Beachy Trio

My mixed media ATC group has a beach theme this time.  Apparently I was feeling glittery and shiny.  :)

Title: Incoming Tide

 Materials: nautical map, cheesecloth, sandpaper, glass bead medium, Dylusions spray inks, Distress ink, Distress stain, Stickles

Title: Night Swimming

I used to love to go to the beach at night when I was growing up in southern CA.  On hot summer nights a quick dip was certainly in order.  The title reminds me of the REM song.  Materials: Distress paint, Dylusions spray inks, metallic acrylic paint, Stickles, glass bead gel medium

Title: In the Shallows

I tried a DIY crackle paint technique on the seahorse.  The cracks aren't very deep but I like the way it turned out.  Materials: acrylic paint, Dylusions spray inks, gesso, Diamond Glaze, dye ink, Pitt pen, white Signo pen, Stickles, Distress inks

These make me so ready for hot, lazy, summer days by the beach.  The kiddos are counting down the days until school's out.

Her Imagination is Boundless

I love it when a fuzzy idea just metamorphoses into exactly what you want it to be.  The Stampotique Designers Challenge this week is Steampunk and the the CC3C #2 challenge was the Distress Glitter technique on page 54.

I embossed the background with a gears die, rubbed over it with gold ink and then heat embossed it with clear powder.  The bottom tag is embossed and distressed with Distress ink and the Create tag was silver so I put some gold Distress paint over that.  (Hey!  I just realized that this works for SDC 147 too - tags!).

This is my first time playing with Distress Glitter.  I never really saw the big deal about it, but have to admit I like it.  It's more subtle than regular ol' glitter.

My thought as this ATC came into being:
"Once the gears started turning her imagination was boundless."

Thank you for stopping by today!

The Garden Nymph's Hideaway - Mixed Media Altered Birdhouse

Cutting it close, I literally just finished up my little birdhouse for my son's school art auction.  It needs to be there this morning, so I'll make this short and sweet...here it is!

I feel certain that a garden nymph would love to hide here.  ;)

Have a great day!

Steamy Birdhouse

My son's school has an art auction coming up next week.  I thought I'd create a mixed media canvas for it, but the canvas wasn't speaking to me.  Yesterday I had to stop at Joann's for something and sitting there were some cute little wood birdhouses.  Since they were only a dollar or two I picked up a few.

I've got big plans for these little gems and so far one is finished.

It started as raw wood.  I covered it with gesso and stuck torn book pages on the roof.

At this point I was planning on just painting it, but I don't have the color on hand that I had in mind.  I'm not sure how, but a steampunk idea hit me.  I painted the roof with a combo of metallic gold and bronze paints, glued gear die cuts onto the base and then covered it with metal tape.  The roof is darker and and more bronze IRL; looks kind of yellow-goldish in the pics.  I attempted the blistered paint technique again but it didn't work as well this time.  I used Distress Paints so maybe it's more a regular ol' acrylic paint thing.

To finish it off I painted over the base with black acrylic paint, wiping it off the metal part, and added some washers and a knob to the roof.

Pssst..Stampotiquers.  I  tried to figure out a way to include a tag on this for this week's challenge.  No go.  ;)

I'm not sure if this is the one I'll donate to the auction.  We'll see if I get any other ones finished in time.

Pink & Orange - SDC 146

I did it!  I finally managed, after much struggle, to come up with something that I felt reasonably qualified for Corrie's color challenge on the Stampotique Designers Blog this week.  The bonus is that it also fits with the Paint theme for my mixed media ATC trading group.

I kept coming back and adding more stuff until it felt done. The best part was trying a new technique, Paint Blistering.  You can see it here on the heart.

Really simple to do.  Paint a thin undercoat of acrylic paint onto cardstock and let it dry.  Paint a thick coat over it (I just smudged it around with my finger) and then, while it's wet, heat with a heat gun.  After it was dry I brushed on diluted Distress Paint in a darker color to really make the bumps and bubbles stand out more.

Goodies on this ATC include:

Distress Paint
Distress Ink
Acrylic paint
Dye ink
Dylusions ink
Bakers Twine
Washi tape
Bead mix

Thanks for swinging by today!

Rise and Grind - Starbucks ATCs

Good morning!

I love my Starbucks.  I saw an ATC swap called Spectacular Starbucks over at AFA and couldn't help but sign up for it.

I used a lot of recycled items for these.

Title: Good Morning!

 The recycled bits on this one are the logo and the coffee sleeve on the cup is actually from a coffee sleeve.  The rays are gold metallic acrylic paint.  It's hard to see in the pic but they are very shiny and shimmery.

Title: Since 1971

For this one I ripped up and layered a Starbucks napkin.  I like the texture and random bits of text.  The logo is from a brochure.

Title: Not Just Coffee

 This one is in honor of my daughter.  She loves the Very Berry Hibiscus with lemonade instead of water (try it - it's delish!).  I have a stash of the mix for her at home.  I took the cup and title off the cardboard packaging and then tried my hand at drawing a lemon wedge.

Title: Pike Place Roast

Ultra-recycled!  I have no idea what made me think of doing this (probably because I was running out of ideas and materials), but most of the bits on this one are from a coffee bean bag.  I've been collecting coffee bean bags for a couple of years.  I saw a bag on Pinterest (damn that Pinterest!) made of them and hope to some day make one, but in the mean time I raided my stash and cut one up for this.  I ran the background through my Big Shot to get a burlap-ish, coffee bag-like texture.

Here is a totally random ATC that has nothing to do with coffee.  Corrie over at SDC put up a challenge to use pink and orange this week.  I started with pink and orange on this but then blue snuck in.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope the sun is shining where you are.  It's thinking about it here in Seattle.

Pink & Orange

Hello, friends!

Just a quickie post today to share a card I made last night.  Had a play with some new stencils.  :)

I think I may be going too far with looking for random items to add to my projects.  I bought some cheese at the store yesterday and when I opened the package the outside label peeled off easily.  "Oh..I can use that in something!".  Sure enough, I cut the black circles from it.

Have a great day!

Home Sweet Home

Happy Tuesday!  I'm wrapping up the house ATCs posts today.  Here are the last four...up close and personal.

Title: Love Lives Here (clever,huh?)

This one had a bit of an 'oops'.  I had a border stamp stamped across the roof (like in Monster House below) but when I started moving stuff around I noticed the ink coming off on my fingers.  Forgot that the scrap I used had acrylic paint on it.  It looks very distress-ish though this way, doesn't it?  ;)  I was very glad to use these flowers which have been in my stash forEVER.

Title: Home of the Stars

I'm not sure how the star theme evolved.  The star on the door reminds me of the ones on the Green Room doors.  While their homes are much more grandiose, I am reminded of the maps they give to tourists in Southern California showing the homes of the stars.

Title: Monster House

 She's not a very mean monster with those fancy blue eyelashes, but she does look surprised, doesn't she?  Maybe we caught her with her shutters open...

Title: Mrs. Thurber's Garden

 I imagined the view out the window into the neighbor's backyard.  The imaginary Mrs. Thurber (love the name) lives alone with her 3 cats and loves to putter around her garden .

Thanks for stopping by today and I wish you a fabulous week.  Get inky!

House ATCs, Part 2

Thanks for coming back!

Here is my second interactive house ATC for the swap.

You can see the emboss resist background better here than on the ATC I posted yesterday.

The front door opens on this one to reveal a quote and a heart.  Always the recycler (aka She Who Hoards Even the Smallest of Paper Scraps) the window, door and roof are all bits that I had saved from other projects.  The roof is part of a paper towel that had been used to clean up Dylusions overspray.  I ran it through my Xyron to make it sticky. 

I colored a piece of Tim Holtz's industrious sticker with some alcohol ink for the roof garnish.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Tomorrow I'll post the rest of the ATCs.

Have a great day!

She Just Showed Up Unannounced!

I found my Muse perched on my work table bright and early this morning and she didn't even call to let me know she'd be coming.

I have had an house ATC swap deadline looming closer and just couldn't get the mojo kickstarted.  Today was a good day though.  Here's what I came up with.

All of my bases were created in similar fashion.  First I sprayed white cardstock with a Dylusions color.  Dried it and then stamped with bubble wrap and heat embossed.  Next I sprayed again with darker shades of Dylusions.

One of the requirements for this swap was that two of them had to be interactive.  Today I'll show you The Birdhouse.  (Maybe 'Bird Condo' would be more fitting?)

The 'portholes' (do you call them that on a birdhouse?) were created from scraps I had laying around.  The metal roof pulls up to reveal a feathery friend.

A pocket on the back keeps the pull-out in place.  The pull-out background is stamped with "tweet" though by the time I cut it down to fit in the pocket I'm not sure it's obvious what it says anymore.

The pull-out was a little tough to remove at first.  To fix that I rubbed it with wax paper and then wrapped it with wax paper and pulled it in and out of the pocket a few times.  Worked like a charm.

Check back tomorrow to see my other interactive ATC!

SDC 145: Flowers

I've mentioned here before that I have the pleasure of playing with little friends 4 mornings a week - I teach preschool.  The other day after class was over I was getting ready to empty a trash can when I stopped mid-lift.  Inside were a bunch of baby wipes that had been used to clean paint off little hands.  The colors were so pretty and random.  I quickly plucked several out of the trash can and hung them up to dry; I KNEW I could use them for something.

Enter the SDC challenge for this week - flowers.  I have a favorite Stampotique stamp, Spray, that I like to pull out at any opportunity.  Heart Boy is another favorite (also special to me because my daughter gave it to me a couple of years ago for Christmas) and I put them together to make this Mothers' Day card.

I glued the baby wipe onto cardstock with my ATG and stamped Spray in pink and yellow onto the background.  Note to self: sewing machine needles don't like ATG adhesive.  The needle got very sticky and misbehaved.

I thought Heart Boy looked kinda cute with his head cocked to the side and added a pretty bouquet for mom clutched in his little fist.

I think this will be a great card for my hubster to send to his mom for Mothers Day.

Play along with the Stampotique Designers Challenge HERE.