After two and a half loooooong months away due to an unplanned medical snafu, I am gratefully alive and finally venturing back into crafting.
Unlike the arrogant little tot featured in my project, I was much less confident about getting back to crafting. I decided to make the transition a little easier by using some of my favorite things for my first project: Gypsy Soul Lasercut’s Mini House Shadowbox, Paper Calliope’s Snarky Ancestors, 7gypsies paper and Seth Apter’s embossing powders.
At least once in a lifetime a person should receive a tiny jar full of sweet wishes. Every now and then we all need something magical to happen! You can be the one to create magic in someone else’s life–and perhaps help a wish or two to come true, when you give them this card. Read the rest of this entry
I had so much fun making this altered art project featured at Gypsy Soul Lasercuts. After my massive undertaking of Kringle’s Toy Store, I wanted to tackle something a little less time consuming.
I think one thing that made the Tiny Dancer Shadowbox so much fun is that when I started I had no idea what the end result would be. I began by gathering the tiny pink dancer and the Mini House Shadowbox and let serendipity take its course. Read the rest of this entry
With a blank canvas in front of me, I decided to let me creativity soar by creating a mixed media piece for which I had not meticulously planned the final outcome.
In fact, the focal point is something I spontaneously grabbed from one of my studio tables, where it had served as a paperweight for several years.
The impetus for this steampunk project were some chipboard gears made by Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts. Here’s how I brought the whole thing together.
Begin by prepping both the Gears Shape Set and a blank canvas with a coat of gesso.
After the canvas dries. apply modeling paste with assorted stencils of your choosing. When the paste dries, dry brush your surface with yellow, grass green and sky blue acrylic paint, making sure you use a heat tool to dry the paint between each color.
Next use a white paint pen to highlight some raised surfaces and Distress pens to emphasize some of the valleys. Then adhere torn pieces of an old sewing pattern to portions of the canvas. Repeat with printed tissue.
Emboss all the gears with seafoam white embossing powder. Then emboss portions of them with copper, bronze, blue and green embossing powders.
If any of the metal bits of hardware (in my case it was the the spring) you plan to use are not rusty enough, you can make them extra rusty with bronze embossing powder.
Adhere your chipboard gears, metal star, metal hardware and dew drops to the canvas with a strong adhesive.
After the glue dries, you steampunk canvas is ready for display. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Enjoy your weekend! –
Canvas
Large metal star
Stencils
Embossing powders in bronze, copper, seafoam white, blue and green
Old sewing pattern
Tim Holtz tissue paper
Metal spring and bits of rusty hardware
Distress pens
Matte medium
Modeling Paste
Gesso
Acrylic paint
What is this packing light you speak of?
I just don’t “get” people who manage to pack light. Even when I travel to the family lakeside cottage less than two hours from home, I manage to fill an entire minivan with vital stuff I simply cannot live without.
This particular postcard, which I made as part of the “Postcards from the Road” set I created for the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts/Canvas Corp Match Up, drives home this point. Read the rest of this entry
A talented friend of mine has taken on the challenge of giving her entire house a Mid-Century Modern updo with only inexpensive secondhand goods.
Her ingenuity impressed me so much that I though she should memorialize her project with a mini album. As as surprise for her, I made a little album so she could paste in before and after pictures, make notes of her awesome estate sale finds and even add in inspiration and ideas from magazines. Read the rest of this entry
I was thinking about the AALL Challenge #1 Europe one day and inspiration came to me throughout the day. First, while visiting my elderly mother, I spied the family Bible–a massive tome in Swedish that no one in our family can read. Later, while preparing photos for digitizing, I came across both a stoic picture of my Swedish ancestors and a colorful picture of my own multicultural children with impish looks upon their faces. The day concluded with racist hate spewing across the news channels. Read the rest of this entry
I didn’t know parrots were bullies until I created this little altered art project for Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts. Hopefully not all parrots are such big meanies, and these guys are just a bad lot.
As you can see, they convinced this dim-witted lass that she can fly–that’s why she is precariously on the edge of the house, readying to launch herself into the air. Read the rest of this entry
The lifelike qualities of the Architextures mixed media embellishments almost demand a new kind of altered art tag.
You can see my unique answer to that call on the 7gypsies blog.
Spooky things come in small packages. Take for example this Altoid tin that I altered into a Halloween mini album. Read the rest of this entry
