creativitE

My One Little Word for 2010: Grow

Happy New Year!!

For the past handful of years now I've been inspired by Ali Edwards to choose a word for the new year...this year I picked "grow". 

 

This word spoke to me because in 2010 I will be going outside of my box and doing things that are challenging to me.  I won't go into detail on what they are now, but I'm excited at the possibilities and scared at them too.  I know the Lord is with me though and that He will teach me through the circumstances I'll be in.

I created this canvas to remind me of my word.  Here's some close ups of it:

 

I used vinyl to cut out "grow" with my Cricut Expression and used the vinyl letters as a mask.  I added some on Tim's Crackle Paint to the letters after I removed the mask.
 

Supplies: 12" x 16" canvas; Dictionary pages; Golden Gel Medium; Golden Fluid Acrylic Paint; Delta Acrylic Paint; Ranger (Tim Holtz) Distress Crackle Paint and Distress Ink; Cricut Expression - Platin Schoolbook Cartridge; vinyl
  

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Sponsor: Provo Craft
 

How To: Hairspray Photo Transfer Technique

When I was at Spark a couple of weeks ago (gee, has it really been that long?) Rhonna Farrer taught us a really neat photo transfer technique using hairspray.  I tweeted about it and got a lot of responses wondering how you do it so I put together a little tutorial to show you how.

For this technique I used...

• Avery 8.5" x 11" Clear Full Sheet Labels for ink jet printer
• Suave Aerosol Hairspray
• Shimmerz Paint (Green Olive)
• ProvoCraft Cricut Expression & the Sweethearts cartridge
• Dingbat font (DB Seasons Greetings from scrapNfonts)
• Brayer

 

Sponsor: ProvoCraft

Art Journal Update

I'm trying to catch up my art journal since I didn't work on it last week.  I still have a bit more to finish up tonight, but I wanted to share what I've done so far...

I made some add-in booklets out of dictionary pages that will go in between the main pages.

I also made a couple of collage sheets and then cut them up for some more heart embellishments.  -I love how they turned out!

 

 

And on one final note...yea, tomorrow's Friday!!

Art Journal: Graffiti Of My Life -Lesson 2

I worked on my art journal for class a bit more last night....I won't bore you with all the pages, but here's a sampling of what I did. 

I used my Cricut to make a stencil and then I sprayed Glimmer Mist over the stencil.  It looks really good & I saved a few bucks!  

Art Journal: Graffiti Of My Life

I'm taking Dina Wakley's Graffiti Of My Life - Art Journaling 301 class at Get It Scrapped and loving it!!  I really like that we are working on all the pages at the same time instead of individually like I usually do it.  I think it's going to make a great finished project.

I hope to take photos of the progress along the way, so here's the base layer of my pages from lesson #1.  

(Click on photos to see them larger.)

     

I think it will be cool to see how my "drop cloth" develops over the class too...so I snapped it's photo too.  I recycled it from a big piece of paper that came in the box of a recent online purchase.

Tilano Coasters - Part 2

Guess what?  I re-did the Tilano coasters!  I know, I know, I'm always saying to go with it when things don't turn out to your expectations...but in this case, my family is going to be looking at these every day for years to come.  Plus there are so quick to do (well except for waiting for them to dry LOL) that it wasn't taking up a lot of effort or time out of my life.

In the directions for the coaster it says if you have any problems you can just sand the tiles down and start fresh...so I did!  By the way, the kit comes with the sandpaper and enough of the other supplies to re-do them (or you could use the extras to try transferring your photos to other things!)

This time instead of having Kinko's do the printing I used my husband's color laser printer.  It worked much better!  I also decided to print them out at 4 inches too.  Which worked pretty good although I did have to trim them down a bit smaller when I went to apply them to the coasters.

The sanding went pretty fast.  I think it took me only a minute or two per coaster.  After I was done sanding I just proceeded through the steps.  I ended up letting the transfer paper dry to the tiles overnight & then when I got up the next day I removed the paper backing, sanded the edges a bit, and applied the protective coats of medium.  

And here's the finished project!  So glad I took the time to re-do them.  :)

Don't forget to stop by this post & enter the drawing for a free kit of your very own (a $48.99 value)!

Sponsored by: Tilano

Makeover

I got around to fixing up the girl I was working on this past weekend.  I tried a couple of different techniques to get her hair the way I wanted.  

First I tried inking the string with the intent to put some Golden soft gel over it to hold it in place.  Well, the ink looked horrible...so I switched to acrylic paint which worked great.  I just used my fingers to coat the string with paint & then let it dry a bit while I washed my hands.  I then added a touch of   Golden soft gel & molded it into the shape I wanted.  I let it dry on a piece of plastic from some scrapbook products that was headed to the trash can.  Once it was dry I glued it to her head.

I like her hair like this MUCH better!  

Mixed Media Challenge: Stars

I haven't done any challenges in a really long time so when I found a challenge this weekend on the Mixed Media Monday blog I decided I would participate.  The challenge this week is "stars."  I also found a challenge on the Melange blog about quotes, so this fits in there as well.  Bonus!

I used a piece of chipboard that I cut out in a star shape as the foundation of my piece and while I was looking through my stash for a sheet of chipboard I came across the Maya Road wings,  the Magistical Memories girl, and a Advantus Grungeboard heart and decided to incorporate them into it too. I used Tim's Stamper's Anonymous Stamps to create some texture in the gesso and then layered acrylic paint on it.  I love the way the background turned out!  After all that dried & I put a couple of coats of Golden gel top coat (semi-gloss) on it I used my Provo Craft Yudu to screen print the quote "Stay the course, light a star, change the world, where'er you are. " on it with Gold Yudu ink.

I wasn't sure how well the screen printing would turn out since my piece was pretty textured, but it really turned out well.  (Click the photos to enlarge them.)

Now, I'm not really loving the girl yet and I think I'll give her new hair when I get a chance.  I might also give her a charm or something to hold.  I made her by  "wallpapering" her with paper from an old dictionary and then painted her with acrylic paints.  For her hair I used some Golden soft gel on a piece of string to mold it into place & then inked it up after it was dry.  (I'll probably try to reverse that process & see if I get results that I like.)  If I get back around to fixing her up I'll be sure to post her "makeover" here on my blog.

The heart was simple...just put some of Golden's Micaceous Iron Oxide fluid acrylic paint on it.  I love that paint, the sparkles are awesome and my photo doesn't do it justice.

Antique finds

I needed to get couple of things for a mixed media piece I'm working on so I headed over to one of my local antique stores to look around.  I found a few things that made me happy so I took them home with me.  :D

 

I got this spice embellishment rack for only $3.75 on sale.  -Love a good deal! 

Here's a close up of the spoon.  The handle is what made me buy it....love it!  I don't know if it will wind up being Incorporated on some art, or jewelry, or what, but I had to have it.

 

Here's a cute sewing machine I saw there.  -Great color!  I passed it up though, one has to use restraint sometimes. 

Loot Photos From My Artful Weekend

I got a couple of request to show what you what I ended up getting this weekend at the Art Bar & Scrapbook Oasis....so here ya go!

Lets start off with the Art Bar.  This is the free goodie bag they gave us.

And here's what was inside it:

I ended up buying the Golden Digital Mixed Media set since I had been looking for Digital Ground locally & everyone seems to be out of it.  I also picked up some of Claudine Hellmuth's sticky back canvas, which I also had been on the hunt for these since they came out & could only find them on-line.  (I'm trying to shop locally whenever possible this year.)

On to Scrapbook Oasis.  They are having an awesome sale this weekend, so if your anywhere near there swing on by.

Here's what I ended up buying there:

Some paper & transparency

And some embellishments:

Can't wait to start creating!!!