Queen Bee

This week the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge challenge is regal or royal.  This had all kinds of ideas buzzing around in my head. :)

I started thinking about the new princess charlotte and the royal family.  This had me thinking about how pleased the queen must be with another grandbaby.  So my card is inspired by the Queen Bee.

I started with a mix of honeycomb embossed background with a lovely overcoat of the Fossilized Amber spritzed over the background.  I hit the background with a splatter of a red spray.  I drew in the lines to make it look like a giant card.

I die cut the bee and embossed with a floral embossing folder.  I added a few chit chat stickers and a crown to my Queen.   Hopefully this has you thinking of different ideas for the royal challenge!

Products: Sizzix Layering Bee Die, Simon Says Stamp Sketch Alphabet, Ranger Archival Ink - Vermillion  Watercolor Pencils, Idea-Ology - Seasonal Chit Chat Stickers, Fossilized Amber Distress stain Spray, Crown, BO Bunny Gems, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder, Honeycomb Stencil, Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste, Ranger Distress Ink - Vintage Photo, Ranger Distress Stain Spray -Fired Brick
 
Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher to a randomly selected participant in the challenge, come play along!

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Summertime

Good Morning!  Happy Friday!  I have been playing around this week in my journal combining a few challenges together including the Anything But Cute Vintage Garden,  and Mixed Media Monthly Challenge - May's Flowers.  I decided to create a journal page celebrating flowers in a summery garden.

 I started with a layer of gesso in the background.  I then stamped some words in a vertical pattern using a gray ink.  I wanted to add partial bricks so I used the layering stencil with embossing paste to add some areas of distressed brick.

 I added the brick with a mix of sprays to add the color over the background. After the brick and color was dry I added the flowers with embossing paste and white gel pen.

I then added the sentiment and the dragonflies. 

 Sometimes I end up loving a piece of my journal page more than the whole page.  I decided to use a portion of the page as  my new blog header. I might cut down my page and use a piece of it on a card.

Have a great Friday!

Suzz

Graduation

On pinterest I saw the cutest graduation mason jars and decided to copy the idea.  We have lot's of graduations this year in the family.  My daughters have friends as well who are graduating.

We did two versions of the jars some have money and the others have candy in the colors of the schools that the recipient is going to.

Here is all of the jars queued up waiting for the parties.

 I found a couple of packages of tassels at the store which made the toppers easier. I cut mini cards and put a black brad in the center.

 I stamped a sentiment to put in the center but haven't attached them so she can sign them before I put them in the card. 

I stamped a sentiment on the tissue paper diploma attached on the top.

Have a great day!

Suzz

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

Today the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge design team is sharing thank you inspired projects.  This year we have quite a few parties, graduations and other things to be thankful for and I decided to use a few art staples and create a series of thank you cards. 

This was an inky morning and I thoroughly enjoyed mixing up the colors and ended up with dyed hands in a rainbow of colors.

I started with a series of butterflies stamped with Versamark on white cardstock and heat embossed using clear embossing powder.

After that I was just dripping, spraying, misting and flicking sprays and paint to create different effects.

I decided to cut out the wings on this card to give a shadow effect.

This received a flicking of white acrylic paint at the end.

This was flicked first with water and then white acrylic paint. I also sponged dye ink around some of the butterflies in contrasting colors on some of the other cards to make the butterflies pop.

Products: Stampers Anonymous Monarch,  Simon Says Stamp Thank You sets (Many Thanks,  Lots of Thanks),  White acrylic paint, Versamark Watermark Ink, Clear Embossing Powder, Sequins, Darkroom Door - Eclectic Butterfly, Ranger Dye Ink - Picked Raspberry  Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Mustard Seed, Mowed Lawn, Fossilized Amber, Picked Raspberry, Dusty Concord, Salty Ocean
 
Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher to a randomly selected participant in the challenge, come play along!

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

An Open Book

Is anyone or anything really an open book?  I decided to add a zipper into my book with the hidden message that not everyone would see unless they looked for the zipper to open up and delve into the details.   The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is an "x,y,z" challenge and asks you to be inspired by any of these letters.  Obviously the "Z" caught my attention and inspired me to pull out a zipper.

Here is my book with the zipper built into it.

I started with a zipper that already was shorter in length and fit the book page size.  I measured how long it was and started cutting a slit using my exacto knife down the front. 

I repeated it until I had worked my way through many, many many pages.  :)  I am a book lover but don't worry I used an old cook book which already was damaged and not usable.

After I had my pages cut I then laid down the stencils both on the front pages and the inside pages.  I used my embossing paste to hold up my top pages from the bottom while they dried.

After everything dried I went at the pages with yellow, orange and abandoned coral sprays. I did this multiple times and on my folded pages many different angles to get color in the folded pages.

I then stamped the words on tissue paper and decopuaged them into the page.

I sprayed multiple other scraps of white cardstock to cut out my flowers and butterflies.


I played around with the Tattered Florals die cuts and spritzed and scrunched them to form my flowers.

Products: Sizzix Tattered Floral Die, Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Mustard Seed, Barn Door, Abandoned Coral, Stampers Anonymous - Butterfly Watercolor , Stampers Anonymous - Butterfly Watercolor Stamp, Stampers Anonymous - Live Your Dream With Passion, Stampers Anonymous - Possibility, Zipper, Signo Uni-ball White Gel Pen, Memory Box Lanthenay stencil,  Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste,   Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black, 

Simon Says Stamp is offering a gift voucher to a randomly selected participant in the challenge, come play along!

Thanks for stopping by!

Continuing the Journal Journey

I am back with some more photos on my art journal and I am ready to enter it in the Frilly and Funkie Snap Crackle Crackle challenge. 

 See all that crackle.... I added the tissue paper tape around the edges.  I then found this gold chain in my metal stash.  I dug out some additional charms and the hearts. I embossed the charms with Queens Gold Embossing powder. 

Here is the front cover:

 I stamped the Mona Lisa image on tissue paper and decoupaged her to the front.  I then found some plastic scrabble tiles which I spelled Art with.  I stamped a Memory Box stamp over the surface with StazOn ink.  I edges the tiles with the same ink.  I painted the tiles with a touch of watered down white acrylic paint mixed with the Ranger Distress Stain - Picked Raspberries. I used the same paint mixture to add to the edges.  I added a few rub ons onto the heart charm.

Next up I dug out all my extra backgrounds waiting for a chance to be used:

 different angle:

 I am going to go through them and cut them into different shapes and sizes and use them for the pages in my little art journal.  This will hopefully inspire me to finish some of these different backgrounds. :)

Hope you enjoyed the next step in my journal.

Suzz

Encourage Hope

The extremely talented Astrid has challenged us over at A Vintage Journey blog to be inspired by Spring Colors. I am happy to be sharing my art today on the Vintage Journey blog as a Pinworthy guest.

I was inspired by the first colors we see when the weather starts to change... Greens and Blue.  I mixed up a bit of everything in my journal page using the Tim Holtz layering stencil in the background as the base for my page.

I started with the stencil and some embossing paste on a sheet from my journal.

After applying several rows of the stencil with white embossing paste I let that dry.  Then I applied a layer of antique linen distress stain spray to soften the background.  After that I used up some green and blue glimmer mist and dripped it down the page and picked up the paper and turned it different ways to cause it to move across the page.   After that dried I pulled out some remnants which I had unfortunately placed on the outside of the plastic envelope which meant they were stuck in various places.  I pulled it up and used the bits and pieces that weren't left on the plastic to apply to my page.

I then stamped my sentiment on tissue paper and used decoupage to add it to my background.

Then I dug through my odds and ends and gave a nice shiny coat of gold to some of them and layered them onto my background.

I also used the weathered clock die to frame out an image from the Tim Holtz Idea-Ology Found Relatives.  I spritzed and stained a zipper to match. It is fun to see what can be assembled in a  journal page from a few leftover bits and pieces.

Come join in on the fun at  A Vintage Journey. 

Suzz

Work in Progress

 I take so long between posts lately that I decided to share with you something that is in progress as I work on it.

 I had an idea based on a journal I saw somewhere to create my own mini journal.  I started with this two ring binder and a leftover backing to a pad of mixed media paper.

 I measured the length of the binder (don't even remember what it was because I laid it on my backing and eye-balled how much space on either side I wanted in my height.  So my album became a 6" x 6" in size.  I then put about a 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch on either side of the binder and made it a 1 1/4" in width on the binding.  See how scientific I am in my process...   

I cut out my pieces which took several times on my rotary cutting board.  I then decided I was going to cut paper to line my surfaces so I could use the clear packing tape to attach my pieces together.
 

 Next up was drawing where to punch my holes on the binder. 

 This is one step I need to do up front as the board is so thick I know I won't be able to punch through all the layers when I am done. 

 Then I cut my papers and marked my holes on my paper which then got its own holes punched in.

 I cut all my paper pieces and then the fun got started. 

 I painted them with gesso and added a layer of rock candy crackle.  This gave me a beautiful variegated surface waiting for my inks.

 Spray a little mist and pour some gold spray which was the end of the bottle so I had lots of gold settling on the surface.

 See how the papers look on the book.  I have to finish my edges next and add the next layer of goodies.

Hopefully I will have an update in a day or so with some more finished pieces.

Suzz

Oh, Oh, Oh!

Be glad I didn't put it on the post title but here it is anways... "Let's go Fly a Kite"... I have been singing this for weeks.  My DH and myself just watched "Saving Mr. Banks" and the music from Mary Poppins is fantastic and had me singing bits and pieces.

Why am I singing that?  The challenge this week at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is to use the Simon Says Stamp Exclusives products.  I have the sweetest set with kite stamps and dies.  I decided to create a layout of my youngest with Mary Poppins at Disney.

I love these sweet kites from Simon Says Stamp and they fit the theme of my layout perfectly.

I splattered Abandoned Coral and Cracked Pistachio in the background to create my soft pallette which mirrors the colors in he photo.

 

I used the scrap form my dies to create some nice puffy clouds with embossing paste.  I heated them up to dry which acutlaly adds a puffiness to the embossing paste.

Products: Simon Says Stamp - Let's Go Fly a Kite Die & Stamp, Ranger Distress Stain Spray -  Cracked Pistachio, Simon Says Stamp - Rain Rain Go Away, Ranger Distress Dye Ink - Cracked Pistachio, Abandoned Coral,  Watercolor Pencils,  Ranger Distress Stain Spray (Abandoned Coral ),  Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste,   Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black, Simon Says Stamp - Love Note

Simon Says Stamp is offering a gift voucher to a randomly selected participant in the challenge, come play along!

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz