Mindy has her own personal "goodie bag" for you.


Now onto my project -

I had a print of my son enlarged, and I've been waiting for the perfect time to get it out and finish it!
I inked the fronts and edges of grungeboard for all of the lettering. The smaller prints at the bottom are taken from the proofs that are sent with my pictures when they come back from the developer!
I also hand drew some clouds from white cardstock in the same style as the clouds of the background paper to add some dimension and interest. I used Glue Dots to adhere everything to my layout.

Hope you enjoyed this page! Don't forget to follow my blog and leave a comment on this (and every!) post to be qualified for the goodies!!
Now hop on over to Melissa's Blog to see what she has in store for you.


In case you get lost - here is the line-up for Day 2:

1. Mindy Eggen 
2. Janet Murray Nagai 
3. Dawn Dorosz Muldowney 
4. Janet Smith  
5. Jamie L 
6. Doris     
7. Haidee 
8. Paula  
9. Erin Bullock  {you are here}
10. Melissa Haereiti {next stop is here!}
11. Lisa Tehonica Pontious 
12. Patti Ross 
13. Vicki Wilson 
14. Lisa

Friendship's Garden Halloween Tag

Hello again! I had a great time this last weekend at my friend Holly's all-day crop. It was a great time to relax, catch up with some friends and get some work done! The first thing I got to work on was our next in between weeks challenge with Friendship's Garden!!
This week's challenge with Friendship's Garden is to create a Halloween tag with the following formula: 3 bling, 2 ric rac, and 1 image. Here's what I came up with:

I had a lot of fun with this little recipe of a project. Hope you enjoyed it, too!









Can't wait to see your 3-2-1 creations!!
You can post them here

used in this project:

InLinkz.com

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas?? Already???


I'm not a chronological scrapper. I pick and choose my projects as I feel inspired to do them, rather than forcing myself to creating something I'm not really feeling. So therefore, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in my scrap room!
It's kind of fun to get everything Christmas out when it's just starting to get cooler, leaves are feeling the urge to become a bit more gorgeous, and my mind starts to dream about everything Fall.

I tried to challenge myself a bit on this page: to not use the traditional 'Happy Christmas' color scheme. I rummaged through my paper stacks and found the Love Letter Designer Series Paper from Stampin' Up!:

This set uses 'Vanilla' instead of white, 'Red Riding Hood' (which is more of a brick red) instead of bright red, and throws a twist of black in there to switch things up a bit, as well as make it a little more 'grown up'.

I played around with a layout for a few minutes (which is a few minutes too long for me!) and then dug out my Creating Keepsakes magazine from Nov/Dec 2010 for some inspiration. I turned to the article called Recipes for Quick and Easy Layouts (p. 68), thinking, HEY!. This is what I need!! Mandy Douglass' Christmas Morning layout popped out to me, and so I used the sketch of her page:

I knew my pictures didn't lend themselves to the grid design that Mandy used, so I altered that concept of the sketch on my page. I really loved the large brackets that she used, however, so those were the first thing that I began to make.

I love dimension on a page, so I knew I didn't want to use paper for the brackets. I considered chipboard, but I didn't have brackets large enough (and didn't want to cut my own). Looking around my materials, I had a stack of 8.5" x 11" pieces of felt that I'd picked up from my local hobby store when they were on sale (they were 12.5 cents each!) and knew that they would give me the 'pop' I wanted.
Being a reformed perfectionist, I went to my Cricut first and cut out a bracket at 10 1/4 inches (random, but this was the largest size it would cut on my 12" x 12" mat). I traced this twice onto my felt, and cut them out.  I sewed (very roughly) around the edges with my sewing machine to add some texture, too:

 

The next element that I made was the tag Mandy used for her journaling. I already had some journaling in mind for the overall page, so I decided to make this a journaling pocket. Again, not having anything purchased that would fit this color scheme, I dug into my scrap paper bin and pulled out a remnant piece that started as a 12" x 12" and cut it to 3" in width. I folded it unevenly so it would make a perfect pocket, used a bit of (my favorite!) walnut ink to make the colors blend a bit more, and sewed the edges together to form my pocket:

Next came my lettering, and of course, chipboard!! I knew I had some pre-glittered chipboard letters that might work with this page, but once I pulled them out, the color was just horrible with my papers.
But I wanted to use that chipboard.
So I pulled out my handy-dandy Old Olive Stampin' Write Marker from Stampin' Up! and used the feathered end to re-color the letters. I also used a darker marker to ink the chipboard's edges:

Following the basic guidelines from the sketch, I started putting my page together. I used dimensional foam adhesive to adhere the chipboard lettering, and double sided tape for the rest of the elements (I was out of Glue Dots!! Ahhh!!).
I added (and added...and added...) ribbons, rub-on's, clear stickers, brads (and added...and added...) until I came out with my finished product:

Journaling: Westin's gifts all marked with 'clues'

Journaling: I will never get over how wonderful it is to see your faces light up on Christmas morning!

2011 Tag: Inked Chipboard, Grungeboard numbers, pearl brad

(ps- although this page was listed under Quick and Easy Layouts, it was more easy than quick! It took me my normal a few hours one night and a revisit the next day for minor fixes...some old habits never die!)

Mini Album. The first of many!!

Let me start by saying WELCOME! Thanks for checking out my blog. It is guaranteed to be random, sporadic and oh-most-definitely crafty! 

I am in no means a full time, professional or otherwise trained artist, but I love this stuff, and, in my option, that's half the battle.

So without further adieu... 

My first mini-album.

I've had this wooden house-shaped album out of the package, painted and ready to use for at least three years (meaning I have no idea what company designed it). It was originally a neutral wooden color, and I added two coats of brown craft paint to both the front and back. I searched for a paper collection that had the look that I was going for and fell in love with the Lotus collection by K&Company, designed by Amy Butler.

 

Using a collection is a great way to know that, although the pages don't necessarily match, they all 'go', and enough variation is added to make each page interesting and unique.

I trimmed out my favorite designs of the collection to be just smaller than my album pages.

One trick to this album is making sure the layering of elements will look good once the book is closed (mind the windows!!).

At this point, you'll want to take a look at the pictures (or other main focal points) you will want to add to the album. You don't necessarily need to adhere them yet (think layering), but you'll definitely need to know where to leave space for them.

The first element that I was thrilled to try out was grungeboard, by Tim Holtz. I'd heard about this product, but just thought it was a 'name brand' chipboard.

WRONG!!

My best description is that it almost has a leather quality, but you're still able to manipulate it like you would chipboard (ie: inking, distressing, etc.). Pieces are able to hang off of the edges of your work a bit without getting damaged because this material is so flexible and durable!

I used an ink dobber to ink my 'Z', making sure to ink the edges. For me, forgetting the edges is like finishing a final exam with 100% correct and forgetting to put your name on it!!

Finished product (after sanding the edges a bit and adding a few pearls from Stampin' Up!)

The brown grungeboard letters ('rare', 'things') were stained using walnut ink (LOVE), and the smaller letters of 'Beautiful' were inked in a grey. Note how using a contrasting color to ink the edges makes them POP!

You'll really want to be sure to use a great adhesive to tack down your elements to the pages, and I used Glue Dots (they work extremely well at holding down grungeboard!). There are no page protectors to save your book from little fingers here!! There is such dimension and texture to the lace pages, especially, that I wanted to be sure that nothings was going anywhere!

Once you have your main elements added to your book (in my case, I was using three pictures and a Bible verse that ran throughout the pages) it's all about the embellishments!!

I feel like mini albums give a little more freedom to be excessive! While my husband gets overwhelmed with the multiple elements, I love looking through the book and being able to notice a different feature each time. Here are a few of my favorite cram-them-every-free-space fancies:

Again, it's in the details...thread those buttons, folks!!
It's worth the extra time for a completely completed look.

Ribbon Rosette
You can easily make any ribbon into a rosette by simply putting down a circle of adhesive (or splurging on Glubers).
I added another pearl to the center (but debated a button...it would have been threaded, of course)

Let it all hang out!! Feel free to let your ribbon or other suitable embellishment hang off the edge of your album to act as a tab to turn the page.

...and perhaps my favorite little addition: the lace!!
I bought this doily at a garage sale for $0.25 -- paying any more for it would have made it hard to cut into shreds!!  I used it on two opposing pages to add some cohesiveness and used a lighter (and on one occasion, my husbands hand-held torch--EEK!) to singe the edges of the lace. I love the look this gave and it also served to prevent the cut edges from unraveling.

 There you go!! I hope you enjoyed the highlights of my first mini album.
I can't wait to bring you more ideas, techniques and random selections of my scrapbooks :)