April 26, 2013

Elegant Floral Sympathy Card

Sadly I needed a sympathy card last week. An old fellow from my congregation passed away at over 90 years old after nearly 67 years of marriage, a pretty good run huh? He had a long, good life. The weekend before he passed he was at a party listening to us all sing karaoke! Apparently not his thing even though we tried to get him to join!

elegant floral sympathy

So this card was for his sweet wife. I tailor the card to the recipient, I don’t base it on the gender of the deceased. Is that what you all do? I layered ribbon, twine, leaves, small flowers and a larger rose then tucked in a tied bit of tulle. It made for a lovely embellishment cluster. This is such a heartfelt sentiment isn’t it? It really sums up how I feel when someone I really care about loses someone close.

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps:
JustRite
Ink: chocolate-PTI
Paper: dk green, red SU!, light green, ivory CS-PTI, DP-Webster’s Pages
Accessories: rose-Prima, white flowers, tulle, ribbon-unknown, twine-PTI, oval Nestie dies, May Arts lace

April 25, 2013

Soft and Shabby for PTI Angled Blog Hop

PTI blog hop logo

The challenge this month is to place some elements on an angle. This wasn’t too hard! I enjoy asymmetrical designs and most angled designs are.

apr 13 pti blog hop graphic

soft n shabby for PTI hop

I made all three of my flowers on this card. I used a Cheery Lynn Dye for two of them and a tutorial from Pretty Little Mess blog (see sidebar) for the third.

I also used this week’s Deconstructed Sketch. Click on it to visit the blog post.

deconstr sketch99

 

I’m also entering this card in this week’s Joan’s Gardens Challenge to use the word Tulips as an acronym for items used in the card.

T-Trim, I used lace
U-Upside Down, I used the corsage pins facing down rather than up like I usually do. (this one is really hard)
L-Lavender, I used lots on the card
I-Items from Joan’s Gardens, the Cheery Lynn Die I used for the flowers
P-Pearl tips on the corsage Pins, also designer Paper and Perfume bottle
S-Sentiment

I hope you enjoyed my card. If you have any questions, feel free to email me and don’t forget to subscribe by email or RSS if you’d like to visit again and be sure to not miss future posts.

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps:
Mega Mixed Messages
Ink: Winter Wisteria-PTI, Frayed Burlap Distress ink
Paper: MME DP, kraft CS-PTI
Accessories: May Arts ribbon, corsage pins-Michaels, flower making die-Cheery Lynn, perfume charm-Jesse James buttons, hexagon, circle dies-PTI, lace-Fabricland, ticket corner dies-SU!, Bow Easy

April 09, 2013

Chevrons and Roses Thank You Card

I love this card, no really, I LOVE this card. I hope you agree! I’m especially glad I love it because I know the couple I gave it to keep my cards out on display for months and even years! Sweet huh?
chevron and roses thanks card
Hubby took this photo for me thus the different angle than I usually take pictures from. I volunteered to make this card for a group to sign but forgot to make it until the last minute so the second I finished it, I rushed upstairs to quickly shower so we could get going out. Everything else about it is fine though so it’s all good.

I CASEd a card by Nichole Heady for the metallic chevron base. Sorry but I don’t have a link handy. After that, my card differs a lot. I was inspired also by the  CAS-ual Fridays 97  challenge to use chevrons and flowers. This is a colour combo I’ve seen lately but have never used myself and really like. I credit Dawn McVey for making me brave enough to layer coral with red for the flowers! It always looks great when she does it.

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps:
Sweet Life, Thanks All Ways-PTI
Paper: aqua mist, white, enchanted evening-PTI, gold CS-SU!
Ink: berry sorbet, moss, chartreuse-PTI, navy, red, pink pirouette-SU!
Accessories: sweet life dies, label dies-PTI, foam dots-Jody Morrow, sequins-Fabricland (cut off of trim)

April 08, 2013

Snowflake Candle for Moxie Fab Winter Challenge

Whew! I am going to make it under the line for this challenge!Winter Home Decor Challenge in the Moxie Fab World. You have 30 minutes to play!

snowflake candle

This is the simplest project ever but it is so pretty and elegant! I die cut the snowflakes from metallic paper and mulberry paper. Then I added rhinestones to some of the snowflake tips to add some sparkle. The snowflakes are held together with a brad and pressed through the ribbon and directly into the candle.

snowflake candle2

As long as you don’t let the candle burn down too far, you could easily remove the snowflake and ribbon and add them to a new candle! It would be so easy to make a set as a gift or a whole table full! Sorry the candle is so crooked. I set it straight so many times! Because a candle is often seen from both sides, I tied the ribbon in a pretty double bow on the back. The dies are Spellbinders, everything else is unknown.

Enjoy!

Rebecca

School Magnet Board for Moxie Fab Fall Challenge

I wanted to enter the Fall Home Decor Challenge in the Moxie Fab World but I couldn’t decide what to make. Fall is my least favourite season as far as decor goes and my second least favourite season as far as weather goes; I’m a fair weather lover. So a school themed project seemed perfect! Be sure to visit and play along.

school magnet board

The base is a plaque which I painted black on the edges and covered with the black DP. The metallic part which hte magnets stick to is under the lighter DP. I wasn't sure how to cover it up but it was pretty ugly metal so it needed some kind of covering. I might have painted it but I wasn’t sure my paint would stick since it wasn’t specially formulated for metal and wasn’t the new MS paint for any surface. It all came as a kit from my favourite cheap online store, ScrapbookSteals.com and included a stand in case you want to table mount it.

I will eventually cover or paint the magnets, I was just short on inspiration tonight. I added my children’s initials to the top so I can use this for school photos or inspirational back-to-school messages. That button isn’t orange, no idea why it looks that way!

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Ink:
Vintage Photo Distress
Paper: black CS-SU!, DP-Graphic 45
Accessories: red baker’s twine-Masterstroke ribbon, buttons-PTI, SU!, other twine-PTI, Glossy Accents-Ranger

April 07, 2013

Summer Floral Journal

This journal is for the Summer Home Decor Challenge in the Moxie Fab World. Make some time to play along won’t you? I’m planning on making it part of a desk set for a partner I’m swapping with so she can keep it out as part of her summer decor.

summer floral journal

I started with a nice but too plain journal from Michaels. The cover had a purple binding, lilacs and yellow stripes with the scallops and cut outs and that’s it. I added the music paper, lace, ribbons, flowers, pearls, doily, stick pins with beads and buttons. This also makes a great hostess gift; I took one with me last night when I was invited out since I made two!

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Paper:
vintage music paper-stash, white CS-PTI
Accessories: corsage pins-Michaels, gingham ribbon-SU!, green ribbon-Masterstroke, rose-Prima, lace-May Arts, purple bead-Swarovski, doily die, scalloped edge die-MFT, pearls-Dollarama, twine-PTI, if not noted, from my stash

Friendship Canvas–My First Try at Mixed Media!

I’ve been inspired by many bloggers I follow who have been getting into mixed media art lately. After all, many of us already use quite a few different media in our work so it isn’t that big of a leap to venture into what is traditionally known as mixed media artwork. We card designers already combine ink, paper, ribbon, metal, sometimes paints, chalk, pencils, spray ink, fabric and more. By adding a more permanent base than card making affords and mixing these media in new ways, voila! Mixed media art!

This is a crazy long post so grab a cuppa and get comfy. If you don’t have time to read it all now, I really hope you will save it and come back later. I have a great tutorial, a mini flower tutorial and some awesome tips all for you below. Plus a way to win by commenting!

think aloud canvas 1a

To make the bird, I drew the template myself, basing it loosely on Tim Holtz bird from the bird cage die I used. It was too small so I wanted to enlarge it and couldn't be bothered figuring out how to make my printer scan and enlarge it. I’d normally get hubby to do it but he was watching the baby so I just winged it (get it, winged it! hee hee) The chevron stripe was lovely but too prominent for me so I painted over it with Porcelain doll MS acrylic paint. A pretty pinkish-ivory off white colour which toned down the paper nicely. I also used some pink paint in places to give the bird some depth and keep her from looking flat. Then she also got some Vintage Photo Distress ink and gilder’s paste on the edges. The wings got Porcelain Doll paint only on them, again to tone down the pattern.

think aloud canvas 3a

The bird cage was cut from grunge paper and gilded with a tube of gilder’s paste. Use it sparingly! I also used this on the edges of the canvas and on the torn/pushed back edges of the paper along the edges. Gilder’s paste is wax based gold you can apply with your finger or a sponge or a q-tip. It is very shiny (hard to tell from this angle but check the last photo with the flower) but I did buff it so you may be able to get a less reflective finish depending on how you work with it or the surface it’s applied to; I don’t know as I don’t have a ton of experience with it. I love how it turned out. I used wire and head pins to attach the beads at the bottom to silk ribbon which I threaded through the holes in the bottom of the bird cage. They are so much more twinkly IRL. I’ll talk about the flower later.

think aloud canvas 2a

I was looking though my vast selection of junk stuff goodies when I came across some vellum quotes and this one really resonated with me. I’m a very direct, outspoken and honest person and people who aren’t drive me CRAZY! I’ve never understood why everyone can’t be the same! I’ve had huge problems with making and keeping friends, especially as a teen and it took me a long time to figure out I was trying to make friends with the wrong kinds of people. So now I have friends who are near and dear to my heart, who truly listen to me and understand me, who I can really be open with and not think so hard all the time if they will judge me for what I’m about to say, I can just breathe and say what’s on my mind; this is one of the things in my life I cherish most. So I knew this quote had to be translated into something that I could see everyday, keep it close by and in a place where it could help me remember to always appreciate those friends.

think aloud canvas 6a

I chose the font, Scriptina Pro, which I found for free, then I typed out the quote and formatted it until I was happy with the spacing and size etc. and I printed it out. I transferred the text to my canvas and went over the transfer with permanent, lightfast, archival pen. Then I thickened the lines in some areas to add more interest. It was looking a bit flat and boring with all the same thickness of lines. Be sure not to use a water-based marker for this kind of work as it will fade much too quickly. (In retrospect, I used water-based inks in other places and probably shouldn’t have for the same reason but it’s going in a place with minimal sunlight. Pigment inks are more lightfast.) I don’t have a photo tutorial for this transfer technique but it’s a great way for getting the text onto your canvas and it’s not hard to describe.

Pencil Transfer Tutorial

  1. Print your wording or design on regular copy paper.
  2. Flip your paper over on a light table or bright window. Using a wide pencil like 0.7mm lead or wider (regular is 0.5), trace your design. Make sure you cover everything. Going outside the lines a bit is ok, just make sure everything is covered.
  3. Trim any excess paper around your design if needed.
  4. Tape your paper to your project making sure it is lined up perfectly. Use repositionable tape like Scotch brand or washi tape, Eclipse tape or painters tape but if you are unsure if these may lift up any previous layers of colour/media you’ve added (like chalk, charcoal, pastel or Pan Pastel), please check in an inconspicuous area.
  5. Trace your design with a pencil. What size you use will depend on the thickness of your lines. For fine lines like mine, not only did I use the finest pencil lead I had which was a 0.5 mechanical pencil, I kept rotating the lead to always have a sharp point. If your lines aren’t so fine, this may not be so important. You could also use some other writing tool as using a pencil isn’t crucial.

What you are doing is transferring the graphite on the BACK of the paper to the canvas (or other surface) so anything that applies smooth, even pressure could work so experiment. Maybe an embossing stylus? Tip of a bone folder? The line you will get is quite faint so if your eyesight is poor you may need magnifying glasses, a strong light, a magnifier attached to a lamp or otherwise or this technique may not work for you. Because the surface of a canvas is fabric (of course) and not stable, I did have to jam some stiff cardboard into the space between the fabric and the wood to get a hard surface to write on. Several pieces actually. I used laminated pieces that some with Spellbinders dies and they were perfect and slid in nicely due to the lamination.

This is a version of a technique I learned as a kid on school. We covered the back of what we wanted to transfer in pencil by scribbling back and forth very heavily. The con of this technique is that is leaves a lot of hand smudges as you do the transferring. With my technique, there is so little graphite on the back of the paper, I didn’t notice any smudging at all.

think aloud canvas 4a

I hand cut the corner by tracing a template I bought from Tattered Angels AGES ago, back when spray misting was in it’s infancy, and cutting it from grunge paper. I then painted it with highly lustrous pearl finish white paint by MS and covered it with Vintage Photo Distress ink which turned it into a cool metallic look. However, the ink isn’t stable on the paint despite two coats of fixativ so I don’t recommend this and I won’t be doing it again. Next time, I’d mix colour into the paint or buy a pearl finish paint in the colour I want rather than trying to alter it after it was dry. Then I added various beads to the nooks and crannies which was shamelessly CASEd from Gabrielle P, a designer for Maja Designs.

think aloud canvas 5a

Another shamelessly CASEd part of my canvas are the torn bits with contrasting paper underneath. To do this you must moisten the paper quite heavily and treat it firmly but gently while pushing it back and expect it to crack in at least one place. You can mist your paper but I used a q-tip to control the amount of water more carefully. Then start to wrinkle the paper. Start as if you only want a tiny area pressed down, don’t try to do too much at once and add more water often if you need it. If the top layer of the paper starts to pill, you have too much water, up to that point, you can’t have too much water. Gently scrunch it until you have the look you want. Many artists I’ve seen cover up the broken/torn area with flowers or ribbon but I liked it and felt I had enough going on with out adding any more.

think aloud canvas 7

I made this flower and it came about rather serendipitously. I was trying to replicate another type of flower but changed too much and it didn’t work out well. I wasn’t happy with it at all so I decided to hit it with the heat gun and all of a sudden, I though it was so pretty! So, I will refer you to the original tutorial then tell you what I did differently. Firstly, I used sheer fabric called georgette, not tulle and I cut them with pinking shears, not the way she called for and I cut 9 circles. I folded them like she did, in half first but then but I overlapped them in the center a bit more almost into thirds. However, this allowed all 9 of them to fit next to each other when sewn onto the backing. At this point, I really didn’t like the finish that the pinking gave the edges. To me, it just looked sloppy. So I hit the flower with the heat gun. At times, I separated one little section from the others so it wouldn’t melt too much or so I could melt it more as it seemed to get missed. In the end, it almost seemed like those flowers made from lots of little blossoms and I really liked that.

think aloud canvas 7a

The base of the canvas was prepped with acrylic paints on the sides in pink, turquoise and porcelain doll. Then I added some script stamping and toned it down with more porcelain doll dry brushed on. The base of the canvas is hard enough to see IRL and almost completely lost in photos. I used a lovely lace pattern DP then added some spray mist in Boss Lady which is much brighter and more dominant than I had hoped.  Two light sprays from far away and my background was almost gone. You can see a wee bit of it above. The lower right corner is a mix of Life stamps in various Distress inks and a few PTI colours along with some Hexagon stamps which you can see in the photo with the lettering.

think aloud canvas 8

The tree stencil was tacked down and sponged around the outside using Antique Linen Distress ink then traced around using the same pen I used to trace over the lettering. Then I used PTI inks to dry brush the colour onto the tree. To do this, you literally pick up colour from an ink pad with a dry watercolour brush, yes, it does take a long time but it game me the soft look I was going for. Then I die cut a TON of tiny white 5 petal tissue paper flowers and glued them together, I think 10 layers or so. Then I glued them to the tree, added chalk to the centers and fluffed them up to create spring flowers. This can all be see in the photo with the bird.

I hope you stayed with me this long! If so, you are a real trooper and deserve a medal! Thanks so much! I’m entering this in the Spring Home Decor Challenge in the Moxie Fab World. It’s randomly chosen so I have as much of a shot as the next person but I’m so proud of this I can only hope maybe there could be an Honourable Mention of something. If you like it, I hope you will leave a comment. If you do, you could also win a prize as one of the ways to win this challenge is to leave comments for participants! Click the link to learn all about it. Not long left so be sure to join in the fun!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Modern Hospitality Card for Mojo Monday

I think this is the last in a series of cards I’ve been making for my sister. She likes much more modern cards than I do so, once again, I made this set to her tastes. I promise, there are much more girlie and shabby designs to come!

mod hospitality for sarah

These were part of a wine gift set I gave her. I made or personalized most of what was in there: a wine tote made of oatmeal and black Paris-themed fabric with a handmade beaded rose and insulated sleeve to keep white wine cold (I even created my own design/pattern for the entire thing from a photo!), an engraved wine stopper with their last name and wedding date, hand stencilled wine glasses with their monogram, wine tags to go on bottles they may give as gifts when invited out somewhere, wine aerators, hand-beaded wine charms, some nice wine themed tea towels and these cards and of course a nice big bottle of wine. They loved everything, yeah!

I used this week’s Mojo Sketch and I’m pretty sure that for once I finally managed to get it up in time! Yeah again! Click on the sketch below to visit the blog.

Mojo287Sketch

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps: PTI
Ink: spring moss-PTI, London fog-Memento, Antique Linen Distress
Paper: aqua mist, white CS-PTI, DP-Basic Grey Upcycle
Accessories: rhinestones-Taylor’s Tiny Twinkles-TE, foam dots-Jody Morrow, ribbon-stash, doily die-MFT, angled labels die-PTI

April 01, 2013

Vintage Masculine Card for Sweet Sketch Wednesdays

This is the last card I needed to make for our most recent group of baptized young people. I am so proud of them.

ryan baptism card

Again, I went to my son to find out what kind of card to make for this young man. Apparently, he was checking out the vintage car my sister drove up in at her wedding so I went with this vintage paper. I rearranged the layers a bit but I hope the people deciding the results of the challenge don’t mind. I enjoyed coming up with an alternative to paper or ribbon for the horizontal strip. I loved substituting the tickets.

Sweet Sketch wed 199

I used Sweet Sketch Wednesday for this. Click on the sketch to visit the site.

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps:
ticket-PTI
Ink: archival black-Ranger, fired brick Distress
Paper: DCVW, grey CS-PTI
Accessories: foam dots-Jody Morrow, ticket die-PTI

Graphic Masculine Card for Sweet Sketch Wednesday

This card is so different from what I usually make but it suits the person it was made for very well.

jordan baptism card

This is a congratulation card for a young man in my congregation. He was recently baptized and I find it so hard to make cards for young guys especially when I don’t know what they are really into! I asked my son and he likes dark purple and sports so this was the best I could do. An actual sports theme just wouldn’t be appropriate for a spiritual card.

Sweet Sketch wed 199

I used Sweet Sketch Wednesday for this. Click on the sketch to visit the site. It’s my first time participating in this one so I’ll have to see how it goes! Wish me well!

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps:
WMS
Ink: Archival black-Ranger
Paper: pumpkin pie CS-SU!, DP-DCWV
Accessories: ribbon-stash, buckle, ticket corner punch-SU!, pinking shears, foam dots-Jody Morrow