Stampotique Challenge 193 - Polka Dots

Welcome back to the blog, this week on the Stampotique Designers Challenge Blog our hostess is Samantha Read and she has chosen the theme "Polka Dots"

Here is what Sam says about this challenge:

"I included polka dots in a previous challenge and everyone who took part seemed to have such fun, I thought we could revisit them :) Have fun!"

Well, I just love circles and polka dots and such so this challenge was fun for me. 

Of course I had to do a journal page because I just love working in my journals. 

This page was a clean up page.  I used it to clean up leftover paint on my craft mat. 

I think the bright colors in the background are so beautiful even though they were just splotched on the page

For this project I used Stampotique Stamps:

Bunny, Roc's Angel - By Artist Roc Nicholas 

Love Definition - By Amy Wilson Wellenstein

This page kind of took on a life of it's own but I really like that there is so much to see and look at and there are polka dots everywhere

I hope you will come by the blog and take on this fun challenge with us. You could win a 30.00 gift certificate to the Stampotique online store.

Altered Puzzle Challenge Week 1

Welcome to the blog today, I'm so excited to begin a new challenge. This is a continuation of the Altered Playing Card Challenge that I started back in August of 2014. That challenge ended in March of this year and it was so much fun. My Facebook group and some others asked me to continue on with another challenge. Something different but with the same thought in mind. 

Grab my button on the sidebar here and share with your bloggers -------->>>

So today we are going to begin the Altered Puzzle Challenge

There isn't really a challenge per-se' but your challenge to yourself is to begin this project and follow along each week and finish it entirely. I think as crafters we sometimes begin things and never finish them, I know I do this often. So the challenge for you is to simply do that, finish it. 

So for this week, we are prepping our pieces so that we have a nice surface to work on. Most puzzles are slick on the surface and we need to make that something workable.

So the details on my puzzle are that it's a 24 piece puzzle, each piece is roughly 3"x 3" and the overall size of the puzzle is 

15" x 11 1/2"... I found mine at a thrift store for 99cents. You can try checking dollar stores, thrift stores, Rite Aid or Walgreens or Walmart. You puzzle doesn't have to be exactly the same but I will be doing 24 pieces. 

So to begin we need to sand this puzzle a little over the top

I used my Tim Holtz sander for this but a bit of sandpaper will do the trick

You just want to sand a bit, don't sand so much that the ends start to tear

I used a baby wipe to clear off the sanding dust from the surface

You can see the sand marks here

Next, you will coat the surface with TWO coats of gesso. 

I used two coats because I felt one coat was too transparent and I could see too much of the puzzle background through it

This is the difference between one and two coats

I wrote numbers on the back of my pieces, Starting from the upper left-hand corner and moving across one row and then continuing to the second row and so on and so forth.. this way I can easily put my puzzle back together once it's altered

All of the puzzle pieces were layed aside on wax paper to dry for a few days. 

Come back next week to begin altering two pieces a week for a total of 12 weeks.

Our Facebook Group is here if you would like to join us

 Facebook group, we share photos and ideas and it's a great place to share inspiration

We have a new Pinterest Board for the puzzle challenge here

Pinterest

If your interested in doing the Altered Playing Card Challenge you can find the start of that here:

Altered Playing Card Challenge

Even though the challenge is over, the posts are all there so you can still complete it

The Pinterest Board is here:

Pinterest Board

Thanks for coming by, see you next Monday to begin this adventure

A Journal Spread With Dylusions Paint

Welcome back to the blog today and thanks for stopping by.

Today I am using the new Dylusions Paints to create a journal spread. I will be working in my Dylusions Large journal for this.

I started this page by glueing some leftover printed paper here and there

I then chose a few of the Dylusions colors for my background
These paints are very fluid and go on somewhat transparent, so you should be able to see the paper through the paint once it's applied

I used lots of Dyluions stencils and paint, you can still see the paper on the edges even though I used several of the Dylusions colors over it
I just love how the background turned out here, Dyan's colors are so vibrant and beautiful

Here is my finished complete page
I used the black paint and a few stencils to create my girl

Thanks for coming by, I hope you got some journal inspiration :)

Stampotique Challenge 192 - Springs

Welcome back to the blog... This is is Wednesday, which means there is a new challenge over at the Stampotique Challenge Blog and our hostess this week is Valerie and she has chosen the theme "It's Spring, It Springs"

Here is what Valerie says about this challenge:

"Actually use springs or something that makes things spring up off your project!"

What a fun challenge this was and I love the idea of creating something that "springs" off the page. I decided to make a brooch this time, something I can wear or display

Here is what I did:

I used Stampotique Stamp:

Medium Bee - By Jo Capper-Sandon

I stamped several of the bees using Stayz-on ink onto shrink plastic and used my heat tool to shrink them down

I also used my sharpie marker to color the bees

I also used Stampotique stamp

Carol's Flower Large - By Janet Klein

I simply stamped the flower onto heavy weight cardstock and embossed, I then colored the flowers using colic markers and sealed them with gloss medium

I attached my mini bees using thin wire that I shaped to look like springs, this way it looks like they are flying around the flowers

I used E6000 to attach the bees to the springs and the springs to the flowers

I also used E6000 to adhere a pin to the back of the flowers, in order to wear the brooch or pin it somewhere to display around the house

Here is how the brooches turned out.......

and this is the back of my brooch

I hope you will come on over to the  Stampotique Challenge Blog this week and join in on this fun challenge. Make something that just "Springs" to life. 

Have a great day!!!

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"

Tim Holtz Bird Crazy Journal Page

Hello and welcome to the blog. Today I wanted to show you a journal page that I did last week.

 I finally got my hands on that wonderful Tim Holtz stamp set called Bird Crazy this set is all the rage right now and I have seen so many fun projects using the set

For this page, I used Prima's Color Bloom spray in the color Cobalt to add color to my background

I haven't used these sprays before and I was anxious to give them a try, the color I used came out perfect

I used Tim Holtz's Honeycomb Frameworks Die as a sort of template before I sprayed the background

I then used s Tim's Tracks Stencil in my background, along with Archival ink in a blue color

The leaf is a stamp that was sent to me and created by my friend Terri Richardson 

I printed off the sentiment and adhered onto my page

I cannot wait to play with this stamp set again, such fun!! 

I hope you like my page, cheers!!

Stampotique Challenge 191 - Circles

Welcome back to another Wednesday with me and Stampotique.

Today is Wednesday and that means another fun challenge over at the Stampotique Designer's Challenge Blog

This week our hostess is the talented Magda Polakow and she has chosen the theme

"Circles"

Circles are quite fun and are actually one of my favorite things to work with when working on journal pages.

Of course that means I decided to do a journal page for this week's challenge. 

This page was a "wipe off" page when it began. I used it to wipe off the excess of my paint from my brayer while I gelli printed

I added painted circles, paper, stamps and doodles to the page and I even got out my sewing machine and stitched onto the page

for this page I used Stampotique Stamps

Circles Cube - By Daniel Torrente

Postmark - By France Papillon

Capture the Magic  - By Roc Nicholas

Stitched Houses - By Janet Klein

I really like the outcome of this page, it represents my home and family and what they mean to me. 

Thanks for coming by and make sure to check out the challenge over at The Designer's Challenge Blog there is always a monthly drawing for a 30.00 gift certificate to the online store. 

Stampotique Challenge 190 - Stitches

Hello there and welcome back to the blog. Today is the start of a new challenge over at Stampotique Designers Challenge Blog and our hostess is Coby and she has chosen the theme "Stitches"

Here is what Coby has to say about this fun challenge:

"I love stitches in my creations, some times stamped, sometimes made with the hand and sometimes with the sewing machine. I challenge you to use stitches in your creations...."

For this challenge I wanted to do a journal page, I love sewing on my pages but for this one I did some Foe (fake) sewing

I started by creating this background with misc stencils and torn paper that I had painted on.

I used my white gelli pen to add doodles to the black circles.

I then added stamped images that I colored and I die cut the "friends" word.

I used my black marker to create foe sewing along the edges and Twinkie is swinging on a rope (he's crazy lol)

The Stampotique Stamps I used here are:

Hat Cube, Twinkie - By Daniel Torrente

Agatha Traveler - By Magda Polakow

Barcode Text 2 - By France Papillon

I hope you will come by the Stampotique Designers Challenge Blog and join us in the fun challenge. You might be the lucky winner of a 30.00 gift certificate to the online store

Thanks for coming by the blog today, CHEERS!!

Roc Nicholas Design Team - Button Fairy

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog. Today is the 7th and that means that it's my turn to post for the Roc Nicholas design team. YAY! 

I wanted to do something different this month and so I decided to go back, way back to something that I used to love to create and I've made a few but it's been years. Each time I create one I just love it.

So I did a Button Fairy this month with some of Roc's stamps

Namely:

Bird Princess and Squiggle Arms

I love how she turned out and I even used a couple of antique buttons in there. 

Button Fairies are really fun to make, it's almost soothing

I couldn't decide if I liked the black background or the light colored background for the photo so I did both haha!!

Have a wonderful day, thanks for coming by the blog!!

Altered Playing Card Challenge - Jokers

Hello all and welcome back to the Altered Playing Card Challenge! 

This is our final week of the challenge and we are finishing up with the jokers. This week isn't required but if you want to do it, I encourage you to go for it.

I am going to wait a few weeks for everyone to get caught up and finish this challenge and then we will start another small challenge.

Here is our Facebook Group link if you ever want to join in

FACEBOOK GROUP

For this week I wanted to do something simple but unique and fun.  I decided to go with using stencils this week but I want you to try and find some stencils with a lot of blank space to them. 

For my first card I first painted the card two different colors

 (sorry about the square photos, somehow my iPhone photo camera was set to "squares" LOL)

I then grabbed a stencil and some ink... using a stencil with a lot of blank space was my goal. I wanted to cover up most of the background but not all of it

So for this card I used an orange color over the top of the paint

I love the outcome once the  stencil is moved

Pretty cool right? haha!

Next I used a stamp and black in to stamp one side

I tore some washi tape for the bottom of my card

I had some leftover small die cut flowers and butterflies so I used those on my card as well, everything was glued down

I then used my white gel pen to doodle a little here and there

I also wrote the word Beauty  and cut it out

Here is my first finished card

For my second card I went with printed card stock and just covered the entire background with a piece

I then took another stencil and some red ink and inked part of the background

I only used part of the stencil this time

I then took a different ink color and a stamp and stamped through the stencil

I masked off part of the stencil prior to stamping, I didn't want to stamping inside the "Love" area

I then took a black marker and doodled some

and lastly I cut out a heart from a sheet of black lined paper, used my white gel pen to outline it and drew a string with a black marker

Here is my finished second card

and here are the two cards together

I hope you have had a fun time with this challenge!! I will be back in a few weeks to start a new challenge.

CHEERS!!!