Kraft+, Black and White

There are times when you cannot go past a challenge and the new challenge at Kraft+ is one of those times. Kraft+ have a different challenge each month but there is one criteria that must be followed each and every single time, your design must be created on a kraft base.

The challenge is Black & White, this month there is also a kraft board to help with the inspiration.

When I first looked at the kraft board what caught my eye were the polka dots. I didn't use polka dots but they did give me my starting point. The circles also caught my eye and I just love circles.

I couldn't just stop at one card for this challenge I had to create two.

 Products used: kraft, dylusions paint - black, die cut circles, kaisercraft wooden flourish guitar, distress paint - black soot, faber-castell big brush pen - black, gelly roll - white, stampin' up - stars framelits dies and dusty attic stencil - criss cross.

Products used: stampin' up stamp - flower shop, stampin' up punch - pansy, faber-castell whipped spackle, the crafters workshop stencil - mini tiny circles, twiddleybitz chipboard - chicken mesh wire, versamark, archival ink - jet black, stampin' up emboss powder - black, tim holtz idea-ology - big chat, charms creations - heavenly hearts and cheese cloth.

Happy Creating

Be Brave

There is a new challenge blog on the block More Than Words. They have two challenges for the month. The first one is a month long challenge, where you can enter a layout, journal page or a canvas. The second challenge for the month runs for one week and it is for cards, tags or atcs.

I decided that I was going to enter a card into the mini challenge. The challenge criteria is that you must use the word Be and then share it on More Than Words Facebook Page. I used the phrase 'Be Brave'

Products Used: mixed media paper, black ink, white ecoline liquid watercolor, chipboard, black embossing powder, gesso, flowers, sparklets, scrapbooking paper.

Happy Creating

Happy New Year 2016

Hello and Welcome to 2016. Golly gosh I am not really sure where 2015 went but went it did.

Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book, Write a good one. - Brad Paisley

I have been seeing this quote around a lot recently and it really got me thinking about how I love to create and never really seem to do enough of it. So I have decided that I am going to try and do something arty every day. I am not going to put any pressure on myself and if I don't get a chance to do anything then that's ok. Nor am I going to put pressure on myself to actually have a finished piece every day but just do something, whether it be putting gesso on some mixed media paper for another day or creating a card or even an art journal page or even if it's just playing with a product that I haven't used before.

This morning to kick start you on your creative journey for 2016 I am sharing the new mood board and my inspirational piece for Off The Rails Scrapbooking.

I guess you can see where my inspiration came from, the Combi vans. The mood board provides so much inspiration I hope that you will pop on over to Off The Rails Scrapbooking to see what some of the other designers have created.

I will be back a little later in the month to show you how I created this card.

Happy Creating

Butterflies and Gold

The challenge this month over at The Mixed Media Card Blog is all about Butterflies with gold as an optional element. Well obviously with my love of butterflies I couldn't go past this challenge.

I am not one to throw things out and in fact if I have left over paint, ink, etc I usually find a journal page or a piece of mixed media paper to use it up on. That's what the background of this card started its life as. I had created another project that used pink paint so I mopped it up with my mixed media paper and in the draw this piece sat until last night.

Pink is not one of my go to colours and I wasn't enthused about using this background but it was there so I used it. To cover up most of the pink I used my palette knife to apply a thin layer of gesso over the surface. I thought to myself this is something that I can now work with.

Just recently I had seen some printed tissue paper that was black with white as the accent colour. I thought it to be quite unusual because normally it is the other way around. To use that as inspiration I found a white doily, cut it in half and painted it with black gesso, I then gently sanded it to give the black paint a distressed look. I added further white detail with my white Gelly Roll pen.

Using my black archival ink and Prima - Old Town stamp, I set about giving the background some depth before I stuck down my embellishments. Deciding this wasn't enough I used some texture paste that I mixed with Viva Precious Metal Colour - Orange Yellow and stencilled it through my The Crafter Workshop - 6x6 Mini Cofffe Splotch. I thought adding the Viva Precious Metal Colour to the texture paste it would come out a pale gold colour. I was mistaken, once dry it was a mustard yellow colour which was not nice at all. By this stage the texture paste was dry and was not going to be removed without destroying what I already had done. So out I pulled my container that held my trusty Faber-Castell Big Brush Pens and coloured the texture paste.

Once I was happy with my background I gave it some more rough treatement by using my distress tool on the edges of the paper. I stuck down my doily, gauze, my stamped and gold heat embossed image from the Prima Rust & Dust Set and finally my butterflies.

My butterflies were created by painting Viva Precious Metal Colour on normal white cardstock then using my Martha Stewart Butterfly punch. To finish of the butterflies I rubbed my Blood Orange Gelato over the top and went around the edge with my big brush pen.

Happy Creating

Discolouration at Let's Get Arty

This month at Let's Get Arty  they have a challenge that I found a little tricky I really had to put my thinking cap on, but I think I did it justice.

For the challenge you had to use Discolouration. I needed to make a colour strong and then reduce the pigment so it was faded and stained. The perfect product to achieve this look were my distress inks.

The photos above are the start of my process. I first covered my mixed media paper with Vintage Photo ink, using the ink pad straight onto the paper. The second photo is after I have wiped it back. I did this stage a couple of times trying to get the desired result.

The photos below are my final back ground. I did the process in the above photos and rub the ink off but not quite as much and then I splashed water, and added a little bit of archival ink around the edges and then the heat embossed image in the middle.

 

I used a Stampin' Up punch to create the flower which I then coloured with my gelatos and big brush pen. The stem is hand draw again with a big brush pen.

 I never have any idea how my designs are going to turn, this one is simple but effective. The pop of red against the browns really works.

Happy Creating

Winter has Set In

Winter has begun here in Geelong, apparently it is the coldest start to winter since 1949. Gee thanks mother nature, when will summer be back. This cold, wet and rainy weather is the perfect time to spend in my space.

With all this time spent in my creative space I am quick of the mark this month and have created a card to enter into the June Challenge over on the ARTastic Challenge Blog. The art work they have used this month is by  Luka Va titled 'Bird King'

Along with using the art as inspiration you must also include wood veneer and/or birds. Not only was I able to find a bird within my stash but it was made out of wood veneer, could not have more perfect. Now what to do with it. 

The humming bird on the left is what it originally looked like and the one on the right is what I did to it. I pulled out my gelatos and started experimenting. I first used 2 different browns and it just didn't look right, so I added gold to the mixed and still I wasn't thrilled with the look. My next move was a bold one, I found my blueberry gelato and started to colour. The result is this gorgeous teal colour. 

The colours of the art work that stood out to me were the orange of the beak, aqua on the wings and the teal of one of the small birds. The other elements that stood out to me was the wood grain in the back ground and the triangles on the chest of the large bird.

I used all of these elements and turned them into the card below.

Products Used - Dylusions Paint (Vibrant Turquoise & Squeezed Orange), Faber-Castell Gelatos (Chocolate, Cinnamon, Gold Champagne & Blueberry), Faber-Castell Big Brush Pen (Cold Grey) Stampin' Up Ink (Smoky Slate), Stampin' Up Stamp (Hardwood), Stampin' Up Cardstock (Whisper White) Texture Paste, Mixed Media Paper, MME Cut &Paste Enamel Dots.

Happy Creating

Love You To The Moon

There is nothing like leaving it to the last couple of days to enter a challenge, but here I am doing it.

I am entering the current challenge (May) at ARTastic Challenge Blog. For the challenges they provided a piece of art to be used as inspiration and this month it is from Sarah Beetson titled - Return of The Young Prince. The required criteria is that you must use Stars.

I loved the blue of the background and the Prince's eyes, they are what stood out to me most along with the oh so colourful stars. Below is the card that I created using the piece of art as inspiration.

Every night when I kiss my daughter good night I always tell her that I love you to the moon and beyond and she always answers the same

Products Used:

• Stampin' Up Star Stencil
• Texture Paste
• Blue Water Colour Paint
• Sand paper
• Big Brush Pen
• Indigo Blue Mega-Flakes
• Mixed Media Paper
• Stampin' Up Black Cardstock
• White POSCA Paint Pen
• Stampin' Up Stars Framelits Dies

Happy Creating.

Leave Room In Your Garden

The challenge this month at Let's Get Arty is using ACME Label Maker. All you need to do is create a label in ACME Label Maker and attach it to your design. I had a little fun playing with all the different fonts and colours.

For this challenge I combined my two loves of card making and mixed media.

 

I started with a piece of mixed media paper that I had coated with gesso and then I added skelton leaves. Over the top of that I put a piece of tissue paper. When going through my scrap tissue paper box I found this pattern piece. I had planned on adding just plain white but decided on the patterned on as it added another layer and dimension to the card.

 

Next I added a very thin layer of gesso which I put on with my finger, I love getting my fingers messy, they always seem to have some sort of mixed media product on them. To add some colour to the background i pulled out my water colour paints. The last two things I did was draw around the leaves with my POSCA paint pen and used my head gun to create bubbles.

Leave room in your garden for the fairies to dance is the quote I used. I created the label in the ACME Label Maker and I use the Bertinelli font, white lettering and Sienna as the background.

I really love this card and loved using all my new Prima products that I recently purchased.

Happy Creating

Wings

The current challenge on The Mixed Media Card Challenge blog is 'Wings' and you have the option of adding foil.

I am the first to admit that I am addicted to butterflies so when in my blog travels I came I across this challenge I knew I could not go past it. The other reason why I could not go past this challenge was because card making is my first love and mixed media is my second so all round this challenge was screaming my name.

When creating I always save the left over bits, I started with a small bowl and it has now grown into a draw. I am one of those people who cannot throw anything out because you never know how useful it will be in the future. Now that my draw is almost full, I have been trying to use these left over bits. The background on this card was created by using pre-cut strips of paper. The strips are from where I was cutting card inserts down to size. Seems appropriate for them to go back onto a card. I then used my Derwent Inktense Blocks to colour the background

Just recently I purchased the Butterflies Thinlits Dies from Stampin' Up and this was the perfect excuse to use it, not that I really need an excuse. In my paper scrap draw (yes I have one of them too, for plain cardstock and patterned) I found the perfect size piece of paper to use.

Using the option of adding foil to my card I used a new product from IndigoBlu called Mega-Flake and changed my black butterfly into a gorgeous metallic one.

 

While searching in my scrap draw for the strips of paper I also came across some aqua colour hexagons and some aqua coloured thread. I pulled them out and decided that that is what I would used to embellish my background. I knew this wouldn't be enough for the card so I went into my chipboard stash and found my diamond UmWowStudio chipboard. I love how the diamonds are all different sizes. The last thing I wanted to add was some sort of material. I found some natural fibre tulle cut a small piece which I then proceed to distress, so it didn't look so new.

The background needed something more so I used my Stampin' Up Off The Grid Stamp and when that was dry with my white pen I drew down the right hand side of my vertical strips of paper. It's all about layering and creating texture.

The order that everything went down is hexagons first, then the tulle and then the tread. This is where I hit a snag, I had to seek advice from a friend as I had no idea how to put the thread down without it looking messy. Her response was "It's meant to be messy". I struggled with this but I think I managed to get it right although the more I look at my card I am thinking it maybe could have done with a little more. Next came the placement of the diamonds. Over all of this I splattered white ink. The last layer of my card is my butterfly.

Happy Creating

Lessology Challenge - Typeface

The theme over at Lessology Challenge Blog is Typeface. Its all about using different fonts. An additional requirement they have for each challenge is that you have to upcycle something.

Finding different fonts wasn't the hard part as I have a huge amount of different stamps (alphabets, words), many letter stickers, lots of chipboard letters and stencils. The hardest part was deciding what I was going to use.

In the end I used 2 different Prima stamps - Rust and Dust & Don't Forget to Fly. Both of these fonts are a little hard to see as I did use them in the background. I used a Letter Jumble stencil by Dyan Reaveley, which form the main background. My quote I had in my scrap draw, it was to be used in a class that I did a little while ago but I didn't use it. The font is from a typewriter and the final typeface I use was my own hand writing. I don't really like my own hand writing but it seem appropriate to use it in this challenge.

Before i started this challenge I had decided that I was going to create a male card. Typeface just lent itself that way. Guess what that didn't happen in fact it didn't come even close to a male card.

To create the main background I used mixed media paper as I knew that it was going to have a lot of liquid to stand up to. I then used my stencil and texture paste to create a very textural background.

The stencil wasn't big enough to cover the surface of the paper, so I laid it 4 different times in different spots and different directions. I just love using stencils, they would have to be one of my favourite things to play with. You can get so many different results.

To add colour to my card I used Magicals by Lindy's Stamp Gang. When using them in this project I added the powder to water and painted it over the background with a brush. Once the background was dried and spread a layer of Texture Paste - Clear Crackle from Prima. I waited over night for it to dry as the instructions on the back suggested that but I had also watched different videos which said this was the way to do it to get that wonderful cracking.

 

Let me show you my card and then I will tell you about my upcycled item.

I have two upcycled items on my card, only because while I was looking for one I found the other. My first one is the sewing thread that is wrapped around my card. It was used to make a parcel I received in the mail pretty and the second item is the round circle that my flowers are on.

It is actually half a toy yoyo that we used to put in my daughter's birthday favour bags. My daughter had one and so did my son and both of them broke. I have no idea why I kept them, but I knew they would come in useful one day.

Looks a little different on the card as I coated it in gesso then used a spray to give it some colour.

Happy Creating

Swirls and Roy de Maistre

The ARTastic Challenge Blog asks you to take inspiration from works of Art. I think this is a really clever idea so I decided to play along with the challenge this month.

Roy de Maistre and his work titled Frozen Music is the art piece that is being used in the April challenge, with the additional criteria of using Swirls.

The colours from this piece of art that inspired me were the orange and purple. It's not colours that I would use all the time (although I used them last month in a layout) but they are 2 of my favourite colours. The swirls for me were the easy part. I had been wanting to try something for ages, and just hadn't done it yet, this was the perfect opportunity.

I found my D'vine Swirl embossing folder and ran my mixed media paper through my big shot. Then it was time to get messy.

The background I created remind me of Autumn so I wanted to keep it along that theme. The image that always comes to mind when I thinking of Autumn are the leaves swirling in the wind, which is taking the theme of Swirls that one step further. I was going to use leaves but then I found my feather stamp and feathers are very swirly in the wind.

Happy Creating

The Voice of The Sea

Recently I completed a course online with Michelle of Michelle Grant desiGns and she has been telling us that we have a voice. Well I decided to use my voice and all the products that I have sitting in my creative space and create a canvas.

The first thing I needed was a challenge and one that really appealled to me as I can count on one hand the amount of challenges that I have entered .

When I saw the mood board at Scrap Around The World I knew this was the challenge for me.

What initial drew me to the mood board was the colours, but in the end it was the texture and seahorses that really made me sit up and start getting creative.

Do you ever wonder why you buy things, I know I do all the time.Years ago I brought a seahorse stencil for no other reason than I thought it was cute, well that particular purchase came in handy.

Size of Canvas - 8 x 10

I love the stages that a mixed media piece goes through to end up with something that is very different from what it started out as. 

In finding my voice I also found this perfect quote that went with my design. In my research I found that the quote came from Kate Chopin - The Awakening.

Happy Creating

Challenge Pack

It is not very often that I actually create something for me, but 2 weeks ago I created a layout.

My local scrapbook store Create on Ormond has challenge packs that you can purchase at the beginning of the month and then you can take the completed design back to the store for a little show and tell and be in the running to win a prize.

The instructions said that we had to include a piece of everything that was included in the pack. A sketch was also provided. Well I can see where my layout came from but I may have changed it a bit too much, oops, oh well it was fun.

Happy Creating