I am SO thrilled to be a featured post at Unruly PaperArts again! This site is SO inspiring and they have some great challenges - here is a link to the Postcards from the Edge Challenge - mine is the last postcard:
Unruly PaperArts Postcards from the Edge
And here is a small image of the card itself:
Thanks so much for stopping by & I would love to visit your blog - leave me some blog love & I will do the same ~ Blessings!
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Saturday, August 17, 2013
A new addition to my family :)
I want to introduce my newest member of my family - this is "No Name Black Kitten" - LOL. I have wanted a black cat for ever & there has been a hole in my family since we had to let Baby go to the Rainbow Bridge. I belong to the local Freecycle list but for some reason I looked on Craigslist in the free stuff section for Denver on Wednesday and a few posts down I saw "Free Kitten". And against my better judgement, I looked. And there she was. I wanted a female (so I'd have 2 males & 2 females) and she was completely black - even her whiskers! So I called the woman who had her & told her I wanted the kitten but I needed to call the vet first to see if quarantining her in another room would be enough to keep my current cats safe from FIV and Feline Leukemia (they've been vaccinated but I don't want anything to happen to my kids!). I got the OK from the vet and called back the woman & we went and picked her up on Thursday. This kitten is SO happy (she was in a tiny apartment with 3 kids under the age of 5; I'd be happy too if someone rescued me!) She is full of energy, loves to be with people, is very affectionate & so freakin' cute! She has a vet appointment on Monday to get her tests and her initial vaccines & then she'll be able to get out of prison. Now, I just gotta pick out a name ~
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Time Flies
I
have loved the color blue ever since I was a child. To me it always feels so cool and calm. Since flying time (not airplanes, literally
time that flies by) makes me a bit nervous – it is SO easy to get caught up in
all the things that have to be done, things you want to get done and the things
that won’t get done – I decided to use my calm, cool and collected blues for
this project.
Once
all the ink from the stamping was dry, I started fiddling with all the goodies
I had picked out to embellish the project.
That took me the longest because I’d set it up, then leave it for a
while, come back, move this over here, leave it – well, you get the drill. I could do that forever so I finally buckled
myself down and glued everything in place.
I plan on using a spray clear coat in glossy to further protect the
panel but I am totally out of clear coat.
I don’t want to use gel medium because I fear it may smear some of the
inks I’ve used. I took some pictures to
try to capture the beauty of the embossing and the sparkle but nothing compares
to real life.
I
hope you enjoyed by tutorial. I hope
this inspires you to use some of your favorite colors in different shades &
to recycle those boxes!
I
recycled a Priority Mail box panel for this project (and you know I have a ton of these boxes because I love getting mail & ordering stuff online). It worked well but it warped a bit and I
couldn’t think of a way to fix it (of course, all the embellishments and what
not were already on the panel) and I had already left it under a heavy weight
after I painted it because it was warping.
I think what I am going to do is once I can spray it with a clear coat I
will somehow affix it to a strong wooden board and while it dries from the
coating hopefully it won’t be warped.
BUT I am out of clear coat, so it will have to wait. But I didn’t want
to wait to share this because I think it’s beautiful and hopefully you will,
too.
I
used a TON of blue inks, sprays and paints to make this, but of course, you can
use any colors you choose. I think the best part of this project are the LuminArte products
because they leave a shimmer and shine like nothing else I have used (of course
this is just my opinion. However, I have
used ALL kinds of shimmery products. The
only ones that come close are the Tattered Angels sprays). I have a bunch of the H20’s and the Radiant
Rain daubers (they used to come in daubers, they now come in spray. I just
transfer my Radiant Rain to a little spray bottle – you can either use it
full strength or dilute it) and I enjoy playing with them so much. Anyway, I highly recommend their
products. You should see what the
artists with the real talent can do to with them <grin>. Here is the LuminArte Blog if you are interested.
Now
this is an unusually long list of products but don’t let that intimidate
you. It’s only long because of the many
different colors of blue I used.
OK –
here is what I used:
Panel
from Priority Mail box (cut to a size I thought I could work with)
LuminArte RADIANT RAIN:
Majestic Blue, Rich Cobalt, Wine & Roses and Stargazer
Majestic Blue, Rich Cobalt, Wine & Roses and Stargazer
INKS:
Tim
Holtz Distress Inks in Faded Jeans, Weathered Wood, Stormy Sky & Tumbled
Glass
Adirondack Denim. Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black, Versa Magic
Night Sky, Memento Paris Dusk & Danube Blue and Brilliance Ink in Mediterranean
Blue & Top Boss Embossing Ink
PAINTS:
White
Gesso (Liquitex), White Acrylic Paint from Golden, Tim Holtz Distress Paint in
Chipped Sapphire
RUBBER STAMPS:
Tim
Holtz Playful Journey & Life’s Possibilities (clocks), A Stamp in The Hand,
F1846, Clock Face w/ Wings and a huge bunch of various clocks, sayings, etc.
from companies that I didn’t mark down on the wooden blocks (if you recognize
any of these & know who made them please send me an email!)
EMBOSSING POWDERS:
- The
Powder Keg Merlot & Not Quite Rusted Penny
- Personal
Stamp Exchange Cobalt Tapestry
- Moon
Glow Two Toned Lapis Lazuli Blue Gold
EMBELLISHMENTS:
- Small
Wooden Letters (mine are about ¾” high)
- Tin
Can
- Tim
Holtz Sizzix Movers & Shakers Mini Gears
- Miscellaneous
small watch parts
- Wooden
Gear from PorkChop Show (on eBay & Esty - he sells the gears with a cutout on them but
I asked for plain ones & he accommodated me with no issue. He also makes typewriter keys, mermaids, bottles & much more - you have to go shop & see what he is offering)
- Round
Numbers Stencil from Coffee Break Designs (not sure if this is still available)
Whew
– I am sure I forgot something!
First,
I gessoed my panel & the wooden letters.
The letters dried quickly and I began painting them with the Radiant
Rain in Majestic Blue, Rich Cobalt, Wine & Roses – I unscrewed the cap and
just dipped my paint brush right into the paint. I wanted the letters to have an ombre look, but they
had other plans. I am still really happy
with how they came out. Once the panel
was dry, I painted over the gesso with white acrylic paint; I debated about
leaving it just gessoed, but I wanted the shine from the acrylic paint. Once the panel was fully dry, I used the
Distress Paint in Chipped Sapphire to give the whirly background.
I literally pounced the paint, spritzed it
with water and used my fingers to swirl it around. My fingers are still stained! While that was drying, I kept painting the
wooden letters and started to choose the rubber stamps I was going to use. I have lots of clock stamps but I had already
had a few in mind. So I gathered my
stamps and my ink pads and just randomly stamped around the panel. I also used the Radiant Rain in Stargazer to
highlight the letters a bit and I swirled some on the panel itself. It is a beautiful iridescent color that
reminds me of prisms the way the color changes depending how you look at it.
My whirly background |
I
then took a tin can that was already cut and used that to die cut the mini
gears. I knew I wanted to emboss them
and I felt it was important to use the “bubble” side (when cutting tin there is
one side of the die cut that has a little wall around it; the other side is
puffy so I call it the "bubble" side. When
coloring die cut tin with alcohol inks you want to use the side with the wall
because the inks are so thin & they will run terribly if you use the bubble
side. Trust me) so I was careful to cut
the die cuts so I would be embossing the plain tin and not trying to hide the
label on the can. One thing to keep
in mind when embossing tin like this is that the tin heats up FAST! I mean fast
– I think it took less than 30 seconds to emboss each gear – and DON’T touch
the tin for a while after you emboss it – it is HOT and worst case the
embossing powder will come off and stick to your finger which can seriously
burn you! I embossed each gear with a different color embossing powder and they came out wonderful. I actually could of done a project with just these! (making a note of that idea <grin>)
My tin can gears |
Real watch gears and the wooden gear from Pork Chop |
The finished product minus the clear coat |
I’d
like to enter my Time Flies project in the following challenges:
Unruly
Paper Arts – Take a Powder
Divas
by Design – Favorite Color Challenge
Simon
Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – Anything Goes!
I am also entering this in the monthly challenge at Altered Electics (Thanks for the heads up Bev!) Altered Art
Another monthly challenge I have found is Our Creative Corner, and the theme is "Words, words, words!" - I would like to enter this piece :)
NOTE: I received no compensation for this post. Any information about products is purely my opinion.
I am also entering this in the monthly challenge at Altered Electics (Thanks for the heads up Bev!) Altered Art
Another monthly challenge I have found is Our Creative Corner, and the theme is "Words, words, words!" - I would like to enter this piece :)
NOTE: I received no compensation for this post. Any information about products is purely my opinion.
Labels:
Altered Art,
Die Cuts,
Distress Ink,
Distress Paint,
Embossing Powder,
gears,
Golden Products,
LuminArte Products,
Metal,
Radiant Rain,
Ranger,
recycled,
Sizzix,
Tim Holtz,
watch parts,
Wood
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