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!!

Homemade Christmas Gift Blog Hop, Day 2!

Merry Christmas and welcome to the Homemade Christmas Gift Blog Hop, Day Two! You should have gotten here from Carla's blog. If you just happened here and want to start from the beginning, click here to get to her blog.
We have 7 fabulous crafters again today who are going to share some of their ideas for Homemade Christmas gifts. What is better than making something personalized for someone you love.  So sit back and enjoy.

  Here's the lineup!

1. Carla

2. Erin (<-- You are here!)

3. JulieK (<-- Here next!)

4.  Barbara B

5.  Lynda

6. Ashley

7. Gina

Now on to my second handmade project!!

 

This little guy is a lot of fun, and you can really personalize it to whatever you want it to be!!
I started with a set of paper mache nesting boxes from my local craft store and painted them white. After that was dry, I dry brushed a light coat of midnight blue. Lastly, I painted the stars on the larger two boxes and the face on the smallest box.





You can pack these boxes with cookies or other treats and be the hit of the party.
I hope you've enjoyed these homemade goodies and gotten some great ideas for your next Christmas gift!

Homemade Christmas Gift Blog Hop

Merry Christmas and Welcome to the Homemade Christmas Gift Blog Hop. You should have gotten here from Carla's blog. If you just happened here and want to start from the beginning, click here to get to her blog.
Today we have 7 fabulous crafters who are going to share some of their ideas for Homemade Christmas gifts. What is better than making something personalized for someone you love.  So sit back and enjoy.  And make sure you come back to see what they’ve created on both days.
 

Here's the lineup!

1. Carla

2. Erin (<-- You are here!)

3. JulieK (<-- Here next!)

4.  Barbara B

5.  Lynda

6. Ashley

7. Gina

Now on to my first handmade project!!

I made this simple mitten garland from two old sweaters I had from years past. They're so (sew) easy!!! :)

 Step One: Cut out mitten shape from sweater (be sure to leave the 'cuff of the mitten' along a finished edge of the sweater - either the sleeve or waist band). Cut both layers of the sweater (front and back) at the same time.

Step Two: Machine or hand stitch along the edges of the two mitten pieces together. Turn the band down to form the cuff of the mitten.

Step Three: String coordinating buttons along wire, adding the mittens as you go (the wire will string right through the knit of your mittens!). 

Easy, simple and cute! (and refurbishing!!)

Be sure to head over to JulieK's blog next, and stop back by tomorrow for more handmade inspiration!!

Non-Christmas(ish) Party Fun with Glue Dots!

I love birthdays! I love that everyone has that one special day that they get celebrated.
But.

 {are there any Christmas babies out there??}

Yeah. Christmas babies tend to have their birthdays accidentally forgotten in the hustle and bustle of the season, or may get a 'combo gift'...
                "This present is for your birthday and Christmas!"


So this year, I wanted to do something special for my 'Christmas baby' friend. We'll be having a normal, non-Christmas(ish) party for her this year. I was in charge of dessert and favors.   (!!!)

As much as I love birthdays, I love a good sale, too!! In all of the crafty stores, Christmas displays and goodies are speedily being set up and readied for the upcoming Christmas season...with $ales!! I went shopping for favors and was viciously attacked by 50% off Christmas items!!

So with my non-Christmas(ish) party theme, I snatched up an arm-full of clear plastic Christmas ornaments :)

Favors:

These are super easy to make and a lot of fun, too!! I'll walk you through the steps. Ready?
You'll need the following supplies:

• Clear ornament (I chose plastic...from experience!)
• Glue Lines® and an assortment of other Glue Dots®
• Coordinating glitter, ribbon and paper flowers
• Glittered chipboard letters (I used Thickers)
• Wood floor finish (I've used a few different brands that have all worked)
• Small piece of plastic wrap

 
The first step is to pour a bit of the floor finish into the clean ornament, cover the opening with plastic wrap, and make sure the entire inside of the ornament is coated.

Once the inside is coated, pour out the excess liquid and pour in the glitter. Give it a good shake to make sure it gets everywhere! Put the hanger back onto the top.

Cut your ribbon to fit around the ornament and apply your Glue Lines® to the back.

Peel off the plastic from the Glue Lines® and adhere your ribbon around the ornament. Use Ultra Thin Glue Dots® to apply paper flowers and finish off with your chipboard letter!




For the second ornament, I glittered the inside and used varying sizes of Glue Dots® (Mini, Permanent, and Craft) and randomly adhered them to the outside of the ornament. Press the dots into the glitter and wipe off the excess. Decorate with paper flowers and chipboard letter.

Cake:
When it comes to cake, I ran straight to the cupcake shop!! I love making kids cakes, but thought cupcakes would be more appropriate for this party. I wanted to dress them up a bit, so I used the Cindy Loo Cricut cartridge to cut out cute butterfly cupcake wrappers. I cut out some coordinating paper to line the wrappers and used some Micro Glue Dots® to adhere them.

Can you see those micro dots?? They're there!! Get out the magnifying glass!!

Use a 1" Glue Line® on the end where the tabs are (I don't care for using the tabs...they always fall apart!), wrap the liner around the cupcake and glue for a perfect fit.

I love them! I think everything turned out really well and we'll have a great non-Christmas(ish) birthday party.

I wrote this blog post while participating on the Glue Dots® design team.

Vintage Halloween - Friendship's Garden Challenge

Welcome to another great challenge from Friendship’s Garden. If this is your first stop along the hop, click here to start back at the beginning.

Our theme this week is Vintage Halloween. Vintage I like, but vintage Halloween is something I’ve never attempted before! Through the magic of Google, I found this vintage Halloween postcard that caught my eye:

The Mystic Light of Hallowe'en

First, I love the colors this postcard has: not your typical black and orange scheme, but more of an aged, weathered look, adding in blues and greens to the mix, too.

My favorite element from this inspiration piece is the pumpkin, so I used that as my guide to create this:

"all hallows eve may fear and fright for tricks & ghouls come out that night"

I hand drew the pumpkin and its face, used grungeboard stars and pumpkin stem, and sculpted the metal gate from crafting wire. To get the faded background, I used a piece of medical gauze and transitionally inked it from lightest to darkest with varying shades of blue. 

All of my elements were adhered with Glue Dots®. I love how the micro dots are small enough to invisibly hold the wire down, yet strong enough to not let it move an inch!

Another element I love is the packing of the dots. I was able to use the size guide on the outside of the package to get the perfect sized circle for my stars.

Hope this helps you think outside of your comfort zone...it sure pulled me out of mine!!
 

Make sure you stop over at our blog sponsor, Altered Angel!! 

Products used for this project are:

InLinkz.com

New Beginnings

Hey guys!!
You should be finding your way here from Carolyn's blog. If this is your first stop of the Friendship's Garden Blog Hop, click here to get back to the beginning.


I'm completely thrilled to write this post, because today marks a great beginning for Friendship's Garden, a brand new challenge blog I'm thrilled to design for (along with some other fabulously talented ladies). Our Lead Garden Girl, Becky, has worked tirelessly getting this amazing project up and running, and it already seems to be a resounding success!

To start out this new venture, we are challenging you with New Beginnings. New job? New baby? New toothbrush? If you can make a card about it, we'll take it!! The only requirement for our challenges: no stamping!! I'll admit I wasn't a huge 'stamper' to begin with, but I feel myself reaching for the ink and clear blocks continuously (probably because I'm not allowed to...drat that rebellious side of me!!). I've found myself getting pretty creative in conforming to the 'stampless' rule, and that's probably (*definitely*) a good thing.
The twist for this stampless challenge was to utilize a window on a card front. Here's my result:

I used my Cricut to cut out the window and I chose paper within one paper pack (you're almost guaranteed a cohesive-yes-mismatched look going this route) for all of my cut outs. I used pop dots to raise two of the clouds.
 
A huge thank you to Altered Angel and Designs on Cloud 9 for sponsoring this blog challenge!! Make sure that you stop on by and 'like' the Altered Angel and Designs on Cloud 9 Facebook pages here:

Altered Angel Facebook

Designs on Cloud 9

and visit their websites here:

Altered Angel

Designs on Cloud 9

I'd love it if you followed by blog! Make sure to comment on this post and then hop on over to CherylAnn's page for her take on New Beginnings.

Dena

Ciska

Carolyn

Erin {you are here}

CherylAnn {is your next stop}

Becky

Happy New Beginnings, Friendship's Garden!!

Creating Keepsakes Sketch Challange

I've been looking at a set of pictures for weeks now, having the desire, but no inspiration, to get them onto a page. I'd lay them out, sort through paper, dig through embellishments, just to put it all away again, getting nowhere.

This is where sketches and sketch challenges spark my motivation and creativity.

Creating Keepsakes (a magazine I love, but the way) posted a call for a family themed page following a provided sketch:

 

Ok! This I can do!


I pulled out my troublesome (but oh so cute) photos of our family game night and went to work.

The paper I started with was the basic idea of what I wanted, but to make something appeal to my tastes, it has to be distressed beyond recognition, soooo.....

I took one of my small $1 ink pads (that I use more than anything else, really!) and lightly (and accidentally not so lightly in spots!) rubbed it onto the page. There are many, many ways to achieve this distressed look: using chalks you'll get more of a lighter, more controlled look, and using a spray mist is also another option, just to name two.

My Mind's Eye - Alphabet Soup Boy Cardstock Accessory Sheet

I sorted through my embellishments (again, and for the last time for these pictures, I might add!) and pulled out the little darlings that would fit on this page. I found a My Mind's Eye sheet of cardstock accessory shapes that matched perfectly with my newly distressed paper:

I loved the 4x6 frame of circles, but, following the sketch, needed a ditty to go above the pictures at the top of the page. I cut apart the sides to look like this:

The next embellishment I wanted was a pennant banner, and I knew I didn't have any pre-made. Luckily for me, these aren't too hard to figure out.

I took a piece of coordinating paper and gave it the same ink distressing treatment (a little gentler this time!). I cut one inch(ish) strips of the inked paper, and cut the strips into triangles.

With all of my embellishments ready, I started putting all of my elements onto my page for a rough idea of where I wanted everything to go:

 

This gives me an opportunity to set everything out, walk away from it (ok, you caught me...the kids woke up from their nap, so now I have to wait until bed time!) and come back to switch around anything that looks out of place.

One touch that I added to ALL embellishments going on the page (and on every page I do, really) is what I call 'edging'. I use the broad tip of my pens to ink around each piece on the page, before they're adhered. This gives a great definition to the pieces and adds cohesiveness, too.

I ended up switching a few things around, adding a few more elements, and finally adhered everything down with Glue Dots and with my sewing machine to top the banners, as well.

Completed page

So when you feel like you're getting nowhere, go somewhere!! Ask a friend, look at a website, or, better yet, keep stopping by here to get the best of both!!

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!)