Artist Trading Block - Wendy Vecchi Style

Hello and welcome to my blog and thank you so much for stopping by. Today will be my very first post as an Inspiration Team member over at the Artist On The Block Blog and I'm so excited about it. It has been amazing being on Eileen Hull's ATB Inspiration Team.

If you haven't already done so, make sure to check out Eileen's Blog for the Art with Heart Challenges. The Challenge right now is "April Showers"

For My Artist Trading Block today I have seen everyone doing some really awesome Tim Holtz inspired blocks. So I thought, what the heck, let me do something in Wendy Vecchi style this time. I love Wendy's style and I have fallen for her Archival inks, embossing and crackle pastes and stamps and I just had to use them all on this project. 

For starters Wendy has this wonderful video from CHA 2014 showing how she uses her re-inkers (see the video here )

So I used mine and made my background with them

(so sorry I didn't take a photo of this step)

I applied Wendy's embossing crackle paste over some hearts that I cut out using a Tim Holtz mover and shaper die and grungeboard

I then set those aside to dry thoroughly

Once those dry, they have this awesome crackle effect you can see that here

I then added some of Wendy's Archival inks over the top and some glossy accents  

For my roses I used Tim's pine cone die and Wendy's Clearly for Art (Wendy has a wonderful tutorial on how to do these roses on her blog HERE )

I also used Adirondak alcohol inks

I then used several of Wendy's stamps and StazOn to stamp onto the clearly for art roses

I then shaped my flowers by heating up the clearly for art, it's hard to see the nice flower in this photo but these turn out very nice

I used Wendy's new stamp set called "License Plate Art" and embossed them. I then colored them by dabbing Wendy's Archival on my craft sheet and adding a bit of water and I used a paint brush to brush on the color. 

I used Tim's Distress paint to color one of Wendy's Art Parts

I also added some other of Wendy's stamped images and those were colored in the same way as the license plate stamps.
I used Tim's framework die "honeycomb" for decoration
I created another smaller block for the stand and decorated it with the same background paper and some of Wendy's stamps

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial and think about giving these Artist Trading Blocks a try, they are really fun to create. 
Here is a link to Eileen's Dies
Eileen Hull Designs

Have a great day and thanks again for stopping by.
CHEERS!

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013 - December

Well, I've done it! I've made it through every single Tim Holtz Tag of 2013 and I'm so excited that I stuck with these because my display board looks amazing and I am so happy with it.

For this month's tag, make sure to check out the tutorial and all the details on how to make this one on Tim's Blog here:

12 Tags of 2013

Tim really broke the mold with this one, it's beautiful! One of my favorites of this year. 

Some things I had to change in order for mine to fit inside my display board was the poinsettia and the word stamp. 

For my poinsettia I used  the large Tattered Poinsettia die that Tim used, only I used the two smaller sizes and not the larger one. I then used Tim's movers and shapers Poinsettia in order to make one size smaller petal. I also used the holly leaf here as well. 

I also wanted to see how stamping would work and look if I stamped onto the poinsettia's petals. I used Tim's Reflections wording set here and stamped on the smooth, Clearly for art side of my petals. So this way when I turned the petals to the frosted film side, the words are correct. 

I also used two colors for my background, I didn't have the color stain Tim used (antique linen) so I used frayed burlap and tarnished brass.

Since the Verse stamp that Tim used was too big for mine, I made my own word banner. I used manilla card stock and two colors of Archival Inks (Wendy Vecchi) to color my banner.

I  then used Tim's "Simple Sayings" stamp set to stamp my words 

After everything was put together, I'm really in love with this one. It's so amazing!!  (I forgot to do the white paint, but added it after all the photos were already taken, oops)

and again here is my finished 7 Gypsies tray, displaying all twelve of the tags.

Thanks again for stopping by and sharing this year long journey with me. Make sure to check out Tim's Blog to get the full tutorial's on all of the tags.

Have a great day!!

Friendship Blooms Forever

What a beautiful day it is turning out to be. I don't have one errand too run and I'm spending the day crafting. I went on a run this morning with the dog in tow, no sun but no rain either so that's good.

For today's project I am doing something special for a dear friend of mine. We have known each other a long time and although we haven't lived near one another in over 11 years we always keep in touch and talk.

I also wanted to enter this one into the challenge over at Stampotique Designers Challenge

Their theme this week is "Summertime" and boy are we ready for it or what?? I had summertime in mind while creating this canvas and I wanted some bright colors, birds and flowers. 

I also wanted to enter this into the Challenge over at Simon Says Challenge Blog - Their theme this week is "Things With Wings", there are a few birds on my canvas. 

For starters I wanted to use one of my Tim Holtz burlap canvases. I have had these for awhile and just haven't used them, what better time than the present, right? 

I pulled this one out

I have no idea why I selected this one, I just did. I wanted too add some color to brighten it up so I used Tim Holtz Distress paint. I put some down on my craft sheet, spritzed with water and ran the entire canvas through it. I swiped the canvas a few times in order to get good coverage.

I set it aside to dry.

I wanted to use a Crafters Workshop stencil for the next step but I wanted the inside of the image so I used some paper and the stencil to make my own. Here you can see the stencil and I simply inked over it with distress ink and then used my crafters knife to cut out the image I wanted. This stencil is more of a mask and I wanted a stencil.

This is the white paper that I used to cut out my stencil. I placed it on top of my canvas and used Claudine Hellmuth paint over it. For this step I had to cut each little rectangle for the fence post and adhere them using double sided tape.

Here is what it looked like once I put the paint on.

I love how it came out.

Once that was done I wanted to have a flower on my canvas so i used a Wendy Vecchi Stencil for this part. I only wanted the stem of the stencil so I just put painters tape over the part I didn't want and again used Claudine Hellmuth paint.

I then went around the outside of the stem with black marker to make it stand out more.

I stamped my Stampotique Girl With Heart Purse by artists Daniel Torrent and Jill Penney, onto white card stock and colored her with Tim Holtz distress markers. I did the same with my Pumpkins and flower.

I used Claudine Hellmuth Matt Medium to adhere everything onto my canvas background. 

I added two flower stick pens to the top and a ribbon that I colored with Distress paints.

I just wrote the sentiment and edged with Salty Ocean Distress ink. I am really loving how this canvas came out.

Thanks for coming by once again, have a special day today!!

So In Love ~

Good Sunday to you all. Things here are once again beautiful. My hubby and I went on our morning walk with out little dog. 

For today's post I am focused on "Clean and Simple". It is the challenge for this week over at Artful Times Challenge blog. Neet and Von always have some fun challenges and this one was a toughie for me. I don't usually do clean and simple with mostly white showing up. I'm glad I did it though, I love a good challenge.

I decided to do a card for this one and started with some scrap paper. 

I used Wendy Vecchi's stamp set called "Art From The Heart". This is a new stamp set for me and I just love everything in it.

I also wanted to partake in this week's challenge over at my yahoo group  everythingwendyvecchi. The challenge this week is "stamp through a stencil". For that I used the wording and Wendy's heart stencil.

I used white cardstock and stamped through her stencil and then outlined the hearts with black marker. The photo was taken after I cut out my hearts (forgot to take one during the process, sorry) you get the idea, right? LOL

I laid everything out onto my card for placement purposes and used a piece of scrap cellophane to "practice" my placement of my sentiment.

I only used part of this stamp for the sentiment, as you can see ih the photo about, this stamp has a heart in it and I left the heart out. I then simply stamped the sentiment onto cellophane and that way I can move it around to see exactly where I want it. (got this idea from my friend Marjie Kemper)

Once everything was placed where I wanted it, I went ahead and adhered everything to my card. I added some paper flowers and used a scrap piece of fabric ribbon. I just love how it turned out. Clean and Simple.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great sunny Sunday! 

Follow Your Heart

What a beautiful day it is here. My husband and I went on a 2 mile walk and all the flowers are blooming, Spring has definitely sprung. 

I wanted to work on a project inspired by all the beautiful color and flowers that are popping out everywhere. I also wanted to do a few challenges while in that process. (you know me, loving my challenges). 

I am entering this project into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Their challenge this week is, none other than, COLOR.. yay! They are also giving away a 50.00 gift voucher for the shop to one random winner.

Eclectic Paperie  - Their eTeam Picks challenge this week is Flowers! Woot! They are giving away a 15.00 gift voucher to their online store. 

Ink On My Fingers - Hels Sheridan's Sunday Stamper challenge this week is "Paper," I actually used different kinds of paper in this project.

This is only my second canvas, ever. For some reason I'm so intimidated by the thought of creating on canvas and I'm not really sure why. I guess that's why I have taken this long to actually do something on a canvas. 

I like it, I really, really like it. I might have to do more of these.

Anyway, for starters on this I laid down some plain white tissue paper and some Tim Holtz tissue paper. I used Claudine Hellmuth's gel medium to adhere that to my canvas.

I set that aside to dry and then I used a piece of paper with writing on it to, free hand cut out a heart.

I used Wendy Vecchi white Embossing paste and a stencil to add some swirls and arrows to my heart and then set it aside to dry.

I then used a Wendy Vecchi Leaf stencil and some paint to paint some leaves onto the low corner of my canvas.

I am using a technique that my friend Anita Houston has talked about quite a bit. I have been wanting to give it a try.

By painting with Tim Holtz Distress paint and then spraying Dyan Reaveley sprays over it, the paint resists the spray and comes through, it's really neat. I didn't have the exact color I wanted in Tim Holtz paints so I used one color of regular acrylic paint.

I then Sprayed my canvas with three different colors of Dylusions Sprays. You can see that the paint comes through, it's awesome. I also love the way that the Tim Holtz tissue takes the color so well. I kind of just let the sprays drip down to the bottom.

Next, I painted the embossing paste designs that I had put onto the heart with distress paint.

I then sprayed the heart with Dylusions spray.

The same effect happened, although the green came off a bit so I repainted it once everything was dry.

I wanted to use this black and white Creative Memories paper to make some flowers but I wanted it to be a yellow color. I simply took out my distress stain in Squeezed Lemonade and stained it. I love how I can simply do this with the stain to change the color of paper.

 I used Tim's tattered flower garland strip die to cut out some flowers. I shaped those flowers with a pencil and some foam.

I then stamped onto each flower with a word stamp and Archival ink in coordinating colors.

I also used a few stamps from Wendy Vecchi and Tim Holtz to stamp onto my background prior to applying everything.

I used the Tim Holtz Word Play large Sizzix Die to cut out my sentiment. (one of my favorite dies)

Here is my finished project.

 Love the embossing paste

This sure was a fun project and I really like the outcome. Not too shabby and so much color. 

I hope you have enjoyed the tutorial for today. It's your turn to try a canvas :)

Thanks for stopping by.