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:

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

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles26 Comments

New Release Week at Whimsy Stamps!

Hello friends!  It’s “release week” for September over at Whimsy Stamps!  You can check out all of the brand new dies, stamps and digital products in the store now!

I’d like to share with you a really fun “steampunk” style card today using one of the brand new digital stamps:

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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.

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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!

Here are the Whimsy Stamps products used on my card today with affiliate links:

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Challenges I’d like to enter:

  1.  Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
  2. 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.)
  3. Creatilicious – Anything Goes with optional humor
  4. Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers – ‘V’ is for Violentviolent edna
  5. Rainbow Card Challenge – Beautiful Brown0919 Beautiful Brown

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles29 Comments

‘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:

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

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles17 Comments

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.

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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:

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

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles19 Comments

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.  I’ve pretty much known the “host lady” and her family since I was a little child, so they’re pretty much friends of the family with me. 🙂

I actually had forgotten to take my own photos except for a few on the second day during the day I taught a class, but I was able to get a few photos from others to share.  (You know how it goes when everyone is moving about or you’re working on something or teaching and forget to take photos!  LOL)

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):

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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!

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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 Configuation 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!

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This is from my mom’s class where she taught us this cute Santa ornament that we painted on a gourd!  He makes me giggle!   I love it!

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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!  (More details and a 3D look at these projects are in the video above.)

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!!

*Vicki* from Stamped Smiles23 Comments