October AJ Page-Thriller Mix

Hello friends! Halloween is very near! 💀 I have been working on a few Halloween cards and will be posting those as soon as I know they’ve been received. But today’s project is about Halloween in mixed media art journal form! I do enjoy crafting Halloween!

Very excited to be doing 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 always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” October prompt of “MIX” (mix colors together from any media):

For this month’s prompt, MIX, I have to say that I love to mix up colors to see what they look like. I have SO many bottles of watercolor and of course watercolor is fun to mix up…so I went with that for my background.

For the background: Hard to tell, but I’ve used eight different colors of watercolor that was applied to a pre-punched 6″ x 9″ Canson 140# cold press paper. I also used a circle stencil to apply some white ink over it for a bokeh effect. I also stamped some random words and gears. (Stamperia and Tim Holtz) I also took some of the green watercolor used in the background for a few splatters.

Showing my age here but does anyone remember the Micheal Jackson “Thriller”?! It’s perfect for Halloween! I thought I needed to add a title to my page to represent the Halloween theme and this song came to my mind! 😆

I found some cool lettering that I used my Cricut machine to cut them out with in both gold metallic (also cut gears with) and some dark grey cardstock. I glued them together with a slight off-set so the gold shows through. I also used some Nuvo Glow in the Dark liquid drops around the edges of the letters. I wanted to make it really “goopy” so I heated it up with my heat gun so that it bubbled.

The bottom of the page has the really cool Steampunk skull image that came from an Etsy store. I used another image of it to fussy cut the hat and then popped it up over the image on the paper. If you look at the center bottom of his hat, I added a gear with a clear drop in the center of it.

I’ve also added a talk sticker and rub-on from Tim Holtz. I added a couple more metal gears from my stash to go with the gold cut out ones. Lastly, I’ve taken some silver metallic wax and went around the edges of the page and slightly over top of the skull’s hat.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today! I sure had fun putting it together! Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – In Gear
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media #98
Try it On Tuesday – Halloween
Two Old Bats Halloween – Anything Goes Halloween
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Spooky!

June AJ Page-Metal Train

Hello again! I hope that you are enjoying your start to Summer or at least enjoying the month of June as we come to a close with it. We are hoping to get some much-needed rain the next few days, but I see there has been some very strange weather happening everywhere lately. So whatever your area, hoping it’s good for you.

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” June prompt of “METAL”:

How about you?! Do you have lots of metal things in your stash? I have several different things, but this time I wanted to concentrate on my large bag of metal gears along with some older things from my stash. With the gears in mind, I decided that a steampunk theme would be something I could do. So I pulled out my Stamperia Aviator themed papers and saw this cool steampunk train to use.

For the Background: I used my usual 6″ x 9″ 140# Canson paper with the pre-punched holes at the top and painted it with some Periwinkle and Turquoise colored paints. I splattered some dots over it with silver metallic paint and then went around the edges with some soft black sponged over it. The wording strip at the top was printed on my computer and it says: “Not all those that wonder are lost” repeated. I also printed out the “9 3/4” from my computer and cut it out with a circle die and layered some copper metallic cardstock behind it. (If I saw a train platform with 9 3/4 on it, I’m sure I would want to take it! Maybe I need a trip to Universal Studios!)

The train along with the “Vintage Travel” badge and compass were fussy cut out from the Stamperia papers. I used a metal clip from my stash to combine the badge and compass together and used foam tape to attach it to the page. I also used some foam tape to attach the cut-out train after adding a metal brad to the front wheel.

I wanted to share a closer look at the bottom of the page to explain what I did. Using some black cardstock, I used the Lisa Horton Mechanical Rivets embossing folder over it. I used some Finnibair metallic wax pastes to go over the entire panel to get this look. Before attaching it to the page, I used some large metal eyelets from my stash to attach them at each corner and then I glued some extra metal gears over top of them.

You can see how I’ve attached all of the metal gears to the train here as well. For the “steam” coming from the train, I just used a sponge and white ink.

Had some fun playing around with the metals and making faux metal as well with this one. Hope you’ve enjoyed it too! Thanks for dropping in today and see you soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter this AJ page in:

Art Journal Journey – All About Numbers
Country View – Vintage
Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media
Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes (no cards)
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Pick a Number
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes Using Paper

July AJ Page-Leave The Trail

Happy weekend! Where in the world did July go?! I can’t believe we are at the end of the month already. It’s really been a busy Summer this year and I know that Autumn is a favorite season of mine which will be busy as well, but that’s all a good thing.

It’s now that time for a monthly Art Journal page and collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), so please check out her blog for more inspiration too! We’re trying to get creative by using up our never-ending stash piles! So here’s my Art Journal inspiration with the “SMASH OUR STASH” July prompt of: “decorative papers/collections/kits, etc” :

OK, I don’t really know how much of a “challenge” it is to use decorative papers on anything…but I have such a HUGE stash of papers and I’m always trying to find different ways of using it up instead of always hoarding it! The papers I’ve used on this page are exactly that…I hoarded it! It’s just too awesome NOT to use! I purchased this pack of Stamperia Sir Vagabond 8×8 papers when they came out and haven’t even touched it! Now is the time!

I used my traditional 6×9 size with the holes pre-punched at the top to fit with the book I’m making. I ran out of my usual 140# watercolor paper, so I’ve switched to another pad from my stash which is Strathmore Acrylic paper…very thick and made to use with paints. (I like the canvas texture it has.)

For the background: I started with some old paint from my stash and brush blended the different colors. I didn’t want them to be too bright which I thought would take away from the paper images. After it dried, I covered the entire page with some Tim Holtz Postage Tissue Wrap. I thought it ‘stood out’ too much, so I painted over it again using the same paint colors.

For the Journal Prompt with the papers: I cut out pieces with scissors that had interesting images I wanted to use like the circle map, the “Vintage Travel” strip, the hot air balloon with train, the “mountains” at the bottom, the circled compass, the sentiment and then I ‘ripped; a piece for the top of the page and then re-punched the holes. The compass circle, hot air balloon/train and ripped newspaper edge was sponged around the edges with Toffee ink.

Before placing the cut paper images, I decided to add a fun textural window image. I stamped the window with chocolate colored pigment ink and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.

Collage Medium was used to attach all of the different paper images except the balloon/train, compass and sentiment. I used Pitt Big Brush Markers to go around these collaged images for some shadowing. I then used some white and chocolate paints to create splatters over the page being careful to cover up the window area.

Before attaching the sentiment strip and the compass, I used some Aged Brass Metallic Wax to go around the edges. I also used this around my entire page and over the shutters on the window. I attached the sentiment strip and the metal cogs with 3D Matte Gel and then used foam squares to pop up the compass and balloon/train.

– Really fun AJ page to create and I hope that you’ve enjoyed it too! Thanks so much for stopping in today!

Challenges:

Country View – Travel
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Mixed Media Lovers – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Arty Divas – Anything Goes
NBUS – Anything Goes + Never-Before-Used-Schtuff (papers!!)
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

New Release Week at Whimsy Stamps!

Hello friends! It’s “release week” for September over at Whimsy Stamps!

I’d like to share with you a really fun “steampunk” style card today:

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Oh this was so fun to create! When you check out the line of September’s Digital Stamps in the store, you will see a new line of “steampunk” style images that came out. The one I’m using here is called Steampunk Lilith. I thought she looked awesome with her little attitude carrying her gun there! LOL!

I started with a white piece of cardstock and pulled out a steampunk style stencil and inked some distress colors over it along with the image tag panel and then sponged around the edges of them as well. (Both of the tag panels are popped up with craft foam over the card base.) Before attaching these panels, I took some silver paste and rubbed it around the edges after distressing them.

I die cut a piece of silver foil with the same tag die cut and then I took an embossing folder and embossed a piece of copper foil. I mounted this piece onto a piece of gold glitter cardstock and wrapped a gold ribbon around it and attached it to the base of the card. I also used this same ribbon for the bow at the top of the tag image.

I found a sentiment to go with the image that I silver heat embossed and then cut out with the Whimsy Stamps Quick Strips die. After I sponged around it, I added some metal brads to each end and then popped it up with foam tape under the image.

All of these layers were attached to a suede colored top folding card base. Since the image printed out a little taller than most of my digital images tend to, I made my card base 4.25″ x 6″ in size. I have an envelope maker, so I can create the size I need.

Lastly, I’ve glued on some metal gears including the one in the center of the gold bow.

Here’s a closer look at the image and how I’ve colored her up using a combination of Copic markers and gel pens. You can sort of see the areas that I’ve colored up with gel pens that have the shine on them. You can also see how shinny the metallic papers look as well as the embossed sentiment. The embossing folder I used for the Copper strip comes from a Tim Holtz Texture Fades EF.

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Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and got inspired in some way! Thanks so much for dropping in! I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
As You Like It – Favorite Way to Add Text and Why? (I like to either stamp or heat emboss a sentiment and then die cut/cut it out, this way I can decide where I want to add it and if I like it well enough to add it…then I don’t have to.)
Creatilicious – Anything Goes with optional humor
Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers – ‘V’ is for Violent
Rainbow Card Challenge – Beautiful Brown

‘Create’ Steampunk Mixed Media Canvas

Hello friends! Happy Saturday!

Oh I had so much FUN playing around with all of the really cool “Steampunk” products! Today, I’m sharing this mixed media canvas project that I made:

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This was so much fun to just get “messy” and enjoy a different creative process other than making a card! If you’ve been around my blog for a while, then you’ve probably seen me share a different project from time to time. Sometimes I just like to ‘change gears’! Hahaha!

So I had this old 8″ x 10″ canvas laying around and thought it would be cool to take several chipboard pieces I had and make something. I started off by taking some wooden letters from my stash and gluing those on. I then took a stencil (gears) and randomly added embossing paste through it over the canvas. Once dried, I then painted over everything with some black gesso.

I’ve used several metallic paints from my stash and using my “finger tool” I went over all of the textured areas of the canvas and along the edges. I also used the paints to paint over the Chipboard Gear Background which was randomly cut out with my scissors and glued randomly over the canvas. At first I was thinking it was weird to mix the different color metallic together, but then thought that steampunk can sort of be like that anyway.

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What’s hard to capture in a photo is that Gilded Sparkle embossing powder over the wings! It’s stunning IRL! I’ve heat embossed the Chipboard Wings with it and then I heat embossed the Chipboard Key with the EP. I went around the edges of it with some silver metallic paint so that it showed up better against the black background.

For the image, I stamped the hat with black Ink onto an already cut out white Cardstock from the Steampunk Cut file. I colored it up with several different Aqua Pigments and sponged around the edges of it with some brown ink. I also took some Copper metallic paint and went around the edges too. I took the heat embossed wings along with that hat image and splattered them with some black paint as well.

The wings were attached onto the canvas with some black foam tape and then I curled the ends of them that are hanging off the edges. I attached the heat embossed key in the center of the wings and then added the colored image over top.

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For a little bit more texture on the canvas, I decided to take the EP to randomly heat emboss areas that were sprayed with water. The water was just so that the powder had something to stick to and then once heat set, I added more until I was happy with it. I like the look of the embossing where the spray marks are.

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Lastly, to finish it off, I’ve used the metal gears, ribbon (tied in bow over top of the key), gold pearls (painted in copper metallic paint), and sequins – as well as another gear (attached in the center of the ribbon bow) and a clock button (painted with black and metallic paints) from my stash that was all glued on. I also added some silver glitter to the center of each sequins.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my “Steampunk Mixed Media Canvas” today and were inspired in some way.

Thanks for dropping by! I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Crafty Gals Corner – Emboss It
Creative Moments – Anything Goes
A Inky Mess – Anything Goes Mixed Media
More Mixed Media – Anything Goes (optional bright colors)
A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes

Steampunk Style

Hello friends! Welcome to the weekend! Hope you’re all doing well and have some fun plans! I have some happy craft time planned while hubby works overtime! 🙂

I am SO excited as yesterday afternoon I had time to play and I couldn’t wait to make something to share today with you:

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This was something a bit different for me as I don’t believe that I have ever gone in a “steampunk” direction before with my cardmaking, but I had so much fun putting the different metallic, sparkle and shimmer on this!

I started out with a white cardstock base A2 sized and top folding. I took a piece of masking paper and used a circle die to cut out an area. I used the negative of that piece to go over the entire front of the card base. I then took a Stencil along with the sample size glitter glaze from the kit and spread it over the circle opening on the card base. (Set it aside to dry.)

I then took some paper from the kit and used the embossing folder from the kit to get the texture and then sponged one some white Ink to bring out the texture. I also used a circle die cut a bit larger than the circle on the card base to make a frame with it. I attached the silver ribbon from the kit around the bottom of it and then attached the panel over the white card base.

Lastly, I colored the hot air balloon image from the stamp set with not only the Aqua Pigment, but also some other metallic Aqua Pigments like Penny and Brass! The roses were colored as well. There is a cut file for this stamp set, but I decided to just fussy cut around it this time. I popped it up over the card with foam tape. I then took some of the sequins from the kit and attached it randomly to the design.

The photo doesn’t do the sparkle and shimmer justice.

Here’s a closer look at the hot air balloon image along with the pretty sparkle from the Glitter Glaze. I like the different color metallic to play with!

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today. I had lots of fun playing around with it and I know that I’m not done yet! I have more ideas floating around in my head that I’d like to try, so stay tuned!

Thanks so much for dropping in today! I appreciate each of you very much and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Always Fun – Circles
Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
Creative Knockouts – Sparkle & Shine
Creatalicious – Anything Goes with optional: add some sparkle
A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes

Crafty Retreat Results

Hello friends! I finally found the time to make a post and gather all of my photos together so that I can share a post with you from last week’s “Crafty Retreat” that I went to at my friend’s house.

So the “theme” for the crafty retreat was called “Hats off to Painting!” The majority of the group likes to tole paint, but we all (including myself) like to try our hands at many other crafting avenues to try different products that we may not be familiar with…so there are some “mixed” projects today I’m sharing! I had such fun during the entire 3 days!

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Here we are with our decorated hats on for a group photo! Even little ‘Gizmo’ had his hat on, but not sure he was feeling the fun like the rest of us! LOL! (Unfortunately the host was taking the photo!) We all had our Dick Blick aprons and shirts on which was very kindly donated for our “Painting Divas” group…they were VERY generous with the bag of goodies they gave us! We had all 3 days worth of fun, classes and prizes!

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So, the reason for all of the fun crafty hats is that we were to take a hat and decorate it for a challenge. Here is a photo of all of our hats. There were some really fun and creative ideas as you can see! One of the girls was quite tired from all of the crafting and decided to take a little siesta during the festivities! LOL! It was very cool that I was the winner voted for my created hat design. (You can see on the table above and here’s a closer look below):

Vicki-Sreampunk Hat

I guess it’s a bit hard to see in the photo above of me wearing it, but I had hubby bring home one of his hard hats from work along with a pair of goggles and then I went to decorating it in “steampunk” style! I had fun with it and enjoyed the process!

Vicki-Configuration Spell Book

Here is the altered “Potions and Spells” book that I taught for the class! Last year at the “Crafty Retreat” they saw my “altered book” that I had previously made during my time as a Splitcoaststampers.com “Dirty Dozen” DT member and asked if I could teach how to make one for this year’s class. So instead of the “altered book” idea, I had them all use a Tim Holtz Configuration Book.

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Here are some of the book covers all lined up that we were waiting on to dry before we were able to start painting them. A couple of the book covers were left at the work table, but while those were drying, we worked on the inside of the book.

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Here’s another photo of me standing there holding one of the books and everyone was finished with their books looking at them at the end of class. They seemed to really enjoy this messy project! I just loved teaching these fun ladies too!

Vicki-Santa Gourd Ornament Class

This is from my mom’s class where she taught us this cute Santa ornament that we painted on a gourd.

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The host lady is the one that taught this cute penguin class! I adore penguins and I’m so happy that I took the time to finish this up when I got home!

I really hope that you’ve enjoyed all of these projects as much as I enjoyed creating them! I also had another set of calendars that I finished, but I’ll share on another post on another day as this one is pretty full!! LOL!

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One more thing to share is that we have a robin’s nest with one little blue egg inside. We have a a Prairie Fire Crab Apple tree in our backyard full of pretty blooms and I guess the robin thought it was a nice place to make a nest…so we’ll wait and see if there is a baby bird coming soon!

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all of you moms out there! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!! Thanks so much for stopping by and I’ll see you soon!!