Altered Puzzle Challenge Week 2

We are onto week 2 of the Altered Puzzle Challenge 

By now you should have your puzzle all prepped with gesso and ready to be altered. If you missed our prep week here is a link:

Week 1

For my altered puzzle I am going with an overall theme and I have chosen the theme "Favorite Quotes or Bible Verses"

I encourage you to chose a theme for your puzzle as well, it doesn't have to be the same theme, you can do whatever you want. 

So to start I picked out my first two pieces, these pieces were labeled 1 and 2 when I prepped. I am working from the upper right hand corner and across.

I am going to use embossing paste on these two pieces along with this stencil 

For my first piece I am adding a design in the upper corner of my piece

for the 2nd piece I added another design, just here and there

After the embossing paste is done, I set these aside to dry, here is what they look like at this point

I let these dry for a day or so but you can begin to work probably within an hour or so

 starting with piece 1, I began by picking out some Archival ink colors

I am going to use a lighter (yellow) color as my base color 

set the brown color aside for now

I used a distress tool to apply all of my ink colors

After applying the yellow, I wanted another base color around the edge so I grabbed a burnt orange color

I like how it turned out.... I wanted a bit of shimmer in my background so I added some perfect pearls in a gold color

to apply perfect pearls, simply use a paintbrush, water and the pearls

First dip your paintbrush in water and then dip the same brush in the perfect pearls (I used a little on my craft sheet)

The simply swipe your brush onto your project

Once your brush is wet there is no need to wet it again and again, just keep getting more PP and brushing onto your piece

The perfect pearls color is subtle and hard to see in the photo but it did make my piece shimmer

Next, grab that brown archival ink and with a distress tool, very lightly go over the raised portions

this will make your embossed portion really pop off the puzzle piece

I then chose a sentiment from a Wendy Vecchi stamp set. It's one that I've always loved, I stamped it onto white card stock and edged it with black, I then used glue stick to adhere it to my piece

and lastly I wanted a bit of bling.. unlike with the playing cards, with the puzzle pieces we don't care if things are sticking up or raised or even over the edges

I added some gems here and there in two different sizes

Here is my first piece

For piece 2 I went with the same technique for my background but used different colors

I started with a really light blue and applied all over

I then used a light purple color and went around my edges, these colors together were beautiful

Next I used one of Wendy Vecchi stamps on one corner of my piece

I then used my "Wink of Stella" pen to color the frame around my face, it's subtle but it gives a bit of sparkle 

I then used black archival ink to lightly go over my raised embossed pattern to make it a bit more bold

I also added blue gems to my girls design next to her face

I then used some liquid pearls to add dimension to the frame and leaves

Using another Wendy Vecchi stamp I stamped my sentiment onto white card stock and cut out

Here is how my second piece turned out

(the blue in her eye is also a wink of stella glitter pen)

Here are my two first pieces together

I hope you like the first two pieces, you can do whatever you want with your pieces but hopefully you've found some inspiration. 

See you next week with piece 3 and 4

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 :)