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

Playing Around

I had this idea in my head that I wanted to do but first I thought it would be a good idea to trial it first. Did it work how I wanted it to? No where close, but I am reasonable happy with the canvas. It's not something that I have done before. And it's probably not something I will do again. I am glad that I gave it ago though.

I always say to myself that Art is an adventure and you never know where you are going to end up, just enjoy the journey along the way.

Products used: 10 x 9.5 cm canvas, watercolour paints, gesso, texture paste, Faber-Castel Pitt Pens

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

Where Flowers Bloom

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a friends place for a creative play. I had no idea what to take so I did ask for some advice from a group on fb and the suggestions were fantastic but I still was confused. In the end I took pre gessoed timber boards, most of my stencils (and I have quite a few), gesso, a few stamps, heat gun, printed tissue paper, embossing powder and my gel medium.

I really had no plans of what I was going to create. In the end started creating a back ground and an idea started forming in my head.

This was the background I created at my friend's place and below is the finished piece.

Happy Creating

May Challenge at Off The Rails Scrapbooking

Does the mood board above make you want to create? I know it did with me. I love the fact that with mood boards/colour palettes, you don't have to been inspired by everything on it. Take the things that inspire you and run with it.

This month I used the colours, the timber and the saying to create my art journal page. We are our own worst critics and the saying reminds us that there is enough people out there criticising what we do that we don't need to do it to ourselves.

If you would like to see what other members of the Design Team at Off The Rails Scrapbooking create please click HERE.

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