Colour Your World at Our Creative Corner (April 2015 Challenge)

Hi there again.

This month’s challenge at Our Creative Corner is hosted by Laurie and here is what she said:

“For my challenge this month I want you to

Color Your World

For this challenge create a project with the colors of spring time where you live.

Show us what colors renew your soul.”

The sponsor for this month is: Creative Embellishments.

All you have to do is enter your project that fits the Colour Your World Theme and you could win some seriously cool stuff from them.

For the challenge this month, my design team contribution is that “gorjuss” little shaker card above.  I have always loved things that move and sparkle and are interesting to play with so I had to try and make one of these babies.  What a fantastic amount of fun it was to do.

 I started off by cutting a window on piece of card and adhered acetate to the reverse side. I found that it is a little easier to cut your window and adhere the acetate to it first - rather than do the image and sentiment piece first. This is because it is hard to find an appropriately sized die that will cut the window big enough for the image and sentiment.However if you do the window first - you can make sure that your sentiment and image fits in nicely.

  

I then stamped the Santoro Gorjuss girl from the Ladybird Collection on a piece of craft Cardstock Ranger's Sepia Archival Ink and colour-painting her in.I used different mediums.  Firstly - Wax coloured pencils to do the outlines, so that when I introduced the wetter mediums it would prevent it from bleeding. I also used watercolour pencils, distress markers as well Dala White Block Printing Ink for white “Organza” parts of her dress.

I really wanted the “Ladybird Girl” image to pop, so I painted all around here in rich black Block Printing Ink from Dala. 

 Once that was dry, I used a white Pentel gel pen (my favourite type of gel pen)to write in a sentiment. 

I then sprinkled some sequins over the top because I wanted it to look like a shower of flowery confetti. I glued 2 or 3 down. I decided to do that so that even if you are not shaking the card there would still be some bling.

 I then attached some thick double sided adhesive to the back of the window piece and fixed that to the bottom piece with the girl. I washi-taped the borders because I just liked how that looked and also because it helps to hide the “construction” of the shaker card.

The last thing that I did was go over some of the words on the sentiment over on the acetate so that it would highlight them and create a shadowed text effect.

And that really all there was to it. Hope you will give these shaker cards a shot – they are super fun to make and you can put all kinds of crazy bits and pieces in them!

Thanks for stopping by and having a look.  Please play along with this month’s awesome challenge theme.

Candice

 

JUNK IN YOUR TRUNK

Totally thrilled to be the Challenge Host for March over at Our Creative Corner.

The theme that I have chosen is:

JUNK IN YOUR TRUNK

So my challenge to you is to create something out of any kind of junk and re-fashion it either into something useful, functional or beautiful. 

I am leaving the challenge open to your interpretation of what constitutes “Junk”. 

It may mean a set of hideously patterned china that you want to smash up and a make a mosaic...

It may mean reams of patterned paper you have lying around that you turn into a collage masterpiece...

It may mean doing something with skeins of wool that you intended to make a a sweater with...

It may mean doing something with rusty keys,nuts and bolts and random pieces of wire that you pick up off the street... 

It may mean using the strings on an old harp to make a cheese-cutter…

It may mean making a robot out of Aluminium Roof Flashing!!!

You can create whatever you want to, however you want to and with whatever you want to.

The only rules are that your project MUST contain something that you have reclaimed or recycled.

For the challenge I used some leftover polystyrene ceiling tiles, some garden junk and an old mask that had some curious elements to it

 

and made this awesome inspirational faux wood panel wall hanging.  Actually I made it to hang over my ugly flatscreen tv that I almost never turn on.

Why dont you go create something beautiful from the Junk in Your Trunk?  Share your project at the Junk in Your Trunk Challenge over at Our Creative Corner and you might be the crafter chosen to win some goodies from the sponsor for this month:

Now I bet you are wondering how on earth that ceiling tile turned into wood?  Well I am about to show you some crafty magic.

STEP ONE – Flip the tile over to the flat side and mark off  “plank sized” panels with a rule or as in my case – a T-Square. Using a pencil or embossing tool, draw in the woodgrain effect and gnarly knots if you wish.  I also drew in some gash marks for a really weathered effect

STEP TWO – This was the hardest, stinkiest and potentially toxically dangerous part.  I used a soldering iron to melt in the grain and knots. WARNING – the fumes produced by burning polystyrene are toxic – either work outside or with a respirator and extraction fan indoors.

STEP THREE – Paint the whole debossed burned-in grains and knots tile in black first and then drybrush with brown and ochre acrylic paint.  Dont use solvent paint because it will eat right through the polystyrene.

STEP FOUR – Paint your twigs, bark and feathers, Wrap wire around your twigs – stain the wire if you wish. Arrange your twigs, bark and feathers in the way you prefer

STEP FIVE – Cut/Carve the polystyrene tile into single planks and do some fancy lettering.  The words were manipulated and designed in Make The Cut and cut out on my cutter/plotter.  You could just do this by printing and fussy-cutting as well.  I just glued them down on the “planks” and used 3D Gloss Super Heavy Gel and overcoated with Glossy Accents on the “Conceive”.  I painted a chalky finish on the “Believe” and I used Dala White Puff Paint on the “Receive” which I puffed and then painted with Dala Craft Acrylic.

STEP FIVE – arrange pieces on faux wood panel and add the last twigs, quill and feather embellishments

 

STEP SIX – Now you’re good to go

 

Our Creative Corner February Challenge–TIC TAC TOE

Hi there guys – this month the TIC TAC TOE challenge over at Our Creative Corner is hosted by the lovely Julia of Julia's Stuff. 
(You can find the challenge rules by going straight over to Our Creative Corner February Challenge) or you can find a quick summary below if you too want to enter the challenge.  There are prizes to be won – there is also a lucky draw for all those who enter in addition to a top-talent prize and 3 runners up - all of whom will receive awesome goodies from our generous sponsor

 

I created this as my Design Team Submission.  My choice was Metal, Stamps and Medium. 

CHALLENGE

“Here is what you have to do, from the grid below - please choose one line from the grid shown. This can be a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line but you must select the middle square as one of your choices. What you make is your choice but please ensure that the three items you have chosen are clearly visible on your make. Please state in your post which line you have chosen. Inks, stains, sprays etc can be used as necessary on your project.”

- CONFESSION – It took me a while to get that this was not just like playing noughts and crosses but that there were only four combinations.  I am going to list them here so if you too want to create along, to save yourself from accidentally choosing a random line like I originally did.
These are the combinations:
Diagonal 1– Metal, Stamps, Mediums
Diagonal 2 - Embossing Powder, Stamps, Cord
Horizontal – Paints, Stamps, Stencils
Vertical – Die-cuts, Stamps, Embossing Folders
________________________________________________________________________________

Here is a quick In-the-Making type photo show of my project

QUIRKY VALENTINES for February

So February being just around the corner and Valentines Day being the big event for the month and all, I created a set of 6 quirky valentines cards focusing on 4 elements - Metal, Stamping, Die-cuts and Embossing. Here is a quick overall snapshot of all. 

Now I am going to show you each of the cards all up close and personal and write a little description of how I included the stamps, metal, die-cuts and embossing powder in these quirky little Valentines Cards.

METAL: Brads and  Lab tubes. To make the bottles look like a lab set, I shaped black craft wire into a system of lab tubes and raised the bottles/beakers on foam tape.

DIE CUTS / EMBOSSING POWDER: Tim Holtz Apothecary Bottles die-cut out of Ranger Shrink Plastic, Heat-Shrunk and dipped in melted UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel). Provocraft Books and Apple Die

STAMPS:  Santoro Gorjuss New Heights Stamp (I drew in a different face though).I shadow stamped the blue-printy image from the Tim Holtz Steampunk Collection so that I had faint formula-esque background.

METAL: Junkyard Findings Jeans Plate and Metal Brads

DIE-CUT: Tim Holtz Fanciful Flight (Bottom wing)

EMBOSSING POWDER:  I mixed a bit of iridescent glitter into some UTEE that I ground up finer in an old coffee Grinder and made sparkly embossing powder.  I coated the wings in that and het set. 

STAMPING:  Wood grain stamp from Heidi Swapp, Cartographer from (Prima??), various other Map stamps.

METAL:  I made some metal embellishments by twisting thick gauge wire into shapes and hammering it flat (cos I’m wild like that!).  I made all the grungy scratches with ridged flat-pliers.

DIE-CUTS:  the “Wild Thang” sentiment was cut from the Tim Holtz Chip Block Strip-Die, the little heart die-cuts were from the Sizzix Movers and Shapers.

EMBOSSING POWDER:  the background is actually an embossing folder from the Provocraft line which I inked up with a pigment based dye-pad (CHISWICK), I then ran that through the Cuttlebug and then coated it in Ranger Fine Embossing powder so that it stuck to the inked debossed bits and heat-set.  I also stamped the border of the card with one of the branches and fossil leaves stamp set  from  Inkadinkado. I stamped the teeny hearts with a music score stamp that I got ages ago and dont know who makes it.

METAL:  Pen Nib Tim Holtz Alterations

DIE-CUT: Tiny Heart Sizzix Movers & Shapers, Bottles (not technically a die-cut as much as it was a fussy-cut.

EMBOSSING POWDER: I used a Ranger Embossing pen to selectively mark and fill-in the areas that I wanted to be all glossy and glass-like on the bottles, I then coated that in UTEE ( I LOVE UTEE), the bottles started to look glass-like after about 3 coats of UTEE.  You have to do this on low heat though to get it to look glassy but without it bubbling and burning.

STAMPING:  the “letters” are all stamped in various background text stamps.  The Bottles were all stamps as well.

METAL:  I shaped pink craft wire into the Love Sentiment. Metal Brad on the banner.

DIE-CUT:  the hot-air Balloons are cut from X-CUT Build-a-scene Hot Air Balloons and the teeny balloons are actually ornament dies from provocraft.

EMBOSSING POWDER: I made some homemade pearly coloured embossing powders by mixing in crushed eyeshadow (YUP, that’s right eyeshadow!!!) into UTEE. I used an embossing pen from Ranger to fill in the sections of the balloon and used the homemade Pearly EP to add colour to the little balloon.  I stamped the background card with the swirl set from Chiswick and used clear EP to create a tone-on-tone effect.

STAMPING: I first stamped the “sky” background with the swirl from Chiswick in watermark ink on stamping paper. It created a nice resist.  I then stamped all over that with  the Hot-Air Balloon stamp (from Inkadinkado I think, the set with the blimp etc).  I added more blue tones to the sky with distress ink in Broken China, Milled Lavender and Tumbled Glass.  The Swirl on the background card that I mentioned above is stamped in Clear Embossing Ink.

METAL:  Brads DIE-CUT:  Ornate Label 2-die-for, the “hide” die is a self-design and cut with my plotter.

EMBOSSING POWDER:  I covered the entire hide in embossing ink using the Ranger Emboss It Dauber.  I coated it in Fine Clear Embossing Powder and then did an Iron-off technique to take the glossiness down a tad. I made the hide look like leather this way

STAMPING:  I stamped the heart in a zebra pattern (cant really see it behind the jute bow there in this picture). I did the ol’ ink up your embossing folder stamping trick again to create the black and white zebra pattern.  I also stamped random leaf, twig and and map designs on the background card.