Halloweenie (?) Shadow Box (yep, another one!)

I made this little shadow box from one I got at the Dollar Store – I have had it in my stash forever but I knew someday it’d come in handy and I’d know just what to do with it.  Halloween is definitely one of my top 3 favorite holidays – I love spooky stuff and candy!  The box is only 8 ¼” from the very tip top to the bottom and 7 ¼” side to side so it isn’t very big but I love the little cubby holes and I wish I had bought more. I don't have any pictures of the construction of the box as it's fairly cut & dry; if you have any questions you can either leave a comment for me or use the "contact me" form.

First I gessoed the wooden shadowbox twice.  When I am working with wood, I am careful to ensure it is totally covered because wood will just soak up whatever medium you put on it and in the case of this, with all the nooks and crannies I wanted to be sure the entire box was covered.  And at this stage, I really didn’t know what I was going to do with the box and when I don’t know I try to prep for anything <grin>.

Here's the box after I painted it.

The paint is hand mixed dark gray acrylic (I used my trusty Golden acrylics); I just used some black paint and white paint until I found the color I liked & painted the whole box.  A trick I like to use when mixing paint is I mix it in a plastic cup so when I think I am done I can pop a piece of waxed paper over the top with an elastic and save the mix; inevitably I need the paint again, either to touch something up or fix a mistake and I have kept acrylic paint for days using this trick.  The last thing I want to do is try to mix the exact color because experience has shown me time & time again I won’t be able to do it.  Then when the project is done, or at least the painting part, I can just toss the cup away.  If I only need a little paint I will use those little plastic cups that come with liquid cold medicine and then I’ll wash the cup out and keep it; I have tried to do this with the regular cups but because they have ridges on the sides I can never get the paint out completely so I toss it even though I hate adding to trash.  I can never seem to get the perfect amount of paint out of the container – I always end up with too much, so this way I can at least try to save it.

Once my box was all painted, I started to fool around with finding things that fit in the cubby holes.  I measured one of the cubbies and cut little rectangles out of black and orange card stock but I kept having to trim them to fit in the holes. I measured again and again had to trim – well, come to find out ALL the cubbies were different sizes – oh JOY – at least it wasn’t my measuring skills this time, LOL.  But I decided I really didn’t want the box to be too Halloween like (Halloweenie?) in case I wanted to display it all year (I’m lucky, my honey likes creepy stuff too) so out when all the rectangles. 

I had gotten an order I placed and forget I even ordered the DCWV La Crème stack and once I saw it I thought, it was perfect for the background of the holes.  You can only see some of the paper but I like the fact that if you look really close you can spot it.  The pictures of the skulls, web, Devil, Edgar Allen Poe and the witch are all from clip art.  I got the really cool picture of the lady holding her head from Kris Dickinson’s blog called A Nostalgic Halloween (she is an amazing artist; check out her ATCs!), the two little girls are from a collage sheet from a company that’s gone out of business and the “eyes” face I had in my stash of photos – I don’t know where it came from but I think its Charles Manson.  The poison label at the top is an authentic label from my stash of pharmacy labels.  The swirl is a piece of Tim Holtz grudge board painted with acrylic black paint (I used my tip about the tiny cold medicine cups with the black paint.  Even though it wasn’t a hand mixed color I knew I missed some spots the first time I painted it and, like usual, I knew I’d splotch out much more paint that I needed, so I kept it in the little cup – worked great!).  The adorable black plastic cat is from an eBay purchase eons ago.  The 2 medicine bottles came from The Pork Chop Show – I glued little wooden circles (the size of bingo chips but without the number) to the back of them so I could have them stand out a bit.  The Dresden trim came from a kit club I used to belong to but it is easy to find online, I got the puffy fabric bat ribbon from the same club (but again, I am sure you can find it if you really want it).  I made the black crystal ball out of a marble glued to another little wood thingie (same as the kind I used above) painted silver with a Krylon Leafing pen.  I had the little bottle & ribbon in my stash as well as the little copper nuggets that are inside the bottle (I don’t even know what I am going to use the rest of the little nuggets for – don’t even know why or where I got them! <grin>).  The black chain came from a Dazzles sheet from Paper Wishes called Steampunk . I thought it would be cool to give the pictures some dimension so I picked a few, Edgar, the witch & the web and glued little wooden thingies (the same ones I used to make the crystal ball) to the backs of them and then glued them in place.

This is a view of the dimension.

 Lastly, the little drip of blood running down the side is a drip of resin I made when I had mixed too much.  Once it dried, I painted it with red acrylic paint on the flat side then just glued it on. 

Stunning isn't it?

There ya go – my Shadow Box – I really enjoyed making this a lot and I have quite a stash of various sized shadow boxes so I know I’ll make another one (I know I have one more with the cubbies in it - I just don't know where it's hiding). . .hmmm, is it too early for Christmas?

I would like to enter my shadow box in the following challenges:
My Crafty Life - Anything But a Card (over the end of November)

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes

Rhedd and Rosie Challenge - Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Anything Goes

Get Inky! - 3D Holiday

Creative Inspirations Paint - Anything Goes
Drunken Stampers - Goth or Halloween 
Left of Center Creative Challenges - Halloween or Creepy (entry 2)

The Courage Board

Getting started on this was actually the hardest part of the whole thing for me.  This was another case of researching a project so much that I actually became fearful of trying it.  I seem to do this a lot – I look at other people’s creations, research how they put it together, what items they used, what adhesive, etcetera until I literally have so much information I scare myself into never trying it. I sort of stun myself into inactivity (I need to think of a catchy name for this “disorder” so when it becomes the syndrome du jour it’ll be easy to say & maybe I can brand it - tee hee).

It was one blog post that finally gave me the push I needed to go ahead (I wish I could remember who’s blog it was, but I was participating in a blog hop and it was about 2 months ago – from now on I’ll write this stuff down!).  The woman on the blog had made a beautiful frame for a picture of her and her husband.  I recall that she used a lot of sprays but I don’t remember what brand she used.  I do remember being impressed at how cool everything looked, even the every day items like a paper clip, once it was all gussied up. 

So, I am going to finally play with some of my stash. Let me tell you, I have been collecting, and hoarding, these objects for years.  I used to buy game pieces and the like off eBay back when you could get good deals on other people’s junk, the stuff no one wanted but figured they’d try and sell.  Now everyone is trying to get $90 for a set of Scrabble letters.  Once I bought 15 pounds of game pieces from a guy for $18.  I had planned on making a 3d mixed media piece at some point so all my goodies sat in their drawer, waiting for me to occasionally come and check them out to see if I could use anything on something I was working on.  As soon as I got the game board, (I love FreeCycle!) I knew that is was time to just do it.

I Used:

• “Courage” rubber stamp is from Wendy Vecchi’s set called Heirloom Art,  LCS103
• Ranger Archival Jet Black Ink
• Golden gesso
• 1 quarter piece from a game board (amazingly strong!)
• The embellishments were a lot of stuff I have just collected.  I used dice, dominoes, some funky game pieces that I don’t even know what game they came from, small plastic bowling pins, plastic bone, various wooden chockies, a little paper umbrella, beads, a few pieces of Grunge Shapes, shoe erasers, plastic flower, the little things that hang off key chains, various wooden pieces, some small filler beads and more.  You need to FILL the frame – you want is as chunky and full as possible.
• Distress Paints in Fired Brick, Mowed Lawn, Chipped Sapphire & Mustard Seed
• Golden Acrylic Paints in Titanium White, Quinacridone Red, Phthalo Blue, Hansa Yellow Medium & Phthalo Green
• Fireworks Ink Sprays in matching colors
• Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Iridescent Gold
• Krylon Spray Gesso

close up of the goodies

I began with the quarter game board. I gessoed it and while it was drying I started to go through my stash & pit out items I knew I wanted to use.  Then I started to glue – I use Crafters’ Pick glue and I love it – it is the best white glue I have ever used.  So I glue and glue and glue.  

view from the top (there was much more added as the project progressed)

  

Then I started to gesso over the objects.  This was a LOT harder than I thought it would be. I figured I could just use my paint brushes to get into all the nooks & crannies but some spots were very hard to reach. Plus at one point I got paintbrush fibers all over everything & I mean it looked like a paintbrush exploded.  Well I didn't want to use a good paintbrush with all the smooshing and jamming it into the underbelly of the embellishments, so I used a cheap one (and I hate those sponge brushes - they seem to soak up more paint than they actually leave on the surface).  I couldn't get the "hairs" off so I resorted to just putting the whole thing in the kitchen sink and rinsing - lightly - I didn't want all the embellishments falling off, just the paintbrush hairs. After complaining, my honey remarked that he had some stuff in the garage that they use on cars in a spray can – grey primer.  COOL I thought since they paint cars after they primer them this would work out fabulously.  

Nope.  Nothing, and I mean NOTHING stuck to this grey stuff.  Not acrylic paint, not sprays, nothing.  So, now that it is all grey and unpaintable I sigh, deeply (so I don’t throw the whole thing out the window) and get my gesso out again.  I have already used a TON of gesso and now I had to try to cover all the grey.  After a few days of gessoing, drying and gessoing again I still had the same problem – I couldn’t get into the hard spots.  I started researching – there HAD to be spray gesso! And there was!! I wasn’t too thrilled with the reviews I read about the performance of the product, but I felt since I really just needed the board sprayed a few times it would be OK.  Then I tried to find it.  Michaels™ didn’t have it, I found it online, but I wanted it NOW.  Since my other half was going to Wal-Mart I figured I’d give him the info and see if it was there. . . . .(hear that Jeopardy theme? That's me waiting for him to come home) . . . . .

YIPPEEE!! They had it!! He also bought me 2 spray glosses in matte, which I totally appreciate, but I need one in glossy.  But, hey, I got the gesso!  Since he has more experience with spray paint than I do – ahem – I asked him to do my board.  It came out FABULOUS!!!I didn't take a picture of the board happily gessoed because I figured you all know what white paint looks like.

Now I can color!! I had originally wanted to use sprays on the project, but I don’t have any Dylusions sprays yet (they are on their way as I post this) and the sparkly sprays I do have just didn’t cover enough fast enough.  So I broke out my acrylics.  The colors are very vivid, too vivid for this project, so I just added Titanium White and toned down the paint until I liked the color.  Then, as I was painting, I occasionally dipped my brush into some clean water and made the paint thinner so it would drip into the hard to reach places.  I did one color a day so I could get a little mix of the colors but not a whole lot.  I also added some Fireworks Spray mists, with a paint brush, to each color once it dried – I used whatever color mist I had that closely matched the color I painted in acrylic. Once the painting was done, I took a piece of white card stock and stamped my “Courage” stamp on it in the Jet Black Ink (I actually put a lot of thought into what quote I was going to use.  Since this quote really speaks to me and I had found the courage to finally do this project, it was a perfect fit!) I took my Distress Paints and smooshed a color (use one color at a time since you don’t want your final color to be muddy brown) onto my mat, spritzed with water and put the stamped paper in the paint making sure I had the correct color in the correct space.  After I was done, I spritzed the whole quote with water again and let it dry.  I cut the quote down to size, clipped the corners with my corner rounder and attached it to my piece with gel.  I then lightly spritzed the whole thing with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Iridescent Gold.  

 These two pictures are actually just 2 different ones I took - I think one is with the flash & one is without just to try to give you an idea how sparkly this is.  I really like how the paint looks worn in places (the blue domino at the top is a good example).
 

As you can see I did add some "filler" beads to the board as I went along but all of the big pieces are in the same places as they are in the first pictures so you can compare

and get a good idea of what items will look like, depending on how you color them of course.  I think it is so cool how some of the texture really held up considering how many coats of primer and gesso there is on it.  If you look close you can still see the diamond pattern in the Grunge key & between that & the heart you can see a bit of mesh I put on.  I had put these number beads I had, where the number is raised from the bead base, and I can actually still count them from 1 to 9 - not so much in the pictures, so don't strain your eyes, but in real life.

A close up of the quote

I wish you could see how shimmery it is in person – it’s so hard to get pictures of shimmer.  I think this baby is going up in my art room!  It was well worth the effort and I can’t wait to start making another one. . .hmmmm. . .I wonder how much spray gesso I have left. . .

I am happily entering this piece into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, the theme is anything goes :) as well as

Crafts - Too Challenge You, where the September theme is texture (I think I got that - LOL)

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.

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

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. 

My 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.

 

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

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.

The finished product minus the clear coat

 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’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.

Laminate Chip Upcycle Project

This shows the size difference of the laminate chips

At this point, we have all seen the laminate chips you can get from home improvement stores free (or you can purchase them at some smaller independently owned art supply stores).  Those chips are small, about 2 ½” x 1 ¾” – which makes them perfect for key rings, necklaces and a whole slew of other projects.  Well, not only do I have a lifetime supply of the small laminate chips I also have a ton of the larger sample chips – the larger chips are about 5” x 3” – too large to make a key ring or necklace (well, I suppose you could make either out of the large chips, but. . .).  I have had these for ages, and truthfully, I forgot I even had them until I went into the garage and saw the plastic bin marker with “Laminate Chips & Misc.”  I opened the bin and grabbed a bunch of the larger chips and brought them inside, put them on my desk and proceeded to drive myself insane trying to think up for a use for them.  I picked through the chips and found some that were textured and/or a color I wasn’t too fond of.  A few even had some partial writing on them with what appeared to be a thick black permanent marker.  I took four of them and gessoed them with a few coats until you couldn’t tell what color they were and the writing was gone (using thin coats and letting them dry completely between coats – as I still wasn’t sure what I was going to make with them I wasn’t in much of a hurry).  

  

So I had these four large laminate chips all gessoed up with no where to go.  Finally, I thought of an idea – how cute would little art boards be? Something that you can use to display your current favorite ATC or small piece of art work?  I thought they’d be adorable!  I colored them with some Distress Paint (I used Chipped Sapphire, Fired Brick and Mowed Lawn – I kept one just white) spritzed with water, painted some more and let them dry. I protected the chips with a wash of matte gel mixed with water to just ensure the paint I used to decorate the chips wouldn’t rub off or flake.

Now comes the genius part (I know, hard to top my idea, but I think this does) I had been saving pop tops from soda cans and cat food cans.  The little ring inside the part that attaches to the can fit perfectly inside the ring at the top of the chips! I took a picture of what part of the ring I am talking about – sometimes it is too hard to put what you mean into words and a picture really can be worth a million words!

 

Anyway, I hooked the little ring inside the hole at the top of the chip and figured out that was what I’d use as a hanger. Perfect! That way you can hang them on a push pin that is already on your bulletin board, hook them on a hook (I’m thinking of those heavy duty magnets you can get with the hook on them so you could put the chips on your fridge) or hang them on a nail.  If you use soda can pop tops the hanging opening is smaller so choose the size opening you’ll need based on where you plan on hanging them.  But, even if you use the smaller tab, you can always add ribbon, ornament hooks, unfolded paper clips or whatever to make them so you can hang them anywhere. You really don’t need the little part on the pop tab since you are going to glue them on anyway, but I think it’s a neat trick.  I used E6000 to glue my tabs on, putting the glue on the back of the chip over the hole in the chip and all.  You aren’t going to be able to see it and in the next step, you are going to add even more glue to stabilize it further.

Small binder, or bulldog, clips

OK, I have my hook situation down, what about a hanger of some sort so you can change whatever it is that you have on the chip?  Back to the drawing board again. I thought about paper clips, but I thought that using something like that would make it too easy to tear whatever it is you had displayed; I thought about some magnetic attachment, but then you’d have to make whatever you wanted to hang magnetized in some way, too.  Then I realized that something similar to what is on a clipboard would be perfect! But I didn’t have anything like that in my stash. After mulling the situation over, I decided that the mini bulldog (also known as binder clips) clips would work perfectly!  They are small enough, only about 1 ½” when they are closed, even smaller when they are open.  And I have those; I have a lot of those!  And if you don’t have these you can easily purchase them in any office supply store, I have even seen them at the dollar store.  I took my mini binder clips and glued them on the front using the E6000 again and a craft stick to sort of smear the glue around and level it off a bit.  You aren’t going to see this either so don’t really worry about it.

 

This blob of glue holding the clip also helps to stabilize the pop tab

Since I left the binder clip black for the silver & white chip & I had a blue clip I used on the blue one, I ended up painting some of the mini clips to match the 2 chips I had left.  I first painted them with gesso then with alcohol ink markers, but I should have sanded them first because some of the gesso came off in spots.  I decided to leave them to dry (the alcohol ink) overnight and see if I could save them in the morning.  I didn’t like the way the clips came out so I tried another route to coloring them.  I just pouring some colored alcohol ink and smearing it all over the binder clip with a q-tip. That covered much better than the marker did.  I really didn’t like the red bulldog clip at all, so I trashed it and colored a new one with a gold Krylon Leafing pen.  Much better!  I decide to go with red & gold so I also used the leafing pen to color the pop tab and I edged the chip as well.

For the little signs, I used Publisher, made them and printed them out but you could just as easily use any word processing program, your own handwriting, cut out letters, stickers or stamp them.  I matted one on silver card stock & the other I edged in Faded Jeans Distress Ink; put one on the blue tile and the other on the silver & white tile. The trick is to attach the signs with pop dots so they go over the blob of glue and where the pop tab and the hole in the tile meet.  Since I used the pop tab “backwards” on the silver & white chip, I finished off the tab by wrapping a sparkly silver ribbon around it and gluing the ends to the back.

Tab on the left is the "wrong" way

I then went through my sticker stash and used some stickers on the red one and the green one – I also think rub-ons would be cool, but the green chip has a texture and I didn’t want to chance messing up any of the others (my track record with rub-ons is not the best.  I even bought a special tool that is supposed to make it so much easier and almost foolproof.  Note the “almost” foolproof).   Once I was done with the stickers I gave the red chip another matte gel & water wash; I left the green chip alone since the stickers are dimensional (the epoxy sticker kind) and I was afraid the wash would cause the stickers to fall off.   Since the backs of the chips were a mess of glue, paint and gesso, I covered them with some patterned paper; being extra careful around where the pop tabs had been glued. I think these are a great upcycle project and they are really cute and useful.    

I have SO many ideas for these large chips now and I know you will be seeing more projects using them in the future. I am finally going to be hitting some tag sales tomorrow & I can’t WAIT – I hope to score some arty stuff. Thanks for reading & looking!

  

I am entering these in the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge “Going Green” which features projects using recycled material or projects featuring the color green.  Have a crafty day!

Here is the blue chip at work

Home May You Find Comfort. . .

I found a bunch of samples of different art boards I had sent away for eons ago.  They were all held together with a long plastic screw (it was similar to a book binding or scrapbooking post – of course, I saved it).  After trimming the parts of the board that were either dented or had writing on it I had this piece left that is about 6 ¼” tall and about 4 ¼” wide. I wanted to make something folksy and colorful – I am having a BLAST using bright colors, which is something I am totally new at.  My décor and clothes consist of basic neutrals – lots of olive green, black, white; pretty boring pallet but after all this experimenting with color who knows what it will inspire me to do! I just got my order of Sizzix dies that I scored during their huge 4rth of July sale and also wanted to play with my new dies so I figured out how I could incorporate it all together. I am fighting a yucky head cold so I hope this tutorial makes sense - LOL.  Here are the products I used:

• Piece of Foam Board
• Golden Fluid Acrylic paint in Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Teal & Titanium White
• Distress Paints in Wild Honey & Mowed Grass
• Home May You Find Comfort & Rest sentiment from Wendy Vecchi Homemade Art set
• A piece of scrap cardboard (I used flimsy all white cardboard – one step thicker than cardstock)
• Distress Ink in Frayed Burlap
• Tim Holtz Movers & Shakers Die – Mini Openings
• Sharpies – Dark Brown and Magenta
• Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black
• Heart Corner Punch from All Night Media (it has a total of 5 little hearts and they bracket your corner)
• Scrap of Text Paper (I used packaging from a 7 Gypsies product)
• Piece of Clear Plastic (I used packaging from one of the dies I bought)
• Scrap of Brown Paper (for the “frame” under the sentiment)
• Scrap of Red Card Stock (for the Heart Corner Punch)

First, I mixed the ultramarine blue and titanium white together and painted the background to look like the sky.  I painted the board about ¾ of the way down, then used some cobalt teal diluted with titanium white to sort of end the sky; then used my Distress Paint in mowed grass at the very bottom.  I just used the dauber and swiped it across the edge of the board.  For the clouds, I loaded a small paint brush with titanium white only and just kinda dabbed it around to give the clouds some fluffiness.

I then cut out my openings using the Mini Openings die – I knew I wanted the half moon window over the door so I positioned the dies accordingly.  I cut out the square opening on another piece of cardboard to use as the roof and used the window pane die cut separately since I wanted to mount the window onto the “house”.  I cut out the square “house” with the 2 openings in it (it’s about 2 3/8” wide and 2 ¼” tall) and then angled the piece of cardboard with the square cut out for the roof (I just used a ruler – on the other side of the cardstock – and made a triangle so I could be sure the square opening was were I wanted it and that the roof was big enough to fit over the house the way I wanted it).  I painted the house with wild honey Distress Paint and used the direct to paper technique for the roof- just pouncing the frayed burlap on the triangle until I got a pattern I liked.  I heat set both the house and the roof.  I colored the window pane with a magenta Sharpie.

Taking a piece of clear plastic from my stash of packaging I cut out little squares to fit behind the square window in the roof, the half moon window in the house and the window pane die cut.  I stamped the Wendy Vecchi “Home may you find comfort & rest” in Jet Black ink on the back of a piece of 7 Gypsies cardboard that was used in packaging product because I liked the illusion of text under the stamp. I then mounted it on a small piece of brown card stock to frame the sentiment.  I also cut out little squares to fit behind the square window and the window pane.  I took the die cut of the door and colored it with a Sharpie in dark brown. 

 

Next, I took the clear plastic I had cut out and adhered it to the half moon window, the window pane & the square window.  Using a scrap of white card stock I glued one of the little hearts from the heart corner punch on it, and then glued that onto the plastic I had cut for that window.  Subsequently I took the text background and glued it to the specific clear plastic for the square window and the window pane then glued that to the back of the windows.  I glued the window pane, roof and door to the house.  I set my roof “over” the house, so it sat on the house like a hat.  Adhered the sentiment mounted on the brown card stock to the board. Finally, I took the remaining little hearts from the corner punch on the board where ever I felt they added some splash.

Since this project only uses one stamp I am going to enter it the Simon Says Stamp Challenge “A Little Stamping”.  Thanks for looking and I hope you like my project!

It's kinda quirky, but I like it :)

"Stars" Project

I had an idea of what I wanted to do – that’s rare – usually I have no idea what I am going to do and stuff just flows.  This time I knew I wanted to make another wall hanging and I had found an old scrap of foam core board and I decided to use that as my base. I had tea dyed some coffee filters for a doll project I am making and while the filters were dyeing, I threw in some of this really cool “fabric” my honey brought home for me.  I say “fabric” because it isn’t cloth, it isn’t lace and you can tear it – so I don’t know what it is made of, but it took the tea dye beautifully.  This is a picture of the “fabric” in its natural white color with the tea dyed “fabric” next to it.

Since this “fabric” came out SO cool, I decided to make a project and enter in the Unruly Paper Arts RAQ2 challenge of Shabby Chic using the colors pink & brown in 3D.  Now this is a true stretch for me because I really don’t like the color pink but I marched onward in my quest!   I trimmed the foam core a bit to try to make it as even as I could, then I glued the “fabric” on it.

 

I used one of my photo stamps from The Stampsmith (Estelle has the most beautiful photo stamps I have ever seen & they work like a dream).  I used the stamp called “Heavenly Gaze” & stamped her on glossy card stock (I stamped her on regular card stock, too, so you could see the difference. It is recommended that photo stamps be stamped on glossy card stock) using Archival Ink in Jet Black.  Then I found my saying that I got from Quietfire (another AWESOME company) on light pink paper.  Edged the pink card stock that I stamped with my quote with Distress Ink in Brushed Corduroy and then inked the edge of the frame that I cut out with my Cricut machine (this is a miracle in itself!!) with the same.  The frame was made out of paper from Dovecraft that was a gift many years ago.  I put together the frame and the picture and mounted them in the middle of the foam core.  Because the quote says “It is said that when it is the darkest that you see the stars the clearest” I wanted to put some bling on – stars of course!  So I dug through my gems and such, pulled out some stars and blinged her up!  I felt that she might have been done at this stage so I put her on my wall until I could decide if she needed more or not.

After looking at her all day, on & off, I decided, she needed something on the side.  So I took another piece of Dovecraft paper and used it to die cut the flower you now see on the left hand side.  Since I had to snip a bit off the flower, I took a piece that I snipped and put it down by the quote.  I then decided we need a little something on the right side, so I took that same light pink paper, die cut a little butterfly and made the body out of brown card stock (I don’t remember who the flower die cut is from but the butterfly is from QuicKutz).

I like her MUCH better now, don’t you?  Do you think she was fine as she was?  Please let me know because I am working on embellishing my pieces & all the comments are SO helpful.

Also, since I titled this project "Stars" and she is so shabby & chic I am entering her in the Simon Says Stamp & Show blog Challenge for the letter "S".

Faux Riveted Patchwork

I had every intention of posting this a few days ago but we were hit with a one day heat wave & I was just too hot to do anything.  Then I forgot all about it,  got all tangled up with some other stuff I am working on and my space is way messier than usual since we have finally begun to put shelves up in my room.  Yippee for the shelves, bummer for the mess, but anyway. . . 

I finally got my hands on A Compendium of Curiosities, Volume 2 by Tim Holtz – I love the first book, so I was ready to love this book, too, and I did.  I find lots of inspiration from Tim Holtz’s creations and I love finding new ways to use the stuff I already have as well as adding more stuff I absolutely need to my huge list of needs (notice I didn’t say want).  One of my favorite techniques in Volume 2 is what is called “Riveted Patchwork” using Inkssentials™ Metal Foil Tape and Adirondack Alcohol Inks.  The only problem was I didn’t have any Metal Foil Tape, and I really wanted to make something that looked as cool as what Tim did, so I did what every good crafter (artist?) does, I improvised.  This is what you’ll need to make the cute little box that I made:

• Metal Foil Tape (I used 3M Metal Repair Tape that we got a Lowe’s for about $8)
• Adirondack Alcohol Ink (I used Eggplant)
• Alcohol Ink Blender tool (which I never thought I needed but am now SO glad I got it)
• Alcohol Ink Blender Solution
• Small Box (I used plastic, but I imagine this Metal Foil Tape will stick to almost anything)
• Wooden Feet (buttons, whatever you’d like to use)
• Krylon Silver Metal Pen to color your feet (if you want to)

Make sure your box is dry & clean.  The box I used is a plastic box with a partial lid on it, that held cosmetic applicators that look like pointy cotton swabs, and measured 3 ½” x 3 ½” .  I chose this box because I liked that the lid had a portion that stayed on the box completely rather than a paper mache box where you just lift off the whole top (this a bit clearer when you look at the picture of the box).

I covered the box with the Metal Repair Tape.  I took the top completely off the box for this step and started at the edges of the box.  I figured this way I could get the tape right up to where the top went back on without too much hassle.  Once both pieces, the top & bottom, were covered with the tape I burnished the spots that needed it (like the bottom.  This box had little tiny plastic feet that I didn’t even know was there until I went to cover them.  So I fit the tape the best I could around the little feet & decided I was going to use something else for the feet that would fit right over the plastic bumps).  If I had wanted to make the tape look riveted this is where I would have used whatever tools I had to make little circles with the dot (rivet) in the center, but I decided that for this box, the rivets weren’t necessary (plus, I didn’t really feel like drawing all those little dotted circles).

After letting the box sit overnight (thought I doubt you’d have to) I used the Alcohol Ink Applicator and started to sponge the eggplant alcohol ink around the box & top, taking care to try to keep the pattern somewhat consistent.  When the ink color got soft, I put some Blending Solution on the pad & smooshed it around again.  This is where I also inked another small piece of the metal tape to use for the hinges of the top (I have many pieces of cardboard that I got in packages, you know the kind you get to keep sheets from getting crinkled when they are mailed or filler cardboard used in bigger boxes, not corrugated because that will bend.  I took some waxed paper and covered the cardboard & I use these to put my stuff on to dry.  It’s awesome because you can paint on them, glue like a mad woman, make a huge mess and it doesn’t go anywhere but on the cardboard.  When it’s too inky or messy, I just either rip the waxed paper off of it, or put another piece on top.  These work great if you are like me and make a few different things at once – the whole reason I am even telling you this is because I used one of my waxed paper boards to put the small piece of tape on and set it aside to dry).

Once everything was dry & I liked the pattern of the ink, I attached the top of the box with the tape hinges and used my Krylon Silver Leafing pen to cover some wooden pieces I had for the feet.  Then I attached the feet with some glue & sprayed it with some acrylic sealer. 

The sealer didn’t make it as shiny as I like, so I am debating if I am going to try some Inkssentials Glossy Accents or maybe some Modge Podge on it, (and I just got my order from Amazing Crafting Products (you HAVE to go see what people do with this stuff!)– the resin & the putty – so I might get crazy and mix up a batch of resin for the top, but here it is for now.  And, no, I have no idea what I am going to use it for. . .maybe a gift? 

Here it is all done! This view is from the front.

This is from the side - see what I mean about part of the cover staying on?

The cover is open and you can see the shine from the Metal Tape through the plastic.

A really good view of the hinges, kind of taken under the top.

And finally the bottom with the pretty silver feet.

I should have taken a before picture.  I'm still new at this!  Hope you like it and I would LOVE your comments!