Altered Puzzle Challenge Week 9

Wow, can you believe that it's already week 9 of this challenge? Amazing how time flies! It seems like I just began the altered playing card challenge and here we are on another challenge into week 9 already. 

Here are the links to the previous posts for this challenge

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Our Facebook group is here:

Facebook Group

At any rate, Sunday was Father's Day but it was also mine and my husband's 18th anniversary! Time really does fly!!

This week I started with the two pieces and used distress stain in two different colors directly onto the background

Next I applied a darker color of ink around the edges of each piece

I then applied an even darker color again around the edges

I love how the colors graduate from darker to lighter towards the middle

Next I decided to use a stencil and two different crackle pastes, one is a white paste from Wendy Vecchi and the other is a clear crackle paint

This is the stencil I am using for both of these

I simply used a pallet knife to apply the crackle mediums through the stencil

This is what they looked like after application

Set both aside to dry thoroughly, I left mine for a few hours while I ran an errand

When I got back home they both looked like this... look at that crackle! So cool... I love the way the distress stain color bleeds through the crackle mediums.

Working with the brown piece I stamped this weed stamp onto my background. This is from an older Tim Holtz set, I also used this set for my images

Once again, I forgot to take photos of the next steps BUT, all I did was stamp butterflies onto white card stock and colored and cut them out and applied them to the top, I also just stamped my sentiment (Dylusions) and cut it out and added it

Here is my finished first piece (I love this one!)

For my blue piece, I only added a sentiment, I wasn't sure if I wanted to add anything else

I might add something later but for now I like it as-is

Here are the two pieces together

and the full puzzle so far, what do you think?

Again, sorry this post is late, I hope you enjoy making this week's pieces....

Have a great week!!!

Relaxing Journal Page

Welcome back to the blog today, I have been messing around in my craft room today and wanted to do something "just because"... It's always fun to create with one thing in mind, "relaxation"

For this page I used the new Dyan Reaveley Paint 

I first applied a coat of Gesso to my page so that the paint wouldn't seep through and also prep my page for the paint

I then added a bit of torn paper across the top

I used a combination of paint colors to create my circles

I simply applied them with my fingers, on top of the color I added a bit of white in the center of each circle and blended

for the black, I used oil pastels and smeared them with my finger

The girl on my page is from Stampotique called 

Jasmin by artist Jo Capper-Sandon

I colored her with Copic Markers

Lastly

I printed out my sentiment and adhered 

I am in love with this page, I love the colors and the easy relaxing vibe to it

Thanks for coming by, enjoy your day and remember to "relax"

Stampotique Challenge 188 - Favorite Background Technique

Good day everyone, thanks for coming by again.  Over at Stampotique's Designer Challenge Blog this week Nellie is our hostess and she has challenged us to use our "Favorite Background Technique"

Here is what Nellie says about this challenge:

"What's your favourite technique to make backgrounds? I love making backgrounds on a crafsheet. Quick and easy and yet a different result all the time."

One of my favorite techniques was introduced by Dyan Reaveley and it's called Ghosting. Using Dyan's sprays, I sprayed my page with several different colors. You then use a stencil and water to "lift" some of the color off the page and you get this "ghosting" in the background. It's really cool.

On this page I used Stampotique Stamps:

Dog Cube, Breakfast and Skiddy - By Daniel Torrente

Arch - By Arwen McCullen

Backgrounds are so fun to play with and create, there are so many things you can do with yours. Come by Designer's Challenge Blog and join us in this challenge.

Have a great week!!!

Altered Playing Card Challenge Week 10

Hello everyone and welcome back to WEEK 10! of the Altered Playing Card Challenge

If you have missed any week's here are the pertinent links

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6 
Week 7
Week 8

Week 9

and our Facebook page

Facebook Group

and the Pinterest Board link
Pinterest Board

Update on foot - A lot of you have been asking how I'm doing with my foot, I appreciate your thoughts, concerns and prayers. My foot is doing better, at my last appointment the doc took some X-rays and also took my bandaged off and he said it was healing up nicely. I'm off my crutches now and just walking in the boot. I have to wear the boot 24/7 still but I am so glad to be off those crutches. My next appointment is on the 17th to take out my stitches. Yay! 

Ok now back to the altered playing card challenge ....

This week's theme was supposed to be image transfers, I have done a few image transfers but not many over my crafty lifetime. They are not easy to accomplish well and I proved that this week haha!

I started with two APCs and two different types of paint
I also cut out some photos from magazines that I have

On this first APC I used Tim Holtz paint for my background, I wasn't sure if this would work but took the chance anyway
I applied paint to my craft matt and then spritzed with water
ran my APC through the paint and immediately put my photo face down in the paint. I pressed the photo down really well and then brayered over it

For the second card I went about the same process only this time I used Claudine Hellmuth paint and painted it directly onto my APC and then added my photo

Once that was completely dry (I let it set for 12 hours or so but most likely would only take an hour to dry) 

Spritz your card with water and start rubbing off the excess paper, careful not to rub off your image itself

My two cards didn't come out so great, the Tim Holtz paint worked better than the Claudine Hellmuth but both were unsatisfactory to me

This is my "make it work" moment, I decided to go in a completely different direction, Dyan Reaveley  has always been one of my favorite artists and so I decided to go with her style and really think outside the box on this one
I decided to change the theme at this point.....

So the theme for this week is "Outside the Box" Quirky and whimsical. 

I used the face on the first card that I had transferred and I drew around her chin and outlined her nose to make her stand out a bit more.
I also looked through my magazines again and found some eyes that would work great for her

I also used various Dylusions stamps to create the lips and legs
I had to draw my own little hat because Dyan's were to big to fit on the card and I also
highlighted the hair with Copics and drew it longer

I used a portion of Dyan's "Be Bold" stamps to create my words for my card

This was the stamp set I used for the legs, I had to cut them shorter to fit on my card but they worked out great

I also doodled on one side of my card with a black pen and my white gelli pen, Here is my finished card

I know this style isn't for everyone but I hope you will get a kick out of trying it out this week

For my next card, I wasn't happy with the image transfer at all so I just simply covered it up completely.
I used Dyan's stamp set and one of her heads and eyes, I then colored both with my copics

I used an edge stamp (also Dyan's) to create my edging and my white gelli pen to color in some portions

I used another one of Dyan's stamp sets to create a "stem" body for my doll, I was thinking quirky here. I also colored that with copic markers

I used another of Dyan's stamp sets for my sentiment, here is my finished 2nd APC, I really love how it came out

Here is a photo of my two finished cards for this week

So for this week, think "outside the box" and quirky and fun! 
 Here is a photo of the cards we have created so far

It's really cool to seem them all laid out like this. 

I am also going to have a give-a-way this week.. One person will win the following:

In order to win you must be following along with the Altered Playing Card Challenge and creating your own. 

Just leave a comment to be entered to win and I will randomly draw a winner. I will announce the winner in next week's post.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!

Mixed Media Clock - An Artist Trading Block Project

Hello all and thanks for coming by the blog today.

I'm so excited to share this project with you.

Have you ever had a project in your head and have been wanting to put it in the "works" for awhile? Well that's exactly what this project is all about for me. I've had this in my head for some time and have finally made it.

I have put together a tutorial for this project so I hope you don't mind all the photos

For this project I had this clock that I bought at a thrift store many moons ago, it's purpose was just to hang it in my craft room and I had always planned to re-purpose it at some point. 

After I made the inspiration team for Artist Trading Blocks I got an awesome idea to use Eileen Hull's Artist Trading blocks and for this project I used the smallest of the sizes which measure about 1.5" x 1.5" 

I began by wrapping the clock hands with painters tape, I couldn't figure out how to remove the clock mechanism so I just wrapped the hands up to protect them

I then applied a layer of gesso over the clock face,

setting this aside to dry, after it was dry I applied a second layer

While the clock face was drying I began by cutting out my ATBs using Eileen's ATB Die and White Matboard

Since it takes two cuts to create one block I had to cut out 24 of these

 I laid all of these out on the floor over some freezer paper and applied some Goosebumps Clear Texture spray here and there, I didn't spray it I opened the bottled and dabbed it on

I let that thoroughly dry.... once dry I applied Adirondak Ink over the top with a distress tool, as you can see the Goosebumps acts as a resist for the Adirondak ink

I then used a Dylusions stencil and some color wash to spray a pattern onto each piece of the ATBs

I figured I could do 3 pieces at a time

Here is how they looked

Once that was done and they were dry I put them all together using my hot glue gun (watch your fingers, I burned mine a few times LOL)

After my blocks were all put together I used Tim's stamp set called Random Quotes and Adirondak ink to stamp words on each side of my ATBs

I then took Wendy Vecchi Archival ink in the color Potting Soil to edge the sides and corners of each block, I also added some black paint onto of that on each side. (I didn't take a photo of this sorry)

Back to my clock face... I didn't take a photo of this step but I used white Wendy Vecchi embossing paste and a Stencil Girl Seth Apter stencil to create some texture

I also used heavy gel medium to add some dry wall tape to the faces surface as well

Using several different colors of Tim Holtz distress paints, I used a paintbrush and applied the paint, I then took my finger and spread it out more to blend it (I ended up not using the green)

Once again I took that same Dylusions stencil and archival ink and inked here and there along the clock face. I also used that same Tim Holtz stamp to stamp the words and I used black marker and white gel pen and went over some places from the stenciled portion

Now it's really coming together

I had cut out some stems from Tim's Garden Greens die and some movers and shapers butterflies from distress paper and edged them with archival ink

I adhered some of these onto my clock face. They had to be flat in order for the clock hands to be able to go around the center of the clock so I glued them down flat

The sentiment came from that same Tim Holtz Random Quotes stamp set

I used black card stock and Tim's two die sets here to create my numbers for each block. I had to use the Artist set because two large numbers wouldn't fit for 10 and 12 on the clock so I cut out some smaller numbers.

I then glued each block onto my clock face using my glue gun

Oh, I had to cut my clock hands smaller too because they were way too long for the artist trading blocks, they wouldn't have turned if I didn't 

I used my trusty Tim Holtz scissors for that step and they worked like a charm, cut right through the hands, you can't even tell I had to cut them

Here is some photos of my finished clock and IT WORKS TOO!! 

I had so much fun making this clock, I'm so glad that I got it out of my head and into real life haha!

I am entering this clock into a few challenges too...

1. Eileen Hull's Art With Heart  where the theme is "Fall Back", what a perfect challenge for this clock!! I encourage you to go check out the challenge and take part, there is a wonderful prize package from Eileen and Sizzix too.

2. Eclectic Paperie - Their challenge this month is "Fall" and one lucky winner will win a 25.00 gift card to their store! 

3. Simon Says Stamp Wednesdays Challenge - Their challenge is to use a stamp for Stamptember!! and as always they are giving away a 50.00 voucher to one lucky winner

4. last but certainly not least, I'm entering this into the Inspiration Emporium challenge, their challenge is "Fall is In The Air" WOOT! I encourage you to go over and check out their challenge. You could win 50.00 to spend at Inspiration Emporium. How cool!

Last but not least make sure to come by The Artist On The Block website to see more inspiring projects from the wonderful design team!!

CHEERS!!