Monday, November 25, 2013

SDC 126::A SPLAT! of paint on your creation

I know it is a little late in the week but I still have time to participate in the Stampotique Challenge for this week.  It is called SDC 126: A SPLAT! of paint on your creation.  My splatters are on a post card stamped with France Papillon's houses, called Village, and a salutation.  The houses are colored in with different markers.  You still have time to post something the challenge doesn't end until late tomorrow.



Have a great day! ~ Renee

Friday, November 22, 2013

AIRs Themed Project using Authentique paper Collection: Glistening

For this AIRs project I'll be using Authentique's new paper collection called "Glistening".  The card turned out a little frilly for me but fun.  The paper collection has everything you need to makes various cards.  Lots of paper choices, tags, etc.


"Winter in New England"



Supplies
From IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®
IMAGINE Crafts®/Tsukineko®Memento™Dye Ink Dew Drop size ink pad | IMAGINE Crafts®GooseBumps™Texture Spray with a dauber top
Other Supplies
Authentique Paper Collection:Glistening|Sizzix Flower Die | Queen & Co. self adhesive pearls | One brown brad | Sewing machine with black thread (optional) | one white 5” by 7” blank white card | Aqua colored ribbon |Adhesive & Glue Dots

DIRECTIONS





Cut Authentique paper to measure 5" by 7", glue to the front of the blank card.
Cut contrasting paper from the Collection to measure 5" by 3"; glue to the lower portion of the card.
Cut contrasting paper from the Collection to measure 5" by 1"; glue across the middle of the card.



Apply GooseBumps randomly all over the front panel and allow to dry.



Tear the image of the girl out of the Collection of papers, if desired sew black thread around the edges of the image; set aside.
Using a flower die, cut flower out using coordinating paper from the same collection.
Attach a brad to the center of the flower.
Tie ribbon around the left side of the card.  Glue flower down with glue dots.
Tuck the image of the girl under the flower and adhere with glue.  Take tags from the collection and edge them with Memento Dye ink using a dew drop sized pad, I used the Gray Flannel color.
Tuck the tags under the flower and adhere with glue dots.  Edge the entire card with Memento Gray Flannel ink pad.
Attach three self adhesive pearls to the upper left hand corner of the card.






Beautiful paper for winter type cards of all sorts!  Thanks for stopping by, if you have time leave a comment, I love hearing from you.  Take care, talk to you soon~Renee

Thursday, November 21, 2013

100 Faces and a little help from Zorana

I follow a blog called ZoranaLand which always has incredible art work on it.  Recently Zorana did a couple of videos showing how quickly faces can be drawn.  I followed along with her videos and did a couple of collages (to be glued into my art journal at a later date) which included FACES.  Check it out if you would like some fresh ideas on how to draw faces and what to do with them after you've drawn them.  These are the two that I came up with.




This is drawn on some Gelli Plate artwork, great way to use those prints!



We've been having some lovely weather here in NE.  Sunshine several days in a row....Glorious!  I hope you're having a good week.  Thanks for stopping by, take care.~Renee

Sunday, November 17, 2013

100 Faces::Round 2

I enjoyed the challenge of drawing 100 Faces so much I decided to do it for a second time.  Once I got used to drawing a face (or more) every day I really missed it after I met my goal.  Taking Dina Wakley's recent portrait class has inspired me to start drawing faces again at least once a day.  Here goes the first one in this series.  I'll be sharing some along the way!


I hope this finds you all well.  I am recovering from a terrible cold that has knocked me for a loop!  I've been making a lot of chicken soup and tea, it seems to be working.  Take care of yourselves ~ Renee

Thursday, November 14, 2013

AIRs Project of Choice "A Warm Winter Card"


For this challenge I am doing an all occasion "winter" card.  I've used a combination of really gorgeous papers from Authentique, DCWV and a wooden embellishment from Monterey Pine.  I found the most adorable stamps with matching "tin pins" at my LSS the other day so I thought I'd throw a little of that in too.
All together it makes for a truly cutsie little card.  If you are interested in making some winter cards using scraps and cute stamps just scroll down for the mini tutorial.




Here is a list of the products I used to make this:

IMAGINE Crafts/Tsukineko Supplies
Staz-On Jet Black Ink, Memento LUXE Mixed Media Pigment Ink in Love Letter red, Memento pens in Teal Zeal, Dandelion yellow, Tangelo orange and Lady Bug red, GooseBumps
Rubber Stamps
Snowman and phrase by Darcie’s heart & home stamps
Other Supplies
Authentique  papers “Glistening” and “Joyous” Collections, DCWV textured paper, Monterey Pine Oval wooden embellishment, Copic pens, Baker’s Twine, self-adhesive pearl,  Flat back “tin pin” embellishments for the face made by Darcie Heater Designs Warm & Toasty, adhesive, photo corners, tissue tape, 5” BY 7” blank white card, heat gun.
DIRECTIONS
Stamp snowman on white paper; color in image, cut out with small scissors.  Glue “tin pin” on head with strong adhesive and set aside. 


Color Monterey Pine oval wooden embellishment with red ink, heat set.  Stamp phrase on oval with black ink, heat set.  Coat the top with GooseBumps and set aside to dry.
Cut red paper to fit the front of the card.  Cut a piece of DCWV white textured card stock.  Cut another piece of black & white paper and a small piece of blue polka dot paper.


Glue red paper to card, adhere white paper, black and white patterned paper and powder blue panel.  Use a little bit of glue to glue down the tissue tape scrap.  Using strong adhesive glue down the snowman.  Wrap the baker’s twine around the finger of the large hand, then glue down the hand allowing the twine to dangle. 



Glue the wooden oval on top of the twine.  Affix a pearl to the sleeve and glue the photo corners to each bottom corner of the white paper.


I hope you like it!  It is always a good thing to have several blank, all occasion cards on hand.  I hope you're having a great week.  Thanks for stopping by, your visits mean a lot to me.  Take care~ Renee


Wednesday, November 13, 2013

SDC125: One Layer::Stampotique Challenge

Samantha Read is our hostess this week at Stampotique's Designer's Challenge.  Can't wait to see what everyone creates this week!

"Hi Stampotiquers! I'm so excited to be your host this week and I'm inviting you to make a creation using just one layer. It doesn't necessarily have to be clean and simple, that's the challenge! I love lots and lots of layers but to achieve a sense of depth to a creation using no embellishments etc can really get you scratching your head and rubbing your chin! 
Most importantly have fun ;)"

Sounds like fun doesn't it?  I decided to make a card with TCW Dina Wakley stencils, gesso, spray inks, acrylic paints, Derivan Liquid Pencil, Black StazOn Ink, Stampotique stamps and a black micron pen.  Whew!  That sounds like a lot of product but I sure was happy with the results.  My card looks like a mini painting.



We all know at least one Diva, don't we?  Perfect card for that special someone.  Have a great day, it is really cold here and I'm sure it is only going to get colder.  Brrrrrrrrr!  Good time to make cards.  Take care, thanks so much for stopping by, it wouldn't be as much fun without YOU!  ~ Renee



Saturday, November 9, 2013

Splatters and SDC 124::Using Gesso Challenges

Over at Craft Stamper Magazine there is a challenge still going on for things that have been "splattered".  At the same time this week  there is a challenge taking place at Stampotique for projects that have gesso on them.  How nice to be able to combine the two!  I decided to make a simple tag using some left over water color paper and of course, Stampotique's cute image by Jill Penney.  There is a tad of gesso on the tag that was added with the help of a circle stencil.


All of the splatters and there are a lot of them, came either from Dylusions spray inks or Black India Ink.  Tags are always useful for last minute gifts or can serve as a cute thank you note!  I hope you're having a great weekend, take care. ~ Renee




Friday, November 8, 2013

Dina Wakley is in the HOUSE this week! ~ Self Portraits

Well, Dina Wakley was in the house this week, not my house personally, though she is always welcome here, but she was at Ink About It in Westford, MA for a series of classes.  I was able to do two of her classes.  The first was her all day class called "In Your Image".  This class was all about exploring and playing with art journaling techniques.  One of the goals of the class was to help us learn techniques that include OUR personal image and journaling about our journey through life and other personal history things that we might be hesitant to write about.  You know that you've been out of the "picture" in a lot of family gatherings, etc. when you try to find 8 photos of yourself to use in the class and you are hard pressed to find even that many pictures.  Dina made a good point when she said "years from now your descendants/family members will never ask why there are so many photos of Grandma/you."  All of us wish we had more photos of loved ones or relatives we never met.  So seize the moment, get yourself in the photos as often as possible.  That being said, I forgot my camera that day (oh, the irony of it all) but I do have photos of my work from the class.  We used our own image as the base of each of these journaling pages.  I must admit the only one that really looks like me is the one where I glued my photo on to.  I will put a caption under each mentioning the method used to make the journal page.

We painted over our photo with acrylics, cut it out and glued it to our background.  I call this one "MAD MEN" because I ended up looking like a lady from the 1960's.

For this page we traced our image onto a piece of paper, in my case book paper, using carbon paper.  Then we tore it out, applied color with oil pastels and glued it onto a prepared background.

This technique required us to make a stencil using our own photograph.  First we prepared the background using acrylic paints on a large sheet of watercolor paper.  We trimmed out the photo "stencil" with an Exacto knife and pounced color on to make the face on the background with our stencil and some black permanent ink.  You can use your stencil over and over again.  I used mine here to make "Three Faces of Renee".



"This Girl is On Fire"
I just happened to have this photo of myself that I took in one of those photo booths at the Mall one day.  I had had my makeup done at a make up counter and swore they made me look like a vampire.  Just to prove to myself that it looked as bad as I thought it did I went into the photo booth and posed for a few pics.  I was right, the make up did look very Goth!  If you have to use the photo booth to get pics of yourself just do it, you never know when you can use a bad photo to make art.  Remember that no one has to see any of these pictures or works of art unless you allow them to!  I am not a frilly girl by nature but I've always secretly wanted to be.  That's why I put myself in this frilly ball gown made out of strips of paper that we made in the class.  This one is my favorite of all four.

If you ever get a chance to take a class with Dina I would tell you to GO FOR IT!  She is very relaxed and fun to be with.  Dina is a great teacher and I for one always learn something new and exciting from her classes.  Later this week I'll share some of the photos from her second class which was about Gelli Plate art.  Thanks for stopping by ~Renee





Sunday, November 3, 2013

AIRs Artists Challenge using Wooden Embellishments

Have you seen the wooden embellishments that so many artists are adding to their projects lately?  For this challenge I am using a wooden embellishment made by Monterey Pine.  It is shaped like an oval and readily accepts paint and ink.  In this instance I inked it and then stamped on it with StazOn.  After it was dry I coated the wooden piece with a shiny coat of GooseBumps.  Let me show you the finished project and then if you're interested you can read the directions showing how the card was made.




IMAGINE Crafts® and Tsukineko® Supplies
Staz-On Jet Black Ink, Memento LUXE Teal Zeal Mixed Media Pigment Ink, Memento Pen in Teal Zeal and Tangelo colors, Clear Embossing Powder, GooseBumps
Rubber Stamps
Hero Arts, sentiment by Darcie’s Heart & Home stamps
Other Supplies
Turquoise colored baker’s twine, oval shaped Monterey Pine Wooden Embellishment piece, one sheet of white card stock, black card stock, heat gun, adhesive,
    

DIRECTIONS

           Cut white card stock to measure:  1 piece 10” by 6 ½” (to make blank white card when folded in half), 4” by 5 ¼”, 3” by 4 ¼”, 2” by 3 ¼”.  Cut black card stock to measure:  4 ¼” by 5 ½”, 3 ¼” by 4 ½”, 2 ¼” by 3 ½”.

        Stack the white card stock pieces by starting with the smallest panel and apply a small amount of temporary adhesive in the center of the piece, layer that piece on to the medium sized piece of white cardstock.  Place this piece in the center of the larger piece, apply temporary adhesive to the back of the medium sized panel and adhere it to the center of the largest white panel.
         Choose your largest stamp, turn the stamp upside down and ink it up with StazOn Jet Black ink.  Lay the cut and glued white panel on top of the ink and use a brayer to insure the best inking.  Dry the ink with a heat gun.




     When the ink is dry, pull the three stamped panels apart.  Mat each piece of the stamped image on a piece of black card stock that measures a quarter of an inch larger than the white panels (you have already pre-cut the black card stock panels).



   Now you are going to reassemble the stamped image, making sure that you line up the stamped image.  When the three panels are reassembled wrap a piece of turquoise baker’s twine around the left side, attach a couple of extra tied bows to the knot.



             Stamp the bird with Memento Luxe Teal Zeal ink, heat emboss with clear powder, cut out the image when cooled.  Dip the wooden embellishment piece in the Memento Luxe Teal Zeal ink, stamp phrase on it using StazOn black ink, dry.  Coat the phrase with GooseBumps and allow to dry thoroughly.   Use adhesive to attach the blue bird.  Use a strong adhesive to attach the blue wooden embellishment.  Distress edges of the card using a Memento Ink Pen in Teal Zeal blue.



     

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope you enjoyed the mini tutorial, have a great day.  Talk to you soon ~ Renee