Inspiration at Stamps and Stencils

I am presenting an inspiration post at Stamps and Stencils today.  Here is a sneak peek at one of the elements I was working on for my project but to get details and see the finished creation, just click HERE and you will be taken to the complete post.

Original

It is time for a new challenge at Frilly and Funkie.  Zoe is our hostess for this one and is calling it Bloomin' Marvelous!  She describes it this way:

As spring pokes it's head through the frozen ground, let's celebrate the season and create a vintage or shabby chic project with flowers as the focus and in vintage muted pastel tones, (no brights).

Rather than using baby pastel colours, I thought I would go for creams and peach tones.  To add to my vision, I also included a few papers from the pad called A Ladies Diary from Graphic 45, which is very vintage.

I cut a couple of rectangles of paper, the second a bit smaller than the first and once they were distressed and inked on the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, I added them to my card blank.  I also cut a half rectangle (a.k.a. a triangle 😃), distressed it, inked it and added it to the top right corner.

I had a wooden lattice in my stash and added it under the rectangle.

Next I grabbed some crinoline, cream tulle and cream lace and die cut some petals using the Shabby Posies die from Tammy Tutterow.  All the crinoline flowers were dyed with Antique Linen Distress Ink.  I layered the larger dyed petals with some tulle and lace petals and stitched them together.  A gem from my stash was added to the centre of the large flower.

I layered the smaller petals to make two flowers but once I saw the flowers together I decided to add some Tea Dye Distress Ink to the smaller petals so they would stand out a bit against the larger flower.  All the flowers were adhered to the triangle.

Using the Garden Greens (mini) die I cut leaves from Kraft Core Shattered Collection card stock and tucked them under the flowers.

I found some seam binding in my stash that had come from The Funkie Junkie Boutique holding little packages together and they were already dyed (I think with Tea Dye Distress Ink) and scrunched.  I ironed them to make them smooth again and then looped them together to create a bow.  I added a loopy twine bow on top along with a button from my stash.

Next I coated a metal butterfly with some white gesso and then coloured it with Copper Mixative Alcohol Ink before I added it to the card.

Finally I coloured a paper doll and a quote chip with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and added them to my card.  That little girl has no problem sitting on a lattice fence with a giant bow coming out of head - pretty original, I would say. 😃

I hope you will join us for this challenge.  You have two weeks to create and at the end, one randomly chosen winner will receive a gift certificate to The Funkie Junkie Boutique and the Design Team will choose their top picks with the overall top pick receiving an invitation to be a Guest Designer at a future date.

Saturday Showcase at Frilly and Funkie

Today I am presenting the Saturday Showcase at Frilly and Funkie.  Here is a peek at a tag that I made but you will need to pop over to Frilly and Funkie to find out what is special about it.

Heart Hanging

It is time for the next challenge at Frilly and Funkie.  This time Suzz, who is our hostess, is calling it Knock om Wood and here is what she has to say about it:

For this challenge you need to dig through your crafty stash and look for some type of wood to incorporate into your art. This can be any kind of wooden object like a wood spool, a wood button, a mini ruler or even a branch. Create a vintage or shabby chic project that incorporates some type of wood content.

I knew I had some wooden buttons from The Funkie Junkie Boutique in my stash so I decided to use them in my project and to take my colour palette from them.

The first step was to cut a heart from corrugated cardboard and punch two holes at the top where I could add a hanger.  Your heart can be hand cut by making a paper template first, tracing around it on the cardboard and then cutting it out.  Fortunately I am spoiled rotten because my husband has a laser cutter so I just got him to cut a 9" heart for me.

Next I stripped the top layer off the cardboard to expose the corrugations but leaving a strip to add some patterned paper.  Once I had the corrugations exposed, I dry brushed them with some white Gesso.

I inked the corrugations with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and then added a hanger of jute through the holes.  I think next time I would make the holes a bit smaller because I had to do some serious knotting and run the jute around the top to keep the ends from sliding through the holes.

A combination of Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs Distress Ink was used to dye some lace and some seam binding.  The seam binding was crumpled up, dried like that and then formed into a loopy bow.

I used some Vintage Photo DI to ink a couple from the Paper Dolls pack, cut them down and adhered them just above the strip I left on the cardboard.  The lace was added next under the strip.  I tore some floral patterned paper from the St. Tropez paper pad inked the edges with Vintage Photo DI and added it on the strip.  Next I added three inked hearts made from old book paper that came in a little bag of goodies from The Funkie Junkie Boutique - a lovely surprise Linda tucks in each order.

Next I added the buttons and the bow along with a paper rose that I also inked with Vintage Photo DI.

Finally I inked a quote chip with More Vintage Photo DI and added it above the lace.

There you have it - a heart hanging in vintage tones with lots of fun elements, including some pretty cool wooden buttons.

Edit:  I thought my buttons were made from wood because they sure look like wood and are as hard as wood but when I was creating the links at the bottom of this post, I noticed that the description says they are Carved Coconut Shell buttons so I hope Suzz will forgive me.  I did look up coconut palms to see if the trees are considered to be wood and was happy to discover that they are and are considered a hardwood substitute in some countries - the six separations of coconut "wood".

I hope you will join us for this challenge.  It runs until 11:55 pm on Tuesday, March 27th and one randomly chosen winner will receive a $25 gift certificate to The Funkie Junkie Boutique while the Design Team will choose their top picks and the overall top pick will be invited to be a Guest Designer at a future date.

Floating Flower

It is time for the next challenge at Stamps and Stencils and Sue is our hostess for this one.  She calls it Wax Lyrical and describes it this way:

I have long been fascinated with the subject of Encaustic Art, melting wax to create many layers and trapping pieces of fibres and papers between the layers of melted wax just seems magical to me. So for this challenge I want to see some wax on your projects, whether it's just dribbled, melted and then stamped into or a wax embellishment as long as you include some stamping or stenciling the choice is yours !

I really wanted to make an encaustic piece but when it came time to buy some supplies I discovered that Michaels doesn't carry anything and the two art supply stores that are close enough for me to drive to didn't have anything either.  I checked online but by the time I added the exchange rate and the obscene shipping cost, I realized it wasn't going to happen right now so I had to come up with plan B.

I decided to rekindle a technique I used a few months ago and colour a stamped image with crayons and not the way we did as children but rather by melting crayons onto the image.  Besides being easy, this is really inexpensive to achieve.

I started by using Jet Black Archival Ink (Ranger) to stamp some flowers and leaf branches from the Fancy Florals set (Dylusions) onto scraps of white card stock (Staples).

Next I used a couple shades of green crayons and roughly coloured my stamped leaf branches.  The image was placed between two pieces of wax paper and ironed with a hot dry iron (no steam).  The heat did not melt the limited amount of wax so I shaved some of the wax onto my stamped leaf branch images using an X-Acto blade.  Tip:  An old pencil sharpener would work nicely or next time I might even try a cheap box grater.

The image with the shavings was placed between two pieces of waxed paper and ironed again and this time there was great movement of melted wax.  You might want to put an old tea towel beneath your work if you are worried about wax getting onto your ironing board.  I didn't bother because I had used extra large pieces of waxed paper and my craft mat.  If the melted wax doesn't cover your image or you want to add an extra colour, just add more wax shavings and heat again - this time I added some yellow.

Once the coloured image is dry and cold, fussy cut and set aside.  Repeat the process by colouring the flowers - this time I used shades of pink and purple crayons.

I added some dots to the flowers with a white gel pen (Sakura).

This photo shows the back of the flower and you can see how waxy the card stock becomes - both from the wax in the crayon but also from the wax lifting off the waxed paper.

Next it was time to create the background canvas.  I started by adding some Light Molding Paste (Golden) through a Bubbles stencil (Tim Holtz) in random spots around the outside of a canvas board (Artist's Loft).  Once the stenciling was dry I gave it a coat of white Gesso (Liquitex).

Next I used a sponge to add some layers of paint starting with Blush Fresco Finish (Paper Artsy), followed by Candy Floss Fresco Finish, then Concord Grape Acrylic Paint (Apple Barrel) and finishing with a bit of white Gesso (Indigo Blu).

Some stamping with Jet Black Archival Ink (Ranger) and a couple of stamps from the Faded Fragments set (Seth Apter) came next.  Although you can't see it in the photo, I also added some circles of black and white paint with the lid from a little spray bottle.  They were too predominant so I sponged a bit more Concord Grape over them to tone them down.

I added more stenciling with some Course Pumice Gel (Golden) through a Mini Bricks stencil (TCW).

Then came the part I wish I hadn't done - I used a stipple brush to add some Pure Black, Dove Gray and Sterling Silver acrylic paint (Folk Art) to the bricks.  I don't like them now because I think they are too dark now but I decided anything more would have made them look worse so I left them alone.

I hope you will join us for this challenge and show us your waxy creations.