Shabby Garden

Hello!  Today I am the Featured Artist over at the Anything But Cute Challenge Blog!  Lisa is hosting Challenge #16  and what a beautiful challenge it is!  There is a wonderful Mood Board to inspire you featuring Shabby Garden.

Here is the description provided by Lisa "For this challenge, we are asking you to take a stroll through a romantic shabby garden. Create any mixed media project strongly inspired by the mood board. Think flowers and plants in cracked pots, peeling paint bird feeders, distressed timeworn furniture, crumbling statues, soft pastels and feminine accessories. Don't forget to tell us how the mood board inspired your project and have fun!"

I fell in love with the beautifully distressed wood in the pictures and had to play around with a faux garden fence on a mini book. 

I am not going to share the details as you can pop over and see them here and for all the details on how to play along and the awesome design team's creations go check out the challenge post here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Sunny Days

Sunny Days it is... The temperature with the heat index will be close to 100 degrees and very muggy.  I always love when the first of the month rolls around because it means Tim will serve up a dose of inspiration to play along with in his 12 tags series. Tim's August 2016 tag

 This month he mixed up a few techniques that had me trying something new but also having to be a bit more creative as I didn't have the die he used on his tag.

I decided to use the texture fades dies instead on my tag.  I brayered on the color on the background and added the overlay of brown ink and water spots.   I then cut out on either end a bit of the harlequin pattern.

At first I didn't put anything in the openings and finished my tag. After I took the photos I thought it would be fun to pop some pink and dark brown in and added them. I think it made a big difference in the end result.

I also started a second tag in pink but ran out of time to play. This one will go in the pile to re-cycle later into a project.

I loved how the pink background turned out and wanted to share it as well.

Well that is all for me today!

Have a great one and keep cool!

Suzz

Golden Days

It's Funkie time over at the Frilly and Funkie Challenge blog.  Sue's challenge for us is  Let the words do the talking.  The challenge is to use words and sayings that mean a lot to you and inspire you. I am thrilled because using words and verses is one of my all time favorite things in my art. 

This design started from wanting to layer some vintage papers together on a background and to use the Wings beautiful sentiment from Impression Obsession by Yvonne Blair.  

The background started from a piece of paper bag. I received this paper as part of the packaging used to wrap up my goodies from the Funkie Junkie Boutique.  I held onto it because it was a lovely surface.  I ripped a piece of this to put on chipboard.  I then layered it up with a vintage piece of music along with pieces of tissue tape randomly placed.  I used a few vintage stamps in the mix as well.

after that I coated it with a white wash of paint mixed with lots of water to give it a translucency when applied.

I then sprinkled, splattered and sponged on a mix of browns and golds over the background to give a lovely distressed effect.  I used Wendy Vecchi's awesome gold embossing paste to add a touch of texture with the layering stencil.

The butterfly was cut and embossed from white cardstock.  He was died in brown and then gold paint was brushed over his surface.  I added a edge of chunky bronze glass glitter around the edges and his body.

Then I die cut the flowers and gave them the same treatment of the brown stain with gold highlights.

The sentiment was stamped on a scrap of the paper bag material and given some sprinkling and splattering as well.

The Design Team will choose their top four picks with the winner being invited to join us in a Guest DT spot at Frilly and Funkie and the next three will receive badges to display on their blogs. Everyone who enters and follows the rules will be entered into the draw to have the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique.  The Boutique has an extensive section of clearance items because the shop just moved and has an excess of inventory. There are so many good deals you won't want to miss out.

Hop over to the Frilly and Funkie blog to see the rest of the Design Teams awesome creations!

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Sizzix Alternations Tim Holtz Bigz Die with Texture Fade - Layered Butterfly	Sizzix Thinlits Die Set - Wildflowers by Tim Holtz 661190 (February Pre-Order)	Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Industrial THS051 (February Pre-Order)	Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi Embossing Paste - Gold	Ranger Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber - Metallic Gold
Ranger Tim Holtz Ground Espresso Distress Spray Stain	DYLUSIONS PAINTS, WHITE LINEN	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Tarnished Brass	Ranger Tim Holtz Mini Distress Ink Pad - Vintage Photo	Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain Spray - Vintage Photo
Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black Pad #3	Prima Marketing Salvage District Brads (March Pre-order)	Tim Holtz Idea-ology Design Tape, Elements	Medium Weight 12x12" Chipboard (12 Sheets)

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

Misty Garden

Stencils + sprays/mists  + flowers = Misty Garden!   A mix of cards made with these combinations.  I love sentiment stamps and used some of my favorites garden inspired sentiments by Impression Obsession on these cards. 

Although I see I have been in a summery color kick with lots of yellows and oranges. I was trying to pair it with the grays to give it a soft color and new edge.

I even added a layer of paste on this one to raise up the texture in the background.

and three more scraps that didn't finish up on a card.

The stencil is from Memory Box.  The sprays were a mix of Dylusions, Ranger Distress Stain Sprays and Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists.  The embossing paste is Wendy Vecchi.  The sentiments from Impression Obsession.  The tiny words is from Stampers Anonymous. The shadows on the images are from STAEDTLER watercolor Pencils.   I did use Darkroom Door - Texture stamp- Script, Background Stamp - WoodGrain, Texture Stamp - Splatter on the different cards.

Have a wonderful Saturday!  Off to play with my inks!

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