And the Faces continue

Still sticking with my commitment of doing a face a day.  I won't bore you with all of them but I liked the Zentangle hair on this one!

The background is done with a Julie Fei-Fan Balzer stencil and some Dylusions Turquoise spray ink.  The stamps are by StampCow and the Zentangle designs are done with a Micron pen.  Her face is colored with Pan Pastels and Gelatos.  I started just to do a Zentangle page while watching TV and ended up with a face!  Go figure.

Thanks so much for stopping by, I'm off to take a class at Ink About It this morning.  Looking forward to learning something new!  Have a great weekend, talk to you soon. ~ Renee

Somerset Studio Magazine July/Aug 2013 Issue

Today while I was at Barnes & Noble I noticed that the July issue of Somerset Studio has hit the news stands and as always it is a fabulous issue......I do happen to have some of my work published on page 76.  They also did an interview with me and how I went from being a "stamper" to an "art journaler".  I'm still pinching myself that they actually interviewed me AND published it!  I hope you get a chance to take a look at it.    Here are the two pieces that they were showcasing.





Crazy Cat Lady in Training



The Frog Queen

I hope you get a chance to look at this latest issue it is full of gorgeous art work!  Have a great day, talk to you soon.~Renee

100 Faces in 100 Days

I am keeping up with my commitment to draw 100 Faces in 100 Days.  Today I did a face with some Zentangle Inspired hair.

I used Pan Pastels for the color in the background.  The face was colored with Gelatos and Pan Pastels.  My Fude Ball pen writes on everything.  I hope you're having a good week.  We have sunshine in the day and rain at night here.  Take care~ Renee

Tsukineko/Imagine Crafts Theme Challenge::Red, White and Blue

I love a color challenge and my AIRs color challenge for this month is “Red, White and Blue”.  I’m still enamored with my Steampunk style shoe stamp so I thought that would be a great focal point for a card with that color scheme.

 I used a post card sized (4” by 6”) piece of 140# water color paper to start.  I stamped the shoe twice, once on the cut panel and another one on a separate piece of water color paper.  For the ink I used IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko® StazOn® Solvent Ink in Midnight Blue to stamp both shoes.  I colored in the second shoe with IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®Memento Dual Marker pens in Lady Bug, Cantaloupe, Cool Gray and Tangelo colors.  Then I trimmed out the shoe and set it aside.

Working on the water color panel, I stamped my sentiment using the Midnight Blue ink and embossed it with IMAGINE Crafts ® Embossing Powder in the Clear color.  I stamped stars around the phrase using IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®StazOn®Solvent Ink in Blazing Red and quickly sprinkled IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko® 08 Candy Red Embossing Powder, then I heat set it with my trusty heat gun.  I stamped some additional stars on the side piece of paper and followed the same red embossing treatment with these, cut them out to place randomly on the panel as needed later. 

I glued the shoe that had been colored with markers on top of the stamped shoe.  I edged the panel with StazOn® Midnight Blue ink using an IMAGINE Crafts®InkBlusher™, then I used the opposite end of the InkBlusher™ to add a light rubbing of StazOn® Blazing Red ink to distress the edge of the panel a little more.  At this point I matted the panel to a piece of taupe card stock cut ¼” larger all the way around.  This panel was in turn matted to a navy blue card stock panel that was also cut ¼” larger.  The entire panel was now glued to a blank white card that measures 7” by 5”.  I tied a red and white piece of bakers twine to the fold of the card.  To give the shoe some shine I highlighted some of the dots with a Gelly Roll Star pen and then applied IMAGINE Crafts®GooseBumps™ Texture Spray to the buckles and the clock face on the shoe.  I didn’t spray the GooseBumps™, instead I removed the sprayer top and just dabbed on tiny amounts with the tube portion of the sprayer.  That gave me just a little shine exactly where I wanted it.  Set aside to allow the GooseBumps™ to thoroughly dry.

Here is a list of the products and tools that I used to make this card.

Products

A post card sized (4” by 6”) piece of 140# water color paper

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko® StazOn® Solvent Ink in Midnight Blue

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®StazOn®Solvent Ink in Blazing Red

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®Memento Dual Marker pens in Lady Bug, Cantaloupe, Cool Gray and Tangelo colors

IMAGINE Crafts ® Embossing Powder in the Clear color

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko® 08 Candy Red Embossing Powder

IMAGINE Crafts®InkBlusher™

A red and white piece of bakers twine

Gelly Roll Star pen

IMAGINE Crafts®GooseBumps™ Texture Spray

Taupe cardstock, Navy cardstock

One 5” by 7” blank white card

Tools

Heat Gun

Scissors

Cutting tool

Adhesive

Shoe stamp by Stampendous

Star stamp by Rubber Stampede

Phrase by Studio G

Thanks so much for stopping by today to visit.  I appreciate it very much, if you have the time please leave me a comment so I know you were here.  I hope you’re having a great week end.  Talk to you soon~Renee

100 Faces in 100 Days

I'm still participating in the FaceBook challenge of "100 Faces in 100 Days" and loving it.  I've been sketching at least one face per day, sometimes more than one.  I have found that if I pre-color some water color paper in my sketchbook in advance it makes my faces more interesting.  Here are two that I did between planting and weeding in the garden yesterday.

I just added a little white acrylic paint and gesso to them when I went back inside.  This has certainly been a fun challenge and all the FB ladies are really fun and encouraging.  If you get a chance go check out the FB page and join in the fun.
In the meantime, thanks for stopping by.  I always enjoy reading any comments you might have time to leave.  Have a great day, I'm heading outside to try and get a little work done before it gets too hot.   I'm taking my sketchbook with me. ~  Renee

Art Journal Page

I did an art journal page today focusing on the colors of turquoise, pink and green with white and black accents.  I used Dyan Reaveley's Dylusions spray inks, Pan Pastels, black and white micron pens.  I also used stamps from Dyan's collection called "Right Up Your Street".

Now I need to get outside and get some weeding done while the weather is nice!  Have a great day, talk to you soon. ~Renee

Avery Elle Blog Hop Winners!

The Imagine Crafts / Tsukineko & Avery Elle Blog Hop winners are...

 Kailash for a $50 gift certificate to Avery Elle.

Kailash said...

Both your cards are so pretty!!

June 11, 2013 at 10:31 PM

And Amy for the Imagine Crafts / Tsukineko product prize pack.

~amy~ said...

Love them both...awesome colors!

June 11, 2013 at 7:28 AM

Congratulations! Please contact the folks at customerservice@averyelle.com so that they can get your prizes to you.

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek. Have a great day!

StampCow Stamps

Recently I was contacted by a relatively new company called "StampCow" that makes the cutest little stamps.  They offered to send me some to try out and of course I said "Yes"!  sign me up.  I received these stamps the other day and they are so adorable.  They are mounted on wooden blocks that measure 1.5 inches square and would be perfect to make "inchies", which I do plan on doing another day.  I thought they'd also be perfect for backgrounds on art journal pages.  I had an art journal page in the bin that just didn't come together so I cast it aside for another day.  I guess today is the day to pull it out.

 I used Dyan Reaveley spray inks on water color paper in Cut Grass, Lime Green and Lemon Zest to start and then added some stenciling with gesso.  I stamped Dyan's leaves up the left side and some of her dandelions across the bottom.  The leaves were colored with Distress Markers that were blended with a water brush.  I raided my leftover stash and found some foil paper that had been embossed with an embossing folder, I tore that in strips and added a few pieces.  Still it looked hopeless.  Even dangling one of Dyan's spiders didn't help.  Then I received my StampCow tiny stamps.  I used the fern and other organic plant looking stamps to fill in the gaps.  Then I added some of the butterflies.  But for me what finally pulled it together were the pixies.  I stamped a flying pixie and a standing pixie onto the paper and it all seemed to make sense.  Then I added some pixie dust (aka:  glitter) to the mix.  It looks like the male pixie is sprinkling pixie dust on the female pixie.  The only word that seem to say it all is "Believe".  Easy when we are children much more difficult as time goes on and we get older and wiser (cough, cough).

Here is a close up of the pixie dust in action!

I'd like to say thank you to StampCow for sending me some fun stamps to work with.  I'll be doing other projects in the future using different stamps than these.  In the meantime, if you are interested in taking a look at their stamps or other items that  they sell  you can go there by clicking on this link.  http://www.etsy.com/shop/Stampcow

Take care, thanks for stopping by!  I will let you know the winners of the blog hop as soon as it is announced.  Have a great weekend! ~ Renee

Maya Road Chipboard Box becomes a sewing kit gift!

It seems like in the summer months all of us do a few road trips here and there.  Sometimes they involve staying over with friends and relatives along the way.  I always like to bring a little hostess gift when I come to stay.  It generally involves a bottle of whatever the host/hostess likes to drink but in this case I wanted to add something special that reminds me of Cape Cod or the East Coast beach get aways.  Maya Road was very generous in sending me several things to play with this month and I decided a small box could be transformed into an emergency sewing kit for the hostess to use for herself or to leave in a guest room for the next visitor.  I bought a tiny emergency sewing kit and dropped it inside the box when it was finished but you can do whatever you like with it.  

 The box starts out as a plain chipboard sturdy little blank canvas measuring 3” by 3” with a hinged lid.

I knew I was using a red, white and blue theme based on the G45 paper that I had chosen called Place in Time.  The paper is reminiscent of the turn of the century/early 1900’s at the beach.  It has sweet images of young women frolicking at the ocean, driving cars, etc.  It is a double sided paper but I still needed another sheet of paper for matting so I used Authentique’s Friendship paper to coordinate with it.

I began by measuring and cutting four pieces of white cardstock each measuring 3”by3”.  I distressed the edges of all 4 white panels with IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®StazOn®Solvent Ink in Blazing Red using an IMAGINE Crafts®InkBlusher™ which allows me more control in fine areas like this.  All four panels were set aside as I cut out the pictures I wanted to use from the G45 paper, I trimmed all of these to approximately   1  7/8” by 2 ¼”.  All of these images were matted onto a coordinating paper cut to 2 3/8” by 2 ½”.  I glued the image to the matting and then the unit to the white panel.  I made an extra matted image to be attached to the inside of the lid. 

Inside and outside of the box I used an IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®Fantastix™ Multi-Purpose Applicator to apply IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®StazOn®Solvent Ink in Midnight Blue to make sure the edges looked finished in a matching color.  I then cut panels to fit on all of the other additional exposed surfaces inside and outside of the box. 

I wanted feet on the bottom of the box so I cut 2 of the Maya Road spools in half and painted them with IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®All-Purpose Ink in #19 Cerulean Blue.  When the feet were dry I coated them with IMAGINE Crafts®Creative Medium ™, this gave them a little shine.  Those were set aside to dry.

For a topper I used a wonderful measuring tape that was in my surprise box from John at Imagine Crafts.  I took the tape and cut it into sections to loop and staple with small staples.  I glued each looped section together with adhesive and piled them up until it turned into a nice sized bow to be glued on the top of the sewing box.

 Now that I had all of my components ready it was just a matter of putting everything together.  I used a strong adhesive to glue the top and bottom panels to the box.  I glued the side panels all the way around the outside.  I glued the inside panels to the sides and then fitted the final one on the bottom of the inside of the box.  I stood the box upside down and glued the feet to the bottom and allowed them to dry.  The bow was glued to the top of the box and I snuggled a self adhesive bee made by K&Co on to the bow.  I used Queen and Co. self adhesive pearls in a Sapphire blue color at all four corners of the panels going around the box to finish it off.  Now I have a lovely little gift box full of emergency sewing supplies perfect for a guest bathroom or bedroom. 

Here is a list of all the products and tools that I used to transform this chipboard box into a tiny sewing box.

Products

Maya Road Chipboard Box

Graphic 45 and Authentique Paper

White card stock

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®StazOn®Solvent Ink in Blazing Red IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®StazOn®Solvent Ink in Midnight Blue

IMAGINE Crafts®InkBlusher™

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®Fantastix™ Multi-Purpose Applicator

2 of the Maya Road spools

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®All-Purpose Ink in #19 Cerulean Blue

 IMAGINE Crafts®Creative Medium ™Clear color

Queen and Co. self adhesive pearls in a Sapphire blue color

One Maya Road white with red markings vinyl measuring tape

Adhesives

Staples

Mini sewing kit (if desired0

Tools

Stapler

Cutting tool

Scissors

 Thanks so much for stopping by to visit my blog; I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.  Have a great weekend, leave a comment if you have time, I'd love to hear from you.  Talk to you soon, Renee

Seth Apter's Buried Treasure

For the 5th year in a row Seth Apter is hosting his collaborative, online project called Buried Treasure.  All participating bloggers will choose their favorite post from their blog and re-post it today, June 12th.  The links to all the players will be posted today on his blog.  This allows all of us to catch up on the many creative blogs that we never seem to have enough time to visit.  Seth doesn't believe in a lot of rules so anything goes.  This is a great opportunity for all of us to see other artists work that might be new to us.  It is called Buried Treasure because it is all about digging deep to uncover some hidden gems.






That being said, this is my all time favorite post being re-posted for all to see.  This was a tutorial that I did called:
Creating an Art Journal Page, I posted it on March 22, 2013.  I hope you like it.



When I first felt the desire to create art journal pages I was really stumped as far as just how to do it.  My first attempts had so much color on them they seemed too dark to me.  After taking some classes and watching a lot of YouTube videos I feel like I've made a lot of progress.  At least I am happier with my results.  Today I'm going to show you my process, everyone has a different process, but this is how I do what I do.  My products for this page have been very generously supplied by Tsukineko/Imagine Crafts.  This is my third project for them this month as an "AIRs" (Artists in Residence) team member.  It is my themed project for the month of March called "Spring Fling".  This is a VERY long post so please grab a cup of coffee or tea and put your feet up.

I started with a 9" by 12" piece of watercolor paper 140# and coated it with a light frosting of gesso, allowing it to dry before proceeding.  I recently purchased some Yellow Ochre Pan Pastels and couldn't wait to use them so I applied some on the paper with a dauber applicator from Imagine Crafts.  After rubbing this into the paper I sprayed it with water and some Dandelion Fireworks! spray and Tangelo Fireworks! spray.  These sprays have a concentrated color with a little shimmer to them.  I sprayed some additional water on these colors and let them move around on the paper by lifting the paper and turning it.  After blotting the excess ink and water off I used a heat gun to dry the paper.

Next I put a small amount of Liquitex Titanium White Acrylic on the page and spread it all over with an old credit card.  Using a baby wipe I lifted off some of the white paint until I was happy with the color.  Memento makes some lovely colors of ink and for this project I used Peanut Brittle and Morocco on a stamp called "Geometric Swirl" by Rubber Stampede.  I just randomly stamped the image and the colors on my page.
I used TCW's lacy stencil and a chevron stencil to spray Tsukineko Walnut ink and Willow Walnut ink onto the paper.  After spraying these and blotting the page I dried it thoroughly with a heat gun.  I added Cottage Ivy Fireworks! spray onto the page and used a paper towel roll to towel it off.  Since I wanted more of the green I used Memento's Cottage Ivy ink pad and applied a touch more with my dauber applicator.  I blended it in with a baby wipe until the color was just what I wanted.  In a few areas I added white gelatos and orange gelatos for more color.  These can also be blended with water or a baby wipe.

Using Dyan Reaveley's small diamond stencil and some gesso I added a little more interest.  Not completely satisfied I used a circle stencil from the local office supply store to apply some more gesso in the upper left corner.  After the gesso was dry I laid the same stencil back over the white dots, moved it off center just a little and sprayed the Cottage Ivy Fireworks!, blotted with a paper towel roll, dried with a heat gun.  When this was dry and the stencil had been cleaned, I laid the stencil on the green dots and sprayed the area again but with the Willow Walnut Ink spray.  I carefully removed the stencil and blotted it with the paper towel roll, then dried it even more with my heat gun.  Bringing out the Memento inks again I applied more Peanut Brittle and Morocco inks to the edges and blended them with a dauber applicator.

For more texture and depth I made small lines on the page with an old credit card.  Using StazOn Cotton White and Ivory Black Opaque Inkers I dipped my credit card edge in each and made small marks on the paper.  With an old lid dipped in Golden Gold Interference paint I added circles for a metallic pop.  At this point my page is pretty much layered and ready for the focal point.  My focal point is a piece of clip art from DeviantScrap.com made by itKuPiLLi imagenarium.  She was giving this away as a freebie on the site last month and her work is incredible!  There is a quote included that says "Love of beauty is tasted.  The creation of beauty is art." by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I tore this out, edged it with some of the Walnut Ink spray on an applicator and set it aside.  After cutting out the lady I used Matte Medium to adhere the image
to the page.


 



I had some white self adhesive pearls by Queen & Co in my stash so I applied those to her hat band and a stray one to her necklace.  I felt like she needed a little more detail on the hat so I stamped a flower on white card stock with clear embossing ink three times, applied Detail White embossing powder and melted it with my heat gun.  When this had cooled completely I sprayed the Lilac Walnut Ink spray on the flower images and wiped the excess off with a paper towel.  I applied a tiny bit of Goosebumps in the center of each flower and set it aside to dry before trimming it out.  Then I glued the flower down with a piece of black grosgrain ribbon underneath.

The sheen on her hat is some leftover Gold Interference paint that I had on my craft mat.  I decided that Spring time always makes me think of traveling to far off places so I stamped some faux postage in Black StazOn ink randomly around her image and a few stamped cancellation marks for good measure.  To get more depth and definition around the image I applied some Black Gelato and blended it down with my finger and a damp paper towel.  When I want to journal but have absolutely nothing to say, at this point you're thinking "after this long winded blog posting how could she think she has nothing to say?", that's when I use a quote from someone else.  Happily for me this quote was provided in the clip art.  I wrote the words of this quote that I glued to her shoulder all around the image with a Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen in White 101.  A little distressing around the edge of the piece with VersaFine Olympia Green and an Ink Blushers applicator and Voila!  My art journal page is completed.

I apologize for the length of this post but you can't fake the layers on an art journal page.  Just remember to dry everything between each layer and enjoy yourself.  You could easily turn this into a calendar page by using the small transparent calendars and applying that to her shoulder instead of the quote.  The beauty of journaling pages is that it is all about YOU and what YOU like on your page.  There is no right or wrong.  You might have noticed how similar this page is to one that I did last week.  It just shows you how the central image can be the same but the colors and theme are completely different.   So if you have an image that you love to use repeatedly, feel free, just mix it up a little.  Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today, I really appreciate your visits.  If you have time to leave a comment please do, I love to hear from you!  Here is a list of all the products I used on this project.

Products

Watercolor paper 140#

gesso

Matte Medium

Yellow Ochre Pan Pastel

Imagine Crafts Dandelion Fireworks! spray

Imagine Crafts Tangelo Fireworks! spray

Imagine Crafts Cottage Ivy Fireworks! spray

Liquitex Acrylic Titanium White

Memento inks in Peanut Brittle, Cottage Ivy & Morocco

VersaFine Olympia Green ink

Black StazOn ink

Imagine Crafts Willow Walnut Ink Spray

Imagine Crafts Walnut Spray

White, Orange & Black Gelatos by Faber-Castell

StazOn Opaque Ivory Black & Cotton White Inkers

Golden brand Gold Interference paint

Faber-Castell PITT white 101 pen

Queen & Co self adhesive pearls

black grosgrain ribbon

Embossing ink and White Detail Embossing Powder

Tools

Paper cutter

scrissors

old credit card

DeviantScrap.com clip art

Stencils of your choice

Stamps of your choice

heat gun

dauber applicators

Imagine Crafts Ink Blushers sponges

Spray bottle of water

paper towels

baby wipes

Avery Elle Blog Hop Starts TODAY!

Today is a fun day because Imagine Crafts® / Tsukineko® & Avery Elle have paired up for a blog hop!  There are going to be a lot of amazing projects on the hop today showing how well Avery Elle and Imagine Crafts / Tsukineko products work together.  We also have a fun giveaway, so be sure to visit all of the blogs participating. 

This week we are showcasing Avery Elle® stamps.  You know I love to make Master Boards using inks, paints and stamps and the stamps that I received from them are PERFECT for this.

I’ll be using To the Point™ and Bright Days™ stamps on my Master Board.  As usual when I make a Master Board I begin with a large piece of 140# watercolor paper.  This time I will not apply gesso to the paper I’ll just start with color.  I decided to mix my own spray inks this time with IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko® All-Purpose Ink™.  I did this by mixing equal parts of color with IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko™ Ink Potion No. 9™ Blending Solution.  I used the All-Purpose ink in 10 Green Apple, 19 Cerulean Blue, 20 Tropical Lagoon, 71 Platinum and 11 Lemon Yellow.  I mixed five separate spritz bottles of inks, one of each color.  I sprayed the API mixture (All Purpose Inks) through different stencils and then blended the colors with additional sprays of my Ink Potion No. 9.  I had a separate piece of water color paper to blot the stencils on and ended up with two different looking Master Boards.  When these are dry they can be used as backgrounds or for Art Journal Pages.

Now my Avery Elle® stamps will come into play to create the next layer of interest.  I will add small lines, chevrons, circles and starbursts in IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko® StazOn™ ink in Jet Black, IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko® Memento Luxe™Wedding  Dress white and with clear IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®Versa Mark™ Watermark  ink and IMAGINE Crafts® Embossing Powder™in Clear.

Once this is completely dry I can start cutting it up and making projects, in this case I’m making some cards.

Once this is completely dry I can start cutting it up and making projects, in this case I’m making some cards.

Then start decorating the background.  In this case I made what looks like a dandelion (snowball full of seeds) all ready for you to blow on it and make a wish.

The next card is stamped with one of Pam Carriker’s Poetic Portraits, then Avery Elle’s “Merci”.  I added a smear of white gesso pushed through a circle stencil from the office supply store.  When everything is dry I matted it on black card stock, glued it to a white blank card and gave it a quick spray of IMAGINE Crafts® Goosebumps™ Texture Spray.

I really had a lot of fun with Avery Elle® stamps; I’ll be using them in other projects during the course of the month of June.  In case you want to try any of the products that I used today I have included a complete list of everything I used.

Product List

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®All-Purpose Ink in the following colors:

11 Lemon Yellow, 10 Green Apple, 19 Cerulean Blue, 71 Platinum and 20 Tropical Lagoon

IMAGINE Crafts® GooseBumps™Texture Spray

IMAGINE Crafts Ink Droppers™

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®Ink Potion No. 9™ Blending Solution

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®StazOn®Solvent Ink in Jet Black

 IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko® Memento Luxe™Wedding Dress white

IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®Versa Mark™ Watermark ink

IMAGINE Crafts® Embossing Powder™in Clear

140# water color paper

Black card stock

Two white 5” by 7” blank cards

White gesso

Tools

Avery Elle® stamps::To The Point™ and Bright Days™

Pam Carriker Poetic Portraits stamp

IMAGINE Crafts®Multi-Purpose Squeegee™

Stencils

Scissors, Cutting tool, adhesive

Thanks so much for stopping by to visit my blog today.  If you would like to participate in the Blog Hop just click on the next blog on the list.  You won't be disappointed there are a lot of very talented people on this team!  Have a great day.

Avery Elle / Jamie
Chunyuan Wu
 Nina Yang
Heather Campbell
JJ Bolton
Donna Mikasa
Kasia Curry
Linda Lucas (Lovely Linda)

Eric Ericson     

Taylor Usry
AJ Otto  

Renee Zarate   

Tenia Renee Nelson  

Kazuko Kocho  

Emily Lanham     

Debbie Gaetz     

Maureen Cronin     

Jennifer Ingle     

Naghma Husain     

John Creighton Petersen

Now it is time for our giveaway! Leave a comment below and/or on any of the posts in the hop to be entered to win.  We will be selecting two random winners.  One will win a $50 Avery Elle gift certificate and the other will win $50 worth of Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko product! You have until June 14th to comment for a chance to win! The winner will be announced on the Avery Elle blog on Monday, June 17th.

Thanks for hopping with us!!

Blog Hop Alert and #7 of 100 Faces

Blog hop alert! I'm excited to announce that Imagine Crafts will be partnering with Avery Elle for our first ever blog hop, starting tommorow,  Tuesday, June 11 at 9am EST. Check my post tomorrow to begin the hop -- you might win a prize!

In the meantime.......I am continuing with my 100 Faces in 100 Days.  Here is my face for day 7.  She is painted with acrylic paints on a piece of watercolor paper.

Come and join the fun on the 100 Faces FB page if it interests you!  Take care, I hope to see you tomorrow here for the Blog Hop! ~ Renee

An All Occasion Card with Avery Elle Stamps

I used Avery Elle Stamps ( Bright Day and To The Point Collections) and some scraps to make this quick all occasion card.  I stamped some of the images on Kraft colored paper and cut them out.  I also used some washi tape to give it a contrasting color.

Have a great weekend!  I hope you have time to be creative and have some fun.  Take care~Renee

100 Faces in 100 Days

There is a wonderful new Facebook Group called "100 Faces in 100 Days" that I just heard about today.  Many of us have taken Dina Wakley's class called Making Faces.  I blogged about it last year when I took it and even shared not only the faces I drew but also faces drawn by many of the students in the class who were generous enough to let me take photos and publish them here.  I was amazed at the talented artists in our class!

To be completely honest drawing faces is not something I have ever been really good at.  In fact many years ago my art teacher in school suggested I was so bad that I might want to drop the class or transfer to something else.  I explained to him that that was why I was there.  He, being a TEACH-er was supposed to TEACH me how to do art.  Needless to say I stayed in the class but never learned how to draw anything.  I learned more in Dina's class in one day than I did the entire course of that year.  I still may not be a portrait artist but I really enjoy the faces I do draw.  So, of course, I requested to join the 100 Faces group and I will draw that many between now and September 5th.  I thought maybe once a week I would share a face or two that I have done that week.  That will keep me on track and focused which is really the main reason why I started blogging to begin with.

Check out the FB Group if you have an interest.  You can ask to join, you do not have to post anything unless you choose to do so.  Here's my face for today, I drew it on a piece of water color paper that I used for wiping off paint brushes and stamping off ink.  She kind of looks like my sister, Karen, when she was about seventeen years old.

Number 01/100

Thanks for stopping by, I always appreciate the visits and the comments that you have time to leave.  Take care~Renee

A bedecked with buttons bracelet

I received a beautiful Canvas Cuff from Maya Road recently that was just screaming to be decorated with sewing notions, buttons, etc.  Anything that I could find in my colorful stash that would turn it into a beautiful piece of jewelry.  I've been seeing a lot of necklaces and other articles like this in fashion magazines and I've been impressed with these one-of-a-kind treasures.  I started by stamping script on the canvas with some IMAGINE Crafts/Tsukineko StazOn Solvent ink in the Timber Brown color.

Then I added a soft color to the ribbon using IMAGINE Crafts/Tsukineko VersaMagic Chalk Pigment Ink in the Pink Petunia color.

I went through my "stash" of buttons and ribbons to find some that seem to go together for the project.

With a needle and thread I attached all the buttons and ribbon to the cuff.  I just piled them on.  Then I sewed the unit to the cuff with the same needle and thread.  You could machine sew this on if you chose to.

I had purchased some antique button covers many years ago at Brimfield so I used one to cover the tiny button that holds the cuff closed.

And Voila!  I have a lovely cuff to send to my daughter to go with all her Steampunk outfits that she wears to Comic Con.

I decided to model it on my antique brass door knocker hand.  I thought that might look better than my old grandma arm.

Have a great day, thanks for stopping by to take a look at what I've been up to.  If you have time please leave a comment, I love to hear from you!  Talk to you soon~Renee