A Golden Garden

Happy Wednesday to you!  Today I am sharing a piece of art really inspired by the magical effect of gold on a dark background.  There were several  challenges that got me thinking about the golden garden with flying creatures and that is the Frilly and Funkie - Touch of Gold ,  A Vintage Journey - Things with Wings and the Anything but Cute - Making Magic Challenge Inspiration Board.  

I started with trying to get a dark black background on one of Tim Holtz's inspired  Sizzix butterfly or dragonfly and then bringing in the metallic effect and then the gold.

 I layered this poor dragonfly with gold, black, gold, black and then a thin layer of a metallic purple paint.  I ended up edging him with some gold.   I used the same process on the houses in the background they started with black gesso, added stenciling with Prima gold texture crackle with a stencil.  After that dried I smeared on the layer of DecoArt American Paint - Metallic purple.

I then die cut the flowers from metallic foil and then painted them with black gesso. While it was wet I sprinkled with gold embossing powder. I heat embossed them which caused the paint underneath to give it a lovely bumpy texture. I then colored a series of pearls with the gold krylon pen and added them for texture in the background.

Products:  Sizzix Bigz Layered Dragonfly, Tim Holtz Layering Stencil, Prima Marketing Finnabair - Gold Texture Paste, Idea-Ology - Stickers, Sizzix Embossing Folder - Typewriter, Gold Krylon Pen, Memory Box - Die Cut (flower), Ranger Queen Gold Embossing Powder, Black Gesso, DecoArt -Purple Metallic Sheen Paint

Suzz

Butterfly House

I had purchased this sweet little bird house at the craft store with the intention of decorating it with my stamps.  When I saw the new hydrangea and butterfly stamps from Stampendous I had a vision of a butterfly house.

 All I did was paint the wooden house white.  I measured the exterior of the house and cut a piece of white cardstock to fit the front.  Getting the circle placed on my cardstock was the trickiest part. :)

I punched out the circle from my white cardstock and then I stamped the hydrangeas around the white cardstock.

I colored them with my favorite watercolor pencils and a waterbrush.

I then applied a coat of glue to the roof and used Stampendous color fragments to cover the roof of my house. I also added it around the bottom after I attached my stamped flowers.

I painted the butterfly with Americana paints and stamped the butterfly over the dried painted background. 

I made a little banner to stick in the top of my house.   I stamped it with a sentiment from the Stampendous Regal Art Stamps

I also had a little canvas:

 I painted the canvas and used the mixed media stamps inked up in paint to add texture. I stamped the image on tissue paper and colored her to decoupage her to the surface. I finished her flowers with a touch of paint.

Products: DecoArts Americana Paints, Stampendous Creative Palette, Stack Arts - Royal Hearts Rubber Stamp , Mixed Media - NK Studio Wired Cling , Lovely Garden dies, Lovely Garden Rubber Stamp,   Floral Lady Stamp,  Color Fragments  STAEDTLER Karat Aquarell Watercolor

Louise Crosbie (Scotland, UK)

Lea Kimmel (North Carolina, USA)

Claudia Neubacher (Vienna, Austria)

Asia King (Oxford, UK)

Iliane de Fockert (Elly) (Niedersachsen, Germany)

Suzanne Czosek (Illinois, USA)

Julia Stratford-Wright (near London, UK)

Kristine Reynolds (California, USA)

Angelica Stark (Hudiksvall, Sweden)

Mark Gould (West Sussex, UK)

Debbie Cole (California, USA)

Jamie Martin (Oklahoma, USA)

Tobi Crawford (BC, Canada)

Wendy Price (New Jersey, USA)

Jessa Plant (Arizona, USA)

A few of the bloggers this week are new to hopping, so if you have an issue with any of the links, here's a little tip! If you get a page that says "Sorry that Page is not here" or something similar, try clicking on the header of the blog, or look for something that says Home. The hop page should be near the top of the day's posts. We will fix broken links as the day goes on, as well, so check back here if you are really lost.

The Official Rules.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Flower Pot

All this week the Stampendous, DecoArt, and Princeton Artist Brushes via inspired by Willow Wolfe are being showcased in an inspirational blog hop! If you missed the beginning of the week, be sure to go back and check  out MONDAY - TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY.   There are three prize packages to commenters with U.S. Mailing Addresses, and DecoArt will be sending three generous sample packages to international commenter.

I have a few projects that I am sharing today and a few more planned for Friday.

First up is a little paper mache flower pot painted with the pretty pink, orange and white acrylic paints.  I used the same paints to create the background for my lovely butterflies.  I colored the beautiful flowers with watercolor pencils and die cut them to place around the flowerpot.

My second project was a journal page using the Stampendous Creative Pallette and DecoArt Acrylic Paints to create my background.

I then layered on images from the Stack Art kits with ink and touches of highlights with a white gel pen.

Products: DecoArts Americana Paints, Stamepndous Creative Pallette, Stack Arts - Royal Hearts Rubber Stamp , Mixed Media - NK Studio Wired Cling , Butterfly Charm Perfectly Clear Stamps, Winged Cross Stamp, Hope Verses Perfectly Clear Stamps, Lovely Garden dies, Lovely Garden Rubber Stamp

Louise Crosbie (Scotland, UK)

Debbie Cole (California, USA)

Iliane de Fockert (Elly) (Niedersachsen, Germany)

Julia Stratford-Wright (near London, UK)

Suzanne Czosek (Illinois, USA)

Kathi Rerek (New Jersey, USA)

Wendy Price (New Jersey, USA)

Tobi Crawford (BC, Canada)

Melanie Artz (Washington, USA) 

A few of the bloggers this week are new to hopping, so if you have an issue with any of the links, here's a little tip! If you get a page that says "Sorry that Page is not here" or something similar, try clicking on the header of the blog, or look for something that says Home. The hop page should be near the top of the day's posts. We will fix broken links as the day goes on, as well, so check back here if you are really lost.

The Official Rules.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Measure Time

I have been having a bit of play time with some paint, stamps and stencils.  I started with a masterboard and made four projects which I am sharing two today and the other two tomorrow.

I love creating a bigger background piece on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of cardstock  and then cutting it up into usable pieces for different projects.  The fun part is deciding which little snapshot you want in each piece. 

My second project was a tag:

 Here is the masterboard.  You can see which sections were cut up to create the tag and the card. 

I love the idea of color blocking I decided to use that here in my background.  I masked off sections and painted them to give blocked sections of colors. To help blend them I added a coat of smeared white paint over the surface. 

Tomorrow I will share the other two projects created from my masterboard.   I am going to be lazy and not share all the products.  If you see something you want to know what product /manufacturer let me know and I will tell you. :)

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Suzz

Follow Your Art

I am so excited... I am off for a week now before the Thanksgiving holiday and I am going to be spending time in my craft room playing around. Yeah!

I have been exploring more mixed media techniques and textures.  I up-cycled a previous project that I had done as a clipboard at a make and take.

I painted the surface using white acrylic paint.  I started adding a mix of purple, green and blue acrylic paint over the surface. 

I then stenciled some sequin waste with embossing paste.  I let that dry completely.  I added images by stamping them onto tissue paper and heat embossing them with black embossing powder.  I glued them to the surface and added highlights with a gel pen.

Products: Americana Satin Paints, DecoArt Embossing Paste, Stampendous - Luv Art, Coffee Mug, Follow Your Art,   Alice In Wonderland,  Black Embossing Powder, STAEDTLER Karat Aquarell Watercolor Pencils. Signo Uni-Ball White Gel Pen

Have a wonderful blessed Sunday!

Suzz

Life is Art

I really love the new peacock stamp from Stampendous.  It is a jumbo cling and it has beautifully drawn feathers.  It is available at Stampendous or at Simon Says Stamp. 

I started with a canvas which I painted with a white undercoat.  I then painted it with a teal paint mixed with a hint of green and silver.  

I then added a layer of Embossing paste.  While the embossing paste was wet I laid a piece of tissue paper over the embossing paste.  I inked up the image using StazOn ink and pressed it into the tissue paper over the embossing paste.  This was so cool. It ended up with the black lines and an imprint.  I let that dry and then spritzed more green and teal color sprays over the surface. 

I then colored the feathers with highlights of green.  I added glitter with glue pens into the surface and finished off my peacock with a silver lustre around the edges. 

To finish off the area around my peacock I stamped the Stampendous medallions and sentiments on tissue paper which I decoupaged to the surface. 

The Deco Art company provided the Stampendous DT  with some fabulous paints, decoupage, and embossing paste which I used on this project.  I loved everything they sent.  I made several mixed media projects playing with their products. If you want the step by step instructions for this project go here.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Suzz