Mini Memory for Heather

This is a another mini memory for one of the members of the DreamCreateInspire group: Heather. Heather choose the theme: birds/butterflies and the colors: violet & white color wash.
Started with a 4"x4" stretched canvas, spread on white molding paste over the top and sides. Used a paste paper tool to create ridge designs. Sprinkled on violet/blue mica powders and moistened with a water/gum arabic spray. Let partially dry, then heated with a heat tool while moving around the canvas to create random bubbling.
Close up to see fun detail:

Cut out some purchased embossed paper, die cut out butterfly shapes. Colored raised areas with d. purple acrylic paint on one.

Mixed d. purple acrylic paint with pearl white Lumiere paint and spread over a second butterfly cut out and painted raised areas with the pearl white Lumiere paint. Went back and spread this mixture over first butterfly and recolored the raised areas with d. purple acrylic paint.

Picked a different area of the same embossed paper to cut out a third butterfly shape, colored over with the pearl white Lumiere paint. Lightly sprayed all three butterflies with a homemade purple color mist.

Colored the centers of lace daisy ribbon with purple alcohol ink, adhered it to the right side of the canvas. Choose a vintage image and changed the color to purple, added a saying, printed and adhered to the canvas. Glued the body portion of the butterflies to the canvas, bending up the wings to give them dimension.

Finished the canvas by stamping words in dark purple Distress ink along three of the sides:

Hope Heather enjoys it!

In the Style of... ATCs

The October 6:5 ATC theme on ccswaps is "In the Style of..." We are to pick an artist, current or past, and create an ATC in their style. I like Van Gogh's paintings and have been wanting to try the Van Gogh technique. Started by stamping a bold floral image on white paper with Distress inks.
Using a variety of blue, green and yellow markers, added color over the paper with markings to mimic the Van Gogh brush strokes.

Added gold leaf charms to the flower center, colored the edges with a gold leafing pen, attached to dark green card stock with gold colored brads.

Decided "something" was needed, so outlined the flower and stem with a gold pen.

Texture ATCs

The September 6:5 ATC swap theme is Texture on ccswaps. Decided to make the main image the focal texture for my ATCs. Wanted to have them set off by a stunning background. Sprayed watercolor paper with water and brushed on a mixture of p. blue and p. green acrylic paints and let dry.
Mixed some p. blue and p. green acrylic paint with some blue and green perfect pearls and sponged on over a piece of sequin waste in the lower right of the ATCs.

Stamped a flourish on the top half and added blue/silver glittery embossing powder and heat set. Repeat over the bottom using a green/gold glittery embossing powder.

Placed a large water birds stencil over the ATC and applied white molding paste, added a small amount of blue mica powder, removed the stencil and let dry.

Stamped a small portion of the flourish stamp with denim Distress ink and colored the edges of the ATC with this same ink. Added small white rhinestones to the eyes.

Large Brown/Bronze Tag

Over on ChunkyBookArtists, we were asked if we'd like to make another color page to add more variety to our Amazing Technicolor Dreambooks, by choosing colors that weren't represented. 7 of us responded, we are only swapping among the seven of us, to get the extra pages. I was thinking of doing a Bronze page, but worried there wasn't much variation within just Bronze and didn't want to have another tag like the black one I had already done for the swap. So I choose Brown with Bronze. hey bronze looks like a metallic brown to me!
I found some lovely dark brown card stock to cut out the tag base. Stamped some flourishes (my favorite flourishes) all over the tag with bronze Encore ink. Stamped these flourishes on part of an image, stamped some words on the image and colored the edges of the image with the bronze Encore ink. Added a bronze colored metal star to the image. Stamp a large "B" image with bronze Encore ink on to a piece of bronze colored metallic paper. Used my finger to color the edge of the tag with bronze Lumiere paint and let dry.
Stamped the back of the tag with a geometric image using bronze Encore ink. Found a vintage image on the web, altered the coloring, Added a description of the color brown (Brown says stability and approachability. It is the color of our earth and is associated with all things natural or organic.) with white type along the top edge, and my details in black along the bottom image, then printed. Used the darkest brown dye ink I had (cocoa) to stamp on a saying to the image, and two butterfly images, also colored the edges of the image with this same ink.

Punched out large floral shapes. One using tan card stock, thickly painted with bronze Distress crackle paint, let dry, ran through Swiss dot Cuttlebug embossing folder, inked surface with brown Brilliance ink to highlight the crackles and edges. The other one using the bronze colored metallic paper and ran through a different Cuttlebug embossing folder, also inked with brown Brilliance ink. Punched a small flower out of Egyptian papyrus paper.

Added an assortment of brown fibers to one end of the tag. Adhered the image of the woman and added a bronze metal object. Added a bronze coil to the top of the metallic paper, adhered to the tag, added a strip of Egyptian papyrus (love the variety of browns in it) with three large bright bronze brads. Assembled the paper flower together with a small bronze brad and attached to the tag.

When I tied the fibers to the tag, added a small bronze metal butterfly charm to the back side of the tag.

This was lots of fun, it's exciting to receive all the different colored tags. Looking forward to receiving the rest of them and binding them all together.

August Quote of the Month

The quote for the August Quote of the Month swap on ccswaps is "There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart" by Charles Dickens. I found two great images on the Internet. Stamped a partial image over the monk's head with dark brown StazOn ink, and colored the edges of the image with three different blacks. Used some of the silver Brilliance ink to add highlights to the background. Layered the image on white paper, hand wrote the quote in black, Stamped a flourish over the angel's dress and the border of the white paper with platinum Brilliance ink.
To complete the angel I colored a metal heart shaped mini frame with silver alcohol ink, stamped the word "love" on the same card stock I'm using for the covers with red Brilliance ink.Tied the metal heart to the angel image. Stamped a message on another image and outlined the image with the red Brilliance ink.

Colored some textured card stock with the left over blue/silver acrylic paint mixture I used in Trizzy's Mini Memory. Stamped a script of the Irish Blessing over the surface with red Brilliance ink. Decided to add the words "head" in Black StazOn ink and "heart" in red Brilliance ink to the white paper. Layered the images to the front. Used a silver leafing pen to color the edges of the covers. Used Zutter Bind-it-All to bind together this small sketch pad with red coils.

Cut out some images from an old calendar with pictures of Mary Cassatt's paintings. Glued to inside of covers. Stamped sayings in red Brilliance ink ans stamped some flourishes along the outside edges with silver Encore ink. Added heart stickers. Inside front cover:

Inside back cover:

Added a red heart brad to the image for the back cover:

Mini Memory for Trizzy

The DreamCreateInspire Group is running a Mini Memory swap. Each month we make a mini canvas in the theme and color choices of one of the participants. This month is for Trizzy, she choose "wings" as her theme and the colors blue or green with silver. Painted a 5"x5" stretched canvas with p. blue acrylic and then washed off some of the paint.
Found a vintage angel image on the Internet and recolored it blue. Mixed the p. blue acrylic paint with pearlized white acrylic. Sponged over sequin waste on two of the corners and dabbed some of this color on to the image's wings.

Placed a large Tim Holtz music staff stencil over the canvas and sponged on some p. blue acrylic paint.

Stamped a collage image on the lower border with turquoise Lumiere paint, then over stamped it with black Archival ink. Stamped a larger image in the lower right corner with black Archival ink. Lightly colored the angel's dress with silver Lumiere paint and used this paint to highlight the edges of the image.

Stamped on portions of musical score with a mixture of blue acrylic and silver Lumiere paints (wash acrylic paints off your stamps right away).

Found great butterfly charm, but it was a dark silver and black coloring. Changed the color using alcohol ink. Also changed some dark metal letters with silver alcohol ink.

To finish the canvas, sewed on the large wings and adhered a small image to the wings. Attached the silver letters to the bottom of the canvas and the main image to the center of the canvas. "Music Gives Us Wings".

Made sure to carry the background design to the edges of the canvas. Don't know how Trizzy will assemble all her canvases together, so made sure all surfaces are part of the design.

Hope Trizzy likes my interpretation of her theme.
Rosie has suggested that I enter this on the Mixed Media Monday blog site as it fits the current theme of Blues and Greens. I have just discovered this blog and there is lots of wonderful art to enjoy.

Book Study: Water Colors on Glossy

We're doing a Book Study as a group on NGS, using Nancy Curry's book "Textured Effects for Rubber Stamping". This week we are looking at her project "Piano Hinge Tag Book". If anyone is interested in how to make the booklet, read the how to in Nancy's book. I liked how she decorated the cover using watercolors splattered on a slick surface and then picking up the colors with glossy card stock.
First, I tried this technique using regular water colors. Moistened three colors with water, picked up with a foam brush and dabbed onto a waxy sheet (the paper left over after using a xyron adhesive machine). I placed a piece of glossy card stock, glossy side down, on to the wet colors and lifted the sheet up. There was still some color on the waxy sheet, so I sprayed it with water and laid down a second sheet of glossy card stock.
Decided to lay the second sheet on top of the first to lighten the color on the first and darken the colors on the second one. I used a heat tool to speed up the drying.Trimmed down the paper and stamped on some of Tim Holtz's ATC background stamps over the backgrounds with black Archival ink. Added the word "celebrate" and extra stamping to expand the border. Stamped a flourish with dark orange Distress ink on a pick card. Colored some of the design with markers, added a crown brad and a few mini rhinestones:

Stamped large circles with messages in pink and orange Distress inks over yellow card stock. Added colorful brads to the stamped image and a circle message:

For the next set, used Dr Ph Martins Iridescent Colors. Added a couple of drops of each color to a foam brush and dabbed on to a waxy sheet. After placing one piece of glossy card stock down on the colors and lifting up, I sprayed the remaining colors with water and added some purple to the sheet and laid down a second sheet of glossy card stock to pick up more color.

Here are the two sheets I created. After these dried, stamped two other Tim Holtz Background ATC stamps onto two pieces of the backgrounds. I first stamped them with a color of Distress ink (blue on the left, lavender on the right) then over stamped with black Archival ink. Stamped floral design with green Distress ink and a flourish very faintly with lavender Distress ink on a sparkly light green card. Layered the main image on to silver metallic paper. Added some light green glitter to some of the flower centers and tied on a metal tag with light green ribbon:

Added a quote on vellum to the stamped image and a small rhinestone for the bird's eye. Ran yellow card stock through a Cuttlebug folder and colored the raised areas with yellow dye ink. Dye cut out the vines from the same dark blue card stock as the card base.