Altered Puzzle Piece

Hello Everybody!

I am excited to share with you today an altered puzzle piece that I made for my boss because she has a total appreciation for these things. I usually make her a thank you card but I have been making lots of thank you cards (which is awesome!) but I wanted to make something that wouldn't fit into an envelope.

It's a big puzzle piece like what younger kids play with when they are learning how to put together puzzles.  I painted it with black gesso and tried spraying it with festive berries distress oxide spray-but the spray did not dry very well on the gesso.

Here the puzzle piece is in the stamping platform getting ready for the cool Cathedral stamp from Tim Holtz.  I have to stamp it twice because the first time I forgot to put the anti static powder on.  LOL So I wiped off the first round of powder and versamark and did it again. Which resulted in...

This is becoming one of my favorite stamps!  I used Ranger Titanium Platinum embossing powder *swoon*.

These are from Tim Holtz and I painted white paint on the back of both of them so the color would pop.

This is a Melange art pebble from Prima.  I learned this technique while watching Anna on YouTube making a project using them.  Using the chit chat (TH) sticker you glue it with gel medium onto the pebble and put more gel medium over the whole surface and sprinkle glitter on it.  Let dry-unless you are in a hurry and don't let it dry completely.  The cloudy here is impatience LOL.  Patience will dry clear.

And then there are these dark blue paint bits here and there.  Not a lot.  Its from the Finnabair collection Opal Magic acrylic paint.  It is pink when paint on white and this blue color when painted on black.  It is truly magical.

I added a winter paper doll and glued the wings to her and adhered her to the puzzle piece.  I also added a word coin that I painted to the top.  (Why haven't I painted them before now?)  I used silver and black paint. I also used my crop-a-dile to make a hole in the top so it can be hung on the wall.

Here is the altered puzzle piece against red.  

And here I cut it out of it's original picture.  LOL I couldn't pick the best picture.  

But I totally love how this turned out.  My boss did too :)  So there will definitely be more of these made!

I would also like to submit this into the following challenges:

Frilly and Funkie Challenge: Tic Tac Toe

I went with Layers, Winter (the paper doll wearing a coat) and heat embossing.

Use Your Stuff: Anything Goes

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time my friends! :)

Fairy House

Hello Everybody!

I am super excited to share with you my most recent project!  Like seriously excited! First, I have to tell you that this is the first time I have ever made a Fairy House (or any place for a mystical creature to live.) Second there are a lot of pictures.  So I am going to take care of business first-and then please feel free to proceed on if your time allows :)

So here is my before and after photos:

I would like to submit this Fairy House to the following Challenges:

Frilly and Funkie: Home Sweet Home


Mixed Media Warriors: #40  Old to New

I have to first tell you also where my inspiration came from.  I was scrolling Instagram like I do and came across this house that Adrijana at Paper Beauty AK posted.  And I like fell in love with it.  Crazy-I know but it totally inspired me to make my house.  So Thank you Adrijana!  

I have had this house for about 2 years.  I bought it at Goodwill in August 2017.  My husband and I used to go to thrift stores a LOT and I would collect wood things with the hopes of transforming them into other things.  I buy faster than I create LOL.  And it's been awhile since I made anything this big (usually I make cards and scrapbook pages).  

                                        

It's funny because when I have shown a couple of people the before picture they say "oh that's cute."  And it makes me feel bad because all I saw was a project.  LOL  It's about an inch or so thick.  Before I decorated it-the house could stand on it's own.

I cleaned the dust off with a wet rag.  And started to gesso it.  Then I realized I didn't want the shutters-so I took those off.  The little nails were left behind so I left them there.  

I added Power Tex 3-D balls (some might call them art rocks) and painted the house white (Martha Stewart Paint).

On the right you an see the supplies and the finished paint.

Inspired by the other house-I wanted to use a nest too.  This is a Melissa Frances nest and those are Dollar Tree golden eggs.  You can find these kind of nests at Hobby Lobby also (like in the moss or fairy house section I cannot remember which).  I hot glued the eggs inside but not the nest just yet.

I painted the roof gray.

The roof makes me want to have a PayDay candy bar.  This is little gravel that came with a beta fish set.  I did not use the gravel for the fish because I refuse to clean dirty fish gravel.  So these are clean straight out of the bag and I used hot glue to apply them.  I only burned myself like 3 times.  ;)

I used my silhouette machine to make windows and a door.  The cut files came from the Silhouette Design Store.  I took clear extra laminating and applied yellow tim holtz alcohol ink.  Then I cut them to fit the window and glued them on with glossy accents.

I painted the underside of the roof a beige color.  It was gray before and didn't look right.  Then I added spring green paint mixed with white and dabbed it off with a paper towel.  This was cool because it created a lighter more organic feel.  The inspiration house is what gave me that idea.  That's one of the things I loved about it.

I wanted dimension and I figured an awning above the door would be a perfect way to accomplish that.  I took some light cardboard and cut it into pieces and curved them.  I covered them with these fake leaves I found in my stash.  I used hot glue to adhere and then I added more leaves to the front of the awnings.  

The door-I painted with tim holtz distress mustard seed.  Adhered material to the window using mod podge fabric glue.  That stuff is awesome for adhering fabric (me just sayin').  Bliss sign that came in a scrapbook kit and an orange brad for the door knob.

So here is what it looks like now.  Time for some greenery!  I added paper grass to the front and it's a Lawn Fawn die.  Then in my stash (gifted to me) are the green "bushes." I added moss (so fun!  and totally inspired) and then I found some little critters to put in places.  Also, I glue on the nest.

Ta-Da!  I painted a wood veneer butterfly pick raspberry (TH Distress Paint).  I bought moss from the Dollar Tree and Hobby Lobby.  There are many different types of moss.  :)

Outside Picture

Side View

Other Side 

Inside Picture

And these are closeups of the little critters I found-that I didn't remember having.  LOL

And here it is again.  All finished.

If you made it this far--thank you and big hugs!  Until next time my friends...stay creative! :)

One More Christmas Card

Hello Everybody!

Wow!  It is almost a New Year.  It's always exciting-like a fresh start-when the new year comes around.  New goals are set.  Last year my goal was to set more glitter.  And do you know what?  I failed.  LOL!  I think I used less glitter last year than I ever have.  And I'm talking about all glitter-glitter paper, loose glitter, and Stickles.  I realized this toward October or November.  But really too late to fix it.  Oh well.

So for now-I haven't made any real goals yet.  I just want to make more stuff. :)  And share it with you guys. :)

So I have a Christmas card to share.  The last one for the year.  And it's for someone my husband works with who likes the vintage style of cards.  So when he asks me to make her one-I happily do because I love this style too.

The pink note background paper is My Mind's Eye from their Love and Found collection (a few years old).  The mistletoe is a button.  The floss is floss.  And everything else is Tim Holtz!   Even the corrugated panel.  I did use a little gesso on the panel to brighten it up.

Here is a closeup of the charm.  

I even stamped the inside! (Which I am proud of my self for doing because I usually leave it blank.  The sentiment is from Hero Arts.

I would like to link up to the following challenges:

{Pin}spirational Challenges #181:  Photo inspiration-I love this picture.  I pulled the pink and blue from this.  I love how feminine this picture feels to me and hopefully I transferred some of that to the card.  

Use Your Stuff: Show what you are working on.  

Sunny Day Crafting:  Anything Goes

Thank you all for stopping by!  Until next time my friends...Happy New Year! :)

Suitcase Card

Hello Everybody!

There's a new challenge at Creative With Stamps-and it's for Manly Cards!

For my card I used a Dina Wakley stencil on a gessoed book page.  I used fire brick and gathered twigs distress inks for the bricks.   The sentiment shape is a Tim Holtz mover shaker and the sentiment is from Stampin' Up.  I inked the edges with graphite black Dew Drop ink.  Also, I  got a new Sizzix die cut from Tim Holtz and that is on the corner behind the suitcase.

The Suitcase!  I love this suitcase!  It's a digi stamp from Stamplorations (one of our sponsors-thank you!).  And I have colored it with Copic markers a green and warm grey.  I had to be careful because I colored the suitcase first and then decided to do brick work and then realized I had green and red.  And it's not a Christmas card!  But I think I was able to make the bricks brown enough.  LOL I hope so anyways!

I really like how this card turned out.  I was going to do a miss you but with all of the graduating seniors-I thought this would be great for a guy who was graduating and leaving-like off to college or the service. 

We have two great sponsors this month so be sure to check them out!

Also, are Team has done a great Manly job making cards-so be sure to see them also! :)  When you link up be sure to put our Challenge picture (at the top of this post) on your post!  :)

Until next time my friends...Have a beautiful day! :)

Wild Winston

Hello Everybody!

I am so excited to share my latest project with ya'll!  It was totally inspired by the Creative Carte Blanche challenge.  The challenge is to use the 3 W's: Wood, Word, and Wild (an interpretive element).

I have wood panels that you can craft it.  That's what I used for the base of this project.  The wooden oval is about 7 inches tall and 5 inches across.  I put gesso on it to prime it.

I used Wendy Vecchi's crackle texture paste and Tim Holtz's stripes stencil for the middle texture.  The I used a mixture of Golden paints to create the background.

In this picture you can see that crackle and the gold paint.  I started with the brown color and mixed red and brown and added that on top.  Then I used the two different golds.  I love the shimmer!

Here is the finished project:  Wild Winston.  This fella was the Law back in the day.  They named him Wild Winston-but it was an ironic name.  He wasn't very wild.  He broke up gambling rings, sent trouble makers a packin' and recovered many a stolen horses and cows.  He was mild mannered.  And he was a man of God.  Good ol' Wintson was a brave soul--his job was to keep the town safe.  And that's just what he did.  :)

Here is Wild Winston-the bravest in all of that part of the West.  The picture, metal oval circle (sticker), and the frame and Brave are all from Tim Holtz.  The handcuff, cross, and key charms are from Pepperlonely LLC.  The frame is a small cabinet frame from TH.  It's my first time using it with a found relative photo.  The oval sticker fit perfectly.  I used an embossing pen to make the gold embossing around the frame.  That was my first time using the pen-it's awesome.  :)

I would like to submit Wild Winston into these challenges also:

STAMPlorations: Mixed Media Challenge: Anything Goes

Inspiration Destination:  #85 Anything Goes

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time my friends...have a great day! :)

Father's Day Canvas

Hello Everybody!

Today it's my turn to share a project at the Blog for Unique Laser Designs.   I created a burlap canvas using Unique Laser Designs wood embellishments.

Here was my thought process.  I had put gesso in the background but I wasn't sure what colors I would use.  I used Tim Holtz paints in the background.  This is my first burlap frame and for me stamps didn't work so well on it.  So I used paints and light modeling paste and gelatos with the harlequin stencil.  

I did put some Wendy Vecchi translucent embossing paste on here using a burlap stencil from Tim Holtz but it didn't come out very well.  Which is ok!  It does blend in with the artsy organic feel to the canvas.  The places that I put the clear embossing paste just look like shiny spots, not shiny little squares.  LOL.  Next time I will go for a bigger stencil.  :)

Here are some bricks from the brick stencil that Unique Laser Designs has.  You get the stencil AND the bricks.  Super cool!  Some bricks are blank but some have words on them.  

I painted the polaroid frames.  I just used picket fence by TH on those.  Since I wasn't looking for a stark white look, I didn't use gesso first on those.  I used salty ocean and peeled paint for the music notes.  On the heart is barn door red and I used glossy accents on it.  The word smile I left in its natural wood state.  The flower is from Maya Road.  

Here's another picture of my canvas.  I love having the then and now photo.

I am submitting this to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge:  Paint  I used Tim Holtz paints on the background and on the heart, musical notes, and frames.

Unique Laser Designs is also have a Design Team Call!  Come check out the details here! 

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time my friends...Happy Father's Day! :)

Yellow Yellow Yellow

Hello!

I just finished a tag for the Not So Mellow Yellow Challenge at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.

All of the designers have done a great job with their projects-it's really hard not to be inspired!

So I made this tag.  I glued a piece of Tim Holtz tissue paper down on the tag.  Once dried I painted mustard seed (yellow) distress paint over the top.  I spray it with white Dylusions to lighten it.  I used Tim's ruler stencil and once the light modeling paste dried I put weathered wood distress ink over it.

It's so funny how the tag can kind of take on a life of it's own.  So from there an architectural feel started happening.  I painted a spot of gesso so I could use a Wendi Vecchi stamp and it wouldn't keep as much with the background.  But I didn't get the stamp inked well.  :(  But it's ok.  Then I stamped the words above the house as to me those are all things that describe a home.

I glued a yellow dragonfly to the the bottom corner.  

Here's a closeup.

Thanks for stopping by!  Until next time my friends...Home is where the heart is.  :)