From the Heart - a color swap

I recently hosted an ATC swap in our Paper Traders group that included a color challenge - pink, brown, & white.  The theme was "From the Heart" in honor of Valentine's Day.  I've been itching to do something with corrogated cardboard and came up with these cute painted hearts.

Follow Your Heart

In our Paper Traders group, we are doing a word prompt journal challenge this year.

For January, the prompt was "Live Simply" and had to include some kind of rubber stamping... here's my page:

This month, the prompt is "Follow Your Heart" and the challenge is to include some hearts on your page... so here's what I came up with:

The lavender is actually a printed napkin layered over the torn text... one of my favorite techniques!

White-on-White

I know my blog posts lately have been sporadic at best.  I really have been working on several things recently so I will try to get them updated here soon to show you.

This past week, I finished my spread for Cathy's tip-in journal in our Paper Traders group.  Her theme is White-on-White so this is what I came up with... let me just say that it was somewhat challenging to place that tulle on the page using gel medium!

Snowflake Tags

Recently in our Paper Traders group, Pam hosted a snowflake tag swap.  I was having so much fun with Cat Kerr's technique that I decided to try it with white paint instead of a dark color.  The result isn't quite as striking, but still pretty...

New Year Inspiration

I'm hosting a tag swap over at Paper Traders this month and the theme is to use an inspirational quote for the new year.  After reading my latest issue of Somerset Studio, I loved the technique used by Cat Kerr on her mini canvas necklace (page 52) so I decided to try applying this method to my paper tags.

I started with a plain manila tag to which I added a light coat of gesso.  Then I used gel medium to adhere different textured items to my tags - some tulle, a piece of woven straw ribbon, some extra chunky mulberry paper, and a few paper flower cutouts.  I covered everything with a layer of green acrylic paint and let it dry.  At this point I was thinking the green was way too ugly and I didn't know if the textures were pronounced enough, but I added a coat of Mod Podge and braved on with the next step...

I adhered my chipboard quotes and then, following Cat's instructions in the magazine, I watered down some dark acrylic paint (I used navy blue) and spread it over the top of everything.  I crossed my fingers, waited a few minutes, and started wiping the dark paint off again.  Cat recommended using a baby wipe but I found this took too much of the paint off (probably because I was working on paper with very thin textures) so I just rubbed with my fingers, cleaning them often so I could pick up more paint as I went.

Once everything was dry again, I used some colored buffing wax to highlight the textured areas.  Cat recommends Rub 'n Buff but I used my Metallic Rub-Ons by Craf-T in brass.  I added some random bright blue accents using my oil pastels and then spattered everything with some off-white acrylic paint.  Lastly, I added white accents with my Sharpie paint pen.

As a final touch, I added the brass butterflies and some glitter accents on my drawn flowers.  Finally, I used a little extra colored buffing wax (in golden white) to lighten the edges of my tags for more dimension.  I sprayed everything with a coat of fixative when I was done.  I also mounted printed cardstock to the back of my tags to reinforce them.

About half-way through this project, I thought I was going to have to scrap the whole thing because it looked u-g-l-y ("you ain't got no alibi!")... but I am so grateful I followed all the steps all the way through because I think the end results are phenomenal - there's so much color and texture and I really learned a lot about how to combine different mediums for a beautiful finale.

Imagination Takes Flight

Even though I did not participate in this year's round robin project, I had the honor of being able to do a spread in Lucy's awesome steampunk-themed journal.  I really struggled to come up with an idea for this spread but I think it finally all came together nicely...  I hope she likes it!

Altered Rusted Tin

Over at Paper Traders, Cathy hosted an altered rusted tin swap inspired by her recent tutorial on various rusting techniques.  I used my own variation of these to rust my tin...

First, I sanded ALL of the paint off of my Altoids tin lid, then sprayed it down with straight vinegar and let it dry in the sun (I did this about 3 times on each side)... it was already starting to rust with just the vinegar.

Then (wearing rubber gloves and a face mask, just in case), I mixed 4oz of 3% hydrogen peroxide with 2oz of the vinegar and about 1 tsp of salt, stirring carefully to dissolve completely; then I carefully poured it into my spray bottle. I sprayed the tin and left outside to dry, turning and repeating about 3 times on each side... I got lots of rust coating the entire tin. In the areas where the solution pooled because I sprayed a little too much, it took longer to dry but turned out really textured and dark in those spots.

Finally, I sprayed the whole thing with a coat of matte acrylic sealer and let it dry before creating my collage.

I have been wanting to try this for so long and am surprised at how quick and easy it was to do!