Thursday, December 28, 2017

Let's Make A Christmas Card Box!

Hi Happy Craft Lovers, a warm holiday welcome! I hope your holidays were bright, and filled with family frivolity. I am here with my last blog post of the year!!! Topflight Stamps playing with a wonderful Christmas themed Card Box. 


 This project was designed using Eileen Hull's Card Box from the Book Club Collection by Sizzix. It is available for purchase! I will use this to hold my Christmas scrapbook or pocket page cards. 


The stamp set is PaperArtsy & I love it's whimsical feel. You find it here. 


I simply stamped the images on card stock & painted with watercolor markers.  Everything was fussy cut and adhered to my box. Sadly I lost my step out photos. The box was painted with Dylusions paints & stenciled using Seth Apter stencils by Stencil Girl. 


Love how bright & cheery it is!! Well that is it for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful New Years & may 2018 bring you peace, prosperity & lots of good health!!! Cheers!

Thursday, December 21, 2017

IndigoBlu Art Card with Water Color.

Hello Inky Friends, I am on the Topflight Blog today playing with watercolor. You can check out the stamps I used on my blog post there.
 


The holidays can be so busy, I hope you get a chance to play with some inks!  I will be back with a tutorial for you next week, until then HoHoHo & have some good cheer!

Friday, December 15, 2017

Emerald Creek & Stencil Girl Bloghop 2017

Hello Stencil & Embossing lovers! I am thrilled to be part of this blog hop! The designers participating are amazing! Made this a wee bit daunting. The best part is, I got to play with some of my favorite things.  Make sure you hop along & comment on our designers posts to be entered to win! With out further ado I give you my project. Grab a cup of coffee or eggnog & join in the fun!!


StencilGirl & Emerald Creek Blog Hop

I decided to create a canvas, it is 6"x12" & I call it Mermaid Dream. Of course I went slightly overboard but how appropriate! 
 


Details & information on winning some great prizes are at the end of this post. For now, how about a field trip to see how this canvas came about?


I started with an idea of how I wanted my canvas to look & while it did change somewhat my original idea had me drawing out where my images would go. Let's begin with the mermaid stencil & some modeling paste. The stamp was there for placement ideas.


I knew waves & the sea was something I wanted, so watercolor paints were the answer. First spritz some water, add color & swirl it around with a brush. 


While the paper was still wet, I added some Infusions powders. These are wonderful powders that burst forth when water is added & have a walnut stain element to them. 


Next up was some embossing. Using the Embossing Dabber to apply ink, followed with Emerald Creek emboss powder- Winter's Mistake. 


This is a wonderful way to add snow, it has a fabulous fluffy snow like look to it with tiny blue sparkles. I realized it would also look like the white caps of waves! Once the emboss was heated & set, the piece was cut. 


Working on placement. Adding these awesome, embossed salmon. I wanted this canvas to be a combination of reality & whimsy. The original plan was to add more waves at the top on the horizon but that idea changed. These elements were not adhered yet & photos were taken to remember placement. 


Time for some color! My favorite when working on modeling paste is Glimmer Mist. The bottom of the canvas was taped off with masking tape & then spritzed away. 



The canvas was built by gradually adding layers of Glimmer Mist. Sometimes a paint brush was used to help move the color. The great thing is, if a mistake is made, it is easily fixed by using water to wipe up. The bad thing is being careful not to over work the canvas or water/erase parts that are well liked! 



Let's make some embellishments! My Onyx Frost, embossed, Haida animals were painted with Prima Marketing Watercolor. Emerald Creek has a wonderful variety of stamps including many hard to find Haida or North West Pacific Native images. The water color paints really help these images stand out, they are quite bright & fun to use.



The Sun Mask was colored the same way. It has been embossed using Northern Lights. A bit of the detail of the stamp is lost when it is embossed with some of the heavier powders but it also helps them stand out & gives them weight. 



The title was painted with acrylic paint & embossed using Fractured Ice. This is one of my favorites. The original color shows through & the emboss has an inky look. 



The sun's rays were made using the watercolor's & die cut with Seth Apter's Sunburst die. The marks were made using a stencil of Seth's, acrylic paint & a foam sponge.



Here are some close ups!  Once all the pieces were adhered, some back ground stamping & mark making was added. The words were stenciled using acrylic paint & cosmetic foamie, but as the canvas is springy the words were kinda smooshed. Simple fix was to outline the letters in white & put back the definition.


The top of my canvas had some more stencil work & my quote. It was typed out on a paper using the same techniques as the painted waves. 1 of my favorite quotes, "always be yourself unless you can be a mermaid* then always be a mermaid". 


Very light stamping was added in the sunburst. My mermaid face was painted in copper, the mermaid was outlined with gold pen. Some wax was used to highlight some of the details in the mermaid. 




The final touch was to add this wonderful little seaweed piece with metallic paint & the gemstones. That is it!!! This canvas was ridiculously fun to make. Pulling out all the fun inky paints and being able to just let go & be technique crazy was great. Thanks so much to Kim Evans of Emerald Creeks for inviting me to participate in this hop & to Stencil Girl & Mary Beth Shaw for supplying me with such great stencils to play with! I hope you hop along with us and make sure you comment to win!!  




GIVEAWAY
One lucky winner will receive a $25 Gift Certificate to StencilGirl Products
AND a $25 Gift Certificate to Emerald Creek!
Enter to win by leaving a comment below.
Then be sure to visit the other blogs in the hop and comment to win.
The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to WIN!
One winner will be chosen at random from all blog comments!
(One comment per blog please.)
You have until Tuesday, December 19th at 11:59PM Central Time to leave your comments.
Winner will be announced on
StencilGirl's Facebook page on Wednesday, December 20th.
Seth Apter Giveaway

  Seth will be giving Discovery, the artwork on his blog post, to one lucky person. Simply leave a comment on his post by Tuesday, 12/19 at 11:59PM Central Time to be eligible. Make sure he has a way to reach you if the random number table picks your name. Internationals are eligible too.

 Thanks for playing along!! Good luck.    

Supplies: 


Emerald Creek: Fractured Ice, 
                        Onyx Frost
                        Northern Lights
                        Winter's Mistake
                        Gemstones
                        Sun Mask Stamp
                        Native Art Stamps
                         
StencilGirl: Mermaid Stencils & Masks by Jessica Sporn

                -Whimsical Waves by Terri Stegmiller
                 -Text & Texture by Seth Apter 
                 -Inside Out by Seth Apter 

Sunburst Die by Seth Apter
Eclectica Stamp set 4
Pattern Play Stamp Set

Thursday, December 14, 2017

ARTifacts with Seth Apter Page #3.



Hello Inky Friends, I am back for my Topflight Stamps blog post, featuring ARTifacts with Seth Apter. This has been a collaboration that Seth started in January 2017 as a year long project. He is helping to promote other artists as we all play along. I am ions behind which is OK, and I am loving how my book is coming along. This month I am working on March. My book is a look at my art in the month, featuring classes, design team work etc.

 

Here is one of the pages in my spread. You can see January & February prospectively.  I taught 2 classes in March, a tag class & Gel Press Mini Art Journal class. I had the honor of participating in the Canvas Corp Brands/Stencil Girl Match up which was in April but I designed the pages in March. I made a canvas, paint brush holder that is filled with color & images. I really loved making this project & may have gotten a little carried away so I wanted a good documentation of that.


I decided to carry on playing with the same stamps, Set 4 & & wood chips from last week. They are by PaperArtsy, designed by Seth. It just seems appropriate to use his products in this collaboration. 


 These wood chips are sturdy, the sheet comes with lots of bits & pieces. How about a quick tutorial? 



I started by adding gesso to the kraft page. Blocking out where the photos will be helps them to adhere nicely to the pages. Randomly adding Distress Crayons over the page, while activating them with water & paint brush helps them to blend. Don't be afraid to use your fingers to blend!



Next step was some random background stamping. The red circle is a stencil made with Distress Crayon & a blending foam. 



I wanted to add some embellishments, & stamps make great ones. These images were stamped with Archival Ink & colored using the crayons & ink. 


These came from Carabelle Studio, Steampunk The Butterfly Effect.  Love the details of these stamps. 




Amazing how different the image looks when it is on the page!



Finally I painted the Wood Chip star with gesso, then stamped & embossed it. A metal gear was painted & added. The star was also distress with ink. That is it for this week. I hope you have the chance to play with some ink & stamps!!! 

My other ARTifacts Collaboration pages:
Cover
January
February

Other Items Supply List: 
  • Gesso
  • Emerald Creek - Charred Gold emboss powder.
  • Ranger- Distress Crayons, Distress Paint & inks & Archival Inks
  • Jane Davenport Inkredible Pen & Mermaid Markers. 

Friday, December 8, 2017

Awesome Gifts e-book by Eileen Hull

Hello Blogland, I am very excited to announce I have 3 projects in Eileen Hull's new e-book. This book is chock full of ideas from lots of different designers, including our Inspiration Team, all put together in one place for you. 

60+ Crafting projects to keep you going all year long!!! 

 There are over 60 stunning projects conveniently cataloged with blog linked tutorials included. If you made 1 a week can you image the collection you could have at the end of the year!!!! There is a special introductory price for the month of December of $9.97. That is less then .17cents a project!!! 

I hope you join in the fun!!! *If you buy through my link I get a small affiliate payment that helps me continue to educate & design. Thank you for your support! Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Seth Apter Book Cover using PaperArtsy

Happy Thursday & time for my Topflight Stamps blog post. This week the team are playing with PaperArtsy. They have some of my favorite stamps with one of my favorite artists so this was super fun. I decided to join in the challenge over on the PaperArtsy blog. The blog is full of great inspiration you can check it out here.I was really inspired by all the wonderful art on their Intro to the challenge which is here.  



This challenge is #18 the theme is "Torn, Ripped & Burnt". I decided to cover "My Favorite Book Project" book. I have done a few pages recently in this book which you can see here & here. It is getting super chunky & I am running out of space so it seems like the perfect time to put on a cover.


First off check out all the fun Christmas Specials that are going on at Topflight Stamps. From the 3rd to the 14th, there is a different deal every day!


OK back to the project. This is the book I am using, purchased from a thrift shop. I love re-purposing books that are not old or special or rare, just the ones that might otherwise end up in the trash.


The stamp set I used is Eclectica3 Set 4 by Seth Apter.


They match perfectly with Seth's Wood Chips.



Step 1: Burnt- I took a piece of slightly used watercolor paper & using a match over my kitchen sink burnt the edges of the paper. *  be super careful doing this obviously. Make sure if you have long hair put it in a pony tail. I was surprised as the paper burnt in strange patterns. I did find that even when I had blown the flame out the paper continues to burn. I think this is because watercolor paper is made from layers of paper. I used water to make sure the flame was totally out. Fun tip: the leftover match can be used to distress the edges, cause charcoal!
 


Step 2: Ripped: Well first off I am using Seth Apter's Wood Chips & their edges look ripped! Next I ripped the right upper corner of the watercolor paper, I wanted the star compass on the scrapbook paper to show.  



Step 3: To make the sunburst I spritzed water on a sheet of card stock & added PaperArtsy Infusions powder, letting it move & spread. Adding more water or powder as needed. I used a tag to mop up the excess. After drying thoroughly with a heat gun this paper was cut out using the Sunburst die. 



For the bookplate & title I used the rectangle piece from the Wood Chips, covered with some layers of Fresco Paint. The background had some stamping from the set using the paint. The edges were distressed with ink, some tiny brads added & my title using a Dynamo Label Maker. A piece of batik fabric was used as ribbon. I had also stamped randomly on the background paper. 



The main embellishment was layered using the paper cut out with the Sunburst die. This had been doodled a bit with Chalk Marker. The Wood Chip circle was heat embossed with the matching stamp pushed into the hot emboss powder. It left a great image that makes it look like metal. Once cooled the words were painted with a marker so they would stand out. The clock hand was painted with Fresco paint & the piece layered & glued. 





Thanks so much for joining me today! I hope you get a chance to play with something fun & inky today. 

Other Supplies:

  • Seth Apter Sunburst die by Spellbinders
  • PaperArtsy Fresco paint in Mud Splatter, Mermaid & Teresa Green
  • PaperArtsy Infusions in Lemoncello, Emerald Isle, & A Bit Jaded
  • Emerald Creeks Emboss in Burnt Copper
  •  Distress Ink in Walnut Stain
  • Distress Oxide in Broken China & Cracked Pistachio
  • Tim Holtz Ideology metal bits.






Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Resin Christmas Tags & Gift Ideas!

Hi Fans of Resin!! Wouldn't it be fun to have re-usable gift tags for your close family? Or to have your gift tag be a homemade part of your gift?  



I have full tutorial on making resin Christmas Tags over on the resin obsession blog. I hope you get the chance to check it out!!!

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Christmas List Book with Eileen Hull's Book Club

Hello Blog Land, Turkey Day is over & it is time to turn our eyes toward Christmas. Eileen Hull has a new release called Book Club. The Inspiration team are playing with it all month. The dies should be in stores this December! Every year I have a list book that I keep in my purse that has all the presents, things to do and decorating or cooking ideas in it.


Here is the book I made for this year 2017. It has 3 signatures or groups of paper to keep everything at this hectic time of year organized. The best part of this passport book is I can simply remove the signatures & pop them in my purse. They are filled with random paper & ephemera from my stash. You can easily follow along & substitute whatever product you have. Be creative!
 


I am also entering this in the Mini Album Makers Challenge.
This is a wonderful group that all book makers need to check out. There are some awesome ladies over there & lots of great inspiration. *come join the challenge & you can win Eileen's Mini Album Die by Sizzix. 


I started by cutting the covers window with mat board. Use the top piece from the Trinket Box & Frame die, with the oval mover & shapers die that comes with it. First step was running it through using an embossing folder. Next up was adding color using watercolor paint. I misted the mat board lightly and added a layer of paint. Don't get the mat board too wet, it is very sturdy but too much water will cause the board to pull apart a bit. 


While the board was still wet I added some Infusions powder and with my paint brush moved the powder around activating it. This really unified my colors, an easy way to bring the background together.  Dry well with a heat gun. 


Hit the high points of the emboss image using an emboss ink pad & sprinkle with embossing powder. I used one of my favorites, Burnt Copper Leaves by Emerald Creeks. If you get too much powder simply brush off before heat setting. 


For the base of the book I cut out the passport die from mat board covered in scrapbook paper. Use only 1 cover & the spine. The back cover was cut from Kunin Felt. This is a very sturdy felt that will hold up well. It will also make the overall book less rigid. 


Before adhering the cover but after adding the Supertape, punch out holes for brads to make assembly easier. 



Cover brad posts using washi tape. I also distressed the edges & painted the inside of the spine in copper metallic acrylic paint.  


Wrap elastic around the spine and tie a knot to hold. You want to be able to slide your signature through the elastic so it needs to be taunt but not too tight. The Passport Book has 3 notches top & bottom which helps the elastic stay put. This will allow me to make changes as my book grows. When it is finished I can always the signatures through the holes in the spine if I want. 


Time to cut some paper! I cut my paper 7x5" & using the Passport die cut out the signatures. You can only cut 2 papers at a time of the score line in the middle gets too much pressure applied and it ends up cutting the pages in half. I used papers from my stash that are double sided to make things easier. Each of my signatures have about 5 pieces of paper. I also used some notepad paper to make lists. 


On the start of the signatures I used 3x4 cards.


Here is a peak at the inside of it. I will be adding stamps, tags, distressing and fun little embellishments. 


Finally for the cover I added some holiday flowers & embellishments. 



The door pull was perfect to act as a closure. I simply ran ribbon through an eyelet on the back cover, held it with a candy cane button & tied the ribbon in a loop. The loop simply goes around the door pull and holds the book in place. 

Hot Tips:  
*If you don't want the edges of your project to be white when using mat board color them with a marker before assembly it is much easier.
*When cutting the Passport Book spine piece, put paper you want to show on the outside of the book side down on the die. This will cut the score lines so the spine bends properly.
*Mark & punch holes for brads on covers and spine before assembly, but after adding your Supertape. 
*Add Supertape & brads to the covers once for extra strength. Assemble the outside covers. For the inside spine, peel off the Supertape backing, then add & fix brads. Cover this inside spine strip with a piece of washi or paper to hide the posts. 
*Cover stickers on cover with a layer of decoupage glue to prevent them falling off. It will dry clear. 

*I am also entering this in Frilly & Funkie's Challenge. The challenge over there is "Most Memorable Gift" as this is partially a book to keep track of my gift buying I thought it fit well!!

Supplies:  

Eileen Hull Dies by Sizzix:
  • Trinket Box & Frame #662360
  • Passport Book #660331
 Other Supplies:
  • Emerald Creek- Emboss in Charred Gold
  • PaperArtsy- Infusions in Emerald Isle
  • Prima -Water Color Paint- Odyssey
  •      "    -Metal Door Pull
  • Brads by Stampin Up
  • Kunin Group -ecofi Plus felt -Smoke color.  
  • Supertape by Therm*O*Web

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