Happy Halloween!

 

I haven't added anything to my blog since March!  Wow!  Spring came and I played in my garden, went on vacation and  dealt with other events in life.  As the cooler weather is coming so is the desire to be back in the craft room.  What better way to start than with Halloween.This was created with various images found on the internet, Tim Holtz Houses die, fence, cat, and bat from a Cricut cartridge.  Background was Distress inks with random stamping.  I had a lot of fun and love the Gargoyles on the house, the little trick or treater's and the skeleton man.

Couldn't Get Into Doing A Journal page, So I Made Some Embellishments With My Cricut Machine

I used the Cricut Art Nouveau cartridge and made a butterfly and a couple of different size dragonflies.

The pieces that cut out for these items can be quite intricate and extremely small.  So small that I kept losing them on my work table.  That is why I decided to use a bit of my bling for the bottom of the wings.

Next came two dragonflies.  The blue-green one was cut at three inches as suggested but seemed way too big.  I cut it a second time at 2 1/2.  I liked this size better.

 I used "Rock Candy" Crackle Paint on the wings.  When it dried I gave it a dusting of Perfect Pearls to give it an iridescent look.

For this one I cut the underside of the wing from a glitter yellow green piece of scrapbook paper..  Both came out cute and will find a place somewhere in my crafting.

I do have to say that some of the cutouts can be very, very tricky to put together.  I ended up not using some pieces either because they were too small or I didn't like the way they looked.  The other dilemma I had was gluing the pieces together.  I got glue everywhere and made a big mess.

I would love to read any comments.

Window Treatments

I started my project with the thought that I wanted to use the Tim Holtz Window & Window Box Die.

Then I added a window topper using Cricut Ornamental Iron 2 (I cut it at 4 1/2).  I cut it all from black paper and used a white Signo pen to add highlights to all the creases on the window and window box.  I also added highlights to the wrought Iron top with the Signo pen.

 

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 I did the background using brick red acrylic paint that I dabbed through a brick stencil.  I sponged on some brown on top of the red. I dried everything with a heat tool and used Vintage Photo and Walnut stain Distress ink over the brick to fill in the spaces between the bricks.

I stuck the window topper, window and window box to the page using bits of foam tape.  The white foam tape really stood out on the wrought iron window topper so I used my black Pitt brush pen and colored the foam of the tape black and presto you don't even notice it now.

 I used this photo that I found on the Internet for the view inside my window.  I glued some lace curtains with some lace trim that I had in my stash.  Then I glued the window to the picture.  I had to cut the bottom of the picture off to fit the window

Then I used my two favorite Martha Stewart punches to add greenery and flowers to the window box.  I cut strips of each punch from white card stock an colored them with Peeled paint distress marker. 

I used my distress markers in Wild Honey, Fire Brick and Scattered Straw to color the flowers After I colored the strips of flowers, I cut the flowers from the vine so that I could add them randomly through the greenery.  I used this stamp and Vintage photo distress ink on the flowers and vine.  I also used Tim Holtz

Garden Greens die to add a variety to the mix of leaves.  I colored this with a marker of a yellow green color. (I don't know the name of the markers. Just some random markers in my stash.)  I added some stamping to this also.  Then I cut everything to fit in the box and glued everything where I wanted it.  As a final touch, I added bling to the center of each flow.

 Then I added this little bird...also fund on the Internet.  I copy and paste him into a Word document.  Then I sized him to fit in with my page by grabbing the corner grab bar on the image.  Once he was the size I wanted, I grabbed the left grab bar on the image and pulled it to the right, which gives me the mirror image.  I cut him out and glued him in position and this is the final page:

I would love to read your comments.

My Bumble Bee Found A Home!

Remember this little bee that I made a couple posts back?  He is from the Cricut "Art Nouveau" cartridge.  I think he is adorable but I didn't know what I was going to do with him.

 This is what I ended up doing....

I LOVE it!  I started by covering the page with a sheet of scrapbook paper from "Vintage Essentials"  The paper is like tissue paper.  It is very thin and fragile.  I used Matte medium to stick it to the page.  If you look close you can see in the bottom left corner, that the paper tore.  I figured this would be added texture and kept on going.  In the past, this would have made me think the page was ruined and I would have torn it out of the book.  So I am learning that sometimes mistakes add to the beauty of the finished picture.

Next, I used some stencils and distress inks to the background.  The stenciling was very subtle and you have to look close to see it.  I found the poem on Pinterest and typed it up.  I tore it out and used the same colors of distress inks on it.  I went around the edge with Walnut stain.

 I used  Sizzix Honeycomb die to cut a couple from cardboard.  Then I cut sections off of one of the die cuts and glued the two pieces together to give it this shape.  I added a couple of the punchout pieces of the die to the top.  I randomly coated the Honey come with Perfect Medium embossing ink.  Then I used a mixture of Antique Linen" and "Vintage Photo" distress embossing powder.  One I heated the embossing powder, I thought it looked like a pale yellow, which wasn't the look that I was going for.  So I went over it with Spiced Marmalade.  I glued the honeycomb to the page and added the bee using foam tape to make him pop on the page.  I added the flowers that I made using the Tattered Flower Garland Die.  I cute them from scrapbook paper and distressed them with a little Vintage Photo.  They are held together with a brad that I added a little bling to.  The leaves are from my Martha Stewart edge punch below. I use this a lot too.

So my cute little bee has found a home in my art journal.  Love him.

Would love to read your comments

A Few Pages From My Art Journal

 I did this page specifically because I wanted to use the water droplet stamp by Ryn.  I used Dylusion spray inks for the background and then stamped the water droplet in archival ink.  I went over the center of each water droplet with a water brush and then blotted with a paper towel as shown in the "Ryn" link above.  I then put a dot of white paint on each water droplet.  I would normally use my Signo white pen for this but Ryn suggested using white paint for a crisper look.

  I stamped a butterfly and a dragon fly and colored them in with distress markers.  Then I painted over the image with Rock Candy Crackle paint and set it aside to dry.  I had the violet in my stash.  I believe it was made using a Sizzix Die and was colored with Distress Markers.  I punched a border with a Martha Steward edge punch and colored it with....you guessed it....Distress Markers.  I LOVE them.  Then I cut out the butterfly and dragon fly.  I stamped them on the page where I wanted them and glued the center of each cut image on top.  This way the wings curl up and the stamped image below creates a shadow.

I didn't have a flat surface when I was stamping the water droplets and didn't get a clear image on the bottom. Something to watch out for in the future.

 I wanted to use my Cricut Expressions "Folk Art" Cartridge and made these whimsical little farm animals and the birdhouse.  The birdhouse is actually a house but I cut it an inch big and thought that it would make a great bird house.

I used the Tim Holtz Lamp Post die and cut two of them.  I cut the light off and turned one upside down and glued them together.

 To cover the mark where they are glued together I made a flowery vine. The flowers are from Tattered Flower Garland die,colored with distress markers and a little bling dot added to the center.

I glued the flowers in place first, then used the leafy vine, Martha Steward edge punch.  I had to snip off a few branches to get it to wind around the flowers.

While I had my Cricut up and running I also decided to cut this bee from the Art Nouveau cartridge.  The gray part on the wings were cut from white card stock.  I then used Copic markers (C3 Cool Gray) to color the wings.  After that, I gave them a good coating of Rock Candy Crackle Paint. The picture doesn't show it very well but the wings look really cool.  After I assembled the bee, I thought the yellow and orange card sock that I used was way to bright for my taste.  So I went over it with Vintage Photo Distress ink and a blending tool.  I added some bling to his eyes and whala he is done.  I love, love, love him and can't wait to find a project to add him to.

Wow, what can I say about this except that it didn't work out the way I had hoped.

I started out with a page that I had used to clean my stencil from another project.  Then I used Crackle Paste through the card stock remanent from the Moon and Stars Die cut. 

 The paste didn't crackle like I thought it would.  But, I decided to persevere.  I colored the moon and stars by squeezing distress ink daubers to my craft mat and used a paint brush to apply it to the paste.  This way I had a little control while applying the ink.  I used a Copic Marker (Y35) to add dimension to the moon and give the appearance of craters.  I used a gold pen to outline the moon and the stars to try to give it some definition.

Then I thought the moon and the stars looked too much alike.  I covered each of the stars with gesso and let it dy.  Then I went back and colored each star using Copic marker (Y11).  I added various stencils and then wrote the When you wish upon a star.....with a black Pitt pen and outlined this with my gold pen.

The page doesn't look as bad and jumbled as this picture makes it look.  It isn't one of my favorite pages but I had fun experimenting with different products.

This one........welllllllllllllll.  it is the opposite page of the Moon and Stars above and was also started from a page that was used to clean off a stencil from a previous project.  I then used this set of stamps from Hero Arts to fill the background using different color inks.

Then I used various mini stamps to fill each of the shapes.  I used a black pen and outlined each of the squares.  I used an Inktense water color pencil to fill in the background and then went over this with a water brush.

The original stencil in the background hides some of the stamping and makes the whole thing look too busy.  But, again,  I had fun doing it and I used some stamps that I hadn't even tried before so that was fun.

Learning ...

 

When I started this project early this afternoon, I thought that it was going to go quickly and that I might have time to do a couple pages in my journal.  Yeah....that didn't happen.  I thought I had my Cricut machine all figured out.  It may have taken me a while and I may have had to cut a couple times BUT, I DID IT!  The peacock is from the Art Nouveau cartridge.  It is cut in layers and it took me a couple tries to figure it out.  The flash from the camera washed out the colors.  It is a little brighter than how it appears.  The mandala in the middle is from the ornamental Iron 2 cartridge. It is Gate 3D, which is a half circle.  I cut two and glued them together to make a circle.  I inked the background with scattered straw distress ink and rubbed peeled paint distress around the edges.  I stamped the flourishes using various colors.  I printed the comment on my computer and inked it with bundled sage ink dauber.  I glued down the mandala, then the peacock and then the comment.  I traced around the peacock with a black pen and doodled around the comment to make them stand out.  I added some bling to his tail feathers and another bling for his eye.  I like how it turned out.  Now I have to clean up the mess I made while doing it!