Month: May 2023

May AJ Page-Start a New Beginning

Hello friends!  I feel like the time keeps moving whether or not I do!  At the last minute before getting something done, I finally started this page! Once I got going, it was fun to just play around to see what happens!

It’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month.  I know she will have some wonderful inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” May prompt of “FLOWERS”.

I noticed looking back on my AJ pages that I rarely use flowers on them unless it’s already apart of some papers that I’m using.  So this was a good challenge for me and it was fun to pull out these Tim Holtz “Flower Garden” stamps and dies from my collection to use for this one.

For the background:  I started with my 9″x6″ pre-punched holes of Canson 140# cold press watercolor and used a brick stencil and model paste.  I covered the entire page with some linen and umber paints mixed together.  I dabbed a bit of orange and spritzed it with water for a rust look.  I then went over that with a dry brush effect with some light ivory paint to bring out the texture of the brick pattern.

The flowers and stems were stamped over a watercolor Bristol that I previously made and splattered with chocolate paint.  I also covered the die cut flowers with shimmer spray. (Not sure if you can catch that in the photo.)  All of the stems were glued, and the flowers were glued with some being popped with foam tape.  I covered the bottom area over the stems with grit paste and then went over it with brown paint to give the appearance of dirt.

I took a Dylusions stamp and white heat embossed it over chocolate cardstock for the sentiment, hand cut it and popped up with foam tape at the top of the page.  I added a butterfly from a Tim Holtz ephemera pack.

 

Hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today!  Thanks for dropping in and checking it out!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Flowers
  2. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
  3. Simon Says Stamp Monday – Watercolor (I watercolored the flowers/stems)
  4. Arty Divas – Anything Goes

Sparkles Monthly Challenge-Things with Wings

Hello friends!  I hope you’ve had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend and are enjoying the month of May so far!  I look forward to seeing those beautiful blooms and digging in the garden! 

Today starts a brand new challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge and the theme is “Things with Wings“!  This is a good one as there’s several ways to interpret it!  Be sure to check out the blog to see what the design team has come up with for inspiration!  Speaking of design team, Caz is looking to add to the team, so be sure to check out the details if you would be interested in joining.  Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge this month:

I thought the butterfly from this Taylored Expressions stamp set called Endless Joy would be so fun to color and use for this challenge.  They were stamped with Copic markers and cut out with the coordinating dies.

For the background, I’ve taken the rectangle masking stencil and blended some blue ink over the center and then I’ve added an additional stencil over top of it and blended bluer to get the pattern.  I then added some raw umber paint and opaque white Copic to splatter over top of it.  I cut out a stitched frame and added it over the blended area.

I added the flowers and butterfly to the card by gluing and popping out the smaller flower as well as the wings on the butterfly.  The sentiment was gold foiled and cut out with a coordinating die that was glued at the top.  I added some highlights on the butterfly with a white gel pen and added some Stickles glitter to the center of the flowers.  The white panel was attached to a top folding A2 white card base.

I hope that you have enjoyed my card today!  I hope that you will stop into the challenge and play along with us this month!  Looking forward to seeing the gallery of wings!!

Have an amazing day and see you again soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

  1. Four Seasons – Spring Season
  2. Triple B (Birds, Blooms &/or Butterflies) – Spring 
  3. Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
  4. Unicorn – Flowers
  5. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal
  6. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes + featured critter
  7. Fab ‘n’ Funky – Things with Wings
  8. The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes

Creative Artiste Guest Designer with Altered Mixed Media Frame

Hello friends and welcome to May!  I’m happy to see this month come with all of the beautiful Spring things that pop out like the flowers and sun with the warmer temps!  I look forward to going out and working in the yard soon!  Hope that you’ve had a wonderful week and look forward to a great weekend!  I’m getting ready for a fun crafty retreat and I’m really looking forward to crafting with friends!

5 May 2023

I’m super excited to be a guest for this month’s challenge over at the Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge!  If you’ve been around, then you know how I enjoy creating a few mixed media projects once in a while besides my Art Journaling that I do each month.  The theme is always “Anything Goes” with Mixed Media, so this time, I decided to make some altered art with an old frame:

I thought this would be a perfect item to alter with a Spring theme in mind.  I know the frame “looks old”, but it was actually a really old wooden frame that was stained/varnished about 30 years ago!  I’ve sanded, painted, added some crackling paste, and painted over it some more to give it a Vintage “falling apart” look.  I like the texture and the crackling from the paste that came out in it. The total frame size is about 9″x13″ and it’s shown hanging on my wall.

The center of the frame was done using a piece of cardboard sized to fit inside the frame.  (I threw out the glass front as I didn’t have a need for it.)  I had some papers that I thought was so pretty along with the sentiment.  The sentiment was way too large for a card and I thought it would work great for this project.  Of course, the size of the paper wasn’t quite large enough, so I worked on collaging some musical papers around the edges for a border.  I also went over it with a floral stencil and paste, paint splatters and waterproof ink before inserting behind the frame.

Here’s a closer look at the top of the frame where you can see that I’ve added a butterfly ephemera that was painted with some clear glitter paint and attached next to the sentiment with glue and foam dots on the wings.

I have tons of flowers in my stash, so I’ve created an arrangement along the frame with a vine and different sized flowers that I’ve added with twirled vines.  I’ve used more paint and even some art stones around the flowers as well as various places over the background for texture and interest.  More paints and metallic wax was used over all of these places to keep the Vintage feel to the design.  I tried to keep them coordinated with the papers in the background.  (It’s weird how the colors vary so much when you take a photo compared to what it looks in person.  The top frame photo looks more blue, but it’s actually more this muted green color.)

And as you scroll down to the bottom of the frame, you see I have this 3D arrangement with the painted chicken wire against the back panel with the papers.  (the flowers were added on top of that.)  On the bottom left you see I’ve made a “nest” for my bird with Spanish moss and even added a couple of twigs from my backyard underneath it.  I’ve also added a pinch of green moss in there which is also what I’ve used over top of the white picket fence section to the bottom right.  It actually sticks out in front of the flowers.

You can also see where I’ve added some more art stones and paints.  I’ve finished the whole design with some Finnabair white gold metallic wax.  This is hard to capture unless you get really close, but it adds a wonderful detail that brings out lots of the texture in your finished piece.

I really enjoyed creating this altered frame while I was thinking about Spring coming to life outside!  It was also fun to be able to find something I’ve had for so many years and give it some new life!  I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well and I look forward to seeing what mixed media art you make this month for the challenge! 

Thanks for dropping in today!

Challenges:

  1. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes (NO CARDS) challenges are back after 4 years!
  2. Crafting Happiness – Flowers
  3. Pearly Sparkles – Anything BUT a card
  4. Simon Says Stamp Monday – Paint It!
  5. Love to Craft – Anything Goes