Strawberry Watercolor

Lately I've been determined to improve my watercolor skills so I'm taking online instruction from Anna Mason.  Her site is called Watercolors with WOW in case you're interested in watercolor painting;  I've found her instruction very helpful.  I chose to paint a strawberry for lesson one, and who would think that this could be so difficult, eeeeekkk but it was.  Fun, but required much concentration for me, hopefully with time it won't be such a brain strain.  Here's my painting:

My watercolor was painted on Arches 140 lb Hot Press paper, hot press is new to me, but I like the smooth surface.  Thanks for stopping by!  :0)

Happy Birthday Mom

Happy Valentine's Day!

     Hope everyone's day is filled with good things!   For the above I used a Tiddlyinks digi image and colored with copics.  :)

Valentine's Day

     In elementary school, one of my favorite holidays was Valentine's Day.  Every year our class would spend some school time designing our Valentine's mailboxes.  Oh my goodness I loved this, all the construction paper, little scissors,  smell of rubber cement, crayolas; and things haven't changed all that much as evidenced by my craft room.  We have a *love challenge* going on over at Oozak Blog and would love to have you enter.  With my husband in mind, I've designed a card using Paper Smooches Word Salad stamps.   The font designs of these stamps come out crisp and sharp, and think I'll also be able to get a lot of use out of them for mixed media projects as well as cards.

          The always beautiful Memento Inks were used for stamping, and Copic markers to color in the stamps.  So the words that were colored would stand out more, I gave them a coating of Rangers Glossy Accents.  The little hearts on the envelope are included in the Paper Smooches Salad ~ so cute.  Hope to see you over at Oozak!

Treasure Chest

          Happy New Year!!!  My first blog post is a repeat project that was one of my more popular projects.    I'm re-posting it to include the steps I took to create the chest.

  

Beginning with a 7 ½” x 5” x 5” paper mache box from a craft supply store, I spray painted the entire box using a metallic (oil-rubbed bronze) color.  Next I spray painted 16 brass brads with the bronze paint and set aside to dry.  After letting the box dry thoroughly, I brushed acrylic paint in a gold metallic color onto the raised bands.  I painted one band at a time because I immediately swiped the paint with a paper towel while it was wet.  I applied 2 coats to get the look I wanted.  

           Next I cut design paper to size; I used Crowded Attic by Tim Holtz, distressed the edges of the paper with the Zutter Distrezz-It-All and sponged Distress Ink in Antique Linen and Tea Dye onto the edges of the paper.   I used Mod Podge to adhere the paper to the box.   The design paper is nice and thick so there was no buckling, but I did need to lift the edges of the paper and apply some additional Mod Podge in areas that were not laying flat.    

           

    

    

                 Using jewelry pliers, I cut the chain to size.  I bought the chain necklace on clearance at a craft store.  Next, marking off the areas for the brads with chalk, I used an awl to punch the holes then dabbed some glue around the holes for the brads.  The brads and chains were inserted into the marked areas and glue was added to the brads from inside the box.  The last step was decorating the box!  Thanks so much for stopping by today.  :0)

Something Old/Something New

A new challenge just went up over at Oozak which is to come up with a card, project, artwork etc. which represents something old/something new.  You may interpret this as you see fit; old supplies mixed with new supplies, past techniques mixed with new techniques, it's all good.  I've chosen to take an old tin and turn it into a new storage container.  I had a before picture and I accidentally deleted it from the camera thinking I had already loaded it on my computer.  Well I thought it was quite awful but you'll have to take my word for it.

  The first thing I did was gave the entire tin a coat of paint that is made for metal.  Usually I would have done this with spray paint, but it's way too cold here these days to use it.  I haven't yet dared to use spray paint in the house.  After giving the tin two coats of white paint, I mixed a bit of Golden Fluid Acrylic in Teal with the white paint and gave the top and inner tin 3 coats of this.

Memory Box Die, Chloe always looks so fun to me so I cut up about 4 of the dies, colored them with Copics and topped it off with a coating of Ranger Glossy Accents.  The dp is by Penny Black and I used a coat of Golden Soft Gel Gloss to adhere the paper to the tin.  I'll be keeping some little note pads in the box:

Thanks for stopping by today and hope to see you over at Oozak. :0)

Winter Fun

*Celebration* is the challenge over at Oozak Blog, and the DT has come up with many different interpretations for this theme.  Join us with your *celebration* project and a chance at winning a prize!  The month of December brings coziness to mind for me and so I'm hoping my project reflects this.  The house is an altered stamp design from House of Gilli; love this little house stamp.

First step of the project was a coat of Gesso on a mini canvas and after giving this some time to dry I swiped some colors of Golden Fluid Acrylics across the canvas.

I ran my Memory Box Die, frosty border, through the die cut several times as I used various paper and cutouts from this die.  Using a Deep Red background stamp, crochet, I stamped over areas of the canvas with Golden Acrylic in white.  I held the canvas backing with one hand so I could get an impression; I tried with the canvas on the table and it was difficult to make contact that way.  When I had all the cutouts laid out how I wanted them, I glued them in place with Golden Medium in gloss, and then spread a coat of it over the entire canvas.  While it was still wet I added some glitter to the trees and Memory Box Dies.

Take some time from your busy holiday schedule to create your idea of celebration and join us over at Oozak Blog!  Thanks so much for stopping by!  :0)

Holly Jolly Holiday

Hey, hope you're having a relaxing, fun-filled weekend.  The theme for the latest challenge at Oozak is Holiday ~ yay ~ now you can get another card finished and have an opportunity at winning a prize!  Come on over and join us.  :0)

The ornament dies are by Memory Box and I heat embossed the pattern using Hero Arts ~ Snowflake Borders Stamp.  It's difficult to see with this photo but I did shade the ornaments with Copic markers to give the ornament some dimension.  I then gave the ornaments a coating of Ranger Glossy Accents.  The design paper is by Bo Bunny from 2 or 3 years ago.  Looking forward to seeing your holiday creation!