Live Gently Upon This Earth - Mixed Media ATC

Hi Crafty Friends,

If you are a reader of my blog or follower of my Instagram account, you know that I like to often recycle by upcycling things as part of my art pieces; so I was totally stoked when the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this week was to Recycle Something.

I really wanted to challenge myself, so I gathered a bunch of recycling pieces and did a bit of experimenting and came up with this mixed media ATC.

Here, I have a drink cup holder, a piece of cardboard packaging, a piece of an old outdated dictionary page, a toilet roll, and the mesh from a bag of clematines. I never ended up using the newspaper as my first experiment went so well.

I started with the take out fibre drink holder which I torn part of into small pieces, soaked them in a strainer with water and then mixed them with white glue to make a paste/clay. After working the mixture, I used an IOD Art Decor Keyhole molds to create various ornamental pieces. While they were drying, I worked on the other pieces. I cut the cardboard to 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 ATC size and then spritzed it with water so as to remove the top layer in areas. Once I had done that, I applied multi medium matte to the remaining areas and glued on a piece of the dictionary page. Once it was dry, I peeled away the parts that were not glued and then brushed on gesso to cover the whole background. While that was drying, I cut a piece of the fruit package mesh and coloured it with Tim Holtz Pitch Black and Gold Mixative Alcohol inks.

Next, I glued the toilet paper roll on the inside to create an x-ish pattern and then used it to stamp on Tim Holtz Clear Rock Candy Crackle Paint to the gessoed background. Once dry and crackled, I added colour with Prima IOD water soluble oil pastels in Yellow Green, Cadium Green and Cobalt Green. I activated the colour with a water brush, adding and intensifying the colour until I was happy with the look.

Then, I trimmed and coloured the molded ornamental keyhole piece with Finnabair's Lucky Emerald Art Alchemy with a brush. Next, I adhered the mesh and and keyhole piece to the base using Multi Medium Matte. Then, I choose a sentiment sticker that I thought was perfect for recycle theme. I cut and trimmed the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Small Chat sticker into two pieces along with distressing the edges prior to adhering them to complete the ATC.

Supplies: IOD Art Decor Keyhole, Yellow Green, Cadium Green & Cobalt Green IOD Water Soluble Oil Pastels, Lucky Emerald Finnabair Art Alchemy Wax (Prima), white glue (Elmer’s), Multi Medium Matte, Tim Holtz Pitch Black & Gold Mixative Alcohol inks, Tim Holtz Clear Rock Candy Crackle Paint (Ranger), gesso (Liquitex), Tim Holtz Idea-ology Small Chat sticker (Advantus), drink cup holder, cardboard packaging, dictionary page, toilet roll, & mesh fruit packaging (misc.)

I am also entering this mixed media ATC into this month's Bleeding Art Anything Goes Challenge.

You can check out both challenges details and other entrants creations here:

          




TTFN,

Shine Brightly

Hello Crafty Friends!

Today, I have an upcyled mixed media tag that I made inspired by Simon Says Stamps Monday Challenge - Use Something New and Bleeding Art's December - Shiny and Sparkly Challenge.

I live in a small town that just opened its first Starbucks over the Christmas break and my daughter and I went into the new store for Chia Lattes. I saved my cup and washed it out as I thought that I the design elements were perfect for fussy cutting; and that is what I did for this tag. I fussy cut out the pattern for the bottom of the tag and the stars. The other new to me items that I used on the tag were Emerald Creek's Fractured Ice embossing powder and Ice Resin Sterling German Glass.

Both the emboss powder and glass add the "shiny" part of the Bleeding Art Challenge component. For the "sparkly" part, I added Vicki Boutin Iridescent CreativFX glaze to Distress Clear Rock Candy Crackle paint for some subtle sparkly crackle texture and jewels to the centre of the stars.

The tag base was made by first adding colour with Tim Holtz Distress Stains in Broken China, Cracked Pistachio and Hickory Smoke. Once that was dry, I scraped on some Vaseline and heat embossed the Fractured Ice embossing powder. Next, I scraped on some more Vaseline which acted as a resist for when I added a watered down white acrylic wash. After letting the acrylic paint set up for a minute, I then wipe over it and it comes off of the resist areas revealing colour from the base and the emboss powdered areas. Using a clean paper towel, I completely removed and residual petroleum jelly and carefully heat evaporate the rest with a heat tool. Then, I mixed up a little Iridescent CreativFX with the Distress Clear Rock Candy crackle paint and painted sporadically around the tag with the mixture. I set it aside to dry and crackle and then coloured the Tim Holtz ribbon with a combination of Cracked Pistachio, Lucky and Hickory Smoke Distress Stain sprays. After the tag was dry, I matted it onto a piece of upcycled ceral box chipboard to help reshape it and distressed the edges. Now it was ready for the embellishing touches. I adhered the Starbucks cup stars and pattern segment along with a Jet Black Archival inked Tim Holtz Quote Chip piece. I finished it off by adhering the glass shards, jewels to the stars, and the crinkle ribbon to the top.

I really like how this turned out and have decided to keep it as a new bookmark for my reading pleasure. It always brings a smile to my face when I open up a book to one of my little pieces of art. Plus, I have a momento of a happy memory of time spent with my daughter sharing our love of Chia Lattes for our first visit to Starbucks when it first came to town.

You can check out the challenge details and other entrants creations here:


          




TTFN,

Art is Your Story

The Our Mixed Media Moods December mood board sparks so many ideas for me. I love the neutrals with a pop of red.

For this take, I was inspired by the polka dot feather (as I had found one in my backyard this summer and had saved it), the water bottle frame as I set up my index card with the red on the bottom and then lines with black and white as well as the tanny-browns of the background.

As I wanted to use something new in order to participate in Dina Wakley Media Tribe's January challenge, I used my newly purchased Dina Wakley Collage Paper and Collage Words for the first time. I used two of the tissue patterns for the base background and covered them with gesso to push them back. Next, I added colour with a Dina Wakley Umber Scribble Stick and Ruby Heavy Body Acrylic paint. I drew the ink crock and cut it out of cardstock which I covered with Ranger Texture Paste and coloured with Stabilo All pencils in brown and black. Then, I glued the cut out Collage Words onto cardstock, edged it and then matted it with meshed medical tape.

The finishing touch was to add some Black acrylic paint to the tip of the feather before adhering it as well as a drip into the ink crock. A little edging and I called it done.

Supplies: Vision 140 lb watercolour paper (Strathmore), Dina Wakley Collage Paper, Collage Words, Ruby and Black Heavy Body Arcylic paint, Umber Scribble Stick, gel medium (Ranger), Texture Paste and Jet Archival ink (Ranger), gesso (Liquitex), Black and Brown All pencils (Stabilo), medical tape (Misc.)

Looking forward to another creafting session for another take on this inspiring moodboard.


TTFN,

With a Flourish

Holiday time affords me some much needed crafting time. When I saw Canvas Corps December Crew challenge, it piqued my crafty interest. After rummaging through my stash, I came up with this flourishing ornament.

The thing that is great about good products is that they don't go out of style with age, especially so if they have a vintage appeal. The flourishes are from some 7 Gypsies ones that I have had for ages. I even used the inset pieces as the hanging teardrops. I sprayed the flourishes with Tattered Angels Peacock Chalkboard and the teardrops with Chalk Chalkboard mist. The teardrops were too stark white so I spritzed them with Pearl Glimmer Mist. That was better but not quite to the cream colour that I wanted so I single spritzed them with Wheatfields Glimmer Mist and they were perfect. Just the right cream with hints of bluish glitter tones.

Once the flourishes were dry, I stamped them with a 7 Gypsies script stamp from an old mini stamp set from 2012 using Coffee Archival ink. I glued the flourishes together and then used the jump rings to add the hanging teardrop pendants which I embellished with gold iridecent sequins filled with golden glass beads. I used gold thread to hang it.

Supplies: chipboard flourishes and script stamp (7 Gypsies), Peacock and Chalk Chalkboard spray, Pearl and Wheatfields Glimmer Mist (Tattered Angels), Coffee Archival ink (RangeR), Tim Holtz Ideaology jump rings (Advantus), sequins and glassbeads (Dollarama)

I am really pleased with how this turned out. I love the challenge of looking through my stash and creating something from scratch. Check out the #ccbchallenge on social media to see other creations inspired by this challenge.


TTFN,