Crafting Retreat Hang-over Plus ICAD Week 7

Hello friends!  Oh no…It’s been a week since my last posting!  I have a “crafting hang-over” if there is such a thing! LOL!  There were so many things to get done after my 3 day crafting stint and I just couldn’t get it all in!  I ran out of steam!

For my 3 day crafting event, it was a local friend who puts together 3 days full of classes, prizes and food! I am still a true blue stamper to the end, but since it was mostly painting, I brought my painting supplies with me and not my stamping supplies.  Here’s a mixed media sample I helped teach for a class:

I had a Jack Daniels bottle to alter and went with that for my sample.  The advantage that I had compared to everyone else is that I had four flat sides which made it a tad bit easier to attached items to it.  These girls were creative and made it work and had fun!  The window that I put on even glows in the dark with some special glow-in-the-dark embossing powder!  I then covered it with some glossy effects for a “window” look.  They are all so cool looking and I loved seeing all the different results!

A closer look at the bottle and turned to the other side, you can see all of the texture that I attached to the bottle with the flowers, embossing paste, gears, bats, etc.  I was going for a steam punk look for the bottle portion (which is why I went over the texture with just a gold metallic texture paste.)  and I thought it would be cool to make the green goo coming out at the top, so that was fun to paint with a metallic green.  There were lots of little tips and tricks everyone learned along the way.  It was funny because everyone didn’t understand why they were painting over everything they worked so hard putting onto the bottle.  LOL!  After the texture paste, there was the excitement!

This is just another side view of the bottle with the added texture I’ve put on it.  I was able to collect some unique items for everyone’s bottle through my husband’s work in a manufacturing setting that had little metal pieces…no idea what they are, but it was something fun and unique to add texture to the bottle.  And of course I had gears, buttons, stencils with embossing paste, flowers, etc.  The windows and bats were all cut out with some dies that I had.  That window die is actually from Lawn Fawn!  The tiny bone sticking out on the window is of course Tim Holtz.

Here are some of the girls having fun with their bottles in class.  They are very intently working on getting their bottles just right! 🙂  Of course it’s hard to get everyone together at one time in a photo, but there were a couple more people there including myself not shown.

Here’s a look at the bottles from class!  I think everyone enjoyed this concept and I even had an additional bottle that I made they really enjoyed the other sample that I made too.  So I made a different theme on this one:

For those that are not Halloween fans, I showed them a completely different look with the bottle.  This is my “Mermaid bottle” that I’ve made with Patina Effect Texture Pastes and copper metallic paints.  I used some sea shells that I have along with some rope, beads, texture paste, cheese cloth and lots of other little tid bits I had on hand.  I  got a cork and used it for the top of the bottle and added a gem on top.  I really like how texturized the paste made the bottle look.

Turning the bottle around, you can see more detail on the bottle along with the charm and tiny jar I have hanging down around the cork at the top.  I painted a silver mermaid charm with some Mermaid Sparkle metallic paint of course and then touched up the edges of it some copper texture paste.  For the bottle, I had a package of tiny bottles and I filled one with some blue sequins and made this tiny tiny label over vellum and attached it to the bottle.  It says “Mermaid Tears”.

On the back side of the bottle, you can see that I’ve made a little “path” for the beads and sea shells to flow all the way around it.  I have taken a mermaid die cut and cut it out several times to create a dimensional look by adding several layers of cardstock together.  I had her sitting on top of one of the stone pieces I’ve attached to the bottle along with some gems above her for a “bubble” affect.  This mermaid die along with some of the stones, gems, pebbles, mermaid charm and the gem on top of the cork all came from a past card kit.

And here is just another angle of the bottle before we come back to the front of it.  It just gives you a better idea of what all the dimension is on the bottle and how I’ve highlighted it with copper metallic paint.  I even had a little toy compass to attach to the front.  I had a piece of decorative paper from an older paper collection that I cut of piece of to attach to the front of the bottle and then wrapped the rope around it.  I gave it a bit of a white wash over it with paint so it fit with the theme of the bottle….old looking.

And finally, yes, when I got home I realized that I was behind on chores around the house as well as my ICAD challenge!  So I sat down yesterday to try and catch up with those so that I don’t get too far behind!  I’m happy to say that I’m all caught up and there is not many left to go either!  Another 2 weeks and it will be complete!

So here are the results of Week 7 ICAD:

With the theme and prompts given this last week, I didn’t expect mine to be as colorful as they are, but some of them turned out very colorful!  I also enjoyed playing with some things I rarely get out to play with!

So now you know what I’ve been busy with this past week and maybe you’ll excuse me not being around so much! 🙂  Hope you’ve enjoyed my mixed media projects.  I’d love to know what you think!  Have you ever tried mixed media?  Do you like the concept of it?  Just curious how many of you out there enjoy it!  Thanks for stopping in!

Challenges I’d like to enter my bottle(s) for:

1.  A Inky Mess – Just For Fun (mixed media)
2. Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media Goes
3. Altered Eclectics – Anything Mixed Media Goes (no cards)